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Havana Syndrome in Vietnam: Possible Russian role in attack on Americans, according to new evidence
U.S. officials in Vietnam were injured in a Havana Syndrome style attack ahead of Vice President Kamala Harris’s 2021 trip to Hanoi. Now, new evidence suggests Russia may have been involved — and that it may have been the Vietnamese themselves who were given technology that could have caused the injuries.
At the time, the U.S. embassy in Hanoi announced that a possible “anomalous health incident,” the federal government’s term for so-called Havana Syndrome attacks, was slowing Harris’s arrival in Vietnam. 60 Minutes has learned that 11 people reported being struck in separate incidents before Harris entered the country: two people who were officials at the American embassy in Hanoi, and nine people who were part of a Defense Department advance team preparing for Harris’s visit.
While at least some of the injured U.S. personnel were medevaced out of the country, Harris was unharmed and continued her trip to Hanoi after a three-hour delay in Singapore.
Symptoms of Havana Syndrome often include nausea, dizziness, migraines, and problems with vision and hearing that can persist over a long period of time. While U.S. officials cannot confirm what causes it, experts 60 Minutes has spoken with believe the incidents involve targeted sonic or microwave attacks.
60 Minutes has been investigating these attacks for more than five years. For the latest report, which aired on the broadcast this week, producers Michael Rey and Oriana Zill de Granados teamed up with Christo Grozev, an investigative journalist who currently leads investigative work for The Insider. Grozev is well-known for his investigation into the poisoning of the late Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny.
As 60 Minutes investigated the Hanoi incident, a source suggested that the Vietnamese themselves had been given some kind of technology that may have caused the “Havana Syndrome” attack. According to the source, the Vietnamese may have been told to use the technology to listen in on the Americans ahead of Harris’s trip — but they may not have known this the technology could harm the people they were using it on.
In his research, Grozev found a document that seems to indicate this theory may be correct.
Five months before Harris’s visit to Hanoi, an email was sent to the Security Council of Russia, the body of top Russian officials who head the country’s defense and security agencies.
According to Grozev, a document within the email shows that Russian intelligence lobbied for and received permission from President Vladimir Putin to provide exclusive technology to Vietnamese security services. Among the list of recommended technologies to be shared were “LRAD acoustic emitters” and “short-wave equipment for scanning the human body.”
LRAD, which stands for “long-range acoustic device,” is a military-grade sonic weapon that discharges a targeted beam of sound at extremely high volume. An LRAD device was used to thwart a pirate attack on a cruise ship in 2005, and since then, the U.S. military has used the devices to send warnings in the field, such as cautioning people away from an Army base perimeter. But when left on at its highest volume, some LRAD systems can produce a sound pressure level of 162 decibels. The human pain threshold is about 130 decibels.
Based on his research, Grozev said he suspects Russia is sending weapons technology like this, which may be used in Havana Syndrome attacks, to foreign governments.
“I believe that Russia is assisting other governments with some operations that those governments may want to do on their own, and in this way establishing loyalty from these governments for future operations that Russia might need on their territory,” Grozev told 60 Minutes.
Retired Army Lieutenant Colonel Greg Edgreen ran an investigation for the Defense Intelligence Agency into anomalous health incidents, which have been referred to as Havana Syndrome attacks because they were first reported by American officials based in the U.S. embassy in Cuba in 2016. He told 60 Minutes he also believes Russians were involved in the 2021 attack in Vietnam.
“They saw us getting closer and closer to Cuba, and they wanted to stop it…” Edgreen said. “Then they tried to follow up and do the same thing with Vietnam, another long-term strategic ally to Hanoi, by disrupting Vice President Kamala Harris’ trip to Vietnam.”
While running the military investigation into anomalous health incidents, Edgreen said the Pentagon supported his investigation into whether Russia was behind the attacks. But the Trump and Biden administrations set the bar for proof impossibly high, he said.
Grozev believes the U.S. government would require a very high threshold of certainty before they could acknowledge the Kremlin’s role — because of what will happen if they do.
“Once you admit that this happened, it is a Pandora[‘s] box,” Grozev said. “It requires you to confront the fact that you have your arch enemy acting against your own people, your own intelligence workers, on your territory, and this is nothing other than a declaration of war.”
5-year Havana Syndrome investigation finds new evidence of who might be responsible
This week on 60 Minutes, Scott Pelley and a team of producers continued their five-year investigation into Havana Syndrome, the phenomenon of mysterious brain injuries to U.S. national security officials and diplomats, and their families, both abroad and at home, that in some cases have led to major health conditions, like blindness, memory loss, and vestibular damage.
This fourth installment brought major developments to the story: a suspected link between attacks in Tbilisi, Georgia and a top-secret Russian intelligence unit, and new evidence that a reliable source calls “a receipt” for acoustic weapons testing done by the same Russian intelligence unit.
A retired Army lieutenant colonel who led the Pentagon investigation into these incidents, Lt. Col. Greg Edgreen, told 60 Minutes he is confident that Russia is behind these attacks, and that they are part of a worldwide campaign to neutralize U.S. officials.
