Law & Crime – Page 122 – The Tarbabys Blog

18 times US presidents told lies, from secret affairs to health issues to reasons for going to war

Insider

18 times US presidents told lies, from secret affairs to health issues to reasons for going to war

James Pasley – September 8, 2023

donald trump tongue — US President Donald J. Trump delivers his first address to a joint session of Congress from the floor of the House of Representatives in Washington, United States on February 28, 2017. Traditionally the first address to a joint session of Congress by a newly-elected president is not referred to as a State of the Union.Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA/Pool/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Every US president has told a lie — from war and taxes to health conditions and extramarital affairs.
When Dwight D. Eisenhower was caught lying by Russia, he said it was his greatest regret in office.
President Donald Trump made more than 30,000 false or misleading statements while in office.

“This is what we will say publicly but now, let’s talk about what we will actually do,” President Richard Nixon wrote in a memo about secret bombings in Cambodia in 1970.

“Every president has not only lied at some time, but needs to lie to be effective,” Ed Uravic, who wrote “Lying Cheating Scum,” told CNN.

From President James Polk lying to invade Mexico in 1846 to then-presidential candidate George H.W. Bush famously promising no new taxes, here are some of the most famous lies US presidents have ever made.

In the 1840s, President James Polk told Congress that Mexico had invaded the US.

This was a lie. In actual fact, his administration had ordered US soldiers to occupy an area in Mexico near the Texan border in 1846. Then when Mexican forces attacked the US soldiers, Polk claimed it was an attack against the US.

The result of this lie was the Mexican-American war.

In 1865, President Abraham Lincoln, also known as “Honest Abe,” might not have lied, but he wasn’t always truthful.

In response to rumors that he was about to meet with Confederate representatives in Washington, he told the House that no representatives were on their way to Washington, The Washington Post reported.

He wasn’t lying — they were on their way to Virginia, where he would later meet them. He didn’t tell the whole truth at the time because he didn’t want his meeting to impact the passing of the 13th Amendment.

Political theory professor Meg Mott told The Conversation his use of truth when dealing with the Confederacy was “devious.”

In 1898, President William McKinley declared Spain had attacked a US warship called the USS Maine in Cuba, killing 355 sailors.

But reportedly, he had no evidence of this.

The actual cause of the sinking has never been conclusively proven.

Although reluctant to go to war with Spain, his insistence that the Spanish were behind the attack led to war, per the Columbus Dispatch.

In 1940, during World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt promised the nation that “your boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars.”

But Roosevelt was already preparing to enter the war. His declaration was an election promise — one he would not keep — made during his campaign against Wendell Willkie.

After his speech, his speechwriter, Sam Rosenman, asked him why he hadn’t said the final part of the speech, which was, “Except in case of attack.”.

Roosevelt responded, “If we’re attacked, it’s no longer a foreign war.”

The following year, in 1941, Roosevelt lied again. This time, he said a German submarine had attacked a US ship called the Greer without provocation.

president franklin d roosevelt — Former President Franklin D. Roosevelt.Keystone Features/Getty Images

In actuality, the Greer had been protecting British ships crossing the Atlantic Ocean and had been following that German submarine and letting the British know its path.

Roosevelt used the attack as a provocation to prepare the US for entering World War II.

In August 1945, the Truman administration issued a press release after the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, describing it as “an important military base.”

Former President Harry Truman in 1945.MPI/Getty

Hiroshima was home to 350,000 people, although it did have a military base in the city.

About 10,000 soldiers were killed in the blast, but most of the 125,000 people who died were civilians.

In 1960, President Dwight Eisenhower dismissed claims that the US had flown spy planes over Russia after one of its planes was shot down.

Dwight D. Eisenhower — Former President Dwight Eisenhower.Getty Images

Thinking the pilot was killed, he approved a number of statements that said it was a weather plane. But when Russia announced it had one of the pilots named Gary Powers in custody, he had to admit he had been lying.

He called it the biggest regret of his life.

“I didn’t realize how high a price we were going to pay for that lie,” he said.

On October 20, 1962, President John F. Kennedy told America he had a cold.

Former President John F. Kennedy in the Oval Office signing copies of his official portrait in 1961.Henry Burroughs/AP

The truth was he was dealing with a crisis. Intelligence agents had found that the Soviets were creating a missile base in Cuba.

To ensure the public didn’t panic, Kennedy told the press he had to leave Chicago where he was campaigning because he had a fever. In reality, he had to attend a meeting back at the White House to decide whether to invade Cuba.

He also claimed that the Russians had more nuclear weapons than the US.

Though he lied about having an illness, Kennedy lied about not having another one. In 1960, he said he had “never” had Addison’s disease.

John F. Kennedy poses for photographers in his favorite rocking chair in the White House in 1963. — Former President John F. Kennedy in the White House in 1963.Keystone/Getty Images

Despite scientists later confirming he had the disease, in his primary campaign against Lyndon B. Johnson, he called himself “the healthiest candidate for President in the country.”

Kennedy wasn’t the only president who lied about his health. Numerous presidents — including Chester Arthur, Grover Cleveland, Woodrow Wilson, Calvin Coolidge, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Dwight D. Eisenhower — lied about their health at some point.

In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson said in a televised speech, “We still seek no wider war.”

President Lyndon B. Johnson in the Oval Sitting Room of the family quarters of the White House in Washington, DC. — Former President Lyndon B. Johnson in the Oval Sitting Room of the family quarters of the White House.Bettmann/Getty Images

This was in reference to the Gulf of Tonkin incident, in which North Vietnamese patrol boats had reportedly attacked US ships in the Gulf of Tonkin.

In the same speech, he declared, “Aggression by terror against the peaceful villagers of South Vietnam has now been joined by open aggression on the high seas against the United States of America.”

Johnson’s administration claimed that the US ships were out on routine patrols, but they were actually on a secret mission in North Vietnamese territory. The attacks were used to increase the US’s presence in Vietnam.

Johnson’s lies didn’t end there either. He went on to withhold information from the public and Congress about how much was spent on the Vietnam War and how badly the war effort was going.

In 1970, President Richard Nixon lied to the country about a US covert bombing campaign in Cambodia.

After the bombings were made public, Nixon let people believe the attacks on Cambodia were over.

He advised his staff to tell the public that the soldiers were providing support for local soldiers when, in fact, the attacks continued.

In a memo, Nixon wrote, “This is what we will say publicly but now, let’s talk about what we will actually do.”

In 1974, Nixon declared, “I’m not a crook” after being accused of obstructing justice and lying during the Watergate scandal.

President Richard Nixon speaking at a podium in 1969. — Former President Richard Nixon in 1969.Bettmann/Getty Images

He claimed he was not involved in the scandal, but an investigation found evidence that he was. He later resigned as president instead of potentially being impeached.

In 1986, President Ronald Reagan promised the nation: “We did not — repeat, did not — trade weapons or anything else for hostages, nor will we.”

