Judge Orders Justice Department to Unseal Trump Search Affidavit

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A federal judge directed the U.S. Justice Department late Thursday to unseal its redacted version of an affidavit it used to obtain a recent search warrant for former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort. U.S. magistrate judge Bruce Reinhart issued the order hours after the Justice Department proposed redactions to the document that prosecutors had said would be needed to guard sensitive details of their investigation into Trump’s handling of classified documents. The affidavit is being sought by several U.S. news organizations and other groups amid intense public interest in the FBI’s unprecedented August 8 search of a former American president’smore

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US Justice Department Proposes Redactions to Trump Search Affidavit

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The U.S. Justice Department on Thursday proposed redactions to an affidavit that FBI agents used to obtain a search warrant for former President Donald Trump’s Florida estate as part of an investigation into Trump’s handling of classified government documents. The sealed affidavit – essentially the legal justification for conducting the controversial and unprecedented search of the former president’s property – is being sought by a number of U.S. news organizations and other groups. But federal prosecutors have opposed making the document public, saying it contains critical details about the ongoing investigation, including information about the government’s investigative techniques and witnessesmore

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US Judge Blocks Idaho Abortion Ban in Emergencies

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A federal judge on Wednesday blocked Idaho from enforcing an abortion ban when women with pregnancy complications require emergency care, a day after a judge in Texas ruled against President Joe Biden’s administration on the same issue.  The conflicting rulings came in two of the first lawsuits over the Democratic administration’s attempts to ease abortion access after the conservative majority U.S. Supreme Court in June overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized the procedure nationwide.  Legal experts said the two state rulings, if upheld on appeal, could force the Supreme Court to wade back into the debate.  Aboutmore

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US Justice Department Releases 2019 Memo Advising Against Charging Trump 

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The U.S. Justice Department on Wednesday released a confidential 2019 memo that advised then-Attorney General William Barr not to pursue criminal charges against then-President Donald Trump for obstructing the special counsel investigation of Russian election meddling. The memo by Steven Engel, then head of the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, and Edward O’Callaghan, another senior official, was written on March 24, 2019, the same day Barr told Congress that there was “not enough” evidence to charge Trump with obstruction of justice in connection with the Russia probe. “We recommend that you conclude that, under the Principles of Federal Prosecution,more

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2 New York Democrats Ousted from US House in Primary Losses 

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In a cluster of contentious Democratic primaries Tuesday, two New York incumbents were ousted from the U.S. House after redistricting shuffled congressional districts in one of the nation’s largest liberal states.  Rep. Carolyn Maloney, a 15-term incumbent who chairs a powerful House committee, lost to longtime colleague Rep. Jerry Nadler, while Rep. Mondaire Jones, a first-term progressive who was one of the first openly gay Black members of Congress, was defeated by Daniel Goldman, a former federal prosecutor who served as counsel to House Democrats in the first impeachment inquiry against Donald Trump.  In other races in the state, themore

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US National Archives: Trump Took 700 Pages of Classified Documents to Florida

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Former U.S. President Donald Trump left Washington with more than 700 pages of classified documents, including some containing the government’s top secrets, when his presidency ended last year, the National Archives disclosed Tuesday.  The disclosure came in a letter dated May 10 from the acting U.S. archivist, Debra Steidel Wall, to one of Trump’s lawyers, Evan Corcoran, as she rejected claims from Trump’s representatives that the former president should be allowed to keep some of the documents by claiming executive privilege from his time in the White House.  Wall described the growing alarm in the Justice Department’s National Security Divisionmore

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Husband of House Speaker Pelosi Gets 5 Days in Jail, 3 Years of Probation in DUI

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The husband of U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pleaded guilty Tuesday to misdemeanor driving under the influence charges related to a May crash in California’s wine country and was sentenced to five days in jail and three years of probation.  Paul Pelosi already served two days in jail and received conduct credit for two other days, Napa County Superior Court Judge Joseph Solga said. Paul Pelosi will work eight hours in the court’s work program in lieu of the remaining day, Solga said during Paul Pelosi’s sentencing, which he did not attend.  State law allows for DUI misdemeanor defendants tomore

