In the waning days of Joe Biden’s presidency, his administration announced on Monday that it will provide student debt relief to 150,000 borrowers
Almost 85,000 attended schools that defrauded their students; 61,000 have total and permanent disabilities; and 6,100 are public service workers.
“Since Day One of my Administration, I promised to ensure higher education is a ticket to the middle class, not a barrier to opportunity, and I’m proud to say we have forgiven more student loan debt than any other administration in history,” Biden said in a statement.
Education Department officials said that “many” borrowers had already been notified that they received relief, and some will be notified in the coming days. Officials declined to specify whether this would be the last student debt relief announcement.
Key context: More than 5 million borrowers have had about $183.6 billion in student loans forgiven since Biden took office, according to Education Department officials. But some of the president’s most ambitious plans for student debt relief have been denied or tied up in litigation. Biden’s sweeping debt relief plan to cancel up to $20,000 of student debt for tens of millions of Americans was struck down by the Supreme Court in 2023. A popular loan repayment plan known as SAVE is held up in the courts.
The next administration: President-elect Donald Trump’s transition advisers and outside allies have been discussing ways to unwind the various Biden-era initiatives that offered new or easier paths to loan forgiveness.
During Trump’s first administration, then-Education Secretary Betsy DeVos denied nearly 130,000 applications for borrower defense, a process that allows borrowers who were defrauded by their schools to seek loan forgiveness. The Public Student Loan Forgiveness program, which forgives student loans for public service workers who’ve met certain requirements, had a 99 percent denial rate in 2017, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
House and Senate requests: Lawmakers have been pressuring the Biden administration to forgive student debt for borrowers who have been defrauded by their colleges through the borrower defense rule.
Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass), Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and more than 70 of their colleagues sent a letter to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona in December asking him to “immediately discharge the student loans for the hundreds of thousands of students who the Department has already committed to providing borrower defense debt relief.”
The rule has been around since 1994, but borrower defense applications became more common in 2015 after revelations of widespread fraud led to the collapse of Corinthian Colleges, one of the country’s largest chains of for-profit colleges. Now there is an application backlog.
Though the Department has not shared its number with Congress or the public, an estimated 400,000 borrowers have pending applications for borrower defense discharge, according to the letter from Durbin, Markey, Waters and their colleagues.
Looking ahead: Education department officials told reporters on a call Monday that they don’t have a number to share in terms of the backlog. Officials said they have sent communications to borrowers whose applications have been approved last week confirming their entitlement to a loan discharge.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/01/13/biden-student-loan-relief-150000-borrowers-00197855
SEC sues Elon Musk, alleging failure to properly disclose Twitter ownership
The SEC filed a lawsuit against Elon Musk on Tuesday, alleging the billionaire committed securities fraud in 2022 by failing to disclose he had amassed an active stake in Twitter, a secrecy that allowed him to buy shares at “artificially low prices.”
Musk, who is also CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, purchased Twitter for $44 billion in late 2022 and changed the name to X the following year. Prior to the acquisition, he’d built up a position in the company of greater than 5%, which would’ve required disclosing his holdings to the public within 10 calendar days of reaching that threshold.
According to the SEC’s civil complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., Musk was more than 10 days late in reporting that material information, “allowing him to underpay by at least $150 million for shares he purchased after his financial beneficial ownership report was due.” Investors may have bid up the stock had they known about Musk’s purchases and interest in the company.
The SEC had been investigating whether Musk, or anyone else working with him, committed securities fraud in 2022 around the Twitter disclosures. Musk said in a post on X last month that the SEC issued a “settlement demand,” pressuring him to agree to a deal, including a fine within 48 hours or “face charges on numerous counts” regarding the purchase of shares.
Musk’s lawyer, Alex Spiro, said in an emailed statement on Tuesday that the SEC’s action is an admission that “they cannot bring an actual case.” Spiro, a partner at Quinn Emanuel, added that Musk “has done nothing wrong” and called the suit a “sham” and the result of a “multi-year campaign of harassment,” culminating in a “single-count ticky tak complaint.”
An SEC spokesperson declined to comment “beyond the litigation release and the complaint, which is, literally, an actual case brought by the SEC.”
In a post on X after the complaint was filed, Musk called the SEC a “totally broken organization” that’s focusing “on s— like this when there are so many actual crimes that go unpunished.”
Musk is just a week away from having unparalleled influence in the White House, as President-elect Donald Trump’s second term begins on Jan. 20. Musk, who was a major financial backer of Trump in the latter stages of the campaign, is poised to lead an advisory group that will focus in part on reducing regulations, including those that affect Musk’s various companies.
In July, Trump vowed to fire SEC chairman Gary Gensler, whose term began in 2021 under President Joe Biden. After Trump’s election victory, Gensler announced that he would be resigning from his post instead. Trump plans to nominate Paul Atkins as the next chair of the SEC.
In a separate civil lawsuit concerning the Twitter deal, the Oklahoma Firefighters Pension and Retirement System sued Musk in 2022, accusing him of deliberately concealing his progressive investments in the social network and intent to buy the company. The pension fund’s attorneys argued that Musk, by failing to clearly disclose his investments, had influenced other shareholders’ decisions and put them at a disadvantage.
That case, Rasella v. Musk, was filed in April 2022 in a federal court in the Southern District of New York.
‘Unsuspecting public’
The SEC said in Tuesday’s complaint that Musk crossed the 5% ownership mark in his Twitter ownership in March 2022, and would have been required to disclose his holdings by March 24.
“On April 4, 2022, eleven days after a report was due, Musk finally publicly disclosed his beneficial ownership in a report with the SEC, disclosing that he had acquired over nine percent of Twitter’s outstanding stock,” the complaint says. “That day, Twitter’s stock price increased more than 27% over its previous day’s closing price.”
The SEC alleges that Musk spent over $500 million purchasing more Twitter shares during the time between the required disclosure and the day of his actual filing. That enabled him to buy stock from the “unsuspecting public at artificially low prices,” the complaint says. He “underpaid” Twitter shareholders by over $150 million during that period, according to the SEC.
