AUGUST 1 AND 2, 2018

GIULIANI -- "... AND, WHEN ASKED TO COMMENT FOR THIS STORY, HE RECENTLY ACKNOWLEDGED TO ABC NEWS THAT ARGUMENTS OVER MUELLER'S SUBPOENA POWER ARE "KIND OF HYPOTHETICAL" BECAUSE "NO ONE’S EVER GONE TO COURT ON THIS." SO MUCH FOR THOSE REPUBLICAN STATEMENTS FROM CONGRESS TO THE WHITE HOUSE THAT A SITTING PRESIDENT “CAN’T BE INDICTED” OR “CAN’T BE SUBPOENAED.” NOBODY KNOWS YET, AND I FEEL SURE THAT MUELLER IS GOING TO TEST IT OUT. THERE’S ONE THING I FEEL STRONGLY ABOUT. WE THE POPULACE AND OUR GOVERNMENTAL STRUCTURE SIMPLY CAN’T ALLOW OURSELVES TO BE WITHOUT A RELIABLE, LEGAL AND TIMELY WAY TO GET AN UNACCEPTABLE PERSON OUT OF THE PRESIDENCY, EVEN IF HE WAS ELECTED; AND IN THIS CASE, THAT ALSO IS DEBATABLE.

SEE THE ABC ARTICLE BELOW FOR A SIZABLE AMOUNT OF INFORMATION ON THE STAND GIULIANI TOOK YEARS AGO WHEN HE WAS THE PROSECUTOR AS COMPARED TO TODAY WHEN HE’S DEFENSE. HE VIEWED THE AUTHORITY OF A SPECIAL COUNSEL VERY DIFFERENTLY THEN. HOW SURPRISING!

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/tangling-mueller-trumps-lawyer-face-past-words/story?id=56843035
Tangling with Mueller, Giuliani may have to face his past words
By MIKE LEVINE Jul 27, 2018, 4:22 AM ET

When Ronald Reagan was in the White House, one of the nation's top law enforcement officials advised Congress that if serious allegations were ever lodged against a president, the Justice Department would have no choice but to call upon a special investigator to look into the matter.

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"Any attorney general that did the opposite of that would not be acting sensibly and would be subject to severe public criticism," the U.S. associate attorney general told a Senate panel.

That associate attorney general was Rudy Giuliani.

He's now President Donald Trump’s personal attorney and ferociously insists there was "no basis" for the Justice Department to, as he describes it, "illegally” appoint special counsel Robert Mueller to investigate a wide array of allegations tied to Trump.

In fact, as Trump's chief legal defender, Giuliani has espoused a number of positions that seem to belie the stances he took when he was charged with enforcing the law.

Over eight years in senior positions at the Justice Department, Giuliani touted the power and independence of a special prosecutor, promoted the nearly unlimited authority of grand juries and called for high-level government officials accused of wrongdoing to be "treated no differently from other citizens."

Nowadays, even as Giuliani is negotiating the terms of a possible voluntary interview between Trump and Mueller, he's decrying Mueller's probe as "illegitimate" and threatening to go to the Supreme Court if Mueller tries to issue a grand jury subpoena to Trump.

In a recent interview with ABC News, Giuliani recognized the potential disconnect, saying a change in tune "wouldn't be unusual" because he's now a private attorney and, "When you're a prosecutor, you have to interpret things in the light most favorable to making cases."

"As a lawyer you try to represent the best interests of your client," he said.

ABC News spent months locating and accessing records from Giuliani's time as a prosecutor. The records were stored in a government warehouse in Missouri, relegated to sheets of microfiche at college libraries and held by clerks in the federal courthouse in Manhattan, where Giuliani spent nearly six years as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. He served more than two years as associate attorney general in Washington.

Though they do not directly address legal questions surrounding the presidency, the records reflect how the law may not be as clear-cut as Giuliani's recent defense of Trump suggests. And, when asked to comment for this story, he recently acknowledged to ABC News that arguments over Mueller's subpoena power are "kind of hypothetical" because "no one’s ever gone to court on this."

