The Full Belmonte, 9/16/2022
Judge Keeps Block on Inquiry Into Mar-a-Lago Files and Names Special Master
The Justice Department is planning to appeal, but the decision is likely to significantly delay its investigation into former President Donald J. Trump’s handling of government records.
By Charlie Savage, Alan Feuer and Glenn Thrush
Sept. 15, 2022
“WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Thursday rejected the Justice Department’s request to resume a key part of its inquiry into former President Donald J. Trump’s handling of sensitive government records and appointed an outside arbiter to review thousands of documents seized last month from his Florida residence.
The judge, Aileen M. Cannon, declined to lift any part of an order she issued last week that barred the department from using the documents, including about 100 marked classified, in its investigation until the arbiter, known as a special master, had completed a review.
In her 10-page decision, Judge Cannon appointed a special master suggested by the Trump legal team and agreed upon by the government: Raymond J. Dearie, a semiretired judge from the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of New York.
COURT RULING
Read Judge Cannon’s ruling and her decision to appoint a special master.
Judge Dearie will now have the authority to sift through more than 11,000 records the F.B.I. carted away from Mr. Trump’s estate, Mar-a-Lago, on Aug. 8. The move was a blow to the Justice Department, almost certain to significantly delay its investigation into whether the former president unlawfully retained national defense records or obstructed repeated attempts by federal officials to retrieve them.
The department had asked Judge Cannon to lift restrictions on its use of documents with classification markings and set a Thursday deadline for her to respond before it said it would ask an appeals court to intervene. The department is now planning to appeal the decision, and top officials were meeting to discuss the timing of their filing, according to a senior law enforcement official.
Judge Cannon’s order was the latest turn in what has now become a protracted and politically fraught court battle over the trove of documents seized in the search of Mar-a-Lago.
While Judge Cannon’s order was a victory for Mr. Trump and his legal team, she also made two significant concessions to the government.
She said, for instance, that Judge Dearie should first look at the classified documents and ‘thereafter consider prompt adjustments to the court’s orders as necessary.’ That raised the possibility that Judge Dearie might quickly clear the items and the F.B.I. would then regain unrestricted use of them in its criminal inquiry. In her order, Judge Cannon said the special master should try to finish his review by Nov. 30.” Read more at New York Times
U.S. mortgage rates this week were the highest they’ve been since the 2008 financial crisis.
“The average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage climbed to 6.02%, up from 5.89% last week and 2.86% a year ago, according to mortgage giant Freddie Mac’s lenders survey. The jump is one of the most pronounced effects of the Fed’s campaign to curb inflation by lifting the cost of borrowing for consumers and businesses. Investors were eyeing next week’s Fed meeting and, after a day of erratic trading, U.S. stocks closed lower.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
Alaska storm
“Alaska is bracing for what has been described by forecasters as the strongest storm to impact the state in more than a decade. The system -- the remnants of Typhoon Merbok -- is expected to bring hurricane-force winds, torrential rain and enormous waves to Alaska's west coast today and this weekend. The National Weather Service in Fairbanks urged coastal residents to complete preparations for the storm by this morning, as conditions will begin to rapidly deteriorate later today. Forecasts show the impacts of the storm will likely rival what was seen in 2011 from what's referred to as the Bering Sea Superstorm, a meteorologist in the region told CNN. That storm, with wind gusts over 90 mph, left behind a wide swath of destruction.” Read more at CNN
New Trial Is Ordered for Water Polo Coach Convicted in ‘Varsity Blues’ Scandal
Jovan Vavic, who was convicted on bribery and fraud, won a striking victory after a string of guilty verdicts and guilty pleas by parents, coaches and others embroiled in the scandal.
Sept. 15, 2022
“Jovan Vavic, a former water polo coach at the University of Southern California who was convicted of bribery as part of the far-reaching Operation Varsity Blues college admissions scandal, was granted a new trial on Thursday by a federal judge in Boston.
Mr. Vavic was accused of taking bribes in the name of the water polo team and to fund private school tuition for his children, in exchange for recruiting prospective students as water polo players with trumped-up credentials. He was convicted of bribery and fraud.
The judge, Indira Talwani, declined to overturn the jury’s verdict, but in her decision to grant a new trial, she questioned whether the university could be considered a victim when it had kept the money and even sent thank-you notes.
