Judge Cannon Falls for Trump’s Most Nefarious Lie Yet
Hafiz Rashid – June 3, 2024
Judge Aileen Cannon seems to have handed Donald Trump another big favor in his classified documents trial—seriously entertaining a lie from the former president.
Trump made up a false claim that the FBI plotted to assassinate him during its search of his Mar-a-Lago estate for classified documents because it had weapons, despite the fact that this is generally standard procedure when law enforcement carries out a search warrant. Trump appointee Cannon has decided to grant this made-up conspiracy legitimacy by giving the presumptive Republican presidential nominee two weeks to prove it, further delaying the trial.
Tweet screenshot: Aileen Cannon gives Trump a full two weeks to argue that he should be allow to falsely claim the FBI tried to assassinate him, a conspiracy theory based off an obvious misstatement from his lawyers.
It’s the latest in a series of questionable moves from Cannon in the classified documents case. She has indefinitely delayed the case over “unresolved pretrial motions,” and last week she rejected a gag order request from special counsel Jack Smith because she claimed it was “wholly lacking in substance and professional courtesy.” Trump has made no secret of how much he appreciates Cannon’s efforts, and there have been calls for her to remove herself from the case. Even one of Trump’s former lawyers, Ty Cobb, thinks that she is incompetent.
Overall, the trial isn’t running smoothly. One hearing that gave a defendant’s lawyer a chance to allege vindictiveness from a prosecutor devolved into a shouting match. Cannon herself seems to be having trouble understanding basic legal proceedings and principles, leading to long explanations that she still doesn’t appear to grasp. Her conduct has disillusioned some of her clerks, two of whom decided to quit as a result of her conduct on the classified documents case as well as an allegedly hostile work environment. All of this fuels accusations that Cannon is deliberately slowing down the case to benefit Trump and his campaign for president.
Trump faces 42 felony charges in the case related to illegally retaining national security documents and conspiracy to obstruct justice, to which he has pleaded not guilty.
Bombshell Report Reveals Team Trump Is Rewarding Key Trial Witnesses
Talia Jane – June 3, 2024
Donald Trump’s campaign and the Trump Organization paid off nine witnesses called to testify in criminal cases against Trump, an explosive new report from ProPublica reveals. Witnesses who testified in defense of Trump for his numerous criminal cases received massive raises, new jobs, cushy severance packages, and more, all conveniently coinciding with being called to testify or after providing testimony favorable to Trump—and the excuses from Team Trump couldn’t be weaker.
Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, told ProPublica witness tampering is often difficult to prove because the gimmick is often not done explicitly. But the trend could assist prosecutors in their efforts to call into question the credibility of witnesses testifying in Trump’s defense for his innumerable legal battles.
In response to queries by ProPublica, team Trump claimed the nine witnesses who all saw big raises and flashy new jobs simply took on more work. The campaign also insisted Trump, who notoriously insists on controlling every facet of his organizations, has no say in who gets promoted or how much they’re paid. “The president is not involved in the decision-making process,” a Trump campaign official told ProPublica. “I would argue Trump doesn’t know what we’re paid.”
Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for Trump’s campaign, questionably asserted in a statement to ProPublica that “the 2024 Trump campaign is the most well-run and professional operation in political history.” Cheung continued, “Any false assertion that we’re engaging in any type of behavior that may be regarded as tampering is absurd and completely fake.” ProPublica also reports the outlet received a cease-and-desist from David Warrington, Trump’s attorney, against publishing its findings, promising that “President Trump will evaluate all legal remedies.” According to ProPublica’s findings, those legal remedies seem to conveniently trend toward doling out big payments to people called to testify on Trump’s behalf.
According to records reviewed by ProPublica, monthly payments from Trump’s campaign to Trump lawyer Boris Epshteyn’s company—which appears to be just a one-man show—more than doubled after Trump was indicted—jumping from $26,000 a month to $53,500 a month. The Trump campaign told ProPublica the increase was due to Epshteyn’s workload increasing, even though Epshteyn has continued taking contracts for other campaigns and landed a job as a managing director at a financial securities firm elsewhere.
