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Two Trump speeches, two dozen dubious claims

President Trump made a host of dubious claims during two recent public appearances, jumping from taxes to trade, from Iraqi oil to Canadian immigration laws, from promoting voter-fraud conspiracy theories to suggesting a California mayor should be charged with obstruction of justice.

We counted 24 false or misleading statements in Trump’s infrastructure speech in Ohio on March 29 and his roundtable on taxes in West Virginia on April 5. This is not an exhaustive list, however, and some of Trump’s claims include multiple inaccuracies.

The president seems to enjoy going off-script — Trump literally threw out his prepared remarks with a flourish in West Virginia — and perhaps as a result, we have a lot to unpack.

As usual with our roundups of multiple claims, we will not be giving Trump a Pinocchio rating.

Ohio, March 29

“We started building our wall. … We have $1.6 billion, and we’ve already started. You saw the pictures yesterday. I said, ‘What a thing of beauty.’ ”

The omnibus spending bill Trump signed in March includes $1.6 billion for fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border, not for Trump’s wall. (A fence is not a wall.) Parts of this all-fence project date to 2009, long before Trump took office.

Trump also tweeted pictures of the “wall,” but they’re actually photos of the 2009 project.

“We’re building up our military to the highest level it has ever been, and it was not in good shape. But it’s now going to be, very soon, the highest level it has ever been. And by the way, that means jobs, too. … Millions of jobs.”

Trump’s spending bill provides a record $700 billion to the U.S. military. But that’s in raw dollars. A better way to measure over time is percentage of the economy, and Trump’s is only one-third the size of the defense budget at the height of the Vietnam War. Moreover, experts say the added funds, $61 billion above what was appropriated in 2017, will not create “millions of jobs” but rather thousands or tens of thousands. Note that the spending bill provides a 2.4 percent pay raise for troops. That comes with a big price tag — and it does not directly create new jobs.

“Energy exports are at a record high, and foreign imports are at their lowest level in much more than a decade.”

Energy exports are in fact at a record high. But import levels are not as low as Trump claims. The United States imported 25.34 quadrillion BTUs of energy in 2017, according to the Energy Information Administration. Imports were lower in 2015 (23.79 QBTUs), 2014 (23.24 QBTUs) and 2013 (24.62 QBTUs).

“Just this week, we secured a wonderful deal with South Korea. We were in a deal that was a horror show. It was going to produce 200,000 jobs, and it did — for them. That was a Hillary Clinton special, I hate to say.”

Trump is referring to a free-trade agreement with South Korea that was negotiated by the President George W. Bush’s administration and then tweaked by President Barack Obama’s. (Hillary Clinton played no role.) It’s worth noting that calculating job gains or losses from such agreements is more art than science, as we found in 2015, so Trump’s 200,000 estimate should be taken with a grain of salt.

“We’ve got the greatest economy, maybe, ever — maybe in history. We have the greatest economy we’ve ever had.”

The stock market has seen a healthy recovery from the low points of the 2008-2009 economic downturn, and Wall Street pay has bounced back, too. But the recovery has been uneven. Median household income is barely above its 2008 level, adjusting for inflation. Wealth distribution has become more uneven since the financial crisis, with the rich now accounting for a larger share of total wealth than the middle and lower classes as compared with pre-crisis levels. This Wall Street Journal graphic gives a good overview of current economic conditions.

The U.S. gross domestic product grew 2.3 percent in 2017, Trump’s first year in office, according to Bureau of Economic Analysis data. It grew at a faster rate in three of the years Obama was in office (2010, 2014 and 2015); it also grew at a faster rate for much of the George W. Bush and Bill Clinton administrations.

“A very important, and respected, in some circles, Democrat, said we want to get rid — we should get rid of our Second Amendment. In other words, get rid of it.”

Trump is referring to Justice John Paul Stevens, a retired member of the Supreme Court who wrote an opinion piece in the New York Times calling for the repeal of the Second Amendment. Stevens for years was the leader of the Supreme Court’s liberal wing; his ideology was clearly in sync with the Democratic Party.

But Stevens never identified publicly as a Democrat. He was a registered Republican when Richard Nixon nominated him to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit, and when Gerald Ford nominated him to the Supreme Court. (In this sense, Stevens is not unlike Trump, who identifies as a Republican even though he made political contributions to Democrats for years.)

“We got rid of the bump stocks. The bump stocks, now, are under very strict control, which I think everybody agrees is fine.”

Trump’s administration has proposed to ban bump-stock accessories for firearms, but the rulemaking process takes time and the ban is still not finalized.

“I approved that Keystone XL pipeline, and I approved the Dakota Access pipeline; both of them. … I thought we would have, like, some commotion. Right? Some commotion. Like, some protest — nobody. I approved it. The pickets, they picked up their stuff and they left. That was the end of it.”

In fact, there were protests after Trump approved the Dakota Access pipeline. The governor of North Dakota had to order that the protesters be removed, as Daniel Dale of the Toronto Star noted.

“We’re only into about 15 months, but I think I have approved much more than I’ve promised.”

As of January, the president had broken or failed to deliver on many of his campaign promises, according to our Trump Promise Tracker.

“I tell the story about Keystone. … That was dead for a couple of years, and no chance. I get elected, I approve it almost, like, in the first day, right at the very beginning. And I just say to myself, ‘Can you imagine the boss of whatever the hell company it is — who never actually called me to say thank you?’ But that’s okay.”

TransCanada chief executive Russ Girling actually thanked Trump twice in a meeting.

“We spent $7 trillion in the Middle East. We’d build a school; they’d blow it up. We’d build it again; they’d blow it up. We’d build it again; hasn’t been blown up yet, but it will be.”

Trump is lumping together the wars in Iraq (in the Middle East) and Afghanistan (in South Asia), which together cost about $1.6 trillion from 2001 to 2014. He is also adding in estimates of future spending, such as interest on the debt and veterans’ care for the next three decades.

“I got tired of watching. I used to say, ‘Keep the oil.’ We never kept the [Iraqi] oil. If we kept the oil, we would have been okay. If we kept the oil, we wouldn’t have ISIS. … That’s how they funded themselves.”

This one’s a real doozy.

First, invading and then seizing the resources of a sovereign nation would violate the Geneva Conventions. Second, taking Iraq’s oil would be logistically impossible with the troop levels committed by the United States, and would ultimately cost more than the oil is worth, experts say.

Third, the Islamic State might still exist, and still might be able to fund itself, without Iraqi oil proceeds. Much of the oil revenue that finances it comes from Syria, which the United States did not invade.

