TRNS News Notes will not publish for the rest of this week. We will be back on Monday 1 December. Happy Thanksgiving!
In the News
- No indictment: Ferguson erupts
- Prosecutor: Witnesses – teen charged officer
- Was a charge open and shut? Maybe not
- Racist witness?
- Hagel resigns, under pressure
- Surprise to Hagel…
- Who next at the Pentagon?
- Immigration: Dems warn of GOP “fear campaign”
- Head of Phoenix veterans hospital fired
- Iran nuke talks extended
- GOP pols’ reax
No Indictment: Ferguson Erupts
• A St Louis County grand jury has – as widely predicted – brought no criminal charges against Darren Wilson, a white police officer, who fatally shot Michael Brown, an unarmed African-American teenager, more than three months ago in nearby Ferguson (NYT, Guardian, TRNS, CNN, WaPo, me)
• The decision by the grand jury of nine whites and three blacks was announced Monday night (weird time) by St Louis County prosecutor, Robert McCulloch, at a defiant press conference. McCulloch said Wilson had faced charges ranging from first-degree murder to involuntary manslaughter
• Police officers in riot gear stood in a line outside the Ferguson PD as demonstrators chanted and threw signs and other objects toward them as the news spread. “The system failed us again,” one woman said. In downtown Ferguson, the sound of breaking glass could be heard as crowds ran through the streets
• Early this morning, St Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar said at a presser that the night’s violence so far was “much worse” than in August. He said he’d personally heard around 150 gunshots. He said 12 buildings were on fire and 2 cars were totaled. At least 29 people had been arrested as of 3 am EST. Michael Brown’s family plans a presser today
• Snippet of Darren Wilson’s testimony
• At the 9 pm EST presser, McCulloch opened by blaming social media and Twitter in a meandering and defensive rant. “The most significant challenge encountered in this investigation has been the 24-hour news cycle,” he said. (really? Did he have any idea of how tone deaf that sounded?)
• Flights to St Louis Lambert International Airport weren’t allowed to land late Monday as a safety precaution and a no-fly zone was imposed (here we go again), but it was apparently only until early this morning
• Brown’s family issued a statement expressing sadness, but calling for peaceful protest and a campaign to require body cameras on police officers nationwide. “We need to work together to fix the system that allowed this to happen.”
• But outside the police station, Lesley McSpadden, Brown’s mother, voiced frustration. “Y’all know y’all wrong!” she yelled, pointing toward the officers standing outside the station. Brown’s stepfather repeatedly shouted: “Burn this down!” inserting an expletive. The crowd then began to roar
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• At the WH, President Obama appealed for peaceful protest and “care and restraint” from law enforcement. He said the nation’s made enormous progress in race relations, “but what is also true is that there are still problems and communities of color aren’t just making these problems up.”
• Members of the Congressional Black Caucus issued a statement, calling the decision a “miscarriage of justice.” “The decision seems to underscore an unwritten rule that black lives hold no value; that you may kill black men in this country without consequence or repercussions.”
