A New York Times report of a former anti-abortion leader’s claim that he was told in advance about the outcome of a major 2014 U.S. Supreme Court case involving contraceptives triggered calls on Saturday for an investigation of a court still reeling from the leak of a landmark abortion rights ruling.

Rev. Rob Schenck was quoted by The Times as saying he was informed weeks before the public announcement of the 2014 ruling shortly after two conservative allies had dinner at the home of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito and his wife.

Alito wrote that majority opinion as well as a recent one overturning the Roe v. Wade decision that had legalized abortion nationwide, both of which were victories for the religious right.

Schenck, who used to lead an evangelical nonprofit in Washington, said in a letter to Chief Justice John Roberts and in interviews with The Times that he was informed ahead of time about the ruling of Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, a case involving contraception and religious rights, the newspaper said.

Schenck used his knowledge of the ruling to prepare a public relations campaign and he also tipped off the president of the Christian evangelical-run craft store chain Hobby Lobby that he would win the case, according to The Times.

Alito said in a statement that any allegation that he or his wife leaked the 2014 decision was “completely false.”

Neither Schenck nor Chief Justice Roberts immediately responded to requests for comment.

“Today’s well-sourced NY Times article strongly suggests Justice Alito leaked the 2014 opinion in Hobby Lobby, and describes a conspiracy by the far-right donor class to influence the Supreme Court Justices,” U.S. Representative Mondaire Jones, a Democrat from New York, wrote on Twitter. “The House Judiciary Committee must investigate this while we still can.”

Brian Fallon, executive director of the progressive judicial group Demand Justice, called on the Senate Judiciary Committee to investigate, saying The Times’ report was “the latest proof that the Republican justices on the Court are little more than politicians in robes.”

“The first step to recovery is to admit you have a problem. At SCOTUS, the problems run deep,” Democratic U.S. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island wrote on Twitter.

A draft of the majority opinion to overturn Roe, reversing five decades of abortion rights, was leaked in May, spurring scrutiny of the court’s procedures at a time when critics were accusing its conservative majority of politicization. Polls show that the court’s public approval has reached record lows.

Alito had called the Roe leak, which was confirmed when the ruling was announced in June, a “grave betrayal.”

Schenck was quoted by The Times as saying he had worked for years to gain access to the court and that in early June 2014 two of his star donors, Ohio couple Donald and Gayle Wright, ate a meal with Justice Alito and his wife, Martha-Ann.

Schenck said one of the Wrights then told him that Alito had authored the Hobby Lobby opinion and that it would be in its favor, The Times said. The decision announced three weeks later held that requiring family-owned businesses to pay for insurance covering contraception violated their religious freedoms.

In his statement, Alito said: “The allegation that the Wrights were told the outcome of the decision in the Hobby Lobby case, or the authorship of the opinion of the Court, by me or my wife is completely false.”

“My wife and I became acquainted with the Wrights some years ago because of their strong support for the Supreme Court Historical Society, and since then, we have had a casual and purely social relationship,” Alito’s statement said.

“I never detected any effort on the part of the Wrights to obtain confidential information or to influence anything that I did in either an official or private capacity, and I would have strongly objected if they had done so.”

Gayle Wright, in a phone interview, denied obtaining or passing along any such information, The Times reported.

She could not immediately be reached for comment.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak promised 125 anti-aircraft guns and other air-defense technology as he made an unannounced visit Saturday — his first — to Ukraine’s snow-blanketed capital for talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

The air-defense package, which Britain valued at $60 million, comes as Russia has been pounding Ukraine’s power grid and other key infrastructure from the air, causing widespread blackouts for millions of Ukrainians amid frigid weather.

The package includes radar and other technology to counter the Iran-supplied exploding drones that Russia has used against Ukrainian targets. It comes on top of a delivery of more than 1,000 anti-air missiles that Britain announced earlier this month.

The U.K. has been one of the staunchest Western backers of Ukraine’s resistance to Russia’s invasion. Speaking alongside Zelenskyy, Sunak noted that the U.K. has given $2.7 billion in military aid and pledged: “We will do the same again next year.”

“Your homes, your hospitals, your power stations are being destroyed,” Sunak said in announcing the new air-defense package. “You and your people are paying a heavy price in blood.”

Speaking through a translator, Zelenskyy said Russian strikes have damaged around half of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.

