Category: National

(NEW YORK) — The White House’s new policy for preserving presidential records risks allowing the Trump administration to “unlawfully destroy important records,” a group of Senate Democrats warned in a letter to the White House Counsel on Wednesday.

Thirteen Senate Democrats are seeking assurances from the White House that it would continue to preserve presidential records, saying they had grown “deeply concerned” with recent steps the Trump administration had taken to loosen rules dictating document retention.

The Democrats’ missive comes after the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) wrote an opinion this month that deemed the Presidential Records Act — a Watergate-era law that changed the legal ownership of presidential records from private to public — to be unconstitutional and “untethered from any valid and identifiable legislative purpose.” 

One day after the opinion was issued, White House Counsel David Warrington issued new guidance for White House staffers to adopt new document retention policies based on the DOJ’s new determination about the legality of the Presidential Records Act.

“The 1978 law is a significant departure from historical practice. For 200 years the presidency existed without the legislative branch invading the rights of the executive branch,” Warrington said in a memo that was later included in a court filing.

Led by Sen. Adam Schiff of California, the Democrats wrote to White House Counsel David Warrington that they feared “the President and his staff” will use the OLC option to “unlawfully destroy important records covered by the [Presidential Records Act].”

Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement that the Democrats’ letter reflects “a fundamental misunderstanding of the Administration’s policy.”

“The new White House records retention policy makes it clear that important records will be preserved,” Jackson added.

The senators, in their letter, alluded to what they characterized as President Donald Trump’s “unlawful personal retention and mismanagement of classified documents” in requesting a briefing from White House officials on their “records management procedures” at some point before the end of his term. Trump was indicted after his first term for allegedly storing classified records at his Mar-a-Lago estate and obstructing investigators, though the case was dismissed over U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon’s concerns about the appointment of special counsel Jack Smith. 

Drafted in the wake of the Watergate scandal, the Presidential Records Act was passed in 1978 to ensure the preservation of presidential records. Every president since Ronald Reagan has been subject to the law, which places the National Archives and Records Administration in control of the official records — such as emails, phone records, and other documentary material created by the president and his staff in the course of their duties — once the president leaves office.

Under the PRA, which is overseen by Congress, former presidents have up to 12 years after leaving office to turn over all their presidential records.

During President Trump’s current term, his administration has moved to unwind record retention protocols. Earlier this month, Assistant Attorney General T. Elliot Gaiser wrote an opinion that would upend the established process for ensuring the public ownership of presidential records, arguing that “the PRA exceeds the oversight power [of Congress] because it serves no identifiable and valid legislative purpose.”

With three years left in Trump’s second term, his Department of Justice now says the president “need not further comply” with the law governing the handover of his presidential records once he leaves office. 

The day after the publication of the Justice Department’s opinion, Warrington issued new guidance for the Executive Office of the President regarding the preserve of records going forward. While the memo said that staff could use policies developed under the PRA, Warrington said the new policy would cover the retention of both classified and unclassified material going forward.

In their letter to Warrington on Wednesday, the senators asserted that administration “does not have the authority to override Supreme Court rulings or unilaterally overturn laws passed by Congress.”  

Within a week of the OLC opinion and new White House guidance, the country’s largest group of a historians and a watchdog organization brought a lawsuit seeking to force the Trump administration to comply with the PRA.

“The Executive Branch has nullified the determinations of the other two branches of government so that the President may claim these official government records to be his own,” the lawsuit said.

Lawyers with the Department of Justice have defended the policy in court filings, arguing the PRA is an “unconstitutional and ahistorical imposition on presidential autonomy.”

As part of the lawsuit, the Trump administration released the new White House guidance on document retention. The Director of Archival Operations at the National Archives, meanwhile, said that the agency continues to “preserve all Presidential records in its custody” and plans to continue processing requests to access those records. 

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(FLORIDA) — A truck driver who went missing in a possible hijacking while transporting vehicles from Georgia to Florida has been found dead, the FBI said Wednesday.

Alejandro Jacomino Gonzalez, 41, was last seen alive in the early morning hours on April 17 at a rest stop on I-95 south in Brevard County, Florida, according to the FBI’s Tampa field office. 

The truck was located in Port Wentworth, Georgia, that day, though Gonzalez was not there, according to the FBI, which called his disappearance “suspicious.” Several vehicles were also missing from the hauler.