Susie Wiles, senior adviser to Trump’s 2024 campaign who allegedly witnessed Trump showing off classified documents, also saw a big bump in pay after being called to a grand jury and before Trump’s indictment in that case. Her pay jumped from $25,000 a month to $30,000 a month and her consulting firm received a hefty $75,000, according to ProPublica. Team Trump claims payments to the consulting firm were simply backpay and her raise was because she “redid her contract.” Her daughter Caroline was hired by the Trump campaign a few months later, receiving a salary of $222,000 and becoming the fourth-highest-paid campaign staffer. Caroline told ProPublica she got the job “because I earned it,” telling ProPublica, “I don’t think it has anything to do with Susie,” referring to her mother. Meanwhile, her mother stated she directly hired her nepobaby daughter and that Trump had no influence in that decision.
Dan Scavino, a political adviser and Trump’s former chief of staff, was given a seat on Truth Social’s board, Trump’s social media company. His appointment landed between him being subpoenaed and giving testimony to Congress about Trump’s role in the January 6 Capitol riot. Scavino also received a $600,000 retention bonus and “a $4 million ‘executive promissory note’ paid in shares” at some point, according to ProPublica. Conveniently, Scavino’s testimony around the Capitol riot produced no “significant new information,” according to ProPublica.
Allen Weisselberg, a retired Trump Organization chief financial officer who was recently convicted of lying for Trump, received a $2 million severance agreement four months after New York Attorney General Letitia James sued Trump for real estate fraud. The agreement included a clause preventing Weisselberg from cooperating with investigators unless forced to do so. According to court records, prosecutors in Trump’s hush-money trial raised the agreement for why they wouldn’t call him to testify, noting, “The agreement seems to preclude us from talking to him or him talking to us at the risk of losing $750,000 of outstanding severance pay.”
Witness payoffs are nothing new for team Trump, which has a history of campaign staff getting convicted for federal witness tampering: Roger Stone, Trump’s 2016 campaign adviser, directed a witness to lie to a Senate committee. Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign manager, was convicted for colluding with Russia after previously being convicted for witness tampering. Trump pardoned both, as well as Jared Kushner’s father, in his final days in office.
Why aren’t Americans willing to believe good news about crime?
Mike Bebernes, Senior Editor – June 3, 2024
Photo illustration: Victoria Ellis for Yahoo News; photos: Getty Images (Photo illustration: Victoria Ellis for Yahoo News; photos: Getty Images)
What’s happening
The best data we have available shows that violent crime in the United States has declined significantly over the past couple of years. But ask the average American and they’ll confidently tell you that it’s actually going up.
According to the FBI’s preliminary analysis, crimes like murder, rape and assault fell in 2023 at what could prove to be a record pace, erasing a pandemic-era spike in violent crimes and bringing the national rates near the lowest levels ever recorded. The rate of property crimes like burglary and theft has also declined.
In survey after survey, though, Americans consistently say they believe crime is increasing. In a poll taken late last year, 77% of people said crime is getting worse, and two-thirds said crime is an extremely or very serious problem. The last time Americans were so pessimistic about crime was in the early 1990s, when the violent crime rate was more than double what it is today.
Perception vs. Data
In any given year, most Americans say crime is going up. The best stats we have suggest it has plummeted in recent decades.
Violent crime rate……..Percentage who said crime is rising
This gap between perception and reality has real-world impacts. The campaign to enact police and criminal justice reform gained major momentum in the wake of the nationwide protest movement following George Floyd’s murder in 2020. But it has largely stalled — and in some cases been rolled back — as members of both parties have returned to promoting “tough on crime” policies.
Republicans have also worked to make crime a central issue in the upcoming election, often in connection with immigration based on the false claim that migrants are fueling a national crime wave. They also frequently mischaracterize crime rates in major Democratic-run cities. On Friday, former President Donald Trump, reacting to his own criminal convictions, claimed that crime is “rampant” in New York even though it ranks among the safest cities in the country. Polls suggest that, despite this misleading message, voters trust the GOP to deal with crime much more than Democrats.
Why there’s debate
Part of the disconnect appears to come down to human nature. We tend to put more weight on negative events, whether we experience them personally or simply hear about them, much more than times when everything goes well. Gallup has been polling on perceptions of crime for 25 years, and almost every year a majority of people say it’s going up, even though the actual crime rate has been cut by more than half over that same period.
