The fighting began at 7:15 p.m. ET Sunday, and it wasn’t until just before 3 a.m. Monday that the facility was fully secured, the South Carolina Department of Corrections tweeted.
Bryan Stirling, director of the Department of Corrections, told reporters that after the first fight broke out in one dorm, a second and third started about an hour and a half later in two other dorms. Emergency officials were left scrambling to get proper backup from the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, a statewide law enforcement agency.
Forty-four officers were on duty at a facility that houses about 1,500 inmates, Stirling said.
While it might normally take one to two hours to safely clear a dorm, which houses about 250 inmates, this was an unusual case because of the series of fights in three separate dorms, corrections officials said.
“We will gather a force that is safe, and we will go in and take that dorm back with force,” Stirling said. “We are not going to put our officers and other staff in harm’s way.”
Inmates did not resist when the various dorms were taken back and brought under control, according to authorities.
Stirling couldn’t confirm an Associated Press report from an inmate who said he witnessed the violence and saw bodies “literally stacked on top of each other.” Stirling said bodies were left along fences, but were placed there by other inmates, not officers.
Several emergency crews across the region were called to the “mass casualty” situation, Lee County Fire and Rescue tweeted earlier Monday.
The inmates who died were later identified as Raymond Scott, 28; Michael Milledge, 44; Damonte Rivera, 24; Eddie Gaskins, 32; Joshua Jenkins, 33; Corey Scott, 38; and Cornelius McClary, 33.
Lee Correctional, about 40 miles east of Columbia, houses some of South Carolina’s most violent and longest-serving offenders. Two officers were stabbed in a 2015 fight. One inmate killed another in February.
In another situation in 2012, an officer was attacked while escorting a nurse in one of the buildings, leading to a six-hour standoff. Inmates reportedly used smuggled cellphones to call 911 with their demands, but were stopped after more than 100 officers and agents used tear gas to get inside.
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Smuggled cellphones continue to be a major problem throughout Southern prisons. In South Carolina, officers have found and taken one phone for every three inmates, the highest rate in the country, NBC News reported last year.
McMaster said he favors allowing the Federal Communications Commission to jam cellphone signals around prisons, which could deter smuggling and other criminal activity behind bars. The FCC has argued that it’s up to prisons to police cellphone use and worries that interfering with cell signals could affect users outside the prisons.
South Carolina, meanwhile, is also grappling with a rise in inmate killings, state data shows.
The number of inmates killed in prison by other inmates rose to 12 in 2017 from three in 2015. Two of the deaths last year occurred at Lee Correctional, according to The State.
Stirling said chronic understaffing has meant that fewer employees are available to oversee inmates. Lee Correctional has a nearly 30 percent vacancy for front-line officers.
Adding to the difficulties that prisons face is that inmates are often unwilling to snitch about impending violence.
“It’s hard to investigate these matters in prison because folks just aren’t going to tell,” Stirling told The State in January. “That’s just the prison culture. You see something, you don’t say anything.”
State law enforcement officials said Monday that they would continue investigating the inmate deaths.
Harry Anderson, the amiable actor who presided over the NBC comedy “Night Court” for nine seasons, has died at his home in Asheville, N.C., according to a local media report. He was 65.
Anderson was found at his home by police officers early Monday morning, according to a report by WSPA-TV, the CBS affiliate in Spartanburg, N.C. No foul play was suspected, police told the station.
Anderson was a magician-turned-actor who was known as a rabid fan of jazz singer Mel Torme. The affection for Torme was woven into his TV alter ego, Judge Harry Stone, a quirky character who ruled the bench at a Manhattan night court. The sitcom was a mainstay of NBC from 1984 to 1992. Anderson earned three consecutive Emmy nominations for his work on the show from 1985-1987.
Anderson gained national attention after he guest starred as grifter Harry “the Hat” Gittes on NBC’s “Cheers” in the early 1980s. On “Night Court,” Anderson played a goofy but big-hearted judge who encountered a host of oddball characters and cases every week. The series also starred John Larroquette, Richard Moll, Charles Robinson, Marsha Warfield, and Markie Post. Anderson also directed two episodes of the series and wrote or co-wrote five episodes during its long run.