According to FactCheck.org, oil was not the most significant revenue source for the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, in 2015:

“ISIS had total revenue of $1.18 billion in 2015, according to a 2016 report by the inspectors general for the State Department, Defense Department and USAID. The terrorist group’s primary source of financing that year was extortion, stolen goods and taxes, at a combined total of $600 million. Oil accounted for $480 million. That report didn’t say how much oil revenue came from Iraq and how much came from Syria. However, a former Bush administration counterterrorism official told the House Financial Services Committee in May 2015 that about 90 percent of oil produced by ISIS came from Syrian oil fields.”

“You know, when I got in, we had over 100 federal judges that weren’t appointed. … But now we have about 145 federal district judges. We have 17 court of appeals judges. And as I said, we have the one Supreme Court justice. But think of 145 district judges.”

Prepare for a math headache.

These statements in combination suggest that Trump has appointed 145 judges to the U.S. District Court, 17 to the U.S. Court of Appeals and one Supreme Court justice. But his numbers are wildly inflated.

Since Trump took office, the Senate has confirmed 14 appellate judges, 14 district judges, and one Supreme Court justice.

Another 45 district court nominees and 10 appellate court nominees are awaiting Senate confirmation.

In total, Trump has appointed 29 judges to the district, appellate and supreme courts, not 162 as he suggested. Even when including the pending nominees, the total number rises only to 84, or about half of the 162 he claimed. Trump has set a record with judicial appointments, but it’s more modest than he portrays.

West Virginia, April 5

“You know, they used to call it tax reform, and for 40 years they couldn’t pass anything and they didn’t know why. I said, ‘How’s it hard to pass tax cuts?’ Turned out it was not that hard. It was not easy.”

Never mind that Ronald Reagan’s tax cuts passed more than 31 years ago; George W. Bush and Obama also passed big tax-cut bills.

“We had a trade deficit of almost $500 billion last year with China.”

This is a zombie claim. It keeps getting debunked, but Trump keeps saying it. (Accurately relaying trade figures is not the president’s strong suit.)

The trade deficit with China was $310 billion in 2016. This factors in both goods and services.

The goods deficit in 2017 was $375 billion, but the net trade figure will most likely be lower once trade in services is factored into the equation.

“This is our country. If you have a baby on our land, congratulations, that baby is a United States citizen. We’re the only one.”

Thirty countries offer birthright citizenship, including all in North America and almost all in South America, according to the Center for Immigration Studies. The number rises to 33 when including Lesotho, Tanzania and Tuvalu.

“If you come into Canada, it’s got to be based on merit. With us, it’s a lottery system — pick them out — a lottery system. You can imagine what those countries put into the system. They’re not putting their good ones.”

Like the United States, Canada offers family sponsorship for would-be immigrants, so its immigration system is not entirely based on merit.

Trump often mischaracterizes the U.S. diversity visa lottery. Other countries do not choose people to “put into the system.” Instead, nearly 15 million self-selected people from countries with low immigration to the United States apply annually for the slim chance to win an invitation to apply for a green card.

Those who win the lottery must then meet educational or work experience requirements and pass a background check. A State Department office in Kentucky manages the lottery.

“Remember my opening remarks at Trump Tower, when I opened. Everybody said, ‘Oh, he was so tough,’ and I used the word ‘rape.’ And yesterday, it came out where, this journey coming up, women are raped at levels that nobody has ever seen before. They don’t want to mention that.”

Trump is referring to rape allegations within the caravan of Central Americans heading to the United States. There are two problems with this statement.

First, Trump is harking back to 2015, when he announced his presidential candidacy in Trump Tower. He claimed at the time, “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. … They’re rapists.” But the caravaners are Central Americans, so these rape allegations do not prove his point about Mexicans.

Second, the rape allegations themselves are a matter of dispute. “A BuzzFeed News reporter who has been traveling with the caravan for 12 days says there’s no evidence that’s true,” the news site reported.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters that Trump was referring to a report, in 2014, that as many as 80 percent of women who have tried the journey outside such caravans have been raped. “He’s saying that the drug smugglers, the traffickers, the coyotes — this is something that, again, has been in recent years — I know it’s been up to as high as 80 percent,” she said.

“We’re going to have the wall. We’ve already started building it. We have a billion-six. We’ve started building it and fixing miles and miles of wall that’s already up — and fence.”

Trump made this claim in both Ohio and West Virginia. Regardless of where Trump says this, a fence is not a wall.

“How about the mayor of Oakland, where she tells a thousand people to ‘get going; law enforcement is coming to get you.’ And this was all planned. And many of them scattered, and it was pretty much a failure. I mean, to me that’s obstruction of justice, and something should happen there. And it hasn’t, and I don’t know why it hasn’t.”

Trump blames the mayor of Oakland, Calif., for spoiling a four-day immigration sweep in Northern California. The mayor, Libby Schaaf, had warned residents about the raid by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement the night before it began in February.

The suggestion that Schaaf allowed 1,000 people to evade ICE is misleading because the agency never captures all its targets in such raids, according to a former ICE spokesman in California who resigned in protest after this raid.

ICE ended up arresting 232 unauthorized immigrants during this raid that Trump calls “pretty much a failure.”

“We had somebody on the West Side Highway, which I know very well, in Manhattan, he ran over — I think he killed about eight people. … And came in through chain migration. Or he might have also come in through a lottery. But he brought a lot of people with him. They say 22 people. Twenty-two people.”

Trump is repeating a Four Pinocchio claim about Sayfullo Saipov, an immigrant from Uzbekistan charged with killing eight and injuring 12 in a deadly rampage in New York in 2017. Saipov entered the United States with a diversity visa. We found no evidence that he brought any relatives to the United States, let alone 22.

“In many places, like California, the same person votes many times. You probably heard about that. They always like to say, ‘Oh, that’s a conspiracy theory.’ Not a conspiracy theory, folks. Millions and millions of people.”

A wide range of studies has found only infinitesimal evidence of voter fraud in the United States. One study says the rate is so low as to be almost nonexistent: between 0.0003 percent and 0.0025 percent. (The odds of getting struck by lightning are higher.)

Tellingly, Trump dissolved his own voter fraud task force, which produced no evidence of fraud.

“And we’re working on coal — clean coal. I always say ‘clean, beautiful coal.’ ”

There’s no such thing as “clean coal.” Power plants can mitigate some of the effects of burning coal by capturing and burying carbon-dioxide emissions, but that doesn’t cleanse the coal itself.

“We’re negotiating a deal with Mexico, NAFTA, and I hope it works out. But it was a horrible deal for our country. It was incompetently drawn. It was a shame that it ever happened. It emptied out millions of jobs. Thousands of factories and plants. They left. And a lot of them are moving back. Chrysler just announced they’re moving back into Michigan and many other car companies are expanding and building brand-new plants.”

