The US embassy in Moscow could stop performing most functions next year unless there is progress with Russia on increasing the number of visas for diplomats, a US official has warned.

The United States earlier this month stopped processing visas in Moscow, and Russians are obliged to travel to the US embassy in Warsaw.

xe2x80x9cWe need to make progress soon,xe2x80x9d a senior state department official told reporters.

xe2x80x9cWexe2x80x99re going to confront the situation xe2x80x93 not next month, but sometime next year xe2x80x93 where itxe2x80x99s just difficult for us to continue with anything other than a caretaker presence at the embassy,xe2x80x9d he said.

xe2x80x9cWe will do everything humanly possible to keep that mission open,xe2x80x9d he said, while warning that more functions of the embassy, such as sending diplomatic cables, would become difficult without more staff.

Russia and the United States withdrew their ambassadors in April after the incoming Biden administration issued sanctions and expelled 10 Russian diplomats over actions including the SolarWinds cyber attack and election interference.

Those ambassadors returned in June, but the staff at the embassy in Moscow xe2x80x93 the last operational US mission in the country after consulates in Vladivostok and Yekaterinburg were shuttered xe2x80x93 has shrunk to 120 from about 1,200 in early 2017, the state department official told reporters at a briefing.

He said that the United States lacked staff for basic tasks such as opening and closing the embassy gates, ensuring secure telephone calls and operating the elevators.

Russia on 1 August barred embassies from hiring Russian or third-country staff, forcing the United States to lay off more than 200 locals at missions across Russia, according to the state department.

The United States complains of a lack of reciprocity with Moscow, which counts local staff in its tally of US diplomats, while Washington only factors in Russian nationals in its limit on numbers.

The United States has about 120 people at its Russian missions, far down from 1,200 in 2017, while Russia has 230 people in the United States, excluding those posted in New York for its UN mission.

xe2x80x9cThey have a much bigger presence here in the United States than we have in Russia,xe2x80x9d the official said.

Russia and the United States continue to engage in talks over nuclear threat reduction and climate change, but relations remain strained by issues like the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Europe and Vladimir Putinxe2x80x99s suppression of his domestic opponents.

Russia has blocked the website that exposed President Vladimir Putin‘s cleaner-turned-millionaire ‘mistress’ and herxc2xa0 ‘xc2xa374m business empire’.

Proekt, which also published axc2xa0series of exposes of the country’s super-wealthy elite, was blocked after it claimed, among other things, that Svetlana Krivonogikh, 46,xc2xa0was in a relationship with the then-married Kremlin leader before and after he first became president in 1999.

It also published allegations her daughter – Elizaveta, or Luiza, now 18 – was fathered by Putin, and is his third daughter after Maria and Katerina from his marriage.xc2xa0

The news outlet, known in English as Project, was earlier designated by the Kremlin a ‘foreign agent’ and an ‘undesirable organisation’ – the same labels given to opposition leader Alexei Navalny‘s Anti-Corruption Foundation.xc2xa0

Proekt founder Roman Badanin, who has halted his work in Russia where he faces jail on ostensibly unrelated charges, was also labelled a ‘foreign agent’ over the sites’s alleged US backing.xc2xa0

The move by Roskomnadzor to ban the site reportedly came at the behest of the country’s prosecutor-general.xc2xa0

The Ministry of Justice has claimed the company behind Proekt posed ‘a threat to the foundations of the constitutional order and security of the Russian Federation’.xc2xa0xc2xa0xc2xa0

The outlet’s investigative journalists had claimed Krivonogikh owned a business empire worth in excess of xc2xa374 million, including a yacht that has been seen under naval escort in St Petersburg.

The recent Pandora Papers leak also linked her to a xc2xa33.1 million luxury fourth-floor home, located in the Monte Carlo Star apartment block just below the famous casino, in Monaco.xc2xa0

The papersxc2xa0also revealed her total worth to be around $100million.xc2xa0

A series of photos posted to Instagram -xc2xa0one showing a firework display, one of a rainbow overlooking the ocean, and a third showing yachts in the harbour – also linkedxc2xa0Krivonogikh and her daughter to the apartment.xc2xa0

On the yacht photo, which was posted in 2014, daughter Elizaveta replied with comment which said: ‘Beautiful! I know this place!’xc2xa0

Her other assets, many of which are also controlled by offshore firms, include a yacht as well as shares of some of Russia’s most-valuable state-owned firms.xc2xa0

Neither Krivonogikh nor her daughter has commented on the disclosures which unmask the hidden financial dealings of world leaders and their associates.xc2xa0

Since being ‘outed’ by the opposition media last year, student Luiza has become a social media star with more than 80,000 followers, her own fashion line, and has been in demand as a DJ.

