prosecutor

On March 28, a sunny Saturday in southwestern Utah, Jack Hoopes and his wife, Lorna, brought their homemade signs to the local “No Kings” rally.

The couple joined a crowd of 1,500 or so marching through the main picnic area of a park in downtown St. George. Their signs — cut-out words on a black background — chided lawmakers for failing to stand up to President Trump and urged America to “make lying wrong again.”

After about an hour, the two were ready to go home. They got in their silver Volvo SUV, but before pulling away, Jack Hoopes decided to swing past the demonstration, which was still going strong. He tooted his horn, twice, in a show of solidarity.

That’s when things took a curious turn.

A police officer parked in the middle of the street warned Hoopes not to honk; at least that’s what he thinks the officer said as Hoopes drove past the chanting crowd. When he spotted two familiar faces, Hoopes hit the horn a third time — a friendly, howdy sort of honk. “It wasn’t like I was being obnoxious,” he said, “or laying on the horn.”

Hoopes turned a corner and the cop, lights flashing, pulled him over. He asked Hoopes for his license and registration. He returned a few moments later. A passing car sounded its horn. “Are you going to stop him, too?” Hoopes asked.

That did not sit well. The officer said he’d planned to let Hoopes off with a warning. Instead, he charged the 71-year-old retired potato farmer with violating Utah’s law on horns and warning devices. He issued a citation, with a fine punishable up to $50.

Hoopes — a law school graduate and prosecutor in the days before he took up potato farming — is fighting back, even though he estimates the legal skirmishing could cost him considerably more than the maximum fine. The ticket might have resulted from pique on the officer’s part. But Hoopes doesn’t think so. He sees politics at play.

“I’ve beeped my horn for [the pro-law enforcement] Back the Blue. I’ve beeped my horn for Black Lives Matter,” Hoopes said. “I’ve seen a lot of people honk for Trump and for MAGA.”

He’s also seen plenty of times when people honked their horns to celebrate high school championships and the like.

But Hoopes has never heard of anyone being pulled over, much less ticketed, for excessive or unlawful honking. “I think it’s freedom of expression,” he said.

Or should be.

Jack and Lorna Hoopes made their own protest signs to bring to the “No Kings” rally in St. George, Utah.

(Mikayla Whitmore / For The Times)

St. George is a fast-growing community of about 100,000 residents set amid the jagged red-rock peaks of the Mojave Desert. It’s a jumping-off point for Zion National Park, about 40 miles east, and a mecca for golf, hiking and mountain-bike riding.

It’s also Trump Country.

Washington County, where St. George is located, gave Trump 75% of its vote in 2024, with Kamala Harris winning a scant 23%. That emphatic showing compares with Trump’s 59% performance statewide.

St. George is where Hoopes and his wife live most of the time. When summer and its 100-degree temperatures hit, they retreat to southeast Idaho. The couple get along well with their neighbors in both places, Hoopes said, even though they’re Democrats living in ruby-red country. It’s not as though they just tolerate folks, or hold their noses to get by.

“Most of my friends are conservative,” Hoopes said. “Some of the Trump people are very good people. We just have a difference of opinion where our country is going.”

He was speaking from a hotel parking lot in Arizona near Lake Havasu while embarked on an annual motorcycle ride through the Southwest: four days, a dozen riders, 1,200 miles. Most of his companions are Trump supporters, Hoopes said, and, just like back home, everyone gets on fine.

“Right?” he called out.

“No!” a voice hollered back.

Actually, Hoopes joked, his charitable road mates let him ride along because they consider him handicapped — his disability being his political ideology.

Hoopes is not exactly a hellion. In 2014, he and his wife traveled to Africa to participate in humanitarian work and promote sustainable agriculture in Kenya and Uganda. In 2020, they worked as Red Cross volunteers helping wildfire victims in Northern California.

Virtually his entire life has been spent on the right side of the law, though Hoopes allowed as how he has racked up a few speeding tickets over the years. (His career as a prosecutor lasted four years and involved three murder cases in the first 12 months before he left the legal profession behind and took up farming.)

He’s never had any problems with the police in St. George. “They seem to be decent,” Hoopes said.

A department spokesperson, Tiffany Mitchell, said illicit honking is not a widespread problem in the placid, retiree-heavy community, but there are some who have been cited for violations. She denied any political motivation in Hoopes’ case.

“He must’ve felt justified,” Mitchell said of the officer who issued the citation. “I can’t imagine that politics had anything to do with it.”

And yes, she said, honking a horn can be a political statement protected by the 1st Amendment. “But, just like anything else, it can turn criminal,” Mitchell said, and apparently that’s how the officer felt on March 28 “and that’s the direction he took it.”

The matter now rests before a judge, residing in a legal system that has lately been tested and twisted in remarkable ways.

Jack Hoopes’ case is now before a judge in St. George, Utah.

(Mikayla Whitmore / For The Times)

As he left an initial hearing earlier this month, Hoopes said his phone pinged with a fresh headline out of Washington. Trump’s Justice Department, it was reported, was asking a federal appeals court to throw out the convictions of 12 people found guilty of seditious conspiracy for their roles in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection.

“We have a president that pardons people that broke into the Capitol and defecated” in the hallways and congressional offices, Hoopes said. “Police officers died because of it, and yet I get picked up for honking my horn?”

Hoopes’ next court appearance, a pretrial conference, is set for July 15.

Nearly two years after actor Alec Baldwin was cleared of criminal charges in the “Rust” movie shooting death, a long simmering civil negligence case is inching toward a trial this fall.

On Friday, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge denied a summary judgment motion requested by the film producers Rust Movie Productions LLC, as well as actor-producer Baldwin and his firm El Dorado Pictures to dismiss the case.

During a hearing, Superior Court Judge Maurice Leiter set an Oct. 12 trial date.

The negligence suit was brought more than four years ago by Serge Svetnoy, who served as the chief lighting technician on the problem-plagued western film. Svetnoy was close friends with cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and held her in his arms as she lay dying on the floor of the New Mexico movie set. Baldwin’s firearm had discharged, launching a .45 caliber bullet, which struck and killed her.

The Bonanza Creek Ranch in Santa Fe, N.M. in 2021.

(Jae C. Hong / Associated Press)

Svetnoy was the first crew member of the ill-fated western to bring a lawsuit against the producers, alleging they were negligent in Hutchins’ October 2021 death. He maintains he has suffered trauma in the years since. In addition to negligence, his lawsuit also accuses the producers of intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Prosecutors dropped criminal charges against Baldwin, who has long maintained he was not responsible for Hutchins’ death.