Trump once again exaggerates the effects of NAFTA. The Congressional Research Service says the trade deal had a “modest” effect on the U.S. economy.

Trump also says Fiat Chrysler is moving a plant back to Michigan. But Chrysler actually is moving one production line from a Mexican plant to Michigan. Both plants were already operating, and the Mexican plant won’t be closed.

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Body of Tennessee double-murder suspect believed to be found, sheriff says


Video

Manhunt for man who confessed to double murder on Facebook

Tennessee cops launch dragnet for 23-year-old man suspected of killing his mother and friend before posting account of attack to his Facebook page.

A dead body found in a wooded area in Mississippi on Monday is believed to be the remains of a 23-year-old Tennessee man suspected of killing his mother and friend — then detailing the murder in a twisted Facebook post. 

Jasper County Sheriff Randy Johnson confirmed the body of Casey Lawhorn was found in Vossburg, Miss., the state’s department of public safety said in a news release The body was located in a wooded area, about 100 yards from where Lawhorn’s vehicle was discovered abandoned on Interstate 59 in Jasper County. The vehicle was located Sunday evening.

Lawhorn’s death came a day after a twisted Facebook post detailed the double-murder. 

“What I did is unforgivable. And prayer is a waste of time, nothing happens after death, but if there is a hell, I’m going to be in the lake of ice at the bottom,” read a post on a Facebook page purportedly belonging to Lawhorn. “However, as I sit here in Mississippi, writing this on the side of I-59 south after my car broke down, what I look forward to is the nothingness after death. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about murder, wondering what it feels like. But I’ve barely felt anything.”

Casey Lawhorn was wanted after he detailed on Facebook how he murdered his mother and friend.

 (Jasper County Sheriff’s Department)

Police told ABC News that when they visited the home Sunday, they had to force their way inside — where they found the bodies of Vi Lawhorn and Gaines, 22.

In the now-removed Facebook post, Lawhorn allegedly wrote that he shot and killed both adults “with a stolen .22 [long rifle].” The post described Gaines as a “close friend” and claimed Vi Lawhorn was drunk after spending a night at a sports bar.

“The whole event took probably 3 or 4 minutes,” the Facebook post reportedly said. “I had hoped both were going to be quick and efficient. I didn’t want my mom to suffer, to die in horror, to die with the knowledge that her son did it (I didn’t hurt our dog or cat, in case anyone was wondering about the animals).”

Mississippi’s Jasper County Sheriff’s Department said Sunday evening that Lawhorn’s car was found abandoned on Interstate 59, but Lawhorn was not in the vehicle. The Dade County Sheriff’s Office wrote earlier on Facebook that Lawhorn, after getting gas in Dade County around 5:30 a.m. Sunday, was believed to be driving south toward Georgia, but it appears he never made it there.

The alleged confessional was posted to Facebook around 5 p.m. Sunday and said the shooting happened at 1:30 a.m. that morning. East Ridge Police say they have not yet confirmed the authenticity of the post and the details in it.

Katherine Lam is a breaking and trending news digital producer for Fox News. Follow her on Twitter at @bykatherinelam

Republican Gov. Rick Scott enters Senate race in Florida, setting up marquee contest

Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R), a close ally of President Trump, formally entered the race for a U.S. Senate seat on Monday, kicking off a marquee contest against Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) that has major implications for control of the Senate next year.

Scott made the announcement in a video distributed on Twitter, framing himself as an outsider to a “horribly dysfunctional” Washington — a theme he repeated to a group of supporters in Orlando minutes later.

“Washington is full of old thinking,” Scott said. “Washington is tired. And the truth is, both political parties share some of the blame.”

Scott’s announcement sets the stage for what is expected to be one of the most expensive races in the country, taking place in a swing state that was a key to Trump’s 2016 victory. It also offers a test of whether a tight alliance with Trump provides more help or harm in the current political environment.

For months, Trump and Republican Party leaders have been trying to coax Scott to challenge Nelson, who is seeking his fourth term and has been stepping up appearances across Florida, the nation’s third most populous state.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott interacts with people at a restaurant in Doral, Fla, last month. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

“I’ve always run every race like there’s no tomorrow — regardless of my opponent,” Nelson said in a statement released shortly after Scott’s announcement. “While it’s clear that Rick Scott will say or do anything to get elected, I’ve always believed that if you just do the right thing, the politics will take care of itself.”

Scott’s long-expected entrance into the race makes it instantly competitive and will force Democrats to devote considerable resources they would otherwise be able to spend elsewhere as they try to wrest control of the Senate from Republicans. The GOP holds a narrow 51-to-49 majority in the chamber.

Democrats are defending 10 seats in states Trump won in 2016, including Florida.

Scott, a two-term governor, has been preparing for a campaign for weeks, huddling with donors and building a campaign team. This will be his first run for federal office for the 65-year-old who made a personal fortune as a health-care executive.

In his remarks in Orlando, at a construction firm in the city, Scott called for term limits for Congress and said that in Florida’s capital, he never really fit in as a businessman. The same would be true in Washington, Scott said.

“We don’t need any more talkers in Washington, we need some doers,” he said.

Nelson is expected to highlight Scott’s ties to Trump in a state Trump only narrowly carried over Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Scott was an early cheerleader for Trump — he led a super PAC that supported Trump’s bid — and Trump has been publicly twisting Scott’s arm to run for the Senate for months.

That included during a September visit by Trump to Florida to survey hurricane damage. After praising Scott for doing an “incredible job” as governor, the president added: “I hope this man right here, Rick Scott, runs for the Senate.”

In an interview Sunday with Politico, Scott pushed back when asked if he considers himself a “Donald Trump Republican.”

“I consider myself Rick Scott,” Scott said. “I don’t consider myself any type of anything. … I run on what I believe in. I’ve been very clear. People ask me that a bunch of times, about ‘Are you this or are you that?’ No. I’m Rick Scott. I grew up poor. I believe in jobs.”

Nelson, a former astronaut, is a political veteran, having also served for more than a decade in the U.S. House and as state treasurer, insurance commissioner and fire marshal in Florida. While mostly aligning with his party on major issues, Nelson has also sought to appeal to centrist voters by working with Republicans. Last year, he collaborated with Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) on a health insurance measure.

On Monday, Nelson, who is the top Democrat on the Senate Commerce committee, was planning to meet with Mark Zuckerberg, a day before the Facebook chief executive officer is scheduled to testify to the panel about privacy issues.

During an appearance last month in Florida, Nelson said he was ready for a challenge by Scott.

