(WASHINGTON) — Attorney General Merrick Garland on Tuesday gave his first public response to an IRS supervisor-turned-whistleblower who claimed to have information for Congress about potential mishandling of the yearslong federal investigation into President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden.
Among the allegations laid out in a letter to lawmakers last month was that the whistleblower would contradict Garland’s testimony on Capitol Hill that the Hunter Biden probe has remained free from any improper political interference, sources have told ABC News.
In an unrelated news conference Tuesday morning, Garland was asked whether he stood by those previous statements.
“Yes, it’s still the case I stand by my testimony, and I refer you to the U.S. attorney for the District of Delaware who is in charge of this case and capable of making any decisions that he feels are appropriate,” Garland said.
Federal authorities with the U.S. attorney’s office in Delaware, led by U.S. Attorney David Weiss, a Trump appointee, have been investigating the younger Biden since 2018, ABC News previously reported.
Various news outlets have reported for months that prosecutors were nearing a conclusion, but no charges have yet been filed.
The investigation spilled into public view in December 2020, shortly after Joe Biden secured the presidency, when Hunter Biden confirmed the probe into his “tax affairs.” Prosecutors have examined whether he paid adequate taxes on millions of dollars of his income, including money he made from multiple overseas business ventures.
Prosecutors have also explored allegations that Hunter Biden lied about his drug use on a gun application form in 2018, despite later acknowledging that he was addicted to drugs around that time.
ABC News previously reported the younger Biden borrowed $2 million from his lawyer and confidant Kevin Morris to pay the IRS for back taxes, penalties and liens that he owed.
The president’s younger son said in an interview with CBS in 2021 that he was “fully cooperating, and I’m fully confident that at the end of the day it’s all gonna be fine.”
In April, in a letter to lawmakers obtained by ABC News, a lawyer for the IRS whistleblower said his client is an criminal supervisory special agent “who has been overseeing the ongoing and sensitive investigation of a high-profile, controversial subject since early 2020 and would like to make protected whistleblower disclosures to Congress.”
The letter did not name Hunter Biden specifically, but lawmakers have been made aware he is the “high profile, controversial” subject that the lawyer is referring to. In addition, while the letter referred to preferential treatment that Hunter Biden allegedly received, there were no specific examples provided to support the accusations.
Leading Republicans, who have campaigned in part on promises of investigating the Biden family, seized on the whistleblower letter, reacting with alarm.
“It’s deeply concerning that the Biden Administration may be obstructing justice by blocking efforts to charge Hunter Biden for tax violations,” House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer said in a statement.
In response to the IRS agent’s letter, Chris Clark, an attorney for Hunter Biden, said, “It appears this IRS agent has committed a crime” by disclosing information about his client.
“It is a felony for an IRS agent to improperly disclose information about an ongoing tax investigation,” Clark said in a statement. “The IRS has incredible power, and abusing that power by targeting, embarrassing, or disclosing information about a private citizen’s tax matters undermines Americans’ faith in the federal government.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declined to weigh in on the matter in April, stressing that the president was choosing to keep his distance: “I’ll leave it to the Department of Justice to make their decision to move forward with this particular case. We’re just not going to comment from here.”
A spokesperson for the White House counsel insisted the administration had not gotten involved.
“President Biden has made clear that this matter would be handled independently by the Justice Department, under the leadership of a U.S. Attorney appointed by former President Trump, free from any political interference by the White House,” Ian Sams said in an April statement. “He has upheld that commitment.”
(BRUNSWICK, Ga.) — Two people and a dog were rescued Monday after their boat sank off the coast of Georgia, the U.S. Coast Guard said.
The 28-foot catamaran Pisces began taking on water near St. Simons Sound before sinking near the entrance of the sound, the Coast Guard said Tuesday while sharing details and footage of the rescue.
The survivors hailed mayday on a marine radio and watchstanders who heard the distress call “immediately issued an Urgent Marine Information Broadcast” and dispatched the Coast Guard Air Station Savannah and Georgia Department of Natural Resources, the Coast Guard said.