“We are pleased with the Court’s decision denying the motions for summary judgment filed by Rust Movie Productions and Mr. Baldwin,” lawyers Gary Dordick and John Upton, who represent Svetnoy, said in a statement following the hearing. “He looks forward to finally having his day in court on this long-pending matter.”

The judge denied the defendants’ request to dismiss the negligence, emotional distress and punitive damages claims. One count directed at Baldwin, alleging assault, was dropped.

Svetnoy has said the bullet whizzed past his head and “narrowly missed him,” according to the gaffer’s suit.

Attorneys representing Baldwin and the producers were not immediately available for comment.

Svetnoy and Hutchins had been friends for more than five years and worked together on nine film productions. Both were immigrants from Ukraine, and they spent holidays together with their families.

On Oct. 21, 2021, he was helping prepare for an afternoon of filming in a wooden church on Bonanza Creek Ranch. Hutchins was conversing with Baldwin to set up a camera angle that Hutchins wanted to depict: a close-up image of the barrel of Baldwin’s revolver.

The day had been chaotic because Hutchins’ union camera crew had walked off the set to protest the lack of nearby housing and previous alleged safety violations with the firearms on the set.

Instead of postponing filming to resolve the labor dispute, producers pushed forward, crew members alleged.

New Mexico prosecutors prevailed in a criminal case against the armorer, Hannah Gutierrez, in March 2024. She served more than a year in a state women’s prison for her involuntary manslaughter conviction before being released last year.

Baldwin faced a similar charge, but the case against him unraveled spectacularly.

On the second day of his July 2024 trial, his criminal defense attorneys — Luke Nikas and Alex Spiro — presented evidence that prosecutors and sheriff’s deputies withheld evidence that may have helped his defense . The judge was furious, setting Baldwin free.

Variety first reported on Friday’s court action.

MINNEAPOLIS — An ICE agent is charged with assault for allegedly pointing his gun at people in a car while driving on a Minneapolis highway, prosecutors in Minnesota said Thursday.

An arrest warrant in Hennepin County, which includes Minneapolis, says Gregory Donnell Morgan Jr. is charged with two counts of second-degree aggravated assault. The warrant says Morgan was working as an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in the Minneapolis area on Feb. 5 when he pointed a gun at the occupants of a vehicle on Minnesota State Highway 62.

Hennepin County Atty. Mary Moriarty said she believes it is the first criminal case brought against a federal immigration officer involved in the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration enforcement that surged federal authorities into cities including Los Angeles, Chicago, Portland and New Orleans.

Department of Homeland Security and Justice Department officials didn’t immediately respond to emails seeking comment. The Associated Press called a number associated with Morgan and sent a message to his possible email address but did not receive any immediate response.

Moriarty said during a news conference that Morgan was driving a rented, unmarked SUV on the shoulder of the highway when a car on the road moved into the shoulder to try to slow Morgan down, not knowing he was a federal officer. After the car returned into the legal lane, Morgan pulled up alongside and pointed his service weapon at the people in the car.

Morgan, 35, and his partner, who was not charged, were on their way to the federal building to end their shift when they were caught in traffic. Charging documents note Morgan did not say the incident occurred during an enforcement action.

According to the charging documents, Morgan told a Minnesota State Patrol officer that he pulled up alongside the victim’s vehicle, drew his firearm and yelled “Police Stop.” The warrant says the victims couldn’t hear him because their windows were up.

Morgan is charged with two counts of assault because he threatened both people in the vehicle, and there is a warrant out for his arrest, Moriarty said.

The charges could intensify a clash between the Trump administration and Minnesota officials over the crackdown. Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, has warned that the Justice Department could investigate and prosecute state or local officials who arrest federal agents for performing their official duties.

Moriarty said she is not concerned about blowback from the Trump administration and that her office’s goal is to “hold people accountable if they violate the laws of the state,” she said.

She said Morgan’s actions were beyond the scope of a federal officers’ authority.

“There is no such thing as absolute immunity for federal agents who violate the law in the state of Minnesota,” she said.

In Minnesota, felony second-degree assault is punishable by up to seven years in prison, or up to 10 years imprisonment if the assault inflicted “substantial bodily harm.”

The Department of Homeland Security deployed about 3,000 federal officers to the Minneapolis-St. Paul area from December through February in what the agency called its “largest immigration enforcement operation ever.” The Minnesota operation led to thousands of arrests, angry mass protests and the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens.

Backlash over the aggressive tactics mounted, and two of the crackdown’s most high-profile leaders were soon gone. Trump fired Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in March shortly after the Minnesota surge ended. That same month, Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol sector chief who led immigration operations in several large cities, announced his retirement.

In a letter to California officials last year, then-Deputy Atty. Gen. Blanche wrote that “the Justice Department views any arrests of federal agents and officers in the performance of their official duties as both illegal and futile.”

“Numerous federal laws prohibit interfering with and impeding immigration or other law-enforcement operations,” Blanche wrote. “The Department of Justice will investigate and prosecute any state or local official who violates these federal statutes (or directs or conspires with others to violate them).”

Sullivan and Bynum write for the Associated Press. Bynum reported from Savannah, Ga. AP reporter Alanna Durkin Richer in Washington, contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — Federal prosecutors made an unannounced visit this week to a construction site at Federal Reserve headquarters that is the focus of an investigation into a $2.5-billion renovation project, according to two people familiar with the visit.

Two prosecutors and an investigator from U.S. Atty. Jeanine Pirro’s office were turned away on Tuesday by a building contractor and referred to Fed attorneys, one of the people said. The two people familiar with the visit spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to publicly discuss an ongoing investigation.

The visit underscores that the Trump administration is not backing down from its investigation of the Fed and its chair, Jerome Powell, even though the probe has delayed the confirmation of a new chair nominated by President Trump. The investigation is focused on cost overruns and brief testimony about the project last summer by Powell. Trump confirmed in an interview that aired Wednesday on Fox Business that he wants to continue the probe.

Last month, during a closed-door hearing before a federal judge, a top deputy from Pirro’s office conceded that they hadn’t found any evidence of a crime in their investigation of the headquarters project.

Robert Hur, an attorney for the Federal Reserve board of governors, sent an email to Pirro’s prosecutors about their visit and their request for a “tour” to “check on progress” at the construction site. Hur’s email, which the Associated Press has viewed, noted that U.S. District Judge James Boasberg concluded that their interest in the Federal Reserve’s renovation project was “pretextual.”

