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With Zuckerberg in the hot seat, here’s what Congress should ask Facebook’s CEO

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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is slated to be grilled by Congress this week.

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  • Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg will testify about the Cambridge Analytica data leak before congressional committees beginning on Tuesday.
  • His appearance comes amid growing calls for new regulations to protect consumer privacy and limit the power and influence of Facebook and other tech giants.
  • The hearings offer an opportunity for policymakers to get a sense of Facebook’s privacy problems — and what can and should be done about them.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s congressional appearances this week at hearings delving into the Cambridge Analytica scandal mark a crucial moment for the company, its users, and the broader public — and it’s important that members of Congress use it wisely.

It’s become increasingly clear that new regulations are essential to constrain the power of Facebook and the other giant tech firms and to prevent the societal damage that abuse of their services can cause. In particular, the Cambridge Analytica debacle has highlighted the lack of, and need for, basic online and data privacy protections in the US.

But in order for policymakers to come up with new laws and rules, they need to better understand the scope of the problem. And to gain the momentum they need to push such rules through, they need to start making the case for them.

In both cases, Zuckerberg’s appearance can help.

Here are some of the things members of Congress should ask him about as they’re trying to understand Facebook’s privacy problems and building the case for new privacy legislation:

How many other Cambridge Analyticas are out there? Cambridge Analytica was able to get access to data on millions of Facebook users via an app designed by a university researcher. But that app was just one of thousands — perhaps even millions — that had access to users’ data. It’s clear from the app that leaked data to Cambridge Analytica that Facebook didn’t keep close tabs on what developers did with that data once they gleaned it from the social network.

As one example, Facebook over the weekend suspended data analytics firm CubeYou for allegedly the same thing that happened in the Cambridge Analytica scandal — illegitimately passing along data gleaned from a Facebook app to a third party without the permission of users. But it only took that action after being notified about CubeYou by CNBC.

In a statement on his personal Facebook page, Zuckerberg said the company is now going back and investigating apps that had access to “large amounts” of user data and plans to do an audit of any app connected to “suspicious activity.” Members of Congress should press Zuckerberg on what the company has found so far. If he demurs by saying that the investigation is only in its early stages, legislators should give him a deadline for disclosing what Facebook has found — the sooner the better.

But they should also try to get a better sense of the potential scope of the problem with Facebook apps. They ask Zuckerberg how many apps were created before 2014, when its rules changed; what kind of data they had access to; and how many users could potentially have had their data misused by them.

How much data has been exfiltrated from Facebook? The Cambridge Analytica data leak affected up to 87 million Facebook users. But Zuckerberg last week revealed an even bigger data leak, at least in terms of numbers of people affected — malicious actors were able to use a search tool to download the public profile information of more than half of all Facebook users.

Congress should press Zuckerberg on how many people are affected by these and other potential data leaks. They also should get him to disclose what kinds of information was leaked about users.

How could the data extracted from Facebook — whether by legitimate developers or malicious actors — be used? Facebook users almost certainly had no idea that the information gleaned about them and their friends through a personality quiz app could be used to try to influence an election, as was reportedly the case in the Cambridge Analytica scandal. But Facebook and Zuckerberg almost certainly have an excellent idea of the value of the information the company has collected on its users — and how that data could be used, at least in concept.

Chris Wylie, the former Cambridge Analytica contractor who revealed that the firm had illegitimately gained access to Facebook data.

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The company has spent more than a decade collecting information on its users. It’s also conducted experiments on its users to see how it can use what it knows about them to influence their thoughts or behaviors. It’s spent years honing tools that allow its clients to finely target advertising messages to users. It’s also been investigating how its services were abused by Russian-linked actors to spread propaganda during the 2016 US presidential election.

Members of Congress should press Zuckerberg on how the data collected about its users is already being used to target and influence them. And it should get him to talk about how that data could potentially be used in malicious ways.

How will US Facebook users be affected by Europe’s new privacy regulations? The European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) takes effect in May. Many privacy advocates look at the GDPR as a model for the kind of baseline privacy law the US sorely needs. The new law requires companies to protect consumer data and to get explicit and specific permission for all kinds of data-collection activities.

Facebook has said it will apply the rules globally, but said there will be some variation in how it adopts them in each country. Lawmakers should press Zuckerberg on what that means for US customers. They should get him to list the parts of GDPR Facebook won’t honor for the US and explain why it won’t.