Footage of the rescue showed the dog, Reggie, on a leash tied to the sinking vessel.
The Coast Guard spotlighted how it was able to find the sinking boat following the mayday call.
“We were able to locate the survivors’ exact position because of an alert from their PLB. A PLB transmits personalized distress signals and helps us find you in [search and rescue] missions,” Tyler Murray, a U.S. Coast Guard flight mechanic, said in a statement. “If you own a boat, the USCG highly recommends this equipment.”
The two people and Reggie were transported to Hunter Army Airfield “in good spirits,” the Coast Guard said.
A Coast Guard spokesperson did not have any information on how the vessel began taking on water or updates on the survivors’ conditions.
St. Simons Sound is located near Brunswick, in southern Georgia.
(KEY WEST, Fla.) — The archeological remains of a 19th century hospital and cemetery have been found on a submerged island near Garden Key, the second-largest island in the Dry Tortugas National Park near Key West, Florida. The hospital served as a 19th century quarantine and cemetery for yellow fever patients between 1890 and 1900, according to the National Parks Service.
Historical records indicate that dozens of people, mostly U.S. soldiers stationed at Fort Jefferson, may have been buried at the cemetery, according to the NPS.
Dozens of people were interred in the Fort Jefferson Post Cemetery — most of them were military members serving or imprisoned at the Fort. Some civilians may have been buried there as well, historians said.
Only one grave has been identified, according to the NPS. A headstone in the underwater cemetery reads the name John Greer, who died while working at Fort Jefferson on Nov. 5, 1861.
The details surrounding Greer’s death are unclear, but his grave was prominently marked with a large slab of greywacke, the same material used to construct the first floor of Fort Jefferson, according to the NPS. It is inscribed with his name and date of death.
Historians are continuing to look for more information on Greer and other individuals interred on the now submerged island.
Fort Jefferson was mostly known for its use as a military prison during the American Civil War, but the islands and waters surrounding the fort were also used as a naval coaling outpost, lighthouse station, naval hospital, quarantine facility and safe harbor and military training, historians said.
The risk of deadly communicable diseases, particularly the mosquito-borne yellow fever, drastically increased as the population of Fort Jefferson increased with military personnel, prisoners, enslaved people, engineers, support staff, laborers and their families, according to the NPS. Major outbreaks of disease on the island killed dozens throughout the 1860s and 1870s.
As the population on Garden Key increased, several of the islands nearby were equipped with small structures for use as quarantine hospitals in the 1860s.
“The transfer of sick and dying patients to these small islands, isolated from the congested Fort Jefferson, likely saved hundreds from a similar fate,” the NPS said.
The use of many of the quarantine hospitals on the surrounding islands ceased after Fort Jefferson was abandoned in 1873, but the U.S. Marine Hospital Service required the development of an isolation hospital on one of the keys toward the end of the 19th century.
The discovery, conducted in August 2022 by several organizations, highlights the untold stories in Dry Tortugas National Park, “both above and below the water,” Josh Marano, maritime archeologist for the south Florida national parks and project director for the survey, said in a statement.
“Although much of the history of Fort Jefferson focuses on the fortification itself and some of its infamous prisoners, we are actively working to tell the stories of the enslaved people, women, children and civilian laborers,” Marano said.
The findings also highlight the impacts of climate change on resources in the Dry Tortugas, the NPS said.
The facilities were originally built on dry land, but dynamic conditions caused many of the islands to move over time, and climate change and major storm events have even caused some islands to settle and erode beneath the waves.
ABC News’ Dominick Proto contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Sens. Richard Blumenthal and Marsha Blackburn introduced bipartisan legislation Tuesday focused on protecting children online and holding social media companies accountable as cries mount for improved safety features.
The legislation would mandate independent annual audits to assess risks to minors, require social media companies to have more options for minors to protect their information and disable certain features, provide more parental controls and give academic and public interest organizations access to datasets to foster research.