United States President Ronald W. Reagan in the Oval Office in 1985. — Former President Ronald W. Reagan in the Oval Office in 1985.Diana Walker/Getty Images

This was during the Iran-Contra Affair, where the US government secretly traded weapons with Iran in exchange for the release of US hostages being held by terrorists in Lebanon.

The government then used the money from the weapons to fund anti-communist groups in Nicaragua.

Despite Reagan’s promise, it later turned out the US had in fact traded arms for hostages.

He later said, “My heart and my best intentions still tell me that’s true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not.”

In 1988, then-Republican presidential nominee George H.W. Bush said, “Read my lips: No new taxes.”

His whole statement was: “My opponent won’t rule out raising taxes. But I will. And the Congress will push me to raise taxes, and I’ll say no. And they’ll push, and I’ll say no, and they’ll push again, and I’ll say, to them, ‘Read my lips: no new taxes.'”

At the time, the six words were seen as a successful political slogan.

But Bush was later forced to raise taxes during negotiations with a Senate and House controlled by Democrats. After he did so, The New York Post went with a headline that said: “Read my lips: I lied.”

His U-turn on taxes was widely seen as one of the reasons he did not get re-elected for a second term.

In 1998, President Bill Clinton said before a federal grand jury, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman,” referring to his intern Monica Lewinsky, with whom he did, in fact, have an affair.

Monica Lewinsky and former President Bill Clinton.Fiona Hanson – PA Images/PA Images via Getty Images. Jeff Overs/BBC News & Current Affairs via Getty Images.

Clinton was impeached for lying under oath, but he was acquitted by the Senate.

It was thought to be the first time a president was caught lying about their sex life because it was the first time a president had ever really been asked about it.

In 2003, two months after the US invaded Iraq, President George W. Bush claimed to have found weapons of mass destruction to justify the war.

Then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush standing between American flags in 1999. — Then-Texas Gov. George W. Bush in 1999.David Hume Kennerly/Getty Images

“We found the weapons of mass destruction,” he said. “For those who say we haven’t found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they’re wrong; we found them.”

But they hadn’t found anything.

Bush later said, “We do not know whether or not [Iraq] has a nuclear weapon.”

However, then-CIA Director George Tenet later testified that Bush was advised there were no nuclear weapons and it would be unlikely that the country could even make one until 2007.

In 2008, when President Barack Obama was pushing through his new Affordable Care Act, Obamacare, he promised people wouldn’t need to change their plans if they didn’t want to.

Former President Barack Obama in 2017.Stephane Cardinale – Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images

“If you like your plan, you can keep it,” Obama said. But it wasn’t true.

In the end, millions of people had to change their plans. He also didn’t just say it once, but around 37 times, Politico reported.

“I am sorry that they are finding themselves in this situation based on assurances they got from me,” he said in 2013.

President Donald Trump made more than 30,000 false or misleading statements while in office.

This averaged out at about 21 false claims a day, The Washington Post reported.

Some of Trump’s lies included his claim that the pandemic was “totally under control,” the altering of a weather map with a Sharpie after he wrongly said Alabama was at risk from Hurricane Dorian, or his claim that Rep Ilhan Omar supported al Qaeda.

He also falsely claimed the election was stolen from him.

Some workers who rebuild homes after hurricanes are afraid to go to Florida. They blame a law DeSantis championed

CNN

Some workers who rebuild homes after hurricanes are afraid to go to Florida. They blame a law DeSantis championed

Catherine E. Shoichet, CNN – September 7, 2023

Immigrant workers from across the US raced to Florida to help rebuild after Hurricane Ian devastated the region.

But now, nearly a year later and days after another major hurricane hit, some of those workers say this time they’re staying home.

Saket Soni, whose nonprofit Resilience Force advocates for thousands of disaster response workers, says there’s one clear reason behind the shift: Florida’s new immigration law, which Gov. Ron DeSantis has championed.

In a survey Resilience Force conducted over several months this summer, Soni says more than half of the nonprofit organization’s roughly 2,000 members said they would not travel to Florida to help with hurricane recovery efforts because of the law. And in the aftermath of Hurricane Idalia, he says, many remain concerned.

“They felt very fearful,” says Soni, the organization’s executive director. “No amount of money would be worth it if it meant they would be incarcerated or deported.”

Normally, Soni says Resilience Force workers wouldn’t think twice before heading to a disaster zone.

The group is made up largely of immigrants, many of whom are undocumented, Soni says. And much like migrant workers who follow harvest seasons and travel from farm to farm, they crisscross the US to help clean up and rebuild when disaster strikes. Soni says many of them see the skills they’ve honed over years of responding to major storms as a calling, in addition to a means of supporting their families.

“Sadly,” he says, “you have all of these workers sitting in Houston and in New Orleans, coming to our offices, asking us, is there a chance this law will be repealed? Is there any chance they could go?”

DeSantis touted the law as ‘ambitious.’ Immigrant rights advocates call it ‘draconian’

CNN has reached out to DeSantis’ office for comment. In May, the Florida governor and aspiring GOP presidential candidate signed what he touted as “the most ambitious anti-illegal immigration laws in the country.” The measure – also known as SB1718 – went into effect on July 1. It includes provisions that:

– Make it a third-degree felony to “knowingly and willfully” transport someone who’s undocumented into the state

– Require business with at least 25 workers to use E-Verify, a federal program that checks workers’ immigration status

– Invalidate driver’s licenses issued to unauthorized immigrants in other states

– Require certain hospitals in Florida to ask patients about their immigration status

At a press conference after he signed the bill, DeSantis described its passage as a “great victory.”

“In Florida, we want businesses to hire citizens and legal immigrants. But we want them to follow the law and not (hire) illegal immigrants, and that’s not that hard to do,” he said. “And once we get that kind of as a norm in our society, I think we’re going to be a lot better off.”

Supporters of the law have said stopping undocumented immigrants from coming to the state and pushing out those who already live in Florida is part of their aim.

Critics call the law “draconian” and argue that it’s hurting the state’s economy and putting immigrant communities on edge.

“People are living in fear,” says Adriana Rivera, communications director of the Florida Immigrant Coalition.

Before it went into effect, the law spurred a travel advisory from one of the most prominent Latino advocacy groups in the United States. And immigrant advocates warn that concerns over the law have already caused some workers in key industries like agriculture and construction to leave Florida.

“This law is particularly problematic because it really doesn’t benefit anyone. This law was created to demonize the state’s immigrant communities that have been so critical in building our state and growing our economy,” says Samuel Vilchez Santiago, Florida state director for the American Business Immigration Coalition.

