Judge refuses to punish dad who attacked abuser
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is the latest casualty in the White House’s war on American institutions.
The media and judiciary have long been targets, from ‘‘fake news’’ to ‘‘so-called judges’’. This week the FBI took a double hit – Deputy Director Andrew McCabe resigned, rumoured to have been forced out by FBI Director Chris Wray, after bearing the brunt of numerous public attacks by President Donald Trump; and the White House approved the release of a four-page memo, cherrypicked from classified intelligence detailing surveillance of a suspected Russian asset in the Trump campaign, that suggests FBI wrongdoing.
In what can be fairly characterised as ‘‘Bloody Monday’’, McCabe’s ouster coincided with a House Intelligence Committee vote to release a memo drafted by staffers of committee chairman Devin Nunes, a Republican. Four days later, Trump green-lit the Nunes memo’s release.
It alleges misconduct at the FBI related to surveillance of Carter Page, a Trump campaign associate. Page was being monitored long before he joined the campaign, because of concerns about his Russian contacts. He was advised of as much by the FBI in 2013, and yet he never curtailed his Russian outreach.
The surveillance of Page continued once he left the campaign, by the FBI under Trump’s watch.
The primary concern outlined in the memo is that the warrants for monitoring Page were obtained at least in part based on information contained in the infamous Steele Dossier, which was partly funded by Democrats – and that the political origin of the dossier was not disclosed to the judge who granted and then renewed the Page warrants.
The dossier was written by former MI6 spy Christopher Steele, and it details Trump’s problematic ties to Russia. The research was first paid for by ‘‘never-Trump’’ Republicans during the Republican primaries early in 2016, and was taken over for approximately five months between April and October 2016 by the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign.
According to sworn testimony by the founder of Fusion GPS, the organisation that hired Steele, the dossier was the result of Steele’s own self-directed work, and not Democrats trying to find dirt on Clinton’s presidential rival.
What is alarming is that Nunes was on the Trump transition team and had theoretically recused himself from participating in his committee’s Russia investigation – because the investigation includes Trump transition activities. However, his recusal appears to be in name only. Equally alarming is that Nunes (and many others who supported the memo’s release) has never actually viewed the underlying intelligence materials. Nor was the FBI, despite multiple requests, granted an opportunity to explain the intelligence.
Outraged, Democrats who have seen the intelligence have called the memo a coverup, and have sought to release their own memo in rebuttal. Principally, they claim that the memo neglects to state that there was additional intelligence on Page, collected via traditional methods, that corroborated the claims in the Steele Dossier. Also, that the judges who granted the warrants understood the potential political underpinnings of the dossier. Essentially, they claim that by multiple material omissions, the memo leaves a misleading impression about FBI wrongdoing.
In the past 18 months, the FBI has come under attack from left and right. Hillary Clinton excoriated former FBI director James Comey in her book, What Happened, for first deciding to publicly comment on the bureau’s decision not to prosecute her for mishandling classified information, and then for sending a letter to Congress 11 days before the 2016 presidential election stating that the investigation into her email practices had been reopened.
While Clinton might have a legitimate beef about Comey’s July 2016 press conference – particularly in light of the fact that the Trump campaign was at that time also under counterintelligence investigation, not publicly disclosed – Comey was right to send that letter. He had told Congress in sworn testimony that the investigation into Clinton’s emails had been concluded, but the discovery of potentially new emails on the laptop of a Clinton aide’s husband required Comey to supplement that testimony. As it turned out, there were no new emails discovered, only copies of emails the FBI already had. Still, the damage to Clinton’s campaign was done.
This is not to say that the FBI is a perfect institution, devoid of human frailty and bias, or that it has always been on the right side of history.
It famously monitored Dr Martin Luther King Jr during the 1960s, obsessively concerned with King’s alleged communist leanings. In response to the broader civil rights movement, it sought to counteract what it called ‘‘black nationalist hate groups’’ fighting for racial justice.