After “Night Court,” Anderson co-starred as columnist Dave Barry in the CBS comedy “Dave’s World,” which ran for four seasons. Anderson moved to New Orleans in 2000 to open the nightclub Oswald’s Speakeasy, where he performed a mix of comedy and magic, and a magic and curio shop dubbed Sideshow.
Anderson logged a guest spot in FX’s “Son of the Beach” in 2002 and a 2008 appearance on NBC’s “30 Rock.” But for the most part, he stayed away from Hollywood. He moved to North Carolina in 2006 after New Orleans was ravaged by Hurricane Katrina.
Born in Rhode Island, Anderson reportedly had a difficult childhood and moved frequently with his mother, who he once described in an interview with Playboy as “a hustler.” He moved to California at the age of 16 to be with his father. He became a street performer and reportedly ran a lucrative shell game on the streets of San Francisco for a time.
Anderson made his way to L.A.’s famed Magic Castle in the early 1980s, where he connected with an agent, according to TCM.com. He made several appearances on “Saturday Night Live” around this time. After “Night Court” made him a star, Anderson hosted “SNL” in 1985.
Anderson’s other credits included guest shots on “Tales From the Crypt” and HBO’s “Tanner ’88,” “Parker Lewis Can’t Lose,” and “The John Larroquette Show.” He starred in the 1990 ABC miniseries adaptation of Stephen King’s “It.”
NEW YORK — A federal judge dealt a legal setback to President Trump on Monday, denying his bid to review records seized in an FBI search of his personal attorney’s home and office before federal prosecutors review them.
The decision came in a court hearing where it was revealed that the client list of presidential lawyer Michael Cohen, who represented Trump in offering hush money to a porn star, also includes one of the president’s biggest cheerleaders: Fox News host Sean Hannity.
U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood issued the ruling after lawyers for the Department of Justice, Cohen, the Trump Organization, and Trump himself squared off in a high-stakes clash over attorney-client privilege. The attorneys clashed over who should be able to see records seized last week in an FBI raid on Cohen’s home, hotel room, and offices.
On hand in Manhattan federal court for the arguments was a spectator much in the news: Stormy Daniels, the pornographic video actress who claims to have had a consensual affair with Trump. She is trying to void the terms of a $130,000 hush-money settlement she reached with Cohen just before the 2016 presidential election.
The Justice Department wants a group of its own attorneys known as a “taint team” — those not conducting a criminal investigation of Cohen — to examine the records and decide which ones can’t be used because they involve attorney-client privilege. Attorneys for Cohen suggested appointing an impartial special master to decide. And Trump himself wants to review the records with his lawyers and make his own decision.
“He is objecting that anyone other than himself” be able to make that determination, Trump attorney Joanna Hendon told the court.
More: Who is Michael Cohen? Some see Trump’s lawyer as overzealous bully. Team Trump sees an undying loyalist.
Wood denied Hendon’s application for a temporary restraining order that would block federal investigators from examining the seized material for their criminal investigation. Instead, she instructed prosecutors to assemble and index the seized records and give copies to all parties in the case.
The judge asked the opposing attorneys to submit a joint proposal with four names for a potential special master, whom the judge said “could have some role” in sorting through the seized documents and determining what was privileged.
Wood also authorized prosecutors to conduct electronic reviews of the seized material to determine such things as how often certain names, businesses and events appear in the records. Denying an objection by Hendon, the judge ruled federal investigators could obtain the statistical data without examining the underlying content.
Cohen has become the central figure in a growing presidential sex scandal, accused of using cash payments and non-disclosure agreements in an attempt to silence Trump accusers such Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal.
His attorneys filed a letter with the court Monday that provided general information about Cohen’s legal work but pointedly withheld the name of one of his three law clients. They argued that the client’s identity should remain sealed to preserve his privacy and avoid subjecting him to embarrassment.
However, Wood ordered Cohen’s lawyers to reveal the unknown third client, saying his identity is not subject to attorney-client privilege. “I understand he doesn’t want his name out there. That’s not enough,” she said.
After some discussion about whether the disclosure would be in writing or in open court, Cohen attorney Stephen Ryan announced the name to audible murmurs in the packed courtroom: “The client’s name is Sean Hannity.”
On his national radio show later, Hannity acknowledged he had sought advice from Cohen but said he never engaged him as an attorney. Cohen never billed him and never represented him in any matter involving a third party, Hannity said.
