Trump Hotels charged Secret Service exorbitant rates, House inquiry finds
The Trump Organization charged the Secret Service up to $1,185 per night for hotel rooms used by agents protecting former President Donald Trump and his family, according to documents released Monday by the House Oversight Committee. The committee released Secret Service records showing more than $1.4 million in payments by the department to Trump properties since Trump took office. The committee said the accounting was incomplete because it did not include payments to Trump’s foreign properties and because the records stopped in September 2021. The records also make clear that Trump’s son Eric provided a misleading account of what his company was charging.
Oath Keepers leader bought arsenal of weapons ahead of Jan. 6
In the days before a pro-Trump mob broke into the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Stewart Rhodes, leader of the Oath Keepers militia, went on a cross-country weapon-buying spree. Prosecutors said Monday at the trial of Rhodes and four of his subordinates on seditious conspiracy charges that he spent as much as $20,000 on what amounted to a small arsenal. The armed contingent is central to the Justice Department’s case that Rhodes and his four co-defendants — Kelly Meggs, Kenneth Harrelson, Jessica Watkins and Thomas Caldwell — committed seditious conspiracy by plotting to use violence to stop the transfer of power from President Donald Trump to Joe Biden.
Justice Department recommends Bannon be sentenced to 6 months in prison
The Justice Department said Monday that Steve Bannon, a former top aide to Donald Trump, should spend six months in jail and pay a fine of $200,000 after a jury found him guilty this summer of willfully disobeying a subpoena from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack. The prosecutors noted that Bannon, who is set to be sentenced by Judge Carl Nichols on Friday, deserved a penalty harsher than the minimum term of one month because he had blatantly brushed off the committee’s demands and then attacked it in a series of public statements. Lawyers for Bannon recommended that he receive a term of probation.
‘Aggressively moving’ Nakia Creek Fire grows rapidly in Washington state
A wildfire in Washington state grew to 2,000 acres from 150 acres within hours Sunday, forcing thousands of people to evacuate. The fire, called the Nakia Creek fire, is burning on steep ground in the Yacolt Burn State Forest near Camas, Washington, about 20 miles northeast of Portland, Oregon. Officials in Clark County said the fire was spread over 1,565 acres as of Monday morning and was 5% contained. The fire began Oct. 9. Nearly 3,000 homes were placed under mandatory evacuation orders in Clark County. Another 33,780 were under a voluntary evacuation notice.
Jury begins deliberating in trial of analyst who gathered Steele dossier claims
A Trump-era special prosecutor and a defense lawyer delivered clashing views in closing arguments Monday about the motives of Igor Danchenko, a Russia analyst who was a key contributor to the so-called Steele dossier. A jury will now decide whether Danchenko is guilty of lying to the FBI about one of his sources for information in the dossier, a compendium of unsubstantiated assertions that Donald Trump and his 2016 campaign were colluding with Russia. The case is a major test of special counsel John H. Durham, who was appointed in 2019 to investigate the origins of the FBI’s inquiry into the nature of the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia.
Russia Unleashes Drones to Strike Targets in Kyiv, Bringing Death and Fear
They are slow flying and relatively easy to shoot down, but exploding drones were launched by Russia in such numbers on Monday that they nevertheless spread fear and death across the Ukrainian capital. As residents of Kyiv were preparing for work and children were waking up, the drones could be seen flying low over office buildings and apartment blocks. Some police officers fired at them with their rifles. By the end of the attack, at least four people had been killed. In all, Russia launched at least 43 self-destructing Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones across Ukraine on Monday morning, according to Ukraine’s air force.
Nigeria Floods Kill Hundreds and Displace Over a Million
Nigeria is suffering its worst flooding in a decade, with vast areas of farmland, infrastructure and 200,000 homes partly or wholly destroyed. At least 603 people have died, more than 2,400 other people injured and over 1.4 million displaced. For some states, more than a month of floods is likely still to come. Nigeria’s minister of humanitarian affairs, Sadiya Umar Farouq, blamed the scale of the disaster on the failure by branches of government other than her own to take action. “There was enough warning and information about the 2022 flood, but states, local governments and communities appear not to take heed,” the minister wrote on Twitter.
Russia Winds Down Military Draft Process
The mayor of Moscow announced the end of the draft on Monday for new recruits in his city, saying the Russian capital had fulfilled its quota just days after President Vladimir Putin had predicted that the call-up of more than 200,000 recruits to bolster his flagging forces in Ukraine would end within the next two weeks. In addition to Moscow, authorities in more than 30 Russian regions have also said that they had fulfilled their draft quotas. It was unclear how many servicemen were sent to fight in Ukraine from Moscow and other big Russian cities, where there had been a strong resistance to the draft.
China Recruiting Former RAF Pilots to Train Its Army Pilots, U.K. Says
China has recruited as many as 30 retired British military pilots, including former members of the Royal Air Force and some pilots who flew sophisticated fighter jets, to train pilots in the People’s Liberation Army, according to Britain’s Defense Ministry. A senior official said the ministry worried that the practice could threaten British national security. None of the retired pilots are suspected of violating the Official Secrets Act, the British law that covers espionage, sabotage and other crimes. But the official said that Britain was determined to tighten the controls on retired service members to guard against training activities that could contravene espionage laws.
US businesses propose hiding trade data used to trace abuse
A group of major U.S. businesses wants the government to hide key import data — a move trade experts say would make it more difficult for Americans to link the products they buy to labor abuse overseas. The proposal obtained by The Associated Press was made by an advisory panel comprised of executives from 20 companies, including Walmart, General Motors and Intel. If adopted, it would shroud in secrecy customs data on ocean-going freight responsible for about half of the $2.7 trillion in goods entering the U.S. every year. Human rights activists say it flies in the face of government commitments to be more transparent on trade.
Haiti calls for help at the UN as world mulls assistance
The United States and Mexico say they are preparing a U.N. resolution that would authorize “an international assistance mission” to help improve security in crisis-wracked Haiti so desperately needed humanitarian aid can be delivered to millions in need. U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield made the announcement at an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council as thousands across Haiti organized protests demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Ariel Henry. The U.S. ambassador said the proposed “non-U.N.” mission would be limited in time and scope and be led by “a partner country” that was not named “with the deep, necessary experience required for such an effort to be effective.”