This is also not to say that current inquiries into McCabe will not reveal wrongdoing. Or that a separate investigation into potential anti-Trump bias by two former members of the special prosecutor’s team will come up empty. But the release of the Nunes memo is a grave mistake, politically weaponising select intelligence in order to undermine the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
The president stated his support for the memo’s release before he had even read it, understanding it will benefit his cause to cast the Russia investigation as a ‘‘hoax’’. But a fundamental tenet of law should remind us of the potential danger here.
When a witness is put under oath in the US, he or she is compelled to tell ‘‘the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth’’. This is because a half-truth is effectively a lie. And a half-truth weaponised to immunise a president from a legitimate investigation is a half-truth Americans can – and should – live without. A distraught father seething over sexual abuse suffered by three daughters tried to attack former sports doctor Larry Nassar in a Michigan courtroom yesterday after a judge rejected his request to confront the ‘‘demon’’ in a locked room – an incident that reflected the anguish felt by parents who trusted him with their children.
Randall Margraves was blocked by a lawyer, tackled by sheriff’s deputies and hauled out of court. He later apologised, saying he had lost control.
Eaton County Judge Janice Cunningham said there was ‘‘no way’’ she would fine Margraves or send him to jail under her contempt of court powers.
‘‘I don’t know what it would be like to stand there as a father and know that three of your girls were injured physically and emotionally by somebody sitting in a courtroom. I can’t imagine that,’’ the judge said.
Nonetheless, she added, it is ‘‘not acceptable that we combat assault with assault’’.
The incident occurred during the third and final sentencing hearing for Nassar, who has admitted sexually assaulting girls under the guise of medical treatment. This case focuses on his work at Twistars, an elite gymnastics club southwest of Lansing.
Nassar, 54, will spend the rest of his life in prison after being sentenced last week to 40 to 175 years for sexual assaults at Michigan State University and his home. In December, he was sentenced to 60 years in a federal prison for child pornography crimes.
Nassar pleaded guilty to molesting nine victims in Eaton and Ingham counties, but the courts have been open to anyone who says she was assaulted during his decades of work at Michigan State, Twistars and USA Gymnastics, which trains Olympians. More than 200 accusers so far have spoken or submitted statements in the two counties, and at least 80 per cent have agreed to be publicly identified.
Margraves’ dramatic move occurred after he listened to two of his daughters speak in court for 10 minutes.
Lauren Margraves, a college student, said her parents were ‘‘filled with regret’’ because they took three daughters to see Nassar for sports injuries.
‘‘I see the look in their faces and I know they want to be able to do something, but they can’t,’’ she told Nassar. ‘‘The guilt they have will never go away. All this is because of you.’’
Her father then stepped up and asked the judge if she would grant him ‘‘five minutes in a locked room with this demon’’. Cunningham declined, and also turned down his request for ‘‘one minute’’, after which he rushed towards Nassar.
There were gasps and tears in the courtroom. Assistant Attorney General Angela Povilaitis turned to the public gallery and told families to ‘‘use your words’’, not violence.
‘‘This is letting him have this power over us,’’ she said. ‘‘We cannot behave like this.’’
When he returned to court, Margraves told the judge that he just snapped. He said he had not known what exactly his daughters were going to say about their abuse.
‘‘I look over here and Larry Nassar’s shaking his head, no, like it didn’t happen ... I’m embarrassed,’’ Margraves said of his conduct. ‘‘I’m not here to upstage my daughters. I’m here to help them heal.’’
The case will end on Tuesday with final remarks from the prosecutor, defence and Nassar, followed by the judge’s sentence. Nassar faces a minimum of 25 to 40 years in prison.
At a news conference, Margraves repeated his apology and insisted he was ‘‘no hero’’.
‘‘My daughters are the heroes, and all the victims and the survivors of this terrible atrocity,’’ he said.