Judge rejects Harvey Weinstein’s bid for new trial

(WASHINGTON) — The Washington, D.C., Bar initiated disciplinary proceedings against Justice Department pardon attorney Ed Martin over allegations he improperly threatened to withhold federal funding from Georgetown University’s law school and then attempted to sideline an investigation into his conduct while serving as D.C.’s top federal prosecutor last year, according to a disciplinary petition.

In a two-count petition filed last week with the D.C. Court of Appeals Board of Professional Responsibility, attorneys with the D.C. Bar’s Office of Disciplinary Counsel alleged that Martin engaged in “conduct that seriously interferes with the administration of justice,” including by allegedly demanding that a judge suspend the attorney investigating his actions.

“Mr. Martin knew or should have known that, as a government official, his conduct violated the First and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States,” the disciplinary petition said.

According to the complaint, Martin – while serving as the interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia last year – threatened to withhold federal funding and freeze hirings from Georgetown University Law Center over allegations that the school was promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) measures.

After sending letters to the dean of Georgetown’s law school about DEI programming last year, Martin allegedly told the school’s interim president that their answers about DEI would “bear directly on Georgetown University’s status as a 501(c) nonprofit and its receipt of nearly $1 billion of federal tax money.”

“He demanded that Georgetown Law relinquish its free speech and religious rights in order to continue to obtain a benefit, employment opportunities for its students,” the petition said. “His demand did not provide Georgetown Law fair notice of what is allegedly prohibited because he did not define ‘DEI,’ cited no authority for his demand, and did not describe what actions, and what timetable, might satisfy his demand.”

After a retired judge reported Martin’s conduct to the Office of Disciplinary Counsel, Martin allegedly attempted to sideline the investigation by sending a letter directly to the chief judge and senior judges on the D.C. Court of Appeals, according to the complaint.

“In that letter, he stated that he would not be responding to Disciplinary Counsel’s inquiry, complained about Disciplinary Counsel’s ‘uneven behavior,’ and requested a ‘face-to-face meeting with all of you to discuss this matter and find a way forward.’ He copied the White House Counsel ‘for informational purposes because of the importance of getting this issue addressed,'” the complaint said.

The complaint alleges that Martin – after being told to not directly communicate with judges – sent another letter to the chief judge demanding that the court suspend the investigator probing his conduct and dismiss the case against him.

With the charges filed, D.C.’s Board on Professional Responsibility is expected to refer the petition to a hearing committee.

Martin’s interactions are just one among a series of controversies from his brief tenure as Washington’s top federal prosecutor from January to May 2025 before his temporary appointment to the position lapsed and he failed to gain enough support from Republican senators for his confirmation to the post.

He was then appointed to four separate senior positions in the Justice Department before sources said he was effectively demoted earlier this year after multiple other incidents where he faced admonishment from leadership for his conduct.

Martin remains in his role as pardon attorney, according to the DOJ, and has used the post to float controversial clemency recommendations to the White House while frequently citing the phrase, “No MAGA left behind.”

The ethics complaint was filed the same week that the DOJ proposed new regulations that would seek to give Attorney General Pam Bondi the authority to suspend state bar investigations, arguing the policy is necessary to combat the “weaponization” of the complaint process. It’s not immediately clear what legal basis the department would have to intervene in state-level proceedings, however.

Martin and a DOJ spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the complaint.

Georgetown Law’s then-Dean William Treanor previously responded to Martin’s letter, affirming the school’s speech protections under the First Amendment. He accused Martin of mounting “an attack on the University’s mission as a Jesuit and Catholic institution.”

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(WASHINGTON) — The National Transportation Safety Board on Tuesday presented a cockpit visual simulation demonstrating what contributed to the deadly mid-air collision between an Army helicopter and an American Airlines jet near Washington, D.C., last year.

The simulation indicates it was very difficult for both aircraft to see each other before the January 2025 crash that occurred as the jet was landing at Ronald Reagan National Airport, killing 67 people, according to the NTSB.

The first video shows the last three minutes before the collision from the viewpoint of the right seat of the helicopter. 

Around 8:46:15, a magenta circle with a label “Flight 5342” appears just above the horizon on the right side of the upper portion of the screen.  The label “Flight 5342” fades out about 8:46:35. The magenta circle tracks the lights of Flight 5342 and remains visible until the airplane becomes visually recognizable about a minute later.