As snowflakes fell, Zelenskyy greeted Sunak at a presidential palace for their talks. He called the two countries “the strongest of allies.” Walking in the snow, they also inspected captured Russian tanks and other destroyed and rusting military hardware used by the invasion forces that are displayed in a Kyiv square.

“With friends like you by our side, we are confident in our victory. Both of our nations know what it means to stand up for freedom,” the Ukrainian leader said on Twitter.

Former U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who stepped down in July, won wide praise in Ukraine for his backing. Sunak is keen to reassure Ukraine’s leaders that there will be no change of stance under his leadership, although when he was U.K. Treasury chief under Johnson he was considered resistant to demands for higher defense spending.

“The courage of the Ukrainian people is an inspiration to the world,” Sunak said. “In years to come, we will tell our grandchildren of your story.”

He pledged that Britain “will stand with you until Ukraine has won the peace and security it needs and deserves and then we will stand with you as you rebuild your great country.”

Sunak also laid flowers at a memorial for the war dead, lit a candle at a memorial for victims of a deadly Soviet-era famine in Ukraine in the 1930s, and met first responders at a fire station, his office said.

Sunak’s visit came in the wake of a major recent battlefield success for Ukraine: the recapture of the southern city of Kherson.

The restoration of rail connections brought further joy Saturday to Kherson’s residents, who excitedly waited for the first train from Kyiv.

“This is the beginning of a new life,” said 74-year-old Ludmila Olhouskaya, who didn’t have anyone to meet off the train but went to the station to show support. “Or rather, the revival of a former one.”

On the battlefield, Russian forces launched 10 airstrikes, 10 missile strikes and 42 rocket attacks on Ukraine in the last day, the General Staff of Ukraine’s armed forces said Saturday.

A plume of smoke rises during a fire caused by a Russian attack in Kherson, southern Ukraine, Saturday, Nov. 19, 2022. (AP Photo/Roman Hrytsyna)

In Kherson, the major southern city that Ukrainian forces recaptured more than a week ago, two Russian missiles struck an oil depot — the first time a depot was hit in the city since the Russians withdrew, according to firefighters at the scene. AP reporters said a huge fire and billowing black smoke.

“There was a strong explosion,” said Valentyna Svyderska, who lives nearby. “We were scared, everyone was scared … Because this is an army that is at war with the civilian population.”

Local authorities were struggling to respond to the blaze, the firefighters said, because Russian forces took the city’s fire trucks and ambulances when they retreated.

Russia is pressing an offensive in the eastern Donetsk region, and Ukraine reported heavy fighting around the city of Bakhmut, the town of Avdiivka and the village of Novopavlivka.

Russian forces claimed to have repelled a Ukrainian counteroffensive to take back the settlements of Pershotravneve, Kyslivka and Krokhmalne in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv province.

Ukrainian forces said they killed or wounded scores of Russian soldiers during an attack on the village of Mykhailivka in the southern Kherson region, and the wounded were taken to hospitals in Crimea. The claim could not be independently verified.

Ukrainian forces also reported they conducted deadly strikes on the Kinburn Spit in Ukraine’s southern Mykolaiv province, a key site for Russian electronic warfare.

Russia kept up its strikes on critical infrastructure, with a rocket attack overnight causing a fire at a key industrial facility in Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region, according to the region’s chief. Some parts of the regional capital of Zaporizhzhia were left without heat.

The head of Ukraine’s biggest private energy firm told the BBC that Ukrainians who can afford it should consider leaving the country to relieve pressure on its war-damaged power system.

“If they can find an alternative place to stay for another three or four months, it will be very helpful to the system,” said Maxim Timchenko, chief executive of DTEK. “If you consume less, then hospitals with injured soldiers will have a guaranteed power supply.”

In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Presidential Press Office, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, right, shakes hands with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak during their meeting in Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, Nov. 19, 2022. (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP)

In Poland, a funeral was held Saturday for one of the two men who died when a missile landed there this week, according to the state news agency PAP. A military honor guard and Polish and Ukrainian representatives joined the man’s family and members of the community.

NATO member Poland and the head of the military alliance have both said the missile strike in an eastern farming region appeared to be unintentional and was probably launched by air defenses in neighboring Ukraine. Russia had been bombarding Ukraine at the time.

