prosecution

July 31 (Asia Today) — People Power Party floor leader Chung Jeom-sik on Friday accused South Korea’s governing party of seeking to abolish prosecutors’ supplementary investigative authority to help President Lee Jae-myung avoid his criminal trials.

Chung called the proposed revision to the Criminal Procedure Act “an unprecedentedly harmful law” that would remain a disgrace in the country’s constitutional history.

He also demanded the withdrawal of a separate bill that would shorten the review period for legislation designated for fast-track consideration, calling it a measure that would turn the National Assembly into a rubber stamp.

“In a few hours, the filibuster will be forcibly ended through collusion by the broader governing bloc and this unprecedentedly harmful law will pass,” Chung said at a People Power Party floor strategy meeting.

He claimed that more than half of the public opposed eliminating prosecutors’ supplementary investigative authority but that the Democratic Party was disregarding public opinion.

The bill would bar prosecutors from conducting additional investigations after police transfer a case to them. Prosecutors would instead be able to request that police conduct further investigative work.

Supporters say the measure would complete the separation of investigative and prosecutorial authority and strengthen defendants’ rights. Opponents say it could delay investigations and weaken protections for crime victims.

Chung focused particularly on a provision governing when courts may dismiss criminal indictments.

He accused the Democratic Party of quietly adding language during a meeting of the National Assembly’s Legislation and Judiciary Committee that could make it easier to terminate the president’s pending trials.

“Is the ‘working National Assembly’ advocated by the Democratic Party merely a legislature creating an escape route to erase President Lee Jae-myung’s trials?” Chung said.

The claim that the provision was designed to end Lee’s cases represents the opposition party’s interpretation of the legislation.

Chung said ordinary citizens could suffer from inadequate or delayed investigations if prosecutors lost their supplementary investigative authority while powerful figures could escape legal scrutiny.

He described the bill as “the end of the rule of law.”

Opposition plans second filibuster

Chung also criticized a revision to the National Assembly Act scheduled to follow the criminal procedure bill.

The legislation would reduce the maximum review period for fast-track bills from 330 days to 90 days.

“This is an authoritarian law intended to turn the National Assembly more quickly into a machine that raises its hand and follows orders,” Chung said.

The fast-track system was introduced to prevent legislation from being blocked indefinitely while preserving time for negotiations among political parties.

Chung said the Democratic Party’s proposal would destroy that balance and encourage the hasty passage of legislation.

“There is a saying that trying to arrive 10 minutes earlier can send you 10 years too soon,” he said. “If legislation is rushed, the country could suffer lasting consequences.”

He called the proposal a “rubber-stamp National Assembly law” and said it should be withdrawn.

The People Power Party planned to begin a second filibuster immediately after debate ended on the Criminal Procedure Act revision.

Choi Eun-seok, the party’s senior floor spokesperson, said the filibuster against the National Assembly Act revision was expected to begin at about 5 p.m.

Chung also rejected a demand from Democratic Party members of the Science, ICT, Broadcasting and Communications Committee that People Power Party lawmaker Lee Jin-sook be removed from the committee.

He called the demand an improper attempt to interfere with the opposition party’s committee assignments.

“The Democratic Party must abandon its authoritarian belief that the National Assembly is its property or its plaything,” Chung said.

Election commission investigation

The People Power Party said it would move quickly to establish a recommendation committee for a special counsel investigation of the National Election Commission.

The National Assembly approved the investigation bill Thursday through an agreement between the governing and opposition parties.

The investigation is expected to examine a ballot shortage during the June 3 local elections and other allegations involving the election commission.

Choi said the party was reviewing potential candidates from several perspectives.

“We will work to establish the recommendation committee and launch the investigation as quickly as possible,” he said.

— Reported by Asia Today; translated by UPI

© Asia Today. Unauthorized reproduction or redistribution prohibited.

Original Korean report: https://www.asiatoday.co.kr/kn/view.php?key=20260731010011674

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s pick to head the nation’s intelligence agencies struggled to win Democratic support in a contentious confirmation hearing Wednesday where he clashed repeatedly with them over the 2020 election.

Democrats asked Jay Clayton, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York and a former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman, over and over again whether former President Biden won the election and defeated Trump. Echoing many of Trump’s nominees, Clayton said many times that the election was “certified” for Biden, declining to say outright that the Democrat won.

“I’m not going to get into this with you,” Clayton told Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff, the last of several Democrats on the committee to grill Clayton on the 2020 election. Clayton appeared frustrated and flustered as Ossoff repeated the question several times. “I’ve answered it,” he said.

Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, who had praised Clayton’s nomination when Trump picked him for the role last month, expressed exasperation with him at the end of the hearing. Democrats say they are concerned that Trump will try to direct intelligence agencies to influence U.S. elections as the president has repeated his false claims that the 2020 contest was stolen.

“I’ve known Mr. Clayton for some time, I worked with him closely when he was at the SEC,” said Warner, the top Democrat on the intelligence panel. “But I am bitterly disappointed.”

While Clayton has broad support among Republicans, the acrimony with Democrats could be a blow to GOP leaders who had hoped to gain their consent for a quick vote to replace temporary intelligence director Bill Pulte, a former housing official with no known intelligence experience and who used his previous administration perch to target perceived adversaries of the president.

Senators in both parties have criticized Pulte, and Republicans had hoped to confirm Clayton immediately after he was nominated in June so Pulte did not take over when Gabbard left office. But Trump delayed Clayton’s nomination, allowing Pulte to take the job temporarily.

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Tom Cotton, R-Ark., said the committee will vote on Clayton’s nomination next week.

Clayton emphasizes national security experience

Clayton did not mention Pulte in the hearing. But he emphasized his own government and national security experience, attempting to assuage senators in both parties.

“I saw firsthand how a strong national security apparatus depends on decisive judgment, discipline, integrity, and effective communication and cooperation across different branches of the government,” Clayton said in his opening statement. “If confirmed as Director of National Intelligence, I will commit to upholding these principles every day.”

Cotton expressed frustration last month when the hearing was delayed. He said in his opening statement Wednesday that Clayton has a reputation for operating with “morality, decency and integrity” in his previous positions and that he hopes his nomination will win bipartisan support.

Democrats press Clayton on Gabbard’s election activities

Democrats also pressed Clayton on former National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard’s visit to a Georgia election office earlier this year during an FBI search related to the 2020 election. Trump administration officials have given varying explanations for Gabbard’s involvement in the search, which appeared to be outside of her intelligence role.

Clayton declined to say whether Gabbard’s visit was appropriate or how he would handle the same situation. At one point he said he wasn’t aware of Gabbard’s visit before this week, then later appeared to backtrack, saying “it wasn’t something on my mind” before he started to prepare for the hearing.

Warner said it “strains credibility” that Clayton wasn’t aware of Gabbard’s election activities.

Democrats also asked Clayton about Trump’s announcement that he will deliver a primetime address on Thursday with a focus on elections, after the president suggested he could revisit long-debunked conspiracy theories about his 2020 defeat. Clayton said he had has no involvement with that speech.

As U.S. attorney in Manhattan, Clayton oversees vast portfolio

Clayton is currently the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, one of the most prestigious of the Justice Department’s prosecution offices. His cases have ranged from terrorism and espionage cases to security fraud and public corruption.

Democrats pressed Clayton on subpoenas of four New York Times journalists after they reported on security concerns involving the new, Qatari-gifted Air Force One. The Committee to Protect Journalists has called the subpoenas “an extraordinary escalation in President Trump’s efforts to threaten and intimidate independent news organizations and have a chilling effect on the work of journalists across the country.”

Clayton said he was not able to discuss the details of the subpoenas and declined to elaborate on whether he spoke to the White House before they were issued. He said he is “confident in procedures we have in place to protect freedom of press.”

Under Clayton, the office also facilitated the unsealing of thousands of pages of court records from the prosecutions of Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell — documents that were made public as part of the Justice Department’s release of records related to the late sex offender and his longtime confidant.

Clayton has also overseen the prosecution of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and Maduro’s wife, Cilia Flores, on drug trafficking charges.

Confirmation vote could unlock renewal of surveillance authority

Clayton’s confirmation could potentially clear the way for bipartisan legislation to renew Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, which stalled last month when Democrats had said they would not provide the necessary votes to pass the bill unless Pulte’s temporary appointment was withdrawn.

The law, which aims to prevent terrorist attacks by monitoring the communications of targeted foreigners located outside the United States, expired in June.

Even if Democrats relent, it is unclear if Trump would sign the bill. He said in his June social media post delaying Clayton’s nomination that he would not sign the FISA renewal without his legislation to require proof of citizenship for all voters. The voting bill does not have enough support to pass the Senate.

Jalonick writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Eric Tucker contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Monday denied a request to disqualify top Justice Department officials from supervising the prosecution of the man charged with trying to kill President Trump at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.

Cole Tomas Allen had argued that involvement in his prosecution by Acting Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche and District of Columbia U.S. Atty. Jeanine Pirro created a potential conflict of interest because they were among many administration officials present at the April dinner. Allen’s attorney also had raised concerns about the close friendship between Trump and Pirro, a former Fox News commentator.

