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Trump attorneys once more push for particular grasp in FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago

Trump lawyers again push for special master in FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago

Attorneys for former President Donald Trump on Wednesday again urged a federal judge to appoint an independent “special master” to review documents seized by the FBI at Trump’s Florida home.

The tightly focused filing in US District Court in West Palm Beach came a day after the Justice Department argued that appointing a special master could harm the government’s national security interests.

The Justice Department filing also said that “efforts were likely made to obstruct the government’s investigation” regarding the records that were sent out after the end of his presidency at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence.

And the DOJ announced that the FBI had seized more than 100 classified documents from the Palm Beach resort during its search of the property earlier this month. The agency also shared a redacted FBI photo of documents with classification marks recovered from a container at Trump’s “45 Office.”

Trump’s legal team, in its Wednesday night response, accused the DOJ of “converting the scope of responding to a request for a special master into an all-encompassing challenge to any judicial review, present or future, of any aspect of his unprecedented conduct in this investigation.”

The government’s “extraordinary document” suggests “that the DOJ, and only the DOJ, should be charged with the responsibility of evaluating its unwarranted pursuit of criminalizing the possession of a former president’s personal and presidential records in a secure environment,” Trump’s attorneys wrote .

They also accused the DOJ of making several “misleading or incomplete statements.”[s] the alleged ‘fact'”, but offered few details.

Judge Aileen Cannon, appointed by Trump, has scheduled a hearing at a West Palm Beach courthouse for Thursday at 1 p.m. ET.

Trump had sued to prevent the Justice Department from further examining materials stolen in the Mar-a-Lago raid until a special foreman is able to analyze them. This step is typically taken when there is a possibility that evidence should be withheld from prosecutors due to various legal privileges.

The DOJ told the judge Monday that its review of the seized materials was complete and that a law enforcement team had identified a “limited number” of materials that may be protected by attorney-client privilege. This privilege often relates to jurisprudence that protects the confidentiality of communications between an attorney and his client.

Trump’s lawyers responded Wednesday that the so-called Privilege Review Team was “utterly inadequate” in identifying all potentially privileged documents and separating them from the rest of the seized materials.

Trump and his office have publicly claimed that he declassified all documents seized by the FBI. But Trump’s legal team did not make that explicit argument in the civil suit before Cannon.

The DOJ said in Tuesday’s late night filing that when 15 boxes from Mar-a-Lago were picked up by the National Archives in January, Trump “never asserted executive privilege over any of the documents and claimed that any of the documents in the boxes contain classification marks have been released.”

The administration also said no claims of declassification were made when FBI agents went to Mar-a-Lago on June 3, pursuant to a grand jury subpoena, to collect additional records in Trump’s possession that bore classification markings.

The DOJ said it received that subpoena in May after the FBI developed evidence that dozens of boxes of classified information — aside from the 15 boxes found in January — were still at Trump’s home.

“Upon submitting the documents, neither the attorney nor the administrator alleged that the former president had released the documents or made any claims for executive privileges. Instead, the attorney treated them in a manner that suggested the attorney believed the documents were classified: The submission included a single Redweld envelope, double-wrapped with tape, containing the documents,” the DOJ wrote.

At the same time, Trump’s records clerk had also produced an affidavit alleging that “any and all” documents were turned over in response to a grand jury subpoena, the DOJ wrote.

But the FBI “later discovered multiple sources of evidence,” indicating other classified documents remained at Mar-a-Lago, according to the DOJ’s filing.

“The government has also developed evidence that government records were likely hidden and removed from storage and that efforts were likely made to obstruct the government investigation,” the DOJ wrote.

This and other information prompted the government to request a search warrant for Mar-a-Lago, which was finally carried out on August 8.

In their Wednesday response, Trump’s attorneys wrote that the DOJ’s report of the June 3 meeting was “materially mischaracterized.”

“If the government made the same untrue statement in the affidavit in support of the search warrant, then they misled the magistrate judge,” the former president’s attorneys wrote.