The Kids Online Safety Act of 2023 builds on the 117th Congress’ version by delineating important definitions and guidelines to better concentrate on immediate hazards to children. The legislation focuses on specific dangers online, including the promotion of suicide, eating disorders, substance abuse and sexual exploitation.
Though the bill failed last year, Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat, said he’s noticed a “powerful change” recently, and after conversations with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, he said, “I fully hope and expect to have a vote this session.”
“We cannot afford to allow more children to die or suffer as a result of this toxic content driven and children and driving them down dark rabbit holes,” Blumenthal said during Tuesday’s press call introducing the bill.
During the call, the senators brought on researchers, parents whose children have been affected by social media trends and young adults who told their own stories about the addictive and harmful features on social media apps.
“Right now, the burden of safety on social media and online platforms falls squarely on me on my peers, and on parents. And when, not if, we are faced with harmful content or interactions online, there are a few places to turn,” said Zamaan Qureshi, youth advocate and co-chair of Design It For Us, self-described as a “coalition of young activists and organizations advocating for safer social media and online platforms for kids, teens and young adults.”
Joann Bogard, who described losing her 13-year-old son Mason in 2019 after he participated in a viral social media challenge called the choking game, said well-intentioned parents are no match for social media companies when it comes to monitoring their children’s content.
“I kept asking myself, ‘What did I miss?'” she said. “I had safety features turned on his devices watchdog apps to alert me if he searched inappropriate content and connected phone regularly and we had candid conversations about online safety. But even the parents who do everything right can’t protect them from these corporations who are deliberately designing these products to keep iPhone screens on.”
Blumenthal and Blackburn, a Tennessee Republican, have spearheaded the bipartisan push for more oversight of social media companies, blaming “Big Tech” for blocking attempts by Congress to regulate their platforms.
At a February hearing, the Senate Judiciary Committee heard from advocates also pushing for more social media safety features and victims of cyberbullying as they continued discussions about the various harms of social media and the lack of protection tools.
As ABC News previously reported, in addition to the 2023 Kids’ Online Safety Act, the dozens of proposals to restrict Big Tech in Congress include a measure from Sens. Lindsey Graham and Elizabeth Warren that would create a new consumer protection agency to regulate the tech industry and a bill from Sens. Tom Cotton and Brian Schatz that bans social media for children under 13.
Blumenthal and Blackburn both rejected an age limit ban Tuesday, voicing concerns over the collection of personal information.
(DAVIS, Calif.) — The FBI is helping investigate three “brazen” stabbings — two of which killed a college senior and a homeless man — within one week in Davis, California, according to police.
Davis Police Chief Darren Pytel said Tuesday that authorities are still investigating whether the “unprecedented” stabbings are related, though he noted that the suspect descriptions for the second and third attacks are “substantially similar.” There were no witnesses to the first attack.
“We aren’t able yet to positively link the three crimes,” the chief said. “We’re still waiting for evidence to come back.”
The most recent stabbing took place at about 11:45 p.m. Monday at a transient camp in Davis, about 15 miles west of Sacramento. A woman said she was stabbed multiple times through her tent, police said. The victim underwent surgery and is in “critical but stable condition,” Pytel said.
She “was able to provide a description of the assailant and she was able to tell us what happened,” the chief said.
The suspect is described as a college-aged man with a light complexion and curly hair, police said. He’s thin and stands at 5-foot-6 to 5-foot-9, police said, and was last seen wearing black Adidas pants with a white stripe on the side and carrying a brown backpack, police said.
UC Davis said it issued “a campus WarnMe message” around 1 a.m. Tuesday. The city initiated a “shelter in place” order overnight that was lifted several hours later.
Just days earlier, around 9:15 p.m. Saturday, UC Davis senior Karim Abou Najm, a 20-year-old computer science major, was stabbed to death at Davis’ Sycamore Park, according to the university and police.
“Karim was a wonder of energy, a free spirit, someone who just wants to see goodness around him,” his father, Majdi Abou Najm, told Sacramento ABC affiliate KXTV.
“I am simply devastated,” UC Davis Chancellor Gary May tweeted. “By all accounts, he was an exceptional student, son and friend.”
