Brazil’s Ex-President Temer Jailed, Accused of Heading ‘Criminal Organization’

SAO PAULO/BRASILIA—Brazil’s former President Michel Temer was arrested on March 21 in “Operation Radioactivity,” a probe of alleged graft in the construction of a nuclear power plant, threatening to delay debate over the government’s ambitious fiscal reforms. Temer was president from 2016 to 2018, taking office after the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff, who he served under as vice president for six years. His lawyer confirmed he was arrested in Sao Paulo, and his legal team has lodged an appeal for Temer to be freed.

Prosecutors alleged that Temer was the leader of a “criminal organization” that took in 1.8 billion reais ($472 million) in bribes or pending future kickbacks as part of numerous schemes, including one related to the Angra nuclear power plant complex on the Rio de Janeiro coast and other state firms. The former president’s Brazil Democratic Movement party long held sway over key appointments in Brazil’s largely state-run energy sector, including nuclear power plants. Federal police also arrested Temer’s former minister and confidant Wellington Moreira Franco, who is married to the mother-in-law of Rodrigo Maia, the speaker of the lower house of Congress and a leading proponent of pension reform. Temer and Moreira Franco have repeatedly denied previous accusations of wrongdoing. Maia was not immediately available for comment.

Asked about the arrest during a trip to Chile, President Jair Bolsonaro said “everyone must respond for their actions” and that Temer’s fate was the result of traditional corrupt political practices that he has vowed to end. Brazil’s sweeping “Car Wash” probe has uncovered what U.S. prosecutors called the world’s largest graft scheme, starting with political bribery involving oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA, also known as Petrobras, and spreading to other sectors and public works. Over 150 powerful politicians and businessmen have been convicted in relation to the investigation since 2014, which has reshaped the country’s political and business landscapes.

Temer is the second former president to be arrested in the anti-corruption push. Former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is in jail serving over 12 years for a corruption conviction. Voters’ anger over long-running graft fueled the ascent of Bolsonaro, a conservative politician who served 30 years as a fringe lawmaker but rose to power on the back of pledges to end graft in Brasilia.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/brazils-ex-president-temer-jailed-accused-of-heading-criminal-organization_2848472.html

U.S. Imposes First New North Korea Sanctions Since Failed Summit

WASHINGTON—The United States imposed sanctions on March 21 on two Chinese shipping companies it says helped North Korea evade sanctions over its nuclear weapons program, the first such steps since a U.S.-North Korean summit collapsed last month. The U.S. Treasury Department also issued an updated advisory that listed 67 vessels that it said had engaged in illicit transfers of refined petroleum with North Korean tankers or were believed to have exported North Korean coal. The department identified the newly sanctioned firms as Dalian Haibo International Freight Co Ltd and Liaoning Danxing International Forwarding Co Ltd, which it said had helped North Korea evade U.S. and international sanctions.

The move prohibits U.S. dealings with the designated companies and freezes any assets they have in the United States. Washington announced the measures three weeks after a second meeting between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un broke down over conflicting demands by North Korea for relief from sanctions and from the U.S. side for Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons. The United States has led international efforts to press North Korea through sanctions to give up its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

“The United States and our like-minded partners remain committed to achieving the final, fully verified denuclearization of North Korea and believe that the full implementation of North Korea-related U.N. Security Council resolutions is crucial to a successful outcome,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement. “Treasury will continue to enforce our sanctions, and we are making it explicitly clear that shipping companies employing deceptive tactics to mask illicit trade with North Korea expose themselves to great risk,” he added. The latest sanctions showed there was some “leakage” in North Korea sanctions enforcement by China, but Beijing was mostly abiding by U.N. resolutions, a senior U.S. official told reporters, speaking on condition of anonymity. The official said that financial as well as shipping companies risked U.S. action if they were found to be in violation of sanctions. The official insisted, however, that Thursday’s announcement was meant to maintain sanctions enforcement on North Korea rather than intensify the pressure. While declining to say whether Washington was trying to send a post-summit message to Pyongyang, the official said Trump “has made clear that the door is wide open to continuing the dialogue with North Korea.”

https://www.theepochtimes.com/u-s-imposes-first-new-north-korea-sanctions-since-failed-summit_2848539.html

Top Prosecutor Probing Ukrainian Plot to Boost Clinton in 2016 Election

Ukraine’s top prosecutor has opened an investigation into whether the country’s law enforcement illegally leaked information in order to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election in favor of Hillary Clinton. Ukraine Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko told The Hill that the probe was prompted by the release of an audio recording of a top Ukrainian law enforcement official saying his agency released damaging information on then Trump-campaign chairman Paul Manafort in order to damage then-candidate Donald Trump and boost Clinton. The dirt on Manafort made it into the hands of U.S. media in 2016 and prompted Manafort’s removal from the campaign. The information continued to be at the center of allegations against Trump’s campaign beyond the election. Manafort was sentenced in early March to seven years in prison for crimes relating to his work in Ukraine that predated his stint with Trump’s campaign.

News of the investigation in Ukraine arrived as the public waits for special counsel Robert Mueller to deliver the final report on his Russia collusion investigation to the Justice Department, which is widely expected to be soon. Like the conclusions of two congressional investigations, Mueller is not expected to charge Trump with any wrongdoing. A Ukrainian court ruled in late 2018 that the release of information on Manafort amounted to an illegal attempt to influence the election in the United States. Lutsenko told The Hill’s John Solomon that the release of the information was particularly troubling because the Ukrainian law enforcement agency involved was in frequent contact with the Obama administration’s U.S. Embassy in Kiev.

The FBI investigated Manafort in 2014 but declined to prosecute him. The bureau had set up an office in the Kiev embassy during the investigation. Two years later, dirt on Manafort surfaced in U.S. media, followed closely by the FBI’s infamous “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation of the Trump campaign, which revolved largely around a dossier on Trump compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele and paid for by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Clinton campaign. The bureau eventually terminated Steele for talking to the media, but he continued to feed information to the FBI’s Crossfire team through senior Justice Department official Bruce Ohr.

According to Solomon, Steele’s quest to compile the dossier on Trump began as a series of conversations with Ohr in late 2015 and early 2016 while seeking information on Manafort. President Donald Trump spotlighted Solomon’s report on Twitter.

Lutsenko also accused the Obama-era U.S. Embassy in Kiev of interfering with his ability to prosecute corruption cases. Lutsenko claimed to have received from the U.S. ambassador a list of people whose prosecutions the ambassador advised not to pursue. The U.S. ambassador then declined to cooperate in an investigation of misappropriation of U.S. aid, a claim Lutsenko substantiated with a letter addressed to Ukraine’s deputy prosecutor general. “We are gravely concerned about this investigation for which we see no basis,” wrote U.S. embassy official George Kent.

The State Department issued a statement on March 20 that called Lutsenko’s claim about the do-not-prosecute “an outright fabrication.” The department also stated that it no longer provides financial support to Lutsenko’s office. Lutsenko isn’t the only one to complain about the U.S. embassy in Kiev. In 2018, Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas) wrote a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo asking to recall Marie Yovanovitch, the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine. According to Sessions, Yovanovitch “has spoken privately and repeatedly about her disdain for the current administration in a way that might call for the expulsion.” Sessions wrote that he had concrete evidence of Yovanovitch’s conduct.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/top-prosecutor-probing-ukrainian-plot-to-boost-clinton-in-2016-election_2847598.html