(WASHINGTON) — Special counsel David Weiss intends to bring an indictment against President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden by the end of this month, according to court documents filed Wednesday.
Weiss’ office did not clarify what charges he might bring or where they might be filed.
The development comes a month after Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Weiss as special counsel in his investigation of the younger Biden, after a plea deal struck between Hunter Biden and federal prosecutors fell apart and the case appeared headed for trial.
As part of the plea deal, Hunter Biden had originally agreed to acknowledge his failure to pay taxes on income he received in 2017 and 2018. In exchange, prosecutors would have recommended probation, meaning he would likely have avoided prison time.
The younger Biden also would have agreed to a pretrial diversion on a separate gun charge, with the charge being dropped if he adhered to certain terms.
“Mr. Biden has been following and will continue to follow the conditions of that Agreement, which the U.S. Attorney’s Office agreed and signed and informed the Court on July 20, 2023 that the Probation Office had agreed to and had recommended be put into effect,” Hunter Biden’s lawyers wrote in their own court filing following the special counsel’s filing.
Attorneys for the president’s son have argued that the diversion agreement, part of the broader plea deal that has now fallen apart, took effect on July 26, when prosecutors signed the document.
But Weiss’ team has argued that in order for the document to be ratified, it would require the signature of a probation officer — which they say did not happen.
(WASHINGTON) — Former Trump adviser Peter Navarro “acted as if he was above the law,” prosecutors told jurors Wednesday during opening statements in Navarro’s trial on charges of defying a subpoena issued in February 2022 by the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
Navarro, who under Trump was the director of the White House Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy, is being tried on contempt of Congress charges after he was indicted by a grand jury in June.
In his opening remarks Wednesday, lead prosecutor John Crabb said that the subpoena Navarro received from the Jan. 6 committee was a legal requirement and not “an invitation” or “voluntary.”
“Our system does not work if people believe they are above the law,” Crabb said. “Congress legitimately asked for information.”
Crabb showed jurors an email that Navarro sent to a committee staffer citing executive privilege before he was supposed to appear for testimony. The staffer, according to the email presented to the jurors, explained to Navarro that the “number of things the committee wanted to talk to [Navarro] about had nothing to do with Navarro’s work as a trade adviser.”
“He had to show up to his deposition … to cite the privilege, he had to do it on a question-by-question basis,” Crabb said. “That was made clear to Mr. Navarro. He didn’t show up.”
Navarro’s attorney, Stanley Woodward, said in his opening remarks that he agreed with prosecutors that Navarro did not submit documents or show up for testimony — but, he said, the Jan. 6 committee failed to contact former President Donald Trump to find out if he had asserted executive privilege over Navarro’s testimony and document production.
“The evidence in this case will not show that Dr. Navarro was not willful in his failure to comply,” Woodward said.
In subsequent testimony, David Buckley, a former staff director for the Jan. 6 committee, testified about the subpoena that was issued to Navarro, including the type of documents that were requested and the deadlines that Navarro was asked to meet.
Buckley said the committee was seeking to question Navarro about efforts to delay Congress’ certification of the election, a plan Navarro dubbed the “Green Bay Sweep” in his book, “In Trump Time.”
Navarro faces one count over his refusal to appear for a deposition in front of the committee, and another count for refusing to produce documents. If convicted on both counts, he could face a maximum of two years in prison and fines up to $200,000.
(NEW YORK) — Tropical Storm Lee is close to hurricane strength and is forecast to quickly intensify to an “extremely dangerous major hurricane” by Saturday, according to the National Hurricane Center.
The tropical storm is currently 1,200 miles east of the Leeward Islands.
Lee is forecast to strengthen to a Category 4 hurricane with winds up to 150 mph by Saturday as it stays over open, record-warm water.
Lee is currently expected to move north of the Caribbean Islands over the weekend, sparing the islands any direct impacts other than rough surf and rip currents.
By next week, the spaghetti models show Lee turning north before reaching Turks and Caicos. Bermuda may be in Lee’s path.