“If my mother had seen what I saw, she would say, ‘It’s the Russians, stupid,'” Edgreen told 60 Minutes.
60 Minutes Overtime spoke to producers Oriana Zill de Granados and Michael Rey about the story’s evolution over the course of their investigation, as they pulled back layers of government secrecy to speak with victims, identify a potential technology used to attack them, and examine a Russian intelligence unit that may have been behind some of the Havana Syndrome incidents.
“In the first story we said, ‘Hmm. Is this Russia?’ Second round of stories we felt, ‘This is starting to look like Russia.’ And in this story, our sources are telling us that it’s Russia,” producer Michael Rey told 60 Minutes Overtime.
The investigation begins
In 2014, producer Oriana Zill de Granados worked on a 60 Minutes story about the opening of the U.S. embassy in Cuba under then-President Obama. After the embassy had opened in 2015, media outlets began reporting on a series of strange medical symptoms exhibited by U.S. embassy personnel working in Cuba: dizziness, fatigue, problems with memory, and impaired vision.
“And we very early on started approaching people within the intelligence community and the Department of State, to find out what these incidents were. That led us to China, which really expanded the story beyond Havana, Cuba,” Zill de Granados told 60 Minutes Overtime.
The first installment of their series of investigative reports, called “Targeting Americans,” focused on Commerce and State Department officials who reported hearing strange sounds in their homes while they were stationed overseas in China. The officials, and family members who lived with them, suffered from mysterious injuries afterward, with symptoms like headaches, nausea, memory problems and difficulty balancing.
Producers Zill de Granados and Rey interviewed Mark Lenzi, a State Department security officer who worked in the U.S. consulate in Guangzhou, China. He told 60 Minutes that both he and his wife began to suffer symptoms after hearing bizarre sounds in their apartment in 2017.
“He told us a lot of things when we first met him that we kind of couldn’t believe. And now, years later, we believe everything he told us,” Rey told 60 Minutes Overtime.
Lenzi described the sound as a “marble” circling down a “metal funnel.” He said he heard the sound four times, always in the same spot and at the same time of day: right above his son’s crib when he put him to bed at night. He said the sound was like nothing he’d ever heard before and “fairly loud.” Shortly after hearing the sounds, he and his wife began to feel ill.
“He suffered through migraines, dizziness, [and] memory issues. And his big concern was that nobody believed him. He had a very hard time convincing his superiors something was up and this needed to be addressed,” Rey explained.
Lenzi told 60 Minutes he believed he was targeted because of his work, using top-secret equipment to analyze electronic threats to diplomatic missions.
“This was a directed standoff attack against my apartment…it was a weapon,” he told Scott Pelley. “I believe it’s RF, radio frequency energy, in the microwave range.”
“Whether it was an intentional use of technology that could be adjusted to hurt people, or whether it was a device that was specifically designed to hurt people…we still don’t know,” Rey told 60 Minutes Overtime.
“We learned to kind of trust what he was saying, that, in his experience, the capabilities exist in the world.”
Domestic cases and microwave technology
In 2022, the second and third installment of the investigative series took a closer look at Havana Syndrome incidents that had happened on U.S. soil and had not been previously reported. It also examined microwave technology that could have been used as a potential weapon against these officials and their families.
One of these domestic incidents involved Olivia Troye, a former Homeland Security and counterterrorism adviser to then-Vice President Mike Pence, who said she was physically struck while descending the steps of the Eisenhower building, just a short distance away from the West Wing of the White House in Washington, D.C.
“It was like this piercing feeling on the side of my head…and I got like, vertigo. I was unsteady. I felt nauseous. I was somewhat disoriented,” she told Scott Pelley.
“I remember thinking like, ‘OK…don’t fall down the stairs. You’ve got to find your ground again and steady yourself,'” she told Pelley.
Another U.S. government official, Miles Taylor, who was deputy chief of staff for the Department of Homeland Security at the time, told 60 Minutes he woke up to a strange sound in his apartment near Capitol Hill in 2018.
“I went to the window, opened up my window, looked down at the street… I see a white van, and the van’s brake lights turned on. And it pulled off and it sped away.”
Taylor said he felt “off” and “sick” the next day. About five weeks later, it happened again. He said he felt “concussion-like symptoms,” like he’d been “knocked pretty hard in a sport.”
While reporting the story, producers Rey and Zill de Granados began hearing about other cases of U.S. officials who said they were attacked while overseas and then later attacked again after they had returned to the United States.
Robyn Garfield, a Commerce Department official, and his wife Britta Garfield told 60 Minutes that they had heard strange sounds in the night when they were living overseas in Shanghai, China. This was followed by symptoms of memory loss, impaired vision, and difficulty with balance, for both them and their two children.
In 2020, they spoke to 60 Minutes again, saying they had been attacked again, in the middle of the night, in Philadelphia, where they had been receiving treatment for the injuries they sustained in China.
Late one night, Britta Garfield awoke suddenly, saying she had heard a loud, painful sound. They gathered their kids and booked a room at a hotel. But whatever had “hit” them in their apartment before had followed them to their hotel.