“It’s going to be clearly a set of contrasts on so many issues, from the environment to sea level rise to oil drilling off the coast, to the expansion of Medicaid in Florida,” Nelson told reporters. “I mean the list just goes on and on and on.”

Democrats are planning to cast Scott as an out of touch politician only interested in himself.

“Rick Scott has spent seven years ignoring Florida’s middle class, while enriching himself and his political cronies by millions of dollars,” said Joshua Karp, a spokesman for American Bridge, a super PAC that promotes Democratic candidates.

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which has been gearing up for a possible Scott bid for months, last week hit on the same theme, debuting a “Self-Serving Scott” website that claims “Rick Scott is a self-serving politician who will say and do anything to help himself at Floridians’ expense.”

Less than two hours before Scott’s announcement on Monday, the DSCC also circulated a 2015 editorial from the Tampa Bay Times that referred to Scott as “the state’s worst governor in the last half-century” after he declined to take Medicaid expansion funding.

Guns could emerge as a central issue in the campaign. Weeks after the deadly mass shooting at a Florida high school in February, Scott signed new gun regulations into law, defying the National Rifle Association.

His decision could boost his appeal to centrist and Democratic voters who have been very vocal about wanting new gun control. It could also alienate him from conservative gun owners who do not like to see new restrictions on firearms.

While Scott and Trump have differed on guns, immigration and several others issues, they are widely seen as tightly aligned, as Scott has been a frequent guest at the White House and Mar-a-Lago, the president’s estate in Palm Beach.

Scott’s close relationship with Trump was also highlighted in January, when the administration agreed to rule out oil and gas drilling off Florida’s coast after Scott voiced strong opposition. The announcement came shortly after Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke had moved to allow new drilling in nearly all United States coastal waters.

One emerging complication for Scott is his relationship with Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.). While Rubio has said he supports Scott’s campaign, the two have a difficult past that has flared in recent weeks. Rubio has also said nice things about Nelson, irking some of the governor’s allies.

Following Scott’s announcement on Monday, Rubio took to Twitter to voice his support for Scott, saying “one of the most important roles” of the Senate is confirming federal judges — a task made easier with a Republican majority.

Next week, Scott, who is term-limited in his current post, is expected to travel to Washington to raise money for his campaign, according to three Republicans familiar with his plans.

Party power brokers have been in contact in recent days to make arrangements for Scott’s trip. The Republicans said Scott is expected to be in Washington on April 19. They spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe plans that had not been announced publicly.

There has been talk among Scott’s close associates about amassing more than $100 million for his bid. Scott can put his own money into the campaign, but those close to him say he will rely most heavily on funding from donors.

Following his appearance in Orlando on Monday morning, Scott was scheduled to a attend an afternoon event at a citrus packing house in Fort Myers.

German police knew van driver well; still not sure on motive

MUENSTER, Germany — The 48-year-old German man who drove a van into a crowd in the western city of Muenster was well-known to police and had a history of run-ins with the law, German prosecutors said Sunday, adding that they believe he acted alone.

The man, whose name was not released, killed two people and injured 20 others Saturday afternoon outside a bar in the city’s old town before shooting himself to death inside the van.

He was a Muenster resident and apparently well off. The city’s police president, Hajo Kuhlisch, said the man’s four apartments — two in Muenster and two in Saxony — and several cars had been searched thoroughly, but that police were still investigating the evidence and it was too early to speculate about the van driver’s motive.

“We have no indications that there is a political background or that others were involved” in Saturday’s deadly crash, prosecutor Elke Adomeit told reporters. “But he was well known to the police.”

She said the man had three previous court procedures in Muenster and one in nearby Arnsberg in 2015 and 2016. His run-ins with the law regarded threats, property damage, fraud and a hit-and-run, but Adomeit said that all charges were dismissed.

Local media have identified the man as an industrial designer who had been suffering from psychological problems, but police would not confirm those details.

Authorities have identified the two victims killed by the van crash as a 51-year-old woman from Lueneburg county, 300 kilometers (186 miles) to the northeast and a 65-year-old man from nearby Borken county. Their names weren’t given, as is customary in Germany.

Early Sunday, all three bodies were taken from the crash scene in front of the well-known Kiepenkerl pub. The silver-grey van that crashed into the crowd was hauled away hours later, after explosives experts had thoroughly checked it.

Inside the van, police found illegal firecrackers that were disguised as a fake bomb, a fake pistol and the real gun that the driver used to kill himself with.

Inside the apartment where the man was living, which was nearby the crash scene, police found more firecrackers and a “no-longer usable AK-47 machine gun.”

Officials said some of the 20 people injured were still in a life-threatening condition Sunday. They have not identified them, but said that people from The Netherlands are among them.

Armin Laschet, the governor of North Rhine-Westphalia state where Muenster is located, toured the city Sunday.

“This was a horrible and sad day for the people of Muenster, all of Germany … and also the people of The Netherlands, who were sitting here and became victims,” he said.

He didn’t elaborate on how many Dutch were injured or how serious those injuries were.

The local daily Muenstersche Zeitung reported that the perpetrator had vaguely announced his suicide plans a week ago in an email to friends, but police wouldn’t confirm those details.

Muenster is a popular tourist destination with 300,000 inhabitants, known for its medieval old town, which was rebuilt after the massive destruction during World War II.

The city was buzzing on Saturday — one of the first warm spring days of the year — and people were sitting outside the famous Kiepenkerl pub when the 48-year-old German drove his van into the bar’s tables with such a vengeance that the vehicle only stopped when it hit the pub’s wall.

Police quickly evacuated the area and ambulances, firefighters and helicopters rushed to the scene to aid those who were injured.

German Interior minister Horst Seehofer, who visited the crash scene with Laschet on Sunday and placed flowers there, said “this cowardly and brutal crime has shocked all of us.”

The city’s Roman Catholic bishop, Felix Glenn, invited all of Muenster’s citizens to a joint Catholic-Lutheran memorial service at the famous Paulus Cathedral on Sunday night.

The Kiepenkerl is not only one of the city’s best-known traditional pubs, but also the emblem of the city, depicting a traveling salesman with a long pipe in his mouth and a big backpack on his back.

___

Grieshaber reported from Berlin.

Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Blaze on 50th floor of Trump Tower in New York kills 1

NEW YORK — A raging fire that tore through a 50th-floor apartment at Trump Tower killed a man inside and sent flames and thick, black smoke pouring from windows of the president’s namesake skyscraper.

New York Fire Commissioner Daniel Nigro said the cause of Saturday’s blaze is not yet known but the apartment was “virtually entirely on fire” when firefighters arrived after 5:30 p.m.

“It was a very difficult fire, as you can imagine,” Nigro told reporters outside the building in midtown Manhattan. “The apartment is quite large.”

