The incident occurred in an area of the river called Bedrock Rapid in Grand Canyon National Park, NPS said in a tweet Saturday.
“Today at 2:12 p.m., we received a report of a flipped motorboat on the Colorado River at Bedrock Rapid. One fatality has been confirmed; SAR [search and rescue] is underway to treat and transport injured patients. Incident is ongoing; no further information is available,” Grand Canyon National Park Service said.
A spokesperson later told CNN in an email that four people had been injured in addition to the fatality.
On Sunday, the park service issued a statement naming the man killed as 67-year-old Ronald Vanderlugt. Vanerlugt had been on his fifth day of a commercial motorboat river trip when he entered the water, it said.
“Members of the group pulled him out of the water, noted he was unresponsive, and began CPR. Park rangers were flown into the location with the park helicopter and all resuscitation efforts were unsuccessful,” the park service said.
“An additional four patients in non-critical condition were treated and flown to the South Rim Helibase,” the statement said. “An investigation into the incident is being conducted by the National Park Service and the Coconino County Medical Examiner.”
One rafting company that runs expeditions in the Grand Canyon describes Bedrock Rapids on its website as a place where a large rock splits the Colorado River’s current. “The best run is on the right side, which requires adept and precise handling to bring a craft around the rock and into calm water. The left side is an unforgiving place, as the river pinballs through a narrow rock studded channel,” rafting company Western River Expeditions says.
CNN’s Susannah Cullinane contributed to this report.
Pennsylvania Democrat Lt. Gov. John Fetterman doubled down on his pro-choice position at a rally Sunday as he vies against Republican nominee Mehmet Oz in the state’s U.S. Senate race.
“Women are the reason we can win. Let me say that again: Women are the reason we win.” Fetterman told the crowd in Blue Bell, Penn., standing in front of a pink-and-black “Women For Fetterman” sign.
“Don’t piss women off,” Fetterman added.
He introduced himself at the start of his speech as “John Fetterwoman.”
Fetterman said his first actions in Congress, if elected, would be to do away with the filibuster and then to codify the right to abortion in federal law.
“This decision: should [it] be made up to Dr. Oz? Or to a woman and a real doctor, to choose?” Fetterman asked the audience, mocking his celebrity opponent.
Fetterman’s push for the female vote in Pennsylvania comes amid reports of a surge in women registering to vote after Roe v. Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court. A number of Republican candidates in battleground states have sought to soften their abortion stances ahead of November.
“Oz believes abortion is murder… No exceptions: rape or incest… If every abortion is a murder, that means Dr. Oz considers every woman who had to choose abortion is a killer,” Fetterman said, referring to audio of Oz critiquing abortion procedures.
The Republican’s camp has said he does support exceptions to abortion bans in cases of rape, incest and to save the life of the mother.
Fetterman has been polling ahead of his Republican opponent, but Oz has been ramping up his campaign as the election approaches.
The pair have spent months largely locked in social media spats. Fetterman announced last week that he plans to debate his opponent after Oz and retiring Sen. Pat Toomey (R), whose seat the two candidates are trying to fill, criticized him for not engaging in in-person debate.
Fetterman on Sunday also mocked Toomey for being a “miracle” of politics, due to being “despised” by both Democrats and Republicans.
Emma Linek, the 17-year-old Ohio girl who vanished after arriving at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport on Tuesday, has been found and is safe, authorities said.
“Emma walked into a local police department late this afternoon and has been reunited [with] her father. FBI Atlanta appreciates the help of the media and public in spreading her picture and for all the information & tips,” FBI Atlanta tweeted Sunday.
The bureau’s Atlanta office had described the missing girl as being “endangered” and in need of medication that she did not have at the time of her disappearance.
“Another thing that is of concern is that Emma has no known connection to the city of Atlanta or has never been here before or does not know anybody in Atlanta that we know of,” Christopher Macrae, the special agent in charge of the FBI’s Atlanta field office, said during a news conference on Saturday with Linek’s father, Mike Linek.