May added, “I know many of you are frightened by what’s happened, especially so quickly after the stabbing incident that occurred on Thursday in Davis’ Central Park.”
On Thursday, David Breaux, a homeless man who was a staple in Davis for over a decade, was stabbed multiple times and killed in the city’s Central Park, according to police. He was found on a park bench where he often slept, Pytel said.
Breaux dedicated his life to compassion and restorative justice, and was a beloved presence in Davis, friends said at a vigil this weekend. The Davis community had worked together to build a bench, dubbed The Compassion Bench, for Breaux to have a place to sit and talk with Davis residents about what compassion meant to them, mourners said. Breaux kept notes and turned those conversations into a book, they said.
Breaux’s family said in a statement, “David was an extraordinary and beloved brother, community member, and human being. He simply existed on a higher plane than most of us. If there’s anything positive that can possibly come from this, I hope it’s that we all find it in our hearts to live more compassionately, which is exactly what he would’ve wanted.”
The chancellor said in his statement, “Like so many of you, I am grieving the death of David Henry Breaux, known as the ‘Compassion Guy.’ … David led a life with real purpose, to connecting humanity for the greater good, something we should all aspire to do.”
As the investigation continues, UC Davis said it has expanded the hours available for safe rides from campus to off-campus locations.
The university said there are no changes to classes during the day, but “the Academic Senate is considering potential changes to instruction during evening hours.”
Police said in a statement, “If you must be out at night, consider traveling in groups, and report suspicious activity to the Davis Police Department by calling 530-747-5400, emailing policeweb@cityofdavis.org, or if you would like to remain anonymous, call our tip line at 530-747-5460.”
ABC News’ Dea Athon, Alyssa Gregory and Jenna Harrison contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — The Department of Defense plans to send 1,500 additional active-duty troops to support the security mission along the U.S.-Mexico border for a temporary three-month period ahead of an expected surge of migrants with the end of Title 42 restrictions on May 11, according to U.S. officials.
They will join 2,500 National Guard members already there on an active-duty status assisting Border Patrol agents with ground-based detection and monitoring.
The new troops will also help with data entry, and warehouse support.
While some might be armed for self-defense purposes, they will have no direct role in interacting with migrants at the border, according to multiple officials.
“They will not be performing law-enforcement functions or interacting with immigrants or migrants,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said on Tuesday.
The move comes after an executive order from President Joe Biden last week that authorized the secretaries of the Department of Homeland Security and DOD “to order to active duty such units and individual members of the Ready Reserve” to better respond to the “the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States posed by international drug trafficking.”
The 1,500 additional troops will be from the active-duty military, not from the National Guard or reserves, at least initially, according to the official.
(NEW YORK) — A businesswoman testified Tuesday in E. Jean Carroll’s civil defamation and battery case against former President Donald Trump that Trump had groped her during a flight to New York in 1979, in what Carroll’s attorneys said showed a pattern of behavior on Trump’s part.
Jessica Leeds is one of two women who the court has ruled are allowed to testify about prior alleged assaults by Trump, who is accused by Carroll of defaming the former Elle magazine columnist in a 2022 Truth Social post by calling her allegations “a Hoax and a lie” and saying “This woman is not my type!” when he denied her claim that Trump raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room in the 1990s.
She added a charge of battery under a recently adopted New York law that allows adult survivors of sexual abuse to sue their alleged attacker regardless of the statute of limitations. Trump has denied all allegations that he raped Carroll or defamed her.
Leeds, who first made her allegations to The New York Times just before the 2016 presidential election, testified that she was on a flight to New York when she was bumped up to first class from her coach seat and wound up next to Trump.
“When I got up there and sat down, the gentleman sitting by the window introduced himself as Donald Trump. We shook hands,” Leeds, who was 37 at the time, testified. “What happened was, they served a meal. And it was cleared and we were sitting there, when all of a sudden Trump decided to kiss me and grope me.”
She said there was no conversation — “It was out of the blue.”
