Trump accuses FBI of ‘trying to destroy our country’ and ransacking Barron’s room at Pennsylvania rally – Newstrends
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Trump accuses FBI of ‘trying to destroy our country’ and ransacking Barron’s room at Pennsylvania rally

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Former president Donald Trump

Former president Donald Trump, a central figure in no fewer than three separate criminal probes involving state and federal grand juries, lashed out at the federal law enforcement agencies currently investigating whether he violated federal laws prohibiting unauthorised possession of national defence information and obstruction of justice during a hours-long speech at one of his signature political rallies on Saturday

Mr Trump was roughly ten minutes into remarks at a “Save America” rally purportedly meant to boost the campaigns of GOP Senate candidate Mehmet Oz and gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano when he began to air a series of grievances about the 8 August search of his Palm Beach, Florida home by FBI agents.

He accused the Biden administration of “weaponising the FBI and justice department like never ever before” and described the court-authorised search of his property as the FBI “breaking into the homes of their political opponents”.

“There could be no more vivid example of the very real threats from American freedom than just a few weeks ago … when we witnessed one of the most shocking abuses of power by any administration in American history,” he said.

Mr Trump condemned the lawful search of his property as “shameful” and “a travesty of justice” and complained that agents had combed through the room belonging to his 16-year-old son, Barron Trump, while looking for evidence of crimes.

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The man who not two years ago had his picture on the wall at every office of the nation’s federal law enforcement agencies accused the FBI of “trying to destroy our country”on behalf of Democrats by investigating whether he committed any number of serious federal crimes.

“Whether through activist attorney generals … local Democrat DAs, county prosecutors, congressional committees or federal agencies, the radical Democrats are engaging in a desperate attempt to keep me from returning to the White House,” Mr Trump said, casting the investigations into whether he violated federal laws meant to protect the nation’s national defence secrets or state laws against election tampering as illegitimate and nakedly political.

According to court documents, FBI agents found over 10,000 stolen non-classified government documents spread across 27 boxes when they searched the twice-impeached ex-president’s home and office at his Mar-a-Lago country club.

Agents also discovered more than 100 “unique documents with classification markings”, including three stored in Mr Trump’s desk. Classification levels ranged from confidential – the lowest level of classification in the US system – to the highest, top secret.

The ex-president’s hoard of stolen government property also included folders with markings indicating that they had contained classified or sensitive documents that were meant to be returned to the White House staff secretary, a key White House aide who manages the flow of paper to and from the president’s desk.

Of the 90 empty folders recovered by agents, 47 of them had these markings, while the remainder were meant to be returned to the White House staff secretary’s office or the president’s military aide.

Prosecutors have also said in court filings that Mr Trump’s attorneys allegedly lied to FBI agents when they told them the ex-president had returned all classified documents in his possession during a 3 June meeting. A redacted version of the affidavit used to obtain the warrant to search his property also revealed that the government has evidence that Mr Trump or his associates attempted to conceal more classified documents from the government following that meeting.

According to legal experts, the evidence against the former president could be enough for a grand jury to return an indictment against him for multiple violations of federal law punished by decades in federal prison.

But Mr Trump told the crowd of supporters who’d gathered to see him in Wilkes-Barre that the myriad grievances he aired about the criminal investigation into his conduct was “not about him”.

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Instead, he described it as “a struggle for the fate of our republic” that pits his “Make America Great Again” movement against “a corrupt group of unelected tyrants”.

“They think the deep state, not the citizens should be the true masters of this country,” said Mr Trump, who promised to “clean house” and “restore government for the people” if he is returned to power. He added that the United States “would be destroyed” if he is not permitted to regain the powers of the presidency.

The ex-president continued his remarks by rehashing a series of years-old complaints about previous investigations into him and lashed out at the FBI and Department of Justice for failing to put his political enemies in prison.

Though the current criminal investigation into him stems directly from his alleged theft and unlawful retention of records which are by law property of the US government — and his unauthorised possession of numerous documents marked as classified at the highest levels, Mr Trump castigated federal law enforcement for not bringing charges against his 2016 election opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

Ms Clinton was the subject of a years-long probe stemming from her use of a personal email server while at the State Department. Mr Trump said the FBI’s finding that some of Ms Clinton’s emails had been retroactively determined to contain classified information as far worse than his possession of hundreds of classified documents, leading the boisterous crowd to erupt in a chant of “lock her up”.

He also complained about the FBI’s failure to publicise an investigation into Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, and for advising social media outlets that information from a laptop which his allies said belong to the younger Mr Biden might be contaminated with foreign disinformation just before the 2020 election, calling the move “corruption and election interference on a scale that we have never seen before in our country”.

“These same exact people at Justice and the FBI … along with outside scum are at it again with the horrific raid of my home,” he said. “They just go on and on and they have to be stopped”.

The Independent

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Ukraine receives bodies of 140 fallen soldiers from Russia

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Ukraine receives bodies of 140 fallen soldiers from Russia

Ukraine has received the bodies of 140 soldiers killed while trying to defend the regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhya and Kherson from Russian attacks.

The authority responsible for prisoner-of-war matters said on Telegram on Friday that five bodies were from the Sumy section in northern Ukraine.

Russia has no Ukrainian territories under its control in this area; however, at the beginning of March, units of allegedly Russian volunteers fighting on the side of Ukraine made advances from the Sumy region into Russian territory.