An unstilted home that came off its blocks sits partially submerged in a canal in Horseshoe Beach, Florida, on September 1, two days after Hurricane Idalia hit. - Rebecca Blackwell/AP — An unstilted home that came off its blocks sits partially submerged in a canal in Horseshoe Beach, Florida, on September 1, two days after Hurricane Idalia hit. – Rebecca Blackwell/AP

CNN teams reporting in Florida since Idalia hit haven’t observed any worker shortages.

But in recent months, Vilchez says he’s received multiple reports from managers who’ve showed up to construction sites expecting to see workers and instead found the worksites abandoned.

Soni, Resilience Force’s executive director, says he watched a similar scene unfold a week after the law passed.

“I remember being there one afternoon and talking to a worker at lunchtime. … And he, quite literally, while he was talking to me was packing his tools into his pickup truck and leaving with his crew.”

It was an early sign, Soni says, of harms caused by the immigration law.

“It’s really undermining the ability of Floridians to recover after a hurricane,” he says. “It’s upending the possibility of homes being rebuilt.”

‘I can’t lose my family just to earn a few more dollars’

For Josue, a 23-year-old from Honduras who lives in Texas and works in home remodeling, it’s been hard to watch news reports from Florida showing Hurricane Idalia’s aftermath.

“I feel powerless, seeing how all these people need help,” he says.

Josue, who asked to be identified only by his first name because he’s undocumented, says he knows how hard it is for families to clean up and move forward after disaster strikes.

“We’ve had hurricanes like this hit Honduras, and people have helped us,” he says. “And that’s one reason I want to help. We do it with all our hearts. We do it because we are all equal.”

Last year, he spent months in the Fort Myers area rebuilding homes “from top to bottom” – some still swamped with floodwaters, some with roofs ripped off.

In this aerial view, destruction left in the wake of Hurricane Ian is shown in Fort Myers Beach, Florida, on October 2, 2022. - Win McNamee/Getty Images — In this aerial view, destruction left in the wake of Hurricane Ian is shown in Fort Myers Beach, Florida, on October 2, 2022. – Win McNamee/Getty Images

This year, he says he doesn’t feel safe returning to the state.

Neither does 30-year-old Javier, who lives in New Orleans and also asked to be identified only by his first name because he’s undocumented.

After a few months remodeling homes in Fort Myers after Hurricane Ian last year, Javier says he sensed the atmosphere in the community shifting. Rumors swirled of undocumented workers getting arrested. He fled to Louisiana after hearing that more raids were imminent.

“If it was like that then, imagine how it would be now, with this law,” he says.

He thinks of the many family members he’s supporting, like his 12-year-old daughter in Honduras, who wants to be a surgeon when she grows up. And he thinks of his two sons living in Louisiana.

“I can’t lose my freedom,” he says. “I can’t lose my family just to earn a few more dollars.”

He’s worried about damage from this hurricane – and the next one

Officials are still surveying the damage Hurricane Idalia left behind when the Category 3 storm made landfall last week in Florida’s Big Bend region.

So far, despite the storm’s intensity, experts say the damage appears to be less extensive than other major hurricanes, partly because Idalia made landfall in a less populated region.

Hurricane Idalia caused between $12 billion and $20 billion in damage and lost output, according to a preliminary cost estimate from Moody’s Analytics. Hurricane Ian caused an estimated $112.9 billion of total damage, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Saket Soni, executive director of Resilience Force, speaks to workers in a parking lot in LaPlace, Louisiana, on February 07, 2022. - Josh Brasted/Getty Images — Saket Soni, executive director of Resilience Force, speaks to workers in a parking lot in LaPlace, Louisiana, on February 07, 2022. – Josh Brasted/Getty Images

Even though the damage from this storm isn’t as extensive, Soni says his contacts in the state still report that significant help is needed.

“There’s pretty major devastation in rural areas. There’s a lot of fallen trees. There’s a lot of homeowners in rural areas trying to clean their yards, and an older population of homeowners that needs the help,” Soni says.

While worker shortages in the wake of Idalia haven’t been reported, Soni says that’s a very real possibility if another major storm strikes the state this hurricane season, which ends November 30.

Forecasters are currently eying Hurricane Lee in the Atlantic, although they say it’s too soon to know whether the storm will strike the mainland US.

“Thankfully this recent hurricane, Idalia, did not hit a major city, but the next hurricane could hit the day after tomorrow,” Soni says. “It could come for Jacksonville or Tampa or Tallahassee. And at that point the governor would have a massive rebuilding effort on his hands, and no workers to fuel it. That’s really the situation that I’m concerned about.”

That, too, would be a disaster, Soni says – but one that he says is man-made, and avoidable.

CNN’s Matt Egan, Gloria Pazmino, Bill Kirkos, Carlos Suarez, Denise Royal, Isabel Rosales, Laura Robinson and Elisabeth Buchwald contributed to this report.

Trump: ‘I’m Allowed to Do Whatever I Want’ With Classified Info

Rolling Stone

Trump: ‘I’m Allowed to Do Whatever I Want’ With Classified Info

Peter Wade – September 6, 2023

Donald Trump said he “absolutely” plans to testify in the federal government’s case against him regarding classified documents he removed from the White House. “I’m allowed to do whatever I want … I’m allowed to do everything I did,” the former president told conservative podcast host Hugh Hewitt.

In an interview on “The Hugh Hewitt Show” that dropped Wednesday, the host asked Trump, “Did you direct anyone to move the boxes, Mr. President? Did you tell anyone to move the boxes?” referring to the boxes of more than 300 classified documents the federal government seized last year from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.

“I don’t talk about anything. You know why? Because I’m allowed to do whatever I want. I come under the Presidential Records Act,” Trump replied, while also taking a quick detour to bash Hewitt. “I’m not telling you. You know, every time I talk to you, ‘Oh, I have a breaking story.’ You don’t have any story. I come under the Presidential Records Act. I’m allowed to do everything I did.”

Trump has long been misrepresenting what is allowed under the Presidential Records Act.

The law states: “Upon the conclusion of a President’s term of office, or if a President serves consecutive terms upon the conclusion of the last term, the Archivist of the United States shall assume responsibility for the custody, control, and preservation of, and access to, the Presidential records of that President.” There is an allowance for presidents to keep records that are of “a purely private or nonpublic character” and unrelated to presidential duties, but many of the documents Trump was found to possess came from government agencies, such as the C.I.A. and Department of Defense. Trump even bragged on tape post-presidency about holding on to plans for war with Iran.

When Hewitt asked Trump if he would testify in his own defense at the trial in the documents case, the former president said, “That, I would do. That, I look forward to, because that’s just like Russia, Russia, Russia. That’s all the fake information from Russia, Russia, Russia. Remember when the dossier came out and everyone said, ‘Oh, that’s so terrible, that’s so terrible,’ and then it turned out to be it was a political report put out by Hillary Clinton and the DNC. They paid millions for it. They gave it to Christopher Steele. They paid millions and millions of dollars for it, and it was all fake. It was all fake.”