“Should you wish to challenge that finding, the courts provide an avenue for you; it is not appropriate for you to try to circumvent it,” Hur wrote.

Republican Tillis is key vote

Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican who is a key member of the Senate Banking Committee, has vowed to vote against Kevin Warsh, Trump’s nominee to replace Powell as Fed chair, until the investigation is dropped. With the committee closely divided on partisan lines, Tillis’ opposition is enough to block Warsh.

The Banking panel said Tuesday that it will hold a hearing on Warsh’s nomination April 21. Powell’s term as Fed chair ends May 15, but Powell said last month he would remain as chair until a replacement is named.

Powell is serving a separate term as a member of the Fed’s governing board that lasts until January 2028. Chairs typically leave their posts as governor when their terms as chair end, but they can remain on the board if they choose.

Last month, Powell said, “I have no intention of leaving the Board until the investigation is well and truly over, with transparency and finality.” If he remains in his seat, even after Warsh is confirmed, it would deny Trump the oppotunity to fill a seat on the seven-member board.

Late Tuesday, Tillis posted a link on social media to the Wall Street Journal’s article on the visit below an image of the Three Stooges and wrote, “The U.S. Attorney’s Office for D.C. at the crime scene.”

Investigation centers on building renovations

The investigation by Pirro’s office centers on an appearance by Powell before the Senate Banking Committee last June, when he was asked about cost overruns on the Fed’s extensive building renovations. The most recent estimates from the Fed suggest the current estimated cost of $2.5 billion is about $600 million higher than a 2022 estimate of $1.9 billion.

“It is probably corrupt, but what it really is, is incompetent,” Trump said on Fox Business. “Don’t you think we have to find out what happened there?”

The president’s support for the investigation threatens a time frame set out by Sen. Tim Scott, a South Carolina Republican who chairs the Banking Committee. Scott said Tuesday on Fox Business that he believed the investigation would be “wrapped up in the next few weeks,” allowing Warsh to be confirmed soon after.

Threat to fire Powell

News of the unannounced visit by prosecutors comes as Trump has again threatened to fire Powell, if the Federal Reserve chair decides to stay on the central bank’s governing board after his term as chair expires next month.

“Well then I’ll have to fire him, OK?” Trump said when reminded that Powell has said he won’t leave the Fed while the Justice Department investigates a $2.5-billion renovation project at the bank. Powell has also said he will remain as chair of the Fed’s rate-setting committee until a replacement is confirmed by the Senate, following the precedent of previous chairs.

Trump has for months wanted to remove Powell as chair of the Fed, saying he has been too slow in orchestrating interest rate cuts that would give the U.S. economy a quick boost. Powell has said the investigation is a pretext to undermine the Fed’s independence to set rates.

Supreme Court weighing another Trump removal

Trump’s threat to fire Powell comes as the Supreme Court is weighing the president’s effort to remove another central bank governor, Lisa Cook. Lower courts have so far allowed Cook to remain in her job while her legal challenge to the firing continues. The Supreme Court also seemed likely to keep her on the Fed when the court heard arguments in January. A decision could come any time.

The issue in Cook’s case is whether allegations of mortgage fraud, which she has denied, is a sufficient reason to fire her or a mere pretext masking Trump’s desire to exert more control over U.S. interest rate policy.

The Supreme Court has allowed the firings of the heads of other governmental agencies at the president’s discretion, with no claim that they did anything wrong, while also signaling that it is approaching the independence of the nation’s central bank more cautiously, calling the Fed “a uniquely structured, quasi-private entity.”

Kunzelman and Rugaber write for the Associated Press. AP Writer Mark Sherman contributed to this report.

A day after the chavista-controlled National Assembly gave the cold shoulder to Magaly Vásquez, and confirmed Larry Devoe as Attorney General, I spent the day going through the latter’s public record as a “Venezuela agent” in multilateral spaces.

It was a shocking way to spend a Friday afternoon. What was I expecting? Back in 2014, Devoe was handed the so-called Human Rights Council just as Venezuela was about to spiral into a multi-dimensional crisis. Súper Bigote seemingly set three tasks in the international arena:

Find excuses and someone to blame for the disaster that was about to unfold, by casting the chavista government as the victim.

No matter how bad the humanitarian situation can get and the extent to which social indicators were reversed, insist that Chávez lifted millions out of poverty forever. 

Every time other diplomats, foreign officials or humanitarian personnel showed details and data that showed a dire country, answering that Venezuela was sovereign and democratic and no one needed to meddle with our own mess.

Devoe was one of the three main bureaucrats that defined such diplomatic chavista wisdom in those days. These three had fancy degrees from European schools, and were clever enough to fabricate a good headline amidst pervasive criticism. Besides Devoe, there was a lady called Delcy Rodríguez, disgraced in the late-Chávez years but handed the Information Ministry soon after el comandante passed, with studies from London’s Birkbeck University and Paris Nanterre University. There was also Bernardo Álvarez, Maduro’s representative in the OAS who had been the man in Washington when Chavez’s beef with Bush reached peak levels.

Soon after they started to defend Maduro in Venezuela and abroad, the international perception about his regime suffered a deep setback. In July 2016, dozens of Venezuelan NGOs addressed Ban Ki-moon complaining about the behavior of UN agencies in reaction to the country’s humanitarian situation. The letter was based on a report that covered plummeting indicators in the previous four years (measuring institutional quality, human rights and the conditions of vulnerable groups). On August 10, the South Korean secretary general said Venezuela was undergoing a humanitarian emergency, quoting that very report.

In 2016, Devoe said an opposition-drafted amnesty law was a “serious threat” to human rights.

Rodríguez, Álvarez and Devoe had work to do. Footage of Delcy denying the humanitarian crisis in June 2016 (did so again in 2018 before the UNHCR) has circulated in recent days, but it was actually Álvarez who first established the regime’s position. In an IACHR human rights hearing that featured the likes of Alfredo Romero, Carlos Correa, Rafael Uzcategui, Liliana Ortega and other prominent human rights defenders—many of which the newly minted prosecutor will have to deal with— , Álvarez said: “It’s not a humanitarian crisis, that has a political intentionality.”

A 43-year-old UCAB lawyer, with human rights studies from the iconic Alcalá de Henares University, sat next to Álvarez and in front of Romero et al. He was Larry Devoe, and came with the goods in his turn to speak, praising the “23,146 health centers across the territory, a 333% in terms of infrastructure” that Maduro had inherited by 2015.