Long-range models can change over the next week, but they currently show Lee moving parallel to the East Coast. If Lee stays on that course, the East Coast wouldn’t see direct impacts, but would be hit with large surf and rip currents by late next week.
(NEW YORK) — A federal judge in New York on Wednesday granted writer E. Jean Carroll’s motion for partial summary judgment in her 2019 defamation case against former President Donald Trump.
Carroll, a former Elle magazine columnist, sued Trump in 2019 over allegedly defamatory statements he made while he was president in which he said she was “not my type” while denying that he raped her in a Manhattan department store dressing room in the mid-1990s.
This past May, Carroll won a related second case accusing Trump of battery and defamation based on a 2022 statement Trump made in which he accused her of lying. Jury members found that Trump did not rape Carroll but sexually abused her, and awarded her a total of $5 million.
On Wednesday, a judge ruled that — based on the outcome in the second case — the next trial, scheduled to begin in January, will only deal with the amount of damages Carroll deserves since the earlier jury already affirmed that Trump did indeed defame her.
“First, it found by a preponderance of the evidence that Mr. Trump sexually abused Ms. Carroll,” Judge Lewis Kaplan wrote in Wednesday’s ruling. “Second it determined by clear and convincing evidence that Mr. Trump’s 2022 statement was false.”
“Accordingly, given that the substantive content of Mr. Trump’s 2022 statement, which the jury in Carroll II found to be defamatory, is identical to the substantive content of Mr. Trump’s 2019 statements, the jury’s finding in Carroll II is controlling in this case,” the judge wrote.
Trump is appealing the verdict in the earlier case. After New York magazine published Carroll’s rape accusation in 2019, Trump denied meeting her, accused her of trying to profit from the claim and said she was trying to carry out a political agenda.
“l say it with great respect: No. 1, she’s not my type. No. 2, it never happened. It never happened, OK?” Trump said on June 24, 2019.
Trump argued any damages awarded in the upcoming trial ought to be limited by the $5 million damage award in the earlier case. The judge rejected that argument, saying, “Mr. Trump’s contention thus mixes apples with oranges.”
(WASHINGTON) — In May of last year, shortly after the Justice Department issued a subpoena to former President Donald Trump for all classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate, Trump’s then-lead attorney on the matter, Evan Corcoran, warned the former president in person, at Mar-a-Lago, that not only did Trump have to fully comply with the subpoena, but that the FBI might search the estate if he didn’t, according to Corcoran’s audio notes following the conversation.
Only minutes later, during a pool-side chat away from Trump, Corcoran got his own warning from another Trump attorney: If you push Trump to comply with the subpoena, “he’s just going to go ballistic,” Corcoran recalled.
Corcoran’s recollections, captured in a series of voice memos he made on his phone the next day, help illuminate Trump’s alleged efforts to defy a federal grand jury subpoena, and appear to shed more light on his frame of mind when he allegedly launched what prosecutors say was a criminal conspiracy to hide classified documents from both the FBI and Corcoran, his own attorney.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges against him and has denied any wrongdoing.
The recordings, which have become a key piece of evidence in special counsel Jack Smith’s classified documents case against Trump, contain information that was later described in Smith’s publicly released indictment and in media reports — but many of the details in them have never been made public.
ABC News has reviewed copies of transcripts of the recordings, which appear to show the way Trump allegedly deceived his own attorney, and how classified documents, according to prosecutors, ended up at Mar-a-Lago in the first place.
Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung, responding to the development, told ABC News, “The attorney-client privilege is one of the oldest and most fundamental principles in our legal system, and its primary purpose is to promote the rule of law. Whether attorneys’ notes are detailed or not makes no difference — these notes reflect the legal opinions and thoughts of the lawyer, not the client.”
Cheung added that Trump “offered full cooperation with DOJ, and told the key DOJ official, in person, ‘Anything you need from us, just let us know.'”
A spokesperson for the special counsel’s office declined to comment to ABC News. Corcoran did not immediately return ABC News’ request for comment.
