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CDC director acknowledges mistakes to staff in internal message

August 18, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(ATLANTA) — Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Rochelle Walensky made a remarkable acknowledgment of her agency’s failures during the COVID-19 pandemic as she delivered a message to her staff Wednesday.

Her message, given in an internal video viewed by ABC News, addressed employees about the plan to overhaul the agency, following an internally initiated review which found that the CDC’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic fell short of the crisis.

“To be frank, we are responsible for some pretty dramatic, pretty public mistakes. From testing, to data, to communications,” Walensky said to the camera in front of a blue CDC backdrop.

“As an agency, even with all the terrific work we do, we still suffer the consequences from these mistakes. After over 18 months serving in this position, learning and living the many lessons from our COVID-19 response, and receiving feedback from many internal and external interested parties, this is the right time to take a step back and strategically position CDC to facilitate and support the future of public health,” Walensky said.

Those conversations, she added, yielded “loud and clear” key principles to “promote public health action and communication; conduct and disseminate exceptional science,” and “serve our partners, prioritizing the American people first.”

“All of us collectively are being asked to look to the future and build a stronger CDC to tackle what lies ahead. This is our watershed moment,” Walensky said.

“We must pivot, take appropriate action, and lead the systemic changes required to equitably protect health, safety and security of all Americans,” she said — especially because neither the pandemic nor her agency’s response to it, is finished.

Walensky’s message, delivered in a more than 14-minute recording, follows a scathing internally initiated review of how the CDC handled COVID-19, which found its approach toward the pandemic failed to meet the moment of crisis and offered a series of changes intended to revamp the agency and make it more nimble.

That review, ordered by Walensky in April, comes after the CDC had come under frequent fire for its muddled and inconsistent messaging on COVID mitigation measures.

During interviews with roughly 120 agency staff and key external stakeholders, the review found that it “takes too long for CDC to publish its data and science for decision making,” that its guidance is “confusing and overwhelming” and that agency staff turnover during the COVID response “created gaps and other challenges for partners,” according to findings obtained by ABC News.

“The COVID-19 pandemic and our agency-wide response is not over. Our important work continues,” Walensky said in her video. “There have been too many tragic deaths from this virus and we must do all we can to prevent more.”

The threat of other infectious diseases’ spread means now is the time for public health infrastructures to shore up their defenses, she noted.

“Now the global monkeypox outbreak requires increased attention and efforts,” Walensky said. “We will continue to activate the personnel and resources necessary to fulfill our public health mission.”

In the video, Walensky promised to “develop new systems and processes to equitably deliver all of CDC science and program activities to the American people,” with “data modernization, laboratory capacity, rapid response to disease outbreaks, and preparedness within the US and around the world.”

“These changes will inform what CDC can do during a pandemic, along with every day during normal operations in our infectious and non-infectious disease portfolios to ensure a CDC science reaches the public in a timely and implementable manner,” she said.

“We must also strengthen the agency’s ability to respond to public health threats,” she said. “This is an agency-wide top priority to respond when we are called upon.”

Walensky emphasized the importance of “breaking down organizational silos in favor of a ‘One CDC mindset,'” increasing accountability and supporting equity efforts across the agency, she said.

“Change is hard. I know that. This is our time to change. And we will all need to roll up our sleeves to move CDC forward,” Walensky said, and “apply” the “COVID-19 lessons learned” by “sharing scientific findings and data faster.”

“The future of CDC is dependent upon applying the lessons learned from the last few years, whether it’s under my direction or a future CDC director, regardless of who is sitting in the seat, an honest and unbiased read of our recent history will yield the same conclusion. It is time for CDC to change,” she said.

“I recognize that our growth will involve some uncomfortable moments for many of us. We will hold ourselves accountable and we will be open to feedback,” Walensky said. “I owe it to you to work hard with the agency’s leadership to make CDC better and I’m grateful to have you in this with me.”

ABC News’ Cheyenne Haslett and Eric M. Strauss contributed to this report.

Anne Heche’s death following car crash ruled an accident

August 18, 2022 by WDNY Radio

Anne Heche‘s death has been ruled an accident, more than a week after suffering serious injuries in a fiery Los Angeles car crash, city records show.

The 53-year-old actress died from inhalation and thermal injuries, according to records from the Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner. She also suffered a sternal fracture due to blunt trauma, the records state.

The day of Heche’s death is listed as August 11. The actress was declared brain dead that night but was kept on life support for organ donation and her heart was still beating, her representative said then. Heche was removed from life support on Sunday, her representative said.

Heche was alone in her car on August 5 when she crashed into a home in the Mar Vista neighborhood of Los Angeles, engulfing her car and the house in flames, according to Los Angeles police and fire officials. No one else was injured in the single-car crash, and the home’s resident and her pets were able to escape the blaze unharmed.

Heche suffered a severe anoxic brain injury and was in a coma in critical condition following the crash, her family and friends said in a statement. Heche was not expected to survive her injuries, her family said, noting that it “has long been her choice to donate her organs.”

Results from a blood draw completed several hours after the crash showed Heche had narcotics in her system, but additional tests were being run to determine more about the drugs and to rule out which may have been present because of drugs administered by medical personnel, according to the Los Angeles Police Department.

Investigators told ABC News no alcohol was detected in Heche’s blood sample, though again, the blood draw was several hours after the crash.

LAPD investigators told ABC News on August 12 that they had ended their criminal investigation due to the latest developments in Heche’s condition.

What to expect from Thursday’s hearing on unsealing the Mar-a-Lago search affidavit

August 18, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — A magistrate judge in Florida is set to hear in-person arguments Thursday on a request from a coalition of media outlets to make public the affidavit supporting the search warrant executed at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate last week.

The Justice Department earlier this week urged the judge, Bruce Reinhart, to keep the affidavit under seal, arguing that if it were to be made public it could “cause significant and irreparable damage” to an ongoing criminal investigation involving highly classified materials related to national security.

“If disclosed, the affidavit would serve as a roadmap to the government’s ongoing investigation, providing specific details about its direction and likely course, in a manner that is highly likely to compromise future investigative steps,” officials said in a Monday filing, noting that the affidavit contained “highly sensitive information about witnesses” already interviewed by the government.

“In addition, information about witnesses is particularly sensitive given the high-profile nature of this matter and the risk that the revelation of witness identities would impact their willingness to cooperate with the investigation,” the DOJ’s filing said. “Disclosure of the government’s affidavit at this stage would also likely chill future cooperation by witnesses whose assistance may be sought as this investigation progresses, as well as in other high-profile investigations.”

ABC News and a number of other media organizations have called for the release of the affidavit, noting the historical significance of the unprecedented law enforcement search of a former president’s residence and the “immediate and intense public interest as well as a vociferous reaction from Mr. Trump and his allies.”

It is unclear how Judge Reinhart will ultimately rule on the request, but the Justice Department has requested that if he were to order even a “partial unsealing” of the affidavit that they be given a chance to provide the court with proposed redactions.

Officials said in their Monday filing, however, that they believed the redactions that would be necessary to protect the investigation “would be so extensive as to render the remaining unsealed text devoid of meaningful content.”

DOJ would likely seek an immediate appeal on any ruling by Judge Reinhart that would reveal further substantive details underlying their investigation.

The government said, though, it would not object to the unsealing of other materials filed in connection with the warrant, such as cover sheets for the application, the government’s motion to keep the warrant under seal and Judge Reinhart’s original sealing order — none of which will likely reveal much beyond the materials already disclosed.

The redacted copy of the search warrant released last Friday sent shockwaves through Washington, as it revealed the Justice Department was investigating the potential violation of at least three separate criminal statutes in its search of Mar a Lago, including obstruction of justice and one crime under the Espionage Act.

A property receipt accompanying the warrant shows agents seized 11 boxes of documents of various classifications, including one set referring to “classified/TS/SCI documents” (the acronym stands for top secret/sensitive compartmentalized information that not everyone with even top-secret clearance can view) and four other sets of top-secret documents.

The documents were discovered by authorities after a lawyer for Trump signed a statement in June to the FBI affirming that all classified documents on the premises had been handed over to investigators, sources confirmed to ABC News.

It’s not immediately clear whether lawyers for President Trump will be present at Thursday’s hearing in Florida.