PHOTO: Special Counsel Robert Mueller departs after briefing members of the U.S. Senate on his investigation into potential collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, June 21, 2017.Joshua Roberts/Reuters, FILE

After negotiating for months, Giuliani recently submitted a new offer for Trump to sit down with Mueller's team, but the offer included limits on what investigators can ask the president, Giuliani said.

"We're not going to allow him to be questioned about obstruction because we don't think they have a right to," Giuliani told ABC News, referring to allegations that Trump may have tried to obstruct justice in his interactions with key U.S. officials and by firing then-FBI Director James Comey in the midst of the FBI's growing probe of Russia's meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

Giuliani maintains Mueller's investigation has illegitimately "spanned out so much," with grand juries in Washington and Virginia charging former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort for decade-old financial transactions, and a grand jury in New York investigating Trump's previous personal attorney, Michael Cohen.

Like Trump, Giuliani has also derided the initial launch of the federal probe, especially for its use of an unverified dossier alleging collusion between Trump associates and Russian operatives.

But when Giuliani was U.S. attorney, he endorsed a grand jury's wide authority to investigate unverified claims and anything else it comes across.

"The [grand jury] may act on tips, rumors, evidence offered by the prosecutor, or their own personal knowledge," said several court filings submitted under Giuliani's name. "Furthermore, the grand jury investigation may uncover violations that were not, and could not have been, anticipated: the grand jury's investigation is not limited to a single subject matter."

In 1983, when one witness refused to comply with a grand jury subpoena that he said was too broad in its requests, Giuliani's office insisted a grand jury's "very generous" scope of inquiry "is not limited to events which may themselves result in criminal prosecution, but is properly concerned with any evidence which may afford valuable leads for investigation of suspected criminal activity."

Similarly, other filings submitted on behalf of Giuliani advocated "the grand jury's ability to uncover unforeseen violations," noting "the grand jury often will not be able to anticipate" what new evidence will show.

Executive privilege?

Even though Giuliani now concedes there is no specific precedent for a case like Mueller's, the president's personal attorney has for months exuded confidence when arguing that executive privilege shields Trump from a grand jury subpoena.

According to Giuliani, Trump "has at least a qualified" executive privilege, based on a 1997 case involving then-President Bill Clinton's former Agriculture secretary, Mike Espy.

In that case, a federal appeals court in Washington declared that executive privilege immunizes a president from subpoena unless investigators can show a "particularized need" for the evidence sought and "can't get it any other way," as Giuliani put it.

Giuliani said that if Trump is subpoenaed, he would first demand Mueller lay out his particularized need for the president's testimony.

"You need to show why you need it," he told ABC News.

But when Giuliani was U.S. attorney, filings submitted on his behalf warned against such a demand on matters before a grand jury.

"[A]ny requirement that the grand jury particularize its purpose would impinge upon the strict requirements of integrity and secrecy which are hallmarks of the grand jury process," said a filing under his name in 1984, when prosecutors were seeking to force two companies to comply with grand jury subpoenas. The filing was not addressing the unique situation of a subpoena to a president.

Still, requiring a grand jury to "divulge what is being investigated and why the [pieces of evidence] sought are relevant might compromise the integrity of that investigation," said another filing endorsed by Giuliani a year earlier.

Speaking recently to ABC News about a potential subpoena fight with Mueller, Giuliani said he would also argue that Mueller's investigators can obtain the information they seek from Trump through other means.

If, for example, investigators want to know why Trump fired Comey, they can obtain that information from Trump's TV interview two days after Comey's removal, Giuliani said, without noting the TV interview -- unlike grand jury testimony -- was not under oath.

"We would say, 'Sorry, you have [it] on television. Here's the tape, here's the explanation," Giuliani told ABC News.

But one of the attorneys who argued on behalf of the White House in the 1997 case now being cited by Giuliani says Giuliani's interpretation of the record is "dead wrong."