In the complaint, the SEC said it’s seeking a jury trial and asks that Musk be forced to “pay disgorgement of his unjust enrichment” as well as a civil penalty.
The suit is the latest chapter in an almost three-year saga.
For a brief period in April 2022, after Musk’s ownership had been made public and it was known that he was the biggest shareholder, Musk was set to join Twitter’s board. However, he quickly abandoned that plan, telling the board he would not take a seat.
What followed was a six-month drama that began with Musk submitting an unsolicited bid in mid-April that was opposed by the board. Twitter’s board eventually accepted Musk’s offer later that month. Soon thereafter, Musk tried to back out, alleging that Twitter was misstating the number of “bots” on its service.
Musk ultimately closed the deal in October 2022, famously walking into Twitter’s office in San Francisco with a sink in his hands.
“Entering Twitter HQ – let that sink in!” Musk wrote, attaching a video of his entrance.
Musk has had other run-ins with the SEC.
In September 2018, the agency charged Musk with making “false and misleading” statements to investors when he announced via Twitter that he was considering taking Tesla private at $420 a share and had funding secured.
Tesla shares seesawed for weeks after that, and the deal never materialized. Musk and Tesla eventually agreed to a settlement, but revised it in 2019. Under those terms, Musk and Tesla each had to pay $20 million in fines, and Musk had to temporarily relinquish his role as chairman of the Tesla board.
In the latest complaint, the SEC didn’t allude to Musk’s prior civil securities fraud charges or settlement agreement.
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/14/sec-sues-musk-alleges-failure-to-properly-disclose-twitter-ownership.html
Facebook to fire 3,600 employees
Meta
is set to cut about 5% of its workforce, focusing on the company’s lowest-performing staffers, CNBC confirmed Tuesday.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg informed employees about the decision to “move out low performers faster” in a memo posted on the company’s internal Workplace forum on Tuesday. Zuckerberg told employees 2025 will “be an intense year.”
The company specified that it is “exiting approximately 5% of our lowest performers” in a separate message posted by a company director. Meta has more than 72,000 employees, according to its most recent quarterly report.
Meta said employees affected by the layoffs will be notified by Feb. 10 and receive severance in line with what the company has provided previously. The cuts represent Meta’s largest layoffs since it eliminated 21,000 jobs, or nearly a quarter of its workforce, in 2022 and 2023.
Bloomberg was first to report the cuts, citing an internal memo.
The move follows several major operational changes within Meta aimed at building closer ties with President-elect Donald Trump.
Last week, Zuckerberg announced Meta would end its third-party fact-checking program in favor of a “Community Notes” model used on Elon Musk’s platform X, where individual users provide more context to posts.
“The recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point towards once again prioritizing speech, so we’re going to get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our polices and restoring free expression on our platforms,” Zuckerberg said in a video announcement.
Below is Zuckeberg’s internal memo, which CNBC obtained.
Meta is working on building some of the most important technologies of the world. AI, glasses as the next computing platform and the future of social media. This is going to be an intense year, and I want to make sure we have the best people on our teams.
I’ve decided to raise the bar on performance management and move out low performers faster. We typically manage out people who aren’t meeting expectations over the course of a year, but now we’re going to do more extensive performance-based cuts during this cycle, with the intention of back filling these roles in 2025. We won’t manage out everyone who didn’t meet expectations for the last period if we’re optimistic about their future performance, and for those we do let go, we’ll provide generous severance in line with what we provided with previous cuts.
We’ll follow up with more guidance for managers ahead of calibrations. People who are impacted will be notified on February 10 or later for those outside the U.S.
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/14/meta-targeting-lowest-performing-employees-in-latest-round-of-layoffs.html
Hegseth shuts down Senator Angus King
"We won't let international committees decide the decisions our soldiers can make"
Winning.
https://x.com/CitizenFreePres/status/1879267503014281531
Hegseth: There has been NO accountability for the disaster of the withdrawal in Afghanistan — and that's precisely why we're here today"
https://x.com/TrumpWarRoom/status/1879190974628495838
Nick DiPaolo COMEDIAN
@NickDiPaolo
according the sign language guy, the LA fires were started by a gay rabbit.
https://x.com/NickDiPaolo/status/1877862996166209779
Trump's CIA director will take a 'wrecking ball' to transgender lectures and pride events at Langley
A lecture by the highest ranking transgender officer in the armed forces; a celebration of Loving Day and sessions on 'equity assurance training.'
A trove of flyers obtained by DailyMail.com from serving CIA officers lays bare the extent of the agency's 'diversity, equity and inclusion' work triggering fresh accusations that it is being distracted from its core job of protecting Americans from foreign threats.
But Trump transition insiders say those concerns will be tackled head on by John Ratcliffe, who is the president-elect's pick to lead the agency, and who will be grilled by senators about his plans on Wednesday.
'I suspect Ratcliffe is going to come in like a wrecking ball to the woke deep staters,' said a source familiar with his plans.
'The mission is all he cares about.
'No more politicized intelligence products. No more social experiments.
'Nothing and no one that distracts from the mission of collecting foreign intelligence and keeping Americans safe.'
The list of targets is laid out in more than 20 flyers collected by disgruntled staff.
For Pride Month last year, CIA agents were invited to a lecture by Admiral Rachel Levine, assistant secretary at Health and Human Services, the first openly transgender four-star officer in the armed forces.
A year before, CIA headquarters held a week of events to mark 'Loving Day,' the anniversary of a 1967 court judgment allowing interracial marriages in Virginia.
Then there are support groups for people getting divorced; 'Orange Shirt Day,' to remember indigenous people affected by their experiences in residential schools; 'intentional parenting' sessions; and even lessons in importing dogs from overseas postings.
Officers are invited to join the Multicultural Inclusion Exchange or the Peer Support Cadre.
Some carry the slogan 'DEIA enables mission,' suggesting that diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility help the CIA to do its job.
The events may be appropriate for a consumer-facing hipster coffeeshop but not for agents whose prime focus is on completing the mission, said a former CIA paramilitary operations officer.
'We're the point of the spear for the Agency and we don't have time for this nonsense,' he said. 'And that's what it is: Nonsense.'