“And we woke up, around, I believe, 2 a.m., with strange vibrations in our bodies, and a sound,” Garfield told Pelley.
Concerned, he ran to his children’s bedside to check on them and saw an eerie scene.
“Both were thrashing in their beds— asleep. But both kicking and moving aggressively. And I went over to my daughter, and I put my head down next to her head. And I heard a very distinct sound, just right there, sort of like water rushing,” Garfield said.
They reported the event to the FBI. The family continues to work on improving their balance, eyesight, and memory.
“This is the most difficult aspect of this whole issue for me are the children who’ve been impacted, both mine as well as many others. I personally know the parents of, I believe, eight other children. I can tell you I’ve personally seen balance issues in children that have never had that,” Garfield told Pelley.
“One of the arguments that came out from researchers around the Havana Syndrome issue was that this is psychosomatic, that people are hearing of these symptoms, they’re stressed, they’re nervous. It’s a normal reaction,” Rey told 60 Minutes Overtime.
“One of the things that dissuaded us of that was the fact that children were getting… bloody noses [and] bleeding from the ear. There were seizures happening in children. And then pets reacting to noises or pressures that people were feeling at the same time.”
60 Minutes Overtime examined the case of two Canadian diplomats, who were also interviewed for “Targeting Americans,” who said they were attacked in their homes while they were stationed in Havana, Cuba. They said their children suffered from symptoms like nosebleeds, fainting, vision problems, and dizziness afterward.
The 2022 installment of “Targeting Americans” also examined the possibility of microwave technology being used as a potential weapon against these officials and their families.
“We haven’t found the smoking gun, literally. But there is a lot of scientific research out there that is concrete on this type of technology,” Zill de Granados told 60 Minutes Overtime.
In 2022, 60 Minutes spoke with James Benford, a physicist and leading authority on microwaves. In an interview with Scott Pelley, he discussed the existence of portable microwave transmitters that could damage the tissues of the brain. He said these transmitters have been studied for over 50 years.
“There are many kinds, and they can go anywhere in size, from a suitcase all the way up to a large tractor trailer unit. And the bigger the device, the longer the range,” he explained.
He said the devices can transmit microwave energy through walls, glass, and brick. “Practically everything,” he told Pelley.
“It’s been developed widely in, perhaps, a dozen countries. The primary countries are the United States, Russia, and China.”
Unit 29155
The latest installment of “Targeting Americans” brought a major development to the story with the help of a renowned investigative journalist, Christo Grozev.
Grozev famously identified the men behind the August 2020 poisoning of the late Russian dissident Alexey Navalny. He also identified other men who attempted to poison Sergei Skripal, a Russian military intelligence officer, who later became a double agent for the United Kingdom, and his daughter Yulia.
In 2018, Grozev was the first to identify the existence of a top-secret Russian intelligence unit, Unit 29155. He told 60 Minutes that this elite unit consists of assassins and saboteurs who use countersurveillance, explosives, poison, and technologically advanced equipment on their targets.
Grozev believes he has found a document that can link the 29155 intelligence unit to an acoustic energy weapon.
Grozev worked with investigative partners, who collaborated with 60 Minutes on this report: a magazine called The Insider and German news publication Der Spiegel.
He tracked down an email that he says is for services provided to the Russian government by a member of Unit 29155 for “potential capabilities of non-lethal acoustic weapons.”
“Which told us that this particular unit had been engaged with somewhere, somehow, empirical tests of a directed energy unit,” he told Scott Pelley.
60 Minutes sources said that a suspected member of Russia’s 29155-unit, Albert Averyanov, who is also the son of the commander of the 29155 unit, is the subject of an investigation into Havana Syndrome incidents reported by Americans living in Tbilisi, Georgia.
Grozev found Albert Averyanov’s phone was turned off during the Tbilisi incidents. But 60 Minutes sources say there’s evidence someone in Tbilisi logged in to Averyanov’s personal email during the time these incidents occurred. Grozev believes it was Averyanov himself— placing him in the city at that time.
“We believe members of Unit 29155 were there in order to facilitate, supervise, or maybe even personally implement attacks on American diplomats, on American government officials, using an acoustic weapon,” Grozev told Pelley.
Questions remain
Producers Rey and Zill de Granados told 60 Minutes Overtime that much remains unknown. Despite their recent findings, there is no clear answer as to who, or what country, was behind these incidents. There is also no “smoking gun” that confirms the victims’ suspicions that the Havana Syndrome symptoms they experienced were the result of a deliberate attack.
In 2022, about a month before the second installment of their investigation aired on 60 Minutes, the CIA gave an interim assessment that said, “We assess it unlikely that a foreign actor, including Russia, is conducting a sustained, worldwide campaign harming U.S. personnel with a weapon or a mechanism.”
Last year, in 2023, the Director of National Intelligence said that it’s “very unlikely a foreign adversary is responsible,” but some intelligence agencies had only “low” or “moderate” confidence in that assessment.
