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  • Md. AG defends Hillary Clinton lawyers against bar complaint

    Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh’s office offered a new explanation Friday for why the state has refused to pursue a bar complaint against Hillary Clinton’s lawyers over their role in deleting he

    ANNAPOLIS — Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh’s office offered a new explanation Friday for why the state has refused to pursue a bar complaint against Hillary Clinton’s lawyers over their role in deleting her emails: They changed the rules.

    Mr. Frosh’s office said a rules change last year — after the complaint was filed against David E. Kendall, Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson — gives them permission to ignore a complaint brought by Ty Clevenger, a crusading lawyer who says he’s being stonewalled because of politics.

    The case has taken a number of twists, with bar counsel, charged with reviewing lawyer complaints, initially saying Mr. Clevenger wasn’t aggrieved — though the rules at the time didn’t require that proof. Then at a state circuit court hearing the attorney general’s office called Mr. Clevenger’s complaint “frivolous.”

    Now, in oral argument at Maryland’s highest court Friday, state lawyers said a rules change that had been in place before the circuit hearing — but which they forgot about at the time — gives them permission to refuse to investigate any complaints from people who don’t have personal knowledge.

    In this case, they said, Mr. Clevenger is getting his information from press reports, which they said is no longer enough to force a probe.

    “The reason for denying the complaint here is he had no personal knowledge,” said Michele J. McDonald, who argued the case for Mr. Frosh, a Democrat, and the state bar.

    Under questioning by one judge, she specifically said that while the state had advanced the “frivolous” argument before, it was no longer standing by that one.

    Mr. Clevenger expressed frustration afterward, saying it’s “a moving target from one hearing to the next.”

    “We’ve got three lawyers who are accused of destroying more than 30,000 pieces of evidence that were sought by multiple subpoenas,” he said. “Any average lawyer who had intentionally destroyed one piece of evidence would have been disbarred. Period.”

    “Let’s not kid ourselves. This is political,” he said.

    Kicking off Friday’s oral argument, the state lawyers tried to get the Court of Appeals, Maryland’s equivalent to a supreme court, to clear the courtroom, kick out reporters and the public and shut down the webcast.

    Ms. McDonald said the bar rules are designed to protect the “integrity” of the court process, and Mrs. Clinton’s lawyers deserved privacy from unfair accusations.

    The court refused to close the hearing.

    “Isn’t this a problem of once the cat’s out of the bag, how do you get it back in?” said Judge Clayton Greene Jr.

    Mr. Clevenger says the old rules were clear and the state had to investigate any complaint brought before it. He said that doesn’t mean the state had to bring charges, but it must at least probe the matter.

    A circuit court had agreed with him last year, and ordered the investigation into Mr. Kendall, Ms. Mills and Ms. Samuelson.

    The Court of Appeals put that on hold in order to take the case.

    On Friday, Ms. McDonald argued that the circuit court, which had ordered an investigation, had overstepped its powers and only the Court of Appeals could force a probe.

    At this point, Ms. McDonald said, any request would also have to happen under the new rules that took effect last summer — after Mr. Clevenger’s complaint, but before the lower court’s hearing — that allow complaints to be tossed because the complainer doesn’t have knowledge.

    “That rule became effective August 1, 2017 and applies to all pending litigation as well as future complaints,” Ms. McDonald told The Washington Times in an email Friday after the hearing. “Under that rule, it is clear that Bar Counsel has discretion to decline a complaint that is not based on personal knowledge but instead is derived from published news reports of third party sources.”

    She also dismissed Mr. Clevenger’s complaint that Mr. Kendall and the other lawyers are being treated better than a non-politically connected lawyer would have been. She said a complaint about another lawyer that wasn’t based on personal knowledge “could likewise be declined under this rule.”

    The judges did not give a sense for when they might rule.

    Mr. Clevenger said after the hearing he is seeking members of Congress who were involved in the investigation into Mrs. Clinton’s emails to come forward and file complaints, which would meet the definition of someone with personal knowledge.

    The case is part of the fallout from Mrs. Clinton’s decision as State Department secretary to forgo a department-based account and instead use a secret account tied to a server she kept at her New York home.

    When her account became known during the probe into the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attack Mrs. Clinton turned over about half of her more than 60,000 messages from her time as secretary, but deleted 30,000 messages she said were not work-related.

    Subsequent investigation by the FBI found out that many of them were in fact work-related.

    The FBI investigation said Ms. Mills and Mr. Kendall oversaw the review and deletion process, while Ms. Samuelson did the review and reported to the others. They suggested the emails be deleted in late 2014 — though the actual deletion didn’t happen under late March 2015, or weeks after a subpoena was issued by a House investigation.