The issue will come into focus on Wednesday when Ratcliffe will appear before the Senate intelligence committee for his confirmation hearing.
He is expected to address the topic of the CIA's DEI work in his opening statement as he sets out his broader goals and ambitions.
He is one of a string of Trump appointees who have promised to tackle what they see as a 'woke' agenda.
At the same time, the private sector has responded to the election by jettisoning DEI policies. Meta and Amazon are among the companies scaling back or winding down diversity programs that were introduced in the wake of protests against the police killings of George Floyd and other Black Americans in 2020.
The CIA also ran a string of events entitled 'The Black experience' where audiences could hear from what was billed as a 'diverse generational panel.'
'We’re an agency that has to operate in a lot of diverse landscapes around the world. Having a diverse workforce is crucial to our mission,' said an agency spokesperson.
'Not only is it the right thing to do, but it's the smart thing to do for us to take full advantage of the richness of our own society, whether that’s about ethnicity or language or gender or anything else, because that’s going to make us a stronger intelligence service.'
A 20-year veteran, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the current approach put the cart before the horse.
'We used to say diversity is our strength. I get that,' he said.
'But when diversity became the overriding emphasis it ends up like the old rule of convoys when the ships traveled at the speed of the slowest boat.
'And that's what we ended up with.'
One of the Trump aides in the running to be deputy director of the CIA has previously voiced concerns about its direction.
Cliff Sims, deputy director of national intelligence for strategy and communications during the first Trump term, described his shock at walking into the CIA's cafeteria for the first time and seeing a 'Trans lives are human lives' poster.
'Even in here, I thought to myself, considering how someone had taken time out of their day protecting the security of America from dangerous foreign actors in order to promote the latest iteration of identity politics,' he wrote in his recent book "The Darkness Has Not Overcome."
He is now part of the Trump transition landing team at the agency.
Peter Hegseth, Trump's nominee to lead the Department of Defense, was chosen in part because of his attacks on DEI.
'DEI amplifies differences, creates grievances, and excludes anyone who won’t bow down to the cultural Marxist revolution ripping through the Pentagon,' he wrote in his book "The War on Warriors.'
'Forget DEI. The acronym should be DIE or IED. It will kill our military worse than any IED ever could.'
The CIA was panned at the start of the Biden administration for a recruitment video that featured a recruit who described herself as an 'intersectional cisgender millennial'.
The unnamed CIA officer, 36, tells viewers she is 'unapologetically me', adding that she to suffer from 'imposter syndrome' but now refuses to 'internalize misguided patriarchal ideas of what a woman can or should be.'
Former CIA officer Bryan Dean Wright, tweeted: 'The CIA used to be about mission to country. (I speak from experience).
'Now it's now about demanding — and getting — accommodation to fix an emotional wound or advance a personal agenda. America is less safe with this new CIA, and dangerously more political.'
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14278867/trump-cia-woke-john-ratcliffe-confirmation.html
CFPB sues Capital One for ‘cheating’ customers out of over $2 billion in interest'
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced Tuesday that it was suing Capital One
for misleading consumers about their savings account interest rates and “cheating” them out of more than $2 billion in interest.
The agency said in a statement Capital One deceived holders of its “360 Savings” account by conflating it with its newer and higher-yield savings account option, the “360 Performance Savings” account. The bank allegedly failed to notify 360 Savings account holders of the newer option and marketed the two products similarly to lead customers to believe they were the same.
However, the interest rates of the two options were substantially different, according to the CFPB. Capital One increased the 360 Performance Savings interest rate from 0.4% in April 2022 to 4.35% in January 2024, while it lowered and then froze the 360 Savings rate at 0.3% between late 2019 and mid-2024, the agency said.
Despite its relatively low interest rate, the CFPB alleged, the 360 Savings account was advertised as a high-interest savings account. The bureau said Capital One aimed to keep 360 Savings users in the dark about the higher-yield option by replacing all references to the account with the similarly named 360 Performance Savings option on its website, excluding account holders from marketing campaigns advertising the higher-yield account and forbidding employees from notifying account holders about the 360 Performance Savings option.
“The CFPB is suing Capital One for cheating families out of billions of dollars on their savings accounts,” said CFPB Director Rohit Chopra in a news release. “Banks should not be baiting people with promises they can’t live up to.”
In a statement, Capital One denied the allegations and said it transparently marketed its 360 Performance Savings account.
“We are deeply disappointed to see the CFPB continue its recent pattern of filing eleventh hour lawsuits ahead of a change in administration. We strongly disagree with their claims and will vigorously defend ourselves in court,” the company said in a statement.
The bank added the 360 Performance Savings product was “marketed widely, including on national television, with the simplest and most transparent terms in the industry.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/01/14/cfpb-sues-capital-one-alleges-it-misled-consumers-on-savings-rates.html
Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg to attend Trump's inauguration
Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg will attend President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration on Monday, according to an official involved with the planning of the event.
They will have a prominent spot at the ceremony, seated together on the platform with other notable guests including Trump’s Cabinet nominees and elected officials.
In a post on his social media site X, Musk said he was “honored“ to have such a prominent spot at inauguration.
The three tech titans have all made attempts to earn favor with Trump in the past year, led by Musk donating more than a quarter-billion dollars in campaign funds to help elect Trump. The CEO of Tesla and SpaceX — and the co-lead of a new Trump administration advisory body called DOGE — Musk has frequently been at Trump’s side since endorsing him for president in July.
Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, this month reshuffled his lobbying staff and his content moderation policies to align with the incoming Republican administration. Meta also gave $1 million to the Trump inaugural fund.
Zuckerberg is co-hosting a black-tie reception Monday with Republican megadonor Miriam Adelson to celebrate the inauguration, according to two people familiar with the event who were not authorized to speak publicly. The event was first reported by Puck News.
Bezos, the founder of Amazon and the company’s executive chair, decided last fall that The Washington Post, which he owns, would not endorse in the presidential race, overruling opinion staff who wanted to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris. Amazon also contributed $1 million to Trump’s inaugural fund.