In recent months, she had spent time in Paris despite the Covid-19 restrictions.

Neither she nor her mother has commented on the Proekt claims but Luiza told Russian GQ that she ‘probably’ looks ‘similar’ to a young Putin.xc2xa0xc2xa0xc2xa0xc2xa0xc2xa0

Putin’s spokesman said when the story originally broke that the love child allegations were ‘not very convincing’ and ‘de facto unfounded’, but this has not prevented widespread speculation.

Proekt’s closure coincides with a Washington Post article by Badanin – now a John S. Knight Senior International Journalism Fellow at Stanford University – headlined: ‘Why we should care about Putin’s love life’.

In it he argued: ‘Where Krivonogikh got her wealth is relevant not only to Putin’s personal life, it is also a matter of life and death for the people of my country.’

The Covid-19 crisis in Russia has reached new peaks yet ‘our kleptocrats, enabled and encouraged by the Kremlin, continue to enrich themselves even as regular people continue dying in underfunded state hospitals’.

While deaths soar, hospitals like the Botkin State Clinic in St Petersburg, are crumbling due to lack of renovation, he said.

‘Even as public facilities such as Botkin were falling apart, Putin’s friends and relatives – including his ex-mistress Krivonogikh – our reporting showed, have been busily building multimillion-dollar residential buildings for themselves,’ he wrote.

Funding for such properties has come from Bank Rossiya, of which she is an owner, he said.

Polandxe2x80x99s prime minister has accused Vladimir Putin of xe2x80x9cmastermindingxe2x80x9d the migrant crisis on Belarusxe2x80x99s border with the EU, while Minskxe2x80x99s key ally in the Kremlin pointed the blame at Europe.

The escalating rhetoric, including claims from the Belarusian leader, Alexander Lukashenko, that Russia could join a potential conflict at the border, has underlined the role that regional alliances are playing in the standoff and ensuing humanitarian crisis.

Poland and Lithuania have declared a state of emergency on their borders with Belarus, where Lukashenko has been accused of ferrying asylum-seekers from the Middle East to the EUxe2x80x99s borders as revenge for the blocxe2x80x99s criticism of his crackdown on opposition.

The arrival of more than 1,000 migrants and refugees, many from Iraqi Kurdistan, at the Polish border on Monday brought the crisis to a head. Polish border guards said on Wednesday that two groups of several dozen people had breached the borders overnight. They were arrested and expelled, they said. Lithuanian border guards said they had prevented 281 attempts to cross the border illegally on Tuesday.

At an extraordinary session of parliament on Tuesday evening, the Polish prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, squarely pointed the blame for the crisis at Moscow and Putin, calling the Russian leader an xe2x80x9cenablerxe2x80x9d of Lukashenko.

xe2x80x9cThis attack which Lukashenko is conducting has its mastermind in Moscow, the mastermind is President Putin,xe2x80x9d Morawiecki said in the Sejm, Polandxe2x80x99s lower house of parliament, which is dominated by the rightwing Law and Justice party.

Morawiecki said Putin was determined to xe2x80x9crebuild the Russian empirexe2x80x9d and called the crisis at the border xe2x80x9ca new kind of war, in which people are used as living shieldsxe2x80x9d.

The remarks are the most direct accusations against Russia yet in a crisis where the Kremlin has not played an overt role. Belarusian travel agencies have issued visas and brought hundreds of people from Iraq, Syria and other countries to Minsk, from where they then travel west to try to cross the border and from Poland pass on to Germany. Many of the airlines carrying the migrants and refugees are Belarusian or based in the Middle East.

Moscow has been an increasingly crucial ally for Belarus in the past year, backing Lukashenko after his brutal crackdown on protests and after his grounding of a Ryanair flight in May that set off a fresh round of sanctions and pushed Minsk further into isolation.

EU countries have threatened new sanctions and accused Lukashenko of xe2x80x9chuman traffickingxe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9cgangster-stylexe2x80x9d tactics.

On Tuesday, Russiaxe2x80x99s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said western countries including EU member states, and Nato, were the xe2x80x9crootxe2x80x9d of the migrant crisis.

xe2x80x9cThey were pushing for a western-style better life and democracy the way it is interpreted by the west,xe2x80x9d he said, referring to US-led interventions and alleged western backing for the Arab spring.

Lukashenko and Putin held a phone call to discuss the border crisis on Tuesday. On Wednesday, the Collective Security Treaty Organisation, a military alliance of ex-Soviet states, said it was following the crisis xe2x80x9cvery closely and with concernxe2x80x9d.

xe2x80x9cThe migrant crisis may evolve into a great disaster for thousands of civilians, including numerous women and children,xe2x80x9d the CSTO secretariat said in a statement. Dominated by Moscow, the group is seen as the Kremlinxe2x80x99s answer to Nato.