Macrae said Emma Linek was clinically diagnosed with autism.
Emma Linek was initially booked on a Delta Airlines direct flight from Cleveland to Boston on Tuesday, but missed that plane, authorities said. Macrae said she caught another flight with a layover in Atlanta.
Emma Linek, who goes by the name of Zari, is pictured in an image released by the FBI.
FBI
“That flight change was unscheduled. So she did not know that she was going to be in Atlanta,” Macrae said. “Her bags made it to Boston, but she did not. Our top priority is to locate Emma and to make sure she’s OK.”
Macrae said surveillance video at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport captured Linek, who also goes by the name Zari, wandering around the airport appearing to be lost.
He said Emma Linek was last seen around 10 a.m. Tuesday in the north daily parking lot at Hartsfield, leaving the airport with a stranger.
Macrae said law enforcement officials tracked down the man that Emma Linek was seen leaving the airport with and interviewed him.
“We’ve been in discussions with that individual, but at this time we have not located Emma. Emma was not with that individual,” Macrae said.
Macrae did not release the man’s name or say if he is a suspect in the girl’s disappearance.
Linek’s father, who attended the news conference in Atlanta with Macrae, had pleaded with the public for any information on his daughter’s whereabouts.
Emma Linek, who goes by the name of Zari, is pictured in an image released by the FBI.
FBI
He described his daughter as a “wonderful girl” with a “sweet bubbly personality.”
“She loves animals. She loves to sing,” Mike Linek said.
Emma Linek’s mother, Eleanor Linek, told ABC affiliate station WEWS-TV in Cleveland that her daughter was traveling to Boston to resume studies at therapeutic boarding school.
The 5-foot-3, 160-pound teenager was last seen wearing plaid pants, a black shirt and carrying a white pillow. Eleanor and Mike Linek said their daughter did not have a cellphone with her.
Eleanor Linek said she dropped her daughter off at Hopkins International Airport in Cleveland on Tuesday morning.
“We took her to the airport, she passed through security, we saw her go through security and to her gate,” Eleanor Linek said. “We don’t know what happened, if she got something to eat or what, but she missed her plane.”
A far-right congresswoman infamous for spreading racist lies about her political enemies decided to take on a debate moderator instead of her opponent on Saturday.
Rep Lauren Boebert clashed with her Democratic opponent Adam Frisch in a televised debate Saturday evening in her Colorado district but reserved some of her most memorable attacks for the moderator, Edie Sonn, who is a local official.
As the debate began, Ms Boebert tried to get Ms Sonn to admit to supporting her Democratic opponent in 2020 — though it is unclear what she hoped to gain by proving that point.
“Edie, can you please disclose to the audience that you publicly supported my 2020 Democrat candidate Dianne Mitch Bush, and can you please disclose any other roles that you have had with Democrat candidates in the past?” she asked.
The comment prompted boos from the audience, which apparently wasn’t interested in watching the congresswoman dodge tough questions.
Ms Sonn did not play along.
“Congresswoman Boebert, this is not about me tonight,” she responded. “This is about you and your opponent. I am here to ask, to be the traffic cop while these panelists ask questions and I respectfully ask that you respectfully agree to the terms of this debate.”
“If you will not do so, then we can close things down right now,” she added, which caused Ms Boebert to relent and participate in the debate without further complaints.
The controversial far-right congresswoman is known for vicious, racist attacks aimed in particular at Ilhan Omar, a Black Muslim congresswoman from Minnesota. The Colorado Republican frequently refers to her as a “jihadi”, a racist reference to Islamic terrorists.
An internal poll released by her campaign in August showed the conservative Ms Boebert leading her Democratic opponent by less than 10 points.
Pennsylvania Lieutenant Governor and U.S. Senate candidate John Fetterman delivers remarks as he attends a Labor Day celebration with U.S. President Joe Biden at the United Steelworkers of America Local Union 2227 in West Mifflin, Pennsylvania, U.S., September 5, 2022. REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz
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PHILADELPHIA, Sept 11 (Reuters) – Democratic U.S. Senate candidate John Fetterman on Sunday sought to allay concerns about his health after suffering a near-fatal stroke earlier this year, at a campaign rally focused on abortion rights in suburban Philadelphia.
