(WASHINGTON) — Former Trump White House adviser Peter Navarro entered a plea of not guilty Friday to two charges stemming from his failure to comply with subpoenas from the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta set a tentative trial date for November 17.
Navarro was represented by his new defense attorneys, John Irving and John Rowley, who were retained by Navarro as counsel on Thursday. Navarro was previously pro se and representing himself.
Mehta rejected the defense’s request to delay the trial date until early 2023 to accommodate Navarro’s new book on former President Donald Trump, and his planned publicity tours.
“The latter part of the year is going to be … a time where [Navarro’s] going to be on the road a lot and trying to promote that book, which is important to him in terms of income and whatnot,” Irving said. “So it’s not a trivial thing.”
“No, I’m not suggesting it is,” Mehta replied. “On the other hand … I’ve got also the public interest [to take] into account in terms of moving this case forward.”
A federal prosecutor said during the arraignment that “delaying this trial to early next year, potentially April, would be clearly unwarranted given the facts and issues in this case,” and argued that a book tour does not justify such a delay.
The House voted in April to hold Navarro in contempt over his refusal to cooperate with the Jan. 6 probe.
Earlier this month, Navarro failed to comply with a federal grand jury subpoena calling for him to appear at U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.
Navarro was indicted on June 3 on charges of contempt of Congress. The Justice Department previously returned a similar indictment against former White House strategist Steve Bannon after the House voted to hold him in contempt last year.
According to court documents, Navarro dropped a civil lawsuit he had filed last month against the U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., and other parties, after he had received a grand jury subpoena related to the House’s contempt referral. However Rowley, speaking to reporters following Friday’s hearing, said his team might review the lawsuit and refile it after additional consideration.
(NEW YORK) — Last week, several thousand migrants reportedly walked through southern Mexico on the way to the United States in the largest migrant caravan of the year. Officials said they have disbanded the group in the past few days, but many may still be traveling in smaller groups.
In the past, many migrants would hope to get to the United States and claim asylum. In the last couple of years, however, multiple policies have tightened the border. These include the Trump administration’s “Remain in Mexico” policy, formally known as the Migrant Protection Protocols or MPP, which forces people seeking asylum to return to Mexico while awaiting their court dates.
Further, during the pandemic, Title 42 imposed travel restrictions and those seeking asylum were turned away at the border.
In May, there were nearly 240,000 unauthorized southern border crossings, according to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection – which is a two-decade high and a 30% increase from the same time last year.
In a response to the influx of illegal crossings, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott launched Operation Lone Star last year he said combat crime along the Texas-Mexico border and capture more immigrants trying to enter the United States. The law enforcement operation is to use “available resources to enforce all applicable federal and state laws to prevent the criminal activity along the border.”
According to an April 2022 Texas state report, Operation Lone Star touted more than 13,600 criminal arrests and more than 11,000 felony charges as well as over 3,700 weapons seizures.
“Texans demand and deserve an aggressive, comprehensive border security strategy that will protect our communities from the dangerous consequences related to illegal immigration,” said Abbott in a statement. “Until President Biden enforces the immigration laws passed by Congress, Texas will step up and use its own strategies to secure the border and negotiate with Mexico to seek solutions that will keep Texans safe.”
ABC News correspondent Mireya Villareal spoke to ABC News’ “Start Here” podcast about Operation Lone Star.
“[Abbott] decided to put National Guardsmen, Texas Guardsmen on the border, along with the increase of DPS troopers he already had patrolling the area who are helping local law enforcement,” said Villareal. “So we’re talking about roughly 10,000 soldiers that are now along the border with Operation Lone Star, but there is a lot of confusion about really what their duties are, what sort of arresting power they really have, and really what laws they are enforcing down there.”
Due to the way state laws are enforced by Operation Lone Star, immigration advocates said that migrants are being arrested on state trespassing charges and are treated like criminals before they’ve even been given the chance to seek asylum through federal policy, according to Villareal.