"What Mr. Mueller will be seeking from the president is his own knowledge -- what he was thinking, why he did things. And it's information that isn't available from anywhere else," said Neil Eggleston, a former federal prosecutor who also served as President Barack Obama's White House counsel. "I think it would be easy for Mr. Mueller to show that he needs that information for the grand jury investigation."

In fact, when Giuliani was U.S. attorney, he supported the notion that a "grand jury investigation is not fully carried out until every available clue has been run down."

PHOTO: Rudy Giuliani announces Ivan Boeskys jail sentence for inside trading at federal courthouse in New York City, Dec. 14 1987.Ron Galella/WireImage/Getty Images

And in 1983, when prosecutors tried to force three men to testify before a grand jury, Giuliani endorsed a court filing that said, "It is axiomatic that the Grand Jury has a right to every man's evidence." A later filing under Giuliani's name echoed that sentiment, saying it is a "seminal rule" that the public "has a right to every man's evidence."

The filings from Giuliani's time as U.S. attorney noted that some people are protected by constitutional or other privileges, and Giuliani now says such privileges are why Trump is "not required to testify."

But in 1982, when Giuliani was testifying to the Senate, he insisted it was important that high-level government officials accused of wrongdoing "are treated no differently from other citizens." After all, he told the panel, "fairness and uniformity" are "critical to public acceptance of investigative prosecutive decisions."

'Attorney-client privilege is dead!'

Giuliani has recently attacked the FBI for executing court-approved search warrants at Cohen's home and office in New York, where Trump's former personal attorney is facing a criminal investigation by prosecutors in the Southern District of New York stemming, but separate, from Mueller's own probe.

"That is an outrageous violation of attorney-client privilege beyond Donald Trump's attorney-client privilege," Giuliani told Fox News in May, three weeks after the FBI seized electronic media, business records, and an array of other documents from those locations. Cohen claimed he was representing several clients, and "a lot of innocent people" had their attorney-client privilege pierced by the FBI raids, Giuliani insisted.

Trump himself similarly attacked the raids, saying on Twitter the day after it, "Attorney-client privilege is dead! ... A TOTAL WITCH HUNT!!!"

But in 1983, a court filing submitted on behalf of Giuliani said this about attorney-client privilege: It is "axiomatic that otherwise privileged communications are subject to disclosure if sought or obtained for the purpose of enabling or aiding the client to commit a crime. ... This is so whether or not the attorney is aware of the crime; his good faith is irrelevant."

"Obviously, '[t]he mere fact that a person is an attorney does not render as privileged everything he does with and for a client,'" the filing stated. Any suggestion that lawyers are "entitled to blanket immunity" is a "far-reaching and dangerous position," Giuliani's office said in another filing related to the case.

PHOTO: When he was U.S. attorney, Rudy Giulianis name was imprinted on the cover of a legal brief filed on Jan. 26, 1984, in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. The brief sought to compel compliance with a grand jury subpoena.Mike Levine/ABC News

At the time, a federal grand jury in New York was investigating allegations of fraud, bribery and tax evasion tied to the high-profile collapse of Drysdale Securities Corporation. The grand jury issued subpoenas to a company executive and his tax attorney, demanding an array of business records. But the executive and his attorney refused to comply, citing attorney-client privilege.

"These sweeping contentions ignore well-settled precedent and seriously misconstrue the limited nature of the attorney-client privilege," Giuliani's office said in its 1983 brief.

Just this week, despite the previous concerns expressed by the president about attorney-client privilege, Trump's legal team chose to waive the privilege for a recording Cohen secretly made of a conversation with Trump. A "special master" overseeing materials gathered in the Cohen case had determined the recording was protected by attorney-client privilege.

'It is devastating'
There is at least one area where Giuliani's recent statements in defense of Trump mirror his statements from decades ago.

Last month, Giuliani told Fox News that even with no public evidence incriminating Trump, Mueller's investigation could have the effect of "delegitimizing" the president.

