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☆ Celtics Tickets, Political Revenge: U.S. Attorney Accused of Broad Misconduct
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-17 | by ( Glenn Thrush | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The U.S. attorney for Massachusetts, Rachael S. Rollins, misused her office to “boost” a political ally, flouted ethics rules to obtain free tickets from the Boston Celtics and lied under oath to investigators, the Justice Department inspector general said on Wednesday. The 161-page report — one of the most extraordinary public denunciations of a sitting federal prosecutor in recent memory — was released a day after Ms. Rollins announced she would resign at the end of this week, conceding that she had become a harmful “distraction” in one of the department’s most important offices. Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz opened an investigation into Ms. Rollins last year after a published report that she had attended a July 2022 Democratic National Committee fund-raiser headlined by Jill Biden, the first lady. His team determined that those actions violated policies and laws against electioneering. But the inquiry rapidly expanded to encompass a striking range of apparent misconduct, including efforts to discredit a political rival and her acceptance of flights and a stay at a resort that were paid for by a sports and entertainment company, he said.

John Durham, the Trump-era special counsel who for four years has pursued a politically fraught investigation into the Russia inquiry, accused the F.B.I. of a “lack of analytical rigor” in a final report made public on Monday that examined the bureau’s investigation into whether the 2016 Trump campaign was conspiring with Moscow. Mr. Durham’s 306-page report appeared to show little substantial new information about the F.B.I.’s handling of the Russia investigation, known as Crossfire Hurricane, and it failed to produce the kinds of blockbuster revelations impugning the bureau that former President Donald J. Trump and his allies had once suggested that Mr. Durham would find. Instead, the report — released without substantive comment or redactions by Attorney General Merrick B. Garland — repeated previously exposed flaws in the inquiry, including from a 2019 inspector general report, while concluding that the F.B.I. suffered from a confirmation bias as it pursued leads about Mr. Trump’s ties to Russia.

Jack Teixeira, the Air National Guardsman implicated in a vast leak of classified documents, was fixated on weapons, mass shootings, shadowy conspiracy theories — and proving he was in the right, and in the know. Even as he relished the respectability and access to intelligence he gained through his military service and top secret clearance, he seethed with contempt about the government, accusing the United States of a host of secret, nefarious activities: making biological and chemical weapons in Ukrainian labs, creating the Islamic State, even orchestrating mass shootings. “The FBI and other 3 letter agencies contact these unhinged mentally ill kids and convince them to do mass shootings,” Airman Teixeira, 21, wrote in an online chat group, sharing a debunked conspiracy theory after a gunman killed three people at a mall in Indiana last summer. In messages posted on Discord, a social media platform popular among gamers, Airman Teixeira claimed that the 20-year-old gunman behind the rampage at Greenwood Park Mall was one of many mass shooters groomed by the American government as part of a secret plot “to make people vote for” gun control.

☆ Short on Staff, Prisons Enlist Teachers and Case Managers as Guards
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-01 | by ( Glenn Thrush | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

From the outside, the prison complex in Florence, Colo., is a forbidding citadel of steel, concrete and coiled barbed wire, housing some of the most notorious inmates in federal custody. To hundreds of its employees, it is a stressful, isolated, short-staffed workplace. Like many other federal prisons, Florence is undergoing a staffing crisis, with head counts on some guard shifts so low that teachers, case managers, counselors, facilities workers and even secretaries at the complex have been enlisted to serve as corrections officers, despite having only basic security training. “It creates a safety issue: If you aren’t savvy with the housing unit, or the position you’re working, you are not going to spot a problem before it starts. Nowhere has that been more of a problem than at the chronically troubled Bureau of Prisons, with about 160,000 inmates at 122 prisons and camps — employing a work force of about 34,000 people who often earn less than state and county corrections workers.

WORCESTER, Mass. — Jack Teixeira, the Massachusetts Air National Guardsman accused of posting classified documents online, will remain in custody while a judge considers new evidence that raised serious questions about the military’s decision to grant him a high-level security clearance. During a tense 90-minute hearing on Thursday, lawyers for the Justice Department asked a federal magistrate judge in Massachusetts to detain Airman Teixeira indefinitely pending his trial, arguing that his history of violent and racist remarks, coupled with his attempts to obstruct its investigation, made him a “serious flight risk.”The magistrate judge, David. H. Hennessy, did not immediately rule on the matter, saying he needed more time to consider that motion and a request by the airman’s court-appointed lawyers that he be immediately released to his parents’ custody on $20,000 bond.