On Wednesday, the FBI field offices in Tampa and Atlanta said a body found in coastal Georgia is confirmed to be Gonzalez. They did not say where or when the body was located.

The FBI Tampa and Atlanta divisions are leading the investigation into Gonzalez’s death.

Gonzalez, a CDL driver for an unidentified trucking company, had picked up multiple vehicles from the Port of Brunswick in Georgia on April 16 and was supposed to drop them off in Miami, the FBI said.

He arrived at the truck stop in Grant-Valkaria at approximately 1:21 a.m. on April 17 and rested for several hours, the FBI said. At 7:49 a.m., the truck drove south one exit and then turned north, according to the FBI.

“Soon after, Gonzalez became unreachable and the truck was reported missing,” the FBI stated in a missing person bulletin.

Three vehicles that went missing from the hauler have since been located in Florida, the FBI said.

Anyone with information on the investigation is asked to contact the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI or submit tips online.

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(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court on Wednesday grappled with whether the Trump administration has the authority to end humanitarian protections for thousands of immigrants without facing judicial review. 

While an unrelated ruling about the Voting Rights Act overshadowed the arguments, the court’s conservative majority appeared skeptical of the legal challenge to reverse the cancellation of temporary protected status for thousands of Haitians and Syrians. 

Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued that Congress gave the Secretary of Homeland Security unreviewable discretion to manage and end TPS designations, arguing that a legal challenge would result in “judicial micromanagement” of foreign policy.    

“Congress balanced the risk there might be some decision that’s erroneous or baseless… that would evade judicial review, against the risk of what we’re living through here, which is judicial micromanagement of the sorts of foreign policy laden in determinations and decisions that are naturally conferred upon the political branches,” Sauer said. 

But attorneys representing the Haitians and Syrian Temporary Protected Status holders argued that the Homeland Secretary must follow the “procedural guardrails” set by Congress, which include reviewing country conditions, consulting other government agencies, and providing TPS holders 60 days of notice. 

“The bottom line is the secretary can terminate TPS, but he must turn square corners and follow the rules Congress set,” said attorney Ahilan T. Arulantham. “In contrast, as we’ve heard today, the government reads the statute like a blank check today. They want to use it to expel non-citizens, but the power that they seek is a double-edged sword.” 

Justice Amy Coney Barrett questioned the significance of the legal challenge, which was described as a “box-checking exercise,” if the Trump administration still canceled the designation as long as they followed the procedural steps. 

“If it’s just kind of a box-checking exercise, I mean, why would Congress permit review of the procedural aspect, when really what everybody cares about much more is the substance?” Barrett asked. 

“I think it’s because Congress and us too, and the millions of people who live with TPS holders, have some faith in government, and they believe that if there is consultation, the decisions will be better,” Arulanantham said. 

Sauer pushed back on those arguments, claiming that the Trump administration fulfilled the procedural requirements by “seeking input” from the State Department, though he claimed that even those basic steps were not necessary. 

“If the secretary posted a notice on X saying, ‘I hereby terminate Syria’s TPS program effective tomorrow,’ you would say that there’s no judicial review of that decision,” said Justice Sonia Sotomayor. 

“Correct,” Sauer said.

The three liberal justices also pressed Sauer about President Donald Trump’s public and social media comments about Haitian immigrants, suggesting the statements show a “discriminatory purpose” behind the TPS cancellation. 

“The President has disparaged Haitian TPS holders specifically as undesirables from a ‘s——- country,’ and days after falsely accusing them of ‘eating the dogs and eating the cats of Americans,’ he vowed that he would terminate Haiti’s TPS, and that is exactly what happened,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor said. 

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson pushed back on the government’s claim that Trump’s rhetoric was focused on policy issues like crime or poverty and pointed to remarks made about “welcoming people” from Norway or Denmark.

“If the position of the United States is that we have to have an actual racial epithet… [and] we aren’t allowed to look at all the context,” Jackson said, then the court would be ignoring a “prime example” of discriminatory intent. 

Justice Jackson noted that U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes — who attended Wednesday’s hearing and blocked the termination of TPS for Haitians in February — found that there is evidence of “discriminatory intent.”

“So aren’t we bound in some regard with respect to what the lower court has already determined about these facts?” she asked. 

Sauer said the court should apply the logic of a different judge who said the President’s statements “are less relevant.”

At one point during the hearing, Justice Brett Kavanaugh questioned the protections in place for Syrians by mentioning that Bashar al-Assad’s regime is no longer in place. 