The three men are among the wealthiest people in the world with fortunes based on the tech boom of the past two decades. Musk ranks No. 1, Bezos No. 2 and Zuckerberg No. 3, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Their combined net worth: $885 billion as of Monday, according to Bloomberg.
NBC News has reached out to representatives of Musk, Bezos and Zuckerberg about their attendance. A representative at Meta declined to comment. The others did not immediately return requests for comment.
All three men have supported Democrats and Republicans over the years, according to federal records.
The tech leaders have a significant amount at stake in Trump's second term, not only because of potential tax and trade policy changes but also because of issues specific to their businesses.
Meta faces a possible antitrust trial as soon as April over allegations from the Federal Trade Commission that it acted illegally to maintain a monopoly on personal social networks. Amazon is a major federal contractor through its cloud computing business, which was a source of conflict with Trump during his first term. SpaceX is a major federal contractor through its rocket launches and internet service business, Starlink.
Musk, Zuckerberg and Bezos are frequent rivals in the tech industry, dueling for influence on subjects such as artificial intelligence, space exploration and media.
Bezos is trying to compete with Musk’s dominance in rocket launches with his space company Blue Origin, though on Monday Blue Origin called off its inaugural launch attempt.
Zuckerberg and Musk are longtime rivals in AI research and are each pouring billions of dollars into new AI models. In 2022, Musk also started competing with Zuckerberg on social media when he bought X, which was then Twitter.
Bezos and Zuckerberg compete through the dueling advertising and shopping businesses of Amazon and Meta.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/elon-musk-jeff-bezos-mark-zuckerberg-attend-trump-inauguration-rcna187642
Tesla sends Cybertrucks to L.A. to provide Starlink internet to impacted communities
The trucks will serve as battery banks to provide backup power and Wi-Fi through Starlink connectivity, aiding residents impacted by outages caused by the Eaton Fire.
LOS ANGELES – In response to devastating wildfires in Los Angeles County, Tesla has donated several Cybertrucks to assist the Altadena station of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, KRON reported.
The trucks will serve as battery banks to provide backup power and free Wi-Fi through Starlink connectivity, aiding residents and first responders impacted by power outages caused by the Eaton Fire, according to the report.
“This is essential for our public information officers,” Los Angeles Fire Department Captain Adam Van Gerpen told KCAL. “And for our incident commanders, even for our strike teams who are out there trying to communicate. We have radio communications, but this will enable cell phone and wireless communication.”
Altadena, located just north of Pasadena, has experienced widespread disruptions, including power outages and infrastructure damage. Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced on X that the donated Cybertrucks will act as mobile base stations, providing essential services to affected areas, according to the report.
The Altadena Mountain Rescue Team confirmed that the vehicles would remain at the sheriff’s station until power is restored. Tesla also plans to send additional Cybertrucks to other fire-stricken areas in Los Angeles and Malibu. Musk noted that while the Cybertrucks themselves are not portable hotspots, the donated models are equipped with Starlink systems to deliver free Internet access to communities in need.
Musk acknowledged that the donation effort would delay some California Cybertruck deliveries but emphasized the priority of assisting those in the most affected regions.
“Apologies to those expecting Cybertruck deliveries in California over the next few days,” Musk wrote on X. “We need to use those trucks as mobile base stations to provide power to Starlink Internet terminals in areas of LA without connectivity.”
https://www.police1.com/specialty-vehicles/tesla-sends-cybertrucks-to-l-a-to-provide-starlink-internet-to-impacted-communities
Hunter Biden prosecutor releases final report
WASHINGTON (AP) — The criminal charges against Hunter Biden “were the culmination of thorough, impartial investigations, not partisan politics,” the prosecutor who led the probes said in a report that sharply criticized President Joe Biden for having maligned the Justice Department when he pardoned his son.
“Other presidents have pardoned family members, but in doing so, none have taken the occasion as an opportunity to malign the public servants at the Department of Justice based solely on false accusations,” said Monday's report from special counsel David Weiss, whose team filed gun and tax charges against the younger Biden that resulted in felony convictions that were subsequently wiped away by a presidential pardon.
The report is the culmination of years-long investigations that predated the arrival of Attorney General Merrick Garland but became among the most politically explosive inquiries of his entire tenure, capturing Republican fascination on Capitol Hill and ultimately producing a fissure between the Justice Department and the White House over the treatment of the president's son.
The document, as is customary for reports prepared by Justice Department special counsels, provides a recap of the investigative findings. But it is most notable for its steadfast defense of the team's work and for its open criticism of the president over a written statement he issued when pardoning his son last month.
Biden had repeatedly pledged that he would not pardon his son but reversed course on Dec. 1, saying that such an action was warranted because of what he called a “miscarriage of justice” and a selective prosecution. He said he believed that his son had been treated "differently" on account of his last name and that “raw politics” had infected the decision making of the Justice Department.
“No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter’s cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son — and that is wrong,” Biden said.
Weiss, who served as U.S. attorney for Delaware during the Trump administration and was kept in his position by Garland before being named to the role of special counsel in 2023, took exception to those comments and noted that judges had rejected that assessment as well.
“The president’s characterizations are incorrect based on the facts in this case, and, on a more fundamental level, they are wrong,” Weiss wrote. Such remarks undermine the public's confidence in the justice system, Weiss said.
Calling judges' rulings "into question and injecting partisanship into the independent administration of the law undermines the very foundation of what makes America’s justice system fair and equitable," Weiss wrote. “It erodes public confidence in an institution that is essential to preserving the rule of law.”
Hunter Biden’s lawyer criticized the report, saying Weiss failed to explain why prosecutors “pursued wild — and debunked — conspiracies” about the president’s son that prolonged the investigation.
“What is clear from this report is that the investigation into Hunter Biden is a cautionary tale of the abuse of prosecutorial power,” defense attorney Abbe Lowell said in a statement.
The investigations, which Hunter Biden himself revealed in 2020 when he disclosed that prosecutors were examining his taxes, took a tortured path toward resolution across Justice Department leaders of both political parties.