Trump in recent days has called for the “immediate release” of the affidavit while leveling various attacks at the FBI and Justice Department, while also demanding over his social media website that the documents be returned to him. But Trump’s legal team has yet to take any sort of legal action on either front in response to the search.

Former Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone and former deputy White House counsel Pat Philbin are among multiple other witnesses interviewed by the FBI as part of its investigation, ABC News confirmed Tuesday, with sources saying both sat with investigators sometime in the spring. But there’s no indication that the Justice Department’s filing referencing officials’ hopes of protecting witnesses who testified in the investigation was a direct reference to Cipollone or Philbin.

ABC News’ John Santucci contributed to this report.

Minneapolis Public Schools defends policy to prioritize retaining educators of color when determining layoffs

August 18, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(MINNEAPOLIS) — Ahead of the new school year, Minneapolis Public Schools has defended its agreement reached with the teacher’s union this spring to prioritize retaining educators of underrepresented backgrounds when determining layoffs.

Effective in the spring of 2023, the contract provision states that teachers who are members of “populations underrepresented among licensed teachers in the district” may be exempt from district-wide layoffs outside of seniority order, deviating from the traditional “last-in, first-out” system.

The stipulation is a part of a recent collective bargaining agreement between the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT) and MPS, which concluded a weekslong teachers’ strike in March.

“To remedy the continuing effects of past discrimination, Minneapolis Public Schools and the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers (MFT) mutually agreed to contract language that aims to support the recruitment and retention of teachers from underrepresented groups as compared to the labor market and to the community served by the school district,” a spokesperson for Minneapolis Public Schools said in a statement to ABC News Wednesday.

The policy comes as efforts to diversify teachers in Minnesota are ramping up in the state legislature with the introduction of HF3079, the 2022 Increase Teachers of Color Act.

The legislation seeks to “increase the percentage of teachers of color and American Indian teachers in Minnesota” to ensure that “all students have equitable access to effective and racially and ethnically diverse teachers who reflect the diversity of students,” according to the text of the bill.

However, as news of the MPS policy has made national headlines in recent days, critics say the policy’s attempts to rectify past discrimination could constitute discrimination itself — potentially even a violation of the 14th Amendment.

James Dickey, an attorney in Minneapolis, told ABC News that his firm has recently received a “flood of emails” from taxpayers and teachers in Minneapolis who are opposed to the policy and have reached out regarding potential legal actions.

Dickey is senior legal counsel at the Upper Midwest Law Center, a nonprofit public interest law firm in Minnesota, and said that his firm could be “prepared to go forward with litigation” soon.

When asked about efforts to diversify the teaching staff in Minnesota public schools, Dickey acknowledged the concern but said that addressing the issue instead requires reforming the seniority system, suggesting that layoffs should be based on merit, not seniority or race.

“Teachers are not being evaluated based on merit, they’re being evaluated based on, you know, first in first and last out. And I think that’s the bigger problem,” he said.

Responding to criticism, MFT has doubled down on its support of the policy, citing the need for educators to reflect the diversity of their schools’ student bodies. While 65% of the students attending MPS in the 2021-22 school year were people of color, only around 30% of the teaching staff were, the district reported.

“No matter where they live in Minneapolis, or what they look like, every student in the Minneapolis Public Schools deserves great teachers and education support professionals who challenge, support and educate all their students in a safe and stable learning environment,” the union wrote in a statement to ABC News.

The union wrote that it wanted to create a “transparent, legal, ethical process” to retain the “unique skills and experiences” of educators of color and those of other underrepresented backgrounds in the case of budget cuts and layoffs.

MFT described the agreement as a small step toward dismantling discriminatory systems in education but noted that diversifying educators will be a long haul given the nationwide teacher shortage. There are currently more than 370 open jobs for teachers in MPS, the union said.

Tra Carter, a former behavioral specialist at Clara Barton Community School in south Minneapolis, said he believes MPS could do even more to support teachers of color. Carter, who was laid off last year during the strike, said that at the time, he was the only Black male educator employed at his school.

“Black and brown educators of color are losing their jobs exponentially faster than their white counterparts, so I’m happy again that something got done,” Carter said.