What is Zuckerberg’s privacy red line? Zuckerberg and Facebook’s mantra is that the company is on a mission to connect the world. But the company’s mission really has been to collect as much data as possible on users — and encourage them to share ever more information with their friends and, in turn, the company. The company monitors users’ locations, keeps track of who they call or text, and monitors the content of their messages.

It would be interesting — and potentially eye-opening — to know if Zuckerberg thinks there is a bright line beyond which the company shouldn’t go in its quest to profile users. Legislators should press him on whether there’s any data that Facebook has declared off-limits, that it’s barred its systems from collecting, or, on its own, has deleted from its systems. And they should ask why it has or hasn’t set those limits.

Is there any way for Facebook as it exists today to be privacy friendly? Facebook’s value to advertisers is that it allows them to aim their messages at users with a great deal of precision and accuracy. Marketers can target based on all kinds of information — users’ location, interests, political beliefs and more. The more data Facebook collects, the more finely marketers can target their messages — and the more valuable its service.

Facebook and Zuckerberg have said this micro-targeting is part of the bargain they offer consumers; it allows the company to offer its service for free. They also portray it as a benefit to consumers; users see ads that are tailored just for them, rather ones that are meaningless to them. But it’s not at all clear that consumers understand exactly what kinds of information Facebook has about them, what can be done with it — or who would have consented to that data-collection if they did.

The company has a new privacy page that’s supposed to give users a better idea of the data it’s collecting and what it’s doing with it. But lawmakers should ask Zuckerberg for his definition of informed consent. They should also press him on what he thinks a privacy-friendly Facebook would look like — and how adherence to international privacy norms might affect its business model.

Trump attorney Cohen is being investigated for possible bank fraud, campaign finance violations

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Michael Cohen, the longtime attorney of President Trump, is under federal investigation for possible bank fraud, wire fraud and campaign finance violations, according to three people with knowledge of the case.

FBI agents on Monday raided Cohen’s Manhattan office, home and hotel room as part of the investigation, seizing records about Cohen’s clients and personal finances. Among the records taken were those related to a 2016 payment Cohen made to adult-film star Stormy Daniels, who claims to have had a sexual encounter with Trump, according to a fourth person familiar with the investigation.

Investigators took Cohen’s computer, phone and personal financial records, including tax returns, as part of the search of his office at Rockefeller Center, that person said.

In a dramatic and broad seizure, federal prosecutors collected communications between Cohen and his clients — including those between the lawyer and Trump, according to both people.

The raids — part of an investigation referred by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III to federal prosecutors in New York — point to escalating legal jeopardy for a longtime Trump confidant who is deeply intertwined in the president’s business and personal matters.

Stephen Ryan, an attorney for Cohen, called the tactics “inappropriate and unnecessary,” saying Cohen has “cooperated completely with all government entities, including providing thousands of non-privileged documents to the Congress and sitting for depositions under oath.”

Among the records seized by investigators were “protected attorney client communications,” Ryan said.

The aggressive tactics by prosecutors drew the president’s ire. As Trump sat down for dinner Monday with military leaders at the White House, he repeatedly called the raid “a disgrace,” railing that he and his administration are the subject of unfair, baseless and misguided investigations.

“I have this witch hunt constantly going on for over 12 months now or longer,” he said. “It’s an attack on our country in a true sense; it’s an attack on what we all stand for.”

Revisiting his grievances about Mueller and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Trump complained about what he suggested was a concerted and sometimes partisan effort to target his leadership. He noted that he has been urged to fire the special counsel, calling Mueller’s investigators “the most biased group of people.”

Dawn Dearden, spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York, declined to comment. Peter Carr, a spokesman for the special counsel’s office, declined to comment.

One person familiar with the probe said investigators have been gathering material on Cohen for weeks, including his bank records.

Two of the potential crimes being investigated — bank fraud and wire fraud — suggest prosecutors have some reason to think Cohen may have misled bankers about why he was using particular funds or may have improperly used banks in the transfer of funds.

Cohen has acknowledged facilitating a $130,000 payment in October 2016 to Daniels, who claims she had a sexual relationship with Trump in 2006.

Trump made his first comments about the payment last week, saying he did not know about the transaction.

Cohen has said he used a home-equity line of credit to finance the payment to Daniels and said that neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign reimbursed him for the payment.

Banks don’t usually require much explanation from customers about how they use such credit lines. However, Cohen may have been asked to provide explanation for the large-dollar transfers he made when he moved the money to a shell company and then to a lawyer for Daniels.

The search requests for records related to the payment to Daniels cited investigators’ interest in possible violations of election law, according to one person familiar with the investigators’ work.