The judge said that the government had ‘conflated’ a payment to the water polo team with a payment to the coach.” Read more at New York Times
“After winning the New Hampshire Republican Senate primary on Tuesday, Don Bolduc said the 2020 presidential election ‘was not stolen’ — despite having repeatedly claimed that it was.” Read more at New York Times
Ukraine
“Ukrainian authorities have found 440 graves at a mass burial site in Izium, an eastern city recently recaptured from Russian forces, Ukraine's Defense Ministry said in a Twitter post today. ‘We want the world to know what is really happening and what the Russian occupation has led to,’ Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said, adding that Ukrainian and international journalists will be shown the site to see what had been uncovered. Izium was subject to intense Russian artillery attacks in April and was taken back by Ukrainian forces on Saturday, delivering a strategic blow to Russia's military assault in the east. Separately, the White House announced a $600 million security package for Ukraine on Thursday, providing its military with another round of assistance during its ongoing counteroffensive against Russia.” Read more at CNN
“Fizzling campaign | Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s late election push looks to have run out of steam, leaving him behind challenger Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva just two weeks before the first-round vote, according to a DataFolha poll. Lula would take 45% to 33% for Bolsonaro, the survey showed. If neither candidate wins more than 50%, the race goes to an Oct. 30 run-off.” Read more at Bloomberg
“Mexico’s arrests. The Mexican government has arrested four people over the 2014 abduction and disappearance of 43 students from Iguala, Mexico, including a retired general who oversaw a military base in Iguala at the time. Last month, a government truth commission declared that the case had been a ‘crime of the state.’
‘At all times the federal, state and municipal authorities had knowledge of the students’ movements,’ the commission reported. ‘Their actions, omissions and participation allowed for the disappearance and execution of the students, as well as the murder of six other people.’” Read more at Bloomberg
“Nigeria’s spiraling inflation. Nigeria’s inflation rates soared to a painful 20.5 percent in August—the highest level in 17 years—as shockwaves from the Ukraine war compound the country’s ongoing economic challenges.” Read more at Bloomberg
September 16, 2022
By German Lopez
Good morning. Dozens of lawmakers trade stocks related to their work, and it’s harming trust in the government.
Members of Congress can buy and sell stocks with few restrictions.Tom Brenner for The New York Times
Conflicts of interest
“Members of Congress have access to information that ordinary Americans don’t. They meet with chief executives, read classified intelligence reports and help set the rules by which the economy works.
That level of knowledge can give them an advantage if they or their families want to invest in the stock market — and many of them do: Nearly one in five members of Congress, from both parties, have in recent years bought stocks that intersected with their congressional committee work, a Times investigation found. And that’s probably an underestimate because lawmakers’ work extends beyond their committee duties, my colleague Kate Kelly, who reported on the story, told me.
Among the conflicts uncovered:
The wife of Representative Alan Lowenthal, a California Democrat, sold Boeing shares a day before a House committee that he sits on released a report exposing the company’s mishandling of its 737 Max jet, which had been involved in two deadly crashes.
Representative John Rose, a Republican of Tennessee, sold $100,000 to $250,000 in Wells Fargo stock a few months before a committee he is on released a report that was critical of the bank.
Senator Tommy Tuberville, an Alabama Republican on the Armed Services Committee, and his wife sold options tied to Microsoft less than two weeks before the company lost a $10 billion contract with the Defense Department.
(You can see whether your representative or senator made the list.)
Senator Tommy Tuberville, Republican of Alabama.Anna Rose Layden for The New York Times
In many of these cases, little or no evidence directly links congressional work to a purchase or a sale. Most lawmakers questioned about potential conflicts of interest say that they followed the law or that a relative or broker with no knowledge of their congressional work made a purchase or sale.
But that demonstrates the problem: Lawmakers can profit from their inside knowledge while remaining within the bounds of the law but creating, at a minimum, the appearance of a conflict of interest.
Widespread distrust
The trades exacerbate many voters’ sense that politicians put their own interests above the public’s or the country’s. That, in turn, helps fuel Americans’ distrust of their government. Congress in particular consistently scores poorly in surveys about confidence in institutions.
Each of the past three presidents promised to restore that trust, in his own way. Barack Obama campaigned on his anticorruption record and later signed a law trying to stop congressional insider trading. Donald Trump vowed to ‘drain the swamp’ of corruption and self-dealing (though his administration was plagued by ethics scandals). President Biden has called on Congress to prove that ‘democracy still works’ and that government ‘can deliver for our people.’
The institutional distrust can pose a threat to democracy, scholars warn. If Americans don’t believe the government is working for them, they may be more likely to support alternatives, even nondemocratic options. In other countries, authoritarians have tapped into public distrust to justify more extreme measures and changes, eroding democracy around the world.
