Tag: Push

Transport, low productivity push pulses prices

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Hyderabad: Prices of pulses are gradually increasing across the country and are being used on ration cards in some states. It is becoming difficult to procure it in other states. Each pulse has increased from Rs 10 to Rs 40. The increase in petrol and diesel prices has had an impact on the price of pulses due to increase in transport charges.
Apart from this, due to the shortage of pulses, prices have also increased. During the financial year 2022-23, the production of pulses has also decreased significantly across the country. Which has also had an impact on the price of pulses.
Usually, farmers bring pulses for sale in agricultural markets in the rabi season after February, but due to low production, pulses are reaching the market in small quantities. Complaints are also being received from wholesale sellers about raising prices by creating false shortage of pulses. Illegal hoarders have been warned against hoarding.

The central government directed all states to keep an eye on the prices of pulses and advised them to take strict action against those creating artificial shortages. Even in Telangana, tur dal (legumes), mash or urad dal (While lentil) and moong dal (Petite Yellow Lentils) have not been cultivated as expected.
Unseasonal rains have also damaged pulses crops. The agriculture department had initially estimated that tur dal would be cultivated on 12 lakh acres of land. But in the end, the report submitted to the government by the Department of Agriculture and Statistics states that it is cultivated only on 5.65 lakh acres of land.
However, global availability in the coming year is expected to be better with increase in production expected from Myanmar, where arrivals have started and pulses sowing intentions in African countries indicating increase in area coverage under pulses, which will be available from August 2023 onwards. This will keep the consistent flow of pulses imports and can address concerns related to availability.
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#Transport #productivity #push #pulses #prices

( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

April 4, 2023
‘Delay, delay, delay’: How Trump could push his trial into the heart of campaign season

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Among the moves that could chew up time: an attempt to dismiss the entire case, a bid to relocate his trial outside of New York City, an effort to disqualify the prosecutor or judge in his case, a bid to move the case from state to federal court, extensive negotiations over security protocols for his appearances in court and a motion to reduce his charges from felonies to misdemeanors.
Trump’s lawyers have also signaled they are likely to try to get the judge to pry into the grand jury proceedings, looking to show that the charges lack probable cause or that there was some impropriety in instructing the grand jurors. Such efforts are almost impossible in federal courts, but allowed in New York.
“You’d … make a motion to ask for the court to review the grand jury minutes and determine whether or not the D.A. presented legally sufficient evidence,” said Michael Scotto, a former chief of the Rackets Bureau in the same Manhattan D.A.’s office prosecuting Trump. “It’s not the lockbox it is in the federal system.”
Ironically, Trump could also cause delay by complaining about the prosecution’s own foot-dragging. He can argue that the delay in filing charges over events that occurred about six years ago violates his due process rights under the New York constitution, Scotto added.
The first indication of Trump’s posture will likely come Tuesday at his arraignment, when a deadline will be set for various motions in the case. That will be followed by a relatively strict series of “adjournment dates” for other phases of the case. One of those deadlines arrives in early May: a 35-day post-arraignment deadline for District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office to provide all relevant documents and evidence to Trump’s defense team. Trump’s attorneys are sure to use each of those inflection points to file a new series of motions, Christian said.
The judge expected to preside over Trump’s case, Juan Merchan, will no doubt be on the lookout for frivolous efforts to prolong the case, she added.
Under the Sixth Amendment, all criminal defendants have the right to a speedy trial, but many defendants nonetheless seek to postpone their day of reckoning. Buying time would be particularly attractive for Trump because of the legal uncertainty that would arise if he wins the presidential election in November 2024. In that scenario, some constitutional scholars believe the need to serve in office would override the consequences of a conviction, including any prison sentence.
The recently completed criminal trial for the Trump Organization and a related company on tax-related charges took almost 16 months from indictment to opening statements. The Iowa caucuses are in 10 months, and the presidential general election is 19 months away.