“So I look forward, I look forward to testifying. At trial, I’ll testify,” Trump added. Of course, Trump loves to talk a big game, and we likely won’t know if he will actually testify until next year. The classified documents trial is set to begin in May 2024.

Hewitt followed up by asking, “If you do [testify] and they ask you on the stand, did you order anyone to move boxes, how will you answer?”

“I’m not answering that question for you,” Trump said, “but I’m totally covered under the law.”

In addition to discussing his legal troubles, Hewitt asked Trump for his thoughts on an unrelated topic: Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. “I know that they don’t like me,” Trump said. “I said that I don’t think they are very appropriate what they’re saying, what they’re doing, and I didn’t like the way she dealt with the queen.”

Mike Huckabee Hints at Violence if Trump Loses in 2024: Will Be Last Election ‘Decided by Ballots Rather Than Bullets’ (Video)

THe Wrap

Mike Huckabee Hints at Violence if Trump Loses in 2024: Will Be Last Election ‘Decided by Ballots Rather Than Bullets’ (Video)

Dessi Gomez – September 6, 2023

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee warned on the latest episode of his “Huckabee” program on the Trinity Broadcasting Network that the 2024 election may be the last decided by “ballots rather than bullets” if former President Donald Trump does not win.

Huckabee, himself a failed presidential candidate, began the segment by accusing President Joe Biden with enacting similar policing tactics seen in “third-world dictatorships” to silent his primary political opponent.

“Do you know how political opponents to those in power are dealt with in third-world dictatorships, banana republics and communist regimes?” Huckabee asked during his monologue of Saturday night’s episode. “The people in power use their police agencies to arrest their opponents for made-up crimes in an attempt to discredit them, bankrupt them, imprison them, exile them or all of the above.”

For Huckabee, the multiple indictments against Trump fall under the “made-up crimes” category. Trump became the first American president to be indicted in March with charges relating to 2016 hush money payments made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels. And he has faced three indictments since then, most recently a series of charges out of Fulton County, Georgia, relating to alleged efforts to overturn the state’s 2020 election results.

While it’s unfounded by fact, Huckabee said he believes that Trump’s legal woes surrounding alleged hush-money payments, conspiracies to defraud the United States, mishandling of classified documents and more are a direct result of Biden trying to silence his political opponent.

“If you are not paying attention, you may not realize that Joe Biden is using exactly those tactics to make sure that Donald Trump is not his opponent in 2024,” Huckabee said.

“This kind of thuggery at tax payer expense isn’t supposed to happen in the United States,” he continued. “No, we’re supposed to be a nation of laws and not a nation of powerful people. But the Biden administration is in full meltdown mode to hide the money laundering, influence peddling and outright bribery that Joe, his son Hunter and their associates have been conducting for well over a decade that has enriched them to the tune of tens of millions of dollars.”

And that’s where the former politician intimated of violence to come if the legal actions against Trump are to cost him the 2024 presidential election.

“Here’s the problem: If these tactics end up working to keep Trump from winning or even running in 2024, it is going to be the last American election that will be decided by ballots rather than bullets,” he said.

Watch Huckabee’s full opening monologue in the video above.

Ta’Kiya Young’s family calls for charges against the officer who killed the pregnant Black woman

Associated Press

Ta’Kiya Young’s family calls for charges against the officer who killed the pregnant Black woman

Samantha Hendrickson – September 1, 2023

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Ohio authorities on Friday released bodycam video showing a police officer fatally shooting Ta’Kiya Young in her car in what her family denounced as a “gross misuse of power and authority” against the pregnant Black mother.

Sean Walton, an attorney representing Young’s family, said the video clearly shows that the Aug. 24 shooting of the 21-year-old woman was unjustified and he called for the officer to be fired and charged immediately. Walton also criticized police for not releasing the video footage for more than a week after the shooting.

“Ta’Kiya’s family is heartbroken,” Walton said in an interview with The Associated Press. “The video did nothing but confirm their fears that Ta’Kiya was murdered unjustifiably … and it was just heartbreaking for them to see Ta’Kiya having her life taken away under such ridiculous circumstances.”

A spokesman for the police union said calls to charge the officer before an investigation is complete are premature. The officer is on paid administrative leave while the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation examines the shooting, which is standard practice. A second officer who was on the scene has returned to active duty. Their names, races and ranks have not been released.

Blendon Township Police Chief John Belford called the shooting a tragedy.

“Ms. Young’s family is understandably very upset and grieving,” he said in a written statement released Friday morning. “While none of us can fully understand the depths of their pain, all of us can remember them in our prayers and give them the time and space to deal with this heartbreaking turn of events.”

Young’s death follows a troubling series of fatal shootings of Black adults and children by Ohio police and numerous occurrences of police brutality against Black people across the nation in recent years, events that have prompted widespread protests and demands for police reform.

Young’s father, grandmother and other relatives watched the video before its public release and released a statement Friday through Walton.

“It is undeniable that Ta’Kiya’s death was not only avoidable, but also a gross misuse of power and authority,” the statement said. While viewing the video, the family felt “a lot of anger, a lot of frustration,” Walton told The Associated Press.

“More than anything, there was … a sense of just devastation, to know that this power system, these police officers, could stop her and so quickly take her life for no justifiable reason.”

The video shows an officer at the driver’s side window telling Young she has been accused of theft and repeatedly demanding that she get out of the car. A second officer is standing in front of the car.

Young protests, and the first officer repeats his demand. Young then turns the steering wheel to her right and the car moves toward the officer standing in front of it, who fires his gun through the windshield. Young’s sedan then drifts into the grocery store’s brick wall.

Officers then break the driver’s side window, which Belford said was to get Young out of the car and render medical aid, though footage of medical assistance was not provided.

In his interview with the AP on Friday, Walton denied that Young had stolen anything from the grocery store. He said his firm found a witness who saw Young put down bottles of alcohol as she left the store.

“The bottles were left in the store,” he said. “So when she’s in her car denying that, that’s accurate. She did not commit any theft, and so these officers were not even within their right to place her under arrest, let alone take her life.”

Brian Steel, executive vice president of the union representing Blendon Township police, called Walton a “modern-day ambulance chaser” and criticized his characterization of the shooting as a murder while the investigation is still ongoing and all of the facts have yet to be established.

Steel said in a phone interview that the case will almost certainly be presented to a grand jury for a decision on whether to file charges against the officer, but he declined to say whether Young’s death was justified. “The fact is (the officer) had to make a split-second decision while in front of a moving vehicle, a 2,000-pound weapon,” he said.

Responding to criticism of the delay in releasing the video, Belford said it took time for his small staff to process it and properly redact certain footage, such as officers’ faces and badge numbers, in accordance with Ohio law.

He said the officers’ names cannot be released at this point because they are being treated as assault victims. He said one of the officer’s arms was still partially in the driver’s side window and a second officer was still standing in front of the car when Young moved the car forward.

