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US

Donald Trump’s company to be sentenced for 15-year tax fraud

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NEW YORK, Jan 13 (Reuters) – Donald Trump on Friday will learn how the company that bears the former U.S. president’s name will be punished after being found guilty of scheming to defraud tax authorities for 15 years.

A New York state judge will impose the sentence after jurors in Manhattan found two Trump Organization affiliates guilty of 17 criminal charges last month.

The sentencing comes three days after Justice Juan Merchan of the Manhattan criminal court ordered Allen Weisselberg, who worked for Trump’s family for a half-century and was the company’s former chief financial officer, to jail for five months after he testified as the prosecution’s star witness.

Trump’s company faces only a maximum $1.6 million penalty, but has said it plans to appeal. No one else was charged or faces jail time in the case.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office, which brought the case, is still conducting a criminal probe into Trump’s business practices.

Bill Black, a professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law specializing in white-collar crime, called the expected penalty a “rounding error” that offers “zero deterrence” to others, including Trump.

“This is a farce,” he said. “No one will stop committing these kinds of crimes because of this sentence.”

The case has long been a thorn in the side of the Republican former president, who calls it part of a witch hunt by Democrats who dislike him and his politics.

Trump also faces a $250 million civil lawsuit by state Attorney General Letitia James accusing him and his adult children Donald Trump Jr., Ivanka Trump and Eric Trump of inflating his net worth and the value of his company’s assets to save money on loans and insurance.

Bragg and James are Democrats, as is Bragg’s predecessor Cyrus Vance, who brought the criminal case. Trump is seeking the presidency in 2024, after losing his re-election bid in 2020.

At a four-week trial, prosecutors offered evidence that Trump’s company covered personal expenses such as rent and car leases for executives without reporting them as income, and pretended that Christmas bonuses were non-employee compensation.

Trump himself signed bonus checks, prosecutors said, as well as the lease on Weisselberg’s luxury Manhattan apartment and private school tuition for the CFO’s grandchildren.

“The whole narrative that Donald Trump was blissfully ignorant is just not real,” Assistant District Attorney Joshua Steinglass told jurors in his closing argument.

Weisselberg’s testimony helped convict the company, though he said Trump was not part of the fraud scheme. He also refused to help Bragg in his broader investigation into Trump.

The Trump Organization had put Weisselberg on paid leave until they severed ties this week. His lawyer said the split, announced on Tuesday, was amicable.

Weisselberg, 75, is serving his sentence in New York City’s notorious Rikers Island jail.

State law limits the penalties that Justice Merchan can impose on Trump’s company. A corporation can be fined up to $250,000 for each tax-related count and $10,000 for each non-tax count.

Trump faces several other legal woes, including probes related to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, his retention of classified documents after leaving the White House, and efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss in Georgia.

Reporting by Karen Freifeld and Jonathan Stempel; editing by Jonathan Oatis

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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US

Embattled George Santos defies New York Republicans’ call to step down

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WASHINGTON, Jan 11 (Reuters) – Embattled U.S. Representative George Santos said he had no plans to heed fellow New York Republicans’ calls to step down, a plea they made on Wednesday due to what they called “lie after lie after lie” about his career and history.

Top House of Representatives Republican Kevin McCarthy said he had no intention of pressuring Santos, part of his narrow 222-212 majority, despite the public plea by more than a dozen top Republicans, many of them from Santos’ suburban New York City district.

The New York Republicans made their plea at a news conference two days after a nonpartisan watchdog accused Santos of breaking campaign finance laws in a filing with the Federal Election Commission.

“It’s just lie after lie after lie. It became a pattern,” said Joseph Cairo Jr., the party chairman in Nassau County.

Republican Representative Nick Langworthy from western New York and Representative Anthony D’Esposito, who represents a district next to that of Santos, were also among those calling on the first-term congressman to step down.

“I join with my colleagues in saying that George Santos does not have the ability to serve here in the House of Representatives and should resign,” he said.

Santos rejected those calls in remarks to reporters at the Capitol and elaborated on his plans on Twitter.