‘Complying with that subpoena’
When Corcoran joined Trump’s legal team in April last year, the FBI had already launched a criminal investigation into Trump’s handling of classified information. Nearly 200 classified documents had been found in 15 boxes that Trump reluctantly returned to the National Archives “after months of demands,” as the indictment stated.
But Justice Department officials believed Trump was holding onto even more classified documents in other boxes at Mar-a-Lago and refusing to return them — so on May 11, 2022, the Justice Department issued a federal grand jury subpoena demanding the return of any and all classified documents.
Corcoran and another Trump attorney, Jennifer Little, flew to Florida to meet with Trump.
“The next step was to speak with the former president about complying with that subpoena,” Corcoran recalled in a voice memo the next day.
But while sitting together in Trump’s office, in front of a Norman Rockwell-style painting depicting Ronald Reagan, Gerald Ford, Bill Clinton and Trump playing poker, Trump, according to Corcoran’s notes, wanted to discuss something else first: how he was being unfairly targeted.
As Corcoran later recalled in his recordings, Trump continuously wandered off to topics unrelated to the subpoena — Hillary Clinton, “the great things” he’s done for the country, and his big lead in the polls in the run-up to the 2024 Republican presidential primary race that Trump would officially join in November. But Corcoran and Little “kept returning to the boxes,” according to the transcripts.
Corcoran wanted Trump to understand “we were there to discuss responding to the subpoena,” Corcoran said in the memos.
The FBI ‘could arrive here’
As Corcoran described it in his recordings, he explained to Trump during that meeting what the former president was facing.
“We’ve got a grand jury subpoena and the alternative is if you don’t comply with the grand jury subpoena you could be held in contempt,” Corcoran recalled telling Trump.
Trump responded with a line included in the indictment against him, asking, “what happens if we just don’t respond at all or don’t play ball with them?”
The transcripts reviewed by ABC News reveal what Corcoran says he then told Trump.
“Well, there’s a prospect that they could go to a judge and get a search warrant, and that they could arrive here,” Corcoran recalled warning the former president as they sat at Mar-a-Lago.
Still, as depicted in Corcoran’s recordings and in the public indictment, Trump repeatedly suggested it might be better if they refused to cooperate.
The indictment says that although Corcoran — who ABC News believes to be “Attorney 1” in the indictment — and Little — believed to be “Attorney 2” — “told Trump that they needed to search for documents that would be responsive to the subpoena and provide a certification that there had been compliance with the subpoena,” Trump still insisted to them, “I don’t want anybody looking through my boxes,” and, “Wouldn’t it be better if we just told them we don’t have anything here?”
And in a private, pool-side conversation during a break at Mar-a-Lago that day, according to Corcoran’s recordings, Little relayed to him what she was told herself by two other Trump attorneys: that Trump would “go ballistic” over complying with the subpoena — “that there’s no way he’s going to agree to anything, and that he was going to deny that there were any more boxes at all,” Corcoran recalled on his recordings.
In the indictment, prosecutors allege Trump did something just like that.
The indictment describes how, before the May 23 meeting with Corcoran at Mar-a-Lago ended, Trump “confirmed” a plan for Corcoran to return to Mar-a-Lago two weeks later to search for any classified documents. And, according to the indictment, Corcoran “made it clear to Trump” that he would conduct that search in a basement storage room.
Corcoran’s recordings suggest he was told by others that the only location at Mar-a-Lago that contained classified documents was the basement storage room.
“I’ve got boxes in my basement that I really wouldn’t want you to go through,” Corcoran recalled Trump telling him.
And sources told ABC News that, when speaking to investigators, Corcoran explained that he checked with many people about where classified documents could be found, and everyone, including Trump, created the impression that any classified documents would be in the boxes in the storage room.
A ‘shocking break-in’
Over the next two weeks, before Corcoran returned to Mar-a-Lago to search for classified documents in the storage room, Trump’s two co-defendants in the documents case, Mar-a-Lago staffers Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira, allegedly removed dozens of boxes from the storage room — all “at Trump’s direction” and with the goal “that many boxes were not searched and many documents responsive to the May 11 Subpoena could not be found,” according to the indictment.
