The Full Belmonte, 8/28/2022
Intelligence Officials Will Assess Security Risks From Mar-a-Lago Documents
The director of national intelligence told lawmakers that her office would lead a review concerning the sensitive documents retrieved from former President Donald J. Trump’s Florida residence.
Avril D. Haines, the director of national intelligence, said her office would work with the Justice Department to ensure that the assessment did not interfere with the department’s criminal investigation.Credit...Pool photo by Saul Loeb
“WASHINGTON — U.S. intelligence officials will conduct a review to assess the possible risks to national security from former President Donald J. Trump’s handling of classified documents after the F.B.I. retrieved boxes containing sensitive material from Mar-a-Lago, according to a letter to lawmakers.
In the letter, Avril D. Haines, the director of national intelligence, informed the top lawmakers on the House Intelligence and Oversight Committees that her office would lead an intelligence community assessment of the ‘potential risk to national security that would result from the disclosure’ of documents Mr. Trump took with him to his private club and residence in Palm Beach, Fla.
In the letter, which was obtained by The New York Times, Ms. Haines said her office would work with the Justice Department to ensure that the assessment did not interfere with the department’s criminal investigation concerning the documents. The review will determine what intelligence sources or systems could be identified from the documents and be compromised if they fell into the wrong hands.” Read more at New York Times
Judge Signals Intent to Appoint Special Master in Mar-a-Lago Search
The judge, an appointee of President Donald J. Trump, indicated she was prepared to grant Mr. Trump’s request for an arbiter, or special master, to review the documents seized by the F.B.I.
“A federal judge in Florida gave notice on Saturday of her ‘preliminary intent’ to appoint an independent arbiter, known as a special master, to conduct a review of the highly sensitive documents that were seized by the F.B.I. this month during a search of Mar-a-Lago, former President Donald J. Trump’s club and residence in Palm Beach.
In an unusual action that fell short of a formal order, the judge, Aileen M. Cannon of the Federal District Court for the Southern District of Florida, signaled that she was inclined to agree with the former president and his lawyers that a special master should be appointed to review the seized documents.
But Judge Cannon, who was appointed by Mr. Trump in 2020, set a hearing for arguments in the matter for Thursday in the federal courthouse in West Palm Beach — not the one in Fort Pierce, Fla., where she typically works.
On Friday night, only hours after a redacted version of the affidavit used to obtain the warrant for the search of Mar-a-Lago was released, Mr. Trump’s lawyers filed court papers to Judge Cannon reiterating their request for a special master to weed out documents taken in the search that could be protected by executive privilege.
Mr. Trump’s lawyers had initially asked Judge Cannon on Monday to appoint a special master, but their filing was so confusing and full of bluster that the judge requested clarifications on several basic legal questions. The notice by Judge Cannon on Saturday was seen as something of a victory in Mr. Trump’s circle.” Read more at New York Times
Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data breach lawsuit ends in 11th hour settlement
Dramatic move shows Mark Zuckerberg ‘desperate to avoid being questioned over cover-up’, says Observer journalist who exposed scandal
“Facebook has dramatically agreed to settle a lawsuit seeking damages for allowing Cambridge Analytica access to the private data of tens of millions of users, four years after the Observer exposed the scandal that mired the tech giant in repeated controversy.
A court filing reveals that Meta, Facebook’s parent company, has in principle settled for an undisclosed sum a long-running lawsuit that claimed Facebook illegally shared user data with the UK analysis firm.
It follows revelations of mass data misuse made by a Cambridge Analytica whistleblower to the Observer in 2018, an exposé that forced chief executive Mark Zuckerberg to testify before Congress and led to the social media firm receiving a multibillion-pound fine. Days after the story was published, Facebook’s share price fell by the equivalent of more than $100bn.
However, some expressed dismay that the timing of the potential settlement would prevent Zuckerberg and Meta’s outgoing chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, being made to testify during up to six hours of questioning by plaintiffs’ lawyers next month.
Carole Cadwalladr, the Observer journalist whose investigations into Facebook and Cambridge Analytica also helped inspire the Netflix film The Great Hack, said: ‘It is a measure of how desperate Zuckerberg is to avoid answering questions about Facebook’s cover-up of the Cambridge Analytica data breach that Facebook has settled this case just days away from him being cross-examined under oath for six hours.’
It emerged that Zuckerberg and Sandberg, who recently announced she would be stepping down in the autumn, would face questioning, with the depositions scheduled to take place from 20 September.
The latest developments follow a separate lawsuit last year that claimed Facebook paid $4.9bn more than necessary to the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in a settlement over the Cambridge Analytica scandal in order to protect Zuckerberg.