“This has never, for us, been an adversarial process. Because who are we to tell the intelligence community of the United States, ‘We are right and you’re wrong’? That’s not our job,” Rey explained.
“Our job is to ask questions and share information that we’ve learned that may counter the narrative that’s out there…if you say there’s no evidence of a foreign adversary involved, then what are we looking at?”
The video above was produced by Will Croxton. It was edited by Sarah Shafer.
Havana Syndrome in Vietnam: Possible Russian role in attack on Americans, according to new evidence
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5-year “Havana Syndrome” investigation finds new evidence of who might be responsible
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California woman accused of husband’s murder freed 20 years later after new look at evidence
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Flaco, owl whose death shocked NYC, had evidence of bird herpes and rodenticides
Flaco, the owl who endeared himself to New Yorkers in sightings around Manhattan, had underlying conditions consistent with urban wildlife when he died last month, zoo officials said.
Flaco was roughly 13 years old when he was found dead Feb. 23 in the courtyard of an apartment building in New York City’s Upper West Side, Central Park Zoo, his former home, said.
While a next-day necropsy found he died of “acute traumatic injury” after witnesses saw him strike the building, he also had significant underlying conditions, revealed in a Central Park Zoo statement Monday.
Completed postmortem testing found Flaco had severe pigeon herpesvirus from eating feral pigeons. There was also evidence of four anticoagulant rodenticides commonly used for rat control, which together composed another significant underlying condition, it said.
“These factors would have been debilitating and ultimately fatal, even without a traumatic injury, and may have predisposed him to flying into or falling from the building,” the zoo said.
Herpesvirus can be fatal in birds of prey like Flaco, where it caused tissue damage and organ inflammation, it said.
Flaco flew for more than a year over Central Park and perimeter neighborhoods after he left his zoo habitat when a vandal breached his enclosure on Feb. 2, 2023.
The case remained under investigation, and no suspects have been arrested, the New York Police Department said last month.
Though some expected the wilds of New York might be hostile to a wild bird with a tony address, Flaco adapted his diet and habits to the concrete jungle.
Still, city life might have had an impact on his longevity.
“Flaco’s severe illness and death are ultimately attributed to a combination of factors—infectious disease, toxin exposures, and traumatic injuries—that underscore the hazards faced by wild birds, especially in an urban setting,” the zoo said.
Yasmeen Persaud contributed.
Trump’s trial has a witness and evidence list like no other
First glimpse inside the courtroom where Trump will be arraigned
The courtroom where Trump will be arraigned features four rows of seating, with pews on either side of the doorway.
Federal prosecutors will be seated at the table to the right, facing the judge, and the defense will be seated on the left side.
Journalists, including NBC’s Garrett Haake, are currently seated in the back two rows, closest to the door. He is among only 11 reporters with access to the courtroom, which was determined by lottery.
Unidentifiable men and women in suits are seated in the front row.
A man wearing a U.S. Marshals Service jacket is standing in the courtroom.
Trump’s plane lands at DCA
Trump’s plane landed at Reagan National Airport (DCA) moments ago.
His flight took less than an hour.
5 key things in the special counsel’s indictment
The four-count indictment criminally charging Trump with trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election and subvert lawful votes is the result of months of investigating Trump, including testimony from allies, aides and officials all the way up to former Vice President Mike Pence.
Although the third indictment of Trump, the new charges are likely to land with a more complicated political thud, marking the first time the U.S. criminal justice system has sought to punish a leader for actions regarding the transfer of power.
Read the full story here.
Pa. Trump elector slams indictment, highlights caveat language in his state
On the day Trump is to report to federal court, one of the people who served as an elector for him in Pennsylvania said he never would have signed certification purporting he was an elector without caveat language that his slate would only go into effect if the state’s election results were overturned.
The so-called fake electors in five other states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Wisconsin — did sign certification without such caveat language. Federal authorities charged that Trump was the head of a scheme that attempted to overturn the 2020 election and the Trump elector plan was a central part of the indictment.
“I would not have signed any documents if it weren’t for that language,” Pennsylvania Trump elector Charlie Gerow told NBC News today. “In my judgment, that would have been over the line. I would not have to hold myself forth in such a way.”
Central to the plan, authorities say, were slates of pro-Trump electors in seven states that Joe Biden won. In most of the states, these Republicans signed certification purporting to be the rightful electors and that their votes should count, even though Trump had lost in their states. Many of these electors have been subpoenaed and at least four have been called to the special grand jury, NBC News has previously reported.
But electors in both Pennsylvania and New Mexico inserted special language before signing their certificates, noting their votes were to be counted only if the election results in their states were overturned. According to the indictment, “A Campaign official cautioned not to offer the conditional language to other states because ‘[t]he other States are signing what he prepared — if it gets out we changed the language for PA it could snowball.’”
Despite highlighting the importance of that caveat language, Gerow still has significant issues with the latest indictment against Trump.
“It’s another imaginative writing of an indictment,” he said. “It’s an affront on the First Amendment. It should frighten every American regardless of their political persuasion. I see these continued specious criminal charges as an affront to democracy.”