Trump also accused the DOJ of being “very fraudulent” in a social media post earlier Wednesday night, sharing a photo that appears to show numerous classified papers strewn on a carpeted floor.

Trump clarified that the FBI “took them out of boxes and scattered them on the carpet so it looked like a big ‘find’ to them.”

“They dropped them, not me – very deceptive… And remember, we were unable to have ANY representative, including lawyers, present during the raid. They were told to wait outside,” Trump wrote.

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FBI to help investigation, no U.S. troop plans

FBI to assist investigation, no U.S. troop plans

The crowd reacts near the Petionville Police station where armed men, accused of being involved in the assassination of President Jovenel Moise, are being detained in Port au Prince on July 8, 2021.

Valerie Baeriswl | AFP | Getty Images

The U.S. is sending senior FBI and DHS officials to Port-au-Prince as soon as possible to assist with the investigation into the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moise, the White House said Friday, in response to the Haitian government’s formal request for assistance.

“The United States remains engaged and in close consultations with our Haitian and international partners to support the Haitian people in the aftermath of the assassination of the president,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said at a press briefing.

However, the U.S. has no plans to send military assistance at this time, White House officials told NBC News on Friday afternoon, amid reports that Haitian officials had requested troops to secure critical infrastructure.

An FBI spokesperson said the agency is working with the U.S. Embassy in Haiti and law enforcement partners to determine how to assist with the investigation.

Haiti’s ambassador to the U.S., Bocchit Edmond, said on Friday that the Haitian government’s request outlined the “critical role” the FBI and the Justice Department can play in the investigation into the assassination. 

Edmond added that the Haitian government also requested the U.S. impose sanctions on perpetrators involved in the attack under the Global Magnitsky Act, which authorizes the U.S. president to deny entry to and impose economic sanctions against any foreign individual responsible for extrajudicial killings or human rights abuses.

“We look forward to engaging with our US partners as we seek truth and justice,” Edmond said in a series of posts on Twitter.

Colombia has also announced that it will be assisting with the probe, Reuters reported Friday. Colombian President Ivan Duque said the head of Colombia’s national intelligence directorate and the intelligence director for the national police will be sent to Haiti with Interpol.

The U.S. State Department confirmed on Friday that two Americans have been arrested by Haitian authorities following the president’s assassination.

“We are aware of the arrest of two U.S. citizens in Haiti and are monitoring the situation closely,” a State Department spokesperson told CNBC. “We remain committed to cooperating with Haitian authorities on the investigation.”

The State Department declined to comment any further, citing privacy considerations, and pointed to Haitian authorities for further information.

Haitian police on Friday identified the American suspects, who are of Haitian descent, as James Solages and Joseph Vincent. Solages, 35, is the youngest of the suspects, and Vincent, 55, is the oldest, according to a document shared by Mathias Pierre, Haiti’s minister of elections.

They are among at least 20 suspects that Haitian police have detained so far in the shocking assassination, alongside 18 Colombians.

The search continues for at least five additional suspects, and four others were killed by police in an exchange of gunfire, according to Haitian police. Haiti Chief of Police Leon Charles on Thursday urged the Haitian public to help authorities locate the other suspects but not to “take justice into their own hands.”

U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday condemned the assassination and said he was “shocked and saddened to hear” about it.

“The United States offers condolences to the people of Haiti, and we stand ready to assist as we continue to work for a safe and secure Haiti,” Biden said in a statement. 

Citizens take part in a protest near the police station of Petion Ville after Haitian president Jovenel Moïse was murdered on July 08, 2021 in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

Getty Images

A group of gunmen assassinated Moise and wounded his wife in their private residence Wednesday, plunging the Caribbean nation into an even deeper political crisis that has been fueled by gang violence and protests against the late president’s increasingly authoritarian rule. 

Claude Joseph, Haiti’s interim prime minister, said the police and military were now in control of security in Haiti. Authorities declared a siege in the country following the killing and closed the international airport. 