The lawsuit alleged that the size of the $5bn settlement was motivated by a desire to prevent Facebook’s founder from being named in the FTC complaint.” Read more at The Guardian
US investigates fake heiress who infiltrated Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort
A Ukrainian woman posed as a Rothschild to gain access to the Florida resort, heightening fears over security lapses
“A second foreign national is being investigated by US authorities for gaining access to Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump’s Florida resort which is at the center of an FBI probe over missing classified documents, heightening fears over security lapses both during and after his presidency.
According to an article from the Organized Crime & Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), a Ukrainian woman posing as a member of the Rothschild banking dynasty is under bureau investigation after infiltrating the private members club under a false pretense.
Inna Yashchyshyn, 33, allegedly lied to members that she was a Rothschild heiress and mingled with Trump, US Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and others at Mar-a-Lago functions.
OCCRP, in conjunction with the Pittsburgh Gazette, reported that Yashchyshyn had demonstrated ‘the ease with which someone with a fake identity and shadowy background’ could bypass security at Trump’s club.
Earlier this month, the FBI obtained a warrant to search Mar-a-Lago as part of a criminal probe over the unauthorized retention of government secrets by Trump and his aides, who failed to return the documents in question despite repeated requests.
On Saturday, Congress members Adam Schiff and Carolyn Maloney – respectively, the chairpersons for the House intelligence and oversight committees – said that the US intelligence director, Avril Haines, had confirmed that her subordinates, along with the Justice Department, would evaluate whether the improper storage of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago had risked or caused any damage to national security.
The search came a month after the heads of the FBI and Britain’s domestic security service MI5 issued a sharp warning about systemic challenges posed to western economies and governments by Chinese espionage.
Yashchyshyn – the daughter of an Illinois truck driver – maintained that she was a Rothschild heiress while holding a position as president of United Hearts of Mercy, founded by Florida-based Russian oligarch Valery Tarasenko in Canada in 2015.
OCCRP and the Post-Gazette reported that ‘both the FBI’s office in Miami and the Sûreté du Québec provincial police in Canada have launched investigations that touch on her dealings’.
While the FBI refused to comment, its Canadian counterpart confirmed that its major crimes unit launched an investigation into Yashchyshyn earlier this year.
Word of the investigation into Yashchyshyn comes three years after a Chinese national approached a Secret Service agent outside Mar-a-Lago and claimed to be a member who wanted to use the pool. After passing the checkpoint, Yujing Zhang told a receptionist she was there to attend an event given by the United Nations Chinese American Association.
But no such event was on the calendar, and agents later found that she was carrying two Chinese passports, $8,000 in cash, four cellphones, a laptop computer, an external hard drive, a thumb drive containing computer malware – but no swimsuit.
She also claimed to speak English poorly, though agents later testified that Zhang spoke and read English well.
Zhang was charged with making false statements to federal agents and illegally entering a restricted area. Zhang later received an eight-month prison sentence and was deported to China after being convicted of trespassing and lying to Secret Service agents.
The security lapses at the club involving Zhang and Yashchyshyn for some called to mind an episode early in Trump’s presidency where he was talking with then-Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe on a patio about a response to a North Korea missile test while diners looked on.
In a particularly stunning moment, a guest who snapped a picture of Trump and Abe later took a selfie with a military aide carrying the black leather satchel carrying the codes needed to launch a nuclear strike, which is nicknamed ‘the football’.
‘It’s unheard of,’ a deputy national security adviser to Joe Biden in the Barack Obama White House said at the time. ‘These people operate behind the scenes.
I don’t think this team has any appreciation about the vulnerabilities they are creating for themselves and how dangerous this is.’
The Trump White House press secretary at the time, Sean Spicer, later insisted that no classified information was discussed and the leaders’ discussions were focused on the logistics of press statements they were to give.
Abe, who left office in 2020, was assassinated while giving a campaign speech in the Japanese city of Nara last month in an unrelated case.
New details into the FBI’s search of Mar-a-Lago emerged Friday when a heavily redacted affidavit justifying the search explained how investigators believed that highly sensitive national defense information and evidence of obstruction of justice were at the ex-president’s property.
The document detailed how an FBI review of materials Trump had returned to the National Archives in May 2022 concluded that he had kept sensitive government secrets at Mar-a-Lago.