During his Senate testimony in 1982, when the Justice Department was urging Congress to let it appoint its own special prosecutors rather than cede such authority to the courts, Giuliani said anyone under investigation by a special prosecutor will be left "seriously damaged and will carry that stigma with him publicly for a very long time."

"I believe it is devastating to an accused, even to an accused who was so-called cleared at the end of it," Giuliani said at the time, according to a transcript of his testimony. "The fact that the person was cleared seven months, eight months to one year later is a much less significant fact, and for many years you carry the stigma and burden of having been investigated by a special prosecutor."

Despite those concerns, however, Giuliani said serious allegations against a president would certainly warrant a special investigator.

"Anyone who would give short shrift to a serious allegation against a public official or, for example, one that received media attention, that person not only shouldn't be attorney general of the United States, he probably is not sensible to be attorney general of the United States," Giuliani testified. "It would be difficult to imagine a situation in which any attorney general, regardless of his relationship to the president, would not appoint [a special] counsel to investigate allegations, serious allegations, ones that had to be investigated against the president."

Mueller was appointed last year after Trump fired Comey, prompting Comey to leak a series of memos about his personal interactions with Trump. Those memos further raised questions over whether Trump may have sought to obstruct justice, including the investigation into his former national security adviser, Mike Flynn.

By then, Attorney General Jeff Sessions had recused himself from the federal probe of Russia's interference in the 2016 presidential election. So it was Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, the acting attorney general on election-related investigations, who selected Mueller.

In his 1982 testimony, Giuliani said an attorney general's decision to appoint a special prosecutor "would suggest an attorney general who judiciously made the determination on his own that this was a matter where the public and the department would be best served by an independent person passing judgment on this case."

Mueller's office declined to comment for this article.



THE PROBLEM HERE SEEMS TO ME TO BE THAT THE LEGISLATORS DON’T WORK FOR THE PEOPLE, BUT FOR THE HIGHEST BIDDER. IT’S DISTRESSING HOW DIFFICULT IT IS TO STOP THIS WHEN THERE IS SUCH A LUCRATIVE CHANCE TO MAKE MONEY. IT’S LIKE THE STREET DRUGS. YOU CAN SEND OUT THE POLICE TO ARREST THE DEALERS, BUT THEIR PLACE WILL IMMEDIATELY BE TAKEN BY OTHERS.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/01/us/politics/fara-foreign-agents-mueller.html
Mueller’s Digging Exposes Culture of Foreign Lobbying and Its Big Paydays
By Mark Mazzetti and Katie Benner
Aug. 1, 2018

PHOTOGRAPH -- Over the past year, Robert S. Mueller III and the Justice Department have pursued cases both under the Foreign Agents Registration Act and related to foreign influence operations more broadly.CreditJ. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press

WASHINGTON — The mandate given to Robert S. Mueller III and his team was broad: to investigate not just Russian election interference but also any related crimes they might unearth. So when this group of seasoned prosecutors began rooting around Washington, they pounced on a ripe target — lobbyists taking millions of dollars from foreign governments.

At the trial of Paul Manafort, an unflattering picture has emerged of lawyers, lobbyists and consultants from both political parties winning big paydays for work on behalf of a Kremlin-aligned former Ukrainian strongman. Some spent the money on cars and homes, prosecutors said, and a jacket made of ostrich for Mr. Manafort.

The vigor with which Mr. Mueller has investigated the flows of foreign money from Ukraine, Turkey and other countries into Washington could be as much a part of his legacy as special counsel as whatever he discovers about possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign or presidential obstruction of justice.

The Manafort case is part of a broader inquiry into the lucrative work done on behalf the former president of Ukraine, Viktor F. Yanukovych, and Mr. Mueller has handed some elements of the investigation to prosecutors in Manhattan. Beyond the special counsel’s office, the Justice Department has also recently been pursuing foreign influence cases with greater urgency.