Todd Brassner, 67, who was in the apartment, was taken to a hospital and died a short time later, the New York Police Department said. Property records obtained by The Associated Press indicate Brassner was an art dealer who had purchased his unit in 1996.

Officials said four firefighters also suffered minor injuries. An investigation is ongoing.

Shortly after news of the fire broke, President Donald Trump, who was in Washington, tweeted: “Fire at Trump Tower is out. Very confined (well built building). Firemen (and women) did a great job. THANK YOU!”

Asked if that assessment was accurate, Nigro said, “It’s a well-built building. The upper floors, the residence floors, are not sprinklered.”

Fire sprinklers were not required in New York City high-rises when Trump Tower was completed in 1983. Subsequent updates to the building code required commercial skyscrapers to install the sprinklers retroactively, but owners of older residential high-rises are not required to install sprinklers unless the building undergoes major renovations.

Some fire-safety advocates pushed for a requirement that older apartment buildings be retrofitted with sprinklers when New York City passed a law requiring them in new residential highrises in 1999, but officials in the administration of then-mayor Rudy Giuliani said that would be too expensive.

Nigro noted that no member of the Trump family was in the 664-foot tower Saturday.

Trump’s family has an apartment on the top floors of the 58-story building, but he has spent little time in New York since taking office. The headquarters of the Trump Organization is on the 26th floor.

Nigro said firefighters and Secret Service members checked on the condition of Trump’s apartment. About 200 firefighters and emergency medical service workers responded to the fire, he said.

Some residents said they didn’t get any notification from building management to evacuate.

Lalitha Masson, a 76-year-old resident, called it “a very, very terrifying experience.”

Masson told The New York Times that she did not receive any announcement about leaving, and that when she called the front desk no one answered.

“When I saw the television, I thought we were finished,” said Masson, who lives on the 36th floor with her husband, Narinder, who is 79 and has Parkinson’s disease.

She said she started praying because she felt it was the end.

“I called my oldest son and said goodbye to him because the way it looked everything was falling out of the window, and it reminded me of 9/11,” Masson said.

Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Trump threatens "Animal Assad," Putin over alleged chemical attack in Syria

WASHINGTON — President Trump responded Sunday to reports of a suspected chemical attack in the Syrian city of Douma, blaming Syrian President Bashar Assad and his international allies for the apparent attack that left dozens dead and hundreds injured. In some of his most critical comments directed at Russian President Vladimir Putin to date, Mr. Trump threatened that there’s a “big price … to pay” for those backing the Assad regime.

Syrian opposition activists and rescuers said Sunday that a poison gas attack on the rebel-held town of Douma near the capital of Damascus killed at least 40 people. The alleged attack has been denied by the Syrian and Russian governments. Russia is Syria’s closest ally and has a major military presence in the country.

Reports of the latest attack which appeared to target civilians and young children could not be independently verified. 

Mr. Trump called out Putin along with the leadership in Iran for backing Assad, who he referred to as “Animal Assad.” Mr. Trump ordered missile strikes on a Syrian airbase in response to another chemical attack in 2017.

First responders said they found families suffocated in their homes and shelters, with foam on their mouths. The opposition-linked Syrian Civil Defense were able to document 42 fatalities but were impeded from searching further by strong odors that gave their rescuers difficulties breathing, said Siraj Mahmoud, a spokesman for the group, which is known as the White Helmets. 

“Open area immediately for medical help and verification. Another humanitarian disaster for no reason whatsoever. SICK!” the president urged. 

Mr. Trump later blamed his predecessor President Barack Obama for not taking action against the Assad regime earlier in the civil war.

It’s unclear what the administration’s next steps are with regard to responding to the attack. In response to a similar chemical attack in April of last year, Mr. Trump ordered a missile strike on a Syrian military target in Shayrat, about 50 miles due south of the village that was hit in a gas attack. 

With regards to a counter response, Homeland Security Adviser Tom Bossert told ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday, “I wouldn’t take anything off the table.”

“The State Department put out a statement last night and the president’s senior national security cabinet has been talking with him and each other all throughout the evening and this morning,” Bossert added.

Meanwhile, Sen. Lindsey Graham told ABC in response to Mr. Trump’s tweets on Sunday that this was a “defining moment” for the president.  

“He has challenged Assad in the past not to use chemical weapons,” said Graham. He added, “if it becomes a tweet without meaning then he’s hurt himself in North Korea, if he doesn’t follow through and live up to that tweet, he’s going to look weak in the eyes of and Russia and Iran.”

Graham urged Mr. Trump to “show a resolve that Obama never did to get this right.”

Feds seize Backpage.com in enforcement action

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Federal law enforcement authorities are in the process of seizing Backpage.com and its affiliated websites.

The websites are being seized as part of an enforcement action by the FBI, U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the Internal Revenue Service, according to a notice that appeared Friday afternoon on Backpage.com.

The notice didn’t characterize or provide any details on the nature of the enforcement action.

Rep. Blake Farenthold, the Texas Republican accused of sexual harassment in a suit that led to an $84,000 taxpayer settlement to a former aide, resigned Friday after insisting for months that he would serve out his current term in Congress.

Farenthold’s decision was announced shortly before it became official, on the final day of the two-week congressional spring break.

“While I planned on serving out the remainder of my term in Congress, I know in my heart it’s time for me to move along and look for new ways to serve,” the Corpus Christi representative wrote.

Once again, President Trump has talked about rapists in Mexico, and left consternation and confusion in his wake.

At a Thursday afternoon event in Sulphur Springs, W.Va., Trump called for tighter control of the nation’s southern border and reminded his audience that when he announced his presidential candidacy in 2015 he had called Mexican immigrants “rapists.”

“Everybody said, ‘Oh, he was so tough,’ and I used the word ‘rape,’” Trump recounted. “And yesterday, it came out where, this journey coming up, women are raped at levels that nobody has ever seen before. They don’t want to mention that.”

The White House said Friday that it would move on with a plan to use 2,000 to 4,000 National Guard troops to patrol the Southwestern border, whether or not California chooses to go along.

“We’re going to continue to work with California and we’re hopeful that they’ll do the right thing,” Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters.

California is the only state among the four along the border that is run by a Democratic governor, Jerry Brown. Sanders said the plan — which has only been outlined loosely — could still take shape with Guard troops from the other three states.

President Trump reached back to some of his most visceral campaign rhetoric against illegal immigration on Thursday as his administration released new figures showing a surge in March in the number of people caught crossing the border unlawfully.

As Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt finds himself consumed by scandal and speculation grows that his days in the Cabinet are numbered, President Trump signaled he plans to keep Pruitt around.