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Once the identities of the dead have been established, they will be handed over to their relatives, the authority said.

The authority, known as the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War, thanked the International Committee of the Red Cross for arranging the return.

Ukraine has been fending off a Russian invasion for over two years.

Despite the ongoing fighting, both sides regularly exchange the bodies of fallen soldiers and prisoners of war.

It is not yet known whether and how many dead soldiers Russia has received in return.

Ukraine receives bodies of 140 fallen soldiers from Russia

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Weeks after Iran’s attack, Israel discovers another massive surface-to-surface missile

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Weeks after Iran’s attack, Israel discovers another massive surface-to-surface missile

Weeks after missiles sent by Iran on April 14 rocked several parts of Israel, another debris of a surface-to-surface missile has been found in the southern part of the country.

According to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), the debris that was found by hikers in southern Israel, has been successfully evacuated.

“The effects of Iran’s attack on Israel can still be seen weeks after it occurred.

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“Earlier today, our troops removed the debris of a surface-to-surface missile intercepted during the Iranian attack. At the beginning of the week, the debris was found by hikers in southern Israel.

A complex removal, the process was made possible through advanced preparation by the Home Front Command and assistance from the IAF. During the process, the missile debris was cleared of hazardous materials, ” the IDF said in a post on Friday.

This is not the first missile discovered in the south since the attack. Similar missiles were discovered nearby in the Dead Sea area immediately after the major attack that Tehran launched against Israel, which included more than 300 suicide drones, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles.

Weeks after Iran’s attack, Israel discovers another massive surface-to-surface missile

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Nigerian man kills wife months after relocating to UK

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Olubunmi Abodund with late wife Taiwo
Nigerian man kills wife months after relocating to UK

Olubunmi Abodunde, a Nigerian living in the United Kingdom, reportedly beat his wife, Taiwo, to death with their son’s skateboard, according to the Daily Mail.

The couple, who had three children, arrived in the UK from Nigeria in 2022 and frequently feuded over reported relationships and financial disagreements.

According to the news outlet, 48-year-old Abodunde had been investigated by Suffolk Police several times for domestic abuse and was scheduled to stand trial for murder, but changed his plea to guilty on Wednesday after the jury was sworn in.

During the abuse, officers heard ‘a number of fringes’ inside the house, which Abodunde had entered despite bail restrictions imposed the day before that barred him from the residence due to another violent incident.

When they arrived 25 minutes later, they discovered Taiwo, 41, with her’skull bashed in’.

However, Judge Martyn Levett, sitting at Ipswich Crown Court, cautioned him that the only conceivable penalty was life imprisonment.

Suffolk Constabulary submitted itself to the Independent Office of Police Conduct, which confirmed that three officers were being investigated.

An IOPC spokesman said, “We advised two Suffolk officers that they are under investigation for potential breaches of the police standards of professional behaviour at the level of gross misconduct.

“We advised another officer that they are under investigation at the level of misconduct.”

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Abodunde has a history of mistrust and distrust towards his wife, accusing her of having affairs. He had been probed by police several times for alleged domestic abuse episodes prior to his wife’s murder.

He was detained on April 27 of last year, when police came to the couple’s house in Newmarket, Suffolk, and discovered Mrs. Abodunde with a split lip.

Later that day, he was released on police bail with the condition that he stay away from the marital residence and avoid approaching his wife.

However, after completing a night shift at Tesco, he returned home shortly after 9 a.m. to reportedly pick up his mobile phone.

At 9.20 a.m., two cops arrived to take Mrs. Abodunde’s testimony regarding the previous night’s incident, and they heard persistent banging inside.

But it wasn’t until 9.55 a.m. that they pushed their way in with permission from senior officers and discovered Mrs. Abodunde ‘clearly dead’ near the front entrance.

A post-mortem examination revealed that she had been throttled until unconscious, then stamped on until her ribs were fractured, before her husband used the skateboard to kill her off. The hits were so hard that the skateboard was ruined.

Prosecutor Simon Spence KC told the court that the hammering officers heard was most likely caused by Abodunde continuing to assault his wife after she was unconscious or dead.

Mrs. Abodunde worked as a care home assistant in Cambridge, but her husband, a civil engineer by training, was unable to find work and took shifts at Tesco and Wickes.

Following his arrest for the murder, Abodunde was taken to the hospital “because he appeared to have some sort of mental episode.”.

He later argued in a police statement that he had acted in self-defence, saying, “My wife has subjected me to physical abuse for a number of years.

“On November 28, we got into an argument. She ran at me with a knife. I grabbed the knife and cut my hand. I was defending myself.”

However, the court heard that, while he had a hand injury, no knife was found near his wife’s body.

Nneka Akudolu KC, defending, said the amount of violence was ‘completely out of character’ for her client and could have been influenced by the medicine he was on. However, she stated that no medical evidence would be supplied to back her assertion.

Following the court, Suffolk Police Detective Inspector Dan Connick stated, “This was an awful attack on a woman that has had a long-term impact on the community and, most importantly, on the victim’s family.”

“We are pleased that Taiwo’s family will no longer have to go through the pain of a trial.

“Our thoughts remain with Taiwo’s family and friends, and we hope this result will bring some small comfort to them.”

Nigerian man kills wife months after relocating to UK

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