Earlier, western media reported remarks from a Nato spokesperson that the military alliance xe2x80x9cstands readyxe2x80x9d to provide help to end the crisis.

Reuters reported on Wednesday that the EU was close to imposing more sanctions on Belarus, targeting 30 individuals and entities including the foreign minister and the Belarusian airline Belavia, with approval likely as early as next week.

WASHINGTON xe2x80x94 After vowing for months to crack down on ransomware, the Biden administration and allied countries unleashed a string of actions Monday against one of the most prolific hacking groups and also issued sanctions against cryptocurrency entities that allegedly enable such attacks.

European authorities announced that police in Romania and South Korea had arrested five people allegedly associated with the Russia-linked ransomware group commonly known as REvil or Sodinokibi. In the U.S., a Ukrainian national, Yaroslav Vasinkyi, and a Russian national, Yevgeniy Polyanin, were indicted for alleged involvement in REvil ransomware attacks, according to Justice Department court documents unsealed Monday in Dallas.

xe2x80x9cTogether with our partners, the Justice Department is sparing no resource to identify and bring to justice anyone, anywhere, who targets the United States with a ransomware attack,xe2x80x9d Attorney General Merrick Garland said at a news conference in Washington. xe2x80x9cThe U.S. government will continue to aggressively pursue the entire ransomware ecosystem and increase our nationxe2x80x99s resilience to cyberthreats.xe2x80x9d

While the arrests and associated actions demonstrate a significant capability of governments to disrupt hackers, it remained unclear how much of an impact theyxe2x80x99ll have on preventing future ransomware attacks. Cybersecurity experts warn that hackers operate in loosely affiliated groups, often in countries like Russia where they can evade law enforcement.

Jon DiMaggio, chief security strategist at Analyst1, said the indictments can be important in slowing down groups like REvil. xe2x80x9cBut at the end of the day, there is no shortage of hackers for hire that want to make money by getting in with these guys,xe2x80x9d he said.

xe2x80x9cMaybe theyxe2x80x99ll think for a second longer before they join, if therexe2x80x99s law enforcement action against a specific group. Time will tell,xe2x80x9d he said. xe2x80x9cBut criminals are criminals. Theyxe2x80x99re generally not afraid of law enforcement.xe2x80x9d

In Washington, the Treasury Department announced actions intended to disrupt ransomware attacks and the virtual currency exchanges that launder the illicit proceeds. The State Department offered a reward of as much as $10 million for information leading to the identification or location of REvilxe2x80x99s leaders and as much as $5 million for information leading to the arrest or conviction of individuals who participated in attacks involving REvilxe2x80x99s malware.

xe2x80x9cREvil,xe2x80x9d short for xe2x80x9cRansomware-Evil,xe2x80x9d is known as one of the worldxe2x80x99s most infamous ransomware gangs. The group is accused of staging several attacks this year against major companies and organizations, including Brazilian meat supplier JBS SA and Miami-based technology company Kaseya. JBS paid an $11 million ransom, while Kaseya said it declined to pay the hackers.

In ransomware attacks, hackers encrypt a victimxe2x80x99s files and then demand payment to unlock them. Reported ransomware payments in the U.S. reached $590 million in the first half of 2021, compared with a total of $416 million in a 2020, according to the Treasury Department.

Following a string of high-profile attacks, President Joe Biden vowed to make curbing ransomware a priority for his administration. At a June summit, he warned his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, that Russian hackers should steer clear of 16 critical sectors of the US. economy. Last month, his administration enlisted more than 30 countries in an effort to curb ransomware.

On Monday, Biden said he was following through on his promise to Putin.

xe2x80x9cWe are bringing the full strength of the federal government to disrupt malicious cyber activity and actors, bolster resilience at home, address the abuse of virtual currency to launder ransom payments, and leverage international cooperation to disrupt the ransomware ecosystem and address safe harbors for ransomware criminals,xe2x80x9d Biden said in a statement.

The arrests by European and South Korean law enforcement involved so-called REvil affiliates. Ransomware groups often provide their malware to others, called affiliates, who then target victims and pay the group a cut of the illicit proceeds. Europol said that law enforcement agencies had identified the alleged affiliates of REvil after seizing infrastructure used by the group and carrying out investigative methods such as wiretapping.

Romanian authorities arrested two alleged affiliates of the group on Thursday, according to a statement released Monday by European law enforcement agency Europol. A further three arrests of REvil suspects were made earlier this year, Europol said.