It has been a tough week for Pruitt. The EPA chief is under fire for accepting housing from the wife of a top energy lobbyist at far below market rates, giving immense pay raises to a pair of aides against the instructions of the White House, and flying first class around the country and the world at taxpayer expense. His reported taste for sirens and flashing lights, bulletproof cars and soundproof phone booths has also invited ridicule from critics.

But Trump is giving no signal he is prepared to part ways with Pruitt. As is his custom, the president is blaming the media for Pruitt’s troubles. On Friday morning, he took aim at news reports that Trump was contemplating naming Pruitt as attorney general.

President Trump will skip the White House Correspondents’ Assn.’s annual awards dinner for the second time since taking office, but he apparently will encourage his aides not to follow his lead as they did last year.

“The White House has informed us that the president does not plan to participate in this year’s dinner but that he will actively encourage members of the executive branch to attend and join us as we celebrate the First Amendment,” association president Margaret Talev, a reporter for Bloomberg News, said in a statement.

Talev said Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders would represent the administration at the head table at the April 28 event. The White House did not immediately comment. Presidents occasionally decline their invitations and usually send the vice president in their place but Huckabee’s designation suggests Vice President Mike Pence also will not attend.

The Trump administration on Friday announced new sanctions against seven Russian oligarchs, 12 companies and 17 senior government officials for a variety of acts, including what one official called “attacks to subvert Western democracies.”

“Russian oligarchs and elites who profit from this corrupt system will no longer be insulated from the consequences of their government’s destabilizing activities,” Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin said in a news release. 

Mnuchin criticized the Russian government for engaging in “a range of malign activity around the globe, including continuing to occupy Crimea and instigate violence in eastern Ukraine, supplying the Assad regime with material and weaponry as they bomb their own civilians, attempting to subvert Western democracies, and malicious cyber activities.”

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto forcefully criticized President Trump in a public address Thursday, calling Trump’s recent attacks on Mexico “offensive and unfounded.”

In his strongest rebuke yet of Trump, Peña Nieto said he will not tolerate threats to Mexico’s dignity or sovereignty and said the U.S. president should focus on domestic policy issues instead of lashing out at its southern neighbor. 

Peña Nieto spoke one day after Trump, citing rising crime in Mexico, signed an order to deploy National Guard troops to the southern border. Also this week, Trump has threatened to pull out of the North American Free Trade Agreement if Mexico doesn’t do more to stop immigrants from reaching the United States.

President Trump said Thursday that he did not know his personal lawyer had made a $130,000 payment days before the 2016 presidential election to a pornographic movie actress who had accused Trump of engaging in a consensual affair.

Asked whether he was aware of the payment to Stormy Daniels, Trump offered a one-word response: “No.” He spoke during an Air Force One flight from an event in West Virginia to Washington.

It was not clear from the brief comments when Trump became aware of the payment to Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford. He said reporters would have to ask his attorney, Michael Cohen, why Cohen made the payment.

Canadian police: 14 fatalities after bus crash involving junior hockey league team

NIPAWIN, Saskatchewan (AP) _ Canadian police said early Saturday 14 people were killed and 14 people were injured after a truck collided with a bus carrying a junior hockey team to a playoff game in Western Canada.

Police say there were 28 people, including the driver, on board the bus of the Humboldt Broncos team when the crash occurred around 5 p.m. Friday on Highway 35 in Saskatchewan.

“We can now confirm fourteen people have died as a result of this collision,” The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said in a release early Saturday.

“The other fourteen people were sent to hospitals with a variety of injuries; three of these people have injuries that are critical in nature.”

No names were released, and police would not say whether players or coaches were among the dead. There was no mention of the truck driver.

The team president said parents from across Western Canada were rushing to the scene as they struggled to cope with the tragedy.

“It’s one of the hardest days of my life,” said Kevin Garinger. “There have been multiple fatalities _ our whole community is in shock, we are grieving and we will continue to grieve throughout this ordeal as we try to work toward supporting each other.”

Michelle Straschnitzki, who lives in Airdrie, said her 18-year old son Ryan had been taken to a hospital in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. “We talked to him, but he said he couldn’t feel his lower extremities so I don’t know what’s going on,” she said. “I am freaking out. I am so sad for all of the teammates and I am losing my mind.”

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tweeted his sympathies.

The team was on its way to play in Game 5 of a semi-final against the Nipawin Hawks.

Darren Opp, president of the Hawks, said a semi T-boned the players’ bus.

“It’s a horrible accident, my God,” he said. “It’s very, very bad.”

Opp said the coaching staff and players from the Hawks were waiting to help.

“They are sitting in the church just waiting to hear any good news,” he said. “I’ve got 50 phone calls at least saying `what do you want?’

“There’s uncles and moms and dads waiting to hear whether their sons and nephews are OK.

“It’s terrible. It’s absolutely terrible.”

Pastor Jordan Gadsby at the Apostolic Church in Nipawin said more than a hundred people had gathered at the church _ including parents and grandparents of the players who were on the bus.

“Lots of them are waiting for information,” he said. “Some of the families have gotten information and have gone to be with their kids. Some of them are waiting to hear if their kids are alive.”

Garinger said the Broncos are a close-knit team from the small city of Humboldt, Saskatchewan, which has a population of about 6,000.

Garinger said he still didn’t know the fate of one of the players living in his home.

“We don’t know who has passed and we don’t expect to know right away,” he said. “We know that the coroner and their office needs to do their work and let families know.”

Garinger said all the team can do now is help the players and their families any way they can.

“We just need to try to support each other as we deal with this incredible loss to our community, to our province, to our hockey world.”

Kevin Henry, a coach who runs a hockey school in Prince Albert, said he knows players on the team.

“This is I would think one of the darkest days in the history of Saskatchewan, especially because hockey is so ingrained in how we grow up here,” he said.

STARS air ambulance said it sent three helicopters to the scene.

The Saskatchewan Junior Hockey League is a junior `A’ hockey league under Hockey Canada, which is part of the Canadian Junior Hockey League. It’s open to North American-born players between the ages of 16 and 20.

The Russia Investigations: On The Hunt For Duffel Bags Full Of Cash

Special counsel Robert Mueller (centers) leaves after a closed meeting with members of the Senate Judiciary Committee on June 21, 2017, at the Capitol in Washington, D.C.

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Special counsel Robert Mueller (centers) leaves after a closed meeting with members of the Senate Judiciary Committee on June 21, 2017, at the Capitol in Washington, D.C.

Alex Wong/Getty Images

This week in the Russia investigations: Mueller sends the feds to meet some international arrivees; new sanctions on some powerful, wealthy Russians; and Mr. Zuckerberg goes to Washington.

