Tag: criminals
Taking The Fifth Reflects Trump's Instinctive Fear Of Truth

Taking The Fifth Reflects Trump's Instinctive Fear Of Truth

Donald Trump has invoked his Fifth Amendment right to remain silent in a civil case, and if he ever stands trial on criminal charges, neither a judge or a jury may take that as evidence of guilt. But in the court of common sense, we are entitled to reach the obvious conclusion: Trump has committed crimes and wants to keep them secret.

The Fifth Amendment privilege, after all, is not to refuse to exonerate oneself. It's to refuse to incriminate oneself. Answering questions truthfully, as a rule, is incriminating only to someone who has done something wrong.

In our daily lives, everyone understands this. If you ask a coworker if he took your sandwich and he declines to reply, you have identified the thief. If you ask your child if she cut class and she says it's none of your business, you can guess the answer. Innocent people with solid alibis are usually eager to speak up on their own behalf.

But Trump is a master of stonewalling. When he faces suspicions of wrongdoing, the man who never tires of talking about himself falls into surly silence. So when investigators for the New York attorney general asked him questions related to whether he engaged in financial deception, he took the Fifth some 440 times.


The privilege against self-incrimination serves as a shield against police coercion. It requires the government to shoulder the full burden of proof before it can send someone to prison. It's an important safeguard in our criminal justice system

But there is no denying that Trump's use of it suggests a consciousness of guilt. He had refused to appear when subpoenaed by the attorney general, and he complied only when a state court ordered him to do so.

Concealing the truth is as natural to Trump as cheating at golf. He has declined to release his tax returns, as every other presidential nominee has done for decades. He refused to be interviewed by special counsel Robert Mueller during the investigation of Russia's interference in the 2016 election. He made a practice of tearing up documents that he was legally obligated to preserve.

He denounced the FBI's search of his Mar-a-Lago estate as part of a partisan "witch hunt." But he chose not to make public the search warrant, which had to specify what material the FBI was looking for and the crimes it suspected. Attorney General Merrick Garland finally asked a judge to release it and a list of the evidence collected. Trump, his bluff called, decided not to object.

Trump claims the congressional committee investigating the January 6 Capitol riot is determined to "damage me in any form." But he has tried to block every attempt to learn what he and his aides did during, before, and after the bloody siege.

The White House phone log from that day contains a gap of more than seven hours, even though he is known to have made calls during that period. Clearly, he was actively trying to avoid leaving a trail of his communications.

He ordered some of his chief advisers not to comply with the committee's subpoenas to give testimony. One of them, Stephen Bannon, was convicted of contempt of Congress for refusing to appear and could go to prison for two years.

Trump has not hesitated to justify his conduct around the Jan. 6 insurrection and in condemning his critics. He accuses the January 6 committee of presenting a shamefully one-sided case, with no witnesses to defend him. But why does he need witnesses to defend him? Nothing is stopping him from appearing before the committee to give his version of events. Trump, however, is unwilling to take that stage.

The reason, it's fair to assume, is the same as the reason that he took refuge behind the Fifth Amendment when grilled by the attorney general of New York. A guilty person, speaking under oath, has three options: 1) lie and risk being prosecuted for perjury; 2) tell the truth and risk being prosecuted for breaking the law,; and 3) zip his mouth.

The third option has its downside, such as reasonable people concluding that you're a criminal. But better for Trump to be thought a criminal by the general public than to be convicted in court and locked up for his crimes.

Trump can blather nonstop against the FBI, the Justice Department, state law enforcement officials, and the January 6 committee. But it's his silences that tell the real story.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

3 Southwest Airlines Baggage Handlers, 11 Others Accused Of Smuggling Drugs

3 Southwest Airlines Baggage Handlers, 11 Others Accused Of Smuggling Drugs

By Matt Hamilton, Los Angeles Times (TNS)

Three Southwest Airlines baggage handlers at Oakland, California International Airport are among 14 people charged with bypassing airport security in order to smuggle several hundred pounds of marijuana across the country, according to a criminal complaint unsealed Monday.

The three baggage handlers all hail from the San Francisco Bay Area: Kenneth Fleming, 32; Keith Mayfield, 34; and Michael Videau, 28. According to the U.S. attorney’s office in San Francisco, the three brought backpacks and duffel bags containing marijuana into restricted areas of the airport.

Using their security badges, the baggage handlers entered the airport terminal and handed off the drugs to a ticketed passenger who had already passed through airport security, according to a sworn affidavit filed by federal investigators.

The trio relied on about eight people — who were also named in the complaint — to smuggle the drugs into cities across the nation, including Nashville, Tenn.; Phoenix; New Orleans; and Little Rock, Ark.

The scheme is believed to have started in July 2012 and continued for nearly three years, according to the affidavit.

The 67-page complaint details how the alleged conspiracy operated. Kameron Davis, 26, one of the alleged couriers, said he was paid about $600 to $800 for each of the three trips he made to Nashville and brought a total of about 30 pounds of marijuana into the city, according to the complaint.