He made another remark that day that now sounds like a prescient spell. Back then, the opposition-led parliament approved an amnesty bill aimed at 82 political prisoners held in Venezuela. Devoe said its contents were a “serious threat” to human rights with the allegation that the bill pardoned international crimes like the use of minors to commit crimes, drug trafficking, terrorism and corruption.

Whataboutism at its best

Devoe would use that technique several times after. In October 2018, he was invited as a conference speaker in the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo to discuss OAS’ record in defending human rights in the region. His lecture’s talking points: Venezuela became “the theater of operations of OAS and US actions” and the OAS whitewashed the pre-Chávez regime. Before that, he showed up in a local TV program, El Matinal, where interviewer Pablo McKinney tried to make him feel at ease by introducing the brotherly ties between Dominicans and Venezuelans. Devoe started speaking of Venezuela’s all-round, positive transformation since 1999 in terms of human rights. When McKinney raised his eyebrows, Devoe claimed Venezuela had one of the best social security programs in the Americas, but the nation was under MECANISMOS DE AGRESIÓN since 2013.

Devoe kept going. Chavez had ended illiteracy and handed out two million homes, and so goes that famous song. Unconvinced by the explanation, McKinney said he couldn’t bear Venezuelans wandering the streets of his city. Es demasiado grave, to which Devoe replied that Maduro was getting the Allende treatment, and that Venezuelan migrants were returning home from Colombia and the DR because of the treatment they got in those countries.

Is this surprising?

Not really. That was the standard rhetoric wielded by chavista diplomats, or Cuban officials since the 1960s, which Devoe also liked to quote. That doesn’t exempt Devoe from being a cold liar that now heads one of Venezuela’s most important institutions. He’s still good for Delcy, as he was good for the three tasks that I listed several paragraphs ago. 

Devoe could not acknowledge the humanitarian crisis in public. It was too embarrassing. It would give credibility to widespread reports about malnutrition, tropical diseases and growing maternal mortality rates.

The videos show how Devoe reacts to well-documented accusations to “defend the country” and conceal responsibility. Take for instance this occasion in 2018, two years after Ban Ki Moon’s now-historic statement, where Devoe addressed Venezuelan experts in the Inter American Commission on Human Rights. He admits the scarcity of medical supplies, but attributes its cause to “sanctions and economic blockades” (sectoral sanctions then in place affected Venezuelan credit). When asked about Maduro’s public refusal to accept humanitarian assistance, Devoe said:

“Commissioner, Venezuela has the capacity to buy and provide the resources to guarantee the rights of its population.”

A kidney transplant patient, Francisco Valencia, interrupted Devoe to tell him he had not received medical treatment for six months. “I am dying.” Devoe replied: “Well Francisco, I ask you to leave this room and ask Euroclear to unfreeze the 1,650 million dollars that would let us buy your treatment.”

The problem with that statement is not only Devoe’s audacity in talking back to a helpless patient. Venezuelan humanitarian organizations were, at that point, getting resources because of international cooperation. That cooperation was, to an extent, greenlighted by the Venezuelan State. ECHO, Caritas International, the Red Cross, the International Rescue Committee and others were already in the country, liaising with local groups.

Like Maduro and Delcy, Devoe could not acknowledge it. It was too embarrassing. It would give credibility to reports that maternal mortality grew 90% between 2016 and 2017, of 11.4% of acute malnutrition among kids under 5 years old, and claims that the government was hiding data on spikes of tuberculosis, diphtheria and malaria.

Hard Left roots?

It recently emerged that Larry Devoe is the maternal grandson of Pompeyo Márquez, who had been a communist militant during Betancourt and Leoni’s war against Cuba-funded guerrillas. Márquez later joined the party system with Movimiento Al Socialismo (MAS) through Caldera’s pacification process. He broke with Chávez when MAS endorsed his 1998 candidacy, and spent his final years opposing chavismo from within the Left.

On that shocking Friday afternoon, I also came upon a book about Venezuelan universities in the second half of the 20^th century. One chapter speaks about the political climate in Caracas’ Universidad Central in the 1970s. It mentions a Larry Devoe in the youth ranks of MAS, which clashed with the Leftwing Revolutionary Movement (MIR)—where Jorge Antonio Rodríguez, father of Jorge and Delcy, was a student leader—on campus and in student council elections. (At this point, everyone knows the fate of Jorge Rodríguez padre, murdered in the custody of DISIP in 1976 after the kidnapping of William Niehous).

Albeit rivals in the halls of UCV, it seems like the fathers of Larry Devoe and the Rodríguez siblings were part of the same political community 50 years ago. There’s a chance the new prosecutor general, born after the killing of Rodriguez padre, has known Delcy and Jorge for quite a while. Devoe Sr. was a MAS member along with Jorge Valero, a former Venezuelan ambassador to the UN and OAS this century, whom Devoe defended in his Santo Domingo speech.

Delcy, Ernesto Villegas and Larry Devoe presented a 2017 report denying the State’s responsibility for the great majority of deaths during that year’s protests.

Part of what people like Devoe and the Rodríguez siblings likely absorbed early on were accounts of the extrajudicial killings and torture Venezuelan communists endured in the 1960s. Then came the 1976 case of Rodríguez. And later, when Devoe was 11, the Caracazo—preceded by massacres like Cantaura and El Amparo, carried out by state officials, often with impunity.

These events are not just real; they must be remembered as part of the bloodier side of our recent history, one that did not begin in 1999. What is striking is that Devoe, now prosecutor in this “new political moment”, has repeatedly covered up similar crimes, the very kind the Rodríguez siblings have long grieved over.

In 2023, Devoe dismissed the ongoing investigation in the International Criminal Court as a political ploy, said Caracas proved crimes against humanity were never committed, and echoed Tarek William Saab’s claims that Venezuelan courts were doing their job in dealing with the bad apples. That now contradicts the discourse of the Rodríguez siblings, who got rid of Saab to appoint him. Six years before that, Delcy, Ernesto Villegas and Larry Devoe presented a report denying the State’s responsibility for the great majority of deaths during the 2017 protest cycle. This denialism has been a recurring pattern in his career as a Venezuelan State agent, and remains a part of chavismo’s rhetoric about “political violence since 1999.”