Fade in:

A gleaming new Gulfstream 650 — or maybe it’s a Sukhoi business jet — sweeps in for a landing at Teterboro Airport, the suburban New Jersey entrepôt for elite fliers on their way to nearby Manhattan.

The sleek aircraft turns smartly off the runway and heads for the “executive passenger terminal,” where a row of black vehicles is parked and waiting as usual. But when the hatch folds down to permit passengers to deplane and make their short drive into New York, someone is standing in the way:

Justice Department special counsel Robert Mueller.

That, at least, was the scene painted in an exclusive report by CNN’s Kara Scannell and Shimon Prokupecz.

Mueller himself might not be standing on the tarmac, but FBI investigators from his office have interdicted at least two wealthy Russians recently on their way into the United States, they report.

The special counsel’s office is apparently trying to establish whether powerful Russians who owe fealty to President Vladimir Putin — the oft-referenced “oligarchs” — may have funneled cash donations to President Trump’s campaign or his inauguration fund.

On Friday, the Treasury Department targeted some of those same oligarchs for a new round of sanctions, along with a number of other Russian government officials and entities — including the state weapons exporter. And here was the description Treasury gave of the conduct of one targeted Russian, gold baron Suleiman Kerimov:

“He is alleged to have brought hundreds of millions of euros into France – transporting as much as 20 million euros at a time in suitcases, in addition to conducting more conventional funds transfers – without reporting the money to French tax authorities.”

More money, more problems

That pattern of conduct, and the nature of the interdictions described by Scannell and Prokupecz, raise questions about how long this smuggling of cash might have gone on. The CNN story suggests investigators want to know whether it might have gone into Trump’s inauguration accounts — or whether it continues to this day.

Either way, their story suggests that one way Russia might have injected money into the American political system for the 2016 election and beyond was not via traceable and accountable electronic transfers, but the old-fashioned delivery of cold, hard cash.

Flying around stacks of cash is a time-honored way to get money into circulation in a distant place with no one in between learning about it — most of the time.

If Russian officials were shipping cash to the United States in 2016 for deposit in American bank accounts, which were then the apparently legitimate points of origination for payments to political campaigns or political action committees, it could have been a powerful and deniable source of influence.

Investigators are believed to be looking into whether foreign cash got into the coffers of American political organizations and if this is how, the implications are huge.

Foreign contributions to U.S. elections are illegal. And people entering the United States must notify Customs and Border Protection if they’re bringing in currency or “monetary instruments” worth more than $10,000 — or it can be seized and those carrying it potentially could face civil or criminal penalties.

So much for all the “Miami Vice” drama — who are these latest Russians? What put the feds onto them? Where did the money they might have transported into the United States wind up? As usual, the news accounts fall short of the complete story and only Mueller and his team know for sure.

Citizen Zuckerberg

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is going through a rough patch. He built one of the world’s most lucrative and powerful tech titans by accumulating and exploiting its users’ personal data — and now is being pilloried for accumulating and exploiting users’ personal data.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg delivers the keynote address at Facebook’s F8 Developer Conference on April 18, 2017, in San Jose, Calif.

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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg delivers the keynote address at Facebook’s F8 Developer Conference on April 18, 2017, in San Jose, Calif.

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Facebook (and Big Tech more broadly) used to be “the hot girl,” as business guru Scott Galloway called them. They were too appealing and too intimidating for public officials to treat seriously because of how much they wanted to be in their good graces.

Now, however, months of “techlash” have meant that members of Congress are pushing each other out of the way to be the first to take Zuckerberg down a peg, first in a Senate hearing on Tuesday afternoon and then on Wednesday morning in the House.

So Zuckerberg and Facebook have been working overtime to dump as much news overboard before he goes under the klieg lights. He told reporters in a news conference, for example, that more users’ data than previously realized had probably been swept up by Cambridge Analytica, the political shop associated with the Trump campaign.

And Zuckerberg also discussed a separate “dark web” scam in which hackers used Facebook’s search to compile profiles of users based on data they’d already gotten elsewhere.

Do Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Ranking Member Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., have any more cards to play? Or having gone ugly early — as public relations pros like to say — will Zuckerberg be in a position to simply play rope-a-dope and respond to his inquisitors with something like “We’ve discussed this already and we know we must do better, senator.”

It’s worth remaining skeptical about some of the hype involving whether this episode could cost Zuckerberg his job — he retains a great deal of control over Facebook.

All the same, listeners will have their ears peeled for some kind of new details that bear on the Russia imbroglio.

The Cambridge Analytica data-vacuuming narrative has embarrassed Facebook but so far there has been no clear connection between it and Facebook’s use by Russian influence-mongers in Moscow’s attack on the 2016 election. That was the subject of its own three-hearing mega-marathon last year.

Maybe there is no connection between the active measures and the current concerns about data and privacy on Facebook. It’s been speculated about but not verified. Facebook says it’s leaning forward in banning accounts used by the Internet Research Agencythe troll shop indicted by Mueller and sanctioned by the United States — as part of what it calls its work dedicated to preventing a repeat of the Russian 2016 active measures campaign.

But Zuckerberg is going to be answering questions in public for hours and hours on Tuesday and Wednesday, so until it happens there’s no way to know what he or the committee members might say.

Mueller has evidence that Trump supporter’s meeting with Putin ally may not have been a chance encounter: Sources

Special Counsel Robert Mueller has obtained evidence that calls into question Congressional testimony given by Trump supporter and Blackwater founder Erik Prince last year, when he described a meeting in Seychelles with a Russian financier close to Vladimir Putin as a casual chance encounter “over a beer,” sources tell ABC News.

Well-connected Lebanese-American businessman George Nader, a key witness given limited immunity by Mueller, has been interviewed seven times by prosecutors on a wide range of subjects. He told investigators that he set up a meeting in the Seychelles between Prince and Russian sovereign wealth fund CEO Kirill Dmitriev, mere days before Trump was inaugurated, sources familiar with the investigation said this week.

Nader has submitted to three interviews with special counsel investigators and four appearances before a federal grand jury in Washington since agents stopped him at Dulles International Airport in January, served him with a grand jury subpoena and seized his electronic devices, including his cell phone. Documents obtained by Mueller suggest that before and after Prince met Nader in New York a week before the trip to the Seychelles, Nader shared information with Prince about Dmitriev, sources familiar with the investigation told ABC News, which appears to be inconsistent with Prince’s sworn testimony before a U.S. House of Representatives investigative panel.

“I didn’t fly there to meet any Russian guy,” Prince told the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in November. He testified that he travelled to the Seychelles for a meeting with United Arab Emirates officials about possible business opportunities, and they introduced him – unexpectedly – to Dmitriev.