“But I don’t think that it’s ever going to be enough,” he added. “I think one of the first steps that the district needs to do is to begin hiring more educators of color and helping those educators that are already in the schools who don’t have those teaching licenses or who don’t have those degrees, helping those educators so that they can then be in that community.”

Baby girl born with one lung and given 20% chance of survival goes home

August 18, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(SAN DIEGO) — A California girl has beaten the odds to reunite with her twin and return home with her family after a six-month stay at a San Diego hospital.

Charlotte and her twin sister, Olivia, were born to Karla and Joshua Valliere last December, but in January, Charlotte was suddenly admitted to Rady Children’s Hospital with breathing difficulties and a respiratory infection.

At first, the Vallieres didn’t know what was wrong. Olivia was healthy, and although Charlotte had been born with one lung, she hadn’t had any issues after birth.

“Her one lung grew like 1.5 sizes, so it was compensating for the lack of the second one. So [doctors] did run all the studies. She was totally fine — oxygenation, everything 100%, so we were cleared to go after four days in the hospital,” Karla Valliere told Good Morning America. “It was six weeks at home — total bliss. Everything was great … and all of a sudden she started having breathing problems.”

The Vallieres took their daughter to Rady on Jan. 29, and she was admitted and placed on an extracorporeal membrane oxygenation machine, or ECMO.

Dr. Matthew Brigger, chief of the pediatric otolaryngology division at Rady Children’s Hospital, started seeing Charlotte, who was just six weeks old at the time. Charlotte would eventually be diagnosed with tracheal stenosis and complete tracheal rings. This meant she had a birth defect with her airway where the rings in her trachea were abnormal and she had an abnormal narrowing of the trachea, or windpipe. She also had a blood vessel wrapped around her trachea.

“This set of anomalies, with the single lung, with the way the aorta was wrapped around the trachea itself and the trachea being this narrow, is actually fairly rare,” Brigger told GMA.

“We knew that she had a critical airway that if anything were to progress, trying to keep her intubated, that was gonna potentially injure the airway and give us more difficulty in repairing it. So the ECMO was sort of a bridge to surgery,” he continued.

But the surgery was a major one and in order to do it, Brigger and the rest of Charlotte’s doctors had to wait until she was big enough, since she and her twin had been born a few weeks early and therefore, Charlotte was small for her age.

“Initially I [told the parents], ‘Well, if we can get through surgery, I’m gonna give her 50-50,” Brigger said. “[But] I’m thinking more 20% of getting through surgery at the time, just knowing how much that we had to go through.”

Despite the low chance of survival, Charlotte’s surgery was a success.

“Fortunately, Charlotte’s a fighter and we got to do the surgery. She sailed through surgery,” he said.

The Vallieres said that throughout the monthslong stay in the hospital and all the ups and downs, with Charlotte’s complications, multiple surgeries and treatment, they drew strength from their own daughter.

“The thing that I think that I believe got us through was her. She never gave any sign of weakness,” the mom of two said.

After spending 185 days in the hospital, Charlotte was finally discharged on Aug. 1, and her parents and twin sister were there to celebrate and bring her home.

“It was just a lot of emotions and it was just a roller coaster. But now we have them together, so it’s worth it,” Karla Valliere added.

Today, Brigger said he doesn’t anticipate Charlotte needing a second lung at all and her future looks bright.

“Prognosis is very good. She may not be running marathons in the future but she is Charlotte so it’s hard to say. She’s proved people wrong all along. I expect her to be able to live a good life,” he said.

Scoreboard roundup — 8/17/22

August 18, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(NEW YORK) — Here are the scores from Wednesday’s sports events:

MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL

INTERLEAGUE
Boston 8, Pittsburgh 3

AMERICAN LEAGUE
Minnesota 4, Kansas City 0
Toronto 6, Baltimore 1
Seattle 11, LA Angels 7
Cleveland 8, Detroit 4
Oakland 7, Texas 2
Houston 3, Chi White Sox 2
NY Yankees 8, Tampa Bay 7 (10)

NATIONAL LEAGUE
Cincinnati 1, Philadelphia 0
Chi Cubs 3, Washington 2
San Diego 10 Miami 3
NY. Mets 9 Atlanta 7
St. Louis 5 Colorado 1
L.A. Dodgers 2 Milwaukee 1
Arizona 3, San Francisco 2