• Protests, often well-organized and orderly, also occurred in cities across the country, including Washington DC (WH, Supreme Court), Los Angeles, Seattle, New York and Chicago, where about 200 mostly young and mostly white protesters gathered at police headquarters, despite frigid temperatures and light snow
• In the presser, McCulloch described the series of events, step by step, that had led to the shooting and the enormous array of witnesses and evidence brought to the grand jury. He also pointed to inconsistent and changing statements from witnesses, including observations about the position of Brown’s hands
• Graphic: What happened in Ferguson (NYT)
• Even before the decision was announced, Gov Jay Nixon flew in to hold last-minute meetings with community members, schools closed for the week; and businesses and residents, including parents of schoolchildren, braced for what might come next
• Yet many in Ferguson questioned why the authorities would announce the decision in the evening, rather than waiting for daylight hours. Furious, sometimes violent, demonstrations and tense clashes with police took place late into the night for several weeks in August and some law enforcement had suggested a daytime announcement
• Many leaders had suggested a Sunday morning announcement would be best, but the grand jury finished its work on Monday. Asked about the timing, Nixon said it had been the choice of McCulloch (disastrous decision and asking for trouble)
• Many of the elaborate plans – including 48-hour notice for the police after the decision – appeared to have been scrapped. The family of Brown was notified by prosecutors in the afternoon, after some reports had already appeared on TV and online. A lawyer for the family expressed frustration that they hadn’t been told earlier
• Local officials expected that Wilson would resign from the police force in the coming days, regardless of the grand jury’s decision. Brown recently married his fiancee from the Ferguson PD
• Great vid: How St Louis County’s screwed-up court system breeds resentment (AOL, HuffPo)
Prosecutor: Witnesses Said Teen Charged at Officer
• The most credible eyewitnesses to the shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson said he’d charged toward police officer Darren Wilson just before the final, fatal shots, St Louis County prosecutor Robert McCulloch said Monday night as he sought to explain why a grand jury hadn’t found probable cause to indict the officer (NYT, CNN, Guardian, WSJ, WaPo, me)
• The accounts of several other witnesses from the Ferguson neighborhood where Brown, 18 and unarmed, met his death on 9 Aug – including those who said Brown was trying to surrender – changed over time or were inconsistent with physical evidence, McCulloch said in a presser
• The task facing the grand jury wasn’t to determine whether Wilson was guilty of a crime, but whether there was evidence to justify bringing charges, which could have ranged from negligent manslaughter to intentional murder
• At issue, under the Missouri law governing use of deadly force by law enforcement as well as general rules for self-defense, was if Wilson “reasonably believed” that he or others were in serious danger
• Probable cause isn’t a stiff standard. It doesn’t require that most of the evidence be incriminating, let alone be proof “beyond a reasonable doubt,” as required in a criminal trial. Instead, grand juries are ordinarily instructed to issue an indictment when there’s “some evidence” of guilt, legal experts said (so this wasn’t ordinary)
Open and Shut? Maybe Not
• To Brown’s parents, the case for bringing some sort of charge seemed open and shut. But the jurors also had to consider whether Wilson acted within the limits of the lethal-force law, raising the threshold for an indictment
• Independent legal experts said it was impossible to analyze the grand jury decision without studying the transcripts of the testimony as well as the police reports, autopsies and forensic evidence that might shed light on what Brown was doing in his final seconds: menacing Wilson or trying to surrender
• The grand jury, which included three African-Americans, deliberated for two days. By law, the final vote on whether to bring an indictment is secret and the jurors are legally prohibited from discussing their deliberations
• The DoJ is conducting a separate investigation of whether Wilson, who is white, intentionally acted to deprive Brown, who is black, of his civil rights
• But the bar for such cases is a high one, and officials have privately said they’re unlikely to bring federal charges. The DoJ is also conducting a broader investigation into the practices of the Ferguson PD
Racist Witness?
• One of the witnesses to the fatal shooting of Brown admitted to holding racist views about African-Americans in a journal entry written on the same day of the shooting, according to documents released by St Louis County prosecutor Robert McCulloch’s office Monday (HuffPo, me)
• On 9 Aug, the witness wrote in his or her journal: “Well I’m gonna take my random drive to Florissant. Need to understand the Black race better so I stop calling Blacks Niggers and Start calling them People.”
• In a subsequent entry that same day following the shooting, the same witness wrote about seeing the shooting: “The cop got out left hand on face Right hand on gun. The Cop Screamed but I could not understand. Everyone was Screaming … The big kid turned around had his arms out with attitude. – – –
• – – – The cop just stood there dang if that kid didn’t start running right at the cop like a foot ball player Head down. I heard 3 bangs but the big kid wouldn’t Stop … Cop took a couple steps forward than backward and the gun went off 2 more times. The last one on top of the kids head. OMG the blood.”
• Monday night, McCulloch said at his presser that all of the witnesses who said they saw Brown charge at Wilson were black. That seems undercut by the diary. “But they were consistent with the others, several others. They’re all African-American.”