The arrests stemmed from an international investigation named GoldDust, which involved law enforcement agencies from 17 countries, including the U.S., the U.K., France and Germany. The alleged hackers are suspected of involvement in about 5,000 ransomware infections and received about half a million Euros ($579,000) in ransom payments.

In the Texas indictments, Vasinskyi and Polyanin were charged with conspiracy to commit fraud and money laundering, as well as other computer crimes, in connection with REvil ransomware attacks against several U.S. businesses. Prosecutors allege the two xe2x80x9cknowingly and willfullyxe2x80x9d conspired to intentionally damage computer systems among at least nine firms in seven states.

The Justice Department said Monday it seized $6.1 million in ransom payments tied to Polyanin, and the FBI added a xe2x80x9cwantedxe2x80x9d poster for him to its website.

Polyanin is charged with deploying the first operational version of the Sodinokibi ransomware. He allegedly deployed ransomware on the computer networks of one company and 11 government entities xe2x80x94 tied to multiple municipalities in Texas xe2x80x94 in August 2019, according to court filings. Polyanin allegedly hacked into the network of an unnamed company and then deployed ransomware on its customerxe2x80x99s networks.

Vasinskyi was arrested after traveling to Poland. In December 2019, he allegedly sent a message on a criminal forum to xe2x80x9cUnknown,xe2x80x9d who is believed to be a representative of the REvil ransomware gang. xe2x80x9cHello, this is rabotnik,xe2x80x9d Vasinskyi wrote, according to the court filings. xe2x80x9cI want to return to work.xe2x80x9d Vasinskyixe2x80x99s alleged targets included Kaseya, the Florida based software developer. Prosecutors said the victims in Vasinskyixe2x80x99s attacks have paid more than $2 million in combined ransom.

The government alleges that Vasinskyi and other conspirators authored and deployed the malicious software on computer systems since April 2019. Prosecutors say the attackers infected computers using a swath of tricks, including sending out phishing emails, using compromised remote desktop passwords and exploiting vulnerabilities in software code.

Mondayxe2x80x99s actions include the designation of Chatex, a virtual currency exchange, and its associated support network, for facilitating financial transactions for ransomware actors. Chatex, which claims to have a presence in multiple countries, has facilitated transactions for multiple ransomware variants, according to the Treasury Department. Analysis of Chatexxe2x80x99s known transactions indicate that over half are directly traced to illicit or high-risk activities such as dark net markets, high-risk exchanges, and ransomware.

Law enforcement authorities used the new conference to encourage other companies to quickly report attacks to law enforcement, as Kaseya did, and to praise other countries that aided in the effort. FBI Director Christopher Wray said that the arrests show xe2x80x9cwhatxe2x80x99s possible when federal law enforcement and international law enforcement work together with private sector companies.xe2x80x9d

When asked by a reporter, Garland declined to say whether the Russian government condoned or was aware of the actions taken against the hackers.

Recent FBI investigations relevant to the 2016 presidential election have become the latest battleground in our deeply divided and partisan politics.

Some Republicans, disappointed by the lack of charges over Hillary Clinton’s emails and distressed by the continuing probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election, suddenly perceive corruption in the FBI. Democrats counter that the casting of doubt on the nation’s top national law enforcement agency is an unprecedented outrage.

Everyone agrees that the FBI should be as professional and impartial as possible and that its investigations should not be driven by any political agenda or vendetta. That has always been the ideal.

But various parties to the current imbroglio have been suggesting that somehow this is the first time the bureau may have fallen short of that ideal xe2x80x94 or even been accused of doing so, rightly or wrongly.

Surely there is a massive case of collective amnesia afflicting Washington and much of the media commentariat on that score.

The fact is, controversy about the FBI is anything but new xe2x80x94 and achieving political goals of one kind or another have been part of the reason for the FBI since its inception.

Still, the “this is not normal” narrative is strong, and it is also coming from within the FBI community itself.

Chris Swecker, who finished his 24-year bureau career as an acting assistant director, told NPR’s Ryan Lucas this week that “there’s been plenty of controversies, but never accusations that the FBI has become a political tool for one party or another, or one set of political beliefs or another.”

Never? Really?

In his defense, Swecker’s FBI tenure coincided almost exactly with that of Louis Freeh, Robert Mueller and James Comey, the directors of the agency from 1993 to last May. In these years, under these men, the FBI has been arguably less politicized and less of a political tool than at any time in its 109-year history.

But to use the word “never” when discussing the history of the FBI’s service to a political party or to a set of political beliefs is to invite not only disbelief, but also bitter derision.