Trump’s plane takes off
Trump’s plane took off moments ago from Newark, New Jersey.
He’s en route to Reagan National Airport in Washington.
Graham says ‘any conviction in D.C. against Donald Trump is not legitimate’
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a top Trump ally, said that “any conviction in D.C. against Donald Trump is not legitimate” during an interview on Fox News last night in response to the former president’s third indictment.
“They’re trying to criminalize the attorney-client relationship. They’re trying to criminalize exercising of the First Amendment,” Graham told host Sean Hannity.
Graham went on to claim that “the judge in this case hates Trump,” even leveling that “you could convict Trump of kidnapping Lindbergh’s baby in D.C.,” referring to the kidnapping of the infant son of aviator Charles Lindbergh in 1932.
Graham, who criticized the Justice Department for what he labeled a “double standard,” called for a change of venue in the case and a new judge. Graham also stressed that “we need to win in 2024 to stop this crazy crap” and predicted that Trump will win the Republican nomination and become the next president in 2024.
“So if you’re sitting at home and you’re mad, you have a right to be mad,” he said. “When it comes to Donald Trump, there are no rules — destroy him, destroy his family. When it comes to Hunter Biden and Joe Biden, they get away with almost everything. If you want to change that, we better win in 2024.”
Graham’s remarks echo Trump and his lawyer’s arguments that the former president’s third indictment attacks his First Amendment right, as well as their calls to move the venue of the trial out of D.C.
Trump departs Bedminster golf club for Washington
Shortly after 1 p.m., Trump left his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, to travel to his arraignment in D.C.
His motorcade is heading toward Newark Liberty International Airport, where the former president will board a plane to Washington.
Officers who defended Capitol on Jan. 6 will try to attend Trump arraignment
A few of the officers who responded to the insurrection at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, hope to attend the first hearing in special counsel Jack Smith’s indictment against Trump on Thursday, they told NBC News.
This afternoon, Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn, Metropolitan Police Officer Daniel Hodges and former USCP Sgt. Aquilino Gonell, who resigned after the riot, will head to the D.C. courthouse, where Trump will be arraigned on four felony charges related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
All three officers suffered physical injuries during the attack on the Capitol, as well as emotional and mental trauma following the riot. Over the span of a year and a half, the officers attended each congressional hearing by the former House committee investigating Jan. 6. They have also testified against some of those charged by the Justice Department for participating in the riot.
“When I first testified before the Jan 6th committee, I was seeking justice and accountability for everyone responsible for that day,” Dunn wrote in a text. “Just as I’ve attended every hearing and court case possible, this one isn’t any different.”
A line that formed overnight outside the D.C. courthouse continued to grow into the morning, with just five seats available to the public on a lottery-based system. Dunn said the officers have been in touch with the Court Marshal and Justice Department officials to gain entry, but are hoping to attend as public citizens. It’s not clear whether they’ll be able to get inside due to significant public interest and limited space, but there are some overflow seats outside of the main courtroom.
“There hasn’t really been a day that’s gone by where I haven’t thought about it. Partially because I pay attention to the news, and how it’s continuing to impact current events,” Hodges, who was injured after being crushed by a rioter between a stolen police shield and Capitol door frame on Jan 6., told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell on Wednesday.
“And partially because of just how burned in my memory it is. So the trial is definitely going to bring some of that up for people. But it’s necessary,” he added.
Trump’s trial has a witness and evidence list like no other
The trial for the United States v. Donald J. Trump initially appears to have a witness and evidence list unlike any other in U.S. history, an analysis of the indictment shows.
The indictment indicates that the special counsel’s office has gathered the contemporaneous notes of former Vice President Mike Pence, e-mails from senior Justice Department employees, and fake elector ballots.
The indictment also appears to rely on the testimony of Pence, former Attorney General William Barr, former acting Attorney General Jeff Rosen, and former acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue, as well as on statements from numerous state elected officials describing efforts by then-President Trump or his lawyers to help turn the election in his favor. Any of those individuals could be called at trial as fact witnesses to give firsthand accounts what the president said or did or what the co-conspirators said or did, legal experts say.
The indictment also refers to a memo that then-Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark allegedly wanted to send to specific states telling them that there was election fraud and that the states needed to examine their results. It mentions fake elector ballots signed by individuals selected to vote for Trump and what is alleged to have been an effort to replace the valid state electors voting for Biden with Trump votes in the Han. 6 certification of the election.
The indictment also refers to the contemporaneous notes of Pence and his meetings about his role on Jan. 6, the now well-known recorded phone call Trump made to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” 11,780 votes, and numerous public statements by Trump, his attorneys and state officials — all of which, again, could be submitted as evidence at trial, legal experts say.
The courthouse lies in the shadow of the Capitol
The courthouse where Trump will be arraigned today is truly in the shadow of the U.S. Capitol. It’s just three-tenths of a mile from the courthouse to the Peace Monument at the front of the building that Trump’s supporters mobbed on Jan. 6.
Trump says he is going to D.C. to be arrested and needs ‘one more indictment to ensure my election’
Trump took to Truth Social to post in all caps that he needs “one more indictment to ensure” his election.