All of this has prompted lobbyists to hunt for advice about how to comply with laws governing that sphere, long viewed as toothless. “The phone rings much more often with this question than it did two years ago,” said Tom Spulak, a partner at the King & Spalding law firm who advises on lobbying compliance.

Over the past year, Mr. Mueller and the Justice Department have pursued numerous cases both under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA, and related to foreign influence operations more broadly. FARA prosecutions were once almost unheard-of, according to a Justice Department inspector general report: For nearly a half-century, from 1966 until 2015, the department pursued only seven.

In addition to Mr. Manafort, the recent cases include the special counsel’s indictments against Russians who disseminated stolen information and used disinformation to influence how Americans perceived the candidates in the 2016 presidential election. Also among them is the complaint against Maria Butina, the Russian accused of acting as a foreign agent and plotting to gain Republican support for pro-Russia policies.

Even the case against Michael T. Flynn, Mr. Trump’s former national security adviser, included allegations that he had lied to investigators about lobbying work he did on behalf of the Turkish government.

Taken together, the cases shine a light on foreign influence operations that have become deeply embedded in Washington, and the culture of lobbyists who get rich helping their foreign clients affect how laws and policies are made in the capital.

To be sure, federal law enforcement officials took a more aggressive stance on foreign influence before the appointment of Mr. Mueller. They increased enforcement of FARA as part of a move to do “everything we could to meet the counterintelligence mission of the Justice Department,” said David Laufman, the former chief of the department’s counterintelligence and export control section who oversaw the enforcement surge.

The department began to write more aggressively worded letters to lobbyists seeking information about their work. After receiving letters of inquiry from the Justice Department last year, four Russian news media companies, including RIA Global and RTTV America, have registered as agents of a foreign principal under FARA. In retaliation, Russia passed a law to designate international news media companies as foreign agents.

But because of the intense attention it has drawn, Mr. Mueller’s investigation shined a spotlight on the waves of foreign money washing through American politics in a way that the other Justice Department efforts never could.

Image -- At Paul Manafort’s trial, an unflattering picture has emerged of lawyers, lobbyists and consultants winning big paydays for work on behalf of a Kremlin-aligned former Ukrainian strongman.CreditReuters

The number of new primary FARA registrations grew to 102 in 2017 from 69 in 2016, and was on pace to rise again in 2018, according to figures from the Justice Department published by the law firm Holland & Knight.

The first days of Mr. Manafort’s trial offered exhibit after exhibit of this lavish world, beginning with his extravagant purchases, including cars, Persian rugs and expensive clothes.

It also revealed bipartisan largess. One 2014 email presented in court on Tuesday showed the Democratic consultant Thomas A. Devine proposing a “day rate” of $10,000 to do work in Ukraine on behalf of Mr. Yanukovych, the Russia-aligned former president who was a longtime client of Mr. Manafort.

“You would need to make the travel arrangements, and transfer the $50G before the trip,” he wrote to Rick Gates, Mr. Manafort’s partner for the Ukraine work. “If you want me to come on Monday and leave Thursday it would be $40G.”

Mr. Devine, who is known as Tad, went on to become the chief strategist for the presidential campaign of Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a self-proclaimed democratic socialist.

In addition to the investigations of Mr. Manafort and Mr. Gates, who pleaded guilty in February to numerous financial crimes and became a cooperating witness in the special counsel investigation, Mr. Mueller’s team pursued three other investigations into lawyers and lobbyists who did work in Ukraine.

The cases involve Gregory B. Craig, who served as the White House counsel under President Barack Obama before leaving to work for the law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom; Tony Podesta, an influential Washington lobbyist whose brother, John D. Podesta, was chairman of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign; and former Representative Vin Weber, Republican of Minnesota, who joined the lobbying firm Mercury Public Affairs after leaving Congress.

None have been charged with any crimes. Mr. Mueller’s referral of those cases several months ago to federal prosecutors in New York was revealed in news reports on Tuesday.