Edmond has called for an international investigation into the assassination and has asked the U.S. for assistance in bolstering Haitian security. 

The State Department on Thursday vehemently denied that the Drug Enforcement Administration was involved in the assassination after the attackers reportedly identified themselves as DEA agents. 

Edmond has said the attackers were posing as DEA agents, describing them as “well-trained professional killers, commandos” based on a video shot from a neighbor’s house during the attack. He also noted that some spoke Spanish. Haitians speak French and Creole. 

Protests against the late Haitian president turned violent in recent months as opposition leaders and their supporters demanded his resignation.

Moise had been accused of seeking to increase his power even after his term expired in February. Opposition leaders pointed to his approval of decrees limiting powers of a court that audits the government and his creation of an intelligence agency that answers only to him.

Opposition leaders and their supporters also rejected Moise’s plans to hold a constitutional referendum with controversial proposals that would strengthen the presidency’s power.

— The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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F.B.I. Is Pursuing ‘A whole bunch’ in Capitol Riot Inquiry, Wray Tells Congress

F.B.I. Is Pursuing ‘Hundreds’ in Capitol Riot Inquiry, Wray Tells Congress

WASHINGTON — The F.B.I. is pursuing potentially hundreds more suspects in the Capitol riot, the agency’s director told Congress on Tuesday, calling the effort to find those responsible for the deadly assault “one of the most far-reaching and extensive” investigations in the bureau’s history.

“We’ve already arrested close to 500, and we have hundreds of investigations that are still ongoing beyond those 500,” Christopher A. Wray, the F.B.I. director, told the House Oversight Committee.

His assurances of how seriously the agency was taking the attack by a pro-Trump mob came as lawmakers pressed him and military commanders on why they did not do more to prevent the siege despite threats from extremists to commit violence.

“The threats, I would say, were everywhere,” said Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, a New York Democrat who is the chairwoman of the Oversight Committee. “The system was blinking red.”

Ms. Maloney confronted Mr. Wray with messages from the social media site Parler, which she said referred threats of violence to the F.B.I. more than 50 times before the attack on Jan. 6. One message, which Ms. Maloney said Parler had sent to an F.B.I. liaison on Jan. 2, was from a poster who warned, “Don’t be surprised if we take the Capitol building,” and “Trump needs us to cause chaos to enact the Insurrection Act.”

“I do not recall hearing about this particular email,” Mr. Wray replied. “I’m not aware of Parler ever trying to contact my office.”

In hearings before two congressional committees on Tuesday, lawmakers sought new information about the security failures that helped lead to the violence.

At one hearing, Ms. Maloney presented her committee’s research into the delayed response of the National Guard, which showed that the Capitol Police and Washington officials made 12 “urgent requests” for their support and that Army leaders told the National Guard to “stand by” five times as the violence escalated.

“That response took far too long,” Ms. Maloney said. “This is a shocking failure.”

Documents obtained by the committee showed that, beginning at 1:30 p.m. on Jan. 6, top officials at the Defense Department received pleas for help from the Capitol Police chief, Mayor Muriel Bowser of Washington and other officials. But the National Guard did not arrive until 5:20 p.m., more than four hours after the Capitol perimeter had been breached.

“The National Guard was literally waiting, all ready to go, and they didn’t receive the green light for a critical time period, hours on end,” said Representative Ro Khanna, Democrat of California and a member of the committee.

Lawmakers had tough questions for Gen. Charles Flynn, who commands the U.S. Army Pacific, and Lt. Gen. Walter E. Piatt, the director of the Army staff, both of whom were involved in a key phone call with police leaders during the riot in which Army officials worried aloud about the “optics” of sending in the Guard, according to those involved. It was the first time lawmakers had heard from either general.

In their testimony, they described the frantic call in which the chiefs of the Capitol Police and the Metropolitan Police became agitated as they tried unsuccessfully to get military support while rioters attacked their officers at the Capitol.

“Both speakers on the phone sounded highly agitated and even panicked,” General Flynn recalled.