Corcoran ultimately found 38 classified documents in the boxes that remained in the storage room, and he handed them over to the FBI, along with a certification — allegedly endorsed by Trump — that the former president had now fully complied with the subpoena.
But when FBI agents searched Mar-a-Lago three months later, they found 102 more classified documents in Trump’s office and elsewhere.
Despite Corcoran warning him months earlier, according to the recordings, that the FBI might show up at Mar-a-Lago if he didn’t fully comply with the subpoena, Trump called the FBI move a “shocking BREAK-IN,” with “no way to justify” it, in posts on his social media platform.
According to the indictment, Trump “knowingly” deceived the FBI and his own attorney, providing “just some of the documents called for by the grand jury subpoena, while claiming that he was cooperating fully.”
‘Should be declassified’
The transcripts of Corcoran’s recordings also appear to offer new insight into how classified documents ended up in boxes at Mar-a-Lago in the first place, and whether Trump truly believed those documents had been declassified.
As Trump described it to Corcoran according to the transcripts, he had a nightly practice while still in the White House: He would bring newspaper articles, photos and notes to his bedroom so he could review them.
He would also bring classified documents, according to Corcoran.
“That’s the only time I could read something, and I had to read them so I could be ready for calls or meetings the next day,” Trump told Corcoran, according to Corcoran’s recordings.
However, in their meeting, Trump insisted to Corcoran that he made clear to those around him that “anything that comes into the residence should be declassified,” the transcript reads.
“I don’t know what was done,” Corcoran recalled Trump telling him. “I don’t know how they were marked. But that was my position.”
Those comments from Trump, as recalled by Corcoran, suggest Trump understood that — despite subsequent public claims to the contrary — classified documents were not declassified simply by bringing them to the residence.
As for how classified documents ended up in boxes, Trump “had a lot of boxes” in his bedroom, and when he was done reading a newspaper article or a classified document, he’d “throw them” into one of the boxes, according to Corcoran.
So when it came time for Trump to leave the White House in January 2021, many of those boxes from the bedroom ended up at Mar-a-Lago in the storage room.
Corcoran provided special counsel Smith’s team with his recordings after, as previously reported by ABC News, the now-former chief judge of the federal court in Washington ordered him to do so, finding that Smith’s office had made a “prima facie showing that the former president had committed criminal violations” by deliberately misleading his attorneys about his handling of classified materials, sources familiar with the matter said at the time.
As a result of that legal fight, Corcoran recused himself from continuing to represent Trump in the documents case. But when Trump was arraigned in Washington on federal charges accusing him of trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election, Corcoran attended the hearing and sat in the courtroom behind Trump.
(NEW YORK) — Alex Murdaugh’s attorneys are alleging a court clerk tampered with the jury during his double murder trial in new court documents.
The disgraced South Carolina attorney was found guilty of brutally murdering his wife and younger son, Margaret “Maggie” Murdaugh, 52, and Paul Murdaugh, 22, who were found dead from multiple gunshot wounds near the dog kennels at the family’s hunting estate in 2021.
The jury reached the verdict in March after deliberating for nearly three hours and a judge imposed two sentences of life in prison, to be served consecutively for the murders.
In a 65-page motion for a new trial filed on Tuesday, defense attorneys claim that Colleton County Clerk of Court Rebecca Hill “tampered with the jury by advising them not to believe Murdaugh’s testimony and other evidence presented by the defense, pressuring them to reach a quick guilty verdict, and even misrepresenting critical and material information to the trial judge in her campaign to remove a juror she believed to be favorable to the defense.”
ABC News did not immediately receive a response from Hill to messages seeking comment.
The attorneys, Dick Harpootlian and Jim Griffin, said they have spoken to three jurors and have sworn testimony by two of them alleging that Hill had improper discussions with jurors about matters concerning testimony.
The defense attorneys said they saw Hill having discussions with jurors during the trial but had no knowledge of what the discussions were. Griffin told reporters during a briefing on Tuesday that they were met with a “zone of silence” from all of the jurors when they tried to speak with them after their verdict last March.