[Special counsel has examined episodes involving Cohen]

The seizure of Cohen’s records was first reported by the New York Times.

The Cohen raids required high-level authorization within the Justice Department. Under regulations governing the special counsel’s work, Mueller is required to consult with Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein if his team finds information worth investigating that does not fall under his mandate to examine Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.

Rosenstein, as the acting attorney general supervising Mueller’s work, has the responsibility of deciding whether to expand Mueller’s mandate to include the new topic or to refer it to a U.S. attorney’s office.

Since Cohen is a practicing attorney whose communications with clients are considered privileged, federal prosecutors would have been required to first consider a less intrusive investigative tactic than a search warrant before executing the raids.

“A search warrant for a law office is extremely rare,” said Stephen Gillers, a professor at the New York University School of Law. “Lawyers are given the courtesy of producing documents in response to a subpoena or a request unless the government believes a lawyer will destroy or conceal the objects of the search.”

To serve a search warrant on a practicing attorney, federal prosecutors are required to obtain approval from top Justice Department officials. That means the acting U.S. attorney in Manhattan, Geoffrey S. Berman, who was appointed to his role by Sessions in January, as well as Justice Department officials in Washington, probably signed off.

Known for his combative style and fierce loyalty to Trump, Cohen served for a decade as a top lawyer at the Trump Organization, tangling with reporters and Trump’s business competitors on behalf of the celebrity real estate mogul.

He never formally joined Trump’s campaign but was in close contact with his longtime boss from his Trump Tower office throughout the 2016 race and presidential transition.

Cohen left the Trump Organization in January 2017, around the time of Trump’s inauguration, and since then has served as a personal attorney to the president.

Squire Patton Boggs, the law firm where Cohen had an office for the past year, said in a statement Monday that its “arrangement with Mr. Cohen reached its conclusion, mutually and in accordance with the terms of the agreement.”

“We have been in contact with federal authorities regarding their execution of a warrant relating to Mr. Cohen,” the firm said. “These activities do not relate to the firm and we are in full cooperation.”

To pursue criminal charges against Cohen for breaking federal election law, prosecutors would have to prove that he made the payment to Daniels to influence the election, rather than for personal reasons — to protect Trump’s reputation, for example, or his marriage.

Cohen has acknowledged that he facilitated the payment to Daniels, but he has not said why.

On Oct. 17, Cohen established Essential Consultants LLC as a vehicle for the $130,000 payment, records show. Ten days later, on Oct. 27, the bank Cohen used in New York transferred the money to Daniels via a California bank account belonging to her lawyer, Keith Davidson.

Eleven months later, in September 2017, that California bank — City National Bank in Beverly Hills — asked Davidson about the source of the payment, according to an email reviewed by The Washington Post. Bank officials declined to comment on whether the inquiry was triggered by a request or subpoena from law enforcement.

At some point, Cohen’s New York bank, First Republic, flagged the transaction to the Treasury Department as a suspicious payment, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Cohen used his Trump Organization email in negotiating the agreement with Davidson and in communicating with his bank about the funds.

In February, after a watchdog group filed a complaint about the payment with the Federal Election Commission, Cohen released a statement saying he “used my own personal funds to facilitate” the payment. He rejected the idea that the payment should have counted as a campaign contribution.

“The payment to Ms. Clifford was lawful, and was not a campaign contribution or a campaign expenditure by anyone,” he said, referring to Daniels’s real name, Stephanie Clifford.

While the timing of the payment — 12 days before the presidential election — might suggest an attempt to influence the outcome, timing is not enough to prove intent, said Rick Hasen, a professor specializing in election law at the University of California at Irvine.

“It would be very difficult to bring one of these cases without some good documentary evidence,” he said. “I think a lot of people are underestimating the hurdles that it takes to bring a criminal prosecution.”

[Trump says he didn’t know his attorney paid $130,000 to Stormy Daniels]

Cohen’s work for Trump has been a topic of particular interest in recent months to Mueller’s investigators. Although there has been no sign that he is a subject or target of Mueller’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election, people familiar with the investigation have said that Cohen has come up repeatedly in interviews and document requests.

Cohen played a central role in two Russia-related episodes Mueller has been investigating, including negotiations to build a Trump tower in Moscow that the Trump Organization undertook after Trump announced his candidacy for president. Cohen also was fleetingly involved with an effort to call attention to a Russia-friendly proposal for peace in Ukraine shortly before Trump took office.