By contrast, he said, General Piatt was a “calm” and “combat-experienced leader.”

General Piatt has defended his caution in initially advising against sending in the National Guard, telling the committee that he was “definitely concerned” in the days before Jan. 6 “about the public perception of using soldiers to secure the election process in any manner that could be viewed as political.”

He told the committee that National Guard forces were “not trained, prepared or equipped to conduct this type of law enforcement operation.”

“When people’s lives are on the line, two minutes is too long,” General Piatt said. “But we were not positioned for that urgent request. We had to re-prepare so we would send them in prepared for this new mission.”

General Flynn is the brother of Michael T. Flynn, President Donald J. Trump’s disgraced former national security adviser who has emerged as one of the former president’s biggest promoters of the lie of a stolen election.

In submitted testimony, General Flynn said he had not participated in the call but merely overheard portions of it when he entered the room while it was in progress. He said that he had not heard any discussion of political considerations with regard to sending in the Guard.

“I did not use the word ‘optics,’ nor did I hear the word used during the call on Jan. 6, 2021,” he said.

The panel did not hear testimony from the acting chief of the Capitol Police, Yogananda D. Pittman, who declined to attend, citing her need to hear testimony at the other hearing, before the House Administration Committee. Republicans were quick to criticize her decision and repeatedly referred to her absence during the session, which stretched into the evening.

Ms. Maloney said she was also “disappointed,” but she added that Chief Pittman had committed to testifying on July 21.

In a simultaneous session on Tuesday afternoon, the House Administration Committee heard testimony from Michael A. Bolton, the Capitol Police inspector general, and Gretta L. Goodwin, the director of homeland security and justice for the Government Accountability Office.

Mr. Bolton testified about his fourth investigative report into the failures of Jan. 6, which found that the department’s tactical unit did not have access to “adequate training facilities” or adequate policies in place for securing ballistic helmets and vests (two dozen were stolen during the riot); the agency’s first responder unit was also not equipped with adequate less-lethal weapons, among other findings.

Mr. Bolton’s reports found that the Capitol Police had clearer warnings about the riot than were previously known, including the potential for violence in which “Congress itself is the target.” He also revealed that officers were instructed by their leaders not to use their most aggressive tactics to hold off the mob, in part because they feared that they lacked the training to handle the equipment needed to do so.

About 140 officers were injured during the attack, and seven people died in connection with the siege, including one officer who had multiple strokes after sparring with rioters.

“It is our duty to honor those officers who have given their lives but also ensuring the safety of all those working and visiting the Capitol complex by making hard changes within the department,” Mr. Bolton said.

Ms. Goodwin said that some of the command-and-control issues had been flagged by her agency in 2017. But the Capitol Police Board, which oversees the operations of the force, had not acted on the Government Accountability Office’s recommendations or responded to its requests for progress reports.

“As of today, the board has not provided us with any substantive information consistent with the practices noted above,” she said.

At previous hearings on the attack, some House Republicans used the opportunity to try to rewrite the history of what happened on Jan. 6, downplaying or outright denying the violence and deflecting efforts to investigate it.

On Tuesday, some Republicans on the Oversight Committee tried to redirect the inquiry into other topics, calling for investigations of Black Lives Matter protesters or the Biden family.

“I would love to ask about the Durham report, Hunter Biden’s laptop, Hunter’s business dealings in China and a host of other things,” said Representative Jody B. Hice, Republican of Georgia.

The hearings came as Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, highlighted on the Senate floor an assessment from the F.B.I. and the Department of Homeland Security that concluded that adherents to the pro-Trump conspiracy theory QAnon were likely to try to carry out violence, “including harming perceived members of the ‘cabal’ such as Democrats and other political opposition.”

Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said on Tuesday that she was considering moving forward with a select committee to further investigate the Capitol riot.

Ms. Pelosi said her preference was for the Senate to approve a bipartisan commission, but that no longer seemed possible after Senate Republicans blocked it.

“We can’t wait any longer,” she said.

Emily Cochrane and Glenn Thrush contributed reporting.