Someone told me that Devoe was respectful and decent in one-on-one interactions, even after heated debates over the causes and scale of the Venezuelan crisis. That perhaps he was caged by his own surroundings. Let’s see if Devoe can somehow turn that record around.

After all these years, we have reasonable doubts he’ll do so.

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department on Tuesday asked a federal appeals court to throw out the seditious conspiracy convictions of Proud Boys and Oath Keepers leaders who were sentenced to prison terms for leading members of the far-right extremist groups in attacking the U.S. Capitol to keep President Trump in the White House more than five years ago.

Trump commuted the prison sentences of several Proud Boys and Oath Keepers leaders in January 2025 in a sweeping act of clemency for all 1,500-plus defendants charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack.

The request by the Justice Department would go a step further and erase the convictions for the extremist group leaders, including Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes.

In court filings, prosecutors asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to vacate the convictions so that the government can permanently dismiss the indictments.

“The government’s motion to vacate in this case is consistent with its practice of moving the Supreme Court to vacate convictions in cases where the government has decided in its prosecutorial discretion that dismissal of a criminal case is in the interests of justice — motions that the Supreme Court routinely grants,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing signed by U.S. Atty. Jeanine Pirro.

Juries in Washington convicted the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers leaders of orchestrating violent plots to stop the peaceful transfer of power after Trump’s 2020 election loss to Democratic President Biden.

Kunzelman and Richer write for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration fired four Justice Department prosecutors involved in cases against anti-abortion activists, accusing the Biden administration on Tuesday of abusing a law designed to protect abortion clinics from obstruction and threats.

The firings are the latest wave of terminations of employees involved in cases criticized by conservatives or because they were perceived as insufficiently loyal to President Trump’s agenda. The terminations came before the release of a report accusing the Biden administration of biased prosecutions under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act or FACE Act.

“This Department will not tolerate a two-tiered system of justice,” Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, said in a statement. “No Department should conduct selective prosecution based on beliefs. The weaponization that happened under the Biden Administration will not happen again, as we restore integrity to our prosecutorial system.”

The report is the first released from the Justice Department’s “Weaponization Working Group,” created by former Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi to scrutinize the federal prosecutions of Trump and other cases criticized by conservatives.

Biden’s attorney general, Merrick Garland, and Jack Smith, the special counsel who prosecuted Trump, have said they followed only the facts, the evidence and the law in their decisions. Critics of the Trump administration say Bondi — who was fired by Trump this month — and Blanche are the ones who politicized the agency, with the norm-breaking actions that have stirred concern that the institution is being used as a tool to advance Trump’s personal and political agenda.

The Biden administration brought cases against dozens of defendants under the FACE Act, which makes it illegal to physically obstruct or use the threat of force to intimidate or interfere with a person seeking reproductive health services, and prohibits damaging property at abortion clinics and other centers. It was signed into law in 1994, when clinic protests and blockades were on the rise along with violence against abortion providers such as Dr. David Gunn, who was murdered.

The Trump administration alleges in the report that prosecutors under Biden often “ignored and downplayed” attacks against pregnancy resource centers or houses of worship, which are also protected under the law. It also claims that the Biden administration pushed for harsher sentences against anti-abortion activists than it did in cases against abortion-rights defendants. Trump last year pardoned anti-abortion activists convicted of blockading abortion clinic entrances, calling them “peaceful pro-life protesters.”

Kristen Clarke, who led the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division under Biden, defended the prosecutions, saying the attorneys “enforced the law even-handedly and put public safety at the center of this work.”

“The Civil Rights Division brought law enforcement leaders, crisis pregnancy center representatives, faith leaders, and reproductive health care staff together to address the real violence, threats of violence, and obstruction that too many people face in our country when it comes to reproductive health care,” Clarke said in an emailed statement on Tuesday.

The firings are part of a broader personnel purge that has shaken career Justice Department lawyers generally insulated from changes in administrations thanks to long-recognized civil service protections.

Justice Connection, a network of former department employees, said the agency leadership’s “cruelty and hypocrisy are on full display in this report.”

“They insist on zealous advocacy by career staff in advancing the President’s priorities, while shaming and firing those who did just that in the prior administration,” Stacey Young, a former department lawyer who founded Justice Connection, said in a statement. “They’ve put career employees on notice: if they do their jobs, they face potential termination if future political leadership disagrees with the policy goals of prior leadership.”

Richer writes for the Associated Press.

April 5 (Asia Today) — A senior South Korean prosecutor refused to take an oath before a parliamentary inquiry, escalating tensions between the prosecution and lawmakers and raising the possibility of coordinated action within the prosecution.

Park Sang-yong, a deputy chief prosecutor leading an investigation into alleged illegal financial transfers to North Korea, declined to be sworn in as a witness during a National Assembly inquiry into allegations of politically motivated prosecutions under the previous administration.

Under South Korean law, witnesses may refuse to take an oath if their testimony could expose them to criminal liability.

Park submitted a seven-page written explanation to the committee chair and left the hearing after about 38 minutes. He later said the inquiry itself was unconstitutional and illegal, arguing that participating would amount to cooperating with an improper process.

“The law allows a refusal to take the oath if justified, yet I was prevented from following that procedure,” Park said after leaving the session.

Justice Minister Jeong Seong-ho criticized the move as “highly inappropriate,” saying it undermined accountability. The acting prosecutor general also expressed regret, calling the incident unacceptable.

The dispute stems from an investigation into alleged payments to North Korea involving a South Korean company. Park has also faced separate allegations of misconduct during the probe, which are under investigation by prosecutors.

Within the prosecution, signs of collective action have emerged. Members of the investigative team reportedly created a group chat, fueling speculation about a coordinated response to the inquiry.

Legal experts warned the standoff could weaken the effectiveness of the parliamentary probe and deepen concerns over institutional conflict between the legislature and prosecution.

Some analysts said the episode reflects broader tensions over the independence of investigative authorities and the limits of parliamentary oversight.

— 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=20260405010001293

Across the country, President Trump has installed handpicked loyalists as top federal prosecutors. Several have been pushed out after legal battles because they lack Senate confirmation to serve as U.S. attorneys.

But in Los Angeles, Bill Essayli wields the power of a top prosecutor under a lesser title: “first assistant.”

Essayli clocked his first full year in office this week. He has survived the kinds of challenges that sunk Trump picks in other states through a combination of legal gamesmanship by the U.S. Department of Justice and a lack of action by judges in the Central District of California.