Young’s death is one of numerous deaths of Black adults and children at the hands of police across the nation that have drawn protests and demands for more accountability. Among the most prominent cases was George Floyd’s death on May 25, 2020. Floyd died after then-Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin, who is white, pressed a knee on his neck for 9 1/2 minutes on the street outside a convenience store where Floyd tried to pass a counterfeit $20 bill. Chauvin was convicted of second-degree murder.

In Ohio, Donovan Lewis was lying on his bed in August 2022 when he was shot by a K-9 officer serving a warrant. Ma’Khia Bryant, a 16-year-old girl in foster care who was accused of swinging at two people with a knife, was fatally shot in April 2021, minutes before the guilty verdict was announced for the Minnesota police involved in the death of George Floyd. In December 2020, Casey Goodson Jr., was shot five times in the back by a Franklin County sheriff’s deputy.

Ohio Families Unite for Political Action and Change, a grassroots organization focused on eradicating police brutality, said the footage shows officers’ conduct was “violent, defenseless, and egregious” and that they acted as “judge, jury and executioner.”

“We are in pain for her family, our community, and all families impacted by police brutality who are re-traumatized upon viewing yet another murder by police in Ohio,” the group said in a statement emailed to the AP.

Young was expected to give birth to a daughter in November. Family and friends held a private vigil a day after Young was killed, releasing balloons and lighting candles spelling out “RIP Kiya.” An online effort to pay her funeral expenses has raised over $7,000.

Ta’Kiya’s siblings, cousins, grandmother and father have rallied around her sons, 6-year-old Ja’Kobie and 3-year-old Ja’Kenlie, who don’t yet understand the magnitude of what happened to their mother, Walton said.

“It’s a large family and Ta’Kiya has been snatched away from them,” Walton said. “I think the entire family is still in shock.”

Young’s grandmother, Nadine Young, described her granddaughter as a family-oriented prankster who was a loving older sister and mother.

“She was so excited to have this little girl,” the grandmother said at a news conference Wednesday. “She has her two little boys, but she was so fired up to have this girl. She is going to be so missed.”

“I’m a mess because it’s just tragic,” she said, “but it should have never ever ever happened.”

Associated Press writers Aaron Morrison in New York; Maryclaire Dale in Philadelphia; Michael Rubinkam in northeastern Pennsylvania; and video journalist Patrick Orsagos in Columbus contributed to this report.

Samantha Hendrickson is a corps member for the Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues.

State election officials prepare for efforts to disqualify Trump under 14th Amendment

Good Morning America

State election officials prepare for efforts to disqualify Trump under 14th Amendment

Isabella Murray and Hannah Demissie September 1, 2023

Efforts to keep former President Donald Trump off the 2024 ballot under the 14th Amendment are gaining momentum as election officials in key states are preparing for or starting to respond to legal challenges to Trump’s candidacy.

The argument to disqualify Trump from appearing on primary or general election ballots in 2024 boils down to Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which states that an elected official is not eligible to assume public office if that person “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against” the United States, or had “given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof,” unless they are granted amnesty by a two-thirds vote of Congress.

Several advocacy groups have said that Trump’s actions on Jan. 6, 2021, fit that criteria — that he directly engaged in an insurrection. The legal theory has been pursued, unsuccessfully, against a few other elected Republicans; arguing their actions around Jan. 6 and support for overturning the 2020 election results amounted to the disqualifying behavior.

Trump has denied any involvement in the attack on the Capitol.

“Joe Biden, Democrats, and Never Trumpers are scared to death because they see polls showing President Trump winning in the general election,” Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Chung told ABC News in a statement. “The people who are pursuing this absurd conspiracy theory and political attack on President Trump are stretching the law beyond recognition much like the political prosecutors in New York, Georgia, and DC. There is no legal basis for this effort … “

The push to disqualify Trump under this constitutional clause gained more traction when two members of the conservative Federalist Society, William Baude and Michael Stokes Paulsen, recently supported the idea in the pages of the Pennsylvania Law Review. Following the Baude and Paulsen article, retired conservative federal appeals judge J. Michael Luttig and Harvard Law Professor Emeritus Laurence Tribe made the same argument in The Atlantic.

PHOTO: Former US President and 2024 presidential hopeful Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at Windham High School in Windham, New Hampshire, on Aug. 8, 2023. (Joseph Prezioso/AFP via Getty Images, FILE)

MORE: 14th Amendment, Section 3: A new legal battle against Trump takes shape

Now, threats of filings against Trump under this clause are gaining steam in a number of states, including New Hampshire and Arizona and in Michigan, a lawsuit to disqualify Trump was filed on Monday. Secretaries of state say they have started to take steps to prepare for the possibility of administering elections without the current GOP front-runner.

In an interview with ABC News, Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, said that she and other secretaries of state from Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada, New Hampshire and Maine started having conversations over a year ago about preparing for the legal challenges to Trump’s candidacy.

“I’m talking every day with colleagues about this, we’re all recognizing that our decisions that we make may in some cases be the first but won’t be the last and there may be multiple decision points throughout the course of the election cycle,” Benson said. “So, I think the public needs to be prepared for this to be an ongoing issue that is it has several resolution points and evolutions points throughout the cycle.”

But as conversations grow around the use of the 14th Amendment provision, some legal scholars and election officials are increasingly concerned about the practicality of the emerging lawsuits.

“The most difficult aspects of the litigation that the challenges to Trump’s eligibility will generate probably aren’t so much substantive as they are procedural,” Tribe wrote in an email to ABC News, noting that there is a lack of clarity about who has standing to bring the challenges.

“You can be sure that many secretaries of state, advised by many legal experts from across the ideological spectrum, are now studying the details of the legislative regimes in place in their respective states for dealing with challenges to the eligibility of candidates aspiring to become president,” he continued.

New Hampshire secretary of state conferring with attorney general

Bryant “Corky” Messner, a lawyer who lives in New Hampshire and was previously endorsed by Trump during his 2020 Senate run in the state, announced last week that he had begun the steps to challenge Trump’s eligibility to appear on the New Hampshire primary ballot.

New Hampshire’s Secretary of State Office confirmed to ABC News that Messner met with Secretary of State David Scanlan, a Republican, last Friday to discuss Section 3 of the 14th Amendment.

PHOTO: New Hampshire Secretary of State, David M. Scanlan, following a public meeting with the New Hampshire Special Committee on Voter Confidence, Sept. 6, 2022. (John Tully/The Washington Post via Getty Images, FILE)

MORE: Trump’s 2024 bid hit with immediate challenge from group behind ‘disqualification clause’ lawsuits

The Secretary of State office also confirmed that it was flooded with calls from supporters of Trump on Monday, after conservative activist and host Charlie Kirk claimed that the state was trying to keep Trump off the ballot.

That office, and the attorney general’s, then released a joint statement clarifying that they have not taken any actions to prevent Trump from appearing on the primary ballot.