Leeds described the alleged encounter “like a tussle,” saying, “He was trying to kiss me. He was trying to pull me towards him. He was grabbing my breasts. It was like he had 40 million hands.”
“It was when he started putting his hand up my skirt, that gave me a jolt of strength,” testified Leeds, who said she freed herself and went “storming back to my seat in the back of coach.”
Trump has denied the allegations.
Leeds, like Carroll, did not scream or yell during the alleged encounter.
“It never occurred to me to yell out,” Leeds said. When asked “Why not?” by Carroll’s attorney, she said, “I don’t know.”
Leeds recalled waiting until every other passenger had deplaned before she left, because she didn’t want to risk running into Trump again. She said she told no one about the alleged incident.
“I did not tell anybody at work because I didn’t think they would be interested in my experience,” Leeds said. “At that time and that place, in the work environment, men could basically get away with a lot.”
Leeds said she only revealed what allegedly happened to her when Trump started running for president.
“I started off telling my family, telling my children, telling my friends, my neighbors, my book club, anyone and everyone who would listen to me,” Leeds said. “I thought he was not the kind of person we wanted as president.”
Leeds said that three years after the alleged incident, she saw Trump with his pregnant then-wife, Ivanna, at a Humane Society of New York gala at Saks Fifth Avenue, where she was giving out table assignments.
“He looked at me and he said, ‘I remember you, you’re that c— from the airplane,'” Leeds said. “It was like a bucket of cold water thrown over my head.”
On cross-examination, Tacopina asked, incredulously, “That was from a few-second interaction from an airplane that he remembered you, apparently?”
Leeds testified that she could not recall the exact date of the alleged assault, could not recall the origin of her LaGuardia-bound flight, and did not know who Trump was at the time, describing him as “some random guy sitting next to me on the airplane.”
“Fair to say you can’t name one witness who saw what happened to you?” Tacopina asked. “Correct,” Leeds replied.
“Not a single person can corroborate your story?” Tacopina asked. “That is correct,” Leeds said.
On re-direct, Carroll’s attorney, Michael Ferrara, asked, “Are you making this up because you hate Donald Trump?”
“No, I’m not making this up,” Leeds answered.
Asked why she didn’t report the alleged assault to her bosses, since it occurred on a business trip, Leeds said, “If I had gone in and complained about what had happened, my feeling was my boss would say to me, ‘That’s really too bad, how about lunch?'”
“I didn’t want any sympathy. I wanted this job,” said Leeds. “It was a good paying job.”
The jury also saw a clip of Trump on the 2016 campaign trial denying Leeds’ accusation, saying, “She would not be my first choice” — echoing his response to Carroll that “she’s not my type.”
Earlier Tuesday, a friend of Carroll, writer Lisa Birnbach, testified that Carroll called her within “five to seven minutes” of Trump’s alleged attack at Bergdorf Goodman’s.
“She told me that Donald Trump recognized her outside or right in the doorway of Bergdorf Goodman, he asked her to help him shop, and assaulted her upstairs in a dressing room,” Birnbach testified.
Birnbach testified that she “thought it was kind of nutty” for Carroll to go to the lingerie department with Trump, but she did not think it was dangerous.
“I had just spent a few days with him,” Birnbach said of Trump, referring to two days she spent at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate for a Feb. 12, 1996, piece she wrote for New York magazine. “He didn’t strike me as dangerous.”
Birnbach described the alleged assault as she said Carroll relayed it to her, saying, “He slammed his whole arm, pinned her against the wall with his arm and shoulders and with his free hand pulled down her tights.”
“And E. Jean said to me many times, ‘He pulled down my tights, he pulled down my tights.’ Almost like she couldn’t believe it had just happened to her,” Birnbach said.
“As soon as she said that, even though I knew my children didn’t know the word, I ducked out of the room and I whispered ‘E. Jean, he raped you, you should go to the police,'” Birnbach testified.
“She said, ‘No, no I don’t want to go to the police,'” Birnbach told the jury, saying that Carroll made her promise that “‘you will never speak of this again and promise me that you will tell no one.’ And I promised her both those things.”