“The whole thing was the Assad regime,” Kavanaugh said. “After 53 years of complete oppression and brutal treatment, it’s done.” 

Arulantham, who argued on behalf of the Syrians, pushed back and said that while the regime may have changed, the country remains a war zone and pointed to current State Department reports of violence in the country. 

“It is of no relevance because even if the secretary is right and the State Department is wrong, it doesn’t change the fact that they didn’t talk to each other, and the national interest is not a criteria,” Arulantham said. 

While the Court on Wednesday appeared closely divided on whether to invalidate Trump’s cancellation of TPS for Haitians and Syrians over procedural missteps, the bottom line is that the administration retains almost unquestionable discretion as to if and when TPS status for certain countries should be discontinued. 

And that means, if the legal teams representing the migrants prevail in this instance, it may be short-lived. The administration can move again to cancel their status, following the appropriate procedural steps, and more than 350,000+ immigrants who have lived here legally for quite some time under TPS could be forced to leave the country.

The court is expected to issue its decision in the case this summer. 

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(ATLANTA) — Former Fulton County Jail detainee Rashaad Muhammad detailed what he said was a harrowing experience being held at the Atlanta, Georgia, facility from August 2025 to February of this year.

After being arrested on Aug. 11, the 33-year-old — who used a cane to walk and took medication regularly for a blood condition — alleged at a press conference last Friday that he was repeatedly denied medical care as his physical condition rapidly deteriorated for more than two weeks.

As he allegedly experienced symptoms like vomiting bile and losing the ability to stand up, Muhammad said his requests for medical attention were ignored for several days and he ultimately experienced septic shock. After being transported to Grady Memorial Hospital, he fell into a coma and both of his hands and legs were amputated. 

In a statement to ABC News, the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office said Muhammad spent 177 of the 188 days he was in custody “at Grady under hospital care.”

“For days, I’m in the corner by myself suffering. Nobody’s checking on me. Nobody’s coming up to you,” an emotional Muhammad told the press. “I’m back there. I was tired, so I’m trying to tell the officer, ‘Hey officer, I need to, you know, it’s getting bad.’ Nothing.” 

He alleged that officials in the jail ignored his condition, even as he asked for medical help each day.

“I’m begging the sheriff to let me see the provider … I can’t get up. Every time they do head count, you have to stand by your door,” he said. “It got so bad to the point where I couldn’t even get up. I wasn’t trying to be disrespectful to the officers but I just couldn’t get up. So they just started, they’d see me, they didn’t, I didn’t have to do headcount. But that’s when I knew it was bad.”

Muhammad had been charged with two felony counts of aggravated assault and firearm possession. According to court records, the warrant alleges that he drove up to the victim, got out of his car and fired multiple shots at the victim, then drove off.

At the press conference, Muhammad and his attorneys described this as a case of self-defense. All charges were dropped earlier this month. It’s unclear exactly why the charges were dropped.

“For them to drop the charges is another slap in the face, because I was there for no reason. I didn’t have to be there,” Muhammad said.

An attorney from the Georgia Public Defender Council represented Muhammad at the time.

“This case raises serious questions about humane treatment in custody and emphasizes the importance of testing allegations through a fair adversarial process that ultimately resulted in Mr. Muhammad’s charges being dismissed,” a spokesperson for the agency said in a statement to ABC News.

The prosecutors in the case did not immediately respond to ABC News’ requests for comment.

The Fulton County jail system has been the subject of scrutiny for years, drawing national attention in 2022 over the death of LaShawn Thompson in a bed bug-infested cell. In response to a series of reports of inmate abuse and neglect, including Thompson’s death, the Department of Justice launched a civil investigation into the Fulton County jail system in July 2023.

“We need to know why Fulton County did what they did in choosing their health care provider,” Muhammad’s attorney, Eric Hertz, told the press. “We need to know why a bottle of pills which he had on him when he was originally arrested, why they didn’t let him take that with him, why they didn’t carefully give him the antibiotics as he needed them.”

In a statement to ABC News, the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office said it cannot comment on or release information about Muhammad’s medical condition or treatment due to privacy laws.

“It is important to note that of the 188 days Mr. Muhammad was in custody, 177 of those days were spent at Grady under hospital care,” it said. “During his time at the Fulton County Jail, he was under the medical care of NaphCare.”