After a five-week trial in the Trump Org case, a jury convicted the Trump companies on all 17 felony charges and the judge imposed a $1.6 million fine. That case was held in the same courthouse where Trump is expected to be tried in the hush money case, and was overseen by the same judge.
The new case against Trump, which involves a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels, appears to be factually simpler and to involve a smaller set of transactions than the tax case. So prosecutors could try to move it along more swiftly than the tax case.
Last year, Trump managed to delay federal prosecutors’ efforts to review thousands of documents seized from his home by the FBI by — in essence — suing the federal government. A judge, whom Trump had appointed just before leaving office, supported his bid to appoint a special master to review the matter instead, delaying proceedings for two months before a federal appeals court rebuffed her effort.
Trump may already have briefly delayed his own indictment by sending lawyer Robert Costello to the grand jury to testify last Monday. He emerged to claim that he’d intrigued grand jurors with talk of important documents they’d not been shown. Talk of Trump’s indictment then fell quiet for a week or so, before the blockbuster announcement Thursday.
Don’t be surprised, however, if the initial sounds from Trump’s lawyers are about a speedy resolution of the case. Indeed, Trump attorney James Trusty — who’s not handling the New York criminal case — said Friday that he expects Trump’s team to move quickly for a dismissal of the charges.
“I would think in very short order, you’ll see a motion to dismiss or several motions to dismiss,” Trusty told CNN. “It’ll be soon. I think this will be something you can expect in days or weeks, not weeks or months.”
Defense attorneys often demand a speedy trial at the outset of a case, only to repeatedly press for delays as the trial date nears. Some delays may also be inevitable because of Trump’s reelection bid and the slew of other legal entanglements he faces, including two scheduled trials in civil cases and the possibility of more criminal charges from ongoing probes in Georgia and Washington, D.C.
The indictment this week presents unique complications for Bragg and the New York court system, but it’s not the first time judges and lawyers have had to jockey around a Trump presidential campaign.
When Trump announced his presidential bid in 2015, he’d already been mired for more than five years in litigation over claims that his Trump University real estate training program defrauded participants out of tens of millions of dollars in so-called tuition.
In March 2016, as Trump was trouncing his rivals in the Republican primaries, his lawyers pressed a federal judge to delay a trial in the civil fraud case even further.
“This will be a zoo if it goes to trial” in August, Trump lawyer Daniel Petrocelli told U.S. District Court Judge Gonzalo Curiel.
Petrocelli even accused the plaintiffs of timing court filings to inject inflammatory accusations into a presidential debate, and he questioned whether Trump could receive a fair trial in light of the “poisoned” atmosphere.
Curiel — who faced a series of racist public attacks from Trump — wound up concluding that a trial amid the presidential campaign would be unwise. He set it for after the November election and warned there’d be no further delay if Trump won and had obligations related to the transition.
Ten days before that trial was to begin, Trump and his companies agreed to settle the federal suits and another in New York for a total of $25 million.
Trump lawyer Joe Tacopina said Friday there’s “zero, zee-ro” chance of Trump making a similar deal in the criminal hush money case and pleading guilty. “President Trump will not take a plea deal in the case,” Tacopina told NBC. “It’s not going to happen. There’s no crime.”
Even before the indictment, Trump’s lawyers were in court earlier this month arguing for delay in the high-stakes, civil lawsuit that New York Attorney General Tish James is pursuing against Trump, his businesses and most of his children.
The litigation, filed by James last September after several years of investigation, seeks severe financial penalties and strict limits on the Trump firms and family members due to what the attorney general claims is wide-scale fraud in their insurance, banking and tax dealings.
“No previous case, much less one of similar complexity, has been forced through lightning-round discovery and tried at this pace,” Trump lawyers complained as they pleaded with Justice Arthur Engoron to push back an Oct. 2 trial date and effectively delay the courtroom showdown into 2024.
Engoron was having none of it, declaring that the October trial date was “written in stone.” Still, Trump lawyer Christopher Kise seemed to hold out some hope of postponement. Asked about the judge’s declaration that the trial is definitely happening in October, Kise told Reuters: “For now, it is.”
That trial, plus the potential for additional criminal indictments of Trump in at least three other ongoing probes — one helmed by a district attorney in Fulton County, Georgia, and two by the Justice Department’s special counsel Jack Smith — could also scramble the timeline in New York.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

April 1, 2023
Canada’s C$80B response to U.S. clean energy push: ‘We will not be left behind’