Experts say there are also plenty of cultural forces that feed our predispositions on crime. Watching the news or using social media, which frequently focuses on out-of-context acts of individual violence, can make crime seem much more prominent than it really is. That’s especially true of conservative media outlets that have a vested interest in promoting the narrative that crime is on the rise.
Politics plays a major role as well. Republicans have been promoting the idea that crime is out of control, especially in blue cities like New York and Chicago, to attack their liberal rivals and draw favor for their “tough on crime” policies for decades. For the most part, though, Democrats have struggled to land on a cohesive narrative to counter these attacks that highlights the progress that has been made without seeming to be dismissive of voters’ concerns.
But some conservative analysts argue that the data is simply wrong and crime has not in fact fallen as much as the numbers would suggest. While the FBI’s figures are the closest thing we have to national crime rates stats, they are far from perfect. They don’t include data from every law enforcement agency in the country and only account for crimes that were in fact reported to police.
Critics say it’s possible that what has really declined is the share of crimes that get reported, either because people distrust the police more recently or because some departments have had their resources cut, not the true crime rate itself. As evidence for this claim, they point to data showing that the share of people who say they’ve been the victim of a crime — whether it was reported or not — did rise in 2022 after falling during the peak of the pandemic.
Perspectives
Good news doesn’t get any attention
“The old adage is that if it bleeds, it leads: Lurid stories attract press coverage. More positive stories, such as the absence of crimes, are less likely to receive attention.” — David A. Graham, The Atlantic
The GOP wants the public to think crime is rampant, and Democrats aren’t eager to counter that message
“Politically, for [Republicans], it would have been helpful if the statistics had been just the opposite. If homicides had gone up, it would have been a useful tool for bashing Democrats in order to take some of the heat off Trump. Democrats, on the other hand, could use the positive stats to bolster policies fostered by the current administration, but they’re being fairly quiet about them because they really want to keep the spotlight on the abortion issue and Trump’s trial.” — EJ Montini, Arizona Republic
Crime hasn’t actually gone down; it has just been reported less
“Americans aren’t mistaken. News reports fail to take into account that many victims aren’t reporting crimes to the police, especially since the pandemic.” — John R. Lott Jr., Wall Street Journal
Social media turns rare incidents into viral moments
“The spread of social media and video technology has made it infinitely easier to film and publicize a viral crime incident such as a large-scale shoplifting spree. There are millions of property crimes occurring each year, but these outlier incidents become the glue people rely on when guesstimating whether crime is up or down. My neighbors never post on NextDoor how many thousands of packages they successfully receive, only video of the one that randomly got swiped.” — Jeff Asher, crime data analyst, via Substack
Conservative media is committed to pushing a false vision of crime
“Even with crime dropping, Fox is still talking about crime as though it’s on the rise. This is often done by cherry-picking, finding a city or a statistic where crime has gone up and then focusing on it. Often, though, it’s simply presented as a given, which its audience — given what it sees on the news — will assume to be the case.” — Philip Bump, Washington Post
Bad data obscures what’s really happening with crime in the U.S.
“I wouldn’t say the FBI is cooking the books, but that the data they are putting out is half-baked. … So it’s not a conspiracy but a rush job, and it’s giving people a false picture. They infer something is true, and then because it’s politically expedient they don’t bother correcting it.” — Sean Kennedy, executive director of the Coalition for Law, Order and Security, to Real Clear Investigations
The chaos of the past few years has left people feeling unsettled and wary of the world around them
“The bottom line is that concern about crime is often a proxy for broader fears about social disorder. Public safety is about more than just the number of robberies and assaults that occur in a given year; it is also about whether people feel safe when they leave their homes. And those vibes have been way off during the past four years.” — Ethan Corey, The Appeal
Will Scharf, an attorney for former President Donald Trump, insisted Sunday that the Biden administration was firmly behind Trump’s prosecution even as ABC’s George Stephanopoulos pushed back on that idea.
Speaking on “This Week,” Scharf responded to Stephanopoulos saying, “Of course, the attorney general of Manhattan has nothing to do with the Department of Justice,” by arguing in response: “I vehemently disagree that the district attorney in New York was not politically motivated here, and I vehemently disagree that President Biden and his political allies aren’t up to their necks in this prosecution.”