Whereas the public once thought of the Justice Department’s counterintelligence mission as primarily trying to catch foreign spies seeking to obtain government secrets, the department has made clear in a recent cybercrimes report and congressional testimony that influence has become as great a threat.

The government’s case against Ms. Butina, which was not brought under FARA, could be a template for future prosecutions, said a former Justice Department official, who predicted they could spread to influence peddling from Eastern Europe and China as well as Russia.

Ms. Butina was charged with acting as a Russian agent, a more serious crime than a typical FARA violation. The charge allowed prosecutors to impanel a grand jury and issue subpoenas to subjects of investigations — tools not available in FARA inquiries. Bills to give the Justice Department the power to compel records in FARA cases are sitting in Congress but have gained little traction.

The lobbying industry last faced intense scrutiny after the Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff was caught up in a sprawling corruption and bribery investigation. He went to jail in 2006 for fraud. That case put a temporary chill on the industry, and some Washington lobbyists made up for lost business with foreign clients trying to exert influence on American politicians.

The Justice Department will continue to pursue foreign influence operations inside the United States, the deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein, vowed last month.

Russian schemes to influence the presidential election, he said, are “just one tree in a growing forest.”

Kenneth P. Vogel and Adam Goldman contributed reporting


THIS LOOKS TO ME LIKE A SITUATION IN WHICH THE POLICE ACTED UNDERSTANDABLY AND WITH NO MALICIOUS INTENT. IT DOES REMIND ME, THOUGH, TO GIVE THE DETAILS IF I CALL IN A POLICE REPORT SO THAT THEY WILL KNOW WHO THE ATTACKER IS. THE HOMEOWNER WAS WHITE AND THE ATTACKER WAS BLACK. ONE WORD COULD HAVE PREVENTED THIS CONFUSION. IT ALSO REMINDS ME TO GO TO THE DOCTOR AND HAVE MY EARS CHECKED. AT MY AGE, YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT MAY HAPPEN.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/police-say-veteran-shot-by-cops-in-own-home-may-not-have-heard-commands-to-drop-gun/
By CRIMESIDER STAFF CBS NEWS August 2, 2018, 7:18 PM
Police say veteran shot by cops in own home may not have heard commands to drop gun

VIDEO – Fatal Mistake 1:58

AURORA, Colo. — A veteran who was fatally shot by police after killing a violent intruder in his home had "significant" hearing loss and may not have heard officer's commands to drop his gun, an Aurora police chief said Thursday.

Richard "Gary" Black, a 73-year-old Bronze Star recipient, was asleep in his Aurora, Colorado, home on Monday along with his wife, stepson and 11-year-old grandson when an intruder who had been at a party across the street kicked in the door, ripping it off the hinges, Aurora Police Chief Nick Metz said. The intruder, who police identified as 26-year-old Dajon Harper, dragged the grandson into the bathroom where he violently attacked the boy, Metz said.

Black and his stepson tried unsuccessfully to stop the attacker. Black then reportedly retrieved his gun and shot the intruder in the chest, killing him. At some point during the altercation, Black's wife called dispatchers from outside the home. Police who responded saw Black with a gun inside and opened fire, killing him.

"Mr. Black saved his family's life that night," Metz said at a press conference Thursday. "There is no doubt that he did everything he could to protect everything that was important to him and that was his family."

180802-richard-black-horizontal.jpg
Richard Black CBS DENVER

Metz said that body camera footage and the 911 call from Black's wife wouldn't be released. Dispatchers had trouble understanding the 911 call because of screaming and background noise, he said. An attorney for the Black family had previously said the intruder was naked and that the wife relayed that information to dispatchers, but Metz disputed that.

"It's an incredibly difficult tape to listen to, both emotionally, and it's also a difficult tape to listen to because of all the screaming going on," Metz said. "It was a very chaotic situation."

Metz read a statement from Black's family, in which the family thanked the police for allowing them to review the video and 911 audio, but requested they not be released publicly.