Essayli has used his position to act as one of Trump’s fiercest legal foot soldiers. He has pursued criminal charges against protesters, activists and immigrants while dropping cases involving administration allies and supporting lawsuits over transgender and environmental policies in California.

After Trump’s firing Thursday of U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi, it’s unclear how her replacement will handle continuing battles over the legality of Trump’s appointees. Essayli is popular with high-level administration officials, and received a congratulatory post on X from Vice President JD Vance over the filing of fraud cases earlier this week.

A conservative former state Assembly member from Riverside County, Essayli, 40, was sworn in as interim U.S. attorney last April. Around the time he hit that role’s 120-day limit, Bondi made him a “special attorney” and designated him “first assistant.” A federal judge later disqualified Essayli as acting U.S. attorney, finding he was “not lawfully serving” in the top role. But the judge said he had no authority to undo Essayli’s designation as first assistant. With no one above him in the office, that title leaves Essayli as the de facto U.S. attorney.

In other jurisdictions, members of the federal bench have exercised their authority to appoint an interim U.S. attorney. Chief U.S. District Judge Dolly M. Gee’s chambers did not respond to a request for comment about why no similar action has been taken in L.A.

A court spokesman declined to comment. Essayli did not respond to a request for comment. The White House referred questions to the Justice Department.

A Justice Department spokesperson issued a statement that praised Essayli for prosecuting “drug cartels and transnational criminal organizations, sex traffickers, violent street gangs, leftist rioters and domestic terrorists, fraudsters, and child predators.”

“It is a disservice to our prosecutors and the American people when judges prevent the President and the Attorney General from installing qualified and capable prosecutors who will aggressively enforce our laws and make America safe again,” the Justice Department spokesperson said.

The lack of action by Gee, a President Obama appointee, has surprised some legal observers, especially given the swiftness with which judges in other districts have acted. It also has frustrated some former federal prosecutors that fled the office under Essayli’s chaotic tenure.

One former assistant U.S. attorney, who left the office under Essayli and requested anonymity to discuss sitting judges who will likely preside over future cases of theirs in the district, accused Gee and others of “shirking their responsibilities” by not appointing someone to the vacant U.S. attorney post.

Another former Central District prosecutor who left the office before Essayli’s appointment said Gee was being practical, taking a “protective” stance to “keep the court away from the ire and invectives coming out of the White House.”

It is “unfair to say the court is abdicating its authority,” said the ex-prosecutor, who also requested anonymity to speak candidly about the district’s judges.

Under long-standing Senate tradition, individual senators can block a U.S. attorney nominee in their home state by withholding their “blue slip,” which clears a nominee’s path to a confirmation hearing.

Trump has tried to skirt the Senate confirmation process to appoint top federal prosecutors in multiple states, including New Jersey and Virginia, where two of the president’s personal lawyers were named U.S. attorney — who immediately moved to zealously advance the president’s agenda and, in some cases, prosecute his rivals.

In Virginia, Trump replaced U.S. Atty. Erik Siebert, a nominee who was under Senate consideration, with one of his former personal attorneys, Lindsey Halligan. Siebert had refused to prosecute some of Trump’s political enemies and resigned. In her first ever criminal case, Halligan swiftly moved to indict former FBI Director James B. Comey. The prosecution was later thrown out and Halligan’s appointment deemed illegal.

In New York’s Northern District, when judges moved to oust the president’s former campaign attorney — who received the same “first assistant” designation as Essayli — Justice Department officials promptly fired his replacement.

Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law, said Trump’s attempts to bypass the normal confirmation processes are unconstitutional.

“This is very troubling because it circumvents the constitutional procedure of having the president nominate and the Senate confirm. That’s crucial to checks and balances,” he said. “This allows the president to appoint whoever he wants.”

Though Essayli has more law enforcement experience than many of Trump’s chosen prosecutors, he’s still struggled to achieve courtroom victories. His prosecutors have lost nearly all the cases they’ve brought to trial against anti-Trump protesters and abandoned others after grand juries refused to return indictments.

Meghan Blanco, a former federal prosecutor and veteran defense attorney, suggested Gee’s inaction with Essayli might be a clever act of resistance. Rather than picking a fight with the White House, Blanco said, the judges are letting the top prosecutor fall on his face.

“If you’re a judge and displeased with what DOJ is doing and the shenanigans they’re pulling … you let the Essayli appointment play out,” Blanco said. “No one has seen a U.S. attorney’s office lose the way this office is losing now.”

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) told The Times this week that he is working with Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) to craft legislation to clarify the procedures required to appoint U.S. attorneys and prevent Trump and future presidents from circumventing the Senate.

The legislation, which Schiff did not describe in detail, faces an uphill battle even if Democrats retake the Senate in the upcoming midterms. But the California senator said he is committed to challenging Trump’s maneuvering.

Schiff said Essayli “could not be confirmed and for a reason: He lacks the judgment, temperament and integrity required of a U.S. attorney.”

Laurie Levenson, a Loyola Law School professor and former federal prosecutor, said local federal judges may believe it would be “more disruptive to try and put somebody in when the administration will just fire them.”

But their inaction, she said, has effectively confirmed Essayli as U.S. attorney — and highlights “a real weakness in the system” that demands a legislative fix.

“The bottom line is you have an administration that just doesn’t want to follow the rules,” she said. “There has to be some political will to have Congress do its duty.”

MIAMI — Secretary of State Marco Rubio testified in court that he had no knowledge that former Florida congressman David Rivera was lobbying on behalf of Venezuela’s government — as prosecutors later alleged — when he met with his longtime friend to discuss U.S. policy toward the South American country several times at the start of the first Trump administration.

“I would’ve been shocked” had I known, Rubio said in almost three hours of testimony Tuesday at Rivera’s federal trial in Miami.

Rivera and an associate were charged in 2022 with money laundering and failing to register as a foreign agent after being awarded a $50-million lobbying contract by Nicolás Maduro’s government.

Prosecutors allege that the goal of the lobbying effort was to persuade the White House to normalize relations with Venezuela, while Rivera’s attorneys argue that the three-month contract, which ended before Rivera met with Rubio, was focused exclusively on luring Exxon Mobil back to Venezuela — commercial work that is generally exempt from the Foreign Agents Registration Act.

As part of his work, Rivera and his co-defendant are accused of trying to arrange meetings for then-Foreign Minister Delcy Rodríguez — now Venezuela’s acting president — in Dallas, New York, Washington and Caracas, Venezuela, with White House officials, members of Congress and the chief executive of Exxon.

