Appeals court won’t step in for now on Trump’s tax records
NEW YORK — A federal appeals court said Friday it wouldn’t step in right away to delay New York prosecutors’ effort to get President Donald Trump’s tax records, potentially leaving the Supreme Court as his most promising option to block prosecutors’ subpoena.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied Trump’s request to immediately put Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr.’s subpoena on hold while Trump appeals to try to get it invalidated.
The appeals court said it would hold a hearing on the request for a delay, but not until Sept. 1. After winning a lower court ruling, Vance’s office had agreed not to enforce the subpoena before Aug. 28.
The DA’s office and Trump’s lawyers didn’t immediately comment on what the appeals court ruling might mean for that timeframe.
The case has already been to the Supreme Court and back, and Trump has said he expects it to end up there again.
Even if the tax records ultimately are subpoenaed, they would be part of a confidential grand jury investigation and not automatically made public.
The Supreme Court ruled last month that the presidency in itself doesn’t shield Trump from Vance’s investigation.
But the high court returned the case to a Manhattan federal judge’s courtroom to allow Trump’s lawyers to raise other concerns about the subpoena. They argued it was issued in bad faith, might have been politically motivated and amounted to harassment.
U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero rejected those arguments Thursday — and then turned down a request from Trump’s lawyers to delay enforcement of the subpoena while they appeal his decision.
“The president has not demonstrated that he will suffer irreparable harm” if the records are turned over for a grand jury probe that would keep them secret, he wrote Friday morning.
Green Beret espionage: A former Army Green Beret living in northern Virginia divulged military secrets about his unit’s activities in former Soviet republics over more than a decade of contacts with Russian intelligence, prosecutors charged Friday.
Peter Rafael Dzibinski Debbins, 45, whose mother was born in the Soviet Union, told Russian intelligence he considered himself a “son of Russia,” according to an indictment made public after his arrest on Friday.
Debbins periodically met Russian intelligence beginning in 1996, when he was a student at the University of Minnesota, through 2011. As far back as 1997, he was assigned a code name by Russian intelligence agents after signing a statement saying that he wanted to serve Russia, according to prosecutors.
Debbins received nominal payments for his information, even though he initially refused the money.
Marches in Mali: Thousands marched Friday in Mali’s capital to celebrate the overthrow of President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, as the West African nation’s political opposition backed the military’s junta plan to eventually hand over power to a civilian transitional government.
But as opponents of the former regime moved ahead with plans for the future, the international community continued to express alarm about the coup that occurred this week. There are concerns the political upheaval will divert attention away from the more than seven-year international fight against Islamic extremists who have used previous power vacuums in Mali to expand their terrain.
Keita — first elected in a 2013 landslide the year after a similar military coup — saw his popularity plummet after his 2018 reelection as the Malian army faced punishing losses from jihadist attacks.
Serial killer sentenced: A former California police officer dubbed the Golden State Killer told victims Friday he was “truly sorry” before he was sentenced to multiple life prison sentences for a decade-long string of rapes and murders that terrorized a wide swath of the state.
Joseph James DeAngelo, 74, pleaded guilty in June to 13 murders and 13 raperelated charges under a plea deal that avoided a possible death sentence.
The punishment imposed by Sacramento County Superior Court Judge Michael Bowman means DeAngelo will die in prison for the crimes committed between 1975 and 1986.
DeAngelo also publicly admitted dozens more sexual assaults for which the statute of limitations had expired. Prosecutors called the scale of the violence “simply staggering,” encompassing 87 victims at 53 crime scenes spanning 11 California counties.
He eluded capture for four decades until investigators used a new form of DNA tracking to unmask and arrest him in 2018.
Barr discusses Snowden: Attorney General William Barr said he would be “vehemently opposed” to any attempt to pardon former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, after the president suggested he might consider it.
The attorney general’s comments came days after President Donald Trump said he would “look at” whether to pardon Snowden, who was charged under the Espionage Act in 2013 with disclosing details of highly classified government surveillance programs.
The Justice Department’s criminal complaint against him was dated days after Snowden’s name first surfaced as the person who had leaked to the news media that the NSA, in classified surveillance programs, gathered telephone and internet records to ferret out potential terror plots.
Snowden remains in Russia to avoid prosecution.
Belarus leader issues threats: Authorities in Belarus detained a leader of striking factory workers and threatened demonstrators with criminal charges Friday in a bid to stop the massive post-election protests challenging the country’s authoritarian president.
Investigators also summoned several opposition activists for questioning as part of a criminal probe into a council they created with the goal of coordinating a transition of power for the ex-Soviet nation that President Alexander Lukashenko has ruled for 26 years.
Protesters are demanding that Lukashenko resign, accusing him of stealing a sixth term in office by rigging the country’s Aug. 9 presidential election.
The 65-year-old leader blamed the U.S. for instigating the protests that started on election night and intensified after officials declared him the winner with 80% of the vote.