He described a chaotic scene shown on the video, saying officers had received a report that a boy was being drowned in a bathtub. He said the officers didn't have descriptions of Black or the assailant before finding Black armed with a gun.

Metz said the officers heard Black's wife say, "He has a gun" before encountering the Vietnam veteran holding a firearm and a flashlight. He said officers ordered Black to drop the gun and show his hands, but he didn't comply. Black was walking towards the officers and raising the flashlight, still holding the gun, when one opened fire, fatally wounding him.

The officers later found the intruder, Dajon Harper, dead in the bathroom. Metz said he had violently assaulted Black's grandson before being killed. Police said the intruder didn't know the family and it appears to have been a random assault. Dispatchers had received previous calls about the assailant damaging cars in the area and heard reports he may have been on drugs. Toxicology reports are pending.

Metz said it's not clear why Black didn't follow officer's commands to drop his gun, but Metz said it's possible he didn't hear the commands.

"Mr. Black had significant hearing impairment he received from his service in the military," Metz said "I don't know what he was able to hear or not hear."

Black, reportedly the recipient of a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart, was a retired IRS agent who neighbors call a family man.

Metz said the officer who killed Black is also a military veteran and is "heartbroken" over the situation. In a statement read by Metz, the family said they acknowledged that the responding officers didn't receive a description of the attacker and that the 911 call from Black's wife was difficult to understand. They also called for threats on the officer who opened fire to stop, saying that Black greatly respected law enforcement.

"Any disrespect to law enforcement carried out in Mr. Black's name would be contrary to his wishes," the statement said.

Metz defended his officer's actions, saying they entered the home after shots had been fired, putting themselves in danger. He said the officers were "confronted by a very violent and complex situation" and said he "disputed strongly" that the officers acted recklessly.

"They acted how I would expect them to respond given the limited amount of information they were acting on and the fact that they were responding to shots fired inside the home, immediately putting themselves in harm's way to help save lives," Metz said.

The officer who fired the shot has been placed on administrative reassignment with pay, according to the Denver Post, and the 17th Judicial District Attorney's Office and Denver Police are investigating.

© 2018 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.


WE MUST BE AWARE OF ONE THING ABOUT THE INTERNET. AS TEMPTING AS IT IS TO “MAKE CONTACT WITH THE WORLD,” NOTHING WE PUT ON THE NET IS PRIVATE ANYMORE. IF I HAD ENOUGH SPARE CASH IN MY BANK, I WOULD SEND MY DNA OFF IN A FLASH.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/dna-privacy-at-home-tests-23andme-ancestrydna-sell-data-to-third-parties/
CBS NEWS August 2, 2018, 4:29 PM
Behind at-home DNA testing companies sharing genetic data with third parties

It's estimated more than 12 million Americans have sent their DNA to be analyzed by companies like 23andMe and AncestryDNA. The data is then sometimes shared with or sold to third parties for use in medical research. Recently, 23andMe announced GlaxoSmithKline invested $300 million in their company for a "four-year collaboration" where the pharmaceutical company would use 23andMe's data to develop drugs.

"Using it for research – I'm all excited if Harvard University is going to study and learn about a disease. But a pharmaceutical company, it's a very different story," said CBS News medical contributor Dr. David Agus, director of USC Norris Westside Cancer Center. One concern, he said, is that "this is a select group of patients who can afford to do it. So do we want drug development only done on the 'haves' and not on the whole population?"

Both DNA companies say data isn't used without consent. "Customers can choose to opt-in or opt-out at any time," 23andMe said in a statement on its website. An AncestryDNA spokesperson told CBS News, "Customers must explicitly opt-in to participate in scientific research & can revoke permission at any time."

An editorial in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine called for more oversight in the industry, saying: "Our current regulatory approach to privacy in direct-to-consumer (DTC) genealogic testing has permitted the creation of a Wild West environment."

Law enforcement has used public DNA databases to identify criminal suspects as well, like the alleged "Golden State Killer."