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That, along with the attempt of many Western democracies to reduce their “economic reliance on dictatorships,” Freeland said, “represent the most significant opportunity for Canadian workers in the lifetime of anyone here today.”
Canadian business leaders have long pushed the federal government to mount a competitive response to the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act, which pledged up to $369 billion in clean growth incentives.
“Without swift action, the sheer scale of U.S. incentives will undermine Canada’s ability to attract the investments needed to establish Canada as a leader in the growing and highly competitive global clean economy. If Canada does not keep pace, we will be left behind,” the budget document reads. “We will not be left behind.”
A senior government official told reporters the budget attempts to put Canada on roughly equal footing with the U.S. by reducing the cost of investment in clean technology. Canada needs about C$100 billion a year in clean tech investment to meet the government’s goal of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 — up from current investments of C$15 billion to C$20 billion, the official said.
The budget unveils two new refundable tax credits, including the 15 percent credit for non-emitting electricity generation. The Liberal government has promised Canada will achieve a net-zero electricity grid by 2035, while demand for clean electricity is projected to double by 2050.
The government is also announcing a 30 percent tax credit on manufacturing equipment for renewable and nuclear energy projects, zero-emission vehicles and critical mineral extraction and recycling, expected to cost C$11 billion between now and 2035.
Ottawa is also planning to roll out tax credits for investment in hydrogen, carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) and other clean technologies, including geothermal energy. The official said tax credits are the “workhorse” of the government’s plan to compete with the U.S. “They are clear, they are predictable, they are broad-based and they’re broadly available,” the official said.
Canada’s plan targets investment in clean technology — a key difference from the Inflation Reduction Act, which offers tax credits for production. The government official said Ottawa was “not convinced” by the Biden administration’s approach, which doesn’t provide any incentive to improve the efficiency of production over time.

The official also pointed to Canada’s federal carbon pricing regime as a key difference between the two countries’ strategies for driving the low-carbon transition. The budget announces that Canada will use carbon contracts for difference — which offer companies some certainty about the value of carbon credits — as another means to boost clean tech investment without a major outlay of public funds.
“In contrast, the United States has chosen to rely heavily on new industrial subsidies to reduce its emissions,” the document reads.
Robert Asselin, senior vice president for policy at the Business Council of Canada, said the government “did as much as they probably could” with the suite of new tax credits.
“They seem to be fairly well-targeted,” he said. “Whether they’ll have the take-up they want, nobody knows.”
But Asselin added that Canada has so far not matched the U.S. push for research and development in clean technology.
The government is also promising to cut down the amount of time it takes to get major projects off the ground, including mines for critical minerals. The budget pledges a “concrete plan to improve the efficiency of the impact assessment and permitting processes” by the end of 2023.
Ottawa is also pledging a new round of consultations on a possible response to measures in the Inflation Reduction Act that favor U.S. suppliers. The government is considering responding in kind with measures that could restrict the new Canadian tax credits to domestic suppliers.
Mostafa Askari, chief economist with the Institute for Fiscal Studies and Democracy, said it’s still unclear how the “magnitude” of Canada’s plan compares to the U.S. “It’s very hard to tell,” he said. “But my take on this was this was something they had to do.”
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#Canadas #C80B #response #U.S #clean #energy #push #left
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 29, 2023
Biden renews push to ban assault weapons in wake of Nashville shooting

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“I came down because I heard there was chocolate chip ice cream,” Biden said. His speech quickly shifted to calling on Congress to ban assault weapons in the wake of the shooting.
Three adults and three children were confirmed dead following a mass shooting Monday morning at The Covenant School, a private Christian school in Nashville.
The 28-year-old female suspect, who has not been identified, was killed in an altercation with police. The woman had at least two semi-automatic rifles and a handgun, police said.
Biden called the shooting “heartbreaking” and a “family’s worst nightmare.”
“We have to do more to stop gun violence; it’s ripping our communities apart — ripping the soul of this nation,” Biden said. “And we have to do more to protect our schools, so they aren’t turned into prisons.”
Biden has focused on reinstating the assault weapons ban that he helped pass in 1994 as senator, but which lapsed in 2004. The president doesn’t appear to have the votes for an assault weapons ban in Congress.
“How many more children have to be murdered before Republicans in Congress will step up and act to pass the assault weapons ban,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Monday.
At an event in Washington on Monday, first lady Jill Biden also spoke about the shooting.

“I am truly without words. Our children deserve better. We stand, all of us, we stand with Nashville in prayer,” Jill Biden said.
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#Biden #renews #push #ban #assault #weapons #wake #Nashville #shooting
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 28, 2023
Electronic Spices Pack of 2 rectangle rocker switch 16amp 4pins push button switch 125VAC to 250VAC

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This is a basic DPST ON-OFF Rocker Switch for your projects. No screws required, it simply clips into place. This is a two-pin switch that is easy to use, simply cut one of the two power wires and solder each of the ends to the unit. This 16A 250V AC DPST ON-OFF Rocker Switch is perfect for controlling power to electronic circuits, robots, etc. We have carefully selected the best On/Off Rocker Switch with a high load rating and the perfect size to for all general-purpose On/Off applications. This rocker switch has two positions â€“ one on position and another off position. The rocker switch stays in the one till it is pressed and changed to the other position. It has two large pins on the backside to which wires can be soldered and connected to your circuit.
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The On/Off Rocker Switch is the simplest and easiest power control switch for your project
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March 21, 2023
As Americans grab their green attire, Brian Fitzpatrick is helming a new push to make St. Patrick’s Day a federal holiday.

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It’s the latest push to establish new federal holidays for a host of commemorations.

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#Americans #grab #green #attireBrian #Fitzpatrick #helming #push #Patricks #Day #federal #holiday
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 17, 2023
House GOP quietly preps take two of its border push

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Republicans have pitched ideas like reviving the border wall and cracking down on asylum seekers, policies that stand no chance in the Senate but would let them claim a messaging victory — if they can manage to push them through the House.
Underscoring how quickly one of Republicans’ biggest election talking points turned into a sore spot for old tensions, even those at the center of the intra-party debate aren’t willing to publicly bet against another derailment … at least, not yet.
“I can’t read minds. I can’t tell fortunes,” Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Calif.), who chairs Judiciary’s immigration subpanel, said in a brief interview about the chances House Republicans pass a bill if they can get it out of committee and to the floor.
The GOP’s struggle to unite on border and immigration bills isn’t new — it’s approaching a congressional cliché at this point, as both parties continuously struggle to come to any sort of agreement on comprehensive changes. But the lack of agreement sparked a bitter feud between two Texas members particularly and prompted questions from reporters over Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s leadership.
And it could easily cut against a perennial GOP talking point that Democrats are weak on border security, which the party is sure to reuse in 2024.
Publicly, Republicans have tried to put that message at the heart of their still-nascent majority. They’ve taken a series of trips to the U.S.-Mexico border to highlight its manifold security challenges, lambasting the Biden administration as their Democratic colleagues boycott some of their field hearings.
The strategy has scored some wins. U.S. Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz generated headlines Wednesday when asked by Green if DHS had operational control over the entire southern border, he responded: “No.”
Green followed up with a brief clip of Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas telling House lawmakers that DHS did have operational control. Ortiz declined to say if he believed the secretary was lying — a charge conservatives have made as they’ve called for Mayorkas’ impeachment.

A DHS official, after Wednesday’s hearing, pointed to Mayorkas’ comments during a separate Senate hearing last year. He said then that based on the statutory definition of “operational control,” which Green showed during his hearing, “this country has never had operational control.” (Democrats, and even some Republicans, have defended Mayorkas arguing that the impeachment calls chalk up to policy disagreements.)
But as Republicans publicly keep their rhetorical fire aimed at the Biden administration, they still want to pursue legislative overhauls. A leadership aide, granted anonymity to describe the private discussions, told POLITICO that there are “ongoing talks with members … and leadership about what a border package would look like.”
And they appear to have learned a lesson from their first misstep when their attempts to quickly vote on a border bill in the first weeks of the term imploded. Instead of trying to go straight to the floor, Republicans are expected to first take their next slate of border-related bills through two committees — the Homeland Security and Judiciary panels.
Neither committee has formally scheduled votes as the negotiations continue behind the scenes. But Green is expected to roll out a border bill within weeks, aiming to hold a panel vote in April. Meanwhile, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) said that his goal is to start moving legislation through Judiciary by the end of March — though some aides are privately betting that it will slip into April given Congress’ typical pace.
“We’ve got a number of bills we’re gonna look at,” Jordan said in a brief interview. “We’re just trying to be ready.”
Jordan pointed to bills by GOP Reps. Andy Biggs (Ariz.), Tom Tiffany
(Wis.) and Chip Roy (Texas) as options for a border security package that his committee is expected to soon consider. Roy’s bill, which critics even in his own party fear would bar asylum claims as currently known, fueled his party’s legislative heartburn earlier this year by sparking pushback from more centrist conference colleagues. That included Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas), who is now openly feuding with Roy over border and immigration policies.
Roy rejected his critics’ asylum interpretation but signaled he’s willing to give leadership space, at least for now. He’s not currently asking them to move a border package to the floor, instead saying “the plan” was to take it through the Judiciary Committee. (The Homeland Security panel, where it was also sent, isn’t expected to vote on it.)
But even if the bill clears Jordan’s panel, it’s no guarantee it can withstand scrutiny of the wider conference. Even Republican members admit the committee is more conservatively slanted than the whole of the GOP House, and leadership can only afford to lose a few members in a floor vote if all Democrats oppose any legislation.
If committees are able to advance legislation, leadership will have to decide whether to move the bills to the floor separately or as one package. Some members have floated merging whatever comes out of the Judiciary and the Homeland Security panels into one bill, a risky move that could test Washington’s favorite deal-solving tactic of trying to give everyone buy-in by making a package too big to fail.
But the math, GOP aides privately acknowledge, could be tricky. More border security, at a 30,000-foot rhetorical level, generally unites Republicans — until you drill down into the details. Making hardline changes to asylum policies or Temporary Protected Status (TPS) could peel off votes that Republicans can’t afford to lose.
Meanwhile, Roy drew his own red line, warning he won’t support just throwing money at DHS: “We’re going to change the policies or we’re not going to move anything through here.”
Another GOP aide described the effort to unite the conference on border policy as trying to collect “frogs in a bucket.” In further evidence of the challenge, no decisions have been made about when bills would come to the floor, or if it would be one package or several separate votes, according to a leadership aide.
Rep. Dan Bishop (R-N.C.), a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus as well as the Judiciary and Homeland Security committees, predicted both panels will vote on border legislation within weeks, saying that he didn’t believe there was “friction” within the conference — at least when it came to timing.
But Bishop added that he would want leadership to put a bill on the floor, even if it might fail.
“I’m indifferent as to whether it will pass or not,” Bishop said. “I think we need to put the right bills on the floor.”
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#House #GOP #quietly #preps #border #push
( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 17, 2023
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March 16, 2023
Biden EPA launches landmark push to curb ‘forever chemicals’ in drinking water

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But, the agency acknowledges that the $772 million annual cost would, at least initially, be borne by American households through higher water charges.
“It’s time,” Radhika Fox, EPA’s top water official, said in an interview. “The American people want this. They want their drinking water to be safe.”
The regulatory proposal unveiled by EPA Tuesday would require utilities to cleanse their drinking water supplies of any detectable levels of the two most notorious chemicals in the class, known as PFOS and PFOA, which were used for decades in water repellent Scotchguard and Teflon, as well as firefighting foam, before being phased out of production in 2002 and 2015, respectively.
EPA’s new proposal also includes a surprise provision aimed at limiting the chemicals that the industry shifted to using after the PFOA and PFOS phase-out, which chemical companies argued were safer, but that federal scientists have concluded pose severe dangers of their own.
EPA had previously only singled out PFOA and PFOS as warranting federal regulation. But in the three years since the Trump administration first made that determination, evidence has mounted of those other chemicals’ prevalence and harms, and several states have enacted their own limits.
Because of structural differences in their chemistry, ridding water supplies of these newer substances can require different treatment approaches. Drinking water experts feared that if EPA didn’t address them under this proposal, water utilities could invest in upgrades that failed to deal with the whole PFAS problem. But the administration’s choice to regulate the chemicals in an accelerated and novel fashion could risk putting the regulation on legally shaky ground.
The proposed regulation would require communities to monitor water supplies for four of these chemicals – known as GenX, PFBS, PFHxS and PFNA – and then plug those results into a “hazard index” calculation. That calculation is aimed at dealing with the fact that different types of PFAS are often present in water at the same time, and scientists have found that those mixtures can be even more dangerous than just the sum of their parts.
Using that hazard index, utilities would see whether dangerous combined levels of the chemicals are present, which would require them to treat their water to reduce levels of those chemicals or switch to alternate sources.

Environmental groups and public health advocates heralded the proposal as a major step towards dealing with the sprawling contamination problem Tuesday. And the move was also backed by a top Republican on Capitol Hill whose state has been burdened by PFAS pollution.
“After years of urging three consecutive administrations of different parties to do so, I’m pleased a safe drinking water standard has finally been issued for PFOA and PFOS,” West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito said in a statement.
Chemical manufacturers, whose past and current products are targeted by the proposal, have come out in opposition. The industry group American Chemistry Council said in a statement it has “serious concerns with the underlying science” used to develop the proposal.
None of the proposal’s requirements would come cheaply to drinking water utilities or their customers, and groups representing water managers are already raising concerns. EPA estimates that it would cost $772 million per year to upgrade water treatment plants and cover the ongoing monitoring and treatment costs to comply with the rule. That’s less than the $1.2 billion the agency estimates will be saved by removing the chemicals, primarily in the form of reduced healthcare costs and premature deaths. But it represents real pocketbook pain, particularly for customers already struggling to pay their water bills.
The drinking water utility serving the city of Wilmington, N.C., where Regan unveiled the proposal Tuesday, spent $43 million on upgrades to its water treatment facilities to filter out PFAS that a chemical manufacturing plant had poured into the Cape Fear River. The plant’s managers estimate it will cost up to $5 million more annually to operate the system, adding an average of $5 per month to customers’ bills.
In a statement, the Association of Metropolitan Water Agencies suggested EPA is low-balling its cost calculations, arguing that if just 16 drinking water utilities had to install upgrades similar to Wilmington’s, the cost would exceed the agency’s cost estimate.
“AMWA is concerned about the overall cost drinking water utilities will incur to comply with this proposed rulemaking,” the group’s CEO, Tom Dobbins, said in a statement.
In the near term, some new federal funds available through the 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law could help offset this cost, including $5 billion for small and disadvantaged communities.
“We recognize that’s not enough for every single water utility in the country, but it’s a shot in the arm,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said as he announced the proposal.
Ultimately, the Biden administration is working to hold polluters accountable. EPA last summer proposed designating PFOA and PFOS as hazardous under the Superfund law, and the agency is exploring doing the same for other types of PFAS. That would allow EPA and other entities to force those responsible for the pollution to pay to clean it up.
But even if the regulations are put in place as proposed, that money likely wouldn’t flow until years — or decades — after utilities and their customers have footed the bill for upgrades.
And whether the drinking water regulation itself will even be finalized is far from guaranteed. The Defense Department, which faces potentially massive cleanup costs for its decades of contamination at more than 700 sites across the country, has stalled and weakened previous EPA efforts on PFAS.
The new drinking water proposal was stuck in interagency review at the White House for five months, and was only released after pressure from environmental groups, activists and a bipartisan group of lawmakers. That included a publicity blitz by actor Mark Ruffalo — who starred in the 2019 film “Dark Waters” about PFOA — as well as a private pressure campaign on the White House led by Capito and Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and a friend of President Joe Biden.
Environmental groups are already defending the new regulation from anticipated attacks.
“Today’s proposal is a necessary and long overdue step towards addressing the nation’s PFAS crisis, but what comes next is equally important,” Jonathan Kalmuss-Katz, an attorney with the nonprofit group Earthjustice, said in a statement “EPA must resist efforts to weaken this proposal, move quickly to finalize health-protective limits on these six chemicals, and address the remaining PFAS that continue to poison drinking water supplies and harm communities across the country.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 14, 2023
Proud Boys prosecutors push back on claims of misconduct after discovery of internal FBI messages

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However, the defense lawyers said the filtered messages included significant and suspicious exchanges that appeared to relate to the seditious conspiracy case against their clients.
In one exchange, Miller and another agent discussed learning of defendant Zachary Rehl’s plan to take the case to trial, in part because they had reviewed messages between him and his attorney at the time, Jonathon Moseley. The defense lawyers said it appeared, on its face, to be a breach of attorney-client privilege.
The lawyers also cited several other exchanges they viewed as fishy: a message from one agent asking that his name be edited out of a report concerning a meeting with a confidential human source; an FBI agent’s opinion about the strength of the Proud Boys conspiracy case; and a message from an agent discussing an order to destroy 338 pieces of evidence in an unidentified case.
Defense attorneys said they should be permitted to grill Miller about each of these topics when the trial resumes this week. The hidden messages sparked an uproar on Thursday, when Nicholas Smith, attorney for defendant Ethan Nordean, began questioning Miller about them. Prosecutors objected and later indicated they believed there had been a “spill” of classified information in the messages — a claim the defense lawyers worried was a pretense to shut down their review. U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Kelly called the trial off for the day Friday to give the Justice Department and the defense a chance to clarify the issues.
In an 18-page filing Sunday, prosecutors went through each topic cited by the defense lawyers and suggested their claims lacked merit — and were not part of any attempt to withhold relevant evidence in the case.
The request for an edit to the report concerning the confidential human source, for example, was a “clerical” matter in which an agent who had been promoted to a supervisory role requested to be removed from the report because he was no longer handling the source — a request that was ultimately rescinded, prosecutors said. The comment from an agent about destroying evidence pertained to an unrelated “20-year-old multi codefendant trial” that had concluded long ago, the Justice Department attorneys said.
“As the Court knows, disposal of evidence is a routine part of the lifecycle of every criminal case,” the prosecutors wrote.
Prosecutors also dismissed the notion that Miller and other agents had accessed privileged attorney-client information.