That zone “collapsed,” Griffin said, after Hill released a book last month about her experiences during the trial, Behind the Doors of Justice: The Murdaugh Murders. At that point, several jurors began to express their concerns to the attorneys, he said.
The defense attorneys allege that Hill instructed jurors prior to Murdaugh taking the stand in his own defense to “not be fooled” by what he said or his body language.
Among the allegations, the motion also claims that jurors who smoked were allowed smoke breaks during the trial, but that during deliberations Hill allegedly told them they could not get a break until a verdict was reached. There were six smokers on the jury, according to the appeal.
Breaks during deliberations are not a clear area in law, ABC News contributor Channa Lloyd told ABC News.
“During deliberations typically jurors are supposed to stay together until a verdict is reached. This is to minimize the opportunities that a juror could be influenced or speak to outside persons,” Lloyd said, noting that breaks are at the court’s discretion. “Could she have utilized this to pressure the jurors potentially (absolutely), however it could have also could have been due to the high-profile nature of the trial.”
South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson has 10 days to respond to the filing, which could result in a hearing to determine how to proceed, Harpootlian said.
If the allegations are substantiated, that could be grounds for an appeal and a new trial, Lloyd told ABC News Live.
Harpootlian would not comment when asked whether he felt Hill should be criminally charged.
Harpootlian also sent a letter to the U.S. Attorney for the District of South Carolina Adair Ford Boroughs on Tuesday requesting his office to open a federal investigation into whether Murdaugh’s civil rights were violated.
During the six-week trial, prosecutors claimed that Murdaugh, who comes from a legacy of prominent attorneys in the region, killed his wife and son to gain sympathy and distract from his financial wrongdoings.
Murdaugh faces dozens of state and federal charges for allegations ranging from money laundering to staging his own death so his surviving son could cash in on his $10 million life insurance policy to misappropriating settlement funds in the death of his housekeeper.
(MIAMI) — Bird enthusiasts are flocking to see flamboyances of flamingos popping up all over the Eastern U.S. after they were blown in by Hurricane Idalia.
More than 150 of the pink wading birds have ended up in unlikely states like North and South Carolina, Virginia, and even Texas and Ohio, since Hurricane Idalia passed through the U.S. last week, experts told ABC News, describing the event as incredibly rare.
Idalia is the type of storm that bird watchers get excited for, “because you never know what kind of species it will bring with it,” Nate Swick, digital communications manager for the American Birding Association and host of the American Birding Podcast, told ABC News.
Typically, the species that get blown in are ocean-going birds, such as tube-nosed seabirds and terns, Swick said. Flamingos, a wading bird, are the last species bird watchers would have predicted.
“No one really expected that flamingos would be the bird that Idalia was known for,” Swick said.
Almost immediately after Idalia made landfall near Big Bend, Florida, on Aug. 30, birders began seeing reports of flamingos all over the state, Swick said. The reports soon extended all over the East, as far north as Ohio and as far west as Texas.
Flamingos were once native to Florida, but fashion trends at the turn of the 19th century meant they were hunted for their feathers for women’s fashion, Jerry Lorenz, state director of research for Audubon Florida, told ABC News.
They still show up to South Florida every once in a while to breed, but the goal is to restore the wetlands enough for them to return as permanent residents, Lorenz said.
These flamingos likely originated from the Yucatan Peninsula, Lorenz said. Birders were able to decipher a unique alphanumeric code on a flamingo that had been banded at Río Lagartos, a breeding colony in Mexico, Lorenz said.
The birds likely got caught in Hurricane Idalia as they were traveling across the Yucatan Peninsula, the experts said.
Birds that reside in the Caribbean have had to deal with tropical storm systems since the dawn of time, but the mechanisms in which they travel within the storm are unclear. The experts don’t know whether they are in flight or which part of the storm they travel in.
One theory is that flocks get caught up in the front edge of the storm, in the northwest quadrant, which meteorologists refer to as “the dirty side” of the storm due to the stronger winds, Swick said.