Rubio testifies, an unusual move

In sometimes deeply personal testimony Tuesday, Rubio discussed at length friendships that date back to the start of his political career as an aide to Bob Dole’s 1996 presidential campaign and a West Miami council member.

Testifying in a packed courtroom with heightened security, Rubio said he and Rivera became “very close” when they overlapped as members of the Florida Legislature. The two Cuban American Republicans co-owned a house in Tallahassee, celebrated family events together and ardently opposed Venezuela’s socialist government when both went to Washington at the same time — Rubio elected to the Senate, Rivera to the House.

So when Rivera texted Rubio in July 2017 that he needed to see him urgently to discuss Venezuela, they agreed to meet the next day, a Sunday, at a friend’s home in Washington where the then-senator was staying with his family, Rubio said.

At the meeting, Rivera informed Rubio that he was working with Raul Gorrín, a media magnate in Venezuela, on what he described as a plan for Maduro to step aside.

“I was skeptical,” said Rubio, adding that the Maduro government was full of “double dealers” constantly pitching unrealistic plans to unseat Maduro. “But if there was a 1% chance it was real, and I had a role to play alerting the White House, I was open to doing that.”

Rubio said he had no knowledge Rivera was himself working for Maduro, as prosecutors would later allege. Rubio said he doubted Gorrín would betray Maduro even when the former congressman opened his laptop and showed millions of dollars in a Chase bank account that he was told were payments from the businessman to Venezuela’s opposition.

“It was an impressive amount,” Rubio said. “He didn’t tell me whose account it was. He said it was to support the opposition.”

Two days later, borrowing talking points provided by Rivera, Rubio wrote and delivered a speech on the Senate floor signaling the U.S. would not retaliate against Venezuelan insiders who worked to push Maduro from power.

“He provided me with insight into some of the key phrases that regime insiders would’ve wanted to hear to know this was serious,” Rubio testified. “No vengeance, no retribution.”

Rubio also spoke to Trump, alerting the president in his first term that there may be something “brewing” with Venezuela.

‘A total waste of my time’

But the peacemaking effort collapsed almost immediately. At a second meeting at a Washington hotel, Gorrín failed to produce a promised letter from Maduro to Trump that he wanted Rubio to hand-deliver to the president.

“It was a total waste of my time,” Rubio testified.

Shortly afterward, Trump imposed heavy sanctions on Maduro and members of his inner circle for their decision to go forward with what Rubio called a “fake election” to empower a constituent assembly that undercut the opposition-controlled legislature.

By that time, the senator hewed closely to the Trump administration’s hard line. He taped a rare 10-minute address to the Venezuelan people in July 2017, a day after the divisive election, that was broadcast exclusively on Gorrín’s Globovision network.

“For Nicolás Maduro, who I am sure is watching, the current path you are on will not end well for you,” Rubio said in the televised address.

On the stand, Rubio said that had he known Rivera was working with Gorrín on behalf of Maduro, he never would have agreed to deliver the address on the network.

But Rivera said Rubio’s testimony backed his defense that as a lifelong opponent of communism he never worked to strengthen Maduro’s grip on power.

“Marco Rubio made it abundantly clear today that everything we worked on together in 2017 was meant to remove Maduro from power in Venezuela,” he said in a statement.

Throughout his testimony Rubio, a lawyer, spoke calmly and in command of granular details of U.S. policy toward Venezuela over the past decade, even as he struggled to recall the specifics of his text exchanges with Rivera on Venezuela matters.

His testimony was highly unusual. Not since Labor Secretary Raymond Donovan testified at a Mafia trial in 1983 has a sitting member of the president’s Cabinet taken the stand in a criminal trial.

As if to underscore the uniqueness of his appearance in federal court, Rivera’s attorney, Ed Shohat, asked Rubio to sign a copy of his 2012 autobiography, “An American Son,” at the conclusion of his testimony.

Rivera and his co-defendant, political consultant Esther Nuhfer, are among a small number of friends and family Rubio thanks in the acknowledgment section of his memoir.

Goodman writes for the Associated Press.

Karim Khan has denied the allegations and took voluntary leave from his position in May.

Judges have cleared the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Karim Khan, of all wrongdoing after an investigation into alleged sexual misconduct, Middle East Eye reports.

A report by Middle East Eye published on Saturday said a panel of three judges submitted a confidential report to the court’s oversight body, the Bureau of the Assembly of States Parties (ASP), on March 9.

“The Panel is unanimously of the opinion that the factual findings by [The UN’s Office of Internal Oversight Services] OIOS do not establish misconduct or breach of duty under the relevant framework,” the report concluded, according to the sources cited by Middle East Eye.

The OIOS investigation was commissioned by the head of the ASP in November 2024 after a member of Khan’s office accused the prosecutor of sexual misconduct.

In August last year, a second woman came forward and alleged that Khan had abused his power over her while she was working for the British lawyer.

The woman had described his behaviour to UK newspaper The Guardian last year as a “constant onslaught” of advances.

Khan has denied the allegations and took voluntary leave from his position at the ICC in May, while awaiting the inquiry’s results. His deputy prosecutors have been in charge of his office in his absence.

According to Middle East Eye, the ASP met on Monday to discuss its response to the panel’s report. Under the court’s rules, if the bureau determines that no misconduct has occurred, the investigation should be closed.

The ASP has 30 days from receiving the report to make its preliminary assessment of the alleged sexual misconduct. Khan will then have 30 days to respond, and the bureau will have another 30 days to make its decision.

Khan declined to comment on the report, the outlet said.

The allegations of sexual misconduct came as Khan’s office was pursuing an investigation into alleged war crimes and genocide by Israeli officials and forces in Gaza and the occupied Palestinian territory.

Khan sought arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his then-defence minister, Yoav Gallant, over “criminal responsibility” for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

He also sought arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials over the alleged unlawful deportation of Ukrainian children during Moscow’s ongoing war on Ukraine.

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s sweeping act of clemency for rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol also should apply to a man charged with planting pipe bombs near the national headquarters of the Democratic and Republican parties on the eve of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot, the suspect’s attorneys argue in a bid to get his case dismissed.

In a court filing Monday, defense attorneys assert that Trump’s blanket pardons extend to the charges against Brian J. Cole Jr. because his alleged conduct on Jan. 5, 2021, is “inextricably tethered” to what happened at the Capitol the next day. They’re asking U.S. District Judge Amir Ali to throw out the case before trial.