“Neither the Secretary of State’s Office nor the Attorney General’s Office has taken any position regarding the potential applicability of Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution to the upcoming presidential election cycle,” their statement reads.

The statement also said that Scanlan has asked the state’s attorney general to advise his office “regarding the meaning of Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and the provision’s potential applicability to the upcoming presidential election cycle.”

Michigan fields its first 14th Amendment lawsuit

Robert Davis — widely known in Michigan as a citizen activist who serially sues state politicians — on Monday filed a lawsuit that urges Secretary of State Benson to declare Trump is ineligible to run for office.

Davis asked Benson to make a decision on Trump’s candidacy within 14 days.

Asked by ABC News her thoughts on Davis’ lawsuit, Benson said her focus is on upholding the law and acknowledged her state’s position as a battleground will influence public narrative nation wide surrounding the issue.

“My commitment is to making sure that even in this very unprecedented uncharted territory we find ourselves in that we at all times proceed according to the law, both substantively and procedurally.”

PHOTO: Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, attends an Election Night party, on Nov. 8, 2022, in Detroit. (Carlos Osorio/AP, FILE)

MORE: Should certain politicians be subject to disqualification under the Constitution’s ban on ‘insurrectionists’?

Benson had said during an interview on a Michigan Information and Research Service News podcast that it was too soon to decide on whether Trump will appear on Michigan’s ballot.

“I have said for, really since 2020, that this presidential cycle in 2024, is, I believe, in many ways going to be the grand finale of all the bumps and the challenges we’ve seen and endured since the 2020 election cycle, maybe even 2016.”

Arizona’s secretary of state gathering clarification from legal counsel

In Arizona, Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, a Democrat, said that he was planning for the possibility of challenges to Trump’s ballot eligibility but does not himself have the authority to explicitly bar Trump from appearing on the ballot.

Last year, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled that there would be no way for his office to enforce the disqualification clause, only Congress would have the right to do so — a ruling Fontes called “dead wrong.”

“If that was the case, then no constitutional qualifier applies. So, a 23-year-old born in Poland, for example, who never became a citizen, could run for president in Arizona,” Fontes told ABC News.

Fontes said he doesn’t know of any specific individual or groups who have organized to file a lawsuit challenging Trump’s eligibility, but his office has gotten phone calls and notes objecting to the former president potentially appearing on the ballot.

For now, he’s “deciding on how to decide” how to proceed with who exactly appears on the 2024 ballot and gathering clarification from legal counsel.

PHOTO: Adrian Fontes, newly elected Arizona Secretary of State, gives a victory speech in Phoenix, Ariz., Nov. 14, 2022. (Jon Cherry/Getty Images, FILE)

“I cannot imagine a scenario where … a secretary of state allows Mr. Trump to be on the ballot and does not get sued. I can also not imagine a scenario where Mr. Trump is disallowed and does not get sued. I mean, this is this is this is where we are now. So I believe that we will be sued no matter what. I’ve still got to do my due diligence to get the job done,” Fontes said.

Fontes noted that he’s preparing so far in advance because he’s concerned about the toll these challenges and potential countersuits might pose to the voting process and election workers, especially in a state like Arizona, which has dealt with tedious and sometimes dangerous challenges surrounding election results over the past few cycles.

“Away from the political considerations This is an administrative issue. This is a ministerial point in time that cannot be avoided,” Fontes said. “We don’t have the luxury of waiting until next November. And anybody who’s misunderstanding the calendar and what it means to run an election has to sort of disabuse themselves of the notion that we have the comfort of time moving into this decision.”

“This is an active conversation. It is a national conversation. And I expect that we will end up eventually standing in front of nine judges in Washington, DC and they will decide,” he added.

Tribe, the Harvard law professor emeritus, also told ABC News that he expects the issue to reach the U.S. Supreme Court.

“Donald Trump could indeed be on the primary ballot in some states and not in others, although it is entirely possible that whichever state’s situation is first to reach adjudication in a state trial court when a secretary of state either sues or is sued with respect to Trump’s inclusion or exclusion from the ballot will quickly climb the judicial ladder to a Supreme Court adjudication that could then set a uniform rule for subsequent state primaries,” Tribe wrote in an email to ABC News.

“The Supreme Court would need to get involved soon after one or more states have received authoritative directions from a state or federal court,” he said, noting that the case was “likely to move on an expedited schedule in light of the need to avoid confusion and uncertainty.”

Ohio’s secretary of state: ‘A fringe legal theory’

In Ohio, another state where threats of the challenge have circulated, Secretary of State Frank LaRose’s office said in a statement that his office was “not aware of any litigation in Ohio” related to what they called a “fringe legal theory.”

There appear to be no attempts by LaRose, a Republican, to prepare for the possibility of any lawsuits challenging Trump’s eligibility.

“We do not anticipate being told to deny ballot access to any candidate who complies with Ohio law,” his office continued.

ABC News’ Kelsey Walsh and Laura Gersony contributed to this report.

This community lost 5 million gallons of clean, drinkable water a day — all because of an abandoned golf course

The Cool Down

This community lost 5 million gallons of clean, drinkable water a day — all because of an abandoned golf course

Laurelle Stelle – August 31, 2023

Jackson, Mississippi, experienced frequent water shortages and contamination for years, all while a leaking water main poured five million gallons per day into a nearby stream until finally being repaired.

What happened?

According to The New York Times, the leak was located under a golf course at the Colonial Country Club and had been there since 2016. It affected one of the two main pipes carrying water from the local treatment plant to the rest of the city, where the pressure was so strong that water from the leak shot into the air like a geyser and carved a swimming pool-sized pit in the ground.

Not only did the country club leak lose enough to supply 50,000 people with water every day, but it was only one of many large leaks affecting Jackson’s aging water system. The New York Times reports that the city’s two water plants were built in the 1910s and 1980s, meaning that many of the pipes the city relies on are over 100 years old and could break at any time.

Why does it matter?

Jackson residents have been experiencing problems with their water for years, according to the Times. They receive frequent “boil notices” — warnings that the tap water is unsafe and should be boiled before use — and at times receive no tap water at all. Many residents stockpile bottled water to prepare for the next crisis. Being without clean drinking water is bad enough, but experiencing these shortages while clean water is being poured out on the ground is especially alarming.

As temperatures rise across the globe, Jackson isn’t the only part of the U.S. experiencing water shortages. California and other western states have been facing a years-long drought, while pollution has affected the water supply in towns like Dimock, Pennsylvania. These shortages lead to increased water costs and may have long-term effects on agriculture that could drive up food prices.

What is being done to fix it?

Until recently, poor management has prevented any real improvement in Jackson, which is why the Justice Department ordered the city to bring in an outside manager for the water department in 2022, the Times reports. Repairs are finally underway, starting with the Colonial Country Club leak and aided by a recent infusion of federal funds.