Another theory is that the birds flew continuously in the eye of the storm until it made landfall, an exhaustive feat either way, Lorenz said.
While rare, this incident is not the first time a flamingo has been blown into the U.S. by a storm system.
In 2019, after Hurricane Barry made landfall on the northern Gulf Coast, a handful of flamingos were blown northward up the Mississippi River and found in Tennessee and Missouri, Swick said.
A bird that never made it back to its original home has been living at the St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge on the Florida Panhandle ever since, the experts said.
But birders have never seen an invasion of flamingos in these numbers, Swick said
“It’s been pretty phenomenal,” Swick said.
The excitement over flamingo sightings among the birding community has been “palpable,” Lorenz said.
A birder in North Carolina found the first flock of wild flamingos ever spotted in the state — in salt marshes in the Outer Banks, exactly where he expected to find them, because they are attracted to large bodies of water, Swick said.
Those flamingos were still being spotted in the Outer Banks as of Tuesday, Swick said.
For some of the birds who caught a ride on Hurricane Idalia, it may be a one-way journey. But flamingos are capable flyers and can travel for long distances, so they will likely soon return home.
“The hope is that a lot of these birds are close enough to their breeding grounds that they’ll be able to return there,” Swick said.
(WASHINGTON) — Army attack helicopter pilot Larry Taylor scrambled to rescue a small patrol of soldiers surrounded by enemies on the ground in Vietnam, according to a dramatic account he and the men he helped save tell about the life-and-death moments more than five decades ago.
Flying them out seemed to be the only option, but there was a problem: his Cobra gunship had no room inside. With bold action and quick thinking, he found a way to get them out of danger.
More than 55 years later, Taylor’s heroism was recognized by President Joe Biden when Taylor was awarded the Medal of Honor on Tuesday, an upgrade from the Silver Star he originally received.
Biden recalled Taylor’s humility when he first spoke to him on the phone.
“When I called Larry to let him know he finally was receiving this recognition, his response was, ‘I thought you had to do something to receive the Medal of Honor,'” he said. “Let me say that again: He said, ‘I thought you had to do something to receive the Medal of Honor.’ Well, Larry, you sure as hell did something, man,” Biden said.
On the night of June 18, 1968, a four-man long-range reconnaissance team saw through its night-vision scope that it was completely surrounded by hostile forces on a mission northeast of Saigon. It seemed inevitable they would soon be discovered and overrun, David Hill, a member of the team, recalled during a roundtable with reporters Monday.
When Hill’s team leader, Bob Elsner, radioed for support, Taylor, his co-pilot, and another Cobra crew were put into action.
“Larry Taylor and his team had two minutes maximum to get off, strap in, turn the ship on, crank it up and get in the air and head in our direction,” Hill said.
Arriving above the patrol area, Taylor couldn’t see the team through the darkness. To avoid friendly fire, he radioed to the ground team leader to signal their location with a flare, though they knew this would also mean giving away their position to the enemy.
“He said ‘go,’ we popped the flares, and all hell broke loose,” Hill said.
Taylor and his wingman began strafing the surrounding enemies with rockets and mini-gun fire, keeping up their attack runs for 35 minutes.
But as the helicopters ran low on ammunition and fuel, the attackers continued closing in, firing small arms and rocket-propelled grenades at the team. Taylor learned that a rescue plan involving a UH-1 Huey helicopter had been cancelled “because it stood almost no chance of success,” according to the Army.
No other help was coming.
“Taylor decided on a bold and innovative plan to extract the team using his two-man Cobra helicopter, a feat that had never been accomplished or even attempted,” the Army release said.
He and the other Cobra pilot fired their remaining rounds along the team’s flanks. Taylor then switched on his gunship’s landing lights to distract the hostiles as the team moved to an area he had designated 100 meters away.
“We were able to make a breakout finally because he had directed us through the very weakest portion of the enemy envelopment,” Hill said.
The team was also out of ammunition, except for a dozen hand grenades. While moving, Hill lobbed them behind and to the sides of the team to keep adversaries at bay until they reached the site.