Political since its inception

As a matter of reality, the FBI has been political from its outset. While it has always had an ethos of professionalism and objectivity and devotion to law, the people in charge of it and the people in charge of the administrations under which it has served have been as political and as partisan as it is possible to be.

One could say the idea of a federal agency that conducts criminal investigations has been political by definition, practically from its inception.

Let’s talk about Teddy Roosevelt for a moment. He started the precursor agency called the Bureau of Investigation way back in 1908. He did it because he wanted someone to look at the books of some of the country’s largest and most powerful businesses, which he suspected of violating the anti-trust laws meant to rein in the activities of monopolies.

Similarly, when the bureau was tasked with finding German spies during the World War I, it could be called law enforcement xe2x80x94 pure and simple. But what about when it went rounded up and detained citizens who had not yet registered for the draft? Or harassed political radicals of various stripes whom the administration saw as security risks for their unorthodox ideas?

Pursuing Nazis, gangsters, political favors and payback

In the 1920s, the old BOI had a role in the Teapot Dome scandal that would eventually send several officials of President Warren G. Harding’s administration to prison.

But its role was not so much in exposing the oil companies that paid bribes for access to government oil reserves. It was, rather, in investigating a senator who had exposed the scandal. That forced the BOI director of the time to resign, opening the door to a young officer who became the agency’s head in 1924. His name was J. Edgar Hoover.

Thereafter, “the Feds” went after the heavily armed gangsters who sometimes terrorized the countryside and the urban landscape as well. Like the pursuit of spies, this work was broadly popular with the public. Hoover proved effective at demythologizing folk heroes such as Charles “Pretty Boy” Floyd and George “Baby Face” Nelson, as well as at professionalizing the bureau itself. The idea of using a crime lab to solve cases largely began with Hoover’s agency, which added the word “federal” to its name in 1935.

Hoover’s 48 years on the job included not just such popular crusades as rooting out Nazis during World War II but also such errands as collecting the names of people who wrote anti-war or isolationist letters to the White House. Hoover would eventually hold the top job through eight presidencies, doing various political favors for nearly all of them (according to evidence unearthed by a 1975 Senate investigation chaired by Idaho Sen. Frank Church).

During World War II, Hoover’s bureau caught Nazi saboteurs and spies, but it also pursued people of Japanese descent and jailed those who objected. After the war, the bureau was prominent in pursuit of Communists, which came to mean a wide variety of people with divergent views.

And Hoover collaborated with the notorious blunderbuss Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy of Wisconsin, whose years of committee hearings wounded many reputations but wound up unmasking no actual Communists.

Plenty of Americans have regarded these uses of the FBI’s resources as entirely legitimate, while plenty of others have found them entirely unacceptable. But you cannot argue they were not political. And in the hands of such figures as McCarthy or Richard Nixon, the FBI most definitely was a tool of one political party.

Rooting out “radicals,” from Communists to war protest and civil rights leaders

Hoover’s passion for rooting out radicals was formalized in what was called COINTELPRO (for counterintelligence program). Aimed originally at the Communist Party, the effort expanded to battle leftists in general and especially leaders of protests against the Vietnam War.

The program was also a scourge of the civil rights movement, most prominently Martin Luther King Jr. Hoover had a kind of obsession with King, hounding him for years xe2x80x94 at one point sending him tape recordings of his tapped telephone and urging him to commit suicide.

At largely the same time, under Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, the FBI engaged in disruptive tactics against the Ku Klux Klan in the South. But after bloody riots erupted in many U.S. cities in the mid-1960s and later, Hoover turned his focus to “black nationalist” groups such as the Black Panthers, bringing disrepute and sowing dissent in its ranks.

Here again, the FBI was proving its worth to at least one concept of law enforcement even as it showed itself as a dangerous and repressive institution to others. But what one cannot deny was that it became a political tool xe2x80x94 not just repeatedly but continually over many years.

Infamous unverified dossiers

Hoover also used his bureau to compile dossiers on people in government he thought might be security risks. These included hundreds of officials and bureaucrats he thought might be vulnerable to blackmail because they were gay. Hoover compiled mountains of evidence regarding people’s sexual orientation, a store that was eventually destroyed by one of his successors in the 1970s xe2x80x93 after Hoover’s death.

At the same time, thousands of other Americans were able to get access to the files the FBI had kept on them and their activities for decades. Many of these records included totally unproven and unverified accusations included in “raw files” that were not meant for general release but available to various authorities at Hoover’s discretion.

Another occasion of historical significance involving the FBI was the Watergate scandal and subsequent congressional and law enforcement action leading to Nixon’s resignation as president in 1974.