“Everybody’s going insane here,” Hannity said between radio segments attacking former FBI director James Comey. “I’ve known Michael a long, long time. And let me be very clear to the media: Michael has never represented me in any matter. I’ve never been a client in the traditional sense.”
Hannity said his discussions with Cohen “dealt almost exclusively about real estate.”
“I have occasionally had brief conversations with him about legal questions about which I wanted his input and perspective, and I assumed that those conversations were confidential,” he said.
As one of Trump’s most vocal supporters — and one who reportedly speaks to the president frequently — Hannity attacked the FBI for the raid on Cohen’s offices last week without disclosing details of his relationship with Cohen.
The Bubble: Mueller has ‘declared war against the president,’ Sean Hannity says
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Summer Zervos: The former “Apprentice” contestant has accused the president of sexual misconduct, including kissing and groping her in the years after she left the show. She has filed suit against him, saying he made defamatory remarks about her after she came forward with her story.
Seen here, Summer Zervos, left, stands with her lawyer Gloria Allred outside the New York County Criminal Court on Dec. 5, 2017, in New York. The judge in the case allowed on March 20, 2018, Zervos’ defamation suit against Trump to proceed. Robert Deutsch, USA TODAY
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resigned from the Republican National Committee after using Cohen to arrange a $1.6 million payment to another Playboy model he reportedly impregnated.
The Cohen raid, conducted by FBI agents with a search warrant a week ago, sought evidence of those payments, which could violate laws on bank fraud and campaign contributions. Trump himself has denied knowing anything about Cohen’s efforts to pay off his accusers, and has also denied the affairs.
On Twitter Sunday, Trump decried the breach of his communications with Cohen. “Attorney Client privilege is now a thing of the past,” he said. “All lawyers are deflated and concerned!”
Trump’s personal lawyers argued Sunday that the Justice Department can’t fairly evaluate whether Cohen’s records are protected by attorney-client privilege.
More: Attorney asks judge to allow Trump to review evidence the FBI seized from Cohen
Hendon said in court papers that prosecutors have already made up their minds that attorney-client privilege doesn’t apply — “a bias that virtually guarantees that there will not be a fair privilege review of the seized materials.”
She argued that if investigators wanted to see Cohen’s work for Trump, they should have issued a subpoena.
The Justice Department argued that Cohen and Trump haven’t provided evidence that Trump sought legal advice from Cohen, and that Cohen acted more as a “fixer” than a lawyer.
“Under the President’s theory, every person who has communicated with a lawyer would be given the power to turn every search warrant into a subpoena and to demand the return of lawfully-seized evidence in order to undertake their own review of the evidence. Such a rule is unworkable and ripe for abuse,” wrote Robert Khuzami, deputy U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
Outside the courthouse, Daniels’ lawyer claimed vindication in his client’s attempts to shed light on Cohen’s tactics in protecting Trump over the years.
“He is radioactive,” said Michael Avenatti, who represents the porn actress whose real name is Stephanie Clifford. “The president trusted Mr. Cohen as his fixer for years. He trusted him with his innermost secrets, and I think the chickens are coming home to roost.”
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Michael Cohen, an attorney for Donald Trump, arrives in Trump Tower in New York on Dec. 16, 2016. Stormy Daniels, the porn star whom President Donald Trump’s personal attorney acknowledged paying $130,000 just before Election Day, believes she is now free to discuss her alleged sexual encounter with Trump, her manager xtold The Associated Press Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2018. Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, believes that Cohen invalidated a non-disclosure agreement after two news stories: One, in which Cohen told The New York Times that he made the six-figure payment with his personal funds, and another in the Daily Beast, which reported that Cohen was shopping a book proposal that would touch on Daniels’ story, said the manager, Gina Rodriguez. Richard Drew, AP
David S. Buckel, a prominent gay rights lawyer and environmental advocate, self-immolated in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park on Saturday.
Jose F. Moreno/AP
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David S. Buckel, a prominent gay rights lawyer and environmental advocate, self-immolated in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park on Saturday.
Jose F. Moreno/AP
A prominent lawyer who spent years fighting for the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people set himself on fire Saturday.