  • New York Gov. Cuomo signs bill to move primary election date

    New York state has moved its fall 2018 primary election date back two days so it doesn’t interfere with the anniversary of 9/11 or the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah.

    ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — New York state has moved its fall 2018 primary election date back two days so it doesn’t interfere with the anniversary of 9/11 or the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah.

    Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Friday that he has signed into law a measure moving the date of the primary election from Tuesday, Sept. 11 to Thursday, Sept. 13.

    Lawmakers approved the date change earlier this month.

    Lawmakers and supporters said that they wanted to move the date so the election would occur on a less busy day, and to honor both 9/11 and the observation of Rosh Hashanah.

  • NATO rejects Putin’s ‘unacceptable’ threats to target allies

    NATO says Russian President Vladimir Putin’s threat to target its members are unacceptable and that the military alliance will continue using its armed forces to deter aggression.

    BRUSSELS (AP) — NATO says Russian President Vladimir Putin’s threat to target its members are unacceptable and that the military alliance will continue using its armed forces to deter aggression.

    NATO spokeswoman Oana Lungescu said Friday that “Russian statements threatening to target allies are unacceptable and counterproductive.”

    Putin said Thursday that Moscow has tested an array of new strategic nuclear weapons that can’t be intercepted, telling the West: “You have failed to contain Russia.”

    Lungescu said NATO’s missile defense system is built to respond to attacks from outside Europe and North America and not directed against Russia.

    Noting Russia’s “aggressive actions” in Ukraine and military buildup around Europe, she said: “NATO is pursuing a twin-track approach to Russia: strong deterrence and defense, combined with meaningful dialogue.”

  • Germany downplays ‘acute’ cyberattack amid concerns of Russian meddling

    Germany’s interior ministry has downplayed a cyberattack that reportedly resulted in sensitive information being stolen from a government computer network.

    Germany’s interior ministry has downplayed a cyberattack that reportedly resulted in sensitive information being stolen from a government computer network.

    Ministry spokesman Johannes Dimroth told reporters Friday that authorities were monitoring the attack before it was revealed in the media this week, and that “acute danger was averted soon after it became known.”

    The attack affected Germany’s Informationsverbund Berlin-Bonn (IVBB), a federal computer network used to exchange sensitive but not highly classified documents, Mr. Dimroth told reporters, according to Reuters.

    The attack was first disclosed by German news outlets on Wednesday, prompting members of the German parliament’s intelligence oversight committee to convene a special session Thursday demanding details after having been left in the dark prior to recent media reporting.

    “It is a real cyberattack on parts of the government system. It’s an ongoing process, an ongoing attack,” Armin Schuster, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative party and the committee’s chairman, told reporters after being briefed on the attack. “The spilling of secrets caused considerable damage, but the government, as of today, is trying to limit the damage.”

    Authorities are investigating the leak, Mr. Dirmoth said Friday, and Germany’s chief federal prosecutor’s office said a preliminary probe is underway.

    Mr. Dirmoth declined to comment on whether authorities have linked the attack to Russia, notwithstanding media reports linking the incident to suspected state-sponsored hackers.

    German media reported earlier this week that security researchers believe the attack was waged by a hacking group known as “Snake” previously linked to Russian intelligence, drawing a reaction Friday from Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

    “We note with regret that any hacking attacks in the world are associated with Russian hackers but that each time they (the allegations) are made without any tangible proof,” Mr. Peskov said during a conference call with reporters Friday.

    Like the U.S., Germany has blamed Russia before for instances of state-sponsored cyberattacks. The German Federal Office for Information Security previously said a 2015 attack against the Bundestag parliamentary network was likely waged by a hacking group known by names such as APT28, Fancy Bear and Sofacy. Security researchers have linked that group to Russian intelligence as well, including hacking campaigns waged against U.S. targets during the 2016 presidential election widely blamed on Russian operatives.

    The IVBB hack was “a technically sophisticated attack that had been planned for some time,” Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière said Thursday.

    If positively linked to Russia, the hacking will constitute “a form of warfare against Germany,” said Greens Party member Dieter Janacek, the head of the digital affairs committee, the Berliner Zeitung newspaper reported.

    German authorities discovered the IVBB hack in December, but the attackers may have been active at that point for upwards of a year already, according to media reports.

    A total of 17 computers are believed to have been affected, including at least one machine apparently belonging to an employee of the Federal Ministry of Defense, Germany’s NDR/WDR reported Friday. The attack was part of a global operation that also targeted computers Scandinavian, South American and Ukrainian computer systems, the report said.

    Palo Alto Networks, a U.S. cybersecurity firm, warned earlier this week that Fancy Bear hackers have been actively foreign affairs agencies and ministries in North America and Europe.