Deep State dxc3xa9jxc3xa0 vu?

Watergate was happening just as the FBI was finally transitioning to a new director. Nixon appointed an outsider named L. Patrick Gray, who lasted less than a year. But during that period, the No. 2 man in the bureau, W. Mark Felt, got wind of various forms of skulduggery practiced by Nixon’s re-election campaign in 1971 and 1972, culminating in the burglary at the Watergate hotel that gave the scandal its name.

Felt managed to convey much of what he learned to a young reporter he knew who worked at The Washington Post. The reporter was Bob Woodward, and the rest is history xe2x80x94 highly politicized history. Those who still defend Nixon today have to contend with the role played by Felt in prompting the congressional and legal proceedings that forced Nixon to resign in 1974.

Perhaps it is that episode in the long history of the bureau that is making some on Capitol Hill and some conservatives in the media uneasy about where the current investigation of Trump’s campaign and cronies could be going. For these individuals, any indication that evidence gathered by the FBI could bring Trump or members of his circle to legal reckoning would be a bad case of dxc3xa9jxc3xa0 vu.

And that is the opposite of unprecedented.

WASHINGTON (AP) xe2x80x94 Further expanding its probe, the U.S. House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection has issued subpoenas to six additional associates of former President Donald Trump who were closely involved in his efforts to overturn his defeat in the 2020 election.

The committeexe2x80x99s chairman, Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson, said in a statement Monday that the panel is demanding testimony and documents from former Trump campaign officials and others who participated in a xe2x80x9cwar roomxe2x80x9d ahead of the siege and strategized about how to halt the certification of Joe Bidenxe2x80x99s victory.

Thompson said the committee had issued new subpoenas to Bill Stepien, manager of Trumpxe2x80x99s 2020 reelection campaign; Jason Miller, a senior adviser to the campaign; Angela McCallum, national executive assistant to the campaign; John Eastman, a lawyer who advised the former president; Michael Flynn, a former national security adviser to Trump who talked with Trump ahead of the insurrection; and Bernard Kerik, who the committee says paid for hotel rooms that served as command centers ahead of Jan. 6.

xe2x80x9cIn the days before the January 6th attack, the former presidentxe2x80x99s closest allies and advisers drove a campaign of misinformation about the election and planned ways to stop the count of Electoral College votes,xe2x80x9d Thompson said. xe2x80x9cThe Select Committee needs to know every detail about their efforts to overturn the election, including who they were talking to in the White House and in Congress, what connections they had with rallies that escalated into a riot, and who paid for it all.xe2x80x9d

The subpoenas come after the panel has already demanded documents and testimony from several other Trump advisers xe2x80x94 some who have cooperated and some who have not. The House voted last month to hold longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon in contempt after he refused to comply with his subpoena. Trump himself is fighting the probe in court.

The rioters who violently pushed back police to break into the Capitol and interrupt the electoral count repeated Trumpxe2x80x99s false claims of widespread fraud, and the committee says the six newly subpoenaed witnesses helped amplify the misinformation in the days ahead of the attack. Trumpxe2x80x99s false claims came as election officials and courts across the country verified Bidenxe2x80x99s win, and as his own attorney general said there was no evidence of significant fraud.

Thompson says in the letters to the Trump associates that the panel has uncovered xe2x80x9ccredible evidencexe2x80x9d of their participation in the former presidentxe2x80x99s efforts to overturn the election and cites ways that they individually tried to further his cause.

In Stepienxe2x80x99s subpoena, Thompson cites the testimony of an unnamed witness in saying he oversaw the xe2x80x9cconversionxe2x80x9d of Trumpxe2x80x99s presidential campaign to a xe2x80x9cStop the Stealxe2x80x9d effort. In letters to Miller and McCallum, Thompson cites specific efforts to spread the false claims, including a phone call from McCallum to an unidentified Michigan state legislator asking if the Trump campaign could xe2x80x9ccount onxe2x80x9d them and urging the person to push for the appointment of new state electors.

Thompson detailed several efforts by Eastman, a lawyer and professor, to persuade Vice President Mike Pence to try to overturn the election as he presided over the congressional certification xe2x80x94 a power Pence did not legally have. Thompson also cites Eastmanxe2x80x99s outreach to states, including a briefing to state legislators, and his participation in the so-called xe2x80x9cwar roomxe2x80x9d at the Willard Hotel where he, Bannon, Kerik and others strategized ahead of the siege about how to overturn Trumpxe2x80x99s defeat.