David S. Buckel’s charred remains were found in a New York park, The New York Timesreported. In a letter Buckel emailed to the publication and other media outlets earlier that day, he wrote, “Honorable purpose in life invites honorable purpose in death.”
A former marriage project director for Lambda Legal, a nonprofit organization that advocates for the rights of LGBT people, Buckel played a major role in a long, dark battle for recognition and equality.
In one of his most noted cases, he represented the mother of Brandon Teena, a transgender man who had notified a Nebraska sheriff that he had been raped. The sheriff informed Teena’s assailants who killed him in the days that followed. “It should not be the case that reporting a crime makes matters worse for you,” Buckel toldThe Daily Nebraskan in 2001. Eventually the sheriff was found liable for failing to protect Teena and his brutal murder was dramatized in a film called Boys Don’t Cry starring Hillary Swank.
In 1996, Buckel represented an openly gay Wisconsin student who dropped out of high school after suffering prolonged physical and verbal bullying by peers, with no intervention by the school administration. In a landmark decision, the federal court ruled that the school should have prevented anti-gay harassment.
In 2006, he argued to the New Jersey Supreme Court that gay couples were not receiving equal protection of the law after municipalities them denied marriage licenses. As he embarked on the marriage equity case, he asked his future legal partner, “Do you want to be involved in the greatest civil rights movement of our time?”
Through his career, he stood up to the Boy Scouts of America, the U.S. military and the I.R.S., according to Cornell Law School, where he received his law degree. He also represented low-income and disabled people.
By 2016, Buckel was focusing on protecting the environment. As a senior organics recovery coordinator for an initiative hosted by the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, he wrote about how Brooklynites were composting food with the help of solar and wind energy.
On the last day of his life, he reportedly emphasized environmental responsibility, stating in a note to the media, “Pollution ravages our planet, oozing inhabitability via air, soil, water and weather. Most humans on the planet now breathe air made unhealthy by fossil fuels, and many die early deaths as a result — my early death by fossil fuel reflects what we are doing to ourselves.”
It was a warm, sunny morning, and a Twitter account by Prospect Park had tweeted, “Host your child’s next birthday party in Brooklyn’s Backyard. Families can rent the Prospect Park Carousel for birthdays and special occasions.”
The Times said that authorities had cleared away Buckel’s body by 11 a.m., and a dark, circular patch was left in its place marked by two cones.
The New York City Police Department told NPR that a note was left at the scene. “It is being treated at the time as a suicide but it’s still under investigation,” a spokesperson said.
Camilla Taylor, Lambda director of constitutional litigation and acting legal director, said in a written statement, “We have lost a movement leader, a colleague, and a friend. We will honor his life by continuing his fight for a better world.”
Houston (AP) — Former first lady Barbara Bush is in “failing health” and won’t seek additional medical treatment, a Bush family spokesman said Sunday.
“Following a recent series of hospitalizations, and after consulting her family and doctors, Mrs. Bush, now age 92, has decided not to seek additional medical treatment and will instead focus on comfort care,” spokesman Jim McGrath said in a news release.
McGrath did not elaborate as to the nature of Bush’s health problems. She has been treated for decades for Graves’ disease, which is a thyroid condition, had heart surgery in 2009 for a severe narrowing of her main heart valve and was hospitalized a year before that for surgery on a perforated ulcer.
“It will not surprise those who know her that Barbara Bush has been a rock in the face of her failing health, worrying not for herself — thanks to her abiding faith — but for others,” McGrath said. “She is surrounded by a family she adores, and appreciates the many kind messages and especially the prayers she is receiving.”
Bush, who is at home in Houston, is one of only two first ladies who was also the mother of a president. The other was Abigail Adams, wife of John Adams, the nation’s second president, and mother of John Quincy Adams, the sixth president.
Bush married George H.W. Bush on Jan. 6, 1945. They had six children and have been married longer than any presidential couple in American history.
Eight years after she and her husband left the White House, Mrs. Bush stood with her husband as their son George W. was sworn in as the 43rd president.
President Donald Trump’s press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said in a statement Sunday evening that “the President’s and first lady’s prayers are with all of the Bush family during this time.”
Bush is known for her white hair and her triple-strand fake pearl necklace.