Stephanopoulos answered: “There’s no evidence here of that sir. … I’m not going to let you continue to say that — there’s zero evidence of that.”
After some further jousting over the issue, the ABC host tried to steer Scharf back to a question he had asked. “This has nothing to do with President Biden,” he said. “Do you want to answer the question about the sentencing process or not?”
“I completely disagree that this has nothing to do with President Biden,” Scharf said. “With respect to sentencing, as I said before, we’re going to vigorously challenge this case on appeal. I don’t think President Trump is going to end up being subject to any sentence whatsoever.”
In discussing the appeals process, Scharf made it clear that Trump’s appeal of his conviction of 34 felony charges would focus on two areas: Justice Juan Merchan’s decision not to recuse himself amid appearances of bias, and Merchan’s instructions to the jury.
Stephanpoulos pointed out that Scharf himself had praised the jury instructions before the deliberations took place.
“I think: Hope for the best, plan for the worst, George. But I think when you look at the totality of the circumstances in this case,” Scharf responded, “this is a prosecution that should have never been brought. This was a case tried in front of a judge that clearly should have recused. I think we have a lot of fair complaints with the way this trial was conducted and I think ultimately, President Trump will be vindicated on appeal.”
In discussing the effectiveness of the defense team’s legal strategies, Scharf also said it “would have been dangerous” for Trump to testify on his behalf, but that he would have made an effective witness if he had testified.
On Thursday, Scharf sharply criticized the verdict right after it came down.
“This is a tragic day in the history of the American Republic,” he wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “President Trump’s conviction proves one thing and one thing only: that Joe Biden and his allies have weaponized our legal system to persecute their principal political opponent. We will speedily appeal, and we will win on appeal because this case is meritless, baseless, and should have never seen the inside of an American courtroom.”
Stephanopoulos cuts off Trump lawyer after he suggests Biden was behind Trump conviction
Sarah Fortinsky – June 2, 2024
ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos clashed with former President Trump’s attorney, Will Scharf, in a Sunday interview, over the former president’s unsubstantiated claims that President Biden played a role in bringing the hush money criminal case against Trump in New York.
In an interview on “This Week,” Scharf repeatedly echoed claims of the former president, arguing the hush money criminal trial — which ended in a guilty conviction against Trump on 34 felony counts — was “exhibit A” in terms of the “politicization of the legal system.”
“It’s absolutely unprecedented in American history. It’s not the way that our campaigns are supposed to be run. We contest elections at the ballot box, not in the courts in this country,” Scharf continued.
Stephanopoulos conceded Scharf’s point about winning elections at the ballot box but made clear there was no evidence to suggest any involvement of the federal Department of Justice with the New York state criminal trial that just concluded.
“That is true. But, of course, we’ve never had a former president or presidential candidate facing the kind of charges that the president faced because of his own activities. And, of course, the attorney general in Manhattan has nothing to do with the Department of Justice,” Stephanopoulos said.
As Stephanopoulos tried to pivot back to his question about the sentencing process, Scharf pressed on, refusing to concede his point about the prosecution being politically motivated. Stephanopoulos eventually interrupted.
“I vehemently disagree that the district attorney in New York was not politically motivated here,” Scharf said, “and I vehemently disagree that President Biden and his political allies aren’t up to their necks in this prosecution.”
Stephanopoulos jumped in, saying, “There’s no evidence here of that. Sir … I’m not going to let you continue to say that. There’s just zero evidence of that.”
“Do you want to answer the question about the sentencing process or not?” Stephanopoulos added, after some back-and-forth.
Scharf pointed to the prosecutor in the case, Matthew Colangelo, “standing over [District Attorney] Alvin Bragg’s shoulder when he announced this verdict” as evidence of political interference, noting he used to work at the Department of Justice, before the interview wrapped up.