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F.B.I. Identifies Group Behind Pipeline Hack

F.B.I. Identifies Group Behind Pipeline Hack

According to intelligence officials, all signs indicate that it was merely an act of extortion by the group that first began delivering such ransomware in August last year and that is believed to be operating from Eastern Europe, possibly Russia. Even in the group’s own testimony on Monday, there was evidence that the group had only intended to extort money from the company and was surprised that the main gasoline and jet fuel supplies for the east coast were cut.

The attack exposed the remarkable vulnerability of a major energy channel in the US as hackers become bolder in taking over critical infrastructure such as power grids, pipelines, hospitals and water treatment plants. The Atlanta and New Orleans city governments and, in recent weeks, the Washington, DC Police Department, have also been hit.

The explosion in ransomware cases has been fueled by the rise in cyber insurance – which has made many companies and governments mature targets for criminal gangs who believe their targets will pay off – and cryptocurrencies, which make it difficult to track extortion payments.

In this case, the ransomware was not targeting the pipeline’s control systems, but rather the company’s back-office operations, said federal officials and private investigators. However, fear of greater damage forced the company to shut down the system. This created the huge security gaps in the patched network that keeps gas stations, truck stops, and airports going.

A preliminary investigation found poor security practices at Colonial Pipeline, according to federal and private officials familiar with the investigation. The mistakes most likely made it fairly easy to break into and block the company’s systems.

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F.B.I. Experiences Agent-Concerned Capturing at C.I.A. Headquarters

F.B.I. Reports Agent-Involved Shooting at C.I.A. Headquarters

A gunman was wounded in a shootout early Monday night involving an FBI agent at CIA headquarters outside Washington, the FBI said in a statement.

According to the FBI, the man got out of his vehicle, was “hired by police officers” and wounded around 6:00 pm. The man was taken to hospital following the episode previously reported on by NBC News. The hospital was not named.

“The FBI takes seriously any shooting incident involving our agents or task force members,” Samantha Shero, a public affairs officer with the FBI’s Washington Field Office, said in an email. “The review process is thorough and objective and is carried out as quickly as possible under the circumstances.”

A CIA spokesman said the agency’s headquarters remained secure and referred questions to the FBI, which released limited details. It wasn’t immediately clear whether agents or officers were injured.

The agency’s secure campus in Langley, Virginia has served the agency since 1961. The complex is closed to the general public and only accessible to those with security clearances or by special arrangement. The CIA website offers virtual tours of 32 locations in the complex, from the outdoor cryptos sculpture with an encoded message to a bust of former President George HW Bush, who served as CIA director from January 1976 to January 1977. The complex was named after him in 1999.

Only last month a lone driver rammed officers in the Capitol when heavy security measures were put in place after the January 6 riot subsided on the premises. One officer died and another was injured.

Monday’s episode at CIA headquarters mirrored a 1993 campus shootout when a Pakistani man killed two CIA employees who had stopped in traffic outside the agency’s headquarters. The man, Mir Aimal Kasi, who also wounded three others, later said he was angry about the CIA’s activities in Pakistan and other Islamic nations. He was executed by lethal injection in 2002 after years of evading law enforcement in Pakistan. Virginia has since abolished the death penalty.

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FBI opens civil rights probe into police taking pictures

FBI opens civil rights probe into police shooting

Protesters march the evening after family members were shown body camera footage of an assistant sheriff who shot and killed black suspect Andrew Brown Jr. on April 26, 2021 in Elizabeth City, North Carolina.

Jonathan Drake | Reuters

The Federal Bureau of Investigation confirmed Tuesday that it will investigate the murder of Andrew Brown Jr., a black man who died after police shot him while being arrested in North Carolina last week.

The announcement comes a day after Brown’s family lawyers, who were shown a 20-second video of his arrest, said the 42-year-old was shot in the back of the head while his hands were on the wheel.

According to an autopsy performed at his family’s request, Brown was shot a total of five times, including four times in the right arm.

