Senators launch bipartisan push to enforce existing background checks law
WASHINGTON— Republican and Democratic lawmakers who remain bitterly opposed about expanding gun-control measures are banding together to demand that federal agencies comply with existing ones, after reports indicated that the gunman who killed 26 people in a church shooting in Texas should have been prevented from buying a firearm.
Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., announced Tuesday that he was planning to file legislation aimed at forcing federal agencies to upload required information about infractions into the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), and incentivizing state governments to do the same.
Weinstein’s effort failed
The disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein used a web of private detectives, lawyers and even undercover former Mossad agents in a failed effort to stop The New York Times and The New Yorker from publishing their investigations in October into allegations of sexual harassment and assault against him.
The undertaking, detailed in a report on The New Yorker’s website, included the use of an agent who posed as a women’s rights advocate to befriend and spy on one accuser.
A contract with one of at least three private investigation firms that Mr. Weinstein employed, Black Cube, had as its signatory a Weinstein lawyer, David Boies, a Democratic Party stalwart.
Mr. Boies’ firm, Boies Schiller Flexner L.L.P., has provided The Times with outside legal counsel in three legal matters over the past 10 years. The newspaper released a stern statement on Monday night about Mr. Boies’ involvement in the effort to undermine its reporting and its reporters.
Aide met Russians
WASHINGTON— Former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser Carter Page told congressional investigators that he spoke privately with Russia’s deputy prime minister and several legislators during a campaign-approved trip to Moscow in July 2016.
During seven hours of closed-door testimony to the House Intelligence Committee on Nov. 2, Mr. Page contradicted his previous public denials of any meetings with Russian government officials. He also urged the campaign to send Donald Trump to Moscow instead of him to “raise the temperature a little bit,” according to an email obtained by the committee.
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