The U.K. Ministry of Defense noted Saturday that Russia conducted its largest ever-debt issuance in a single day, raising $13.6 billion on Wednesday. It said debt issuance is a key mechanism to sustain defense spending.

Lawless reported from London. Elise Morton in London and Sam Mednick in Kherson, Ukraine, contributed to this story.

I’m so glad Extreme Court Justice Alito was not a Judge way back when during the Salem Witch trials. For we know, do we not, what Alito’s judgments would have been. And I somehow doubt they would have offered good news to these poor girls accused of witchcraft. But now it is Alito who is being accused of some funny business. The irony here is great.

A report from the New York Times says that there was another leak from the extreme court. It had to do with the Burwell v. Hobby Lobby case which was back in 2014. Former anti-abortion campaigner Rev. Rob Schenck is saying he knew the outcome of this decision before it was ever released. And he knew it because friends of his had dinner with Justice Alito and told him. Uh-oh.

Just what was said during this dinner? What was on the menu? Could the main course have been Alito crow? Naturally, our extreme justice is reacting. And he is reacting with indignation. He even put out a statement. In the statement, he claims any suggestion of impropriety is “completely false.”

Well, what would one expect him to say? “Yes, I leaked it, and I’m damned proud” doesn’t seem to be Sammy’s style. And yet — why should we believe him? After all, one remembers Sammy-boy and all his extreme Justice friends saying in their confirmation hearings that Roe was precedent. And look how THAT turned out.

You see, lying is sort of like that. Once when tells a lie, it becomes impossible to believe anything they say. Is Sammy crying wolf here? Or is he telling the truth?

I tend to think the wolves are howling at Sammy right now. I’ll tell you what. I will believe him as much as he likely believes women are equal to men and deserve their own bodily autonomy. That seems fair to me.

The post Samuel Alito exposed as Supreme Court leaker appeared first on Palmer Report.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The appointment of a special counsel to oversee the remainder of two significant investigations related to former President Donald Trump focuses fresh attention on the role such prosecutors have played in modern American history.

In this case, Attorney General Merrick Garland has turned to Jack Smith, a veteran war crimes prosecutor with a background in public corruption probes to lead investigations into the retention of classified documents at Trump’s Florida estate, Mar-a-Lago, as well as key aspects of a separate probe involving the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection and efforts to undo the 2020 election.

DALLAS, TEXAS – AUGUST 06: Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) held at the Hilton Anatole on August 06, 2022 in Dallas, Texas. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

While appointing the special counsel was a “safe, easy move,” for Garland, NewsNation’s Chris Cuomo said, it could have consequences for the rest of the country.

“Look, I’m not saying that there aren’t things to be investigated,” he said on CUOMO Friday night. “But the short-term cost is that this move all but guarantees that the GOP in the house will go into hyperdrive against Biden, his son and others.”

While Republicans already pledged to do this, Cuomo said now, they’ll have even more incentive.

“Now they’ll believe they have high ground,” he said. “This will be an excuse for them to not work on other things, to employ the idea that opposition is the only position they need and it will further divide us. Similarly, I now tell the Democrats: don’t celebrate this appointment. They’ve been digging for a while already, and there’s clearly no easy, quick case.”

On the other hand, Asha Rangappa, a former FBI special agent and associate dean at Yale Law School, said on CUOMO that appointing the special counsel was the right move.

“Having a special counsel creates an important buffer,” she said. “I think it also adds layers of transparency and accountability because the special counsel regulations have mechanisms that require reporting for certain kinds of decisions made by the special counsel, made by the Attorney General that creates a way for Congress to know, and therefore the public to know, what’s going on.”

A look at the origins of the special counsel, the position’s powers and what to expect as Smith pursues his work:

What exactly is a special counsel?

A special counsel is an attorney appointed to investigate, and possibly prosecute, a case in which the Justice Department perceives itself as having a conflict or where it’s deemed to be in the public interest to have someone outside the government come in and take responsibility for a matter.

According to the Code of Federal Regulations, a special counsel must have “a reputation for integrity and impartial decisionmaking,” as well as “an informed understanding of the criminal law and Department of Justice policies.”

Though they’re not subject to the day-to-day supervision of the Justice Department, special counsels must still comply with department regulations, policies and procedures. They also technically report to the attorney general — the one government official who can fire them.