“The migrants that are coming across from Mexico believe the people they are running into are actual federal agents enforcing immigration policy,” said Villareal. “So they stop because they think they are turning themselves in and they will be given the ability to ask for asylum. However, that is not what happens when they run into either guardsmen or DPS troopers inevitably.”
She said this is why the state detention centers are overcrowded.
“The detention centers that are being used by the state of Texas are prisons that are meant for everyday criminals. And so the frustration we’re seeing and the reason why immigration advocates are being really loud about Operation Lone Star is because you are treating them like they are criminals,” said Villareal. “You have a migrant that has come to the U.S. begging for help, wanting to ask for asylum and being told they cannot.” Villareal calls it a “loophole” of a situation.
“This is where there is that very fuzzy line between what the state’s rights are and what laws they can enforce and what federal rights are and what laws they can enforce, what powers they have,” said Villareal. “I think that’s what immigration advocates are trying to fight here in trying to figure out is, does the state of Texas truly have the right to do this?”
(NEW YORK) — When Houston natives Kelley Dixon Tealer and her mother Alva Marie Jenkins embarked on the journey to discover their ancestral roots, they had no idea they would soon realize a dream that was more than 150 years in the making.
The quest to discover one’s family lineage can sometimes be difficult for some Black people throughout the African Diaspora due to the historical complications brought about by slavery. Finding records can be a daunting task.
Tealer says she spent most of her life not knowing the full extent of her family’s history, but the passing of an elder loved one inspired her to start a search through Ancestry, a Utah-based genealogy company that says it has helped millions of people discover their roots.
“I wanted to stay close to my grandparents and when they both transitioned, I just wanted to keep that piece of history. I wanted to dig more,” Tealer told “Good Morning America.”
It was then that Tealer connected with Dr. Nicka Sewell-Smith, an Ancestry genealogist who discovered through the Freedmen’s Bureau records that Jenkins and Tealer were second and third-generation granddaughters of Hawkins Wilson, a man who was born into slavery in Virginia, and separated from his family when he was sold as a boy.
The lost letters of Hawkins Wilson:
The Freedmen’s Bureau records are a collection of records compiled by Congress following the Civil War to “help formerly enslaved people make the transition from slavery to freedom and citizenship,” according to the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
After the war ended in 1865, the Freedmen’s Bureau was tasked with trying to reconnect families who were separated during slavery and transitioning formerly enslaved people into the workforce.
Twenty-four years after being separated from his family, Wilson, living as a free man in Galveston, Texas, sent letters to the Freedman’s Bureau seeking assistance to find his siblings.
“Dear sir, I am anxious to learn about my sisters, from whom I have been separated for many years,” Wilson wrote to the Freedman’s Bureau chief in a letter delivered to the agency on May 11, 1867.
“I have never heard from them since I left Virginia twenty-four years ago. I am in hopes that they are still living and I am anxious to hear how they are getting on,” the letter read.
Wilson sent several letters for his family to the bureau, hoping to reconnect, but they were ultimately sent to the wrong county and never made it to his relatives.
National Archive records show that Hawkins wrote to his sister Jane, hoping to hear back.
“Dear Sister Jane, your little brother Hawkins is trying to find out where you are and where his poor old mother is. Let me know and I will come to you,” he wrote. “I should never forget the bag of biscuits you made for me the last night I spent with you. Your advice to me to meet you in heaven has never passed from my mind. And I have endeavored to live as near to my God so that if he saw fit not to suffer us to meet on earth, we might indeed meet in heaven.”
Wilson also detailed his life in Galveston as a free working man, a husband, and a Christian.
”I’m writing to you tonight, my dear sister, with my bible in my hand, praying almighty God to bless you, and preserve you and me to meet again,” he wrote.
An Emotional Reunion:
It is unknown if Wilson was ever able to reunite his family, but Sewell-Smith was able to use the names mentioned in his letters, in addition to other historical records and Freedman’s Bureau documents, to connect Tealer and Jenkins, his descendants.