In earlier testimony, Carroll described being in somewhat of a stupor when she called Birnbach after leaving the department store, laughing as she relayed her alleged encounter with Trump. It was Birnbach, Carroll said, who told her to stop laughing because she had been raped.
“And even when Lisa said it, it took a real effort for me to take it in,” Carroll testified. “Lisa is the one who focused my brain for that moment. It was Lisa saying that.”
Birnbach said the account that Carroll gave when she went public with the accusation in her 2019 book matched what Carroll told her in the spring of 1996.
“After I read the excerpt, I called E. Jean and told her how brave she was and what a good piece it was,” Birnbach said.
“She’s not a victim,” Birnbach said. “She doesn’t want anybody’s pity. She is somebody who, and I think it’s the way she was raised, instead of wallowing, she puts on lipstick, dusts herself off, and moves on. I think that’s how she has gotten through her life.”
Birnbach told the jury that she supported Hillary Clinton for president in 2016, was “surprised and upset” Trump won, and, on her podcast, called Trump a “narcissistic sociopath” who is “an infection like herpes that we can’t get rid of.”
But, she said, she was only testifying “because my friend, my good friend, who is a good person, told me something terrible that happened to her. As a result she lost her employment and her life became very, very difficult. I am here because I want the world to know that she was telling the truth.”
The defense has said that Carroll was motivated by “political reasons” to publish her allegation against Trump and, subsequently, sue him for defamation and battery. In its cross-examination of Birnbach, the defense questioned her about unflattering things she has said about Trump online and on various podcasts.
“Do you recall saying in a Facebook post the following: ‘Does it get worse than Donald Trump? I’ll tell you in my entire life I’ve never felt a hatred like a feel toward this person,'” defense attorney Perry Brandt asked Birnbach. He asked if, on a podcast, she said, “President Trump, and I don’t like to use those two words together.” On a different podcast, he asked if she said of Trump, “He’s a madman. He’s a narcissistic sociopath. He’s a malignant sociopath. He’s a Russian agent. He’s bad, he’s bad, and God knows what he can do before he leaves.”
Birnbach testified that all of those things sound like something she would have said.
On re-direct, Carroll’s attorney, Shawn Crowley, asked Birnbach, “When Ms. Carroll had called you in 1996 and told you he had just assaulted her, was he a political figure?” Birnbach replied, “Not at all.”
“Donald Trump in 1996 was a well-known New York person,” Birnbach said. “He was not in politics. He was not near politics. He was a guy who liked publicity and attention and he was also a known womanizer. My friend wasn’t raped by a president. She was assaulted by a guy, a real estate guy.”
“Would you lie to prevent Donald Trump from being president?” Crowley asked.
“Never,” Birnbach replied.
On Monday, under cross examination by defense attorney Joe Tacopina, Carroll said she didn’t contact police after she was allegedly attacked by Trump because, as a woman born in the 1940s, she’s a member of the “silent generation” that didn’t speak up about such things. The exchange came after Tacopina introduced several of her advice columns for Elle magazine in which she suggested that her readers call police in the event of a sexual assault or threat.
“There were numerous times where you’ve advised your readers to call the police” despite Carroll never reporting her own alleged rape to police, Tacopina said to Carroll.
“In most cases I advised my readers to go to the police,” Carroll replied.
“I was born in 1943,” she said. “I am a member of the silent generation. Women like me were taught to keep our chins up and not complain. The fact that I never went to the police is not surprising for someone my age. I would rather have done anything than call the police.”
The answer was stricken from the record as nonresponsive to the question posed, but the exchange continued the defense’s questioning of Carroll’s actions following the alleged assault, and their suggestions that her behavior — not going to the police, not seeking security camera footage, continuing to shop at Bergdorf’s — is at odds with how other sex assault victims might behave.
The nine-member jury of six men and three women is weighing Carroll’s defamation and battery claims and deciding potential monetary damages.
Carroll’s lawsuit is her second against Trump related to her rape allegation.