The justice department said among the documents recovered by the National Archives, 184 had classification markings. Some were stamped ‘SI’ for special intelligence, ‘HCS’ for intelligence from human clandestine sources, and ‘NOFORN’ for ‘Not Releasable to Foreign Nationals’.” Read more at The Guardian
Truth Social faces financial peril as worry about Trump’s future grows
Payment disputes and a dwindling audience have fueled doubts about the former president’s Twitter clone
A phone screen displays the Truth Social app. (STEFANI REYNOLDS/AFP/Getty Images)
“Former president Donald Trump’s Truth Social website is facing financial challenges as its traffic remains puny and the company that is scheduled to acquire it expresses fear that his legal troubles could lead to a decline in his popularity.
Six months after its high-profile launch, the site — a clone of Twitter, which banned Trump after Jan. 6, 2021 — still has no guaranteed source of revenue and a questionable path to growth, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings from Digital World Acquisition, the company planning to take Trump’s start-up, the Trump Media & Technology Group, public.
The company warned this week that its business could be damaged if Trump ‘becomes less popular or there are further controversies that damage his credibility.’ The company has seen its stock price plunge nearly 75 percent since its March peak and reported in a filing last week that it had lost $6.5 million in the first half of the year.” Read more at Washington Post
Buffalo Bills Cut Matt Araiza Amid Rape Lawsuit
The team said it had released the rookie punter Araiza after he was accused of raping a 17-year-old girl with two San Diego State teammates.
Punter Matt Araiza of the Buffalo BillsCredit...Jeffrey T. Barnes/Associated Press
“The Buffalo Bills cut Matt Araiza on Saturday, two days after the rookie punter was accused in a lawsuit of raping a 17-year-old girl last October with two of his teammates at San Diego State.
‘We don’t know all the facts, and that’s what makes it hard, but at this time we think it is the best move for everyone to move on from Matt and let him take care of this situation,’ Brandon Beane, the team’s general manager, said in a news conference on Saturday night after a team practice.
Beane said that the team learned about the accusations in late July, about three months after Araiza was drafted. ‘We tried to be thorough and thoughtful and not rush to judgment,’ he said. ‘It’s not easy.’
‘We just decided that the most important thing is this is not about football, it’s about letting Matt go handle this,’ Beane added.
Araiza traveled with the team on Friday to Charlotte for the team’s last preseason game but was not in uniform. He was not at the team’s practice on Saturday.
Araiza denied the accusations in a statement released through his agent on Friday night. ‘The facts of the incident are not what they are portrayed in the lawsuit or in the press,’ he said, adding that he looked forward to ‘quickly setting the record straight.’
In the lawsuit filed in San Diego Superior Court on Thursday, the teen said that she was ‘observably intoxicated’ at a house party last October in San Diego and that Araiza, who was 21 at the time, knew that she was in high school. She said that Araiza led her to a side yard, where he raped her orally and vaginally. According to the civil complaint, Araiza then took her to a bedroom inside the house, where a group of men, including the two San Diego State teammates named in her lawsuit, ‘took turns having sex with her’ while she went in and out of consciousness.
The San Diego police began an investigation last year, and a public affairs officer for the San Diego County district attorney’s office confirmed on Friday that it was reviewing the police investigation to consider criminal charges.” Read more at New York Times
Arizona Supreme Court keeps voting rights measure off ballot
By BOB CHRISTIEyesterday
“PHOENIX (AP) — A voter initiative rolling back Republican-backed election law changes and expanding voting access will not appear on the November ballot, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled Friday, issuing a final death knell after an on-again off-again series of court rulings.
The high court decision upholds a lower court ruling issued hours earlier, in which Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Joseph Mikitish rejected thousands of signatures and said the initiative fell 1,458 signatures short of the 238,000 required to qualify for the ballot. The judge’s Friday ruling reversed his own decision from a day earlier after the Supreme Court asked him to explain how he concluded that the initiative had enough valid signatures to qualify.
The Supreme Court’s ruling is the last word in a weeks-long battle between initiative backers and opponents. Critics, led by the Arizona Free Enterprise Club, succeeded in knocking off enough qualifying signatures for the measure to barely fail.
Lawyers supporting the initiative had urged the Supreme Court to allow the measure to reach voters, saying Mikitish violated the law by letting challengers throw out more signatures than allowed.
‘In reversing itself today, the trial court has done something never done before in Arizona initiative practice and which is not authorized by statute,’ they wrote. ‘It has allowed initiative challengers to strike individual signatures under (the law), for any reason, AND allowed them to benefit from the invalidity rate calculated by the County Recorders’ random sample that the challengers DID NOT include in this lawsuit.’” Read more at AP News
Pakistan flooding deaths pass 1,000 in ‘climate catastrophe’
By ZARAR KHAN12 minutes ago
“ISLAMABAD (AP) — Deaths from widespread flooding in Pakistan topped 1,000 since mid-June, officials said Sunday, as the country’s climate minister called the deadly monsoon season ‘a serious climate catastrophe.’