☆ Airman Accused of Leak Has History of Racist and Violent Remarks, Filing Says
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Glenn Thrush | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

WASHINGTON — Jack Teixeira, the Massachusetts Air National Guardsman accused of posting classified documents online, repeatedly tried to obstruct federal investigators and has a “troubling” history of making racist and violent remarks, Justice Department lawyers said in a court filing late Wednesday. In an 18-page memo, released before a detention hearing scheduled for Thursday in a Massachusetts federal court, the department’s lawyers argued that Airman Teixeira needed to be detained indefinitely because he posed a “serious flight risk” and might still have information that would be of “tremendous value to hostile nation states.”Airman Teixeira tapped into vast reservoirs of sensitive information, an amount that “far exceeds what has been publicly disclosed” so far, they wrote. Prosecutors pointedly questioned Airman Teixeira’s overall state of mind, disclosing that he was suspended from high school in 2018 for alarming comments about the use of Molotov cocktails and other weapons, and trawled the internet for information about mass shootings. He engaged in “regular discussions about violence and murder” on the same social media platform, Discord, that he used to post classified information, the filing said, and he surrounded his bed at his parents’ house with firearms and tactical gear.

The cheerleader in Texas simply wanted to find her car in a dark parking lot after practice. Each of them accidentally went to the wrong address or opened the wrong door — and each was shot. This week, the issue of “wrong address” shootings stirred protests and widespread outrage after a homeowner in Kansas City, Mo., shot a 16-year-old who rang the wrong doorbell. Days later, a 20-year-old woman in upstate New York was fatally shot after she and her friends turned into the wrong driveway. And then two cheerleaders in Texas were shot after one got into the wrong car in a dark parking lot.

☆ Justice Dept. Presses Local Courts to Reduce Fines
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-20 | by ( Glenn Thrush | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The Justice Department’s third-highest-ranking official, Vanita Gupta, informed local judges and juvenile courts on Thursday that imposing fines and fees without accounting for a person’s financial status violated constitutional protections against cruel and unusual punishment. Doing so “may erode trust between local governments and their constituents, increase recidivism, undermine rehabilitation and successful re-entry, and generate little or no net revenue,” Ms. Gupta, the associate attorney general, wrote in a letter. A Justice Department investigation did not result in federal charges against the officer involved. The policy Ms. Gupta outlined was first enacted during the Obama administration, when she led the Justice Department’s civil rights division. It was revoked under Attorney General Jeff Sessions in 2017, but a handful of states, including several controlled by Republicans, have taken steps to reduce the practice.

☆ What Happens Next in the Leaked Documents Case
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-19 | by ( Glenn Thrush | Julian E. Barnes | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

WASHINGTON — Jack Teixeira, a Massachusetts Air National Guardsman accused of posting classified documents about the war in Ukraine on social media, is expected to appear in a Massachusetts federal court on Thursday, hours after the government said in a memo that he continued to be a national security risk. The hearing for Airman Teixeira, who was arrested April 13 on two separate counts related to the unauthorized handling and publication of classified materials, had been scheduled for federal court in Boston earlier this month. But his lawyer, Brendan Kelley, requested more time to address the government’s arguments, and the magistrate judge, David. Prosecutors often reveal new details of their case at detention hearings, but only enough information to argue that the defendant is a potential flight risk. The information disclosed late Wednesday was an exception — it sought to portray Airman Teixeira as violent and racist as well as an unpredictable threat.

☆ Witness Testimony Helps Prosecutors Advance Trump Election Case
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-13 | by ( Alan Feuer | Glenn Thrush | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Among those who have worked with him, Mr. Smith is seen as a diligent manager bent on collecting the information needed to make a decision while remaining cognizant of the time pressures and the highly partisan atmosphere in which he is operating. How Times reporters cover politics. So while Times staff members may vote, they are not allowed to endorse or campaign for candidates or political causes. They have been receiving regular briefings from aides who are getting updates from members of Mr. Smith’s team, according to two people familiar with the situation. The legal battles over privilege began well before Mr. Smith was appointed to the special counsel post and have pitted two powerful forces against each other.

☆ The Wild World Inside Your Gut
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-22 | by ( Alice Callahan | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +20 min

The Wild World Inside Your GutWe tackled everything from heartburn, stress, spicy foods and colon cleanses to antibiotics and more. So grab a kombucha, get comfortable and read on for everything you’ve wanted to know about the wild world inside your gut. 3 What are some simple things I can do to improve my gut health? That “really is going to have the strongest impact on our health, including gut health,” she said. (Though for general gut health, Dr. Rao said, most people living in the United States could benefit from eating fewer refined carbohydrates and more fiber.)

☆ Trump paying a $3 million lawyer retainer fee — maybe the biggest he's ever paid — shows he knows how much legal trouble he's in, NYT reporter says
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-09 | by ( Kelsey Vlamis | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

The New York Times reported Trump paid a $3 million lawyer retainer fee for the Mar-a-Lago case. Reporter Maggie Haberman said the high amount shows that Trump understands the position he's in. In addition to his time in politics, the book rehashes many legal issues Trump has faced going back decades. During an interview with NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday, Haberman was asked if she thinks Trump understands the legal jeopardy he may be facing. Two sources told the Times Trump paid the lawyer $3 million, which the outlet described as "unusually high."

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