Speaking at times in a halting and clipped fashion, Fetterman took aim at his Republican opponent in Pennsylvania’s Senate race, celebrity physician Mehmet Oz, for questioning his fitness to serve. “Unfortunately,” he said, “I have a doctor in my life doing that.”
He spoke for about 10 minutes before moving slowly off the stage. He walked into the crowd, shaking hands, greeting people and smiling for selfies as AC-DC’s “Back in Black” played.
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Fetterman, Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor, has largely kept off the campaign trail since a stroke in May that he said almost killed him. Oz has seized on the issue, suggesting Fetterman’s health would prevent him from carrying out his duties if elected.
Polls show Fetterman leading Oz in a race that will help determine whether President Joe Biden’s Democrats hold onto their razor-thin margin in the U.S. Senate. The race for the seat held by retiring Republican Pat Toomey is important enough that both Biden and former President Donald Trump have traveled to the state in recent weeks to promote their parties’ candidates.
Speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss their concerns, five state Democratic Party officials interviewed in the past two weeks expressed worries about Fetterman’s health and whether Republican attacks were swaying voters.
“It’s important for people to see John Fetterman out on the campaign trail and to see for themselves that he’s all right. In a state where one (percentage) point can decide an election, it matters,” said Joe Foster, a state Democratic committeeman from the Philadelphia suburbs.
Fetterman held his first public event after his stroke in August, and has made a handful of campaign appearances since, including at a Labor Day parade in Pittsburgh. His campaign confirmed he relies on closed captions to conduct interviews due to hearing damage. He has said the symptoms are temporary.
Fetterman campaign spokesman Joe Cavello said he is up to the job.
“John marched for over two hours in the rain in Pittsburgh’s Labor Day parade, and spoke at two other events afterwards,” Cavello told Reuters on Friday. “Anyone who’s seen John speak knows that while he’s still recovering, he’s more capable of fighting for PA than Dr. Oz will ever be.
Fetterman rallied with abortion-rights advocacy group Planned Parenthood in Philadelphia’s largest suburban county as he seeks to fire up women voters concerned about the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in June to end the nationwide right to abortion.
“Women are the reason we can win,” Fetterman said.
The stakes are high in Pennsylvania, where the governor’s race will decide whether women will maintain their access to abortions. Fetterman has vowed to help protect that access, while Oz says he’s “100% pro-life” but supports exceptions in cases of rape or incest or if the life of the mother is at risk.
Christopher Borick, a political science professor at Pennsylvania’s Muhlenberg University, said bread-and-butter campaign events like Sunday’s take on added meaning following the stroke.
“He doesn’t have to be pre-stroke John Fetterman, but people need to see that he’s capable,” Borick said.
Oz used an initial refusal by Fetterman to debate to argue that his rival was either afraid of him or concealing the scope of the damage done by the stroke.
“John Fetterman is either healthy and he’s dodging the debate because he does not want to answer for his radical left positions, or he’s too sick to participate,” Oz told reporters last week, according to media accounts.
Fetterman has now agreed to debate in October, but his campaign is looking at the possibility of using a closed captioning monitor for the event so that he does not miss any words as he continues to recover from his stroke.
“Let’s be clear, this has never really been about debates for Dr. Oz,” Fetterman said in a statement. “This whole thing has been about Dr. Oz and his team mocking me for having a stroke because they’ve got nothing else.”
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Reporting by Jarrett Renshaw, Additional reporting by James Oliphant; Editing by Scott Malone and Daniel Wallis
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Senate Intelligence chair Mark Warner said the US grew stronger after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Warner said that 21 years later, the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol depicts the “attack on the symbol of our democracy.”
The senator said he hopes the US could show the “same kind of unity of spirit” now as it did after 9/11.