"What the police did was, they took DNA evidence from the scene and they sent it in to one of these companies," Agus said. (Police in that case reportedly used a site called GEDMatch.) "And then they said, 'Who is he related to?' And then they went to those relatives and they figured out who he was. And so what's amazing is that, you can send in DNA, I could take DNA from that coffee cup and send it in and learn about Norah [O'Donnell]. And so what does that imply?"

While it's fun for some people to learn more about their heritage or discover distant relatives, Agus said the opt-in and privacy agreement is very long.

"Can you imagine? Is there anybody in history that's ever read all this stuff?" Agus said, flipping through a stack of printouts of the agreement. "I tried to read it in the green room and I was asleep by page two. And so while there is privacy, and described here, it's very hard to understand or even read."

© 2018 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.


IF AS MANY OF US LIBS WILL VOTE AS WE DONATE, AND ANSWER THE PRO-DEMOCRAT QUESTIONS ON POLLS, DONALD TRUMP WILL HAVE A FIGHT ON HIS HANDS. I’M LOOKING FORWARD TO IT.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/08/02/liberals-donations-through-actblue-top-1-billion-ahead-midterms/884400002/?csp=chromepush
Exclusive: Fired-up liberals send $1 billion to candidates, causes ahead of midterms
Fredreka Schouten, USA TODAY Published 12:50 p.m. ET Aug. 2, 2018

WASHINGTON – The online fundraising platform ActBlue this week surged past the $1 billion mark in contributions to Democratic candidates and causes in this election cycle.

The fundraising milestone, shared first with USA TODAY, offers a sign that the liberal activism fueled by President Trump’s election isn’t slowing down.

The group predicts donations will top $1.5 billion by year’s end, double the amount the fundraising clearinghouse processed in the 2016 election cycle. By comparison, it took ActBlue nearly 12 years — from its founding in June 2004 until March 2016 — to raise its first $1 billion.

The average donation this cycle: $34.

About 13,000 candidates and groups raise money through the platform, up from about 5,400 in the 2016 election cycle. They range from liberal icon and Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren to groups helping aid migrant families separated at the U.S.-Mexico border.

“Small-dollar donors are funding the resistance,” Erin Hill, ActBlue’s executive director, said in an interview. “People initially said: ‘This can’t be sustained,’ but it very much is.”

“Donors are coming out for all sorts of issues,” Hill added. “They aren’t just anti-Trump. They are excited about the new crop of candidates that are running for the first time.”

Helping fuel the growth: Women donors, who now account for 61 percent of ActBlue's 3.7 million contributors this cycle. That's up from 54 percent in 2016 and 52 percent in 2014.

The rise of donations from liberal female donors comes as the number of women running for office soars.

For instance, a record 476 women have filed to run for the U.S. House of Representatives this year, topping the previous record of 298 set six years ago, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University.

Democrats make up nearly three-quarters of this year’s female House candidates, the center's tally shows.

More: Women candidates put gender, family and surviving abuse at forefront of midterm campaigns

More: Women break records for political giving before midterm elections

More: Texas Democrat MJ Hegar, famous for her viral video, dusts her opponent in fundraising

More: These 6 women went to the Women's March. Here's what happened after they went home.

Whitney Wilson, a 43-year-old college professor who lives outside Boston, said she hadn't paid close attention to politics before the outcome of the 2016 election.

"I think I just assumed Clinton would win," she said. "I was one of those naive folks."

These days, she paying lots of attention, largely to the Trump administration's moves on education, abortion rights, immigration and LGBTQ and transgender issues. She's also a regular contributor on the ActBlue platform.

Since Trump’s inauguration, Wilson estimates she’s donated several hundred dollars, giving $20 or $30 at a time to candidates such as Warren or groups such as Everytown for Gun Safety, which is aligned with former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Wilson said donating helps her feel empowered in the midst of disturbing events like mass shootings.

“You can be reading Twitter on your phone, get mad, click on a link and you’ve donated again,” she said. “It’s very easy anger management.”