WOMEN’S NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION PLAYOFFS
New York 98, Chicago 91
Las Vegas 79, Phoenix 63

MAJOR LEAGUE SOCCER
New York 2, Atlanta 1
New England 2 Toronto FC 2 (Tie)
Ended Charlotte FC 3, New York City FC 1
Dallas 1, Philadelphia FC 0
Vancouver 2, Colorado 1

Spoon announces 20th anniversary ‘Kill the Moonlight’ vinyl reissue

August 18, 2022 by WDNY Radio

Spoon has announced a vinyl reissue of the band’s 2002 album, Kill the Moonlight.

The limited edition white LP will be released September 9 and is available to preorder now.

Kill the Moonlight was Spoon’s fourth studio effort and spawned the single “The Way We Get By,” which, like many other indie rock songs of the time, was notably featured on the soundtrack for the TV show The O.C.

Spoon’s most recent album is this year’s Lucifer on the Sofa, which includes the single “The Hardest Cut.” The group will resume touring in support of Lucifer on the Sofa on a co-headlining run with Interpol, launching August 25 in Asbury Park, New Jersey.

Collection of late Who bassist John Entwistle’s rare recordings to be released soon

August 18, 2022 by WDNY Radio

The first of two new compilations featuring rare and unreleased recordings by late Who bassist John Entwistle will be issued soon by the Deko Entertainment label.

Titled Rarities Oxhumed – Volume One, the album will feature previously unheard studio tracks, demos, remastered live performances and other unreleased gems. Among the live recordings is a performance of the 1978 Who tune “Trick of the Light,” penned and sung by Entwistle.

The albums have been put together by the Deko label in collaboration with longtime Entwistle solo band member Steve Lungo and John’s son, Chris Entwistle.

Deko Entertainment has launched a webpage promoting the new project, which features a countdown clock that’s scheduled to hit zero on Friday, September 9, at about 4 p.m. ET. There’s also a link to a YouTube video featuring an archival interview clip with Entwistle, who says, “I guess I’d like to be remembered as someone who helped change the face of bass guitar, and being probably the only bass guitarist that hasn’t been copyable.”

Entwistle died in June 2002 of a heart attack one day before The Who was scheduled to launch a U.S. tour. He was 57.

‘She-Hulk: Attorney at Law’ hits Disney+ today

August 18, 2022 by WDNY Radio

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law is open for business! The latest Marvel series for Disney+ is out today, starring Tatiana Maslany as the big green lawyer and she tells ABC Audio she wasn’t all that familiar with She-Hulk before taking the job.

“I kind of knew that that character existed just from having seen…images on T-shirts or like maybe passing the comic book, but I didn’t really know who she was,” she says.

The Orphan Black alum knows She-Hulk and Marvel have a voracious fan-base, and she hopes they like it, but she also likes that the series addresses the issue of toxic fandom.

“In so many ways just by putting She-Hulk at the center of it, we’re already pissing people off. Do you know what I mean? Like there’s already people who are upset about that.”

Unlike Maslany, executive producer Kat Coiro‘s She-Hulk fandom goes way back, noting she “fell in love” with the comic when she was nine years old, sharing, “I wanted to be her.”

“I didn’t know someone like this existed. She’s large. She’s in charge. She yells at the writers. She takes control of her own narrative.”

That humor is also what drew series creator Jessica Gao to the character.

“Traditional superhero comics, you know, are very dramatic and some of them tend to be very heavy and serious…And…then to have John Byrne‘s She-Hulk…it was so fun…she was so irreverent and like even when she was doing things like saving the world…she still dealt with it with humor.”

Marvel is owned by Disney, the parent company of ABC.

Weeks before Mar-a-Lago search, ex-Trump DOD official vowed to publish classified documents from National Archives

August 17, 2022 by WDNY Radio

(WASHINGTON) — In June of this year, seven weeks before the FBI raided former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in search of classified materials, former Defense Department appointee and outspoken Trump loyalist Kash Patel vowed to retrieve classified documents from the National Archives and publish them on his website.

Trump had just issued a letter instructing the National Archives to grant Patel and conservative journalist John Solomon access to nonpublic administration records, according to reporting at the time.