Senate Intelligence chair Mark Warner said it’s “stunning” that 21 years after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, “the attack on the symbol of our democracy” hadn’t come from foreign threats but from within the US.
“I remember, as most Americans do, where they were on 9/11. I was in the middle of a political campaign and suddenly, the differences with my opponent seem very small in comparison and our country came together. And in many ways, we defeated the terrorists because of the resilience of the American public because of our intelligence community, and we are safer, better prepared,” Warner told CBS’s “Face the Nation” host Margaret Brennan.
“The stunning thing to me is here we are 20 years later, and the attack on the symbol of our democracy was not coming from terrorists, but it came from literally insurgents attacking the Capitol on January 6th,” he added.
Warner said that he felt the country is “stronger,” and the “intelligence community has performed remarkably,” compared to 21 years ago.
“I think the threat of terror has diminished,” he said.
However, he added that he’s concerned about internal threats.
“But I do worry about some of the activity in this country where the election deniers, the insurgency that took place on January 6th, that is something I hope we could see that same kind of unity of spirit,” he said.
On Sunday, Vice President Kamala Harris also addressed domestic threats. During an NBC News’s Meet the Press interview, Harris, who once served on the Senate intelligence committee said she wishes that lawmakers would look at domestic threats as “Americans first” and not through a “partisan lens.”
The Bay Area woman who was allegedly beheaded in a domestic violence slaying was a 27-year-old DoorDash driver who leaves behind two young daughters, her family said.
Karina Castro was killed Thursday outside her home in San Carlos. At about 11:50 a.m. Thursday, San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office deputies arrived at Laurel Street and Magnolia Avenue, just a few blocks away from a Caltrain station, after witnesses reported an assault at the residence. Deputies found the woman’s body at the scene, but the sheriff’s office did not specify the cause of death; anonymous law enforcement officials told KGO that the woman was beheaded.
Jose Rafael Solano Landaeta, 33, was arrested on suspicion of murder and is expected in court later this week. Castro’s family says Landaeta is the father of Castro’s 1-year-old daughter and alleges he was abusive toward Castro. Marty Castro, Karina Castro’s father, said he raced to her home after seeing on the news that a woman had been killed in San Carlos; he said he learned at the scene his daughter was dead.
“If there’s somebody out there abusing your daughter, don’t take off. Don’t let it go. Don’t take no for an answer,” Marty Castro told KGO. “You feel responsible, no matter what anyone says.”
Karina Castro’s 7-year-old and 1-year-old daughters are with child protective services, Marty Castro said, and he hopes to have them released to his custody. The Community Foundation of San Carlos is taking donations to be put in trust for the children.
“I just want to thank everyone who’s donated to help my daughters kids, my beautiful grandchildren who have lost their mother to a senseless useless person,” Marty Castro wrote on a GoFundMe for the family. “Thank you all, this money will help them and help us give my daughter a funeral to remember I’m devastated broken empty and more hurt than I ever thought I could be by the situation but thank you all for helping us and the worst time of our lives.”
People with information related to the case can contact San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office Deputy David Brandt at dbrandt@smcgov.org or 650-333-8195. An investigation is ongoing.
Americans remembered 9/11 on Sunday with tear-choked tributes, and pleas to “never forget,” 21 years after the deadliest terror attack on U.S. soil.
Bonita Mentis set out to read victims’ names at the ground zero ceremony wearing a necklace with a photo of her slain sister, Shevonne Mentis, a 25-year-old Guyanese immigrant who worked for a financial firm.
“It’s been 21 years, but it’s not 21 years for us. It seems like just yesterday,” Mentis said. “The wounds are still fresh.”
“No matter how many years have passed, nobody can actually comprehend that what happened that very day,” she added.
Victims’ relatives and dignitaries also convened at the other two attack sites, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania.
