Marjorie Taylor Greene preps for second term with more power
WASHINGTON — U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has made no secret about what she wants to accomplish in her second term in office.
She rattles off the investigations she wants the new Republican majority in the House to launch immediately: Hunter Biden’s laptop, the military withdrawal from Afghanistan, federal aid to Ukraine and COVID-19′s origins.
The Rome Republican may be in a position to make it happen. She has become an outspoken ally of House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, defending him against a challenge by fellow conservatives in the House Freedom Caucus. Greene said her colleagues were wrong in supporting an eleventh-hour challenge that ultimately was unsuccessful.
She expects to be rewarded for her loyalty by receiving an appointment to the powerful Oversight and Reform Committee. Three Georgians — Democrat Hank Johnson and Republicans Andrew Clyde and Jody Hice — serve on the panel, but Hice won’t be back next term.
—The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg got a raise after fraud was discovered
NEW YORK — When Donald Trump left his namesake company for the White House and put his sons in charge, they learned a top executive was cheating on his taxes. Then they gave him a raise.
That head exec, former Trump Organization chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg, testified in Manhattan Supreme Court Friday that Eric and Donald Trump Jr. gave him a $200,000 bump after they learned the family business was footing the bill for his luxury lifestyle and dodging the tax man.
“Did the company reduce your salary one penny?” Assistant District Attorney Susan Hoffinger asked Weisselberg. “No,” he said. “Even with your betrayal of the trust?” said Hoffinger. “Correct,” the 75 year old replied.
The Trump sons also learned Weisselberg and other executives, including the company’s chief operating officer Matthew Calamari, Sr., received bonuses for hundreds of thousands of dollars as freelancers, Weisselberg said.
—New York Daily News
Saudi crown prince immune from lawsuit over killing of journalist, US says
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman can’t be sued in the U.S. over the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi because as a head of government he’s immune, the Biden administration told a judge.
The administration was responding to a request from U.S. District Judge John Bates in Washington for input about sovereign immunity in a lawsuit filed by Khashoggi’s fiance, Hatice Cengiz. If the judge adopts the U.S. finding, it would effectively end the lawsuit.
“The United States Government has expressed grave concerns regarding Jamal Khashoggi’s horrific killing and has raised these concerns publicly and with the most senior levels of the Saudi government,” the government said in the filing late Thursday. “Prime Minister bin Salman as a sitting head of government is immune while in office from the jurisdiction of the United States District Court in this suit.”
Khashoggi, a critic of the Saudi regime, was killed inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in 2018. His body was dismembered.
—Bloomberg News
Kherson's newly liberated residents wonder: Who collaborated with the Russians?
KHERSON, Ukraine — First came rejoicing. Now comes the reckoning. The southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, the only provincial capital captured by Russia since it invaded in February, is back in Ukrainian hands, though Moscow's forces are still close enough to remain a menace.
The outburst of joy over the reclamation of Kherson — one of the most significant Ukrainian victories of the nearly 9-month-old war — is tempered by punishing hardships that still haunt the city: hunger and shortages of medicine as well as scant electricity, running water and communications.
Criminal and forensics investigators are rushing to document evidence of executions and torture, digging up bodies and coaxing traumatized witnesses to come forward. Already, case files are open on hundreds of suspected war crimes. Victims of torture haltingly recount their ordeals. De-mining teams are fanned out across the city and plying muddy fields in outlying former front-line villages, where wrecked military and civilian vehicles line battered roads.
And in what might be the most insidious iteration of pain, Kherson's people must now come to terms with the fact that some of their neighbors cooperated with the occupiers.
—Los Angeles Times