NaphCare is a private, for-profit correctional health care company based in Alabama. A 2024 report released by the Justice Department after LaShawn Thompson’s death noted “ongoing issues” with the company’s staffing at the jail, but its contract with Georgia state was ultimately renewed until 2027.

At the press conference on Friday, attorney Ben Crump noted that the same medical provider was involved in both Thompson and Muhammad’s situations.

“We need answers, and we need Fulton County to act. This is deplorable, this is horrific, this is egregious,” he said. “And worst of all, this is inhumane. We don’t treat human beings like this.”

In a statement to ABC News, NaphCare said “Fulton County jails represent one of the most difficult environments” where the company provides care in the U.S.

“Despite the challenges, we have been extraordinarily successful in improving care and saving lives, maintaining accreditation by the National Commission on Correctional Health Care, and working with federal court monitors to implement reforms under a federal court consent decree,” the company said.

NaphCare noted that it has “cared for tens of thousands of patients, and have had thousands of positive patient outcomes” in the time it has been contracted to work at the jail.

It also addressed Muhammad’s case specifically.

“We are also deeply saddened by and sorry for the suffering and losses that Mr. Muhammad experienced,” the company said its statement. “We understand that he has a right to file a lawsuit against us, and we will respond to the allegations in court filings and will not comment to the news media outside of the ongoing court proceedings.”

Muhammad’s legal team called for accountability and a full investigation into the conditions and medical care within the jail.

ABC News’ Sabina Ghebremedhin contributed to this report.

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(NEW YORK) — A federal appeals court in New York on Wednesday rejected President Donald Trump’s request to rehear his challenges to the writer E. Jean Carroll’s successful defamation and sex assault claims.

Carroll successfully argued during a nine-day trial in 2023 that Trump sexually abused her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the 1990s and defamed her in 2022 with comments he made after he left office. 

The jury awarded Carroll $5 million in damages.

Trump, who has denied all wrongdoing, tried unsuccessfully to substitute the United States as a defendant and to raise a claim of presidential immunity. In its decision Wednesday, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said both arguments were raised too late.

“The fact of the matter is that no other defendant would be permitted to move to substitute the United States in his place, fifteen months after trial and the entry of judgment against him,” Judge Denny Chin wrote. “The Court appropriately declined to convene en banc to revisit this issue.”

A separate jury in a subsequent trial awarded Carroll $83 million in damages.

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(NEW YORK) — Against the backdrop of polls showing declining Democratic support for Israel — especially among young voters — the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s support for candidates is under intense scrutiny and is becoming a dividing line in contentious Democratic primaries from Michigan to New Jersey.

A poll released earlier this month by the Pew Research Center shows that Americans’ views toward Israel are trending negative, especially among Democrats.

The survey found that 6 in 10 Americans have a very or somewhat unfavorable view of Israel. That number is up 7% since last year and 20 percentage points since 2022. Among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, the percentage who have a very or somewhat unfavorable opinion of Israeli was 80%.

One manifestation of those changing views is the increased scrutiny of political contributions from pro-Israel groups, especially AIPAC.

Conflicts over AIPAC funding have been fueled in part by the popularity of the group Citizens Against AIPAC Corruption, better known by their social media handle Track AIPAC, which says it’s a “grassroots effort to reveal and counter the influence of AIPAC and the Israel Lobby by systematically documenting their financial contributions to our federal officials” and accuses Israel of committing genocide in Gaza — a charge the Israeli government has long denied.

The group churns out graphics of donations to politicians to its audience of 400,000+ followers on X. These numbers include contributions by not just AIPAC but by individuals who have previously donated to groups it says are part of the “pro-Israel lobby.” That approach has received controversy, with critics saying it’s unfair to conflate the donations of individuals with the support of the pro-Israel lobby as whole.

AIPAC has been critical of Track AIPAC’s approach. National spokesperson Deryn Sousa described it in a statement to ABC as “an un-American and undemocratic online campaign that applies selective standards to stigmatize and silence pro‑Israel Democrats.”

Estimates of donations from the pro-Israel lobby were cited by an audience member in a town hall for Michigan Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin, who told the questioner, “If you’re equating “Israel lobby” to Jews, I got a problem with that.”

In Michigan, the Uncommitted National Movement, which encouraged opposition to then-President Joe Biden’s support of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, received more than 100,000 votes in the 2024 Democratic presidential primary in the swing state.