U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden wrote in his ruling that neither their attendance at the dinner nor Pirro’s personal relationship with the president merited their disqualification. McFadden noted that Allen is not charged with attempting to harm Blanche and Pirro, and there is no evidence to suggest he even knew they would attend the dinner.

“They are unlikely to be trial witnesses, nor do they meet the legal definition of victims,” wrote McFadden, who was nominated to the bench by Trump.

Allen has been accused of trying to breach a security checkpoint armed with guns and knives. He has pleaded not guilty to various charges, including assaulting a federal official with a deadly weapon and attempted assassination of the president. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted of the attempted assassination charge alone.

Allen also is accused of firing a shotgun at a Secret Service agent during the attack, which disrupted and ultimately prompted an early end to one of the highest-profile annual events in the nation’s capital. The Secret Service officer who was shot once in a bullet-resistant vest fired his own weapon five times without hitting anyone. Allen, of Torrance, California, was injured but was not shot.

Richer writes for the Associated Press.

More than 20 years after Michael Jackson was acquitted on charges of child molestation — and two months since the global superstar’s record-breaking biopic skirted any mention of abuse allegations — a new Netflix docuseries brings his trial and the aftermath to the foreground.

“Michael Jackson: The Verdict,” a three-part documentary directed by Nick Green and released Wednesday, chronicles his 2005 trial in Santa Maria that began with a search raid of the pop star’s sprawling Neverland Ranch and ended with a jury finding him not guilty on 10 counts, including four counts of child molestation. At the center of the case was Gavin Arvizo, a then-15-year-old cancer survivor from Los Angeles.

Because recording was not allowed in the courtroom, the documentary relies heavily on archival footage from media surrounding the trial and firsthand accounts of key figures involved, including prosecutor Ron Zonen, Jackson family attorney Brian Oxman, journalist Diane Dimond, two trial jurors, and friends and supporters on both sides of the case.

The episodes also delve into the 2003 documentary “Living With Michael Jackson,” in which the pop star is interviewed by British journalist Martin Bashir, that sparked questions about his behavior, leading to the charges against Jackson. Jackson’s historically questionable relationships with children, the media circus surrounding the trial and the effect it had on fans, the family at its center and Jackson himself are explored, too.

Here are six key takeaways from “The Verdict.”

Jackson allegedly had his personal assistant order child pornography

One of the docuseries’ most revealing interviews came from Vincent Amen, a former Jackson associate who worked at Neverland Ranch from 2002 to 2003. He said he was put in charge of taking care of the Arvizo family during their stay at the property following media backlash from Gavin Arvizo’s appearance in “Living With Michael Jackson.”

At that time, Amen said, he “wholeheartedly” believed in Jackson’s innocence, especially because Jackson’s friend Frank Tyson, also known as Frank Cascio, a member of the family who filed a lawsuit against Jackson’s estate in April detailing alleged sexual abuse, vouched so strongly for him. Cascio, who met Jackson when he was 5 years old and later became his personal assistant, told Amen, “Michael would never do this with a child.”

Amen’s conviction shifted, however, after he discovered a disturbing magazine that apparently belonged to Jackson in Cascio’s possession.

“Frank cleaned out his house of anything that came from the Neverland Ranch. And he hands me a Nike bag,” Amen said in the docuseries. “I took the bag and I’m driving home, and I felt, ‘Something’s a little suspicious.’ And I said, ‘Let me take a look in this bag.’ I start taking videos to document this. I open the bag. I start looking, and I see a magazine.”

The series shows shaky footage of Vincent apparently finding a nudist magazine called “Naturally.” He flips to a video ordering section with titles circled in black marker, including videos called “Nudist Youth Weekend” and “Euro-Nudist Family.”

“I confronted Frank, I said, ‘Frank, what is this magazine? Because, you know, there’s circles around videos with naked children,’” Amen recounted. “He said, ‘That’s just a phase that Michael and I went through. He circled the videos that he wanted, I ordered them, and it was a phase that we went through.’ They watched them together.”

The Arvizo children called Jackson ‘daddy’ and had their own bizarre nicknames

Along with footage of the nudist magazine, Amen held on to other evidence of his time with Jackson and the Arvizo family, including a set of Polaroid pictures featuring Gavin’s mom, Janet, and younger brother, Star.

In one, Star points directly into the lens. It’s captioned, “You my daddy Michael.” Another photo of a smiling Janet and Star includes a handwritten caption from Janet that says, “Dearest loving Michael, we appreciate you being our family. What God brings together, no man can undo. We love you.”