  • Facebook’s fact-checkers flag satire as fake news

    Facebook on Friday said it mistakenly threatened to demonetize a satirical website’s social networking account after one of its articles, “CNN Purchases Industrial-Sized Washing Machine To Spin News B

    Facebook on Friday said it mistakenly threatened to demonetize a satirical website’s social networking account after one of its articles, “CNN Purchases Industrial-Sized Washing Machine To Spin News Before Publication,” was debunked by Snopes, the fact-checking site used to help counter the platform’s fake news problem.

    “A page you admin (The Babylon Bee) recently posted the link (CNN Purchases Industrial-Sized Washing Machine To Spin News Before Publication) that contains info disputed by (Snopes.com), an independent fact checker,” Facebook wrote in a message sent Thursday to The Babylon Bee founder Adam Ford. “Repeat offenders will see their distribution reduced and their ability to monetize and advertised removed,” the message said.

    The blatantly satirical article should not have been flagged as fake news, Facebook conceded Friday.

    “There’s a difference between false news and satire,” Facebook said in a statement. “This was a mistake and should not have been rated false in our system. It’s since been corrected and won’t count against the domain in any way.”

    According to the Snopes, the article’s satirical nature wasn’t immediately apparent among everyone who read it.

    “Although it should have been obvious that the Babylon Bee piece was just a spoof of the ongoing political brouhaha over alleged news media ‘bias’ and ‘fake news,’ some readers missed that aspect of the article and interpreted it literally,” Snopes said.

    The Babylon Bee brands itself as “Your Trusted Source For Christian News Satire.” Nonetheless, Snopes has debunked 13 of its articles since 2016, including write-ups with titles including “Southern Baptist Convention Purchases Chick-Fil-A For $5.5 Billion” and “Is Playing Christmas Music Before Thanksgiving Now a Federal Crime?”

    “This is the first time Facebook has used that to threaten us with reduced reach and demonetization,” Mr. Ford told PJ Media after receiving the initial warning Thursday. “Also it seems that anyone who clicked on the article got a notice that it was ‘disputed.’”

    Established in 1995, Snopes partnered with Facebook in 2016 to help fact-check a flood of fake news stories being shared among its users.

    “Our goal is to help empower Facebook users to better control and enhance their own online experience, and we believe that increasing the flow and visibility of accurate, vetted information is one of the best ways to do that,” Snopes said at the time.

    More recently, the Department of Justice last month filed criminal charges against 13 Russian nationals and three Russian companies accused of using Facebook to spread disinformation during the 2016 U.S. presidential race.

  • 4 charged in fake ID operation that netted $4.7M in bitcoin

    Four people accused of operating a large-scale fake ID operation that netted investigators $4.7 million in bitcoin have been indicted by a federal grand jury in Ohio.

    TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) — Four people accused of operating a large-scale fake ID operation that netted investigators $4.7 million in bitcoin have been indicted by a federal grand jury in Ohio.

    The four from the Toledo area are facing federal charges announced Thursday that include making false identification documents and possessing document-making equipment.

    The group was arrested in early February after investigators seized electronic bitcoin wallets, computers, printers and gold and silver bars inside a Toledo home.

    Ohio authorities began investigating in 2015 after receiving several fake ID cards from a bar in Springfield. A college student told investigators his friends bought IDs from Reddit.

    Documents say buyers had to follow specific instructions to hide the transactions and use bitcoins, digital money that isn’t tied to a bank or government.

  • Explosions, gunfire rock Burkina Faso’s capital

    Gunfire and explosions rocked Burkina Faso’s capital early Friday in what the police said was a suspected attack by Islamic extremists.

    OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso (AP) — Gunfire and explosions rocked Burkina Faso’s capital early Friday in what the police said was a suspected attack by Islamic extremists.

    By midday the gunfire became intermittent and helicopters flew over the French Embassy in Ouagadougou. Witnesses at the national television office which faces the French Embassy told The Associated Press that five people came in a pick-up truck in front of the embassy and started shooting after saying “Allahu Akhbar.” They then set fire to the truck and began shooting.

    Heavy smoke rose from the army joint chief of staff’s office in Ouagadougou, and witnesses said loud explosions were still heard around the military headquarters in the western part of the capital’s city center and far from the other area under attack that houses the embassies, the prime minister’s office and United Nations offices.

    Burkina Faso’s police director general Jean Bosco Kienou told AP “the form is that of a terrorist attack.”

    Plumes of black smoke could be seen above the army offices in western Ouagadougou where police and gendarmerie responded. Barricades were erected to keep people from all areas under assault.

    Burkina Faso’s police said the defense and security forces are responding to attacks around the Prime Minister’s office and the United Nations.