Justice Department prosecutors didn’t immediately respond in writing to the defense’s request. In a previous court filing, prosecutors said Cole, under questioning by FBI agents, denied that his actions were related to the Jan. 6 proceedings at the Capitol.

On his first day back in the White House last year, Trump pardoned, commuted prison sentences and ordered the dismissal of all 1,500-plus people charged in the attack by a mob of his supporters.

Nearly a year later, Cole was arrested on charges that he placed two pipe bombs outside both the Republican and the Democratic national committees’ headquarters in Washington the night before the riot. The devices didn’t detonate before law enforcement officers discovered them Jan. 6.

Cole’s attorneys said the Justice Department’s framing of the case has explicitly linked Cole’s alleged conduct on Jan. 5 to the events of Jan. 6, when rioters disrupted the joint session of Congress for certifying Joe Biden’s electoral victory over Trump.

“That is not happenstance sequencing in time. It is the government’s theory of Mr. Cole’s alleged motive and context,” defense lawyers wrote. “According to the government, the timing was chosen because of what was scheduled to occur at the Capitol on January 6.”

They also argued that prosecutors’ theory of a possible motive places Cole’s alleged conduct “in the same political controversy that animated the January 6 crowd.”

In court filings, prosecutors have said that Cole confessed to investigators after his Dec. 4 arrest. He told FBI agents that he felt “bewildered” by conspiracy theories related to the 2020 presidential election and “something just snapped” after “watching everything, just everything getting worse,” prosecutors said.

Cole has remained jailed since his arrest. His attorneys have appealed Ali’s refusal to order Cole’s pretrial release from custody. The judge hasn’t set a trial date yet.

Cole, 30, of Woodbridge, Virginia, has been diagnosed with autism and obsessive-compulsive disorder. His attorneys say he has no criminal record.

Authorities said they used phone records and other evidence to identify him as a suspect in a crime that confounded the FBI for more than four years.

Kunzelman writes for the Associated Press.

March 12 (UPI) — The International Criminal Court Office of the Prosecutor announced Thursday that the United States did not commit crimes against humanity with its sanctions against Venezuela.

The investigation, called Venezuela II by the court, was referred to the court by Venezuela’s government in 2020, alleging that sanctions against the country had caused suffering and hardship.

The referral from now-deposed President Nicolas Maduro alleges the suffering of Venezuelans from “the application of unlawful coercive measures adopted unilaterally by the government of the United States of America against Venezuela, at least since the year 2014.”

Venezuela alleged that “murder, extermination, deportation, persecution and other inhumane acts constituting crimes against humanity” were committed, the OTP said.

The ICC prosecutor determined that the “evidential requirements of causation and intent are not met.”

The evidence “must provide a reasonable basis to believe that sanctions by the United States of America led to murder, displacement or other alleged crimes,” the OTP said.

The decision is unrelated to the January 2026 events in Venezuela, the prosecutor noted.

In January, the United States invaded Venezuela, arrested Maduro and his wife and took them to Manhattan, where they await trial on drug trafficking charges.

The ICC prosecutor said it is still investigating “Venezuela I,” a case that doesn’t involve the United States.

MIAMI — Voting technology firm Smartmatic is seeking to dismiss a criminal indictment for money laundering, blaming President Trump and his allies for seeking its prosecution as part of a “campaign of retribution” against those they blame for his 2020 election loss.

Smartmatic’s parent company, UK-based SGO Corporation, was added to a criminal indictment last fall previously charging several executives with paying $1 million in bribes to election officials in the Philippines.

In a motion to dismiss the indictment filed Tuesday, attorneys for Smartmatic said the company had been cooperating with the Justice Department since it first learned of its investigation in 2021, including by producing millions of pages of documents and making presentations to federal agents. A trial date for the executives, including co-founder Roger Pinate, had been set and the company believed that it was in the clear.

But when Trump returned to the White House, the Justice Department reversed course and decided to press charges against Smartmatic. Attorneys for the company said the decision was prompted by Trump’s demands to prosecute his perceived enemies and his “mantra” that Smartmatic helped rig the 2020 U.S. presidential election won by Joe Biden — allegations that are at the heart of a $2.7-billion lawsuit filed by Smartmatic against the president’s allies in the media.

“The prosecution of SGO furthers their collective false narrative that President Trump did not actually lose the 2020 election,” Smartmatic said in the filing in Miami federal court.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Attorneys likened the prosecution to the Justice Department’s targeting of Kilmar Armando Ábrego García, a Salvadoran migrant who was criminally charged for conduct years earlier after he successfully sued the Trump administration over its decision to deport him.

In the years since the election, the filing states, “Smartmatic USA has exercised its right to hold those individuals and entities legally accountable for their deluge of defamatory statements and the attendant damage inflicts on its business, putting it squarely in the crosshairs for retribution.”

The criminal case against Smartmatic and its employees stems from payments, between 2015 and 2018, that were allegedly made to obtain a contract with the Philippine government to help run that country’s 2016 presidential election. Pinate, who no longer works for Smartmatic but remains a shareholder, has pleaded not guilty.

As part of the criminal case, prosecutors in August sought the court’s permission to introduce evidence they argue shows that revenue from a $300-million contract with Los Angeles County to help modernize its voting systems was diverted to a “ slush fund” controlled by Pinate through the use of overseas shell companies, fake invoices and other means.

They also accused Pinate of secretly bribing Venezuela’s longtime election chief by giving her a luxury home with a pool in Caracas. Prosecutors say the home was transferred to the election chief in an attempt to repair relations following Smartmatic’s abrupt exit from Venezuela in 2017 when it accused then-President Nicolas Maduro ’s government of manipulating tallied results in elections for a rubber-stamping constituent assembly.

Smartmatic was founded more than two decades ago by a group of Venezuelans who found early success running elections while the late Hugo Chavez, a devotee of electronic voting, was in power. The company later expanded globally, providing voting machines and other technology to help carry out elections in 25 countries, from Argentina to Zambia.

But Smartmatic has said its business tanked after Fox News gave Trump’s lawyers a platform to paint the company as part of a conspiracy to steal the 2020 election.

Fox said it was legitimately reporting on newsworthy events but eventually aired a piece refuting the allegations after Smartmatic’s lawyers complained. Nonetheless, it has aggressively defended itself against the defamation lawsuit in New York — arguing that the company was facing imminent collapse over its own internal misconduct, not due to any negative coverage.

Goodman writes for the Associated Press.