| President Trump and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein will meet Thursday, according to a statement from Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. “At the request of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, he and President Trump had an extended conversation to discuss the recent news stories,” the statement said. “Because the President is at the United Nations General Assembly and has a full schedule with leaders around the world, they will meet on Thursday when the President returns to Washington, D.C.” The announcement comes amid reports that Rosenstein headed to the White House Monday morning expecting to be fired. A source familiar with the matter told The Daily Beast that he “has not submitted a resignation and is still the Deputy Attorney General.” Last week, an explosive New York Times report included allegations that Rosenstein once floated the idea of secretly recording the president and discussed enlisting cabinet members to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove him from office. Rosenstein has vehemently denied the allegations. |
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| In a new letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh said he will “not be intimidated” by the new sexual-misconduct allegations made against him. “The coordinated effort to destroy my good name will not drive me out. The vile threats of violence against my family will not drive me out,” he wrote to Senators Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA). “The last-minute character assassination will not succeed.” His statement comes after a second accuser publicly came forward in The New Yorker alleging Kavanaugh exposed himself to her during a Yale party. In his letter, Kavanaugh called the allegations published in The New Yorker “false and uncorroborated.” “There is now a frenzy to come up with something—anything—that will block this process and a vote on my confirmation from occurring. These are smears, pure and simple,” he wrote. “And they debase our public discourse. But they are also a threat to any man or woman who wishes to serve our country.” Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford, who accused the Supreme Court nominee of sexually assaulting her when they were both in high school, are expected to attend a public hearing on the allegations Thursday. In her own letter to the committee, Ford said her decision to come forward was a “very difficult one” but said she felt an “urgency and civic duty” to do so. “While I am frightened, please know, my fear will not hold me back from testifying and you will be provided with answers to all of your questions,” she wrote. |
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| Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein headed to the White House on Monday morning expecting to be fired, a source familiar with the matter told The Daily Beast. Rosenstein “has not submitted a resignation and is still the Deputy Attorney General,” that source said. Rosenstein attended two meetings at the White House, a source familiar with the matter told The Daily Beast. In the second meeting, he filled in for Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who is traveling. Trump is currently in New York for the UN General Assembly. White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Monday that Trump and Rosenstein will meet on Thursday after the president returns from New York. The announcement has temporarily quelled speculation that Rosenstein will imminently leave the Justice Department. Solicitor General Noel Francisco is next in the DOJ’s line of succession to oversee special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election, but there is widespread speculation that he would recuse himself because his old law firm represents President Donald Trump’s campaign. Francisco has recused from multiple matters before the Supreme Court which that firm, Jones Day, is litigating. —Betsy Woodruff |
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| Maryland authorities confirmed Monday that they are aware of a second accusation of sexual assault in Montgomery County against Supreme Court Justice nominee Brett Kavanaugh, according to a report from The Sentinel. Authorities were extremely vague about the claims, which allegedly came from an anonymous witness and are said to concern Kavanaugh’s behavior during his senior year of high school. No complaints have been filed formally. “We are prepared to investigate if the victim wants to report to us,” Montgomery County Police Chief Thomas Manger told the paper, “and we can determine [if] it occurred in the county.” Manger told the Washington Examiner that his department does not have “any knowledge of anyone coming forward to us to report any allegations involving Judge Kavanaugh.” If the alleged accuser does file a complaint, the Sentinel notes, it could bring the number of women accusing Kavanaugh to four: Christine Blasey Ford, Deborah Ramirez—whose allegations were revealed in another explosive New Yorker piece Sunday night—lawyer Michael Avenatti’s purported client, and the Montgomery County woman. After Ramirez’s allegations surfaced Sunday night, Kavanaugh once again denied any misconduct. “This alleged event from 35 years ago did not happen. The people who knew me then know that this did not happen, and have said so,” he wrote in a statement issued by the White House cited by the Sentinel. “This is a smear, plain and simple. I look forward to testifying on Thursday about the truth, and defending my good name—and the reputation for character and integrity I have spent a lifetime building—against these last-minute allegations.” |
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| A psychologist testifying for the prosecution at Bill Cosby’s sentencing hearing Monday said he has a sexual disorder involving non-consenting women and is likely to offend again. Kristen Dudley said Cosby refused to cooperate with an evaluation so she based her determination on transcripts from both of his sexual-assault trials and police reports. Defense attorney Joseph Greene Jr. then asked Dudley if she had reviewed research on whether someone in their 80s was likely to reoffend, and she said she had not. The hearing broke so that prosecutors could review the literature on that. The two sides are fighting over whether Cosby, who was convicted of drugging and molesting Andrea Constand in 2004, should be labeled a sexually violent predator, which would be a factor in whether he gets probation or a prison sentence up to 30 years. —Nicki Weisensee Egan |
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| Amber Guyger—the Dallas police officer who shot and killed Botham Jean, then claimed to investigators that she mistook him for an intruder in her apartment—was fired from the Dallas Police Department after an internal investigation, according to a Monday press release. “An Internal Affairs investigation concluded that on September 9, 2018, Officer Guyger, #10702, engaged in adverse conduct when she was arrested for Manslaughter,” the release stated. “Officer Guyger was terminated for her actions.” The decision comes after the department was criticized for placing Guyger on paid administrative leave, and not acting sooner to terminate her. As The Daily Beast previously reported, 30-year-old Guyger claims that she accidentally entered Jean’s apartment that day, mistook the 26-year-old as an intruder and opened fire in self-defense. She was later charged with manslaughter. |
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| Paralyzed patients have regained the ability to walk again in two studies published Monday. In a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers used a device originally developed for pain control on patients. The devices sent sensorimotor signals to the patients’ legs; a battery implanted in the abdominal wall allowed stimulation to be controlled wirelessly. It played on the theory of epidural stimulation, or the idea that even though these patients had lost the ability to move their legs, their brain was still sending signals to the spinal-cord injury. The four test patients—who were paraplegic from bike and traffic accidents—all reported walking. One patient was walking after 15 weeks with a frame, and another was able to walk 90 meters without a break after a year-and-a-half. “Being a participant in this study truly changed my life, as it has provided me with a hope that I didn’t think was possible after my car accident,” one patient, Thomas, told The Guardian. The other study, published in Nature Medicine, used a similar method and found paralyzed patients were able to use their thoughts to move. Researchers for that study also are hoping the ability to regain movement could extend beyond simply walking to other automatic functions, like bladder control. |
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| Michael Kors Holdings Limited is close to taking control of Italian fashion house Versace, Bloomberg reported Monday. Michael Kors, best known for leather handbags and watches, has been making moves to expand its luxury portfolio including the purchase of British shoe brand Jimmy Choo last year. A source close to the Versace family told Reuters, “[Investors] gradually persuaded the family to look into a possible sale and introduced them to a series of buyers, including Michael Kors.” The deal with Michael Kors could value the company at $2 billion, according to sources familiar with the matter. An official announcement is expected later this week. |
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| More than 300 words have been added to the official Scrabble dictionary in its latest iteration—including facepalm, puggle, and the long-embattled “ok”—according to a Monday report from BBC News. This is the first change to the official dictionary in four years, and will only apply to the U.S. version of the beloved game. “OK is something Scrabble players have been waiting for, for a long time,” Peter Sokolowski, a lexicographer and editor at large at Merriam-Webster, told BBC. He added that “Basically two and three-letter words are the lifeblood of the game.” Another critical addition is “Qapik,” one of only 20 officially approved words that includes a Q (worth a whopping 10 points) without a U. BBC notes that the United States version of the dictionary now includes more than 100,000 approved entries. |
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