More than two decades later, Sept. 11 remains a point for reflection on the hijacked-plane attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people, reconfigured national security policy and spurred a U.S. “war on terror” worldwide. Sunday’s observances, which follow a fraught milestone anniversary last year, come little more than a month after a U.S. drone strike killed a key al Qaeda figure who helped plot the 9/11 attacks, Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Members of New York Fire Department raise a U.S. flag at the 9/11 Memorial in New York City on Sept. 11, 2022, on the 21st anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center, Pentagon and Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
YUKI IWAMURA/AFP via Getty Images
Pierre Roldan, who lost his cousin Carlos Lillo, a paramedic, said “we had some form of justice” when a U.S. raid killed Osama bin Laden in 2011.
“Now that Al-Zawahiri is gone, at least we’re continuing to get that justice,” Roldan said.
The Sept. 11 attacks also stirred — for a time — a sense of national pride and unity for many, while subjecting Muslim Americans to years of suspicion and bigotry and engendering debate over the balance between safety and civil liberties. In ways both subtle and plain, the aftermath of 9/11 ripples through American politics and public life to this day.
But like some other victims’ relatives, Jay Saloman fears that Americans’ consciousness of 9/11 is receding.
“It was a terrorist attack against our country that day. And theoretically, everybody should remember it and, you know, take precautions and watch out,” said Saloman, who lost his brother.
Like a growing number of those who read names at ground zero, firefighter Jimmy Riches’ namesake nephew wasn’t born yet when his relative died. But the boy took the podium to honor him.
“You’re always in my heart. And I know you are watching over me,” he said after reading a portion of the victims’ names.
More than 70 of Sekou Siby’s co-workers perished at Windows on the World, the restaurant atop the trade center’s north tower. Siby had been scheduled to work that morning until another cook asked him to switch shifts.
The Ivorian immigrant wrestled with how to comprehend such horror in a country where he’d come looking for a better life. And he found it difficult to form friendships as close as those he’d had at Windows on the World. It was too painful, he’d learned, to become attached to people when “you have no control over what’s going to happen to them next.”
“Every 9/11 is a reminder of what I lost that I can never recover,” Siby said in the lead-up to the anniversary. He’s now president and CEO of ROC United, a restaurant workers’ advocacy group that evolved from a post-9/11 relief center.
On Sunday, President Biden laid a wreath at the Pentagon and delivered remarks paying tribute to those who were killed in the attacks, saying the time that has passed “is both a lifetime and no time at all.”
“Terror struck us on that brilliant blue morning. The air filled with smoke and then came the sirens and the stories, stories of those we lost, stories of incredible heroism from that terrible day. The American story itself changed that day,” he said. “But what we will not change, what we cannot change, never will, is the character of this nation that the terrorists thought they could wound.”
The president expressed gratitude to the civilians and service members who swiftly responded to the attack at the Pentagon and the Americans who joined the armed forces in the wake of Sept. 11, declaring, “we owe you.”
“Through all that has changed over the last 21 years, the enduring resolve of the American people to defend ourselves against those who seek us harm and deliver justice to those responsible to the attacks against our people has never once faltered,” he said.
Mr. Biden also spoke of the importance of American democracy, saying the American people have an obligation to defend and protect it. The president has sounded an alarm about what he believes are assaults on democracy by some within the Republican Party who refuse to acknowledge the results of the 2020 presidential election.
“The American democracy depends on the habits of the heart, on ‘we the people,'” he said. “It’s not enough to stand up for democracy once a year, or every now and then. It’s something we have to do every single day. So this is a day not only to remember, but a day of renewal and resolve for each and every American and our devotion to this country, to the principles it embodies, to our democracy.”
First lady Jill Biden was also scheduled to speak in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where one of the hijacked planes went down after passengers and crew members tried to storm the cockpit as the hijackers headed for Washington. Al Qaeda conspirators had seized control of the jets to use them as passenger-filled missiles.
Vice President Kamala Harris and husband Doug Emhoff joined the observance at the National Sept. 11 Memorial in New York, but by tradition, no political figures speak. The observance centers instead on victims’ relatives reading aloud the names of the dead.
Nikita Shah headed there in a T-shirt that bore the de facto epigraph of the annual commemoration — “never forget” — and the name of her slain father, Jayesh Shah.