Her brown hair began to gray in the 1950s, while her 3 -year-old daughter Pauline, known to her family as Robin, underwent treatment for leukemia and eventually died in October
1953. She later said dyed hair didn’t look good on her and credited the color to the public’s perception of her as “everybody’s grandmother.”
Her pearls sparked a national fashion trend when she wore them to her husband’s inauguration in 1989. The pearls became synonymous with Bush, who later said she selected them to hide the wrinkles in her neck. The candid admission only bolstered her common sense and down-to-earth public image.
Her 93-year-old husband, the nation’s 41st president who served from 1989 to 1993, also has had health issues in recent years. In April 2017, he was hospitalized in Houston for two weeks for a mild case of pneumonia and chronic bronchitis. He was hospitalized months earlier, also for pneumonia. He has a form of Parkinson’s disease and uses a motorized scooter or a wheelchair for mobility.
Before being president, he served as a congressman, CIA director and Ronald Reagan’s vice president.
Barbara Pierce Bush was born June 8, 1925, in Rye, New York. Her father was the publisher of McCall’s and Redbook magazines. She and George H.W. Bush married when she was 19 and while he was a young naval aviator. After World War II, the Bushes moved to Texas where he went into the oil business.
Along with her memoirs, she’s the author of “C. Fred’s Story” and “Millie’s Book,” based on the lives of her dogs. Proceeds from the books benefited adult and family literacy programs. The Barbara Bush Foundation for Family Literacy began during her White House years with the goal of improving the lives of disadvantaged Americans by boosting literacy among parents and their children. The foundation partners with local programs and has awarded more than $40 million to create or expand more than 1,500 literacy programs nationwide.
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This story has been corrected to show George H.W. Bush is 93, not 94.
Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin apologized on Sunday to people who he said were hurt by his “guarantee” that children were abused after a massive teacher walkout shut schools on Friday.
In a video posted on his YouTube page, Bevin, a Republican, said he had been trying to address the “unintended consequences” of closing schools when he told reporters n Friday that “somewhere in Kentucky today, a child was sexually assaulted that was left at home because there was nobody there to watch them.”
“I guarantee you somewhere today, a child was physically harmed or ingested poison because they were home alone because a single parent didn’t have any money to take care of them,” Bevin added.
The comments led to a resolution from the state’s Republican-led House of Representatives condemning Bevin.
“While this body may not agree with all that the teachers asserted, it is without question that the right to of freedom of speech, the right to peaceably assemble and the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances are the backbone of our democracy,” the resolution said.
At least 44 school districts across Kentucky closed on Friday after thousands of teachers called in sick to attend a rally at the state capital, NBC affiliate WAVE of Louisville reported. They asked lawmakers to override Bevin’s veto of two bills that would have increased public education funding.
PARIS — The Latest on Macron’s televised appeareance (all times local):
12:30 a.m.
French President Emmanuel Macron is trying to ease the anger of striking French railway workers who oppose a planned extensive reform of their profession.
Macron announced Sunday night that the French state will take over part of the multibillion-dollar debt of France’s national SNCF rail company, starting in 2020. The debt takeover was one of the railway unions’ demands.
The president also said he wanted to reassure railway workers that SNCF would remain a national railway company with 100 percent of its shares public.
Macron said privatizing SCNF “does not make sense.” His comments came during a live interview on French TV channel BFM and online investigative website Mediapart.
The French leader did confirm plans to revoke a special status that allows rail drivers to retain jobs and other benefits for life. The government wants to do away with the protections to make the rail sector more competitive.
The railway unions began national rolling strikes earlier this month.
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10 p.m.
French President Emmanuel Macron says the joint military strikes by the U.S., France and Britain against Syrian targets were led in retaliation after the Allies got evidence the government of Bashar Assad used chemical weapons against his own people.
Macron said the strikes were “retaliation, not an act of war” in a live interview Sunday on French TV channel BMF and online investigative site Mediapart.
The president says the allies had “full international legitimacy to intervene” in Syria because the strikes were about enforcing international humanitarian law.
The French leader said the allies were forced to act without an explicit mandate from the U.N. because of the “constant stalemate of the Russians” in the Security Council.
Macron says the allies “arrived at a time when these strikes had become indispensable.”
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7:50 p.m.
Almost one year into his term, French President Emmanuel Macron will discuss the airstrikes in Syria and defend an economic reform agenda that has prompted widespread worker strikes.