“I was elected to serve the people of #NY03 not the party & politicians, I remain committed to doing that and regret to hear that local officials refuse to work with my office,” he wrote, referring to the congressional district he represents.

McCarthy on Wednesday told reporters that voters, not lawmakers, should choose who represents them.

“In America today, you’re innocent until proven guilty,” he said.

‘SIMPLY TRAGIC AND OUTRAGEOUS’

[1/5] Newly elected U.S. Rep. George Santos (R-NY) sits alone on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives during voting for a new House Speaker on the fourth day of the 118th Congress at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S., January 6, 2023. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein

Santos, who represents much of Nassau County, as well as a small slice of New York City, has admitted to fabricating much of his resume.

He won his November race over Democrat Robert Zimmerman by a margin of 7.5 percentage points.

But his victory was quickly overshadowed by media reports indicating that the persona he presented to voters was largely a work of fiction.

Among other claims, Santos said he had degrees from New York University and Baruch College, despite neither institution having any record of him attending. He claimed to have worked at Goldman Sachs and Citigroup, which was also untrue.

He also falsely said that he was Jewish and that his grandparents escaped the Nazis during World War Two.

“For him to make up this story that his parents were Holocaust survivors is beyond the pale. It is simply tragic and outrageous and disgusting,” Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman said. “He is a stain on the House of Representatives.”

During the news conference, officials said they would direct Santos’ constituents to Representative D’Esposito in some cases, who had agreed to help residents of Santos’ district.

Two House Democrats on Tuesday referred the matter to the House ethics committee this week. The local district attorney has said her office is investigating Santos.

If Santos were to resign, his district could make for a competitive special election.

He won his 2022 election with 52% of the vote to Democrat Zimmerman’s 45%, handing Republicans a seat formerly held by Democrat Thomas Suozzi.

The 2022 election took place with newly-drawn district boundaries. Had those lines been in place in the 2020 presidential election, Democratic President Joe Biden would won the district by eight percentage points.

Under New York and federal law, the seat would be vacant until a special election is held, which would take roughly three months.

Reporting by Gram Slattery and Moira Warburton, additional reporting by Jason Lange and Doina Chiacu; Editing by Scott Malone, Mark Porter and Aurora Ellis

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Gram Slattery

Thomson Reuters

Washington-based correspondent covering campaigns and Congress. Previously posted in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and Santiago, Chile, and has reported extensively throughout Latin America. Co-winner of the 2021 Reuters Journalist of the Year Award in the business coverage category for a series on corruption and fraud in the oil industry. He was born in Massachusetts and graduated from Harvard College.

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US

Trump executive Weisselberg prepares for jail on Rikers Island

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NEW YORK, Jan 10 (Reuters) – A longtime executive for Donald Trump is expected to be sent to New York’s notorious Rikers Island jail after being sentenced on Tuesday for helping engineer a 15-year tax fraud scheme at the former president’s real estate company.

Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Organization’s former chief financial officer, pleaded guilty in August, admitting that from 2005 to 2017 he and other executives received bonuses and perks that saved the company and themselves money.

Weisselberg is expected to be sentenced to five months behind bars, after paying nearly $2 million in taxes, penalties and interest and testifying at the criminal trial of the Trump Organization, which was convicted on all counts it faced.

The sentence will be imposed by Justice Juan Merchan, who oversaw the trial in a New York state court in Manhattan. Weisselberg would likely serve 100 days with time off for good behavior.

Those days will probably not be easy for Weisselberg, 75, at a jail known for violence, drugs and corruption. Nineteen inmates there died last year.

“You’re going into a byzantine black hole,” said Craig Rothfeld, a prison consultant helping Weisselberg prepare for lockup.

50-YEAR RELATIONSHIP

Many convicts in New York City facing one year or less behind bars head to Rikers Island, which lies between the New York City boroughs of Queens and the Bronx and houses more than 5,900 inmates.