Flash flooding from the heavy rains has washed away villages and crops as soldiers and rescue workers evacuated stranded residents to the safety of relief camps and provided food to thousands of displaced Pakistanis.
Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Authority reported the death toll since the monsoon season began earlier than normal this year — in mid- June — reached 1,033 people after new fatalities were reported in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and southern Sindh provinces.” Read more at AP News
Official: 6 of 43 missing Mexican students given to army
By FABIOLA SÁNCHEZ and CHRISTOPHER SHERMANyesterday
“MEXICO CITY (AP) — Six of the 43 college students ‘disappeared’ in 2014 were allegedly kept alive in a warehouse for days then turned over to the local army commander who ordered them killed, the Mexican government official leading a Truth Commission said Friday.
Interior Undersecretary Alejandro Encinas made the shocking revelation directly tying the military to one of Mexico’s worst human rights scandals, and it came with little fanfare as he made a lengthy defense of the commission’s report released a week earlier.
Last week, despite declaring the abductions and disappearances a ‘state crime’ and saying that the army watched it happen without intervening, Encinas made no mention of six students being turned over to Col. José Rodríguez Pérez.
On Friday, Encinas said authorities were closely monitoring the students from the radical teachers’ college at Ayotzinapa from the time they left their campus through their abduction by local police in the town of Iguala that night. A soldier who had infiltrated the school was among the abducted students, and Encinas asserted the army did not follow its own protocols and try to rescue him….
On Sept. 26, 2014, local police took the students off buses they had commandeered in Iguala. The motive for the police action remains unclear eight years later. Their bodies have never been found, though fragments of burned bone have been matched to three of the students.
Last week, federal agents arrested former Attorney General Jesus Murillo Karam, who oversaw the original investigation. On Wednesday, a judge ordered that he stand trial for forced disappearance, not reporting torture and official misconduct. Prosecutors allege Murillo Karam created a false narrative about what happened to the students to quickly appear to resolve the case.
Authorities also said last week that arrest warrants were issued for 20 soldiers and officers, five local officials, 33 local police officers and 11 state police officers as well as 14 gang members. Neither the army nor prosecutors have said how many of those suspects are in custody.” Read more at AP News
Shaquille O'Neal backs Australian Indigenous vote
US basketball legend Shaquille O'Neal has voiced his support for the Indigenous cause in Australia.
“Speaking at a news conference with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, he said: ‘Whatever you need from me, just let me know.’
Mr Albanese's centre-left government wants to hold a referendum to change the constitution and give Indigenous people a voice in parliament.
He promised it in his victory speech after winning May's elections.
Mr Albanese said the former professional basketballer, who is in Australia on a speaking tour, was well suited to drive public support for his government's bid to increase Indigenous voices to parliament.
In 2017, Australia's government rejected a proposal to form a body in parliament representing Indigenous peoples.
But Mr Albanese's leadership is pushing for more representation and it is trying to mobilise public support for the plan through sporting figures.
If approved, his government's ‘Indigenous Voice to Parliament’ initiative would create a permanent Indigenous advisory body to the federal parliament.” Read more at BBC
Racial Slur During College Volleyball Game Leads to Fan Suspension
A women’s volleyball game was moved on Saturday after a Duke University player who is Black was called a racial slur during a game the night before.
The B.Y.U. and Duke University women’s volleyball teams played at the George Albert Smith Fieldhouse on Friday, in Provo, Utah.Credit...Brigham Young University
“A Duke University women’s volleyball player who is Black was called a racial slur during a game Friday night in Utah, prompting Brigham Young University to ban a fan from sporting events and Duke University to change the venue of a tournament game on Saturday.
Marvin Richardson, the father of the Duke volleyball player, said in an interview late Saturday that a slur was repeatedly yelled from the stands as his daughter was serving, making her fear ‘the raucous crowd’ could grow violent.
Mr. Richardson said his daughter cried to him over the phone on Friday night about the episode.
‘Here we are,’ Mr. Richardson, who said he grew up in Fort Worth when it was still desegregating, said in the interview. ‘It’s 2022, and we’re dealing with 1960s issues.’
After the episode occurred, a police officer was placed on Duke’s bench.