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Trump Asks Court to Block FBI From Reviewing Documents Seized From Mar-a-lago

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Lawyers for former U.S. President Donald Trump have asked a federal court to temporarily block the FBI from reviewing documents recovered from his Florida estate until a special master can be appointed to separate material covered by executive privilege.  Federal investigators are probing whether Trump illegally kept records after the end of his presidential term.   The FBI seized 11 sets of classified material from Trump’s estate earlier this month, including some labeled with the nation’s highest level of classification that can only be viewed in designated government facilities. The National Archives also removed boxes from the estate earlier thismore

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Trump Seeks Special Master to Review Mar-a-Lago Documents

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Lawyers for former President Donald Trump on Monday asked a federal judge to prevent the FBI from continuing to review documents recovered from his Florida estate earlier this month until a neutral special master can be appointed.  The attorneys asserted in a court filing, their first since the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago two weeks ago, that the sets of documents taken from the residence were “presumptively” covered by executive privilege.  “This matter has captured the attention of the American public. Merely ‘adequate’ safeguards are not acceptable when the matter at hand involves not only the constitutional rights of President Trump,more

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DOJ in Quandary as It Mulls Disclosing Trump Search Document

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A federal judge has given the U.S. Justice Department one week to redact an affidavit used to justify the recent search of former President Donald Trump’s Florida residence before the rest of the document could be made public. The document is being sought by a group of news outlets following the unprecedented search that was carried out as part of an ongoing federal investigation of Trump’s handling of classified documents that he took to Mar-a-Lago. The court-issued warrant used to search Trump’s residence was unsealed last week, showing that Trump is under investigation for several potential crimes including obstruction ofmore

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Trump Wouldn’t Be First Former World Leader Facing Criminal Charges

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Experts say the unsealing of court documents Thursday sharpens the focus on former President Donald Trump as a possible subject of a criminal investigation into his removal and storage of sensitive documents from the White House. As VOA’s Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine reports, the U.S. has now joined other democratic countries in investigating a former leader. Camera: Celia Mendoza …

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Biden Administration Strengthens Hostage Policy

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Hostage negotiations are a delicate test in diplomacy and are handled at the highest levels of the American government. The Biden administration recently clarified its stance on this issue — but does this come in time for the release of several high-profile hostages held overseas? VOA’s Anita Powell reports from Washington. …

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Trump Critic Liz Cheney Falls in US Primary, But Murkowski Survives

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U.S. Representative Liz Cheney, a fierce Republican critic of Donald Trump who has played a prominent role in the congressional probe of the January 6 assault on the Capitol, lost to a Trump-backed primary challenger in Wyoming on Tuesday.    But Senator Lisa Murkowski, another Republican who has defied the former president, cleared a hurdle in Alaska. She was set to face Trump-endorsed challenger Kelly Tshibaka in the Nov. 8 congressional election, as the two candidates advanced in that state’s nonpartisan primary.  Cheney’s defeat, by Trump-endorsed Harriet Hageman, marks a significant victory for the former president in his campaign to oustmore

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Arizona’s Border Wall Work Delayed After 2 Containers Topple

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An effort by Arizona Republican Gov. Doug Ducey to use shipping containers to close a 1,000-foot gap in the U.S.-Mexico border wall near Yuma, Arizona, suffered a setback when two stacked containers toppled over.  Claudia Ramos, a correspondent for the digital platform of Univision Noticias in Arizona, posted on her Twitter feed a photo she took Monday morning of the containers on their side. She said they fell on the U.S. side of the border.  No witnesses have come forward to say what happened Sunday night.  Ramos said contractors in the area told her that they believed the containers maymore

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Judge: Senator Graham Must Testify in Georgia Election Probe

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A federal judge on Monday said U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham must testify before a special grand jury in Atlanta that is investigating whether then-President Donald Trump and his allies broke any laws while trying to overturn his narrow 2020 general election loss in the state. Attorneys for Graham, a Republican, had argued that his position as a U.S. senator provided him immunity from having to appear before the investigative panel and asked the judge to quash his subpoena. But U.S. District Judge Leigh Martin May wrote in an order Monday that immunities related to his role as a senator domore