• A New York police officer shot and killed an unarmed black man in Brooklyn on 20 November. In Cleveland over the weekend, a police officer shot and killed a 12-year-old boy who made the mistake of reaching for a fake pistol (Economist)
Hagel Resigns Under Pressure
• SecDef Chuck Hagel handed in his resignation under pressure on Monday. In announcing Hagel’s resignation from the State Dining Room on Monday, the president called Hagel critical to ushering the military “through a significant period of transition” and lauded “a young Army sergeant from Vietnam who rose to serve as America’s 24th secretary of defense.”
• Admin officials said that President Obama made the decision to remove Hagel, the sole Republican on his national security team, last Friday after a series of meetings between the two men over the past two weeks (NYT, WSJ, TRNS, me)
• The officials characterized the decision as a recognition that the threat from ISIS will require different skills from those that Hagel, who often struggled to articulate a clear viewpoint and was widely viewed as a passive defense secretary, was brought in to employ
• Hagel, a combat veteran who was skeptical about the Iraq war, came in to manage the Afghanistan combat withdrawal and the shrinking Pentagon budget in the era of budget sequestrations
• A senior official said WH officials felt they weren’t getting creative options from the Pentagon for the war against ISIS, instead only hearing requests to allow advisers to become more engaged in combat
• An admin official insisted that Hagel wasn’t fired, saying that the secdef initiated the discussions with the president and that the two men mutually agreed that it was time for him to leave (mutually agreed to what Obama wanted)
Surprise to Hagel?
• But Hagel’s aides had maintained in recent weeks that he expected to serve the full four years as secdef. His removal appears to be an effort by the WH to show it’s sensitive to critics who have pointed to stumbles in the govt’s early responses to several national security issues, including Ebola and the threat from ISIS
• Hagel has had trouble penetrating the tight team of former campaign aides and advisers who form Obama’s closely knit set of loyalists. Senior admin officials have said he was quiet during cabinet meetings; Hagel’s defenders said he waited until he was alone with the president before sharing his views, the better to avoid leaks
• In the past few months he has largely ceded the stage to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen Martin Dempsey, who officials said initially won the confidence of Obama with his recommendation of military action against ISIS
• WH spox Josh Earnest on Monday pushed back at Sen John McCain’s (R-AZ) suggestion that Hagel had told him he was “very, very frustrated.” Earnest said of McCain: “Given his relationship with the admin, I think there might be reasons to view a read-out of the phone call from Sen McCain to be something less than impartial.” (Hill, me)
Who Next at the Pentagon?
• Michele Flournoy: Would be first female secdef. Considered front-runner. Has extensive experience at the Pentagon, having served as undersecretary of defense for policy from 2009-2012. Worked under both Robert Gates and Leon Panetta. But she’s rumored as a top candidate to join Hillary Clinton’s national security team, should she run
• Sen Carl Levin (D-MI): The six-term lawmaker’s retiring and would face an easy path to confirmation. He’s well versed in all aspects of DoD policy, having served for six years as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He’s defended Obama’s strategy against ISIS in Syria – but strayed from the WH line on some other issues (Hill, NYT, WSJ, me)
• Ashton Carter: A former deputy secdef, he was assumed to be a front runner to replace Leon Panetta in 2012. Instead, he stepped down at the end of 2013 after being passed over for Hagel. He’s an expert on budgets and weapons
• Rep Adam Smith (D-WA): Top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, just elected to his tenth term. Closely aligned with the WH on its ISIS strategy and has blasted Republican calls for boots on the ground in Iraq. A member of the select committee that’s investigating Benghazi
• Robert Work: A retired Marine Corps colonel and former Navy undersecretary, joined the Pentagon in April as Hagel’s deputy. Has visited Capitol Hill regularly and often, briefing lawmakers on a wide range of national security developments, and has testified
• The finalist cities for the Democratic National Committee’s 2016 convention are New York City NY, Philadelphia PA, and Columbus OH
Immigration: Dems Warn of GOP “Fear Campaign”
• “There’s going to be fear-mongering from the Republican Party,” Rep Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) told reporters on a press call Monday, as champions for immigration reform sought to shift their focus from pressuring the WH for action to convincing eligible immigrants to sign up (Hill, TPM, me)
• Gutierrez pointed to proposals from some GOP lawmakers who want to block the president’s executive action via legislation. “They are trying to keep our immigrants from signing up just like they were trying to keep people from signing up for Obamacare.”