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The Pesky Natural Mineral Shaking The Foundations Of Massachusetts Real Estate
Eric McConnell – June 2, 2024
The Pesky Natural Mineral Shaking The Foundations Of Massachusetts Real Estate
A mineral known as pyrrhotite, which occurs naturally in New England, is wreaking havoc on homeowners across Massachusetts. Pyrrhotite causes concrete, the foundation material for many homes in Central Massachusetts, to deteriorate and then crumble. When pyrrhotite deterioration is discovered, the homeowner has two equally undesirable choices: make expensive repairs or risk the home’s foundation crumbling.
Because of the extensive scope of the necessary work, it’s not uncommon for the repairs to cost tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars. According to a FEMA case study on pyrrhotite in neighboring Connecticut, the only way to properly repair a foundation where pyrrhotite has been discovered is to “lift the house off the foundation and completely replace all the concrete.”
Many homeowners get an even nastier surprise when they discover their home insurance won’t cover the repairs. Many others don’t have insurance at all. Even if they did, the issue for insurers regarding covering pyrrhotite-related damages is that it does its devastating work slowly over time. If it destroyed the foundation immediately, catastrophic loss coverage might kick in.
However, pyrrhotite takes years to destroy a foundation. Because of this, area insurers have adopted a policy of refusing to cover repair costs associated with pyrrhotite-related damage. This exacerbates the problem for homeowners. Many area banks and lenders are reluctant to lend homeowners the money they need to make the repairs, even if they have home equity.
Loan underwriters take a purely risk and numbers-based approach to loan approvals. Given this, why would they lend money on an asset where the foundation is crumbling? If the homeowner defaults, the bank will be stuck foreclosing on an investment with a crumbling foundation and trying to recoup that money at a public auction. It sounds like a recipe for losing money.
All of this is having a devastating effect on homeowners. Many have horror stories about suddenly being in a position where their most valuable asset is rendered worthless unless they make repairs they can’t afford. Even if they try to sell, real estate disclosure laws will mandate they inform the buyer of the presence of pyrrhotite in the foundation. Decades of asset appreciation are being wiped away.
Few things make a house less desirable than the knowledge it has a crumbling foundation that could cost several hundred thousand dollars to repair. The saddest aspect of this story is that the fates of many affected homes were sealed the day their foundation was poured. Because pyrrhotite is naturally occurring, it inevitably made its way into the concrete supply of quarries statewide.
Over several decades, developers across Massachusetts ordered and poured countless tons of pyrrhotite-contaminated concrete. Unfortunately for affected homeowners, the slow pace of pyrrhotite destruction means they are well beyond the time limit within which they could still hold their homebuilders liable for the damages.
State laws have also been updated, and quarries are now required to test for the presence of pyrrhotite in their concrete before shipping it. However, that only provides future relief and residents dealing with pyrrhotite-related foundation decay are suffering right now.
Many are banding together to fight back by seeking legislative relief by having Massachusetts adopt a solution similar to the one Connecticut employed to handle its pyrrhotite problem. State Sen. Ryan Fattman is one of the most vocal proponents of the proposed legislation.
During a meeting with affected homeowners, he said, “That is the main mechanism for which we can create a statewide program similar to what Connecticut did, where they added a fee onto homeowners’ insurance and then seeded that money with a fund to fund out the change of foundations for homes that have this pyrrhotite crumbling foundation. And that’s what we hope to do here.”
The future of the legislation isn’t clear; however, it does appear there is a consensus that something must be done. If not, Massachusetts homeowners could continue to see their property values decline while pyrrhotite slowly destroys their home’s foundation from within. That would eventually hit county budgets all over the state because assessments on private property are how most Massachusetts counties fund vital services like public education, fire, and police.
Pyrrhotite is a naturally occurring problem that few people could have seen coming. Now that it’s here, Massachusetts lawmakers, homeowners, and insurance companies must arrive at a mutually amenable solution. If not, this pesky natural mineral could potentially threaten the foundations of Massachusetts’ real estate market.
Cowherd, whose nationally syndicated radio show is simulcast on Fox Sports 1, declared as much after Trump was convicted Thursday of 34 felonies in a historic verdict.
“He’s trying to sell me an America that doesn’t exist,” Cowherd said Thursday on his podcast. “I live in a nice neighborhood in L.A. and it’s not … one of those swanky neighborhoods, but I don’t see crime. I’m not stumbling over homeless people.”