Abigail Spanberger, a Democrat, and Chip Roy, a Republican.Greg Kahn for The New York Times
Potential solutions
Lawmakers have proposed bills to restrict their own stock trading. Some proposals would bar members of Congress and their spouses from buying stocks, a measure that majorities of voters support. Other legislation would force lawmakers and their spouses to put their investments into blind trusts.
On Wednesday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi promised a House vote on a congressional stock-trading bill this month. But neither that bill nor any other appears to have the bipartisan support needed to pass the Senate.
Why? For one, congressional stock trading can be a genuinely tricky issue. Some proposals would effectively force spouses to abandon yearslong careers that preceded a lawmaker’s time in Congress. That would be the case with, for example, Pelosi and Senator Tina Smith, whose husbands are professional investors.
It’s also unclear where to draw the line. Should lawmakers’ children, for example, be barred from buying stocks? (Some members of Congress think so: Representative Angie Craig said her college-age son had bought stocks without her knowledge. She told The Times that she disapproved of her son’s purchases and wanted to pass a law ‘to force him to listen to his mother.’)
And despite the optics, members of Congress may not be profiting much. Lawmakers’ stock purchases and sales from 2012 to 2020 did not perform better than other, similar stocks, a recent study found.
Still, there may be a simpler explanation for why lawmakers haven’t passed a bill, Kate said: ‘It’s not in their personal interest.’” Read more at New York Times
“Saturn isn’t the only ringed planet in our solar system, but its girdle of ice and dust is by far the most spectacular. And a new study gives a fresh explanation of how and when Saturn’s rings formed, offering a solution to a mystery that has stymied astronomers ever since Galileo held up his telescope and first observed the planet in 1610.
The rings formed 100 million to 200 million years ago when one of Saturn’s moons, thrown off course by another moon, veered too close to the planet and was ripped to pieces by its gravitational forces, the study suggests. Rubble from the hypothetical moon, which the researchers dubbed Chrysalis, continued to orbit Saturn and over time flattened into the disk of particles seen today, according to the findings, which were published Thursday in the journal Science.
The rings are just 30 feet thick in places but span a diameter of about 170,000 miles. Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune also have rings, but they are smaller, darker and fainter.
For many years, scientists believed Saturn’s rings formed more than 4 billion years ago, but recent observations called that idea into question.PHOTO: NASA, ESA, A. SIMON, M.H. WONG, OPAL TEAM
The new research represents “a completely new scenario that may solve the age of the rings for good,” said Dr. Maryame El Moutamid, a Cornell University astronomer who wrote an editorial accompanying the study but wasn’t involved in it.
In addition to explaining how and when the rings might have formed, the missing-moon scenario offers an explanation for Saturn’s puzzling tilt. Like Earth but unlike Jupiter—the planet in our solar system it most resembles—Saturn rotates at a significant angle with respect to the plane in which it orbits the sun.
“It ties together two puzzles that had previously been treated as separate,” Dr. Francis Nimmo, a professor of planetary science at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a co-author of the study, said of the scenario. “It turns out that you can explain both in a single story.”
For many years, scientists believed Saturn’s rings formed more than 4 billion years ago, when the young planet’s strong gravitational field captured passing comets and asteroids and slowly flattened them into rings. But observations by three National Aeronautics and Space Administration missions—Voyager 1 and 2 in the 1980s and Cassini between 2004 and 2017—called that idea into question. The observations revealed that the rings’ mass and composition were much younger than previously believed.” Read more at Wall Street Journal
Mars
“NASA's Perseverance rover has collected some of the most important samples yet on its mission to determine if life ever existed on Mars, scientists said. A few of the recently collected samples include organic matter, indicating a crater likely once held a lake that was potentially habitable 3.5 billion years ago. The rover's mission, which began on the red planet 18 months ago, includes looking for signs of ancient microbial life and collecting rock samples that could have preserved telltale signs of a formerly water-filled environment. The rover contains 12 rock samples and will eventually take more collections back to Earth in the 2030s. NASA's Perseverance and Curiosity rovers have found organic matter before on Mars. But this time, the detection occurred in an area where life may have once existed.” Read more at CNN
“The world's second-biggest cryptocurrency network, Ethereum, completed its pivot to a new system that will use vastly less electricity, writes Brady Dale, co-author of Axios Crypto.