“What the Freedman’s Bureau does is it helps us scale the wall or in essence, blow the wall up because it really peers into a very specific period right after enslavement, where these individuals were walking into their economy, their lives, how they wanted to be referred to in terms of their names, and who they wanted to work for,” Sewell-Smith told “Good Morning America.” “And Hawkins was just enough of a cookie crumb for us to be able to connect him back to the ancestors and the family that he had been ripped apart from.”
Wilson’s words are the focal point in a new documentary by Ancestry titled “A Dream Delivered: The Lost Letters of Hawkins Wilson,” in which Tealer and Jenkins embark on the journey of reconnecting with other Wilson’s descendants.
“Now is the time. This is the time for his story to be shared,” Jenkins told “Good Morning America.”
Tealer and Jenkins were able to find and meet their sixth cousins, Valerie Gray Holmes and Linda Epps Parks, the descendants of Wilson’s Uncle Jim.
Epps Parker said she was overcome with emotion when the relatives met for the first time during the documentary’s filming, in April 2021.
“I felt like I had known Kelley and her mom all my life. I felt connected to them. It just was genuine,” she told “Good Morning America.”
Tealer told ABC News correspondent Kenneth Moton that she thinks of Wilson’s sister Jane often and hopes to one day find Jane’s descendants.
She told Moton, tearfully, that if she had the chance, she would tell Jane, “I found your brother, Hawkins. Can I read you his letters? Tell me about your journey. What have you been doing in these past 24 years?”
More than 150 years after Wilson sent his letters, Epps Parker said her ancestor finally achieved his dream to reunite his family.
“You can rest because your letter has been delivered,” Epps Parker said, addressing Wilson. “We are taking the baton and passing it on to other family members.”
(LOS ANGELES) — Authorities say they believe a man accused of holding a woman captive at his California home and torturing her for several months may have other victims.
Peter Anthony McGuire, 59, was arrested Saturday after a woman reportedly told deputies he had been holding her against her will at his Chino Hills residence.
The Chino Hills Police Department released a photograph of McGuire on Thursday “as it is believed there may be additional victims of criminal acts committed by McGuire.”
Soon after moving into the house, the victim “was not allowed to leave,” San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department spokesperson Mara Rodriguez told ABC Los Angeles station KABC.
“She was held there against her will by him and at that point was subjected to multiple assaults,” Rodriguez said.
The victim managed to escape the home on the evening of June 9 and fled to nearby Alterra Park, where a bystander called 911 to get aid for her, authorities said.
She claimed that McGuire held her against her will for six months and raped, tortured and disfigured her, authorities said.
“The victim had visible injuries consistent with the allegations made,” the sheriff’s department said in a statement.
Deputies executed a search warrant at the residence and recovered evidence, authorities said. McGuire was arrested on Saturday after allegedly fleeing to a home in Placentia, in neighboring Orange County. He surrendered after temporarily barricading himself inside, the sheriff’s department said.
The San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office filed 10 felony charges against McGuire, including kidnapping, false imprisonment by violence, torture, mayhem, assault with a deadly weapon and forcible rape.
On the charge of mayhem, the criminal complaint stated that the suspect “did unlawfully and maliciously deprive Jane/John Doe of a member of the body and did disable, disfigure and render it useless and did cut and disable the tongue, and put out an eye and slit the nose, ear and lip of said person.”
McGuire pleaded not guilty to all charges earlier this week and is being held without bail. He is due back in court next month, KABC reported.
The victim was being treated at a hospital for her injuries, prosecutors said earlier this week.
Neighbors in Chino Hills said the suspect hardly talked to anyone.
“Honestly, it’s very frightening, it is very frightening to know that somebody like that lived three doors away,” Connie Ray told KABC.
Authorities are now urging others who are a victim of the suspect or have information about the case to contact the sheriff’s department or their local law enforcement agency if they are outside of San Bernardino County.
(NEW YORK) — Airlines are scrambling to recover after cancelling more than 2,800 flights since Thursday as severe weather pushed through the Northeast.
The majority of the cancellations and delays happened Thursday as storms passed through. The disruptions then bled into Friday as carriers worked to recover from the travel mess.