Macron was scheduled to make a television appearance on Sunday night. It will be his first since the U.S., France and the U.K. launched the airstrikes early Saturday.
The 40-year-old leader is expected to explain his decision to join the operation, the biggest test yet of his foreign policy.
In the domestic field, he is likely to highlight France’s improved economic environment, despite simmering anger over his labor law changes.
Retirees, hospital workers, students and others have taken to the streets to protest his government’s planned reforms.
Train workers have launched on-and-off strikes over a railway labor reform plan, disrupting traffic nationwide.
Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Starbucks, which once asked baristas to start a conversation about race with customers, faces fierce criticism after two black men were arrested at a Philadelphia store, sparking accusations of racial profiling over what the company’s chief executive now calls a “reprehensible” incident.
In a statement, CEO Kevin Johnson offered “our deepest apologies” on Saturday to the two men who were taken out of the store in handcuffs by at least six officers on Thursday. A store manager had asked the two men to leave after they attempted to use the bathroom but had not made any purchases, police said. The men said they were waiting for a friend, their attorney later said. The manager then called 911 for assistance, the company said.
The police confrontation was captured on a video that has been viewed more than 8 million times on social media, fueling a backlash and drawing responses from the city’s police commissioner and mayor.
“I am heartbroken to see Philadelphia in the headlines for an incident that — at least based on what we know at this point — appears to exemplify what racial discrimination looks like in 2018,” Mayor Jim Kenney, a Democrat, said.
The two men were taken to a police station, where they were fingerprinted and photographed, their attorney Lauren Wimmer told The Washington Post on Saturday. Her clients, who declined to be identified, were released eight hours later because the district attorney found no evidence of a crime, she said, adding the Starbucks manager was white.
Wimmer said the man whom the two men were there to meet, Andrew Yaffe, runs a real estate development firm and said Yaffe wanted to meet the men to discuss business investment opportunities.
Multiple witnesses recorded the incident on cellphones. In one video, Yaffe arrives to tell police the two men were waiting for him.
“Why would they be asked to leave?” Yaffe says. “Does anybody else think this is ridiculous?” he asks people nearby. “It’s absolute discrimination.” A woman chimes in off-camera: “They didn’t do anything.”
The two men appear to explain they are there to meet Yaffe. They remain seated and calmly speak with the authorities. An officer begins to clear chairs out of the way in apparent anticipation of an arrest. Yaffe suggests they will go somewhere else.
“They’re not free to leave. We’re done with that,” an officer replies. “We asked them to leave the first time.” The two men stand up to be cuffed. They do not appear to resist.
Melissa DePino, who recorded the viral video of the incident, told Philadelphia magazine the men did not escalate the situation. “These guys never raised their voices. They never did anything remotely aggressive,” she said. In the video, there appear to be open tables for any potential waiting customers.
Thursday’s incident is a dramatic turn for a company that has positioned itself as a progressive corporate leader that touts “diversity and inclusion” — efforts that have also drawn its share of criticism. Last year, the company vowed to hire 10,000 refugees in a move that drew calls for a boycott mostly from conservatives. In 2015, its “Race Together” initiative for baristas to discuss racial issues floundered after the company found the public wanted fast coffee — not deep conversations about police killings of unarmed black men.
Now Starbucks has been forced to bring race back into public discussion outside its own terms, following a moment that has drawn comparisons to nonviolent protests during the civil rights movement when black Americans’ refusals to leave segregated lunch counters were met with police force.
Local Black Lives Matter activist Asa Khalif organized a protest of the store on Sunday. He told a Philly.com reporter he rejects Johnson’s apology, saying it was “about saving face.” If the company was serious, it would have fired the manager who called 911, he said.
Johnson vowed an investigation and a review of its customer-relations protocols, and he said he wanted to meet the two men for a face-to-face apology.
“Regretfully, our practices and training led to a bad outcome — the basis for the call to the Philadelphia police department was wrong,” Johnson said.
“Our store manager never intended for these men to be arrested and this should never have escalated as it did.”
Mayor Kenney directed the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations to review Starbucks policies and determine whether the company would benefit from training for implicit bias — unconscious discrimination based on race. His office will communicate with Starbucks further to discuss, he said.