Divisions over support for Israel have continued to dominate that state’s highly competitive Democratic Senate primary. Michigan is home to one of the largest Arab-American populations in the country as well as a sizeable Jewish community.

Senate candidate Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, the former Wayne County, Michigan, health director who ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2018, has been the most vocal on the issue, repeatedly calling the war in Gaza a genocide and criticizing his opponents for accepting donations from AIPAC and other pro-Israel groups.

Appearing alongside controversial podcaster and political commentator Hasan Piker on the campus of the University of Michigan, El-Sayed took explicit aim at AIPAC, saying, “No longer are we going to sit idly by while AIPAC tells us that the goal of our foreign policy is to align with a foreign government.”

Most of his criticism has been directed towards his opponent, Rep. Haley Stevens. Stevens, who is Jewish, was backed by AIPAC in her 2022 primary challenge of then-Rep. Andy Levin, a progressive Jewish member who had opposed some of Israel’s policies. Stevens recorded a video in support of AIPAC last month. The Democratic Majority for Israel — a pro-Israel group — has endorsed her Senate run.

The third candidate in the race, State Sen. Mallory McMorrow, has criticized Piker for some of his comments on Jews and the conflict in Gaza, calling it a genocide and promising not to take money from AIPAC.

Track AIPAC endorsed El-Sayed, calling him “the only candidate for US Senate in Michigan with the spine to call out Israel’s atrocities,” and saying “his voice can’t be bought.”

Nearby Minnesota also faces a progressive vs. centrist Senate battle between Rep. Angie Craig and Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan. While Flanagan has pledged not to take any funds from AIPAC, Craig has received funds in her past congressional races from AIPAC and has been endorsed by the Democratic Majority for Israel.

Craig has not received AIPAC funding in this race. When asked if it planned to make an endorsement in that race, Track AIPAC’s Co-Executive Director Cory Archibald, who has worked as a consultant for progressive Democrats like former Reps. Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman, said that it will monitor the race “and we know AIPAC has an interest in who wins Minnesota.”

The track record of AIPAC’s spending in some of the year’s early primaries has been mixed. In New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District, AIPAC spent $2 million on ads attacking moderate Democratic incumbent Tom Malinowski, who supported some conditions on aid to Israel. That primary was won by progressive Analilia Meija, who has called Israel’s actions in Gaza a genocide. Track AIPAC ran an ad supporting her in that race, which marked its first-ever ad buy.

The issue of AIPAC support has emerged on the national level. The Democratic National Committee considered a proposal at its spring conference to condemn the “growing influence” of money in primaries, specifically citing AIPAC. That resolution failed. AIPAC celebrated the decision, saying that “the DNC made clear that all Democrats including millions who are AIPAC members have the right to participate fully in the democratic process.”

Track AIPAC says that despite that setback, it plans to remain “an important voice for change in this cycle and many more to come.”

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(NEW YORK) — The U.S. Army special forces soldier who was indicted last week on charges of using classified information about the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to make more than $400,000 on the prediction market Polymarket pleaded not guilty Tuesday in Manhattan federal court and was released on bond.

Master Sergeant Gannon Ken Van Dyke appeared in the same courthouse complex where Maduro appeared following the raid on his Caracas compound that Van Dyke helped plan and execute.

Judge Margaret Garnet asked how he pleaded to charges including unlawful use of confidential governmental information for personal gain.

“Not guilty, your honor,” Van Dyke said.

He was accompanied in the courtroom by his attorneys, Zach Intrater, Mark Geragos and Tina Glandian, following his arrest last week at Fort Bragg, where he is posted.

Van Dyke is currently on leave from the Army. His ultimate military status is “unsettled,” Intrater said.

The defense attorney said he expected few disputes over the factual allegations. Instead, Intrater said the case would “largely rise and fall” on motions to eliminate certain evidence and to dismiss the charges.

“This is anything but a usual case,” Intrater said.

In what is believed to be the first case of insider trading on a prediction market, prosecutors alleged that Van Dyke used inside knowledge to place 13 bets on the outcome of the Maduro operation.

According to the indictment, Van Dyke opened a Polymarket account the day after Christmas and began placing bets on Dec. 27 through the evening of Jan. 2 — hours before soldiers entered Venezuelan airspace for the pre-dawn operation. After Trump made the operation public that day, Van Dyke allegedly profited $409,881 from his $33,034 in bets.

