Tennessee quadruple murder case has 'sinister overtones,' former FBI official says
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Yahoo
14 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Epstein victims accuse Trump administration of trying to protect wealthy, powerful enablers
NEW YORK — Women who allege Jeffrey Epstein abused them have accused the Trump administration, in new court filings, of trying to protect enablers of the well-connected wealth manager and criticized the government for treating victims as pawns 'in political warfare.' In letters filed late Monday with Manhattan Federal Judge Richard Berman — one of the judges who are mulling requests by the government to unseal transcripts from the grand jury proceedings against Epstein and his convicted accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell — two women took aim at the Trump administration for its handling of the snowballing scandal. They referenced the memo released last month by the Justice Department and the FBI, in which the government declined to shed light on a trove of records gathered in Epstein investigations and concluded a major review found there was no 'client list' and that Epstein killed himself, contrary to conspiracy theories previously peddled by Trump's appointees. 'I feel like the DOJ's and FBI's priority is protecting the 'third-party,' the wealthy men, by focusing on scrubbing their names off the files of which the victims, 'know who they are'. To learn that our own president has utilized thousands of agents to protect his identity and these high-profile individuals is monumentally mind-blowing,' an anonymous victim wrote in one of the letters. The letter to Berman later added, 'I think what I would request from you, Your Honor, is to consider having an approved third party review these documents to ensure that NO victims' names or likenesses are revealed through this release. It is imperative with the scrutiny over this media frenzy that the victims are completely and entirely protected.' In another letter, a second victim addressed the government: 'What you have done and continue to do is eating at me day after day as you help to perpetuate this story indefinitely. Why not be completely transparent? Show us all the files with only the necessary redactions! Be done with it and allow me/us to heal. You protect yourself and your powerful and wealthy 'friends' (not enemies) over the victims, why? The victims know the truth, we know who are in the files and now so do you.' The second letter urged Berman to let victims' attorneys review what the Justice Department wants to redact from the grand jury transcripts the DOJ is trying to unseal and slammed the government for recently meeting with Maxwell behind bars to get more information. 'I regrettably feel the need to come forward and shed some light on the government's motion to unseal transcripts, documents and exhibits from the 'case' that was never tried. Sad to say, for the victims we never got our day in court. Apparently, Epstein killed himself under whose watch? Oh, was it Trump's DOJ? Hmmm, interesting,' the second letter read. 'I ask you to have our attorneys review the 'suggested' redactions as they are the ones who also know the victims, their names, their truths and their stories unlike the Unites States Government who did not and does not even care to know our truth. They would rather ask a convicted imprisoned sex trafficker/abuser for information.' The Epstein files scandal has only continued to grow as the Trump administration has sought to contain it. Following the memo by the Justice Department and FBI, The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump's name was included in the government's nonpublic Epstein files and that he'd been informed of such, and that Trump wrote a cryptic message to Epstein on the financier's 50th birthday. Trump has denied writing the birthday missive and is suing The Wall Street Journal. The transcripts from the grand jury proceedings against Maxwell that Trump's appointees are trying to get unsealed contain little information that is not publicly known, the government said in court filings Tuesday. The public record does not include substantive exhibits shown to the grand jurors who indicted Maxwell. Still, the Justice Department is not, for now, trying to make them public, according to the new Manhattan Federal Court filings. Trump's appointees discussed the materials in response to requests for more information from Berman and Judge Paul Engelmayer, who will rule on the motions to unseal grand jury transcripts. They included sealed annotated transcripts from Maxwell's grand jury proceedings, specifically outlining what's not publicly available. In an accompanying letter, the Justice Department conceded 'much of the information' within was revealed at the British former socialite's trial in late 2021 or had otherwise been reported in accounts shared by victims and witnesses publicly. The government filing asked the judges to give the Justice Department until Friday to take a position on whether grand jury exhibits should be unsealed. In an order later Tuesday, Engelmayer granted the request. Engelmayer on Tuesday also ordered the Justice Department to respond to letters submitted from the victims about the disclosure requests. The Epstein grand jury met on June 18, 2019, and July 2, 2019, according to Tuesday's filings. The disgraced financier was arrested on July 6 that year on sweeping sex trafficking charges alleging he had for years abused dozens of teen girls and young women, more than a decade after he evaded justice in a maligned sweetheart deal with federal prosecutors in Florida. He was found dead a month after his arrest on Aug. 10, 2019, in his jail cell at the federal Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan, with his death ultimately ruled as a suicide. The Maxwell grand jury met on June 29, 2020, July 8, 2020, and March 29, 2021, the Justice Department said in the new filings. She was indicted on July 2, 2020, and found guilty of sex trafficking counts, including one involving a minor, in December 2021. Maxwell was sentenced to 20 years in prison following her conviction, a term she had been serving at FCI Tallahassee, Fla., until her surprise transfer last week to a much cushier setup in a dormitory-style prison for women in Bryan, Texas, after meeting with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, Trump's former personal lawyer, who framed the meetup as a truth-seeking mission. Tuesday's filings by the Justice Department said the government had failed to make contact with one victim of Epstein whose name featured in grand jury proceedings about the disclosure requests and would try to contact other victims who weren't identified in transcripts in the coming days. _____