Hunter Biden was supposed to plead guilty in 2023 to misdemeanor tax charges, but the deal fell apart in spectacular fashion among a last-minute disagreement between his lawyers and federal prosecutors. He went to trial in Delaware last year and was convicted of three federal felonies that accused him of having lied on a mandatory gun-purchase form by saying he was not illegally using or addicted to drugs.
Describing the younger Biden as a “Yale-educated lawyer and businessperson,” Weiss said the president's son understood that he was lying when he filled out the federal form when he bought his gun in 2018 and marked that he wasn’t a drug user.
“But he did it anyway, because he wanted to own a gun, even though he was actively using crack cocaine,” Weiss wrote.
Hunter Biden subsequently entered a surprise guilty plea last September to federal tax charges, averting a trial that would have showcased potentially lurid evidence on top of the salacious and unflattering details about his personal life aired during his earlier trial in Delaware.
Weiss said Hunter “consciously and willfully chose” not to pay at least $1.4 million in taxes over four years.
The president's claims that Hunter Biden was mistreated by the criminal justice system echoed in some ways arguments from the younger Biden's legal team, who had asserted that prosecutors bowed to political pressure to indict Hunter after the collapse of what Donald Trump and other Republicans called a “sweetheart” plea deal.
Not so, said Weiss.
“Far from selective, these prosecutions were the embodiment of the equal application of justice — no matter who you are, or what your last name is, you are subject to the same laws as everyone else in the United States,” Weiss said.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/prosecutor-investigated-hunter-biden-defends-230451952.html
How California eco-bureaucrats halted a Pacific Palisades fire safety project to save an endangered shrub
California’s eco-bureaucrats halted a wildfire prevention project near the Pacific Palisades to protect an endangered shrub.
It’s just the latest clash between fire safety and conservation in California that is coming under scrutiny following the devastating outbreak of the Palisades Fire — the most devastating blaze in Los Angeles history, which has consumed the very same area.
In 2019, the LA Department of Water and Power (LADWP) began replacing nearly 100-year-old power line poles cutting through Topanga State Park, when the project was halted within days by conservationists outraged that federally endangered Braunton’s milkvetch plants had been trampled during the process.
The goal of the project was to improve fire safety for the Pacific Palisades area by replacing the wooden poles with steel, widening fire-access lanes in the area, and installing wind- and fire-resistant power lines — all after the area was identified as having an “elevated fire risk,” according to the LA Times.
“This project will help ensure power reliability and safety, while helping reduce wildfire threats,” the LADWP said at the time. “These wooden poles were installed between 1933 and 1955 and are now past their useful service life.”
But, after an amateur botanist hiking through the park during the work saw the harm done to some of the park’s Braunton’s milkvetch — a flowering shrub with only a few thousand specimens remaining in the wild — and complained, the project was completely halted, Courthouse News Service reported.
Instead of fire-hardening the park, the city — which the state said had undertaken the work without proper permitting — ended up paying $2 million in fines and was ordered by the California Coastal Commission to reverse the whole project and replant the rare herb.
That work saved about 200 Braunton’s milkvetch plants — almost all of which have now likely been torched in the wildfires that consumed Topanga Canyon, along with nearly 24,000 acres (37 square miles) of some of LA’s most sought-after real estate.
At least eight people have died and 5,000 homes have been destroyed by the fire, which was still just 14% contained as of Monday.
It was not clear whether the steel poles were ever installed.
The good news for the milkvetch, however, is that they usually need wildfire to sprout — meaning dormant seeds now have a massive new habitat for a new crop of the rare shrub.
In the week of chaos that has claimed at least 24 lives, California and LA leadership have faced scrutiny over their approach to wildfire safety vs. conservation — most notably from President-elect Donald Trump, who accused Gov. Gavin Newsom of prioritizing the wellbeing of “worthless fish” over Californians’ safety.
“He wanted to protect an essentially worthless fish called a smelt … but didn’t care about the people of California,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social, accusing Newsom of blocking his 2020 federal order to divert water runoff from Northern California to southern reservoirs.
That order was halted days after Trump issued it, with Newsom responding to criticism from conservationists who argued it would harm the endangered minnow-like fish and other native fish.
Delta smelt, once an important part of the local California ecosystem, are now effectively extinct — meaning they still exist, but their numbers are so few that they no longer have any impact on their environment.
In the years since Newsom sued to block Trump’s order, the two politicians have bickered back and forth over California water access, with Trump vowing to block wildfire aid to the state as recently as September if the governor doesn’t give in.
Newsom, in response, called Trump’s accusations “pure fiction.”
“The Governor is focused on protecting people, not playing politics, and making sure firefighters have all the resources they need,” a spokesperson previously told The Post.
But California’s water supplies have been scrutinized amid the fires — especially after some fire hydrants in the city ran dry as firefighters battled the flames, and the pressure for what water they had was often low.
Most notably, the county-run Santa Ynez Reservoir — which is right in the heart of Pacific Palisades, and can hold 117 million gallons — was empty when the fires broke out last week, and has been out of commission since around February 2024.
Newsom, however, told NBC News the state’s reservoirs in Southern California were all “completely full” when the fires started.
Last week the governor announced a probe into why the reservoir was empty.
Exactly what sparked the fires remains under investigation, but they are believed to have begun not far from Topanga State Park on a trail in the neighboring Temescal Gateway Park.
Neither the LADWP nor the California Coastal Commission responded to requests for comment.
https://nypost.com/2025/01/14/us-news/california-bureaucrats-halted-pacific-palisades-fire-safety-project-to-save-endangered-shrub/
Colorado apartment complex where armed gang members were seen on video will be closed
AURORA, Colo. (AP) — A Colorado apartment complex where armed members of a Venezuelan gang were caught on video entering a unit last summer is expected to close in about a month under an emergency court order, city officials said Monday.
The city of Aurora had pursued a lawsuit to declare all but one building at the complex a criminal nuisance. Officials last week asked a judge to close the property in the meantime, arguing the situation reached a “breaking point” following the violent kidnapping and assault of two residents last month.
The city’s request was granted Friday ahead of a court hearing Monday.