Brown was killed by Elizabeth City Sheriff’s MPs while trying to serve drug-related search and arrest warrants. Seven of the MPs involved in the arrest have been given paid leave, the Pasquotank County Sheriff’s Office said.

“The FBI Charlotte Field Office has opened a federal civil rights investigation into the police death of Andrew Brown Jr.,” an FBI spokesman said. “The agents will work closely with the US Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina and the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division to determine if federal law has been violated.”

The spokesman declined to comment further, saying the investigation was still ongoing.

Brown was killed Wednesday, the day after a jury found former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin guilty of murdering George Floyd.

Floyd’s death in custody reinvigorated the movement against police brutality against blacks. The Justice Department is conducting a civil rights investigation into Floyd’s murder, in addition to a sample or exercise investigation of the Minneapolis Police Department.

Attorney General Merrick Garland announced on Wednesday an investigation into the pattern or practice. On Monday, Garland said the DOJ would conduct a similar investigation by the Louisville Metro Police Department in Kentucky, which was criticized for the death of Breonna Taylor. Taylor was killed in her apartment last year after police entered with an arrest warrant and fired 32 bullets.

Attorneys for Brown’s family have condemned his murder and called for more footage to be released. Authorities have stated that they have asked a judge to allow the video to be published.

Based on what they’ve seen, Brown’s family has said that the police seem lacking a justification for using lethal force.

“There was no time in the 20 seconds we saw him threaten officers in any way,” Chantel Cherry-Lassiter, a lawyer, told a press conference after watching the video, Associated Press reported.

Khalil Ferebee, Brown’s son, told reporters after watching the video that his father was “executed” while trying to save his own life.

Pasquotank County Sheriff Tommy Wooten has asked for patience while the investigation continues.

“This tragic incident was quick and over in less than 30 seconds, and body cameras are shaky and sometimes difficult to read,” Wooten said Monday, according to NBC News.

It’s not clear how long the FBI’s investigation into Brown’s death will continue. William Barr, the attorney general under former President Donald Trump, announced the civil rights investigation into Floyd’s assassination in May 2020. Garland said the investigation was still ongoing last week but did not provide any further updates.

The civil rights investigation into Brown and Floyd’s murders will investigate whether federal law was violated during these particular arrests. In contrast, sample or practice examinations examine whether police authorities routinely violate civil rights laws.

Under Trump, sample or exercise exams have been largely curtailed, although Garland has shown some willingness to revise them.

While the Congressional Research Service found that the Justice Department has opened three such investigations per year in the past, Garland opened two this month. The research service found that around a third of sample or practical studies lead to significant reforms.

In addition to the FBI investigation, the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation is also investigating Brown’s murder.

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Former Matt Gaetz aide says FBI contacted him after sex-trafficking probe information

Former Matt Gaetz aide says FBI contacted him after sex-trafficking probe news

Nathan Nelson, a former employee of U.S. Representative Matt Gaetz, speaks to the news media on April 5, 2021 in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida.

Colin Hackley | Reuters

A former Rep. Matt Gaetz employee said Monday that FBI agents contacted him last week shortly after it became known that the Florida Republican was involved in a federal investigation into the sex trafficking.

Nathan Nelson, Gaetz’s former director of military affairs, said two agents questioned him at his home after hearing from media officials that Nelson knew of Gaetz’s alleged involvement in illegal activities. The media tipsters told the FBI that Nelson resigned based on this knowledge, the ex-aide said.

“I’m here this morning to declare that nothing could be further from the truth,” Nelson said at a press conference in northwest Florida. “Neither I nor any other employee of Congressman Gaetz had knowledge of illegal activities.”

Nelson His departure from Gaetz’s office last fall had nothing to do with investigating the Justice Department’s allegations against the 38-year-old congressman. The investigation into whether Gaetz trafficked an underage girl began in the final months of former President Donald Trump’s tenure, the New York Times reported on Tuesday.

In response to CNBC’s report on Nelson’s statements, Gaetz slammed the FBI, claiming the agency had “literally false media rumors”.