She previously sued Trump in 2019 after the then-president denied her rape claim by telling The Hill that Carroll was “totally lying,” saying, “I’ll say it with great respect: No. 1, she’s not my type. No. 2, it never happened. It never happened, OK?” That defamation suit has been caught in a procedural back-and-forth over the question of whether Trump, as president, was acting in his official capacity as an employee of the federal government when he made those remarks.
If Trump is determined to have been acting as a government employee, the U.S. government would substitute as the defendant in that suit — which means that case would go away, since the government cannot be sued for defamation.
This month’s trial is taking place as Trump seeks the White House for a third time, while facing numerous legal challenges related to the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, his handling of classified material after leaving the White House, and possible attempts to interfere in Georgia’s 2020 vote. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said last week she would decide whether to file criminal charges against Trump or his allies this summer.
(WASHINGTON) — The Department of Defense plans to send 1,500 additional active-duty troops to support the security mission along the U.S.-Mexico border for a temporary three-month period, according to a U.S. official, ahead of an expected surge of migrants with the end of Title 42 restrictions on May 11.
They will join 2,500 National Guard members already there on an active-duty status.
Their mission will be to help with ground-based detection and monitoring, data entry, and warehouse support.
The move comes after an executive order from President Joe Biden last week that authorized the secretaries of the Department of Homeland Security and DOD “to order to active duty such units and individual members of the Ready Reserve” to better respond to the “the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States posed by international drug trafficking.”
The 1,500 additional troops will be from the active-duty military, not from the National Guard or reserves, at least initially, according to the official.
(MEMPHIS, Tenn.) — Preston Hemphill, the white officer seen on body camera footage during Tyre Nichols’ traffic stop, will not be charged in Nichols’ death, according to Hemphill’s attorney.
Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy also announced Tuesday that he will not bring any criminal charges against Hemphill in connection with the case.
Nichols, 29, died three days after he was beaten by officers during a January traffic stop in Memphis.
Hemphill, who was not present at the beating, was fired from the Memphis Police Department in February for violating “multiple department policies” during the incident, the department said.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(WASHINGTON) — Nearly 300 people were arrested as a result of a years-long, three-continent operation targeting darknet trafficking of fentanyl and opioids, the Justice Department and FBI announced Tuesday.
Under “Operation SpecTor,” the “largest ever operation targeting the trafficking of fentanyl and opioids on the dark web,” 288 people were arrested within the last two years, and more than 850 kilograms of drugs — including 64 kilos of fentanyl or fentanyl-laced narcotics — intended to be sold on the darknet were seized, DOJ said.
“Our message to criminals on the dark web is this: You can try to hide in the furthest reaches of the internet, but the Justice Department will find you and hold you accountable for your crimes,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said at a news conference Tuesday.
Law enforcement also seized 117 firearms and $53.4 million in cash and virtual currencies as part of the operation, according to DOJ.
In one case highlighted by DOJ, a Florida man was sentenced to 16 years in prison late last year after it was revealed that he and his co-conspirators had a list of more than 6,000 darknet customers to whom they trafficked fentanyl, heroin and meth.
The Sinaloa cartel, a drug trafficking ring that DOJ has accused of gruesome crimes, and the Jalisco cartel were singled out as particularly harmful to Americans.
“The Sinaloa and Jalisco drug cartels, and the global networks they operate are killing Americans by sending fentanyl into the United States. Their associates distribute this fentanyl into communities across America by every means possible, including the dark web,” said Anne Milgram, administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration, adding that the agency “is committed to shutting down the fentanyl supply chain from beginning to end.”
“The availability of dangerous substances like fentanyl on dark net marketplaces is helping to fuel the crisis that has claimed far too many American lives,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said in a Tuesday statement. “That’s why we will continue to join forces with our law enforcement partners around the globe to attack this problem together.”
In 2021, a record 107,622 Americans died from drug poisoning or overdose, with 66% linked to synthetic opioids like fentanyl, the Department of Justice said in a press release last year.