Airports that experienced the most cancellations were the New York City area airports, Charlotte Douglas International Airport and Boston Logan International Airport, according to flight-tracking site FlightAware.
Airline executives met with Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg Thursday to discuss how to prevent widespread cancellations and delays ahead of the July 4 holiday.
Buttigieg pressed airlines over their ability to reliably operate holiday flight schedules and asked them to improve customer experience, a source familiar with the meeting told ABC News.
The secretary also said the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) would continue to keep air traffic smooth and on schedule after criticism from some industry groups that FAA ground stops and delays caused by weather and staffing issues resulted in many delays over Memorial Day Weekend.
The FAA says it is working to hire more air traffic controllers for its facilities as it has had to reduce air traffic in some of the busiest airspace due daily staffing shortages.
Ty O’Neil/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — As the Jan. 6 committee continues to lay out its evidence surrounding the effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election, a federal judge on Thursday ruled that a defamation lawsuit filed by Dominion — a voting machine company at the heart of a number of “Big Lie” conspiracy theories — against far-right news outlet Newsmax is allowed to proceed.
Judge Eric M. Davis denied Newsmax’s motion to dismiss the $1.6 billion civil suit. In the original complaint filed in August, Dominion said Newsmax “helped create and cultivate an alternate reality where up is down, pigs have wings, and Dominion engaged in a colossal fraud to steal the presidency from Donald Trump by rigging the vote.”
At the first Jan. 6 hearing last week, former Attorney General Bill Barr said the baseless allegations that Dominion machines switched votes from Joe Biden to Trump were “complete nonsense” and “amongst the most disturbing.”
“I told them it was crazy stuff and they were wasting their time on it, and they were doing a great disservice to the country,” Barr said of the Dominion conspiracy theories, which were consistently pushed by Trump and his allies. “I saw absolutely zero basis for the allegations, but they were made in such a sensational way that they obviously were influencing a lot of people.”
Dominion has filed a number of defamation suits against those it says helped pushed the false accusations that it helped rig the 2020 election, including Rudy Giuliani and Fox News. Last year, a judge similarly denied requests from Giuliani, attorney Sidney Powell, and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell to throw out the Dominion suits against them.
Dominion, in its complaint against Newsmax, alleged that Newsmax “manufactured, endorsed, repeated, and broadcast a series of verifiably false yet devastating lies about Dominion.”
In a statement responding to the ruling, a Newsmax spokesperson said they were “not surprised by the judge’s decision as this was a preliminary motion and he made a very similar ruling in the Fox News case,” then went on to defend its coverage of the 2020 election.
“Newsmax reported on both sides in the election dispute without making any claim about the results other than saying they were ‘legal and final,'” the statement said. “We are confident that Newsmax will ultimately prevail given the strong First Amendment protections provided to ensure free speech and a free press.”
Last year, Newsmax retracted some its reporting surrounding the 2020 election as part of a settlement after it was sued by a Dominion employee in a separate suit.
Referring to allegations that Dominion had schemed to rig the election in favor of Biden, the network reported that it “subsequently found no evidence that such allegations were true.”
Grey Daze, the late Chester Bennington‘s pre-Linkin Park band, has premiered the video for “Drag,” a track off the group’s new album, The Phoenix.
The hazy clip follows several different characters affected by drug use as you hear Bennington sing the lyrics, “Life is much too short to be intoxicated.”
“‘Drag’ is a very dark and droning heavy track, but the underlying message is really special,” says drummer Sean Dowdell. “Chester is telling us, literally, that life is too short to be intoxicated, life is too short to be a drag.”
Dowdell adds, “It is a song that gives any listener with a substance abuse past something to feel good about, something to help pull themselves out of that dark place.”
You can watch the “Drag” video streaming now on YouTube.
The Phoenix, which was just released Friday, follows Grey Daze’s 2020 album, Amends. Like Amends, The Phoenix features new versions of Grey Daze’s songs from the ’90s rerecorded with updated instrumentals around Bennington’s vocals.
Former Steely Dan and Doobie Brothers guitarist Jeff “Skunk” Baxter released his first solo album, Speed of Heat, Friday.