Rothfeld spent more than five weeks at Rikers in 2015 and 2016 as part of an 18-month sentence for defrauding investors and tax authorities when he was chief executive of the now-defunct WJB Capital Group Inc.

He now runs Inside Outside Ltd, which advises people facing incarceration. Another client is Harvey Weinstein, the former Hollywood movie producer convicted twice of rape.

After being sentenced, Weisselberg will likely be driven to Rikers and trade his street clothes for a uniform and sneakers with velcro straps.

Rothfeld said he hopes Weisselberg will be segregated from the general population, and not placed in a dorm with inmates who may not know him but will know his boss, who is seeking the presidency in 2024.

“Certainly Mr. Weisselberg’s 50-year relationship with the former president is on all our minds,” Rothfeld said.

A spokesman for the city’s Department of Correction said the agency’s mission is “to create a safe and supportive environment for everyone who enters our custody.”

Rikers is scheduled to close in 2027.

STAR WITNESS

Weisselberg was the star government witness against his employer.

He told jurors that Trump signed bonus and tuition checks, and other documents at the heart of prosecutors’ case, but was not in on the tax fraud scheme.

Though no longer CFO, Weisselberg remains on paid leave from the Trump Organization. He testified in November that he hoped to get a $500,000 bonus this month.

Weisselberg testified that the company is paying his lawyers. It is paying Rothfeld as well, a person familiar with the matter said. Rothfeld declined to comment.

Trump was not charged and has denied wrongdoing. The Manhattan District Attorney’s office is still investigating his business practices.

Merchan will also sentence the Trump Organization on Friday. Penalties are limited to $1.6 million.

Weisselberg remains a defendant in New York Attorney General Letitia James’ $250 million civil lawsuit alleging that Trump and his company inflated asset values and Trump’s net worth.

Rothfeld said he advised Weisselberg not to go outside at Rikers because of the risk of violence in courtyards, and not to interject himself into conversations between other inmates.

“The goal is to keep to yourself,” Rothfeld said.

Reporting by Karen Freifeld; Editing by Richard Chang

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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US

Trump will challenge NY sex abuse law in writer’s defamation lawsuit

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Dec 21 (Reuters) – Donald Trump plans to argue that a New York law allowing a writer to sue the former U.S. president over claims that he raped her decades ago is unconstitutional, according to a court filing.

Lawyers for Trump said in a filing made on Monday in Manhattan federal court that they would move to dismiss the lawsuit filed last month by E. Jean Carroll in part on grounds that the law spurred by the #MeToo movement is invalid.

Trump has denied Carroll’s claim that he raped her in a dressing room in a Bergdorf Goodman department store 27 years ago. The former Elle magazine columnist is suing Trump for defamation and battery under New York’s Adult Survivors Act.

The law created a one-year period that began last month when adult victims of alleged sexual abuse can file lawsuits that otherwise would have been barred because the cases were too old.

Trump’s lawyers in the filing said the law “is an improper ‘claim revival’ statute which violates the United States Constitution and the New York State Constitution.”

Roberta Kaplan, a lawyer for Carroll, declined to comment.

U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in an order on Wednesday gave Trump until Feb. 23 to file a motion to dismiss the lawsuit.

Carroll had sued Trump for defamation in 2019 for denying her allegations, and a trial is scheduled in that case for April.

Lawyers for Carroll have asked Kaplan to send the newer claims to trial at the same time, but Trump’s lawyers have said that would be improper.

Reporting by Daniel Wiessner in Albany, New York; Editing by David Gregorio

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Daniel Wiessner

Thomson Reuters

Dan Wiessner (@danwiessner) reports on labor and employment and immigration law, including litigation and policy making. He can be reached at daniel.wiessner@thomsonreuters.com.

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US

Trump Organization found guilty of tax fraud scheme

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NEW YORK, Dec 6 (Reuters) – Donald Trump’s real estate company was convicted on Tuesday of carrying out a 15-year-long criminal scheme to defraud tax authorities, adding to the legal woes facing the former U.S. president as he campaigns for the office again in 2024.