 After a Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System warning indicated in the transcript, the local controller on the ATC recording is heard asking the pilots if they have the CRJ (Flight 5342) in sight and the pilots confirm they do. It remains unclear what they thought they had in sight. There was only one controller working both the helicopter and plane traffic, the NTSB said.

 The simulation screen goes black at the moment of the collision. 

The second animation shows the viewpoint of pilots from Flight 5342 as the plane approaches the runway to land. According to the cockpit voice recorder transcript shared by the NTSB, the last words about one second before the crash from both the first officer and the captain were “oh” and “ohhh ohhhh” as the animation shows the helicopter colliding with the plane. 

About 90% of wreckage from both aircraft was recovered by the NTSB.  

A third animation shows what the local controller from the DCA tower saw at the time of the crash as they were handling the air traffic and issuing instructions. Based on the recordings, the NTSB said Flight 5342 was not warned by the controller of the nearby helicopter at any point. A conflict alert came 26 seconds before the collision between the two aircraft as they were 1.6 miles apart, according to the NTSB. 

According to the NTSB, the local tower said they were concerned about the close proximity of the helicopter and Flight 5342. 

“This coupled with the conflict alert that was active at the time, the controller should have issued a safety alert, which would have included updated traffic advisory information and an alternate course of action if feasible, neither were done. In this case, had a safety alert been issued, it would have increased the situation awareness of both crews and alerted them of their closing proximity to one another. Additionally, a timely safety alert may have allowed action to be taken by one or both crews to avoid avert the collision,” NTSB investigator Brian Soper said at the hearing.

NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy also said that a $400 GPS device known as ADSB-In could have prevented the DCA crash. The NTSB has recommended ADSB-In be required in aircraft 17 times since 2006, but the FAA has repeatedly disregarded the recommendation, she said.

The system would have alerted the American Airlines crew 59 seconds before the crash that they were going to collide, and the helicopter crew would have been alerted 48 seconds before the crash, the NTSB chair said. The Army has since installed the system.

DCA controller overwhelmed

The controller working the night of the crash was handling both helicopter and plane traffic and had been doing so for four hours, NTSB investigators said.

A human behavior investigator said the controller’s mental awareness had diminished over time. He should have given a definitive warning of the impending collision and he should have given clear avoidance instructions, the investigator said.

NTSB investigators said the last communication between the helicopter and the controller where they asked the pilot if they have the AA5342 in sight was “not a safety alert by definition, but it was an attempt to de-conflict.” 

Ninety seconds before the collision, the local controller working in the tower became overwhelmed as he was handling aircraft both on ground and in the air. On the night of the collision, the controller was working two controller positions. This is a routine practice which is usually done later at night when the aircraft volume goes down. 

The NTSB said, “keeping the local control and helicopter control positions combined on the night of the accident, increased the local controller’s workload and reduced his situation awareness.”

Investigators said the controller could have asked for the positions to be decombined because of being overwhelmed, but it would have taken at least a couple of minutes before anyone else could take over. Additionally, the assistant local controller and the supervisor overseeing operations at the time could have served as an extra set of eyes to help the local controller.

However, Homendy revealed that at the time, the assistant controller was writing down information on helicopters and the supervisor did not exhibit situational awareness as they learned during the interview that the supervisor only recalled one helicopter in the area at the time when there were five.

Following the crash, the NTSB issued recommendations for better training to be provided for controllers so they can recognize safety issues and threats in the environment.

NTSB chair’s concerns

Ahead of Tuesday’s hearing, Chair Homendy said she fears that some of the agency’s safety recommendations, which will be issued at the conclusion of the hearing, may once again go unimplemented. 

“Of course I’m concerned. We have 300 aviation recommendations that still haven’t been implemented. Those recommendations were issued because somebody died or was injured, and they have not been implemented yet. So here we are again,” Homendy told ABC News.

“So yes, at the end of this, I am concerned that we’re going to issue recommendations and that they won’t be implemented,” Homendy said. “I can tell you, and anyone who knows me knows I vigorously advocate for the implementation of our recommendations. I don’t care when it is. Could be 50 years later, as I did with positive train control, and I will not hold back on these.” 

At Tuesday’s hearing, NTSB investigators will present their investigative findings to board members and the public. NTSB board members, including Homendy, will then question investigators and the parties to the investigation. 

At the end of the hearing, the board members will vote on the probable cause of the crash and the agency’s safety recommendations. The NTSB can only make recommendations and does not have the authority to enforce them, therefore they are not always adopted.