Mark Berman, Emma Brown, Josh Dawsey, Anne Gearan, Rosalind S. Helderman, Beth Reinhard, Philip Rucker, Matt Zapotosky and Spencer S. Hsu contributed to this report.

Apple iPhone 8 (PRODUCT)RED Official: 1st Photos, Prices And All You Need To Know

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iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus (PRODUCT)RED with black frame.

Yesterday, a leak suggested that Apple was on the brink of announcing a (PRODUCT)RED finish for the latest generation of iPhones. Now, the leak has been confirmed in Apple’s announcement.

It’s just over a year since the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus (PRODUCT)RED special edition smartphones were revealed, reviewed here on Forbes. Those were the first (PRODUCT)RED phones from Apple. And now, the next contributors to the Global Fund which supports HIV/AIDS programs have been officially unveiled and, as predicted, they are (PRODUCT)RED versions of the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus.

Apple iPhone 8 Plus in (PRODUCT)RED finish. Note the black frame around the display.

What does it look like?

A whole new iPhone design arrived last September with the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus, which has meant the (PRODUCT)RED edition has required a new design approach, too, specifically because the latest iPhones have glass, not aluminum, backs.

As a result, the new iPhone has a strikingly different look. The aluminum edge band looks similar to the iPhone 7, but that’s where the similarity ends. This time around, there’s no antenna band visible at the phone’s corners as that runs under the glass on the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus. Anodized aluminum is matte, but glass, of course, is not, making for a bright, eye-catching finish.

Apple iPhone 8 Plus in (PRODUCT)RED finish.

Last year’s iPhone (PRODUCT)RED handsets looked significantly classier in the flesh than they did in photos and it may be the same this time. It’s clear that the glass back has a rich, sultry shade and the absence of the antenna band around the top and bottom (seen in the iPhone 7 images from last year further down the page) is a definite improvement, too. I’ll reserve final judgement until I see the real thing, and will report back then, but these images are certainly a promising start.

Apple iPhone 8 and Apple iPhone 8 Plus in (PRODUCT)RED finish.

What about the Touch ID button?

Good question. Last year, Apple decided that though the edge and rear of the iPhone 7 (PRODUCT)RED would be decidedly, well, red, the ring around the Touch ID button wouldn’t. It was the same silver color as on the silver iPhone 7. Similarly, the Apple logo on the rear of the phone, which is made of stainless steel rather than aluminum, was uncolored, unlike on the regular iPhone 7 models where the logo was color-matched to the aluminum around it.

This year, Apple has taken a whole new approach and, specifically, responded to those critics last year who said the (PRODUCT)RED phone would look better with a black instead of a white frame around the display. The frame is now black and the TouchID button is black to match.

Last year: Apple iPhone 7 Plus (PRODUCT)RED with bright logo

Last year, the logo really jumped out at you because it was a contrasting shade. And Apple has gone down the same route this year, too, so that logo is still an attention-grabber.

What, no iPhone X (PRODUCT)RED?

No, that’s right. The reason for this hasn’t been addressed by Apple but it may be because the stainless steel band that edges the iPhone X isn’t as conducive to tinting red as the aluminum on the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus. Note that the colors of the iPhone X are already subtly different from the 8 and 8 Plus, with the silver iPhone 8 noticeably paler than the silver iPhone X.

Or maybe it’s because the rumors of an upcoming iPhone X in gold are correct and that Apple will announce such a new color in due course. If so, I’d guess that won’t be for a while.

Last year’s models: Apple iPhone 7 Plus (PRODUCT)RED next to the jet black version

Will it save lives?

When I spoke to Apple CEO Tim Cook for World AIDS DAY, December 1 2016, he said: ‘Ten years ago there were 1,200 babies being born a day with HIV, and that’s now dropped to 400. So there’s been a lot of progress but we still have work to do to get to an AIDS-free generation by 2020, though we are on target, it’s within our sights.’

Today, Apple said, ‘Since partnering with (RED) in 2006, Apple has donated more than $160 million to the Global Fund, serving as the organization’s largest corporate donor.’

Deborah Dugan, CEO of (RED), added, ‘The more than $160 million Apple has donated in the last 11 years today equates to more than 800 million days of lifesaving ARV medication that prevents the transmission of HIV from mothers to their babies.’

Although Apple doesn’t specify how much from each sale goes to the charity, it says that, ‘All (PRODUCT)RED Purchases Help Provide Testing, Counselling and Treatment for Tens of Millions of People Living with HIV/AIDS’. And when I spoke to Cook previously, $130 million had been donated by Apple, meaning that another $30 million has been raised in the last 18 months or so.