Prosecutor Ryan Finkel said there were no plans to add defendants or bring additional charges against Van Dyke but said, “I would not entirely rule it out.”

Judge Garnet released Van Dyke on a $250,000 personal recognizance bond. His travel is restricted to California, where his family lives, North Carolina, where he is posted and New York, where he is being prosecuted.

He has surrendered his firearms. Garnet said she would modify that condition if his military service required him to possess and use a gun.

Finkel said there is a “moderate” amount of evidence in the case including Polymarket records, bank transactions, cryptocurrency exchanges and email accounts. There could also be a certain amount of classified information that would require special handling.

“The events covered by the classified information have now occurred,” Garnet said. She said the case would move faster “if evidence could be declassified to the greatest extent possible.”

Van Dyke’s next court date is Monday, June 8.

Following his arrest on Thursday, Van Dyke briefly appeared in a North Carolina courtroom on Friday. He signed a bond after acknowledging that he understood the charges and potential penalties.

His case is being overseen in New York by the same judge who is presiding over the high-profile federal case against alleged UnitedHealthcare CEO assassin Luigi Mangione.

Amid mounting criticism of prediction markets for allegedly enabling insider trading, Polymarket CEO Shayne Coplan said his company is “constantly” monitoring for suspicious activity and referring cases to authorities. Coplan argued that the public nature of prediction markets makes it easier to crack down on insider trading.

“The transparency afforded by onchain markets makes global compliance more effective than ever. Every trade is public, permanent, and auditable. Bad actors leave a trail,” he said.

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(NEW YORK) — A man who was seen on video being beaten and wrongfully arrested by two NYPD officers at a liquor store in Brooklyn has filed a notice saying he plans to sue the department over the incident.

Timothy Brown told reporters Tuesday that he felt “humiliated, disrespected and embarrassed” by the arrest and will never be the same after the April 14 incident.

Brown, a home health aide and security guard, was buying wine at the liquor store after work when he was suddenly approached by two plainclothes detectives who allegedly seized him and attacked him as other customers looked on in shock, according to the notice of claim that he filed with the city.

“What happened to me should not happen to anyone else. It was wrong and it was disgusting. My life will never be the same,” Brown, who was seen with an apparent limp in his walk, holding a cane, and wearing an arm brace, said Tuesday.

The New York Police Department has not immediately commented on the notice, which seeks $100 million in punitive damages over several alleged claims including negligence, false arrest, assault and battery.

The incident was filmed by bystanders and the detectives were not wearing body cameras, according to the notice.

The notice states that NYPD policy requires officers to wear or activate body worn cameras during narcotics enforcement operations.

The NYPD claimed that the undercover detectives allegedly witnessed a narcotics purchase of crack cocaine and that the suspect was seen wearing the same clothes as Brown.

Police said there were no drugs or contraband found on Brown after his arrest, and that he was not the suspect they were looking for. However, the NYPD issued Brown a ticket for resisting arrest and obstruction of government administration.

The Brooklyn District Attorney’s office ultimately dismissed the charges against Brown.

Brown contests the accusations that he resisted arrest.

“I never resisted arrest not at all,” he said. “There was nothing I could do, I was being beating and battered.”

The detectives did not identify themselves “adequately” when confronting Brown and used “gratuitous and excessive force,”  according to the notice.

The notice contends that Brown was beaten for eight minutes, “slammed into a glass display wall and shelving stocked with glass bottles, causing numerous bottles to shatter” and thrown and dragged across the floor “through broken glass.”

Brown suffered “contusions, lacerations, a black eye, head and facial trauma and injuries to his leg,” according to the notice that he filed.

The two detectives involved in the incident — identified by the department as Volkan Maden and Michael Algerio — are under internal NYPD investigation, had their badges and guns stripped, and are serving on modified duty, according to NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch.

Additionally, the narcotics module responsible for the incident has been disbanded, the supervising sergeant involved in the incident was placed on modified duty and six other detectives were reassigned, according to the notice. The NYPD has not confirmed these actions.

“We will have more to say about it as the investigation unfolds, but I understand the community’s interest in it, because it is an upsetting video,” Tisch told reporters during an unrelated news conference on April 15.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani echoed that sentiment in a social media post a day after the incident.

“The violence used by NYPD officers in this video is extremely disturbing and unacceptable. Officers should never treat a person this way,” he said.

Detectives Endowment Association President Scott Munro, however, criticized the mayor’s comments in a social media post on April 15 and called for more facts to come out.