The attorney general is entitled to seek explanations from a special counsel about any requested investigative or prosecutorial step, but under the regulations, is also expected to give great weight to the special counsel’s views. In the event the attorney general rejects a move the special counsel wants to make, the Justice Department is to notify Congress at the end of the investigation.

What powers do they have?

Special counsels are provided with a budget and can request a staff of attorneys, both inside the outside the department, if they need extra help. Smith is expected to inherit the months of work that’s already been done by career prosecutors rather than start from scratch.

In addition to the ability to bring indictments, special counsels are vested with bread-and-butter law enforcement tools such as the power to issue subpoenas and search warrants. Robert Mueller, the former FBI director who as special counsel in the Trump administration led the investigation into possible coordination between Russia and the 2016 Trump campaign, issued more than 2,800 subpoenas and executed nearly 500 search-and-seizure warrants.

How do independent counsels differ?

Smith’s position as special counsel differs in key ways from the work of independent counsels who used to operate outside the supervision of the Justice Department and who led significant investigations in the post-Watergate era into administrations of both political parties.

One such independent counsel was Lawrence E. Walsh, who during the “Iran Contra Affair” in President Ronald Reagan’s second term was appointed to probe secret arms sales to Iran and the diversion of funds to rebel forces fighting the Nicaraguan government.

A decade later, independent counsel Ken Starr investigated fraudulent real estate deals involving a long-time associate of President Bill Clinton and first lady Hillary Clinton, delved into the removal of documents from the office of deputy White House counsel Vincent Foster after his suicide and assembled evidence of Clinton’s sexual encounters with former White House intern Monica Lewinsky. As a result, Clinton was impeached by the U.S. House but survived a Senate trial.

But amid concerns over the cost and sprawling nature of such probes, Congress in 1999 permitted the provision governing independent counsels to expire.

The Justice Department then created new special counsel regulations, designing a position with intentionally less autonomy for circumstances in which the department feels it has a conflict of interest or wants to avoid becoming excessively entangled in politically sticky matters — like the current Trump-related probes.

Smith isn’t even the first special counsel to deal with Trump-related matters.

Mueller was appointed in 2017 to investigate Russian election interference, a two-year probe that yielded criminal charges against 34 people, including several Trump associates, and three business entities. Mueller did not allege a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia. Though Mueller reached no conclusion on whether Trump obstructed justice, he also did not exonerate him.

Weeks before then-Attorney General William Barr left office, he gave John Durham, then the top federal prosecutor in Connecticut, the title of special counsel to ensure that he could continue investigating the origins of the Russia probe under new, Democratic Justice Department leadership.

Who is DOJ special counsel Jack Smith?

He’s a veteran prosecutor who for five years oversaw the Justice Department’s public integrity section, which investigates wrongdoing by politicians and election crimes. He arrived in 2010, tasked with restoring a vaunted unit which had rocked by a scandal over the failure to produce exculpatory evidence in a prosecution of former Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens.

During his tenure in that job, the unit brought tough cases against prominent public figures of both political parties, including Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell (the Supreme Court ultimately threw out his public corruption conviction) and former Democratic vice presidential nominee John Edwards. A jury in that campaign finance case acquitted him on one count and deadlocked on all others.

He later led the U.S. attorney’s office in Nashville before becoming vice president of litigation for a non-governmental healthcare provider. More recently, he’s been a prosecutor for the special court in The Hague that investigates war crimes in Kosovo.

The Justice Department on Friday described Smith as a registered independent, an effort to blunt any attack of perceived political bias. Trump is a Republican, and Biden is a Democrat.

Outside of work, the hard-charging Smith is a competitive athlete who says he’s participated in triathlons around the world.

___

Kinnard reported from Columbia, S.C.

NewsNation staff contributed to this report.

The international police organization Interpol has issued a warrant for the arrest of Angolan billionaire Isabel dos Santos, according to sources.

Dos Santos, the daughter of Angola’s former authoritarian president José Eduardo dos Santos, was the subject of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ 2020 Luanda Leaks investigation.

Luanda Leaks reporting showed how insider deals, political connections and an army of Western enablers helped dos Santos amass a fortune.

The exposé revealed how the billionaire and her allies benefited from lucrative deals in diamonds, telecommunications, banking and real estate.