Patel, who under Trump had been the chief of staff for the acting defense secretary, claimed in a string of interviews that Trump had declassified a trove of “Russiagate documents” in the final days of his administration. But Patel claimed Trump’s White House counsel had blocked the release of those documents, and instead had them delivered to the National Archives.

“I’ve never told anyone this because it just happened,” Patel said in an interview on a pro-Trump podcast on June 22. “I’m going to identify every single document that they blocked from being declassified at the National Archives, and we’re going to start putting that information out next week.”

Patel did not provide a clear explanation of how he would legally or practically obtain the documents.

“White House counsel and company disobeyed a presidential order and implemented federal governmental bureaucracy on the way out to basically send the stash to the National Archives, and now that’s where it’s at,” Patel said in a subsequent interview on June 23 on a different pro-Trump internet show.

Trump and his allies have for years pushed aggressively to declassify materials related to the FBI’s “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation that examined alleged ties between Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and Russia — a probe that was later put under the control of Robert Mueller following his appointment as special counsel. Patel, who previously served under then-Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) during Nunes’ time as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, has claimed that nonpublic information provided to Congress undercut the Russia probe and helped support Trump’s claim that the investigation lacked merit.

The day before he left office, Trump authorized the declassification of a set of documents related to the Russia probe. The memorandum, released in January 2021, acknowledged that “portions of the documents in the binder have remained classified and have not been released to the Congress or the public.”

So according to Patel, Trump asked him to work on retrieving the classified documents from the National Archives and then release them to the public. “President Trump was like, ‘Who knows those documents better than anyone?’ And I was like, ‘If you want me to go, I’ll go,'” Patel said.

“I know what’s there” in the Archives, said Patel. “I can’t still talk about them, but the whole process is going to be: Identify the documents, whether it’s Russiagate, Hunter Biden, impeachment, Jan 6th — and put them out.”

Erica Knight, a spokesperson for Patel, told ABC News that Patel was acting as “a representative on behalf of President Trump to work with the National Archives to get them to disclose information.”

“The GSA has their own policies and procedures for how presidential records must be handled, which Patel is in full cooperation with,” Knight said of the federal government’s General Services Administration, an adjunct of the National Archives.

Patel’s comments claiming that Trump had directed him to retrieve classified documents came in the middle of the former president’s growing dispute with National Archives officials. By June, the National Archives had asked the Justice Department to investigate the former president’s handling of White House records, after National Archives officials had in January retrieved 15 boxes of records that had been improperly taken to Trump’s home in violation of the Presidential Records Act.

And while Patel has said the former president said to declassify “a mountain of documents,” experts say there are protocols in place to ensure that national security is not harmed when information is declassified — even by the president.

“[Patel] is lashing out at the bureaucracy, but it’s that bureaucracy and those protocols that are in place to prevent damage to our national security by an inappropriate disclosure of national security information,” said John Cohen, a former Department of Homeland Security official who is now an ABC News contributor.

“I can’t stress how important those protocols are,” Cohen said. “For everyone who has a clearance, it is ingrained in your brain that even an inadvertent disclosure of top secret information could cause great harm to national security.”

According to Patel, the plan in June was to retrieve the documents from the National Archives and publish them on his website “for free,” then “make a big announcement every time” a new document was published.

Patel, a former GOP congressional aide who worked on Trump’s National Security Council before joining the Pentagon, was also involved in security preparations for the Jan. 6 counting of the electoral vote on Capitol Hill, according to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack, citing records obtained from the Defense Department.

Last September, the Jan. 6 committee issued subpoenas to four former senior Trump administration officials, including Patel, who appeared before the committee for several hours in December.

This past April, Patel was brought on as a member of the board of directors for the former president’s media company, Trump Media & Technology Group, which launched the “Truth Social” platform in February. Patel also published a pro-Trump children’s book titled “The Plot Against the King.”

As of last month, Patel was still pursuing his plan to publish documents currently in the National Archives.

“Now we’re in this fight,” Petal told conservative commentator Benny Johnson in a July 4 interview. “I’m working on it. And of course, the bureaucracy is getting in the way, but that’s not going to stop us.”

“I will be going to the National Archives in the coming weeks, I will be identifying those documents,” he said.

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