Minutes later he posted again saying that he was now going to D.C. to be arrested.
“It is a great honor, because I am being arrested for you,” he wrote in all caps.
The posts come as Trump lawyer John Lauro provided notice that he will appear on the former president’s behalf in the case.
Pence selling swag quoting the indictment
Former Vice President Mike Pence’s presidential campaign is now selling shirts and hats that play up Pence’s decision to not go along with a plan to overturn the 2020 presidential election, quoting a piece of the indictment against former President Donald Trump.
The new merchandise, which hit the campaign’s online store Thursday, plays up a section of the indictment in which Pence allegedly called Trump on New Year’s Day 2021.
The indictment claims Trump responded to Pence, “You’re too honest,” when he said he didn’t believe he had the right to reject the Electoral College count.
Now the Pence campaign is selling hats and T-shirts that say: “Too Honest.”
Read more on the Meet the Press Blog.
Who is Magistrate Judge Moxila Upadhyaya, the judge presiding over Trump’s arraignment today?
Trump will appear before Magistrate Judge Moxila Upadhyaya in court today.
Upadhyaya, born in India and later raised in Missouri, was appointed to the D.C. District court in 2022, according to her court biography, and she has heard cases concerning disability benefits and Social Security, among others. Before joining the bench, Upadhyaya practiced commercial and administrative law at Venable LLP, a large corporate law firm, where she became a partner.
In her practice, she primarily focused on “complex commercial disputes,” according to the firm’s website, and her clients included private universities and hospital systems. Upadhyaya’s work with another Venable attorney to try to free prisoners who claim their innocence helped earn the firm the Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project’s Defender of Innocence Award in 2009.
Upadhyaya previously clerked for the D.C. Court of Appeals and later for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, where she now presides, and studied law at American University, according to her official bio.
Will Hurd: ‘All of this could have been avoided’
Republican presidential candidate Will Hurd, a frequent critic of Trump, said in an interview with NBC News today that the American people “should all be saddened” that Trump will be arraigned again today, adding that “all of this could have been avoided.”
“When you lose an election, and everybody tells you you lost, then you do the thing that all American presidents have done and welcome a peaceful transfer of power. You don’t try to lie about that and influence states and influence your own departments in order to change the election,” Hurd said.
Hurd, a former congressman from Texas and former CIA agent, also blasted Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents — the subject of a separate indictment from the special counsel — saying that “when you’re told you have classified documents, give them back.”
Hurd added, “If he didn’t do any of these things, we wouldn’t be in this position, right?”
GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy appears outside courthouse, demands ‘the truth’
Vivek Ramaswamy, a candidate for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, posted a video of himself this morning outside the federal courthouse where Trump’s arraignment will be held.
He demanded to know “the truth” about what’s driving prosecutions of Trump. Ramaswamy said that he sued the Department of Justice this week to find out if Biden spoke to Attorney General Merrick Garland about the Trump case and what Garland told special counsel Jack Smith.
There’s no evidence that Biden spoke to Garland about the case. The president has said he maintains independence from the Justice Department.
Chris Christie says he was questioned in Trump investigation
Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican presidential candidate, revealed that he was interviewed in one of the Trump investigations about six-to-eight weeks ago.
“They were trying to get a handle on what I knew about his knowledge of the reality of the election results,” he said on an episode of “On With Kara Swisher,” released Thursday.
Biden stays mum on Trump indictment
The president, on a bike ride during his vacation in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, on Thursday morning, ignored shouted questions from reporters on Trump’s indictment and upcoming arraignment in Washington.
Biden’s campaign has also declined to comment on the recent indictment.
D.C. prepares for Trump’s court appearance
Former AG Bill Barr says Trump ‘knew well he lost the election’
Former Attorney General Bill Barr said he believes Trump “knew well he lost the election” in an interview with CNN last night, a day before the former president’s arraignment.
“At first I wasn’t sure, but I have come to believe he knew well he had lost the election,” Barr said.
Barr also dismissed an argument put forth by Trump lawyer John Lauro, who said on NBC’s “TODAY” show that the former president’s third indictment is the “first time that the First Amendment has been criminalized.”
“As the indictment says, they are not attacking his First Amendment right,” Barr said. “He can say whatever he wants, he can even lie. He can even tell people that the election was stolen when he knew better. But that does not protect you from entering into a conspiracy.”
Barr broke with Trump after the 2020 election when he made public remarks saying the Justice Department had not found evidence to support the then-president’s claims of widespread election fraud. Barr resigned as Trump’s attorney general soon after and has emerged as a vocal critic of Trump.
Trump urges that his trial be moved out of D.C.
On the eve of his arraignment, Trump said he hopes that his trial on charges of trying to overturn the 2020 election results will be moved to an “impartial” venue and suggested West Virginia.