“Dodger Stadium’s full, leads Major League Baseball in attendance,” he continued. “Laker games are full. People have money in their pocket.”
Cowherd argued that the picture of “skyrocketing” crime rates Trump often evokes on the campaign trail is nonexistent — and that violent crimes rates have “plummeted coast to coast” since 2023.
The former president responded to Thursday’s verdict by accusing the justice system of being “rigged.” Cowherd said he thinks Trump, who he called a “con-artist,” is now stoking increasing disillusionment among his supporters.
“Donald Trump is now a felon,” Cowherd said. “His campaign chairman was a felon. So is his deputy campaign manager, his personal lawyer, his chief strategist, his national security adviser, his trade advisor, his foreign policy advisor … they’re all felons.”
The list of Trump’s former team members who’ve been convicted of a crime is expansive. Among them: Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, and former campaign vice chairman, Rick Gates; his former fixer, Michael Cohen; his former chief strategist, Steve Bannon; his former national security advisor, Michael Flynn; his former trade advisor, Peter Navarro; and his former foreign policy adviser, George Papadopoulos.
Trump decried his guilty verdict as “rigged.” Julia Nikhinson/Associated Press
“If everybody in your social circle is a felon, I don’t think it’s ‘rigged,’” Cowherd added. “I don’t think the world’s against you. And to get people to agree on anything, 34 counts? Zero for 34? That’s a batting slump even the New York Mets could be impressed with.”
Louisiana graduate finishes high school as valedictorian while being homeless
Ashley R. Williams, CNN – June 1, 2024
A Louisiana high school senior experiencing homelessness recently graduated at the top of his class with the highest-earned GPA.
Elijah Hogan, 19, was named valedictorian of Walter L. Cohen High School in New Orleans and graduated May 24 with a 3.93 GPA, he told CNN.
Hogan, who became homeless a year and a half ago, says he was in disbelief when he learned of his academic achievement.
“I thought they were mistaking me for someone else, but when I looked at it and I was shown evidence that it was me, I was in awe, like, I was jaw dropped,” said Hogan, who was born in New Orleans and raised mostly in Houston.
Hogan was one of four Black male students who achieved valedictorian status at their New Orleans schools this spring, CNN affiliate WDSU reported.
Hogan, who previously lived with his grandmother since he was 11, says he became homeless after the lease on his grandmother’s house expired when the homeowner decided to sell the property.
He and his grandmother were given 30 days to vacate the house, according to Hogan.
“From there, I made the executive decision to live on my own to lighten my grandmother’s burden,” Hogan told CNN.
While his grandmother went to live in a care home for the elderly, Hogan was left without permanent housing.
His grandmother told him about the Covenant House, a homeless shelter in New Orleans serving youth and young adults ages 16-22. Hogan has been living at the shelter as part of its transitional housing program since he became homeless, he said.
Elijah Hogan, center, proudly holds up his high school diploma from Walter L. Cohen High School. – Courtesy Kewe Ukpolo
The program allows young people to stay at the shelter up to 24 months rent-free, giving them an opportunity to focus on education or to save money while working, Covenant House New Orleans chief executive officer Rheneisha Robertson told CNN.
“It really allows them to get stable and identify more permanent, stable housing,” said Robertson, who added the homeless shelter had five other high school graduates this year.
Hogan, who addressed his graduating class with an uplifting valedictorian speech last week, said dealing with homelessness while completing his education was challenging but he found support from the homeless shelter’s employees and his high school’s staff.
“As time went on, I started to open up to people over at Covenant House as well as Cohen, people were there to support me and give me a guiding hand,” Hogan said. “Without them, I wouldn’t (have) become who I am today.”
He credits his Covenant House case manager, Jarkayla Cobb, with never giving up on him.
“She helped me get through it even when I was showing a lack of faith in myself,” Hogan said. “She’s been there no matter what I needed.”
Hogan, who lost his mother just before he turned 12, says her death encouraged him to push forward with his education for his grandmother’s sake.
“I know that’s what (my mother) would have wanted,” he said.
Hogan plans to attend Xavier University in New Orleans in the fall to study graphic design and has been granted a scholarship to cover his tuition fees, he says.