Though a formal final report will be released two weeks after the hearing, this hearing will mark the end of what Homendy described as “one of the most complex investigations” conducted by the agency, which they had aimed to conclude by the first anniversary of the mid-air collision. 

Homendy told ABC News the investigation “was not easy and it was definitely not straightforward.” 

“We will start in one direction and then take it in a different direction, depending on what we’re finding, and then we’ll exclude things that didn’t have anything to do with the investigation. But we have to do our due diligence to make sure that we’re tracking all of that down, all that evidence to support that it wasn’t a factor, while also looking at the issues that were,” Homendy said. 

Homendy said the helicopter altimeter discrepancy is what surprised her the most in this investigation. 

“The altimeters I did not see coming, that we would have some problems with how the altimeters were reading,” Homendy said.

During last year’s three-day investigative hearing, investigators said they found discrepancies in the altitude data shown on radio and barometric altimeters on Army helicopters after conducting test flights following January’s accident.

It is likely that the helicopter crew did not know their true altitude due to notoriously faulty altimeters inside this series of Black Hawks, according to the investigation. At their closest points, helicopters and planes flew within 75 feet of each other near DCA, an astonishingly close number. During the hearings, the NTSB was told Army Black Hawks can often have wrong readings and a margin of error of +-200 feet.

Another key focus of Tuesday’s hearing is the close proximity of the helicopter route to the runways at Reagan National Airport. According to the NTSB, which cited FAA surveillance data, there were over 15,000 close-proximity events between helicopters and commercial aircraft at DCA between October 2021 and December 2024. 

Homendy said warnings about the close proximity were raised by people, but they were ignored. 

“Years ago, that hot spot was identified and [people] repeatedly tried to say that the helicopter route needed to be moved, and nobody listened. It was like the ultimate in government bureaucracy,” Homendy said. 

“They were completely ignored. Told it couldn’t be done, not responded to, said it would probably be too political. Those are quotes from our interviews, but they went nowhere.” 

At last year’s hearing, FAA officials cited “bureaucratic process” as a deterrent to addressing these issues.

Other topics expected to be discussed include the approval of helicopter routes near DCA,  the experience level of the air traffic controllers working in the tower at the time of the crash, the visibility study, and the testing of the barometric altimeters.  

When asked what stays with her from this investigation, Homendy pointed to a personal item recovered with the wreckage. 

“In the hangar, we had the Black Hawk laid out. We had the wreckage laid out for 5342 and on the side next to 5342 there were some personal effects, and a lot of people mentioned different things, but every time I passed, there was a brown teddy bear, just eight inches maybe, and it was muddy and dried mud, dried water, and I just kept looking at the teddy bear, and that’s the thing that sticks with me,” Homendy said. 

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(NEW YORK) — A federal judge in New York on Wednesday pushed back Luigi Mangione’s federal trial from September to October, giving an additional month’s separation between his state and federal trials.

U.S. District Judge Margaret Garnett said the federal trial jury selection will begin Oct. 5, with the presentation of evidence beginning Oct. 26.

“Whether we like it or not, we are somewhat at the mercy of events in the state case,” Garnett said, noting Mangione’s state trial is scheduled for June 8.

“What is happening at 100 Centre [the state courthouse] inevitably affects how we structure things here so the defendant can get a fair trial,” Garnett said.

Garnett said she did not want to be “held hostage” by the state prosecution, but she said she had “some pause” about the “utility” of having potential jurors fill out questionnaires in the glare of the state trial.

“There’s really no way around taking into account the events in the state case involving the same defendant,” Garnett said.

Mangione, who was shackled at the ankles, wore a beige smock over a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He kept an arm casually propped on the back of his seat during the brief hearing.

The defense had asked for Mangione’s federal trial to be delayed to January 2027.  Prosecutors objected to any rescheduling, arguing a delay prejudices the government.

Mangione is due back in federal court on June 5.

Mangione pleaded not guilty to state and federal charges after he was arrested for allegedly gunning down UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in Midtown Manhattan in December 2024.

Mangione, 27, faces the possibility of life in prison if he’s convicted in either case. Garnett previously threw out the federal charges that carry the possibility of the death penalty and the judge overseeing the state prosecution, Gregory Carro, previously tossed out an enhancement to the state murder charges that said Mangione’s alleged conduct amounted to terrorism. 

Carro has said he would rule on the defense motions to exclude evidence by May 18.

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