The family later moved to Houston but often returns to New York for the anniversary to be “around people who kind of experienced the same type of grief and the same feelings after 9/11,” said Shah. She was 10 when her father was killed.
Readers often add personal remarks that form an alloy of American sentiments about Sept. 11 — grief, anger, toughness, appreciation for first responders and the military, appeals to patriotism, hopes for peace, occasional political barbs, and a poignant accounting of the graduations, weddings, births and daily lives that victims have missed.
Some relatives also lament that a nation which came together — to some extent — after the attacks has since splintered apart. So much so that federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies, which were reshaped to focus on international terrorism after 9/11, now see the threat of domestic violent extremism as equally urgent.
“It took a tragedy to unite us. It should not take another tragedy to unite us again,” said Andrew Colabella, whose cousin, John DiGiovanni, died in the 1993 bombing World Trade Center bombing that presaged 9/11.
Beyond the attack sites, other communities around the country marked the day with candlelight vigils, interfaith services and other commemorations. Some Americans joined in volunteer projects on a day that is federally recognized as both Patriot Day and a National Day of Service and Remembrance.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The discovery of hundreds of classified records at Donald Trump’s home has thrust U.S. intelligence agencies into a familiar and uncomfortable role as the foil of a former president who demanded they support his agenda and at times accused officers of treason.
While the FBI conducts a criminal investigation, the office that leads the intelligence community is also conducting a review — currently on pause pending a court order — of the damage that would result from disclosure of the documents found at the Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.
The investigation comes at a perilous time in American politics, with increasing threats to law enforcement and election workers and as a growing swath of officials assail the FBI and spread baseless theories of voter fraud. There’s already a wide range of speculation about what was in the documents, with some Democrats pointing to reporting about possible nuclear secrets while some Trump allies suggesting the case is a benign argument about storage.
So far, the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence has proceeded cautiously, issuing no public statements and declining to answer questions about the review’s structure or how long it will take.
A look at what’s known and expected:
NOT A FORMAL ‘DAMAGE ASSESSMENT’
According to the government, the documents seized at Mar-a-Lago and papers the Republican former president had turned over previously included highly sensitive “Special Access Program” designations as well as markings for intelligence derived from secret human sources and electronic signals programs. Those forms of intelligence are often produced by the CIA or the National Security Agency, and the underlying sources can take years to develop.
The ODNI review will try to determine the possible damage if the secrets in those documents were to be exposed. It has not said if it’s investigating whether documents already have been exposed.
Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence, confirmed the review in a letter to the chairpersons of two House committees. Haines’ letter says the ODNI will lead a “classification review of relevant materials, including those recovered during the search.” Experts say that could include non-classified papers with notes written on them that might reference classified information.
Haines’ letter also says her office will lead an assessment of “the potential risk to national security that would result from the disclosure of the relevant documents.”
That’s different from a formal “damage assessment” that intelligence agencies have carried out after high-profile breaches like the disclosures of programs by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden.
Damage assessments have specific requirements under intelligence community guidelines published online, including an estimate of “actual or potential damage to U.S. national security,” the identification of “specific weaknesses or vulnerabilities” and “detailed, actionable recommendations to prevent future occurrences.”
Under those guidelines, the National Counterintelligence and Security Center, a subsidiary within the ODNI, would lead a damage assessment. The center is led by acting Director Michael Orlando as President Joe Biden has not yet nominated a chief counterintelligence executive.
It’s unknown whether the intelligence review will include interviewing witnesses. Haines’ letter says the ODNI will coordinate with the Justice Department to ensure its assessment does not “unduly interfere” with the criminal investigation.
For now, the Justice Department has said the ODNI review is paused after a federal judge barred the use of records seized at Mar-a-Lago in a criminal investigation. “Uncertainty regarding the bounds of the Court’s order and its implications for the activities of the FBI has caused the Intelligence Community, in consultation with DOJ, to pause temporarily this critically important work,” attorneys for the government said in a court filing.