In a statement, the B.Y.U. athletics department said that the fan who was banned was sitting in the university’s student section during the game at the university’s arena in Provo, Utah, but was not a student. A B.Y.U. spokesman said the ban was for all university sporting events, but he was not sure whether a time frame had been worked out.
The statement said that Brigham Young was ‘extremely disheartened’ by the actions of ‘a small number of fans’ and that ‘the use of a racial slur at any of our athletic events is absolutely unacceptable.’
‘We wholeheartedly apologize to Duke University and especially its student-athletes,’ the statement said.
B.Y.U., whose student population is less than 1 percent Black, has struggled with creating an inclusive environment for its students of color, according to a February 2021 report by a university committee that studied race on campus.
The report found that the university lacked institutional support for its few students of color, failed to recruit and retain a diverse student body and had a faculty far less diverse than the national average, with less than 7 percent of faculty members being people of color.
In a statement, Duke University said officials moved the game on Saturday against Rider University from Brigham Young’s George Albert Smith Fieldhouse to a location in Provo meant to create the safest atmosphere for both teams.
The game, which was open only to staff and family members, is part of the same tournament, the doTERRA Classic, in which B.Y.U. played Duke. B.Y.U. won 3 games to 1.” Read more at New York Times
Princess Diana's unique Ford Escort fetches $850,000 at auction
Credit: Silverstone Auctions
Princess Diana's unique Ford Escort fetches $850,000 at auction
“A Ford Escort RS Turbo Series 1 that was driven by the late Princess Diana fetched £724,500 ($851,070) at an auction held at Britain's Silverstone racing circuit on Saturday.
Silverstone's website describes the car as the Princess of Wales' last Ford Escort, with 24,961 miles on the clock. It belonged to the Princess of Wales between 1985 and 1988.
The princess was often seen driving the car around Chelsea and Kensington and clocked up 6,800 miles in it before returning it to Ford. After the return, the car had multiple owners before making its way back to Ford, according to Silverstone website.” Read more at CNN
Sick dolphin calf improves with tube-fed milk, helping hands
“RAYONG, Thailand (AP) — The Irrawaddy dolphin calf — sick and too weak to swim — was drowning in a tidal pool on Thailand’s shore when fishermen found him.
The fishermen quickly alerted marine conservationists, who advised them how to provide emergency care until a rescue team could transport the baby to Thailand’s Marine and Coastal Resources Research and Development Center for veterinary attention.
The baby was nicknamed Paradon, roughly translated as ‘brotherly burden,’ because those involved knew from day one that saving his life would be no easy task.
Irrawaddy dolphins, considered a vulnerable species by International Union for Conservation of Nature, are found in the shallow coastal waters of South and Southeast Asia and in three rivers in Myanmar, Cambodia and Indonesia. Their survival is threatened by habitat loss, pollution and fishing, when dolphins are caught unintentionally with other species.
Officials from the marine research center believe around 400 Irrawaddy dolphins remain along the country’s eastern coast, bordering Cambodia.
Since Paradon was found by the fishermen July 22, dozens of veterinarians and volunteers have helped care for him at the center in Rayong on the Gulf of Thailand.
‘We said among ourselves that the chance of him surviving was quite low, judging from his condition,’ Thanaphan Chomchuen, a veterinarian at the center, said Friday. ‘Normally, dolphins found stranded on the shore are usually in such a terrible condition. The chances that these dolphins would survive are normally very, very slim. But we gave him our best try on that day.’
Workers placed him in a seawater pool, treated the lung infection that made him so sick and weak, and enlisted volunteers to watch him round the clock. They have to hold him up in his tank to prevent him from drowning and feed him milk, initially done by tube, and later by bottle when he had recovered a bit of strength.
A staff veterinarian and one or two volunteers stay for each eight-hour shift, and other workers during the day handle the water pump and filter and making milk for the calf.
After a month, Paradon’s condition is improving. The calf believed to be between 4 and 6 months old can swim now and has no signs of infection. But the dolphin that was 138 centimeters long (4.5 feet) and around 27 kilograms (59 pounds) on July 22 is still weak and doesn’t take enough milk despite the team’s efforts to feed him every 20 minutes or so.” Read more at AP News
Roland Mesnier, pastry chef for five presidents, dies at 78
By FATIMA HUSSEINyesterday
“WASHINGTON (AP) — Roland Mesnier, who created often-magical desserts for five presidents and their guests as White House executive pastry chef, has died at age 78.
His death was confirmed Saturday by the White House Historical Association, which said he died Friday following a short illness.
One of the longest-serving White House chefs, Mesnier was hired in 1979 by first lady Rosalynn Carter and retired during the George W. Bush administration.” Read more at AP News