Kenney said little about the response of his police force beyond mentioning an ongoing review from Police Commissioner Richard Ross. Police have also been criticized for how they handled the situation. The department did not return comment Saturday asking what laws they suspected were being violated and if any administrative actions have been taken during the investigation.
It’s great everyone is calling out Starbucks, but I’d love an explanation from the Philly police as to exactly what the basis was for the men’s arrest.
Ross, who is black, defended the actions of the officers in a Facebook Live video on Saturday, saying the officers asked the men three times to leave.
“The police did not just happen upon this event — they did not just walk into Starbucks to get a coffee,” he said. “They were called there, for a service, and that service had to do with quelling a disturbance, a disturbance that had to do with trespassing. These officers did absolutely nothing wrong.”
Ross said he is aware of implicit bias and his force provides training, but he did not say whether he believed it applied in this case. He added police recruits are sent to the National Museum of African American History and Culture and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington to learn more about the struggle of blacks and minorities throughout history.
“We want them to know about the atrocities that were, in fact, committed by policing around the world,” Ross said.
President Trump sharply attacked James B. Comey in a fusillade of tweets Sunday morning, suggesting that the former FBI director deserves to be imprisoned and serving up several of his favorite theories and unsubstantiated allegations of misdeeds.
Trump’s tweets are part of a wider effort by the White House and the Republican National Committee to discredit Comey, who has written a damaging tell-all book, titled “A Higher Loyalty,” to be released Tuesday. A Sunday night interview on ABC News will kick off his national book tour.
Comey’s book is a scathing depiction of his interactions with Trump, whom he likens to an “unethical” mob boss, and casts members of his inner circle in largely unflattering terms, saying they were more focused on politics than national security.
“I honestly never thought these words would ever come out of my mouth, but I don’t know whether the current President of the United States was with prostitutes, peeing on each other in Moscow in 2013,” Comey said, according to an excerpt released by ABC News. “It’s possible, but I don’t know.”
Those allegations about Trump were made in a disputed opposition-research dossier compiled by a former British spy — and have not been proved.
Former FBI director James B. Comey testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill on June 8. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post)
An array of surrogates, including presidential counselor Kellyanne Conway and White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, blanketed the airwaves this weekend to undermine Comey, as Trump unleashed a torrent of tweets that were often personal and fact-challenged. Trump allies have often reminded the public of the many Democrats who excoriated Comey in 2016 and frequently labeled him a “liar and a leaker” over his handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email server issues.
“When the person that is supposed to lead the highest law enforcement agency in our country starts making decisions based on political environments . . . that’s a really dangerous position,” Sanders said on ABC.
Trump fired Comey as the FBI director in May amid a sprawling investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and any potential Trump campaign role in it. Comey’s firing spurred the appointment of a special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, and a broader investigation into Trump’s campaign and administration — a probe that nowincludes potential obstruction of justice and Trump’s business dealings.
Comey’s book, copies of which were obtained by news outlets and reviewed last week, has caused great agita for Trump. The president has also been infuriated in recent days by the FBI raiding the office and home of Michael Cohen, his personal attorney, a move that some advisers say poses more peril for Trump than the special counsel probe.
Aides were so concerned about Comey’s book that they scheduled Trump to be at his Mar-a-Lago estate for a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at the same time as the book’s release, administration officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe White House fears about the book. But media outlets obtained the book early.
“The big questions in Comey’s badly reviewed book aren’t answered, like how come he gave up classified information (jail), why did he lie to Congress (jail), why did the DNC refuse to give Server to the FBI (why didn’t they TAKE it), why the phony memos, McCabe’s $700,000 more?” the president tweeted before 8 a.m. Sunday.
Trump soon added: “Comey throws AG Lynch ‘under the bus!’ Why can’t we all find out what happened on the tarmac in the back of the plane with Wild Bill and Lynch? Was she promised a Supreme Court seat, or AG, in order to lay off Hillary. No golf and grandkids talk (give us all a break)!”
The tweets were filled with unproven assertions.
Comey has not been formally accused of disclosing classified information or lying to Congress.
The memos Trump appears to reference are ones that Comey wrote documenting his meetings and phone calls with the president — which have since become public. Comey asked a friend to give some of those memos to the New York Times, but the memos are not thought to contain have classified material. Comey has testified about the memos under oath to Congress. He has alleged that Trump asked him to ease off a probe into fired national security adviser Michael Flynn and wanted complete “loyalty.”