THE ANSWERS COULD BE UNSATISFYING
The results may not come for weeks or months, and full findings will likely remain classified.
Lawmakers in both parties are calling for briefings from the intelligence community. None is known to have been scheduled.
Former officials note that it’s often difficult for agencies to diagnose specific damage from an actual or potential breach. Given the political climate and the unprecedented nature of evaluating a former president, the ODNI is widely expected to be limited and precise in what it says publicly and privately to Congress.
But reviews like the one underway often help top officials and lawmakers better understand vulnerabilities and how to manage risk going forward, said Timothy Bergreen, a former Democratic majority staff director for the House Intelligence Committee.
“No healthy organization or society can exist without comprehensive review of its mistakes,” Bergreen said. “That’s always been a democracy’s big advantage over authoritarians.”
AN OFFICE CREATED AFTER SEPT. 11
Lesser known than many of the agencies it oversees, the ODNI was created in the reorganization of the intelligence community after the Sept. 11 attacks. Amid revelations that the FBI and the CIA did not share critical information with each other, the ODNI was intended to oversee the 18-member intelligence community and integrate the different streams of collection and analysis produced by different agencies.
The ODNI supervises the drafting of the President’s Daily Brief, the distillation of top American intelligence provided to Biden and top advisers daily. Haines is the president’s principal intelligence adviser and often briefs Biden in the Oval Office along with other national security leaders.
Trump went through three directors of national intelligence in his last year, part of his long-running battles with the intelligence community.
Some of his top officials were accused of selectively declassifying information for political purposes. And before, during and after his time in office, Trump has accused intelligence officials of selectively leaking material to undermine him or not being sufficiently loyal.
He was incensed by the long-running investigations into allegations of Russian influence on his 2016 campaign, calling them the “greatest political CRIME in American History.” And he excoriated the person who spoke to a whistleblower about his pressuring Ukraine for derogatory information, saying that person was “close to a spy” who could have committed treason.
Under Biden, Haines and other top officials have been involved in declassifying information about Russia’s war plans against Ukraine. They have also faced questioning about overly optimistic assessments of Afghanistan prior to the fall of Kabul.
Michael Allen, a former Republican majority staff director of the House Intelligence Committee, said the ODNI is uniquely positioned to handle such a closely watched review.
“This, I think, is one of the reasons why you have a DNI, to coordinate across the wide and disparate community of intelligence agencies,” said Allen, author of “Blinking Red,” a history of the post-Sept. 11 intelligence reforms. “This is their bread and butter.”
Biden paused briefly in front of a ceremonial wreath to touch it and then put his hand over his heart. He was joined at the ceremony by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who are also offering remarks.
The White House announced that attendants for the president’s remarks at the National 9/11 Pentagon Memorial include “family members of the fallen, first responder, representatives from first responder groups, and Department of Defense leadership.”
Biden said earlier Sunday morning that he has “a plan” for the families of the victims who died in the September 11, 2001, terror attacks.
Responding to questions from reporters before boarding Air Force One to travel from Delaware to Washington, DC, Biden, when asked if he had a plan to deal with the families of 9/11 victims who want justice after the terror attacks, responded, “Yes, there is a plan for that,” without elaborating.
Vice President Kamala Harris, meanwhile, met with family members who lost loved ones in the 9/11 attacks after arriving at the National September 11 Memorial in New York City. Harris, who is attending a commemorative service at Ground Zero, also met with first responders, according to a White House official.
And first lady Jill Biden will give remarks at a 9/11 memorial ceremony in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, on Sunday morning. The first lady will be joined by her sister, Bonny Jacobs, her communications director Elizabeth Alexander told CNN. Jacobs is a flight attendant for United Airlines.
Nearly 3,000 people died in the attacks, which were orchestrated by al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Hijacked airliners crashed into the World Trade Center in New York City, the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, and a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
This story has been updated with additional developments.
CNN’s Kate Bennett, Nikki Carvajal and Aaron Pellish contributed to this report.