“I knew that if I didn’t go down and get ’em, they wouldn’t make it,” said Taylor, who also spoke to reporters on Monday.
“We feel this big down rush of Larry’s … rotor, and he lands beside us,” Hill said.
Elsner passed on a radio message from Taylor to his team: “I’m on the ground for no more than 10 seconds — you and your folks find a place on my ship and I’m gonna get us all out of here,” Hill recalled.
The team members clung to the skids and rocket pods of the helicopter. “And that was our seat for the night,” Hill said.
“They beat on the side of the ship twice, which meant, ‘haul ass,’ and we did,” Taylor said.
Despite flying out of small arms range, the team was not yet out of danger.
“They’re wet. You put them on the outside of a ship and fly it at 150 miles an hour and they’d turn into icicles; they’d cramp up and let go and fall off,” Taylor said.
Taylor decided to bring them to the nearest viable spot, dropping them off at a water treatment plant occupied by American forces.
“The four of them ran out in front of the helicopter, and then they turned around and lined up, and all four of them saluted,” Taylor said.
For his actions that night, Taylor received the nation’s third highest decoration for valor, an award Biden will be upgrading at a Medal of Honor ceremony scheduled for September 5 at the White House.
ABC News asked Hill what his team’s chance of survival was had it not been for Taylor.
“Absolutely zero,” he said. “We had only our Ka-Bar knives for defense.”
But Hill never met his rescuer face to face until more than 30 years later, when he, Elsner and Taylor attended a 1999 1st Infantry Division Long Range Patrol-Ranger reunion in Branson, Missouri.
“That was the first time I could actually meet him and thank him for his bravery,” Hill said. “We’ve been friends ever since.”
(KAHULUI, Hawaii) — The rebuilding process has begun across Maui, following the devastating wildfires that killed at least 115 people and displaced thousands more.
Here is the latest news out of Maui as officials and residents alike trudge forward toward recovery following the tragedy.
This page will be regularly updated.
The fires
The Upcountry fire is 90% contained and has affected an estimated 1,081 acres.
The Kula fire is 95% contained and has affected an estimated 202 acres.
The Lahaina fire is 100% contained and has affected an estimated 2,170 acres.
Officials say that containment indicates what percentage of the fire perimeter has been enclosed by a control line. This reflects the opportunity for the fire to spread beyond its original border into new areas, according to Maui County officials.
The fires do not pose a threat, according to the Maui Fire Department.
The death toll
The death toll stands at 115.
Of the deceased, 54 have been both identified and their families have been located and notified. Five others have been identified but their families have yet to be reached by authorities.
Fifty-six people remain unidentified.
Those who are unaccounted for
One hundred percent of the land area has been searched.
The Maui Police Department has 110 missing person reports relating to the Lahaina wildfire. Forty-one of these cases are actively being investigated and are considered to be open.
MPD urges those who have loved ones who are still missing to file a report by contacting the Maui Police Department at 808-244-6400 or emailing unaccounted@mpd.net.
Those reporting an unaccounted for person must be prepared to give the first and last name of the individual, their age, their last known location and last known physical place of residence. Those who are not on Maui but are the immediate family member of a missing person connected to the Maui wildfires, and wish to provide a DNA sample to assist in the investigation, call the FBI Honolulu Division at (808) 566-4300 or email HN-COMMAND-POST@ic.fbi.gov.
Scam calls claiming to be from “DNA Services” should be reported to Maui Police Department’s non-emergency number at (808) 244-6400.
The return of residents
Currently, the burn area is restricted to authorized personnel only as federal agencies remove potentially dangerous ash and other debris. This could take months, officials have said.
Officials say there will be “a coordinated effort to develop a plan for the safe return of residents.”
Anyone visiting properties in the burn area are urged to use Personal Protective Equipment for their safety. Visitors are urged by officials to check out bit.ly/WestMauiCaution to learn more about protective measures.
Residents of Lahaina, Kula and the surrounding areas should only use bottled water or potable water provided by tankers. The Department of Water Supply urges those on the island to check out the Water Advisory map for updates about drinking water quality: bit.ly/mauiwateradvisory.
