Nation & World Glance
13 charged in plots against Michigan governor, police
LANSING, Mich. — Agents foiled a stunning plot to kidnap Michigan Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, authorities said Thursday in announcing charges in an alleged scheme that involved months of planning and even rehearsals to snatch her from her vacation home.
Six men were charged in federal court with conspiring to kidnap the governor before the Nov. 3 elections in reaction to what they viewed as her “uncontrolled power,” according to a federal complaint. Separately, seven others linked to a paramilitary group called the Wolverine Watchmen were charged in state court for allegedly seeking to storm the Michigan Capitol and seek a “civil war.”
The two groups trained together and planned “various acts of violence,” according to the state police.
Surveillance for the kidnapping plot took place in August and September, according to an FBI affidavit, and four of the men had planned to meet Wednesday to “make a payment on explosives and exchange tactical gear.”
The FBI quoted one of the men as saying Whitmer “has no checks and balances at all. She has uncontrolled power right now. All good things must come to an end.”
‘This is not a bad dream’: New hurricane menaces Louisiana
ABBEVILLE, La. — Louisiana residents confronting the menace of a new hurricane weeks after one battered parts of the state got stark warnings Thursday to brace for winds that could turn still-uncollected debris into dangerous missiles and again knock out power to thousands.
Forecasts showed Delta had strengthened back into a Category 3 hurricane as it bore down on the state carrying winds of up to 120 mph and the potential to deliver a storm surge of up to 11 feet when it arrives on Friday evening or Friday night. The projected path included the southwest area of Louisiana where Category 4 Hurricane Laura made landfall less than two months ago. Laura has been blamed for more than 30 deaths.
The mayor of Lake Charles, where thousands of residents remain without shelter following the earlier hurricane, told residents that even if their homes survived Laura, they shouldn’t assume that would be the case with Delta.
“This is not a bad dream. It’s not a test run. These are the cards that we have been dealt,” Nic Hunter said in a Facebook video. He added, “I know that we’ve been through a lot, and I know that we’re tired. But we have a job to do right now, and that job is to keep ourselves safe.”
Suspended officials sue agency that runs Voice of America
WASHINGTON — Suspended officials at the agency that runs the Voice of America news outlet filed suit against it Thursday, accusing its CEO and his top aides of trying to turn it into a vehicle to promote President Donald Trump’s agenda.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, says the actions of U.S. Agency for Global Media CEO Michael Pack and his senior advisers violate the “statutory firewall” intended to protect VOA from political interference. National Public Radio, which first reported the lawsuit, said the five plaintiffs have all been suspended by Pack and are seeking reinstatement.
Lawyer Theodore J. Boutrous Jr. told NPR, “The lawsuit we filed today seeks to vindicate core First Amendment principles that protect the independence and credibility of this country’s publicly funded media organizations, like Voice of America, which are under siege by the current administration.”
Pack, a conservative filmmaker, Trump ally and one-time associate of former Trump political adviser Steve Bannon, took the helm of USAGM in June and has made no secret of his intent to shake the agency up. His moves, however, have been criticized by both Democratic and Republican lawmakers who control the agency’s budget.
Trump, Barr at odds over slow pace of Durham investigation
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is increasingly at odds with Attorney General William Barr over the status of the Justice Department’s investigation into the origin of the Russia probe, with the president increasingly critical about a lack of arrests and Barr frustrated by Trump’s public pronouncements about the case, according to people familiar with the matter.
Trump and his allies had high hopes for the investigation led by Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham, betting it would expose what they see as wrongdoing when the FBI opened a case into whether the Trump campaign was coordinating with Russia to sway the 2016 election. Trump has also pushed to tie prominent Obama administration officials to that effort as part of his campaign against Joe Biden, who was serving as vice president at the time.
But a year and a half into the investigation, and with less than one month until Election Day, there has been only one criminal case: a former FBI lawyer who pleaded guilty to altering a government email about a former Trump campaign adviser who was a target of secret FBI surveillance.
With time running out for pre-election action on the case, Trump is increasingly airing his dissatisfaction in tweets and television appearances. Barr, meanwhile, has privately expressed frustration over the public comments, according to a person familiar with his thinking. It’s not dissimilar to a situation earlier this year, when Trump complained publicly that he believed ally Roger Stone was getting a raw deal in his prosecution, even as Barr had already moved to amend a sentencing position of the prosecutors in the case.
Prominent GOP fundraiser charged in covert lobbying effort
Broidy, a prominent fundraiser for President Donald Trump and the Republican Party, has been charged in an illicit lobbying campaign aimed at getting the Trump administration to drop an investigation into the multibillion-dollar looting of a Malaysian state investment fund.
Broidy is the latest person accused by the Justice Department of participating in the covert lobbying effort, which also sought to arrange for the return of a Chinese dissident living in the U.S. A consultant, Nickie Lum Davis, pleaded guilty in August for her role in the scheme.
The case was filed this week in federal court in Washington, D.C., with Broidy facing a single conspiracy charge related to his failure to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, which requires people lobbying in the U.S. on behalf of a foreign entity to disclose that work to the Justice Department.
A lawyer for Broidy declined to comment on Thursday.
The allegations are contained in a charging document known as an information, which typically signals a defendant’s intent to plead guilty.
Prosecutors allege that Broidy worked with Davis and others to get the Justice Department to abandon its pursuit of billions of dollars that officials say were pilfered from 1MDB, a Malaysian wealth fund that was established more than a decade ago to accelerate the country’s economic development but that prosecutors say was actually treated as a piggy bank by associates of former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak.