DEVELOPING Person on fire outside Trump's hush money trial rushed away on a stretcher
A person who was on fire in a park outside the New York courthouse where Donald Trump’s hush money trial is taking place has been rushed away on a stretcher.
The FBI disclosed that it received more than 4,500 tips on a phone line in 2018 as part of a background investigation into then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and provided "relevant" ones to former U.S. President Donald Trump's White House counsel.
The exact number of tips was disclosed in a June 30 letter released by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse on Thursday. The letter was in response to a two-year-old request from Senate Democrats seeking more information about the handling of the investigation.
The revelation reignited fierce accusations from liberals who say that the FBI and the Trump White House did not sufficiently examine allegations against Kavanaugh in the wake of accusations from Dr. Christine Blasey Ford that he had sexually assaulted her at a party in the Maryland suburbs when they were both in high school.
The allegations nearly derailed his confirmation, and Kavanaugh has always fiercely denied them. Kavanaugh was ultimately confirmed by a vote of 50-48.
In the letter, Assistant Director Jill Tyson said that Kavanaugh's nomination was the first time that the FBI set up a tip line for a nominee undergoing Senate confirmation and that the tips included phone calls and electronic submissions.
Tyson said relevant information was provided to the Office of the White House Counsel that served as the requesting entity. Don McGahn served as White House counsel at the time and he did not immediately return a request for comment.
Tyson reiterated comments that FBI Director Christopher Wray made in past congressional testimony: that the FBI serves as an "investigative service provider" for federal background investigations, and that its role in the Kavanaugh matter was to respond to requests from the White House counsel. The FBI has said repeatedly it was not conducting a criminal investigation into Kavanaugh's conduct.
She said that pursuant to a memo of understanding between the Justice Department and the White House in 2010, the FBI does not reopen background investigations unless it is "specifically instructed to do so by the requesting entity."
"The authorities, policies and procedures relied on by the FBI to conduct [background investigations] are not the same as the authorities, policies, and procedures used to investigate criminal matters," Tyson wrote.
The letter prompted a furious response from Whitehouse and six other Democratic senators on the Judiciary Committee.
"The admissions in your letter corroborate and explain numerous credible accounts by individuals and firms that they had contacted the FBI with information 'highly relevant to . . . allegations' of sexual misconduct by Justice Kavanaugh, only to be ignored," they wrote in a letter back to the FBI.
"If the FBI was not authorized to or did not follow up on any of the tips that it received from the tip line, it is difficult to understand the point of having a tip line at all," they said.
A Democratic Senate staffer affiliated with Judiciary Committee acknowledged that the entire universe of tips was provided to senators at the time but that until the letter from the FBI last month, the senators were unaware that the FBI had engaged in a process to determine which tips were relevant. The staffer said that instead of providing the Senate with the FBI's analysis of the relevant tips, the White House sent all the tips to the senators who were only able to read them in a secure room without the benefit of taking notes.
Thursday, Debra Katz and Lisa Banks, attorneys for Ford, released a statement calling the FBI's investigation a "sham and a major institutional failure."
The lawyers said that the FBI had refused to interview Ford and "failed to act on the 4,500 tips it received about then-nominee Kavanaugh."
"Instead it handed the information over to the White House, allowing those who supported Kavanaugh to falsely claim that the FBI found no wrongdoing," they said.
A person who was on fire in a park outside the New York courthouse where Donald Trump’s hush money trial is taking place has been rushed away on a stretcher.
Soulful gospel artist Mandisa, a Grammy-winning singer who got her start as a contestant on 'American Idol' in 2006, has died, according to a statement on her verified social media. She was 47.
Scottish comedian Samantha Hannah was working on a comedy show about finding a husband when Toby Hunter came into her life. What happened next surprised them both.
A Manitoba woman thought she found a miracle natural supplement, but said a hidden ingredient wreaked havoc on her health.
One day after a Montreal police officer fired gunshots at a suspect in a stolen vehicle, senior officers were telling parliamentarians that organized crime groups are recruiting people as young as 15 in the city to steal cars so that they can be shipped overseas.
Police in Sault Ste. Marie charged a 22-year-old man with animal cruelty following an attack on a dog Thursday morning.
The Senate legal affairs committee has rejected a motion calling for members to take a $50,000 field trip to the African Lion Safari in southern Ontario to see the zoo's elephant exhibit.
Ontario Provincial Police have landed a suspect following a fishy theft in Beachburg, Ont.
Group of Seven foreign ministers warned of new sanctions against Iran on Friday for its drone and missile attack on Israel, and urged both sides to avoid an escalation of the conflict.
At 6'8" and 350 pounds, there is nothing typical about UBC offensive lineman Giovanni Manu, who was born in Tonga and went to high school in Pitt Meadows.
Kevin the cat has been reunited with his family after enduring a harrowing three-day ordeal while lost at Toronto Pearson International Airport earlier this week.
Molly Knight, a grade four student in Nova Scotia, noticed her school library did not have many books on female athletes, so she started her own book drive in hopes of changing that.
Almost 7,000 bars of pure gold were stolen from Pearson International Airport exactly one year ago during an elaborate heist, but so far only a tiny fraction of that stolen loot has been found.
When Les Robertson was walking home from the gym in North Vancouver's Lower Lonsdale neighbourhood three weeks ago, he did a double take. Standing near a burrow it had dug in a vacant lot near East 1st Street and St. Georges Avenue was a yellow-bellied marmot.
A moulting seal who was relocated after drawing daily crowds of onlookers in Greater Victoria has made a surprise return, after what officials described as an 'astonishing' six-day journey.
Just steps from Parliament Hill is a barber shop that for the last 100 years has catered to everyone from prime ministers to tourists.
A high score on a Foo Fighters pinball machine has Edmonton player Dave Formenti on a high.
A compound used to treat sour gas that's been linked to fertility issues in cattle has been found throughout groundwater in the Prairies, according to a new study.