Lawyers for the property owner, CBZ Management, dispute the city's allegations and have asked for a trial to decide the lawsuit. However, the process to close the building will still continue as the lawsuit plays out in court, Aurora City Attorney Pete Schulte said at a news conference following the hearing.
A lawyer representing the property owner, Stan Garnett, said he was not authorized to comment on the order.
While CBZ Management has previously said it was unable to provide maintenance to the complex because a notorious Venezuelan gang, Tren de Aragua, took over the buildings, the city has said the company created the problem by abandoning the running of them, which created a vacuum that let crime flourish.
Aurora Police Chief Todd Chamberlain backed the closure, saying in a court filing that the complex had become a hub for crime because of a "criminal element that has exerted control and fear” over residents.
After the hearing, Chamberlain said he believed that members of Tren de Aragua were part of the problem there, noting that federal authorities say seven of the suspects in the kidnapping and assault are members of the gang. However, Chamberlain said gang members had not taken over the complex and emphasized that the main problem was the lack of management and oversight by the property's owners.
The city said it is working with the surrounding county and others to provide relocation assistance to residents in 52 affected apartments.
The footage of the armed men at the complex from August drew the attention of President-elect Donald Trump during the presidential campaign. During a rally in Aurora in September, Trump announced a plan called “Operation Aurora” to target migrant gangs.
Four of the six men shown in the August video have since been arrested, according to Aurora police.
There was speculation at the time the video circulated that it showed members of a gang.
Authorities did not confirm a connection until December when Immigration and Customs Enforcement said two suspects from the video who were arrested in New York were members of Tren de Aragua.
According to Colorado court documents, the rifle seen in the video was used in a fatal shooting about 10 minutes later outside the apartment complex. It was found disassembled in an oven in one of the apartments, according to an arrest warrant.
The city did not seek the closure of a sixth building at the complex because a different branch of CMZ owns it. That building is being managed by a court-appointed official at the request of the mortgage lender who is making improvements to the building, according to the city.
https://news.yahoo.com/news/aurora-judge-grants-emergency-order-061919119.html
‘Immediate threat’ to safety: Emergency order will close Aurora apartment complex
DENVER (KDVR) — An Aurora apartment complex at the center of a national media spotlight, The Edge at Lowry, will temporarily close after it was determined “an immediate threat to public safety” by a judge.
On Jan. 9, the city of Aurora filed a petition against the apartment owners, Five Dallas Partners, LLC., for an emergency closure of the remaining buildings at The Edge at Lowry near Dallas Street and East 12th Avenue.
Troubled Aurora apartment complex, The Edge at Lowry, set to close
On Jan. 10, Judge Shawn Day signed the emergency order after finding it was an “immediate threat to public safety.” The city said in December that the apartment complex would close, but estimated it would close “months from now.”
Aurora police chief: Apartment was at ‘breaking point’
According to a petition filed by the city of Aurora, The Edge at Lowry had over 60 offenses since September 2023, including reports of aggravated assault with a gun or blunt weapon, robbery, larceny and several other crimes.
Meanwhile, several investigations uncovered violent crimes occurring at the complex.
The petition included an affidavit from Aurora Police Chief Todd Chamberlain who said on Dec. 17 two Venezuelan victims were allegedly kidnapped at gunpoint by 15-20 individuals armed with rifles and handguns. The victims were taken to a unit at the complex where they were tied up, robbed, assaulted and menaced with guns. Chamberlain later confirmed that seven of the 16 people detained were members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.
Chamberlain said several apartments in the complex were allegedly involved in the suspected kidnapping. He said that during the investigation officers found evidence like guns, illegal narcotics, suspected cocaine and pills, gun magazines, bullets, knives and zip ties in other apartments in the complex.
Previous coverage: Huge trash pile plagues Aurora apartment complex, where shootings like ‘warfare’
Chamberlain determined the apartment reached a “breaking point” and immediate action was necessary.
“The Edge of Lowry Apartments is an epicenter for unmitigated violent crimes and property crimes perpetuated by a criminal element that has exerted control and fear over others residing at this apartment complex,” Chamberlain stated in the affidavit.
Chamberlain told FOX31’s Alliyah Sims that gang activity is undoubtedly part of the apartment complex’s issues.
“You can say, hey, we’re going to take a step forward and do something that’s incredibly proactive by closing this venue. Recalibrating it and hopefully have it open up in a new way. For me that’s it, I think without question TdA is a part of the problem … they are a big part of the problem,” he said.
The complex was also the scene of armed apartment break-ins captured on surveillance videos and a deadly shooting in the summer of 2024. Chamberlain said Monday that some of the people arrested in December were some of the same people seen in those videos.
Chamberlain was asked about how long it may take to combat the gang issues in Aurora, and how it has impacted law-abiding residents.
“It may take time,” he said. “Unfortunately people got hurt in this process but the end game of this is it’s not going to be tolerated.”
Judge finds complex an ‘immediate threat’
The petition referenced Aurora City Code Section 62-66 which states that if a structure is an “immediate threat to public safety and welfare,” then it can be temporarily closed while the property owner petitions the court to reconsider.
On Jan. 10, Day signed the emergency order and the court found that the properties “present an immediate threat to public safety and welfare if allowed to remain open.”
Residents at Aurora apartments say deplorable conditions the issue, not gangs
Pete Schulte, Aurora’s city attorney, told FOX31’s Alliyah Sims that the police department felt the property was “being completely unmanaged.” He also said residents have had warnings of the closure.
“By the middle of February that’s going to be two and a half months that there has been notice this is coming,” Schulte said. “Today was mostly focused on the underlying criminal nuisance case the city filed back at the end of last year.”
The judge granted an emergency order to allow the city to begin the temporary closure process at the properties.
According to the city, it’s working on a plan with Arapahoe County and other community partners to provide relocation assistance to established tenants of the 60 affected apartment units. It’s unclear if the city will be able to provide a 30-day notice of eviction for residents lawfully residing in the complex.
Aurora’s city attorney told FOX31 in December that when closed, a lien would be placed by the city on the properties to recoup any costs associated with the closure and assistance provided to the property residents. The property owners would have to pay those fees, the attorney said.
