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Dec. 10, 2024 10:12AM EST
Jun. 14, 2021 12:38AM EST
Pelosi demands Barr and Sessions testify on data subpoenas she says go "beyond Richard Nixon"
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told CNN Sunday that former Attorneys General William Barr and Jeff Sessions should testify before Congress on reports that the Trump-era Department of Justice seized Democrats' and journalists' data records.
Driving the news: DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz announced Friday an internal investigation into the matter, and Pelosi expressed disbelief to CNN's Dana Brash at assertions that neither Barr nor Sessions knew of probes into lawmakers.
"To say that they didn't know anything about it is beyond belief. We will have to have them come under oath to testify about that."
Pelosi
What she's saying: "How could it be that there could be an investigation of members in the other branch of government and the press and the rest too and the attorneys general did not know?" Pelosi said to Brash on CNN's "State of the Union." "So who are these people and are they still in the Justice Department?"
- She told Brash that reports that the former administration — "the Justice Department, the leadership of the former president" — subpoenaed tech companies to access Congress members' data "goes even beyond Richard Nixon."
- "Richard Nixon had an enemies list," she noted about the former president, who resigned following the Watergate break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in the 1970s. "This is about undermining the rule of law."
The other side: Barr told Politico Friday that he was "not aware of any congressman's records being sought in a leak case" and that former President Trump "was not aware of who we were looking at in any of the cases," nor did he discuss such matters with him.
- Rod Rosenstein, who served as deputy attorney general in the Trump administration, has said he wasn't aware of any subpoenas against Apple for data belonging to House Democrats when Sessions was attorney general, per CNN.
- Representatives for Barr, Sessions and Trump could not immediately be reached.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi: "The Justice Department has been rogue under President Trump ... This is just another manifestation of their rogue activity." https://t.co/UUezBIMe9q #CNNSOTU pic.twitter.com/J8yxHCgrhd
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) June 13, 2021
Go deeper: Trump-era Justice Department emerges as scandal of the summer
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May. 27, 2021 11:14PM EST
Colombia's protests rumble on into their second month
Colombia has been wracked by protests for a month, with critical supplies cut off due to roadblocks, another nationwide strike expected on Friday and accusations of police brutality growing louder.
Why it matters: "Things are worsening every single day," says Marta Lucía Ramírez, Colombia's vice president and foreign minister. She says the roadblocks are preventing food and critical medical supplies like oxygen from being transported between Cali — the epicenter of the protests — and the capital, Bogotá.
Speaking to a small group of reporters Thursday at the Colombian ambassador's residence in Washington, Ramírez said the roadblocks and the destruction of public transport systems were "destroying the conditions for normal life."
- She described Colombia's crisis as a worrying test for the country's democracy, in part because of the intense political polarization on display.
The big picture: The protests began on April 28 over tax reforms proposed by conservative President Iván Duque. The reforms were withdrawn, but the protests grew into a major social movement focused on poverty and inequality that has drawn tens of thousands into the streets.
- The protests have attracted international attention mainly due to allegations of police brutality and the rising death toll, which the government puts at 17 but human rights groups say is at least 50. Four police officers have been charged with homicide.
- At least 55 Congressional Democrats have called for the Biden administration to cut off assistance to the Colombian National Police over the alleged abuses.
- Ramírez met on Thursday with members of Congress as well as USAID director Samantha Power and Juan Gonzalez, the National Security Council senior director for the Western Hemisphere. She'll meet with Secretary of State Tony Blinken on Friday.
- She asked the Biden administration for donations or loans of coronavirus vaccines and other help in fighting the pandemic, which she says is driving the social unrest.
What she's saying: "We agree that there are so many reasons to be concerned about the future, to have some fears for the future. So many people have lost their jobs [and] loved ones," she said. Poverty has spiked to such an extent that "in a year we lost so many years of efforts."
- At least some of the frustrations pre-date the pandemic, as the unpopular Duque also faced large protests in 2019.
- As for the anger around police brutality, Ramírez said it resembled the aftermath of George Floyd's killing in the U.S.
What's next: Ramírez said the strike leaders were making demands like a basic income for 30 million Colombians that would be "impossible" to deliver due to budget constraints and that they're "not in a hurry" to make a deal despite entering into negotiations with the government.
- Thus, she fears the crisis could drag on for some time.
Worth noting: As the meeting ended, Ramírez mentioned that one reason for the divisions in Colombian society was that men were in charge — a possible signal of her own ambitions ahead of the presidential elections next year.
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Sep. 09, 2020 04:39PM EST
Woodward book: Former intel chief Dan Coats believed "Putin had something on Trump"
Former director of national intelligence Dan Coats could not shake his "deep suspicions" that Russian President Vladimir Putin "had something" on President Trump, seeing "no other explanation" for the president's behavior, according to Bob Woodward's new book "Rage," which was obtained ahead of its publication next week by CNN.
Why it matters: Coats was the president's top intelligence official from March 2017 until Aug. 2019. Woodward reports that Coats and his staff examined the intelligence regarding Trump's ties to Russia "as carefully as possible," and that he "still questions the relationship" between Trump and Putin despite the apparent absence of intelligence proof.
Between the lines: The New York Times' Michael Schmidt reported in his new book that former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein secretly curtailed an FBI counterintelligence probe into Trump's ties to Russia, meaning the full scope of decades of the president's personal and financial dealings there has never been explored.
The big picture: The explosive Woodward book, which is based in part on 18 interviews that Trump sat for with the veteran journalist, details the "tortured" tenure of Coats and other officials described by the Washington Post as "so-called adults of the Trump orbit" — including former Defense Secretary James Mattis and former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
- At one point, Mattis went to Washington National Cathedral to pray for the country's fate under Trump's leadership, according to the Post's report on Woodward's book. He reportedly told Coats, "There may come a time when we have to take collective action" to speak out against Trump because he is "dangerous. He’s unfit."
- In a later conversation reported by Woodward, Mattis told Coats, "The president has no moral compass." Coats reportedly responded, “True. To him, a lie is not a lie. It’s just what he thinks. He doesn’t know the difference between the truth and a lie."
The other side: "The Bob Woodward book will be a FAKE, as always, just as many of the others have been," Trump tweeted on Aug. 14, before the book had come out.
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