“Elijah’s accomplishments are worth celebrating. We know that they are a product of his character and the choices he made day after day to pursue his dreams,” Jerel Bryant, chief executive officer of Collegiate Academies, which operates Hogan’s former high school, said in a statement.
“His success is also a testament to how capable and excellent our Black youth are, in New Orleans and across this country,” Bryant said.
Hogan offered these words of encouragement for other young people:
“To any race, no matter what color or accent you have, you are your own guiding light,” Hogan said. “You are your own storybook that you write. Let yourself be the pen that you write on paper.”
Mexican officials again criticize volunteer searcher after she finds more bodies
Associated Press – June 1, 2024
FILE – Ceci Flores, leader of a “searching mothers” group from northern Mexico, carries a shovel at the site where she said her team found a clandestine crematorium in Tlahuac, on the edge of Mexico City, May 1, 2024. The Mexican volunteer searcher who has been attacked in the past by the government found more bodies in Mexico City in the final days of May 2024. (AP Photo/Ginnette Riquelme, File) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)More
MEXICO CITY (AP) — A Mexican volunteer searcher criticized in the past by the government has found more human remains in Mexico City and officials have attacked her for it — again.
The existence of clandestine body dumping grounds is sensitive for Mexico’s ruling Morena party. Morena, which is running the former Mexico City mayor for president in Sunday’s elections, claims the kind of violence that plagues other parts of the country has been successfully combatted in the capital.
But volunteer searcher Ceci Flores, who has spent years searching for her two missing sons, says that’s because officials haven’t bothered to look for bodies. It’s a common complaint by relatives of missing people in many parts of Mexico, where drug cartels and kidnap gangs use shallow pits to dispose of the bodies of their victims.
On Thursday, Flores posted a video showing what appeared to be human femurs and craniums in the tall dry grass of a hillside on the city’s east side. She suggested there were at least three bodies, and noted there could be more on the hillside.
“We don’t want to disturb them,” Flores said in the video, pointing to a pile of bones with her shovel from a distance of several feet. “We don’t want to go in and disturb them.”
In late April, Flores drew the ire of city prosecutors when she claimed she had found charred bones and at least two people’s identification cards in another semi-rural area on the city’s east side. Prosecutors quickly concluded the bones were from dogs, and that the ID cards had been discarded or stolen and their owners were alive.
Soon after, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador played a government-produced video at his daily press briefing, accusing searchers like Flores of morbidity and claimed they were suffering from “a delirium of necrophilia.”
But by Friday, acting Mexico City prosecutor Ulises Lara was forced to acknowledge that Flores had indeed found bones, and that they were apparently human. Lara said police, forensic experts, National Guard officers and soldiers were dispatched to the scene.
That raised the obvious question of why the vast team of official manpower had never been able to find the bodies, while a lone searching mother armed with only a shovel did.
Lara lashed out at Flores without mentioning her by name, claiming “the chain of custody” of the evidence had been broken and the bones had been “handled.”
“This violated the dignity and respect that people searching for the relatives deserve, and some of them have expressed their discontent with this situation,” Lara said, implying it would have been better not to have found them.
In a video posted on social media Saturday, Flores reacted with disbelief.
“Seriously? These remains were unknown. We did the work they are supposed to do,” Flores said. “You (Lara) didn’t even know about them, weren’t aware of them, had not located them.”
Regarding the accusation that other searching relatives were angered by her actions — mass searches of the kind Flores carries out in her native Sonora are not common in Mexico City — Flores shot back, “they should be angry at you for not doing your job.”
Flores is a very accomplished searcher, and like many mothers of disappeared people, she has a deep sense of mission. One of her sons, Alejandro Guadalupe, disappeared in 2015. Her second son, Marco Antonio, was abducted in 2019. Authorities have told her nothing about the fate of either of them.
In her home state of Sonora, authorities confirmed in April they had identified 45 missing people from among 57 sets of remains at a body dumping ground known as “El Choyudo” that was originally discovered by Flores’ group, The Searching Mothers of Sonora.
The “madres buscadoras” (searching mothers) usually aren’t trying to convict anyone of their relatives’ disappearances. They say they just want to find their remains. Many families say not having definite knowledge of a relative’s fate is worse than it would be to know a loved one was dead.