“NYPD detectives put their lives on the line daily, doing the dangerous work politicians would never have the courage to do,” he said.

Brown and his mother told reporters that they were disappointed that have not been contacted by the mayor or Tisch.

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(NEW YORK) — A federal grand jury in North Carolina has indicted former FBI Director James Comey over a controversial Instagram post from last year that President Donald Trump and members of his administration claimed was a threat against the president.

Renewing efforts to prosecute one of Trump’s longtime adversaries, Department of Justice prosecutors brought the case after a judge last year threw out an indictment against Comey on unrelated charges.

The new indictment centers on a controversy that erupted nearly a year ago when Comey, in a since-deleted Instagram post, shared a picture showing the numbers “86 47” written in seashells on the beach with the caption “Cool shell formation on my beach walk.”

Citing the slang meaning of “86” as to “nix” or “get rid” of something, allies of the president alleged that the post was a veiled threat against Trump, and the Department of Homeland Security and Secret Service quickly launched investigations into the posts.

CNN was first to report news of the indictment.

Prosecutors will likely face a high legal bar to prove that the Instagram post constituted a “true threat,” which the Supreme Court in 2023 found required showing an individual understood their message would be perceived as threatening. With the phrase “86 47” increasingly adopted by protesters of the Trump administration, the case could carry sweeping implications for the First Amendment.

When asked about the post last year, Trump suggested that Comey should be prosecuted over the post, which Trump alleged was a call “for the assassination of the president.”

“He knew exactly what that meant. A child knows what that meant. If you’re the FBI director and you don’t know what that meant, that meant assassination. And it says it loud and clear,” Trump told Fox News last year.

At the time, Trump said he would leave a decision about charging Comey to then-Attorney General Pam Bondi, though he insisted that Comey was a “dirty cop.”

“When you add his history to that … he’s a dirty cop. And if he had a clean history, I could understand if there was a leniency, but I’m going to let them make that decision,” Trump said.

Following backlash over the post, Comey removed the photo from Instagram and said he was unaware that the post could be associated with violence.

“I posted earlier a picture of some shells I saw today on a beach walk, which I assumed were a political message. I didn’t realize some folks associate those numbers with violence. It never occurred to me but I oppose violence of any kind so I took the post down,” Comey said on May 15.

The post drew swift criticism from the Trump administration, with White House staff describing the post “deeply concerning” and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard calling for Comey to be imprisoned.

“James Comey in my view should be held accountable and put behind bars for this,” Gabbard told Fox News.

Comey is not the first public figure to face pushback for invoking number “86,” with Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer drawing criticism in 2020 for appearing during a television interview with a small figurine of the numbers “86 45” on a table behind her, and similar “86 46” references appearing online during Joe Biden’s presidency.

Comey was indicted last year on unrelated charges for allegedly lying to Congress and obstruction related to his testimony before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee in 2020. Comey’s lawyers moved to dismiss the indictment, arguing the case was politically motivated and that the grand jury never saw the charges in their entirety, and the case was ultimately dismissed over issues with the legitimacy of the prosecutor who brought the case.  

The new indictment comes as the Department of Justice in recent weeks has ramped up investigations of some of Trump’s perceived political foes under Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, who is heading up the Justice Department following Trump’s ouster of Pam Bondi.

Earlier this month, the Department of Justice removed a top career prosecutor from a controversial investigation in Florida after sources told ABC News that she had expressed concerns about a rushed effort to bring criminal charges against former CIA Director John Brennan.

Prosecutors in April also secured an indictment against the Southern Poverty Law Center — frequently criticized by conservatives for their assessment of hate groups — for bank fraud and money laundering offenses related to its paying of informants to infiltrate such groups. The organization has denied all wrongdoing.

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(NEW YORK) — Former NBA player and coach Damon Jones pleaded guilty Tuesday to charges he tipped off sports bettors about an injured LeBron James and used his own celebrity to lure high rollers to rigged poker games.

Jones, 49, is the first defendant in either case to plead guilty following the arrests of nearly three dozen people at the start of the pro basketball season.

Jones, who wore a black suit and black shirt, entered his guilty pleas during back-to-back hearings Tuesday in Brooklyn federal court.

“I would like to sincerely apologize to the court, my family, my peers and also the National Basketball Association,” Jones said during the hearing before Magistrate Judge Joseph Marutollo.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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