Why it matters: One of the big knocks on cryptocurrency is the huge amount of energy the networks consume. But with this change — known as The Merge — trading in one of the leading currencies will be no more energy-intensive than playing a video game.
How it works: Cryptocurrency networks use ‘consensus mechanisms’ to ensure that transactions are valid. Those tools keep track of who owns what.
The original consensus mechanism, ‘proof-of-work,’ is the reason crypto uses so much energy.
Ethereum is switching to a new strategy, ‘proof-of-stake.’ It'll be an expensive shift, but Ethereum's energy use might only be about 1% of what it was before.
Reality check: Bitcoin always has been — and will continue to be — the industry's biggest energy user, by far.
Our thought bubble: Years in the making, The Merge is easily 2022's biggest cryptocurrency moment, after the bull market's end in May.” Read more at Axios
Roger Federer to Retire From Tennis: ‘He Made the Game Look So Easy’
Federer, who won 20 Grand Slam singles titles, said injuries and surgeries had taken their toll on his body. His final competitive matches will be next week in London.
Sept. 15, 2022
“Roger Federer, the racket-throwing Swiss teenager who matured into one of the world’s most polished athletes and was part of a generation that dominated tennis for two decades, announced Thursday that he would retire from competition.
“I am 41 years old; I have played more than 1,500 matches over 24 years,” Federer said in an audio clip posted on social media. “Tennis has treated me more generously than I ever would have dreamed, and now I must recognize when it is time to end my competitive career.”
Federer leaves the game with one of the greatest competitive records in its history: 103 tour singles titles, 20 Grand Slam singles titles, 310 weeks ranked No. 1 and a record six victories in season-ending tour finals. And, perhaps most remarkably given his long run, he never was forced to stop playing a match he had started because of an injury.
His decision follows a similar move by Serena Williams, giving the tennis world the most definitive confirmation yet of its generational shift toward younger stars such as Carlos Alcaraz, who won the U.S. Open on Sunday.” Read more at New York Times
Amazon's historic NFL play
Illustration: Shoshana Gordon/Axios
“Amazon's ‘Thursday Night Football’ debut tonight is a landmark event for the sports world, and a seminal moment for the media industry, Axios' Kendall Baker and Sara Fischer report.
Why it matters: L.A. Chargers at Kansas City Chiefs (8:15 p.m. ET on Prime Video) will be the NFL's first regular-season game available exclusively via streaming.
Amazon's multibillion-dollar bet on football will be a litmus test for how quickly the NFL, and other sports leagues, continue moving major rights packages from traditional TV to streaming.
The NFL is still evaluating whether to grant its lucrative Sunday Ticket package to a streaming company later this year.
All Major League Soccer games will be streamed exclusivelyvia the Apple TV app starting in 2023.
What we're watching: The game itself won't look all that different, but there will be a lot of new features:
New booth: An offseason talent frenzy saw Amazon land Al Michaels from NBC for play-by-play, and Kirk Herbstreit from ESPN as the main analyst.
New jingle: Amazon composed unique theme music that fits well alongside the four established themes from CBS, Fox, NBC and ESPN.
New tech: Uniforms will include chips to track NextGen stats, which viewers can follow in real-time using Amazon’s ‘X-Ray’ feature.
Amazon partnered with DirecTV to air games in over 300,000 sports bars, restaurants, hotels and other venues, to help patrons without high-speed broadband access the game.
What's next: Live sports are one of the last attractions holding the cable bundle together. But that marriage has an expiration date.
Eventually, all premium content will be streamed. Tonight is a glimpse of the future.” Read more at Axios
“Lives Lived: Fred Franzia, better known as Two-Buck Chuck, took on the wine industry’s high markups, selling wine at prices many families could afford every day. He died at 79.” Read more at New York Times
Cardi B: Rapper pleads guilty to strip club assault charges
Image caption, The rapper accepted a plea deal a day before her case was due to come to trial
“Cardi B has admitted two offences arising from a brawl in a strip club, as part of a deal that means she will avoid a trial and possible jail time.
The Grammy-winning rapper, born Belcalis Almanzar, pleaded guilty to third-degree assault and second-degree reckless endangerment, and was sentenced to 15 days community service.
Ten other charges were dismissed.
"I've made some bad decisions in my past that I am not afraid to face and own up to," she said in a statement.
In court, the 29-year-old admitted organising and participating in two attacks on employees of the Angels nightclub in New York in 2018.
According to authorities, the incidents grew out of a feud between Almanzar and two sisters - one of whom she believed was having an affair with her husband, the rapper Offset.” Read more at BBC