“Sounds familiar?” Gaetz added. He and other Republicans have accused government agencies and officials of conservative bias in recent years. In 2019, Gaetz accused special adviser Robert Mueller, who led the investigation into Russian interference and possible collusion with Trump’s campaign in the 2016 elections, of attempting to “stop Trump”. That investigation, which did not find enough evidence to suggest a collusion between Trump and Russia, has since become a powerful symbol for Republicans feeling targeted by government institutions.

The FBI did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

In the meantime, Gaetz stated in a new comment that he was “absolutely not resigning” and “not being intimidated or blackmailed” by his political opponents.

Gaetz, an outspoken Trump loyalist, has previously denied having a sexual relationship with a 17-year-old girl and paying for her trips with him, and he remained defiant on Monday morning.

“Since it is my turn under the gun, I would like to address the allegations against me directly. First, I never paid for sex. And second, as a grown man, I did not sleep at the age of 17 -old,” wrote Gaetz in the Washington Examiner.

Last week, Gaetz said in a statement that he and his family are threatened in a multi-million dollar extortion program involving a former Justice Department official. Police officers told NBC News that the DOJ is pursuing a separate investigation into Gaetz’s allegations of blackmail.

The sex trafficking investigation with Gaetz emerged from another case involving his former associate, Joel Greenberg, a local Florida official who was charged on numerous charges last summer, including sex trafficking in a child.

Nelson said at the press conference that he was approached by federal agents the day after the Times first reported on alleged sex trafficking.

The former Gaetz aide said he knew nothing specific about the investigation and had never heard of Greenberg before last week’s reports. But the “unsubstantiated allegation” that led the FBI to approach him “continues to convince me” that the allegations against Gaetz “are also fabricated,” Nelson said.

Another Gaetz employee, communications director Luke Ball, resigned last week.

Nelson worked in Gaetz’s office for more than four years before leaving last October, according to his LinkedIn profile. He said Monday that his departure was planned.

Nelson told reporters he was still “loosely linked to Gaetz’s office as a military advisor” in an unpaid capacity, “but said he had not spoken to Gaetz in” several months “.

Gaetz’s office had arranged Nelson’s press conference.

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Home Terrorism Risk Is ‘Metastasizing’ in U.S., F.B.I. Director Says

Domestic Terrorism Threat Is ‘Metastasizing’ in U.S., F.B.I. Director Says

WASHINGTON – The FBI director warned Senators Tuesday that domestic terrorism “is metastasizing across the country” and reiterated the threat from racially motivated extremists while largely avoiding tough questions about the bureau’s actions prior to the Capitol sieges Has.

Director Christopher A. Wray, largely out of public view since the January 6 riot, condemned supporters of former President Donald J. Trump, who raided the Capitol, resulting in five deaths and numerous police injuries led.

“That attack, that siege was pure and simple criminal behavior, and we, the FBI, consider it domestic terrorism,” Wray said. “It has no place in our democracy.”

He also revealed that the FBI’s domestic terrorism investigations had risen to 2,000 since he became its director in 2017. The Capitol uprising was part of a wider threat that had grown significantly in recent years, Wray said.

He didn’t break the investigation down an ideological divide, but the New York Times reported that agents opened more than 400 domestic terrorism investigations over the past year when racial justice protests broke out, including about 40 cases against possible ones Supporters of the far left anti-fascist movement known as Antifa and another 40 in the Boogaloo, a right-wing extremist movement that wants to start a civil war. The FBI also investigated white supremacists suspected of threatening protesters.

Mr. Wray’s appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee was his first before Congress since the attack on the Capitol. It was free of the drama, according to similar statements last year, when Mr Trump – who named Mr Wray to his post – attacked him for detailing the threat posed by right-wing extremists and fomenting a false narrative that anti-fascists were the real danger. In contrast, the Biden government has made the fight against domestic terrorism a priority.