When does it go on sale?

Pre-orders online start at 5.30AM PDT on Tuesday, April 10 and the (PRODUCT)RED iPhones are instore from Friday, April 13.

This year’s iPhone 8 in silver, next to last year’s iPhone 7 (PRODUCT)RED.

Is there a price premium for (PRODUCT)RED?

That’s one of the coolest things about Apple’s collaboration, the price of the (PRODUCT)RED versions are identical to the regular colors. In other words, for customers it’s a cost-free way of doing good. The iPhone 8 and 8 Plus are available in two storage capacities, 64GB and 256GB, and the (PRODUCT)RED edition iPhone 8 costs $699 and $849 (£699 or £849 in the UK) for the 64GB and 256GB models respectively and (PRODUCT)RED iPhone 8 Plus is priced at $799 (£799 in the UK) for 64GB capacity and $949 (£949 in the UK) for the 256GB capacity.

It’s worth noting that last year’s (PRODUCT)RED special editions were only available in the higher-capacity iPhone 7 and 7 Plus. So although it didn’t cost more than the other colored versions, you did have to make a bigger financial commitment. The fact that Apple has made (PRODUCT)RED available in both sizes of iPhone storage is a big step forward in terms of the potential figures that can be raised for charity.

But I’ve got an iPhone X. What can I do?

New (PRODUCT)RED Folio case on the iPhone X.

Well, you can still make a difference. From tomorrow, April 10, you can pick up a (PRODUCT)RED leather folio for the iPhone X for $99 (£99 in the UK). Silicone cases for iPhone X, iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus are also newly available, together with cases for earlier iPhones and a Smart Battery case for iPhone 7. And every phone from the iPhone SE onwards now has a leather case in (PRODUCT)RED shade available now, including for the iPhone X, iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus.

There are also straps and buckles for Apple Watch in (PRODUCT)RED finish. All but the new iPhone X folio are available now.

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Two Trump speeches, two dozen dubious claims

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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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Fox News Is President Trump’s Favorite TV Channel

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LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

Fox News is President Trump’s favorite channel. He reportedly tapes episodes of “Judge Jeanine” that he may have missed.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, “JUDGE JEANINE”)

JEANINE PIRRO: The difference between President Trump and other presidents is his transparency. No political correctness. What you see is what you get – successful negotiator.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: He promotes segments of Sean Hannity’s show on Twitter.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, “HANNITY”)

SEAN HANNITY: All right. Tonight, President Trump is on a complete tear by continuing to keep his promises and enact the agenda that you, the American people, voted for.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: And reports he watches on “Fox Friends” actually influence policy.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, “FOX FRIENDS”)

PETE HEGSETH: We talked about this group of migrants, 1,200 marching to America…

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Just last week, after a segment on a caravan of Central American migrants, President Trump called his defense secretary to the White House. And he’s now deployed National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border. Fox News may be the most important news organization in America right now simply because it has a devoted audience inside the Oval Office of one. David Folkenflik is our media correspondent and our resident Fox expert. He told me what the president sees when he turns on the network.

DAVID FOLKENFLIK, BYLINE: Well, I think the first part of it is an almost continual bath of affirmation, particularly on the opinion side, which is really the dominant parts of the day that he cites and the dominant part of the day that people tend to watch.

Within that affirmation, you’re hearing a lot of concerns being raised, a lot of policies being suggested, a lot of personnel being touted, many of them from the payroll of Fox itself at times, ways in which people are trying to appeal to try to bend the administration this way or that by simply appealing to the guy in the Oval Office himself.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: And that’s because they feel like that’s the best way to get through to him?

FOLKENFLIK: They’re not wrong. They know this because of Trump’s Twitter feed. He talks about it all the time. There have been incredible analyses done, particularly a guy over at Media Matters. It’s definitely a, you know, liberal left outfit designed to bird-dogging conservatives in media and particularly Fox News.

But let’s be clear. They really itemize and have shown a stimulus response when issues and even catchphrases are used on “Fox Friends.” The number of minutes that elapse before they surface in the president’s Twitter feed is often in the single or double digits at most.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: So has Trump changed Fox News? Was it always this way?

FOLKENFLIK: Look. Fox was, from the very beginning, designed to appeal to an audience of conservatives and other folks who felt that the media was, in a sense, dominated by coastal elites and cosmopolitan thinking that left them behind. I think that’s gotten pure over the years. It’s become more ideologically conservative. And it’s become more partisanly Republican.