Other troubled apartment complexes in Aurora have also been subject to closure. The city closed 1568 Nome St., which was owned by CBZ Management, in August because it was uninhabitable. In that case, FOX31 found families on the street saying they had nowhere to go after their apartment complex was shut down.
https://news.yahoo.com/news/immediate-threat-safety-emergency-order-195606374.html
Jack Smith 130 page report released at 1 AM this morning by Merrick Garland
WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump "inspired his supporters to commit acts of physical violence" on Jan. 6 and knowingly spread an objectively false narrative about election fraud in the 2020 election, special counsel Jack Smith said in a report defending his investigation made public early Tuesday.
The 170-page report summarized Smith's investigation into Trump's efforts to maintain power after he lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden, which culminated in the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Smith's office conducted interviews with more than 250 individuals in connection with the investigation and federal grand jurors heard testimony from more than 55 witnesses as part of the probe.
Smith has been the subject of unending criticism by Trump, whose allies have suggested the special counsel should now face criminal charges, and Smith used the report to deliver a full-throated defense of his decision to bring charges.
"To all who know me well, the claim from Mr. Trump that my decisions as a prosecutor were influenced or directed by the Biden administration or other political actors is, in a word, laughable," Smith wrote.
If it wasn't for Trump's election in November that prevented the prosecution from moving forward, the case would have ended in the president-elect's conviction, Smith wrote.
“Indeed, but for Mr. Trump’s election and imminent return to the Presidency, the Office assessed that the admissible evidence was sufficient to obtain and sustain a conviction at trial," Smith's report stated.
Trump criticized the report on his website Truth Social, complaining that it was released at 1 a.m. and repeating false claims about the House committee that investigated Jan. 6.
"Jack is a lamebrain prosecutor who was unable to get his case tried before the Election," Trump wrote.
The report brings to an end a chapter in American history in which a former president was indicted on federal charges for the first time, only to go on and be re-elected and who, in a few days, will return to power. Trump fought to keep the report secret, but his last-minute requests to prohibit the release were refused.
Smith’s report said that Trump’s actions, resulting in the interruption of America’s record of peaceful transfers of power, were without historical comparison and that Trump’s “political and financial status” as well as “the prospect of his future election to the presidency” made the investigation more challenging.
Trump’s “ability and willingness to use his influence and following on social media to target witnesses, courts, and Department employees” was a “significant challenge” for the office, causing the special counsel to “engage in time-consuming litigation to protect witnesses from threats and harassment,” the report said.
Smith pointed to Trump's continued praise of Jan. 6 rioters as further evidence that the president-elect had intended to incite the attack.
"He has called them ‘patriots’ and ‘hostages,’ reminisced about January 6 as a ‘beautiful day,’ and championed the ‘January 6 Choir,’ a group of January 6 defendants who, because of their dangerousness, are detained at the District of Columbia jail," Smith wrote.
The report says that Trump spread voter fraud claims that were "demonstrably and, in many cases, obviously false" and that Smith's office determined that "Trump knew that there was no outcome-determinative fraud in the 2020 election, that many of the specific claims that he made were untrue, and that he had lost the election."
Smith pointed to testimony that Trump privately admitted to losing, including telling an aide after watching Biden speak, "can you believe I lost to this f’ing guy?”
Smith, who resigned Friday, also wrote a second volume focused on separate charges brought against Trump over his handling of classified documents, but that part of the report was not released because charges against two of Trump's co-defendants are still pending.
Smith's report stated that prosecutors would have been able to show that Trump decided before the election that he would allege fraud whether it occurred or not, and that after he lost he "adhered to that plan — repeating false claims that he knew to be untrue."
Trump, who was separately convicted of 34 felonies in connection with hush money payments to an adult film star during his 2016 campaign, had denied wrongdoing in connection with the effort to overturn the 2020 election. A federal grand jury indicted Trump on four felony charges — conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding and conspiracy against rights — related to Jan. 6 and the efforts leading up to it. Under long-standing Justice Department policy that prevents a sitting president from being prosecuted, the charges were dropped upon Trump's victory in November.
Smith wrote in his report that his office also considered charging Trump under the Insurrection Act, but ultimately concluded that it would be difficult to prove given the complicated legal definitions of “insurrection” and whether incitement had occurred.
Smith also provided little details about the six unindicted co-conspirators who were included in the original indictment. While the alleged co-conspirators are identifiable based on publicly available information, Smith did not name them. He wrote that the report should not be seen as exonerating them. He did, however, reveal that while continuing to investigate co-conspirators, the special counsel referred to a U.S. attorney's office that "an investigative subject may have committed unrelated crimes."
While Trump has never publicly conceded that he knew he lost the 2020 election, a federal grand jury said the false claims he spread were "unsupported, objectively unreasonable, and ever-changing."
The delay strategy that Trump's legal team used ultimately allowed him to avoid trial before American voters elected him again last year and resulted in a Supreme Court decision on presidential immunity that will grant him wider latitude when he returns to office.
The report was released as Trump says he is preparing to pardon an untold number of Jan. 6 defendants. More than 1,580 defendants have been charged and more than 1,270 have been convicted on charges ranging from unlawful parading to seditious conspiracy. More than 700 defendants have either already completed their sentences or were never sentenced to any period of incarceration in the first place. Asked whether he could pardon rioters who committed violence against police officers, Trump did not rule it out.
Among those seeking pardons is former Proud Boys chairman Enrique Tarrio, who was found guilty of seditious conspiracy in 2023 and sentenced to 22 years in federal prison, the longest sentence given to any Jan. 6 defendant. Vice President-elect JD Vance said over the weekend that those who committed violence should "obviously" not be pardoned. The mother of one Jan. 6 rioter who was shot and killed during the attack said she received a call last week from Trump, who told Jan. 6 defendants to "keep their chins up."
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/justice-dept-sends-congress-jack-smiths-report-trumps-effort-overturn-rcna187492
Liberal virtue-signaling in a nutshell.
In China, citizens require biometric digital ID (verified by facial recognition cameras) to leave their neighbourhood zones. This girl keeps failing the facial verification process, so she is unable to leave her zone.