    France’s foreign affairs ministry published a message on their website warning of gunfire in the capital, and said that security forces are now intervening and enhanced security measures could be taken by authorities. It recommended people stay off the streets and remain in a safe place.

    Ouagadougou has been attacked by Islamic extremists targeting foreigners at least twice in the past few years.

    In August, extremists opened fire as patrons dined on a Sunday night at the Aziz Istanbul restaurant, killing at least 18 people. In January 2016, Islamic extremists attacked another cafe popular with foreigners in the capital, killing 30 people.

    Both times security forces have struggled to contain the violence, waiting for hours before intervening at the scene.

    Islamic extremist threats also moved into new parts of Burkina Faso earlier this month with an attack by 10 people in an eastern town that killed an officer and wounded two others. Increased attacks staged at the border with Mali have forced thousands to flee over the past year. An Australian doctor who had spent decades treating civilians was also abducted along this border and remains missing.

    The region is also now the home of a Burkina Faso extremist figure, Malam Dicko, who has collaborated with militants across the border in Mali. Among his objectives has been seeking to end the use of French, the former colonizer’s language, in regional schools. Burkinabe forces backed by French military counterparts have tried to capture Dicko but he remains at large.

    ___

    Associated Press writer Carley Petesch in Dakar, Senegal contributed to this report.

  • Angela Merkel, Donald Trump discuss Syrian cease-fire, Vladimir Putin’s new weapons

    German Chancellor Angela Merkel has spoken with U.S. President Donald Trump about Syria, and both sides agreed that Syrian government forces and their Russian and Iranian allies must abide by a U.N. S

    BERLIN (AP) — German Chancellor Angela Merkel has spoken with U.S. President Donald Trump about Syria, and both sides agreed that Syrian government forces and their Russian and Iranian allies must abide by a U.N. Security Council cease-fire resolution, her office said Friday.

    Following their call Thursday, Merkel and Trump urged Russia to stop participating in the bombardment of Damascus’ rebel-held suburbs known as eastern Ghouta, according to her office.

    “The five-hour cease-fire announced by the Russian side isn’t being adhered to. The Syrian regime in particular is constantly breaking it,” Merkel’s spokesman, Steffen Seibert, told reporters.

    Germany appeals “to all parties to the conflict to fully implement this U.N. resolution and we see a particular responsibility on the part of Russia,” he added.

    Seibert said attacks should stop for 48 to 72 hours in order for aid to be effectively delivered to civilians. He called it “particularly cynical that the regime in Damascus used chlorine gas against its own population again just one day after the passing of the U.N. resolution.”

    According to Merkel’s office, both she and Trump also expressed concern about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s unveiling of new weapons systems Thursday “and their negative consequences for international arms control efforts.”

    Seibert said Germany watched Putin’s announcement with concern, noting the Russia’s military modernization program and what he described as doubts about Moscow’s adherence to international treaties, its annexation of Crimea and threats against some of its neighbors.

    Still, Seibert said Berlin was always ready to talk with the Kremlin even when the two sides differ significantly on the issues.

  • Explaining ‘headscarf’ from Iran

    In relation to the arrest incidents caused by the headscarf, İbtikar used expressions such as “I think that these topics should be discussed more with the new generation and the demands of young people should be taken into consideration.”

    Deputy Iranian President Masume Ibicar stated that they are opposed to the pressure and violence of the headscarf in the country.

    Ihtimar, the assistant responsible for the Women and Family Affairs of Hasan Ruhani, had to explain to local and foreign journalists at a press conference in Tehran for Women’s Day in Iran.

    The headscarf reminds that Iran is a legal obligation, he argued that it has begun to be applied to the people after the revolution in order to prevent social abuse.

    “NEW GENERATION AND MORE TALKING THEM”

    Ibicar, regarding the arrest incidents due to the headscarf, “I think that these issues should be discussed more with the new generation and that the demands of the young people should be taken into consideration.” He expressed his opinion.

    In describing the opposition to the pressure and violence of the headscarf in Iran, İbtikar noted that women continued to negotiate with religious officials and scholars to allow them to go abroad alone without their husbands’ permission.

    Ibidar added that these issues are among the priority issues of the government.

  • Merkel announces names to take part in coalition government

    German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced the names of the Christian Democratic Union Party in the coalition government.

    The new cabinet will include Minister of Economy Peter Altmaier, Minister of Health Jens Spahn, Minister of Agriculture Julia Klöckner, Secretary of Defense Ursula von der Leyen, Minister of Education Anja Karliczek, Deputy Prime Minister Helge Braun and State and Cohesion Minister Annette Widmann-Mauz.

    The youngest person in the cabinet is Jens Spahn. The fate of the new coalition government will be determined by members of the Social Democratic Party (SPD). Members will be able to sign a coalition agreement by March 2.