“The latest Fake ‘case’ brought by Crooked Joe Biden & Deranged Jack Smith will hopefully be moved to an impartial Venue, such as the politically unbiased nearby State of West Virginia!” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post last night. “IMPOSSIBLE to get a fair trial in Washington, D.C., which is over 95% anti-Trump, & for which I have called for a Federal TAKEOVER in order to bring our Capital back to Greatness. It is now a high crime embarrassment to our Nation and, indeed, the World. This Indictment is all about Election Interference!!!”
Trump’s post came hours after his lawyer John Lauro suggested he was seeking a change of venue for the trial in an interview with CBS yesterday.
“Absolutely. There are other options. West Virginia is close by,” Lauro said when asked whether he would seek a venue change.
Lauro added that he thinks West Virginia is “more diverse” than Washington, “which I think is 95% for Mr. Biden.”
“The bottom line is the president, like everyone sitting in this room, is entitled to a fair trial, and we’re going to get that,” he said.
Trump clings to false election fraud narrative while knocking former VP Pence
Trump isn’t backing down from his baseless claims of election fraud as he launched more jabs at his former VP Mike Pence, a Republican presidential candidate, in the hours leading up to his arraignment.
“I feel badly for Mike Pence, who is attracting no crowds, enthusiasm, or loyalty from people who, as a member of the Trump Administration, should be loving him,” Trump said in a Truth Social post yesterday. “He didn’t fight against Election Fraud, which we will now be easily able to prove based on the most recent Fake Indictment & information which will have to be made available to us, finally — a really BIG deal. The V.P. had power that Mike didn’t understand, but after the Election, the RINOS & Dems changed the law, taking that power away!”
Pence broke with Trump after he refused to go along with his demands to block the certification of Joe Biden’s electoral victory during the joint session of Congress on Jan. 6, 2021. Some Trump supporters who stormed the Capitol that day were overheard chanting, “Hang Mike Pence.”
Pence has since publicly excoriated Trump over his baseless claims of election fraud. In remarks to reporters at the Indiana State Fair in Indianapolis on Wednesday, he said Trump was surrounded by “crackpot lawyers” after the 2020 election who only told him what his “itching ears” wanted to hear.
“I was fully prepared to make sure that we heard all the arguments and concerns the members of Congress had brought, but because of the riot and because of, because of the assertion by the president and his crackpot lawyers that I could overturn the election, the violence that ensued eclipsed all of that,” Pence said.
The former vice president also claimed he learned of Trump’s efforts to install fake electors in states from the indictment released Tuesday. “I really do believe that anyone who puts himself over the Constitution should never be president of the United States,” Pence said. “And anyone who asks someone else to put themselves over the Constitution should never be president of the United States again.”
Trump will not have a mugshot taken today
The former president will undergo digital fingerprinting as part of the booking process at the courthouse today, but no mugshot will be taken; the court will use an existing photo of Trump in its place, a U.S. Marshals Service spokesperson said.
However, should Trump be charged in a separate election probe in Fulton County, Georgia, the sheriff there, Patrick Labat said the former president will receive the same treatment as any other person accused of a crime, including a mugshot.
“Unless somebody tells me differently, we are following our normal practices, and so it doesn’t matter your status, we’ll have a mugshot ready for you,” he said.
Courthouse security is intense ahead of Trump’s arraignment
Security at the E. Barrett Prettyman Courthouse is incredibly tight on a normal day, with security officers regularly reminding folks as they come in that it’s just like a Transportation Security Administration line at an airport: jackets off, belts off, electronics removed.
But today, security measures both seen and unseen around the courthouse have reached a level longtime court observers have not seen. Bike racks surround the front of the courthouse, the main hallway of the courthouse is swarming with heavily armed U.S. Marshals with long guns, and officers manning the security screening are, as ever, asking for jackets off, belts off and electronics removed.
As the world’s media awaits Trump’s arraignment from outside, court security and various agencies are preparing inside.
D.C. police anticipate street closures and urge public to ‘remain vigilant’
The D.C. Metropolitan Police Department said yesterday that there would be rolling street closures that would disrupt traffic during Trump’s arraignment and that it was working with federal law enforcement agencies to ensure the public’s safety.
The department “is working closely with the U.S. Secret Service, U.S. Marshals Service, U.S. Park Police, U.S. Capitol Police, the Federal Protective Service, and other agencies to ensure safety and security surrounding Thursday’s court appearance by the former president,” a department spokesperson said in a statement.
“There are parking restrictions in the immediate blocks surrounding the federal courthouse,” the statement noted. “Please be aware of posted Emergency No Parking signs in the area and monitor @DCPoliceTraffic for the latest on road closures and traffic delays.”
“MPD encourages the public to remain vigilant, if you see something, say something,” the statement said. “Please report immediate suspicious activity by calling 911.”
Trump to appear in federal court to face 2020 election charges
Former President Donald Trump is scheduled to appear in a Washington, D.C., courtroom Thursday afternoon to answer charges that he used “unlawful means” in an attempt to subvert the results of the 2020 presidential election and hold on to power.
Trump will be arraigned on an indictment charging him with conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction; and conspiracy against the right to vote and to have one’s vote counted.
Many historic firsts have already been notched. This will be the third time Trump will be arraigned on criminal charges — and the third time a former president will face charges.