• Sen Robert Menendez (D-NJ) said, “I think it will be critically important to show that people are willing to come out of the shadows, go through a background check and pay their taxes. When that happens and the sky doesn’t come falling down, all the naysayers will be proven wrong.”
• Meanwhile, Texas AG and Governor-elect Greg Abbott (R) said on Monday that the state plans to sue the Obama admin over the president’s executive action to delay the deportation of about 5 million undocumented immigrants. Abbott said the action violates the “take care” clause of the Constitution
• President Obama travels to Chicago today and will meet with community leaders at the Copernicus Community Center. They’ll “discuss the executive actions he is taking within his legal authority, to fix our broken immigration system.” He’ll tout the economic benefits
• The Obama admin plans to unveil final labeling rules today that require restaurants with at least 20 locations to display the calorie count of food items on their menus (WSJ, Hill)
Head of Phoenix Veterans Hospital Fired
• Sharon Helman, director of the Phoenix VA Health Care System was fired Monday nearly seven months after she and two high-ranking officials were placed on admin leave amid an investigation into allegations that 40 veterans died while awaiting treatment at the hospital (AP, me)
• The Phoenix hospital was at the center of the wait-time scandal, which led to the ouster of former VA Sec Eric Shinseki and a new, $16 billion law overhauling the labyrinthine veterans’ health care system. Helman is the fifth senior exec fired or forced to resign in recent weeks in response to the scandal
• An investigation by the VA’s office of IG found that workers at the Phoenix VA hospital falsified waiting lists while their supervisors looked the other way or even directed it, resulting in chronic waits for care
• At least 40 patients died while awaiting appts in Phoenix, the report said, but officials couldn’t “conclusively assert” that delays caused the deaths. About 1,700 veterans in need of care were “at risk of being lost or forgotten” after being kept off the waiting list at the troubled Phoenix hospital
Iran Nuke Talks Extended
• The deadline for a nuclear deal with Iran has been extended to the end of June after talks in Vienna failed to reach a comprehensive agreement. Six world powers want Iran to curb its nuclear program in return for the lifting of sanctions. Tehran says it’s not seeking nuclear weapons, but wants atomic energy (BBC, NYT, Reuters, TRNS, me)
• Speaking after the Vienna talks had ended, SecState John Kerry said: “We are certainly not going to sit at the negotiating table forever. But given how far we have come over the past year, particularly in the past few days, this is certainly not the time to get up and walk away.”
• Iranian state TV quoted President Hassan Rouhani as saying: “Our positions with the other side got closer.” He said that, “today, there is no doubt for anyone that enrichment will continue in Iran, and our nuclear technology will continue.” Supreme leader Ayatollah Khameini is quoted today as saying, “arrogant powers” failed to bring Iran to its knees
• There were likely three sticking points: The future size and scope of Iran’s capacity for uranium enrichment work; how quickly sanctions on Iran are lifted; unexplained explosives tests in Iran that could be linked to a nuclear weapons program
GOP Pols’ Reax
• Sens John McCain (R-AZ), Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), said in a statement: “We believe this latest extension of talks should be coupled with increased sanctions and a requirement that any final deal between Iran and the U.S. be sent to Congress for approval.” (Reuters, Hill, me)
• Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) said an extension only allows the admin to make more concessions to Iran
• Sen Bob Corker (R-TN), ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement: “I would rather the admin continue to negotiate than agree to a bad deal that would only create more instability in the region and around the world
• WH spox Josh Earnest said at the briefing Monday that additional sanctions would be “counterproductive.” He said that allies would believe that the U.S. was simply “more interested in punishing” Iran than striking a deal, and that the admin could lose “buy-in” on the talks with additional penalties
• Recipes and pics! The United States of Thanksgiving – NYT scoured the nation for recipes that evoke each of the states (+ DC & Puerto Rico). These are their picks for the feast. Some pretty yummy ones, too. What’s your state’s?
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Victoria Jones
TRNS’ Nicholas Salazar, Celina Gore and Paayal Zaveri contributed to this report
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