Trump and His Co-Defendants in Georgia Are Already at Odds

The New York Times

Trump and His Co-Defendants in Georgia Are Already at Odds

Richard Fausset and Danny Hakim – August 27, 2023

Former President Donald Trump at the airport in Atlanta, after being booked at the Fulton County Jail where he and 18 allies were charged in Georgia election meddling, on Thursday, Aug. 24, 2023. (Doug Mills/The New York Times)

Even as former President Donald Trump and his 18 co-defendants in the Georgia election interference case turned themselves in one by one at an Atlanta jail this past week, their lawyers began working to change how the case will play out.

They are already at odds over when they will have their day in court, but also, crucially, where. Should enough of them succeed, the case could split into several smaller cases, perhaps overseen by different judges in different courtrooms, running on different timelines.

Five defendants have already sought to move the state case to federal court, citing their ties to the federal government. The first one to file — Mark Meadows, Trump’s chief of staff during the 2020 election — will make the argument for removal Monday, in a hearing before a federal judge in Atlanta.

Federal officials charged with state crimes can move their cases to federal court if they can convince a judge that they are being charged for actions connected to their official duties, among other things.

In the Georgia case, the question of whether to change the venue — a legal maneuver known as removal — matters because it would affect the composition of a jury. If the case stays in Fulton County, the jury will come from a bastion of Democratic politics where Trump was trounced in 2020. If the case is removed to federal court, the jury will be drawn from a 10-county region of Georgia that is more suburban and rural — and somewhat more Trump-friendly. Because it takes only one not-guilty vote to hang a jury, this modest advantage could prove to be a very big deal.

The coming fights over the proper venue for the case are only one strand of a complicated tangle of efforts being launched by a gaggle of defense lawyers now representing Trump and the 18 others named in the 98-page racketeering indictment. This past week, the lawyers clogged both state and federal court dockets with motions that will also determine when the case begins.

Already, one defendant’s case is splitting off as a result. Kenneth Chesebro, a lawyer who advised Trump after the 2020 election, has asked for a speedy trial, and the presiding state judge has agreed to it. His trial is now set to begin Oct. 23. Another defendant, Sidney Powell, filed a similar motion Friday, and a third, John Eastman, also plans to invoke his right to an early trial, according to one of his lawyers.

Soon after Chesebro set in motion the possibility of an October trial, Trump, obviously uncomfortable with the idea of going to court so soon, informed the court that he intended to sever his case from the rest of the defendants. Ordering separate trials for defendants in a large racketeering indictment can occur for any number of reasons, and the judge, Scott McAfee, has made clear the early trial date applied only to Chesebro.

Trump’s move came as no surprise. As the leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, he is in no hurry to see the Georgia matter, or the other three criminal cases against him, go to trial. In the separate federal election interference case Trump faces in Washington, D.C., his lawyers have asked that the trial start safely beyond the November 2024 general election — in April 2026.

In Georgia, the possibility that even a portion of the sprawling case may go to trial in October remains up in the air. The removal efforts have much to do with that.

There is a possibility that if one of the five defendants seeking removal is successful, then all 19 will be forced into federal court. Many legal scholars have noted that the question is unsettled.

“We are heading for uncharted territory at this point, and nobody knows for sure what is in this novel frontier,” Donald Samuel, a veteran Atlanta defense attorney who represents one of the defendants in the Trump case, Ray Smith III, wrote in an email. “Maybe a trip to the Supreme Court.”

The dizzying legal gamesmanship reflects the unique nature of a case that has swept up a former president, a number of relatively obscure Georgia Republican activists, a former publicist for Kanye West and lawyer-defendants of varying prominence. All bring their own agendas, financial concerns and opinions about their chances at trial.

And, of course, one of them seeks to regain the title of leader of the free world.

Some of the defendants seeking a speedy trial may believe that the case against them is weak. They may also hope to catch prosecutors unprepared, although in this case, Fani Willis, the district attorney, has been investigating for 2 1/2 years and has had plenty of time to get ready.

Another reason that some may desire a speedy trial is money.

Willis had originally sought to start a trial in March, but even that seemed ambitious given the complexity of the case. Harvey Silverglate, Eastman’s lawyer, said he could imagine a scenario in which a verdict might not come for three years.

“And Eastman is not a wealthy man,” he said.

Silverglate added that his client “doesn’t have the contributors” that Trump has. “We are going to seek a severance and a speedy trial. If we have a severance, the trial will take three weeks,” he predicted.

How long would a regular racketeering trial take? Brian Tevis, an Atlanta lawyer who negotiated the bond agreement for Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s former personal lawyer, said that “the defense side would probably want potentially a year or so to catch up.”

“You have to realize that the state had a two-year head start,” he said. “They know what they have. No one else knows what they have. No discovery has been turned over. We haven’t even had arraignment yet.”

In addition to Meadows, Jeffrey Clark, a former Justice Department official, is already seeking removal, as is David Shafer, former head of the Georgia Republican Party; Shawn Still, a Georgia state senator; and Cathy Latham, former chair of the Republican Party in Coffee County, Georgia. Trump is almost certain to follow, having already tried and failed to have a state criminal case against him in New York moved to federal court.

The indictment charges Meadows with racketeering and “solicitation of violation of oath by public officer” for his participation in the Jan. 2, 2021, call in which Trump told the Georgia secretary of state that he wanted to “find” enough votes to win Georgia. The indictment also describes other efforts by Meadows that prosecutors say were part of the illegal scheme to overturn the 2020 election.

Meadows’ lawyers argue that all of the actions in question were what “one would expect” of a White House chief of staff — “arranging Oval Office meetings, contacting state officials on the president’s behalf, visiting a state government building and setting up a phone call for the president” — and that removal is therefore justified.

Prosecutors contend that Meadows was, in fact, engaging in political activity that was not part of a chief of staff’s job.

The issue is likely to be at the heart of Trump’s removal effort as well: In calling the secretary of state and other Georgia officials after he lost the election, was he working on his own behalf, or in his capacity as president, to ensure that the election had run properly?

Anthony Michael Kreis, an assistant law professor at Georgia State University, said the indictment may contain an Easter egg that could spoil Trump’s argument that he was intervening in the Georgia election as part of his duty as a federal official.

The indictment says that the election-reversal scheme lasted through September 2021, when Trump wrote a letter to Georgia’s secretary of state asking him to take steps to decertify the election.

Trump, by that point, had been out of federal office for months.

“By showing the racketeering enterprise continued well beyond his time in office,” Kreis said in a text message, “it undercuts any argument that Trump was acting in a governmental capacity to ensure the election was free, fair and accurate.”