Under a photo of Star with a cross-eyed expression, he wrote, “I love you, my daddy Michael. Your son, Blowhole.”

“These are the nicknames that Michael would give these young boys,” Amen said.

Bashir documentary marked a pivotal shift in the perception of Jackson

Martin Bashir in “Michael Jackson: The Verdict.”

(Netflix)

Though the first allegations of child molestation against Michael Jackson emerged in 1993, it was footage from Bashir’s “Living With Michael Jackson” that ignited public concern about Jackson’s relationship with Gavin.

In a pivotal scene from the 2003 documentary, Jackson brings Gavin in as an example of a child with cancer that he helped. Gavin, 13 at the time, leans his head on Jackson’s shoulder and holds his hand. Jackson tells Bashir that the two often share a bed at the Neverland Ranch, though in another scene he stresses that it’s not sexual.

“I realized that we had something that was hugely significant, but I didn’t realize the extent of the bombshell until the broadcast,” Bashir recalled in “The Verdict.”

“You can see it. You can look at that moment in the Martin Bashir documentary and you can actually pin the end of his life to that very moment,” J. Randy Taraborrelli, Jackson’s childhood friend and biographer, said in the docuseries.

Given Jackson’s stardom, news and tabloid media swarmed the scene of the trial along with droves of dedicated fans (and a much smaller contingent of detractors). And the archival footage from “The Verdict” shows the extent to which fandom and media frenzy influenced the proceedings.

Jackson’s fans stationed themselves throughout the route he’d take to the Santa Maria courthouse with signs showing their support, sometimes standing and shouting and other times driving alongside him and honking. Jackson had his director of security, Kerry Anderson, film these drives while he waved and engaged with supporters.

As many as 1,000 fans showed up on the first day of the trial, and many would line up starting at 5 a.m. for raffle tickets that would allow them to enter the courtroom. One fan interviewed for the docuseries, Sheree Wilkins, said she quit her job as a preschool teacher to move to Santa Maria for the trial. When the “not guilty” verdicts were announced, she fainted and had to receive medical attention.

TV news stations from around the world, including Taiwan, Japan and Mexico, sent crews to cover the trial.

Even inside the courtroom, where cameras were not allowed, enthusiasm for Jackson’s music could not be contained. Attendees recalled everybody, from the jury to the judge and even the prosecution, “swaying in their seats” when songs played as part of an evidence display.

“I remember me moving in time to his music,” prosecutor Ron Zonen said. “At one point Tom [Sneddon, the District Attorney leading the prosecution] jabbed me and said, ‘Would you stop moving your foot?’ ”

Jackson’s mental and physical health deteriorated

Mark Geragos briefly served as Jackson’s defense attorney.

(Netflix)

According to numerous interviews in “The Verdict,” Jackson’s substance use was problematic before and during the trial.

Jackson was not at Neverland during the raid that predated his charges. According to journalist Dimond, her sources said he was in Las Vegas “having wild parties.”

“There were cigarette burns in the leather couches and chairs. There were empty liquor bottles on every table. And this is where Michael Jackson had been for several days, entertaining young teenage boys, who all spoke German,” she said.

Later, Jackson’s well-publicized physical pain became the catalyst for controversy when he was hospitalized overnight, where he was allegedly given enough pain medication “to tranquilize an elephant,” and failed to show up on time for court the next day. The judge threatened to issue a warrant for his arrest if he didn’t make it to the courthouse within the hour, leading Jackson’s team to speed there at 90 mph.

Throughout the trial, stress took an enormous toll on Jackson, defense attorney Mark Geragos said in the docuseries.

“I watched him just disintegrate, literally disintegrate. The ingestion of substances was just astronomical. There was a time when I actually saw him in the fetal position on the floor, and I thought, ‘What do we do?’ I mean, you don’t want his death to be on your hands because you took some inaction,” he said. “We had genuine concerns whether he could even withstand a trial — physically, mentally.”

The prosecution’s case fell apart at the hands of key witnesses

“The Verdict” lays out, step by step, how the trial ended in Jackson’s full acquittal. One major contributor, the docuseries seems to argue, is the downfall of the prosecution at the hands of its own witnesses.

Defense attorney Tom Mesereau was an expert at discrediting witnesses, subjects told the filmmakers, but certain key witnesses, like Janet Arvizo, struggled to connect with the jury on their own.

“I called her Janet from another planet,” admitted juror Melissa Herard. “Sorry, but that’s just how she acted.”

Jackson’s ex-wife Debbie Rowe was meant to take the stand as a smoking gun for the prosecution but instead revealed no new information and came to Jackson’s defense.

The prosecution also partially hinged its case on past allegations of child sexual abuse against Jackson, but conflicting testimony caused these efforts to backfire. A former Neverland employee claimed to witness Jackson molest Wade Robson when he was a child, but Robson took the stand and denied anything happened.

“It’s hard to convince a jury when the subject of the act itself said it didn’t happen,” Zonen said.

In 2013, Robson reversed his stance and filed a lawsuit against the Jackson estate alleging sexual abuse. His allegations, along with those of James Safechuck, were the subject of the 2019 documentary “Leaving Neverland.”

WASHINGTON — President Trump announced Wednesday night at a White House dinner that he wanted to make acting Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche’s leadership of the Department of Justice permanent.

The president said he thought the confirmation of his onetime personal defense attorney would go “very quickly,” according to a video posted from the dinner.

But early indications suggest that the process could be anything but.

Blanche, who assumed his current role after Trump fired former Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi in April, has been the face of some of the administration’s most unpopular actions, including the $1.8-billion “anti-weaponization fund,” the Justice Department’s release of the so-called Epstein files and a spate of prosecutions that critics have seen as politically motivated.

“He was nominated because he’ll do whatever the President demands. Todd Blanche should be under investigation — not under consideration for a promotion,” Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), who sits on the committee, said in a statement.

Blanche was confirmed as deputy attorney general last year in a vote along party lines but now faces a changed political climate, in which Senate Republicans have felt more emboldened to question the administration’s actions.

Already, two Republicans who sit on the Senate Judiciary Committee, which will decide Blanche’s fate, have expressed reservations about his nomination.

Republicans hold a 12-to-10 majority in the committee, so losing two votes probably would torpedo Blanche’s confirmation.

Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn told CNN reporter Manu Raju Thursday that he was concerned about the independence of Blanche, who served as Trump’s personal attorney in a New York case about his alleged hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels.

“Being attorney general is probably one of the hardest jobs in the Cabinet, because you’re working for the president but you’re also supposed to be able to tell the president ‘no,’ ” Cornyn said. “So we need to talk about that.”

Cornyn recently lost his primary bid for reelection after Trump endorsed his opponent, Texas Atty. Gen. Ken Paxton.

In recent weeks, Blanche has faced withering criticism for the anti-weaponization fund, which was created last month to settle a lawsuit brought by Trump, two of his sons and their business against the Internal Revenue Service.

Blanche publicly walked back the fund at a congressional hearing this week, after critics had described it as a slush fund for allies of the president who believed they had been prosecuted for political purposes, including those who participated in the Jan. 6, 2021, storming of the Capitol.

Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, told reporters that the fund, and any support for participants in the Jan. 6 insurrection, would be a sticking point for him in Blanche’s nomination.

“The key for Todd or anyone going through the Judiciary Committee is being pretty tight on January the 6th,” Tillis said.

Tillis, who is not seeking reelection, previously held up the confirmation of another Trump appointee — Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh — over the senator’s concern about the prosecution of outgoing Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell in connection with statements Powell had made about a renovation of the Federal Reserve headquarters.

After the Powell investigation was dropped, Tillis supported Warsh’s nomination.

And Blanche will probably face questions during the confirmation process about the department’s prosecution of other perceived political enemies of the president, including former FBI Director James Comey, who is facing charges in North Carolina over a picture he posted on social media of seashells spelling out the numbers “86 47,” a reference to removing the president that prosecutors described as a death threat.

During Blanche’s first nomination hearing to be deputy attorney general, Tillis specifically asked Blanche to promise not to pursue any politically motivated prosecutions.

“I’ve got your commitment there will not even be a whiff of an investigation that appears to have a political motivation to it?” Tillis asked.

“I commit to that,” Blanche responded.

Even if he were to advance out of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Blanche could face a tough confirmation vote in the full Senate, where Republicans hold 53 seats. Two Republican senators facing tough reelection matchups, Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, along with lame duck Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, could prove to be hard votes to win.

Blanche has also been criticized for his handling of the release of millions of pages of records from the Justice Department’s investigation into deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, as well as his interview with Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell.

Last week, Blanche’s predecessor, former Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi, placed the blame for the delayed release of files and improper redactions on Blanche’s shoulders.

He has also faced criticism for his decision to interview Maxwell in her Florida prison in July 2025, and for her transfer to a more comfortable prison in Texas soon after the interview was conducted. The former British socialite’s attorneys have made clear that she is seeking a pardon for her 2021 conviction and 20-year prison sentence.