The special counsel’s office declined to comment on this story when reached by ABC News.

As of late March, Mueller’s team has not asked Prince – whose sister Betsy DeVos serves as Trump’s Secretary of Education – to appear before the grand jury being used to investigate whether Trump campaign officials or transition aides colluded with Russian government operatives, according to one of Prince’s friends.

Jason Alden/Bloomberg via Getty Images, FILE
Kirill Dmitriev, chief executive officer of Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), attends the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, Jan. 19, 2017.

Prince told the House Intelligence Committee that his meeting with Dmitriev was a chance encounter “down in the bar” at the suggestion of “one of the brothers” of the United Arab Emirates’ leader Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Zayed al-Nayhan.

“At the end, one of the entourage says, ‘Hey, by the way, there’s this Russian guy that we’ve dealt with in the past. He’s here also to see someone from the Emirati delegation. And you should meet him. He’d be an interesting guy for you to know, since you’re doing a lot in the oil and gas and mineral space,’” Prince told lawmakers under oath in his sworn testimony. “So, as I recall, I met him, this same guy I talked about, Kirill Dmitriev. Met him down in the bar after dinner, and we talked for 30 minutes over a beer, and that was it.”

Sources say Nader — who worked at the time for the Emirati leader, known as “MBZ” – tells a different story. According to multiple sources, the U.A.E., an important U.S. ally increasingly eager to be seen as a global powerbroker, wanted to bring a Russian close to the Kremlin together with someone Nader believed was a trusted confidant of members of the incoming administration.

Sources tell ABC News Nader met with Prince at New York’s Pierre Hotel a week before the Jan. 11, 2017 meeting in the Seychelles, and later sent Prince biographical information about Dmitriev, which, according to those sources, noted that Dmitriev had been appointed by Putin to oversee the state-run sovereign wealth fund.

Nader says he then facilitated and personally attended the meetings, including one between Prince and Dmitriev, at a resort owned by MBZ off the coast of East Africa, the sources told ABC News. One of the primary goals of the meeting, Nader told investigators, was to discuss foreign policy and to establish a line of communication between the Russian government and the incoming Trump administration, sources told ABC News.

Nader — who Prince said in a 2010 lawsuit deposition had once represented his military contractor business in Iraq — was not mentioned in Prince’s congressional testimony despite Prince being asked by lawmakers who was present. Prince said only that Dmitriev’s wife was there but she left after a few minutes while they discussed terrorism and oil prices.

A spokesperson for Prince told ABC News on Thursday that “Erik has said all there is to say to the committee and has nothing further to add.” Prince has said that the Seychelles meeting was leaked to the news media last year in an illegal “unmasking” of his identity in U.S. signals intelligence intercepts.

Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images, FILE
Erik Prince, former Navy Seal and founder of private military contractor Blackwater USA, arrives to testify during a closed-door House Select Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., Nov. 30, 2017.

Nader, a naturalized U.S. citizen, is an enigma in the nearly yearlong probe of the Trump presidential campaign‘s dealings with Russians linked to the Kremlin.

His background and credibility have come under attack as his name appeared in recent headlines. He has been arrested twice in the U.S., first in 1984 and again 1991, and convicted once, according to court records unsealed in March, for possession of pornographic videos featuring underage boys. He also reportedly served prison time in the Czech Republic in 2003 for similar crimes.

Nader’s lawyers at powerhouse firm Latham Watkins, which includes former Obama White House Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler, have said unnamed individuals are dredging up the old criminal cases to discredit him as an important witness for Mueller. They declined to comment to ABC News on Nader’s interactions with the special counsel and Nader himself has refused to speak about the Russia probe.

Few in Washington remember George Nader, whose colorful biography reads like a spy thriller: his career has spanned the globe, and along the way he has been a hostage negotiator, arms broker, security operative and, now, an important witness for the former director of the FBI.

He’s even negotiated with the Kremlin. According to Al-Monitor, a news website covering the Middle East, Nader helped broker a $4.2 billion arms deal between Iraq and Russia in 2012.

Nader’s associates say he has embarked on countless sensitive diplomatic missions overseas and was once a special adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney. He had easy access to the White House under Presidents Reagan, both Bushes and Clinton, according to former officials, and he visited the Trump White House last year despite his criminal record.

Nader posed with Trump for a picture and even helped arrange the new American president’s first major foreign trip to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia last year, two top Trump advisers told ABC News.

“He has worked for the Israelis, the Syrians, the Iranians, the Saudis, the Emiratis, the Shiites in southern Iraq,” said Mouafac Harb, a Lebanese former journalist who has known Nader for decades. “He’s typical of the kind of shady operatives you often see in the Middle East.”

Ron Sachs/AP Images, FILE
George Nader speaks at a Middle East Insight event in Washington, D.C. on March 18, 1999.

His 1991 federal conviction in Alexandria, Virginia, for being caught returning from Germany with videotapes in his luggage “depicting minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct” highlights the conflicting chapters in his life.

Prominent foreign policy figures sent testimonials to the federal trial court judge in Virginia, including one friend who said Nader, a Lebanese Christian, “is risking his life” to help free a dozen American, British and other hostages held in Beirut in 1991, by leveraging his close ties to the Shi’a terrorist group Hezbollah. The letters to the judge were provided to ABC News last week by Nader’s legal team.

The judge in 1991 sentenced Nader to six months in a halfway house — well below mandatory sentencing guidelines at that time — and allowed him to travel to both Moscow and Beirut during his criminal proceedings, later citing Nader’s “extraordinary cooperation with the government in certain areas.”

The 1991 criminal case was ordered sealed for six months. Instead, it remained under seal for 26 years, until a judge opened the case file last month amid news reports about Nader cooperating with Mueller. Sources told ABC News the U.S. government did not want Nader’s secrets easily unearthed while he operated as a backchannel on sensitive matters.

“We used him because we needed all the channels we could get into the Syrian security establishment,” said a former top career American diplomat in Damascus, who was aware of Nader’s activities in the years following his 1991 conviction. “Nobody was looking for his child porn case. Nobody cared about that stuff at all back then. He was providing too invaluable a service to us.”

Nader, according to one former diplomat, has a rare and valuable skill.

“His stock in trade is access and influence,” the former diplomat said. “He finds a way to be valuable to people.”

But Nader had dropped off the radar of many former associates two decades ago, including those who worked in Washington for his “Middle East Insight” magazine, which held many foreign policy discussions hosted by Nader and televised on C-Span until it folded around the time of his criminal conviction.

“Until his name appeared recently, I had no idea that Mr. Nader was even alive,” said one former writer at the magazine, who, like most of Nader’s associates, declined to be identified by name.