According to Portugal’s press Lusa news agency, Interpol issued the warrant following a request from Angolan prosecutors.

Polícia Judiciária sources in Lisbon said the Interpol warrant alleges dos Santos created corrupt financial mechanisms between 2015 and 2017.

The mechanisms, it alleges, were created “with the intention of obtaining illicit financial gains and whitewashing suspicious criminal operations.”

The sources said the warrant further alleges that dos Santos acted upon information she had obtained as then-head of Angola’s state oil company, Sonangol.

Lusa said dos Santos, 49, was wanted for alleged embezzlement, fraud, influence peddling and money laundering.

Dos Santos has previously denied benefiting unfairly from her father’s position as Angolan president or any other wrongdoing.

The Luanda Leaks investigation, which had a profound impact on Africa’s then richest woman and her family, uncovered dos Santos’ dealings in a network of companies, including Sonangol.

Angolan and Portuguese authorities froze dos Santos’ assets and bank accounts and launched criminal investigations. The business empire was largely dismantled.

Last year, ICIJ’s Pandora Papers investigation tied dos Santos and other powerful Angolan figures accused of embezzling billions of dollars to financial hideaways.

Subsequently, the United States froze dos Santos’s assets and bank accounts and launched criminal investigations into her business.

Dod Santos has homes in Dubai and London and is believed to visit Portugal often.

Her father, José Eduardo dos Santos, an autocrat who ruled over Angola for decades, died in Barcelona last year following a long illness.

Her husband, Sindika Dokolo, died the previous year in a free diving accident off an island near Dubai.

An international tribunal in the Netherlands ruled after his death that he and his wife had obtained a stake in the Portuguese oil company Galp in a way that was “tainted by illegality.”

The tribunal ordered dos Santos to return the $500 million stake which was secured in a controversial deal through Sonangol when her father was still president.

ICIJ revealed  that dos Santos and Dokolo had obtained the Galp stake for just a $15 million initial deposit, in the deal overseen at the time by dos Santos’ father.

The Luanda Leaks investigation was based on a trove of 715,000 documents including emails, charts, contracts, audits, and accounts that help explain how dos Santos built a business empire worth an estimated $2 billion.

The Platform to Protect Whistleblowers in Africa, an organization based in Paris, France, obtained the files and shared them with ICIJ.

In a statement sent to Reuters today, dos Santos’ representatives said she had not been made aware of the arrest warrant.

Dos Santos’ business dealings also featured in ICIJ’s FinCEN Files investigation.

Mainstream media and polling services haven’t apologized for their willful incompetence, so we won’t apologize for demanding more honest and accurate reporting. After the midterms, Democrats have a renewed sense of empowerment knowing what works to win. Palmer Report has declared a key part of the strategy for future elections will be holding mainstream media and polling services accountable.

Like many of you, after the November 8, 2016 “election” I stopped tuning in to television or radio news. The talking heads spin was unbearable. Instead, I read obsessively, triaging accurate reporting from sensationalism. Bill Palmer is the master of this. I can only imagine the amount of news sources he sorts through.

I confess, there are some things only spoken media can provide. For example, when the highly anticipated Mueller report was released, I finally listened to one of the talking heads, and realized that “Mueller” is pronounced with a short ‘u,’ leaving me mulling over what else I missed. Not much.

For the January 6th Committee Hearings, I hit record and waited at least an hour to watch. That way when Andrea Mitchell spewed spin prompted in her ear by the producers, I could fast forward. Producers know how to get viewers to react and repeat incendiary soundbites. Train your brain, take note of what triggers you, fast forward, or change the channel.

For written media, heed Palmer Report’s admonishments about leaks to the press. This is great insight into how the media is used to manipulates us. Palmer Report is also calling out the media in real time – for example, Trump’s big campaign “announcement” – demanding more accurate reporting. On that day, when I received a barrage of emails and texts from the media, I deleted them unopened, depriving digital media of its precious click-through rate.

Finally, discourage doomsday messaging. Push back against attacks on Merrick Garland’s DOJ, remind others of all it has done so far, and of all WE have done: We won 2018, 2020, 2021 in Georgia, and now 2022 midterms. Democrats are savvy consumers of information and will continue to demand better. Sorry, not sorry.

The post Doomsday hysteria appeared first on Palmer Report.