The 12-track collection features a mix of original tunes and select covers. Among the latter are versions of the Steely Dan classics “My Old School” and “Do It Again,” and of the 1960 instrumental “Apache” that was popularized by The Shadows.
The album features Baxter singing lead on some tracks, as well as some guest vocalists and musicians, including his one-time Doobie Brothers bandmate Michael McDonald, country star Clint Black and blues rocker Jonny Lang.
Baxter’s main collaborator on Speed of Heat was veteran producer, composer and keyboardist CJ Vanston.
Toto‘s David Paich contributes keyboards to Jeff’s cover of “My Old School.” Speed of Heat also includes a song called “My Place in the Sun” that Baxter co-wrote with Vanston and McDonald, and features Michael on vocals. Lang co-write, sings and plays guitar on a tune titled “I Can Do Without,” while Black sings on and co-wrote the song “Bad Move.”
“This is something very new for me, never having focused time and energy on creating a solo project before,” says Baxter about Speed of Heat. “It was a lot of fun and very satisfying to be doing something for myself, as opposed to being a hired gun, (not that I don’t enjoy studio work, producing and playing live with other folks. That will never change!).”
Meanwhile, Baxter is planning to announce a West Coast tour in support of the album soon.
Here’s the full Speed of Heat track list:
“Ladies from Hell”
“My Old School”
“Juliet”
“I Can Do Without”
“Do It Again”
“Apache”
“My Place in the Sun”
“The Rose”
“Bad Move”
“Giselle”
“Insecurity”
“Speed of Heat”
Sheila E. and Lenny Kravitz are among the latest list of celebrities who will be honored with stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, it was announced Friday.
The “Glamorous Life” singer/percussionist and the “Are You Gonna Go My Way” rocker are part of the Walk of Fame’s class of 2023 honorees, meaning that sometime in the future they’ll be receiving a star on the legendary landmark. The date that their stars will be unveiled has not been set — like all recipients, they have two years to schedule a ceremony.
Other celebs from the Recording category who will be getting stars: Marc Anthony, country superstar Blake Shelton, R&B legend Charlie Wilson, music executive Irving Azoff, the Jonas Brothers and the late Mexican singer Jenni Rivera, who died in a plane crash in 2012.
Singer Melba Moore, vocal group Pentatonix and classical pianist Lang Lang also are being honored with stars, but in the category of Live Theatre/Live Performance.
On the TV side, Mindy Kaling, Jon Favreau, Martin Lawrence, Ralph Macchio, Ellen Pompeo and original Saturday Night Live cast member Garrett Morris will be honored.
In the Motion Pictures category, rapper/actor Ludacris, Bill Pullman, Uma Thurman, Vince Vaughn, filmmaker John Waters, and the late Juanita Moore and Paul Walker will be getting stars.
You can check out a video of the Walk of Fame’s class of 2023 honorees being announced on Variety’s official YouTube channel.
Guest co-host Sherri Shepherd and her audience said goodbye to The Wendy Williams Show Friday, saluting the chat show’s host as an “icon.”
Preceding the show’s Hot Topics segment, Shepherd commented, “You have to say — there is nobody like Wendy Williams. From her days on the radio, to ruling daytime talk for 13 seasons, Wendy earned her title as the queen of all media.”
She added, “If you think about it, Wendy Williams changed daytime talk with her unique take on ‘Hot Topics,’ her one-of-a-kind celebrity interviews, the signature ‘As Wendy’ segments and, of course y’all, her famous ‘How you doin?'”
Shepherd then addressed Williams directly, saying, “Miss Wendy, you are an icon and you are loved by so many, so many,” leading to cheers of “Wendy! Wendy!” from the studio audience.
Williams wasn’t present for the final taping. Instead, as reported, a video highlight reel of her time on the show was unspooled.
Williams missed every taping this season for heath issues. She’s also embroiled in a financial conservatorship situation, accusing Wells Fargo bank of freezing her assets.
Shepherd will host her own eponymous talk show in the same syndicated time slots previously occupied by Williams’ show starting in the fall.