The return of students
Officials have said they expect to start up schools right after the fall break from Oct. 9 to Oct. 13 if the air quality, water quality, soil quality, and electrical power supply proves that the three available campuses that still stand are safe for the return of students and staff.
Roughly 3,000 students from the four Lahaina public schools have been displaced in the fires.
Students from the unusable King Kamehameha III Elementary School will share a campus with the other local elementary school.
Resources
The Maui Disaster Support Call Center, launched by state and local officials, will act as a central assistance hub to inform community members in the aftermath of the Maui wildfires. The call center can be reached at (808) 727-1550 between 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. local time.
Similarly, an online centralized hub of resources and updated information can be found at mauinuistrong.info. There, people can find out how to donate, volunteer, or receive services in connection with the tragedy.
(ATLANTA) — All 19 defendants have pleaded not guilty to the charges against them in the Georgia election interference case and waived their in-person arraignment, which was set for Wednesday, according to court filings.
Former Trump Chief of Staff Meadows, ex-DOJ official Jeffrey Clark, attorney John Eastman, former Coffee County elections director Misty Hampton, former Coffee County GOP chair Cathleen Latham, current Georgia state Sen. Shawn Still and former Georgia GOP chair David Shafer all filed documents Tuesday pleading not guilty.
Former President Donald Trump was one of 12 defendants to enter not guilty pleas last week.
Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee last week set the date of Sept. 6 for all 19 defendants to be arraigned on charges and enter their pleas in the case, but those court appearances are now unnecessary.
On Tuesday, McAfee scheduled a hearing on Wednesday afternoon to consider the issue of severing some of the defendants from the main case, according to a court order.
McAfee, in the order, said he intends to ask the state at the hearing for a “good-faith estimate” of the time it reasonably anticipates it will need to present its case during a joint trial of all 19 defendants, and “alternatively any divisions thereof.”
The order also said McAfee would ask about the number of witnesses the state would likely call, and the number of exhibits likely to be introduced.
Four defendants — Trump and attorneys Sidney Powell, Kenneth Chesebro and Ray Smith III — have filed motions seeking to sever their cases.
The order for Wednesday, however, only names Powell and Chesebro — the two defendants who have filed motions seeking a speedy trial.
Chesebro, meanwhile, filed a motion Tuesday seeking to dismiss the charges against him, arguing the state prosecutors do not have the authority to charge him with what he described as alleged violations of federal law.
Chesebro, who the indictment alleges conceived “multiple strategies for disrupting and delaying the joint session of Congress on January 6, 2021,” argued in his filing that the state of Georgia failed to adjudicate disputes regarding presidential electors by a set deadline, thus passing authority to Congress to resolve any remaining disputes.
“Thus, any action taken after December 8, 2020, if actually illegal, would be in violation of federal law and subject to the Supremacy Clause; wherefore, the State’s authority to bring any criminal charges would be null and void,” the filing said. Chesebro argued that only one of the overt acts alleged in the indictment — “his drafting of a legal memo” — occurred prior to the Dec. 8 deadline.
“Even if Mr. Chesebro agrees that drafting this memo was improper (and not subject to attorney-client privilege), this memo in no way touched or concerned Georgia or its rules, processes, or procedures it had implemented as a result of its congressional delegation via the [Electoral Count Act]. Therefore, the charges against Mr. Chesebro are wholly invalid as drafted in the indictment and should be struck accordingly,” the filing said.
Trump and the 18 others were charged last month in a sweeping racketeering indictment for alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in the state of Georgia.
The former president says his actions were not illegal and that the investigation is politically motivated.
Clark, who is one of the five defendants seeking to move their case from state court into federal court, pushed back on the case in a lengthier filing by his attorney, calling it an “unconstitutional attempt, as to Mr. Clark, to penetrate into the sanctums of the superior federal government’s Justice Department, as well as of the Office of the President of the United States at the White House.”
“The Indictment is also an unconstitutional affront to the powers of the President, who is the sole head of the unitary executive branch,” Clark’s filing states.
