Bannon says Stone was Trump campaign link to WikiLeaks
WASHINGTON — Donald Trump’s campaign viewed Roger Stone as an “access point” to WikiLeaks and tried to use him to get advanced word about hacked emails damaging to Hillary Clinton, a former top presidential adviser testified Friday.
In reluctant testimony, former campaign CEO Steve Bannon told a federal court that Stone, on trial for lying to Congress and witness tampering, had boasted about his ties to WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange, alerting them to pending new batches of damaging emails.
“The campaign had no official access to WikiLeaks or to Julian Assange,” Bannon told the court. “But Roger would be considered if we needed an access point.”
It was the first time that anyone affiliated with the Trump campaign acknowledged in court that they had actively sought material from WikiLeaks, which released emails that U.S. intelligence agencies determined had been hacked by the Russian government in order to damage Clinton.
The White House had no immediate comment.
Bloomberg to pass on Iowa, NH, focus on Super Tuesday states
WASHINGTON — Michael Bloomberg plans to skip early voting states like Iowa and New Hampshire if he launches a presidential bid and instead focus his efforts on the crush of states that vote on Super Tuesday and beyond. It’s a strategy that acknowledges the limitations of entering the race at this late stage and the opportunities afforded by the billionaire’s vast personal wealth.
Bloomberg adviser Howard Wolfson says other candidates already have a big head start in the first four states to vote — Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina — and Bloomberg needs to be realistic about where he can make up ground.
“If we run, we are confident we can win in states voting on Super Tuesday and beyond, where we will start on an even footing,” Wolfson said. Nearly a quarter of primary delegates up for grabs in the March 3 Super Tuesday contests.
Bloomberg qualified Friday to get on the ballot in Alabama, one of the Super Tuesday states. His team is also making plans to file in Arkansas, which has a Tuesday deadline.
Bloomberg’s candidacy has the potential to upend the Democratic race less than three months before primary voting begins. The billionaire businessman initially ruled out a 2020 run, but began to reconsider in recent weeks, citing concerns about the ability of the current crop of contenders to defeat President Donald Trump.
Stay or go? US residents of Mexico town torn after 9 killed
COLONIA LEBARON, Mexico — U.S. citizens living in a small Mexican farming community established by their Mormon ancestors are trying to decide whether they should stay or leave after burying some of the nine American women and children slaughtered this week in a drug cartel ambush.
What had been a peaceful existence in a fertile valley ringed by rugged mountains and desert scrub about 70 miles (112 kilometers) from the border with Arizona became increasingly dangerous in recent years as the cartels exerted their power and battled each other in Sonora state, a drug smuggling hotbed.
But La Mora, a hamlet of about 300 people where residents raise cattle and cultivate pomegranates, “will be forever changed” following the killings Monday as the women traveled with their children to visit relatives, a tearful David Langford told mourners at the funeral for his wife, Dawna Ray Langford, and their 11-year-old and 2-year-old sons.
“One of the dearest things to our lives is the safety of our family,” said Langford. “And I won’t feel safe. I haven’t for a few years here.”
On Friday, the bodies of Rhonita Miller and four of her children were taken in a convoy of pickup trucks and SUVS, on the same dirt-and-rock mountainous road where they were killed, for burial in the community of Colonia LeBaron in Chihuahua state. Many residents of the two communities that lie a five-hour, bone-jarring drive apart are related. They consider themselves Mormon but are not affiliated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and many have dual U.S.-Mexican citizenship.
Missing Clark Atlanta University student found dead
ATLANTA — A missing Clark Atlanta University student has been found dead, authorities said Friday.
The body of Alexis Crawford, 21, was found at a park in DeKalb County, Atlanta Police Chief Erika Shields said at a news conference.
Investigators are securing arrest warrants for Crawford’s friend and roommate, 21-year-old Jordyn Jones, and Jones’ boyfriend, 21-year-old Barron Brantley, Sheilds said. One of the suspects led investigators to where Crawford’s body was found, she told reporters.
Shields said a motive has not been clearly established but she noted that Crawford filed a police report on Oct. 27 describing “unwanted kissing and touching” by Brantley.
Crawford last spoke to her family on Oct. 30. She was reported missing Nov. 1.
Da Silva’s release brings new energy to Brazil’s opposition
CURITIBA, Brazil — Former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva walked out of prison on Friday, injecting new energy into a weakened opposition. His exit drew cheers from supporters who had gathered to celebrate the release of the man who rose from poverty to lead the country through an economic boom.
Hundreds of red-shirted Brazilians applauded the popular, 74-year-old politician as he walked out of the federal police building in the southern city of Curitiba. His release came less than a day after the Supreme Court ruled that a person can be imprisoned only after all the appeals have been exhausted.
Da Silva, who is appealing his conviction of corruption and money laundering in connection with the purchase of a beachfront apartment in Sao Paulo state, embraced his daughter, raised his fist to the sky and made his way onto a stage surrounded by his girlfriend and others.
“You have no idea the dimension of the significance of me being here with you,” Da Silva told jubilant supporters, thanking individual union leaders and members of his leftist Workers’ Party, known as PT. “They didn’t arrest a man. They tried to detain an idea. An idea doesn’t disappear.”
Da Silva, who is universally known as Lula, has been imprisoned since April 2018. His release will likely reinvigorate an opposition weakened by corruption scandals, the impeachment of Da Silva’s hand-picked successor, Da Silva’s imprisonment and, more recently, a clobbering in the 2018 general elections. But it’s not clear what political role he will seek now that he is free.