Two Justices Clash on Congress’ Power Over Supreme Court Ethics

The New York Times

Two Justices Clash on Congress’ Power Over Supreme Court Ethics

Adam Liptak – August 27, 2023

The Supreme Court justices gather in Washington for a formal group portrait session on Friday, Oct. 7, 2022. (Erin Schaff/The New York Times)

WASHINGTON — As a young lawyer in the Reagan White House, John Roberts was tartly dismissive of the Supreme Court’s long summer break, which stretches from the end of June to the first Monday in October.

“Only Supreme Court justices and schoolchildren,” he wrote in 1983, “are expected to and do take the entire summer off.”

On the other hand, the young lawyer wrote, there is an upside to the break: “We know that the Constitution is safe for the summer.”

These days, members of the court find time to quarrel about the Constitution even in the warm months. The primary antagonists lately have been Justices Samuel Alito Jr. and Elena Kagan.

Last summer, they clashed over whether decisions like the one eliminating the constitutional right to abortion threatened the court’s legitimacy.

In recent months, the two justices have continued to spar, though on a different subject: whether Congress has the constitutional authority to regulate aspects of the court’s work.

The question is timely, of course, as news reports have raised ethical questions about, among other things, luxury travel provided to Alito and Justice Clarence Thomas. Those reports have led to proposed legislation to impose new ethics rules on the court.

Alito, in an interview published in The Wall Street Journal last month, appeared to object, saying that “Congress did not create the Supreme Court.”

He added, “I know this is a controversial view, but I’m willing to say it. No provision in the Constitution gives them the authority to regulate the Supreme Court — period.”

A few days later, at a judicial conference in Portland, Oregon, Kagan took the opposite view, though she cautioned that the Journal had not reproduced the question that had prompted Alito’s answer. She indicated, graciously, that he could not have meant what he seemed to say.

“Of course Congress can regulate various aspects of what the Supreme Court does,” she said, ticking off a list of ways in which lawmakers can act. Congress sets the court’s budget. It can increase or shrink the size of the court, and it has over the years done both. It can make changes to the court’s jurisdiction.

Indeed, the Constitution provides that the court has appellate jurisdiction “with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make.”

All of this is unsurprising, Kagan said.

“It just can’t be that the court is the only institution that somehow is not subject to any checks and balances from anybody else,” she said, adding, “I mean, we are not imperial.”

On the broader question of whether Congress may regulate some aspects of the court’s activities, Kagan seemed to have the better of the argument. She did not offer an opinion on the narrower question of whether Congress may impose a code of ethics on the justices, but she said the court remained free to act.

“Regardless of what Congress does, the court can do stuff,” Kagan said, adding, “We could decide to adopt a code of conduct of our own that either follows or decides in certain instances not to follow the standard codes of conduct.”

In remarks at an awards ceremony in May, Roberts said that work remained underway. But he added it was a job for the court, not Congress.

“I want to assure people that I am committed to making certain that we as a court adhere to the highest standards of conduct,” he said. “We are continuing to look at things we can do to give practical effect to that commitment, and I am confident that there are ways to do that consistent with our status as an independent branch of government and the Constitution’s separation of powers.”

It was not clear, though, that consensus among the justices was on the horizon, Kagan said.

“It’s not a secret for me to say that we have been discussing this issue,” she said. “And it won’t be a surprise to know that the nine of us have a variety of views about this, as about most things. We’re nine freethinking individuals.”

Congress has enacted laws that apply to the justices, including ones on financial disclosures and recusal. In a way, the most telling ethics legislation came from the first Congress, in 1789, requiring all federal judges, including Supreme Court justices, to take an oath promising “that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent on me.”

If Congress can take all of those actions, it would seem to be free to enact a code of ethical standards, Amanda Frost, a law professor at the University of Virginia, wrote in a 2013 law review article.

“The Supreme Court is not an isolated institution intended to operate entirely free from the political branches — to the contrary, it has always depended on the political branches to lay out the parameters governing its exercise of judicial power,” Frost wrote, adding, “Congress’s authority over judicial ethics is less surprising once one realizes that Congress has long assumed the power to regulate many important aspects of the court’s daily activities.”

Nordstrom closes San Francisco store on grim note amid naked mannequins, empty display cases

Los Angeles Times

Nordstrom closes San Francisco store on grim note amid naked mannequins, empty display cases

Jessica Garrison – August 27, 2023

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA - AUGUST 26: A sign is posted outside of Nordstrom's flagship store at the San Francisco Centre on August 26, 2023 in San Francisco, California. Nordstrom will close its flagship store this Sunday after more than three decades at the San Francisco Centre. The Covid pandemic and rising crime in the area has contributed to a 25 percent sales decline at the mall and stores in the surrounding area. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) — Nordstrom’s flagship store at the San Francisco Centre mall has closed its doors. (Justin Sullivan / Getty Images)

Nordstrom’s San Francisco flagship, which for decades occupied crucial real estate at the San Francisco Centre mall on Market Street, closed its doors Sunday.

The last days of the high-end store known for its shoes and its service were grim; ABC7 on a recent visit captured images of empty display cases and stacks of naked mannequins and interviewed an employee — whose worn black sneakers were the only part of him in the shot to protect his identity — speaking darkly about crime in the city’s once-vibrant shopping district.

During the store’s last hours on Sunday afternoon, the pattern appeared to break. An employee answering the phone said they were too busy with customers to talk.

The store’s closing has prompted yet another round of hand-wringing about the future of downtown San Francisco. Since the pandemic sent tech workers home by the thousands, with some never to return, foot traffic in the area has plummeted. Stores have closed in droves. The retail vacancy rate in the city was 6% in the first quarter of 2023, the highest in the city since 2006, according to data from Cushman & Wakefield, a commercial real estate services firm.

In announcing the closure of Nordstrom this spring, Jamie Nordstrom, the company’s chief stores officer, said “the dynamics of the downtown San Francisco market have changed dramatically over the past several years, impacting customer foot traffic to our stores and our ability to operate successfully.”

But critics of San Francisco’s political leaders have jumped on the closure as yet another result of the city’s progressive Democratic leadership.

Incidentally, the headquarters of X are just a few blocks west of the now-shuttered Nordstrom, and Chief Executive Elon Musk recently tweeted that he planned to stay. He took a dig at the city in making the announcement, though.

“The city is in a doom spiral, with one company after another left or leaving,” he said. “We will not. … San Francisco, beautiful San Francisco, though others forsake you, we will always be your friend.”

Though San Francisco’s mayor, London Breed, has frequently been at odds with Musk in recent months, on this she expressed a similar sentiment.

After Nordstrom announced its closure in May, Breed held a news conference in Union Square to announce funding to revitalize some streets in the area.

Earlier this month, she also announced that the city was studying the idea of turning the struggling mall that Nordstrom is abandoning into a soccer stadium.

“We know we need to combat the issues around crime and public safety and affordability and transportation,” Breed told the San Francisco Chronicle. “But I am optimistic about the future, because what we are seeing in San Francisco is something like nothing else before. We have the possibility to be whatever we want to be.”