“She did no such thing,” they argued, “both because any privilege was waived and, in any event, even assuming … that the email to which the other agent was referring contained privileged information, no privileged information was passed Special Agent Miller.”
The exchange between Rehl and his attorney that the agents discussed was sent between Rehl and Moseley, his former attorney, who has since been disbarred, through a jailhouse email system. That system explicitly notifies users that it is monitored and that emails between an attorney and client will “not be treated as privileged.” Prisoners are supposed to use special legal mail procedures, legal phone calls or in-person meetings to communicate confidentially with their lawyers.
“Rehl waived any privilege by knowingly using FDC-Philadelphia’s monitored email system to communicate with his attorney,” prosecutors contended.
Prosecutors also rejected efforts by defense lawyers to introduce a message from an FBI agent suggesting he harbored doubts about the strength of the conspiracy evidence in the Proud Boys case. Typically, such agent opinions are excluded, and in any case, they say Miller contradicted the doubting agent’s comment, saying: “No we can. We DEF can now.”
Kelly will decide on Monday whether to permit the attorneys for Nordean, Rehl and their three co-defendants — Enrique Tarrio, Dominic Pezzola and Joseph Biggs — to ask Miller about these topics. Prosecutors contended on Sunday that their unsuccessfully implemented decision to withhold the messages — even ones that related to the Proud Boys case — was proper. Precedents and laws, they said, required the government to turn over only materials connected to what Miller testified about on the stand, not every statement she made about the Proud Boys case in general.
Miller testified last week, after the furor erupted, that FBI headquarters compiled her messages for her, culling them from a secret-level classified system. She filtered out any messages sent from other agents and then manually removed messages she viewed as not subject to disclosure, including many about other cases. But when prosecutors packaged up the remaining messages, they appear to not have realized the filtered messages from other agents were left in the spreadsheet as “hidden.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jocelyn Ballantine, the supervising prosecutor on the case, told the court on Friday that the Justice Department was concerned that the hidden messages contained potential classified information, since they were drawn from the secret-level system and not fully vetted. Ballantine, in particular, was concerned that the message pertaining to destroying evidence was sent by an agent involved in “covert” activity and could reference classified information.
It’s unclear whether defense lawyers will be satisfied by the government’s responses. They’ve previously raised alarms that prosecutors would use the pretense of “classified” information to claw back damaging evidence. Prosecutors indicated on Sunday that they had removed just 80 rows of “classified or sensitive” messages from a production of nearly 12,000 rows. In addition, they suggested they had provided additional messages to help contextualize the ones cited by the defense.
Smith, one of the defense lawyers, indicated in a Sunday filing that the government had also deleted about 6,000 rows of messages it said were blank, leaving just over 5,000 for the defense to review. And he said he had inquired with prosecutors to clarify how many of the 80 substantive rows of removed messages were classified and how many were dubbed “sensitive” but not classified.
Smith said he should be allowed to cross-examine Miller on her handling of the messages in part because of her answers to a brief set of questions about them on Thursday, when she indicated that she hadn’t removed or filtered out relevant materials.
“Whether the agent gave truthful testimony about her legal obligations related to her work on this case is patently a matter of credibility,” Smith wrote.
Though cross-examination typically relates only to the substance of a witness’s direct testimony, Smith pointed out that he was also permitted to raise questions about a witness’ credibility, which he said made the handling of those messages fair game for questioning.
Prosecutors said that if the defense lawyers were allowed to question her at all about the unsuccessfully withheld messages — a step the government largely opposes — it should come during the defense’s case, set to begin within the next two weeks, not on cross-examination during the government’s case.
“The topics in question are miles outside the scope of Agent Miller’s direct testimony,” the prosecutors argued.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )

March 13, 2023