Trump has continued to allege that McCabe was deferential to Hillary Clinton during the FBI’s investigation of her use of a private email server because his wife took donations from a Clinton ally for a state Senate race in Virginia. The accusation is one that McCabe has denied and has never been proved.
McCabe claimed after his firing that he was targeted because he was a witness in Mueller’s probe.
McCabe’s attorney, Michael R. Bromwich, responded Sunday to the president’s claims, tweeting: “1. The book isn’t out so you don’t know what’s in it. 2. The Comey and McCabe memos are very real. 3. The story about ‘McCabe’s $ 700,000’ has been fully explained. . . . 4. Your strategy of attacking beloved former FBI leaders — not smart.”
The president’s tweet about Comey and Loretta E. Lynch appears to reference a part of the book in which Comey says the then-attorney general was conflicted on the Hillary Clinton investigation because of unspecified classified information that he said he was aware of — and that Lynch wanted him to call the probe a “matter.”
Trump also references a meeting that Bill Clinton — whom he calls “Wild Bill” — and Lynch had on a Phoenix tarmac in July 2016 that was seen as questionable, as Lynch was leading the investigation into Hillary Clinton. There is no proof, however, that Bill Clinton offered Lynch a job or a favor to have her ease off the investigation into his wife. The two said that their planes just happened to be on the same tarmac and that they made casual conversation after Clinton asked to come aboard Lynch’s plane.
Trump also attacked Comey for writing that political considerations may have driven him to reopen the Clinton investigation in the final days of the 2016 election campaign. Comey writes that it is possible “my concern about making her an illegitimate president by concealing the restarted investigation bore greater weight than it would have if the election appeared closer or if Donald Trump were ahead in all polls.”
“Unbelievably, James Comey states that Polls, where Crooked Hillary was leading, were a factor in the handling (stupidly) of the Clinton email probe. In other words, he was making decisions based on the fact that he thought she was going to win, and he wanted a job. Slimeball!” Trump wrote in one of his tweets.
That admission by Comey has drawn condemnation from others, including former New Jersey governor Chris Christie (R), who worked closely with Comey and has often lavishly praised him.
“It is exactly what they teach you not to do,” Christie said on ABC. “. . . The hubris he shows in that interview is extraordinary to me. Not the guy I worked with or worked for.”
Still, it is unclear why Trump thought reopening the probe into the email server would help Comey get a job with the Clintons. Clinton and her allies resented the move and said it hurt her chances to become president. And when Trump fired Comey, he cited a memo that said Comey’s termination was partly because he was unfair to Clinton.
After an hour of trashing Comey’s character and reputation, Trump posted that he barely knew Comey, his favorite way of distancing himself from a contentious figure.
“I never asked Comey for Personal Loyalty. I hardly even knew this guy. Just another of his many lies. His ‘memos’ are self serving and FAKE!” he said.
The president soon turned his focus to the Cohen raid, an aggressive move by prosecutors in the Southern District of New York, who were referred material by Mueller’s team.
“Attorney Client privilege is now a thing of the past. I have many (too many!) lawyers and they are probably wondering when their offices, and even homes, are going to be raided with everything, including their phones and computers, taken. All lawyers are deflated and concerned!” Trump wrote.
In fact, Trump has struggled to find lawyers to handle Mueller’s probe, and investigators in New York say they took Cohen’s materials in the Monday raid because his communications with clients could be part of the commission of a crime.
A little after 9 a.m. Sunday, Trump returned his focus to Comey — whom he seemed to know better than he did 20 minutes ago.
“Slippery James Comey, a man who always ends up badly and out of whack (he is not smart!), will go down as the WORST FBI Director in history, by far!” Trump wrote.
Preet Bharara, the former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, appeared on CNN and defended Comey, even as he acknowledged the sharp partisan divides over the former FBI director.
“Clearly the Jim Comey experience has gotten under his skin. He doesn’t like someone getting airtime who is critical of him,” Bharara said, referring to Trump. “And the way he deals with it is he lashes out on Twitter.”
Greg Jaffe, Mike DeBonis and Carolyn Johnson contributed to this report.