Yahoo
14 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Why Vikings receiver Jordan Addison was suspended 3 games
When Vikings receiver Jordan Addison pleaded down to a "wet reckless" charge stemming from a 2024 DUI arrest, Minnesota knew it would almost certainly be without the third-year pro for the start of the season. On Tuesday, those expectations were confirmed with the league handing down a three-game suspension for Addison. According to a statement from the Vikings, Addison's three-game suspension came down as punishment for violating the league's Substances of Abuse Policy. Though Addison will miss the regular season games against the Bears, Falcons and Bengals, he will be allowed to participate in training camp and the preseason. The arrest came when Addison was found asleep behind the wheel and blocking traffic in July of 2024 near Los Angeles International Airport. This article originally appeared on For The Win: Why Vikings receiver Jordan Addison was suspended 3 games
Chicago Tribune
15 minutes ago
- Chicago Tribune
Column: U.S. Intelligence investigations no longer top secret
Once upon a time, successful intelligence agents were neither seen nor heard, at least in the media. The point of the game was to keep operations secret, at the time and after the conclusion. Times have changed. Former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, now the director of National Intelligence, is aggressively and publicly accusing the administration of former President Barack Obama of a criminal conspiracy, with President Donald Trump cheering her on. In November of 1959, President Dwight Eisenhower spoke at the cornerstone ceremony of the new CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. He emphasized that in this field, 'Success cannot be advertised; failure cannot be explained. In the work of intelligence, heroes are undecorated and unsung, often even among their own fraternity.' Director Gabbard charges that after the 2016 election, Obama officials, including the president, conspired to undermine newly elected President Trump by spreading falsehoods about Russian interference in the campaign, especially that the Republican candidate and campaign had colluded with the Russian government. She is trumpeting the charges in the media, and even quotes herself on her agency's website. She is also hardly unique today in discussing intel matters publicly. Soon after the 2016 election, the heads of the CIA, FBI, NSA (National Security Agency) and the director of National Intelligence launched a public relations offensive highlighting how Russia, including President Vladimir Putin, meddled in the race for president, including hacking into the emails of the Hillary Clinton campaign. With great fanfare, they met with President-elect Trump to present evidence behind those conclusions. With equal hype, top officials testified before the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee. There is no denying that Russian hackers meddled in the 2016 election. But, serious analysts doubt this had any serious impact. The fact of that interference is also not news. President Obama publicly revealed these developments in October 2016, just before voting took place. After the election, he ordered a review and analysis of the interference. There is no evidence that Obama directed or tried to influence the conclusions of this review. Why did the intelligence officials go public with lights, cameras and melodrama after the 2016 election? They could have briefed Trump in private, which would have been standard intelligence practice. But, they wanted to protect themselves in the contemporary political warfare of Washington. This was an effort to create a shield from political retribution, and that worked to a degree. Nonetheless, Trump's efforts to promote hostile conspiracies began and continue. During Trump's first term, Democrats in Congress seized on the topic of alleged Russian collusion to launch a massive two-year investigation. Millions of dollars were spent on a demonstrably biased effort that nonetheless concluded there was no persuasive evidence of Republican campaign collaboration with Moscow. The Mueller investigation, along with a separate investigation by Special Counsel John Durham, drew attention to a controversial 'dossier' prepared for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. Both efforts underscore the partisanship then going on. President Eisenhower's statement about the distinctive and very thankless nature of intelligence work reflected direct, disciplined, continuous engagement with security matters at the very top, over many years. Eisenhower was in the White House during the height of the Cold War with the Soviet Union and that nation's numerous allies. Earlier, he led the largest, most challenging military alliance in history against Nazi Germany. Failure would have been catastrophic. Officials then regularly replied 'no comment' when asked about particularly sensitive matters. Today's pervasive partisanship and nonstop media reflect our security and self-indulgence. We may yet pay dearly.