As a result of last year’s violence, the FBI and the Justice Department decided to increase the threat from anti-government and anti-authority extremists such as militias and anarchists. Still, the bureau officials said the threat is one level below that portrayed by racially motivated violent extremists such as neo-Nazis.

The FBI and Justice Department base these determinations on violent attacks like shootings or bombings and use the levels to decide where to concentrate resources.

Mr Wray pointed to another alarming trend: the number of white supremacists arrested in 2020 had nearly tripled since he headed the FBI three years earlier.

White supremacists have killed dozens of people in the United States since 2015, opened fires at a black church in South Carolina and synagogues in Pittsburgh and California, and targeted Hispanic shoppers at a Walmart in Texas.

The political implications of the threats at the hearing. While Republicans condemned the attack on the Capitol, some were quick to draw attention to riots in Portland, Oregon and other cities over the past year, emphasizing property destruction and attacks on the police. In an attack of violence, an avowed Antifa supporter shot and killed a pro-Trump protester in Portland in August.

Still, it was the first murder in more than 20 years that the office classifies as an “anarchist violent extremist”.

Mr Wray repeatedly responded to questions from Democratic senators that people connected to Antifa were not involved in the storming of the Capitol and that the rioters were true Trump supporters and did not falsely pretend to be them.

Illinois Senator Richard J. Durbin, the Democratic chairman of the committee, accused the Trump administration of downplaying the threat posed by white supremacists while fueling a narrative that left anarchists like those who identify with Antifa are at greater risk for the country represented.

Mr Durbin rattled off the litany of mass shootings, adding, “Let’s stop pretending that the threat from Antifa equals the threat from the white supremacists.”

The Capitol Police have largely assumed the blame for the January 6 attack. Its acting chief, Yogananda D. Pittman, has acknowledged to Congress that the authorities have not done enough to thwart the “terrorist attack.”

In fact, as of January 6, there were several indicators of the potential for violence. Federal law enforcement officials knew members of militias like the Oath Guards and far-right groups like the Proud Boys were planning to travel to Washington, some possibly with guns. Many supporters of QAnon, a dangerous conspiracy theory that has been identified as a potential threat to domestic terrorism, should also attend a protest rally where Mr Trump spoke prior to the attack.

In addition, the day before the FBI’s Norfolk, Virginia office released a report warning of possible violence and mentioned people sharing a map of tunnels in the Capitol complex. The information was not verified, however, and part of it citing a warning of an impending “war” appeared to have come from a single online thread.

The FBI forwarded the report to the Capitol Police, though its former boss, Steven A. Sund, said it never made it.

Mr Wray said FBI officers leaked the Norfolk information to other law enforcement agencies at least three times. He said that he only saw the report after the uprising, but that the handling of it was typical of such intelligence agencies.

South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham asked what Capitol Police leaders should have done after seeing the January 5 report.

“I really want to be careful not to be a chair quarterback,” said Mr. Wray. He later said he did not have a “good answer” as to why Mr Sund did not receive the report.

With the signs of violence or worse on Jan. 6, Connecticut Democrat Senator Richard Blumenthal pressed Mr. Wray on why the FBI “did not raise the alarm in a more visible and ringing way.”

Mr Wray said the office had been publishing intelligence reports related to domestic terrorism – some specifically related to the elections – publicly and to other law enforcement agencies such as the Capitol Police for months.

He said the office was reviewing his actions but agreed that the uprising was not an “acceptable outcome”.

“We want to hit a thousand,” said Mr. Wray.

It was clear, however, that on Jan. 6, federal law enforcement agencies underestimated the potential for violence among Trump supporters, many of whom posed as law enforcement supporters.

The focus on Antifa with Mr Trump and some of his cabinet officials and the relocation of law enforcement agencies this past spring and summer may have helped the FBI fail to peak the growing anger among Mr Trump’s supporters over false allegations of electoral fraud that were culminating When he stormed the Capitol, current and former law enforcement officials have said. Mr. Trump himself had promoted this conspiracy theory and influenced his followers with the unfounded notion that the election had been stolen.