About four a.m. on the day of his flight, Davis told federal officials, he would meet one of the baggage handlers, identified as Fleming, and turn over the marijuana, according to the affidavit. After clearing security, he was notified in a text message from Fleming of the rendezvous point inside the terminal, according to the affidavit.

“Wait in the bathroom for five mins when u come upstairs,” Fleming instructed Davis in one text message from April 30, 2013. “Go to the sink like u washing ur hands.”

At such meeting points, authorities allege, the luggage containing the drugs was passed off. Federal authorities identified ten instances in which they allege Fleming handed off the marijuana to one of the couriers passing through Oakland’s Southwest terminal.

Mayfield is also accused of using the cargo discounts provided to Southwest Airlines employees to send nearly two dozen shipments of several kilograms of marijuana to New York City; Charlotte, N.C.; Philadelphia; Atlanta; and Dallas, among other cities, according to the affidavit.

Once the marijuana was sold, authorities say the proceeds were placed into accounts managed by three people — Ahshatae Millhouse, 27; Laticia Morris, 40; and Donald Holland II, 42.

All 14 people named in connection with the drug trafficking scheme have been charged with a felony count of conspiracy to distribute 100 or more kilograms of marijuana, according to the complaint. If convicted, each faces between five and 40 years in federal prison.

So far, nine people named in the complaint have been arrested, including Fleming, Mayfield and Videau. Two others — Clyde Jamerson, 41, and Ronnell Molton, 34 — are already serving prison sentences in Arkansas and Louisiana, according to federal officials.

Three people are fugitives: Brandon Davillier, 27, of Slidell, La.; Francisco Carrasco, 29, of Hayward, Calif.; and Millhouse, of Oakland.

Photo: John Rogers via Flickr

Florida Man Admitted Slaughtering Family In Chilling 911 Call

Florida Man Admitted Slaughtering Family In Chilling 911 Call

Miami (AFP) — A Florida man who shot dead his daughter and six grandchildren calmly admitted his crimes in a chilling 911 call before killing himself, but a motive for the slaughter may never be known, police said Tuesday.

“I just shot my daughter and shot all my grandkids and I’ll be sitting on my step and when you get here I’m going to shoot myself,” Don Charles Spirit, 51, said in the call, according to the local sheriff’s department.

Spirit — who had spent three years in prison for accidentally shooting dead one of his sons — shot his 28-year-old daughter and grandchildren last Thursday in Bell, Florida, before taking his own life.

The youngest grandchild was just three months old.

In the call to emergency services, Spirit gives details of the bloodbath, telling the dispatcher they included “six kids, one adult, and one of them is a baby.”

Spirit had a brief verbal exchange with police officers when they arrived at the scene before he shot himself, a statement from the Gilchrist County Sheriff’s Office said.

Preliminary autopsies showed that all the victims died from wounds inflicted by a .45-caliber gun found at the scene.

Authorities are investigating how the ex-convict gained access to a firearm and said the catalyst for the killings may never be known.

“As of this time, no clear or definitive motive can be determined,” the statement said.

“This tragic and devastating event may never be fully explained. We would continue to ask everyone to keep the victims’ family, friends, classmates, and the community of Bell, Florida in their thoughts and prayers.”

Spirit was jailed in 2001 for three years for accidentally killing his eight-year-old son during a hunting trip.

Spirit had a lengthy criminal record that included 13 arrests for various offences such as aggravated assault and theft, according to local media.

The Miami Herald reported Tuesday that on September 1, child protective services had received a complaint alleging that the six children were living with two drug addicts.

Spirit’s murdered daughter had recently been released from prison, where she served time for drug-related offences.

AFP Photo

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Gordon Brown Accuses Murdoch Of Employing “Known Criminals”

Former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown upped the stakes today in the developing scandal over Rupert Murdoch’s tabloid hacking scandal:

On Tuesday, Mr. Brown accused The Sunday Times — owned by News International, the British subsidiary of Mr. Murdoch’s News Corporation — of employing “known criminals” to gather personal information on his bank account, legal files and “other files — documentation, tax and everything else.”

“I think that what happened pretty early on in government is that the Sunday Times appear to have got access to my building society account, they got access to my legal files, there is some question mark about what happened to other files — documentation, tax and everything else,” Mr. Brown, who was Britain’s Labour prime minister from 2007 to 2010 after serving for a decade as chancellor of the Exchequer, told the BBC on Tuesday.

“I’m shocked, I’m genuinely shocked, to find that this happened because of their links with criminals, known criminals, who were undertaking this activity, hired by investigators working with the Sunday Times,” Mr. Brown said.

Unlike News of the World, the Sunday Times is a relatively prestigious newspaper, and that the illegal activity extends to all branches of the Murdoch Empire means he and his deputies are effectively setting top-down policy that encourages hacking in the name of “journalism.”