Impeached South Korean president detained over martial law declaration
South Korean police detained impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol at his residence in Seoul on Wednesday local time, ABC News confirmed.
The detention comes weeks after investigators first attempted to arrest the embattled politician over his short-lived declaration of martial law in December.
South Korean Corruption Investigation Office prosecutors entered Yoon's residence, the spokesperson for the Corruption Investigation Office for High-ranking Officials, (CIO) Kim Baek-ki told reporters in front of Yoon's residence Wednesday morning local time.
"Unlike the first arrest attempt on Jan 3, there weren't personnel aggressively blocking at the scene. There was no physical contact," the spokesperson said.
On Jan. 3, South Korean anti-corruption authorities entered the gate on Yoon's property, after which a standoff ensued between his security team and police investigators.
There were a total of 3,000 police officers on the scene and thousands of protesters attempting to block the arrest, which was eventually called off.
The efforts to detain Yoon came after a South Korean court issued an arrest and search warrant on Dec. 31 over his short-lived imposition of martial law, ABC News confirmed at the time. Yoon has been suspended from his position since Dec. 14.
The former president declared martial law in a televised speech on Dec. 3, saying the measure was necessary due to the actions of the country's liberal opposition, the Democratic Party, which he accused of controlling parliament, sympathizing with North Korea and paralyzing the government.
Under South Korea's constitution, if a sitting president is accused of insurrection, the police have the authority to arrest him while he is still in office.
A joint investigation team sought the initial warrant on insurrection and abuse of power charges after they said Yoon ignored three summonses to appear for questioning. The court's decision to grant the warrant marked the first for a president in the country's history.
https://abcnews.go.com/International/impeached-south-korean-president-yoon-suk-yeol-arrested/story?id=117682572
Ellen DeGeneres is seen back in Montecito weeks after moving to England and 'leaving US for good' post-Trump win
Just a few months after relocating to rural England and vowing never to return following Donald Trump's election win, Ellen DeGeneres is back in the good ol' USA.
The 66-year-old talk show host apparently couldn't stay away from her roots, specifically, Montecito, California, after she and wife Portia de Rossi reportedly decided to start a new life across the pond in November, new exclusive DailyMail.com photos show.
DeGeneres was snapped at her old stomping grounds last Friday while visiting Casa Dorinda, an elite retirement community known as the luxury care home where Julia Child spent her final days among other famous folks.
Dressed casually in a gray crew neck sweater, blue jeans, and sneakers, DeGeneres was seen pulling into a visitor's parking spot before entering a resident building.
It's not known who the Hollywood star was visiting at the home, but it's possible her wife's mother, Margaret Rogers, may have moved to the lux retirement community after she sold her Westlake Village townhome in 2020.
De Rossi, 51, however, was not seen with her wife during the outing.
The couple moved to the UK late last year but it is obvious they still have roots in the US and more specifically Montecito.
They are now reportedly living in the Cotswolds, a rural portion of Southwest England located about 100 miles from London, in a multimillion-pound farmhouse.
They are said to have 'fallen in love' with the picturesque estate set in acres of rolling Cotswolds countryside which also includes a helicopter pad and swimming pool.
The two were apparently so eager to make a quick getaway and land their dream property that they were prepared to pay £2.5million (around $3million) more than the asking price.
The area is popular among celebrities and wealthy residents looking to escape the hustle and bustle of London - an ideal hideaway for DeGeneres and Rossi who famously left LA for Santa Barbara County's Montecito, 75 miles north.
Among the stars with properties in the Cotswolds are David and Victoria Beckham, Kate Moss, Patrick Stewart, Elizabeth Hurley, Jeremy Clarkson, and Damien Hirst, and many others.
The area is even home to royalty, as King Charles owns Highgrove House in Gloucestershire.
Kate Winslet has also had a mansion in the area at one point, though it's unclear if she still lives there, and Hugh Grant has been rumored for years to have a small hideaway in the Cotswolds.
Originally built as a farmhouse, DeGeneres and de Rossi's new home was converted into a modern luxury home more than 15 years ago but still retains its old-world charm, with the outlying barns connected to the main building via glazed passageways.
Just weeks ago, however, the couple were left virtually marooned when the area near their 43-acre property became swamped in a torrent of flood water following the impact of Storm Bert.
DeGeneres later shared a selfie on Instagram of her and her wife posing in the countryside to mark 20 years together with her 'best friend' and 'love of my life', and confirmed they did not suffer any damage from the storm.
'P.S. for those of you concerned, our UK farmhouse did NOT flood,' she wrote.
In October, The Sun reported that the couple had bought a Cotswolds property, so their purchase predates the 2024 election.
However, after Trump's win the married couple became 'very disillusioned,' and one source claimed the vowed to 'to get the hell out' of the US afterward, according to sources who spoke to TMZ.
Though many celebrities have threatened to leave the US in the face of a Trump win, most haven't followed through.
Stars including Cher, Barbra Streisand, Sharon Stone, and Sophie Turner have all said they were considering leaving the US if Trump won, though it's not clear if any of them will actually do so.
DeGeneres had plenty of reasons to want a fresh start away from home beyond Trump's reelection however.
Her career was tarnished — likely permanently — by accusations that she fostered a toxic workplace on the set of her eponymous daytime talk show, which aired its last episode on May 26, 2022.
She delved into her persona non grata status on her stand-up special For Your Approval, which was released on Netflix in late September.
The comedian joked that she had been 'kicked out of show business' in the special, which featured material about how she has been spending her time since the end of her TV show.
According to The Wrap, DeGeneres and de Rossi had either pocket-listed their Bali-inspired Montecito mansion, or plan to list it soon.
DeGeneres and de Rossi purchased the massive home for an eye-popping $27million in 2019.
The mansion features five bedrooms and 10 bathrooms over 8,188 square feet, and it includes exotic features like bamboo ceilings, flamed black limestone and gorgeous distressed oak floors.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-14271539/Ellen-DeGeneres-returns-montecito-california-england-cotswolds.html
We saw the DEI firefighters, now wait for the DEI police officer shitshow.