Kerik, a former New York City police commissioner who was pardoned by Trump after serving time in prison for tax fraud and other charges, responded to his subpoena with a lengthy statement on Monday evening. He said that he xe2x80x9cwas not hired to overturn the will of the people, only to look into the integrity of the processxe2x80x9d and that his focus after the election was on xe2x80x9clooking for evidence,xe2x80x9d not public relations.

xe2x80x9cAs to the events of January 6th, I was not involved,xe2x80x9d he said.

The others contacted by The Associated Press did not respond to requests for comment.

In the letter to Flynn xe2x80x94 the former national security adviser who twice pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and was also pardoned by Trump xe2x80x94 Thompson cited a December Oval Office meeting with the then-president. Citing media reports, Thompson said Flynn and other participants xe2x80x9cdiscussed seizing voting machines, declaring a national emergency, invoking certain national security emergency powers and continuing to spread the message that the Nov. 2020 election had been tainted by widespread fraud.xe2x80x9d

The panel is working with other close Trump advisers to gain testimony, including former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and administration aides Kashyap Patel and Dan Scavino. Members of the committee said they have been xe2x80x9cengagingxe2x80x9d with those witnesses but may move to hold them in contempt, as well, if they donxe2x80x99t comply soon.

Trumpxe2x80x99s own opposition has prompted some of his advisors, including Bannon, to say they canxe2x80x99t speak publicly about their roles. The former presidentxe2x80x99s lawsuit argues that he can assert executive privilege, or a presidential claim to keep some information private, in an effort to block the government from releasing a tranche of internal White House documents to the panel. The committee has argued that privilege doesnxe2x80x99t apply.

President Biden has so far waived executive privilege on nearly all the documents that the committee has asked for, citing the panelxe2x80x99s need to investigate the violent attack.

In his subpoena to Eastman, Thompson sought to preemptively attack any attorney-client privilege that he may attempt to cite to avoid testifying. The letter noted that Eastman has already xe2x80x9cmade extensive public commentsxe2x80x9d regarding his legal advice and direct discussions with Trump.

Former Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark, who aligned himself with Trumpxe2x80x99s efforts to overturn the election as other department leaders pushed back, appeared for a deposition on Friday but declined to cooperate, presenting the committee with a letter saying he would not answer questions based on Trumpxe2x80x99s assertions of privilege, including in the ongoing court case.

Thompson said afterward that he had rejected the claims of privilege and said Clark xe2x80x9chas a very short timexe2x80x9d to reconsider and cooperate.

The committee has already interviewed more than 150 people across government, social media and law enforcement, including some former Trump aides who have been cooperative. The panel has subpoenaed more than 20 witnesses total, and most of them, including several associates who helped plan the massive xe2x80x9cStop the Stealxe2x80x9d rally the morning of the 6th, have signaled they will cooperate.

___

Associated Press writer Eric Tucker contributed to this report.

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On Monday, the US supreme court will hear arguments in a case which could determine whether the US government faces accountability for its mass surveillance of Muslim Americans after 9/11.

The nine justices will be asked to decide on whether Muslim US citizens who were subjected to undercover surveillance by a paid informant at their southern California mosque can receive redress through the courts.

Sheikh Yassir Fazaga, Ali Malik and Yasser Abdel Rahim, the three plaintiffs, argue that they and thousands of other Muslims were targeted because of their religion, and the federal authorities who subjected them to such unconstitutional treatment should answer for that.

Lawyers for the government will counter that the case should be dismissed, as litigating it would reveal intelligence about federal anti-terrorism operations that would be harmful to national security. Information on who they were investigating and why, as well as details of the FBIxe2x80x99s sources and methods, should remain confidential on grounds that they are xe2x80x9cstate secretsxe2x80x9d.

Ahilan Arulanantham, a human rights lawyer at UCLA who will be arguing FBI v Fazaga for the plaintiffs on Monday, told reporters that the question for the court was simple: xe2x80x9cWill the people we represent ever get their day in court? Are the courts open to protect this communityxe2x80x99s religious freedoms, or can the government slam the doors shut whenever it claims to be acting in the name of national security?xe2x80x9d

At the heart of the case is Craig Monteilh, a fitness instructor convicted for fraud, who was taken on by the FBI as an informant five years after 9/11 in xe2x80x9cOperation Flexxe2x80x9d in which he surveilled mosques in Irvine, California.