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Congress OKs Democrats’ Climate, Tax, Health Bill, a Biden Triumph

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A divided Congress gave final approval Friday to Democrats’ flagship climate, tax and health care bill, handing President Joe Biden a back-from-the-dead triumph on coveted priorities that the party hopes will bolster its prospects for keeping control of Congress in November’s elections.  The House used a party-line 220-207 vote to pass the legislation, which is but a shadow of the larger, more ambitious plan to supercharge environment and social programs that Biden and his party envisioned early last year. Even so, Democrats happily declared victory on top-tier goals like providing Congress’ largest ever investment in curbing carbon emissions, reining inmore

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Backers, Opponents of Abortion Rights Recalibrate After Surprising Kansas Referendum

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A Republican-leaning state in America’s socially conservative heartland recently shocked both sides of the long-running battle over abortion, calling into question the conventional wisdom about how and where the procedure might be restricted or banned.    Voters in Kansas cast ballots last week on a proposed amendment to the state’s constitution that would have eliminated an existing right to abortion. The amendment was expected to pass handily in a state no Democratic presidential contender has won in nearly 60 years and where Donald Trump beat Joe Biden by 15 percentage points in the 2020 election.    Voters rejected the ballotmore

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January 6 Attack Dominates Debate in Wyoming Congressional Race

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Some 2,500 kilometers from Washington, D.C., the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol still looms large in the minds of Wyoming voters who will be heading to the polls on August 16 to decide if Republican Liz Cheney should keep her seat in Congress. Wyoming’s only representative in the U.S. House, two-term Congresswoman Cheney has staked her political career on being one of the few Republicans to openly criticize former President Donald Trump. But she has an uphill fight to win her party’s nomination in a state that delivered Trump his most lopsided win of the 2020 election, withmore

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Four Key Races in Wisconsin, Minnesota Midterm Primaries

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Voters in states including Wisconsin and Minnesota picked candidates for the U.S. Congress and other offices in primaries on Tuesday, in another test of former President Donald Trump’s influence in the Republican Party ahead of the November 8 midterms. Vermont and Connecticut also held nomination contests, while Minnesota held a special election for its vacant 1st Congressional District. The following are four key races: Wisconsin Republican governor’s primary In its final stretch, the Republican nomination contest for Wisconsin’s gubernatorial race became another proxy battle between Trump and his estranged former vice president, Mike Pence. Trump endorsed construction company owner Timmore

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Trump Cries Foul After FBI Searches His Home

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Former President Donald Trump claims he is being politically persecuted after the Federal Bureau of Investigation searched his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida on Monday, in what appeared to be part of a long-running investigation of whether he has kept official documents instead of sending them to the National Archives when he left office. White House bureau chief Patsy Widakuswara looks at the political fallout of the search. …

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FBI, Justice Department Routinely Prosecute Misuse of Classified Documents

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Federal officials are saying little so far about Monday’s FBI search of former President Donald Trump’s home in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, but Trump and one of his sons have said the move is part of an investigation into Trump’s removal of official documents from the White House. While such a search of a former U.S. president’s residence would appear to be unprecedented, investigations into the removal or unlawful retention of classified information is not. Since 2005, the FBI and the Justice Department have launched at least 11 such investigations, some targeting high-profile former U.S. officials, including a former national security advisermore

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Trump Facing Major Criminal Investigations as He Considers 2024 Presidential Run

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As he strongly hints at another campaign for the White House in 2024, former U.S. President Donald Trump is facing major federal and state criminal investigations into his actions in the immediate aftermath of his failed reelection campaign in 2020.     Monday’s unprecedented FBI raid at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida was the latest indication that investigators remain focused on the country’s 45th president. Reports say the investigators were seeking classified documents he may have taken with him when he left Washington last year.    The search was court-authorized and was likely sanctioned at the highest levels of themore

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