Read the full story here.
Evidence against Gilgo Beach suspect includes surveillance videos and 2,500 pages of documents, prosecution says
RIVERHEAD, N.Y. — The evidence against Rex Heuermann, the 59-year-old architect charged in the Gilgo Beach serial killings, includes 2,500 pages of documents, crime scene photographs, autopsy reports and hundreds of hours of video footage taken at Heuermann’s home and office, prosecutors said Tuesday.
The details were shared in a brief preliminary hearing, during which the prosecution turned over four hard drives containing the evidence to Suffolk County Supreme Court Justice Timothy Mazzei and Heuermann’s attorney, Michael Brown. The judge scheduled the next pre-trial conference hearing for Sept. 27.
Brown and Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond A. Tierney have agreed to a protective order that limits the release of evidence to attorneys.
“We’re talking about 13 years of investigating,” Tierney said during a news conference after the hearing. “Suffice it to say it is a massive amount of material and it’s continuing because the investigation is continuing.”
Heuermann, wearing a black blazer and light-colored pants, was present for the hearing at the Arthur M. Cromarty Criminal Court Complex, where the courtroom was filled to capacity with about 100 people, including spectators and members of the media. He did not speak during the hearing, which lasted less than 10 minutes.
Heuermann was charged last month with three counts of first-degree murder and three counts of second-degree murder in the deaths of Melissa Barthelemy, 24, Megan Waterman, 22, and Amber Lynn Costello, 27. The remains of the women were discovered in December 2010 in Gilgo Beach on Long Island’s South Shore.
Police arrested Heuermann outside his Manhattan office on July 13 in the most significant action in the decadeslong investigation into a series of killings of mostly young women found along Gilgo Beach.
Heuermann is suspected too in the disappearance and death of a fourth woman, Maureen Brainard-Barnes, 25, whose remains were also found near Gilgo Beach. That investigation remains ongoing, according to a bail application filed on July 14.
The victims were all believed to have been sex workers who advertised on online sites, according to police. Some of the victims’ family members were in court for Tuesday’s hearing, Tierney said.
The victims, known as the “Gilgo Four,” were discovered during the search for another missing woman, Shannan Gilbert, 23, who was last seen running through the nearby gated community of Oak Beach after having left a client’s home, according to a police timeline.
Police ultimately discovered the remains of more than 10 people.
Heuermann has pleaded not guilty and denied involvement in the killings.
“We’re prepared to go forward,” Brown, his attorney, said after the hearing. “We will defend this case in the court of law and we will go to trial in this case.”
He has previously called the case against his client “extremely circumstantial in nature.”
“He’s a man who has never been arrested before. He’s maintained his innocence from the inception of this case,” Brown said.
“He told me he didn’t do this,” he added.
Investigators have said that DNA taken from discarded pizza allegedly tied Heuermann to a male hair that was found on a burlap material used to wrap Waterman’s body.
Tierney said Tuesday that the evidence in the case will include “mitochondrial DNA, nuclear DNA.”
“It’s all been tested. It’s been deemed admissible in the court of law around the United States,” he said.
Ohio man convicted of abuse of corpse and evidence tampering 13 years after Kentucky teenager Paige Johnson disappeared
An Ohio man has been convicted of abuse of a corpse and evidence tampering in the case of a Kentucky teenager whose body was found in Ohio a decade after she disappeared.
Jurors in Clermont County deliberated for more than nine hours over two days before convicting 35-year-old Jacob Bumpass last week of both charges he faced in the death of 17-year-old Paige Johnson of Florence, Kentucky. Defense attorneys immediately vowed to appeal the verdict and seek a new trial.
Johnson’s remains were found in 2020 by a hiker in East Fork State Park, about 20 miles east of Cincinnati, near the area investigators had searched after the teen disappeared in September 2010. A cause of death was never determined.
Authorities had questioned Bumpass, a friend, at the time and believed he was the last person to have seen her alive. Prosecutors cited DNA evidence and records indicating that the defendant’s phone was pinged by a cell tower just over a mile away from where the body was found and then by one near a bridge leading back to northern Kentucky.
Defense attorney Louis Sirkin posed the idea that Johnson’s body was planted in the East Fork Lake area sometime after her disappearance, saying that if her remains were there all along they would have been spotted by workers at a nearby farm and people who used the area for illegal dumping.
From the time they were found and through the trial, Paige Johnson’s remains were kept under lock and key as evidence, CBS affiliate WKRC reported.
The station asked Paige Johnson’s mother, Donna Johnson, what it will be like now that the family will finally receive Paige’s remains.
“It has been a long wait, and [not having her remains] has been very hard. Like I said, the joy and the happiness, being able to bring her home finally and give her what she deserves after having to wait all this time is a feeling I can’t really describe. But it’s just like, I get to bring my baby home and give her the dignity that she has deserved,” Donna Johnson said.
“I will always want to know what happened. I don’t think he’s ever gonna tell us,” she said. “This sadness will stay with me forever.”
Bumpass is scheduled for sentencing Sept. 7.
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