Ali Malik, one of the three plaintiffs in the Fazaga case, vividly remembers when Monteilh first visited the Islamic Center of Irvine in July 2006. The informant presented himself as a person of French and Syrian descent wanting to convert to Islam.

xe2x80x9cHe was not someone youxe2x80x99d forget,xe2x80x9d Malik told the Guardian. xe2x80x9cPhysically, hexe2x80x99s very dominantxe2x80x93 a big guy, a body builder. Hexe2x80x99s massive, shaved head, tattoos xe2x80x93 so he didnxe2x80x99t look like the majority of constituents at the center.xe2x80x9d

Malik, a US citizen from birth, was 22 and a student when Monteilh appeared. Malik said that he and his fellow worshippers were excited to welcome into their community the new convert, who took on the name Farouk al-Aziz.

xe2x80x9cWe had never experienced an undercover provocateur,xe2x80x9d Malik said. xe2x80x9cWe had no reason to believe that the FBI was involved in that activity. In fact, the FBI had come to our mosque, looked into our eyes, and assured us that they were not spying on us.xe2x80x9d

Malik became Monteilhxe2x80x99s mentor, teaching him how to pray. For more than a year, they met regularly, sharing personal details of their lives and working out at the gym together.

Malik recalls becoming uneasy about Monteilh when he began asking questions about violent jihad, becoming increasingly incessant on the subject.

xe2x80x9cHe would say, xe2x80x98What about jihad? What about this?xe2x80x99 I had only one response: xe2x80x98Vigilante violence is not okay in Islam. You need to focus on how to pray and how to establish a connection with God.xe2x80x99xe2x80x9d

Malik picked up the same concerns from others in the mosque xe2x80x93 Monteilh was inciting violence among them. xe2x80x9cHe was so assertive, and he spoke with such urgency that he was really intimidating.xe2x80x9d

The last conversation they had was so disturbing that Malik went to the imam of the mosque and told him Monteilh was potentially violent and a danger to the community. Eventually, a restraining order was taken out preventing Monteilh from visiting the mosque.

Ironically, the mosque also informed the FBI about their concerns. The FBI said it would deal with the situation.

In 2009 it became public that Monteilh was working for the FBI and had been trying to entrap law-abiding American Muslims with his talk of violent jihad. It emerged that he had gathered hundreds of phone numbers, thousands of email addresses, and hours of video and audio recordings inside mosques, homes and businesses associated with Muslims.

Monteilh later admitted his role, telling the Guardian in 2012 that his FBI handlers had authorized him to have sex with Muslim women and record their pillow talk. xe2x80x9cThey said, if it would enhance the intelligence, to go ahead and have sex. So I did,xe2x80x9d he said.

That same year, Monteilh told NPR that he told two congregants: xe2x80x9cwe should bomb somethingxe2x80x9d.

Malik joined his co-plaintiffs, Sheikh Yassir Fazaga and Yasser Abdel Rahim, in filing a lawsuit against the FBI. In 2011, with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California and the Council on American-Islamic Relations of Greater Los Angeles, they filed a federal class-action lawsuit accusing the government of surveilling Muslim Americans in violation of their constitutional rights.

The invocation of xe2x80x9cstate secretsxe2x80x9d in the Fazaga case was the first time in recent American history that the privilege was invoked to dismiss a lawsuit brought by an American citizen concerning domestic law enforcement.

Mondayxe2x80x99s hearing is the second time the supreme court will consider the application of xe2x80x9cstate secretsxe2x80x9d this term. Last month, the justices considered whether the Guantxc3xa1namo detainee Abu Zubaydah should be able to question two former CIA contractors about the brutal torture he was subjected to at a xe2x80x9cblack sitexe2x80x9d in Poland.

In the Fazaga case, the nationxe2x80x99s highest court will adjudicate on whether the lawsuit against FBIxe2x80x99s surveillance can proceed under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. This would allow the case to be heard in a federal district court with part of the proceedings conducted in private to safeguard sensitive intelligence.

Malik and his fellow plaintiffs will be in Washington on Monday to listen to the arguments, although they will not be allowed into the courtroom under Covid restrictions. He told the Guardian that the hearing was xe2x80x9cprobably the most important thing, other than getting married and having children, in my entire lifexe2x80x9d.

He said the lawsuit boiled down to a simple premise: xe2x80x9cCan I practice my religion without having to feel Ixe2x80x99m doing anything wrong?xe2x80x9d

As for the governmentxe2x80x99s claim of xe2x80x9cstate secretsxe2x80x9d, Malik said: xe2x80x9cItxe2x80x99s terrifying to know that the government can conduct illegal activity against me and that I, as a citizen, canxe2x80x99t hold them to account. All Ixe2x80x99m asking for is the establishment of the rule of law xe2x80x93 for the constitution of the United States to be upheld.xe2x80x9d

xe2x80x9cThe use of the state secrets privilege was entirely to protect the FBIxe2x80x99s methodology from public scrutiny and legal accountability.xe2x80x9d

The 9/11 Wars

The state secrets privilege is a legal doctrine that was built on a lie.