And under Rupert Murdoch, who really has a disdain for Trump as a leader and as a thinker but had decided to put sort of all his chips on Trump in early 2016, has it gotten incredible access to the White House. Subsequently, Fox has really gone very hard in that direction.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: But they have had a lot of impact, for example, in the Scott Pruitt issue. There’s been a drumbeat for him to resign. And Fox has sort of played a role in that.

FOLKENFLIK: Sure. I think Ed Henry, a senior correspondent over there, performed a valuable service. Pruitt’s, you know, sat for an interview with Henry. And Henry asked him some tough good questions about at least some of the major, major questionable judgments that Pruitt seems to have made during his relatively brief tenure at the head of the Environmental Protection Agency.

It’s worth noting that this doesn’t cut entirely against Republican or Trump administration interests in that the Trump administration right now seems to be divided. We’ve had leaks in recent days of the chief of staff’s interest, John Kelly, in getting Pruitt out of there, out of the cabinet because there’s just one or two or three scandals too many.

But, you know, let’s credit Henry, who among some other senior journalists there are capable of doing good work. And he did so in this instance.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: And we’ve also seen this kind of rotating cast of figures, people that were in the White House and end up in Fox News or people who were on Fox News and end up in the White House. It also seems to be sort of cyclical staffing thing that’s happening.

FOLKENFLIK: It seems as though there’s a Lazy Susan that you’re kind of turning around. And at one point, people show up at la Fox News. Another point, they show up in the White House. And then, they come back. John Bolton, the new national security adviser, was a longtime Fox paid analyst.

This happened in previous administrations. You’d see Karl Rove left the George W. Bush White House. He became an analyst there. But now, you’re seeing this way in which the president is – he talks about his kitchen cabinet, but so much of that seems drawn from Fox’s airwaves, people like Sean Hannity, people like the hosts of “Fox Friends,” Kimberly Guilfoyle for a while, Jeanine Pirro, who has a weekend show, you know.

You could almost run out of fingers on your hands very quickly to think of the number of people that Trump turns to for advice directly. The president believes in Fox News, not only as a source of information and news and developments but, essentially, in thinking in what his mind is strategically about the world and about the nation.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: That’s NPR’s media correspondent David Folkenflik. Thank you so much.

FOLKENFLIK: You bet.

Copyright © 2018 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

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

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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

John Bolton back on the job, as President Trump weighs Syria options

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Last April, the Trump administration launched strikes on a Syrian-government airfield in retaliation for a brutal chemical attack on the town of Khan Sheikhoun.

Standing alongside Jordan’s King Abdullah II last year, Trump said that the chemical attack on Khan Sheikhoun crossed “a lot of lines for me.”

“When you kill innocent children, innocent babies, little babies with a chemical gas that is so lethal that people were shocked to hear what gas it was, that crosses many lines beyond the red line. Many, many lines,” he said.

Late Sunday, reports emerged of airstrikes at an airport in the Syrian city of Homs, leading many to believe that Trump had once again called for retaliation. However, the Pentagon was quick to dismiss the reports, saying the airstrikes were not conducted by the U.S. The Russian defense ministry said Monday that two Israeli F-15 jets were behind the strikes.

Where carefully crafted policies ideally precede public messaging, advisers now often scramble to reshape policy to catch up with the president’s tweets and public declarations.

Trump’s tendency to tweet his mind has blindsided advisers and, in some cases, complicated or even upended administration policy.

Bolton’s predecessor, Gen. H.R. McMaster, told participants at an international security conference in Germany in February that “the evidence is now incontrovertible” that Russia interfered in the U.S. presidential election.

Trump quickly — and publicly — called McMaster out for what he viewed as an incomplete message.

“General McMaster forgot to say that the results of the 2016 election were not impacted or changed by the Russians and that the only Collusion was between Russia and Crooked H, the DNC and the Dems,” Trump tweeted. “Remember the Dirty Dossier, Uranium, Speeches, Emails and the Podesta Company!”

Bolton, who is also skeptical of Moscow, takes on the delicate balancing act of responding forcefully to Russian aggression around the world, while appeasing the president’s stated interest in warmer ties with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin or his efforts to defend the outcome of the U.S. presidential election.

But his most pressing task, as he met with other White House National Security Council principals after just hours on the job: helping to hammer out Syrian response options for a president who, just days ago, publicly pined for a speedy exit.

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

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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.

[Fla. Gov. Rick Scott expected in Washington to raise money for widely anticipated Senate run]

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

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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.