The Trump Organization – which operates hotels, golf courses, and other real estate around the world – was found guilty of paying personal expenses for top executives including former chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg, and issuing bonus checks to them as if they were independent contractors.

The company faces up to $1.6 million in fines after being convicted on all charges, including scheming to defraud tax authorities, conspiracy and falsifying business records. Trump was not charged in the case.

Justice Juan Merchan, who presided over the trial in state court in New York, set a sentencing date for Jan. 13.

While the fine is not expected to be material for a company of the Trump Organization’s size, the conviction could complicate its ability to do business.

Weisselberg, 75, testified as the government’s star witness as part of a plea deal that calls for a sentence of five months in jail.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, whose office prosecuted the case, called the verdict “very just.”

“The former president’s companies now stand convicted of crimes,” Bragg said in the New York courthouse after the verdict, speaking of the Trump Corporation and Trump Payroll Corporation, the two units of the Trump Organization which were convicted.

Asked if he regretted not charging Trump in the case, Bragg did not respond.

He has said that the office’s investigation into Trump is continuing.

APPEAL

Alan Futerfas, a lawyer for the Trump Organization, said the company would appeal and that the criminal law governing corporate liability was vague.

“It was central to the case,” he told reporters after the verdict.

The jury deliberated for about 12 hours over two days.

[1/6] Former U.S. President Donald Trump attends a rally to support Republican candidates ahead of midterm elections, in Dayton, Ohio, U.S. November 7, 2022. REUTERS/Gaelen Morse/File Photo

The case centered on charges that the company paid personal expenses like free rent and car leases for executives including Weisselberg without reporting the income, and gave them bonuses as non-employee compensation from other Trump entities like the Mar-a-lago Club, without deducting taxes.

According to testimony during the four-week trial, Trump himself signed the bonus checks annually, paid private school tuition for Weisselberg’s grandchildren, authorized the lease for his luxury Manhattan apartment and approved a salary deduction for another executive.

“The whole narrative that Donald Trump was blissfully ignorant is just not real, prosecutor Joshua Steinglass told jurors during his closing argument on Friday.

He said the “smorgasbord of benefits” was designed to keep top executives “happy and loyal.”

Republican Trump, who on Nov. 15 announced his third campaign for the presidency, said in a statement he was “disappointed” by the verdict but called the case a “Manhattan witch hunt.” Both Bragg and his predecessor who brought the charges, Cyrus Vance, are Democrats.

SEPARATE LAWSUIT

The Trump Organization separately faces a fraud lawsuit brought by New York state Attorney General Letitia James.

Trump himself is being investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice over his handling of sensitive government documents after he left office in January 2021 and attempts to overturn the November 2020 election, which he lost to Democrat Joe Biden.

Lawyers for the Trump Organization argued that Weisselberg carried out the scheme to benefit himself, not the company. They tried to paint him as a rogue employee. Weisselberg is currently on paid leave and testified that he hopes to get another $500,000 bonus in January

Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Nov. 19. that his family got “no economic gain from the acts done by the executive.”

Weisselberg, who pleaded guilty in August to concealing $1.76 million in income from tax authorities, testified that although Trump signed checks involved, he did not conspire with him.

He said that the company saved money by paying for his rent, utilities, Mercedes-Benz car leases for him and his wife and other personal expenses rather than raising his salary, because a wage hike would have had to account for taxes.

He said Trump’s two sons – who took over the company’s operations in 2017 – gave him a raise after they knew about his tax dodge scheme.

By then, Trump was president, and the company was preparing for greater scrutiny.

“We were going through an entire cleanup process of the company to make sure that since Mr. Trump is now president everything was being done properly,” Weisselberg testified.

Reporting by Luc Cohen and Karen Freifeld in New York; additional reporting by Andrew Hofstetter in New York; Editing by Noeleen Walder and Grant McCool

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Luc Cohen

Thomson Reuters

Reports on the New York federal courts. Previously worked as a correspondent in Venezuela and Argentina.

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US

Trump is sued again by writer for defamation, and battery, over alleged rape

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NEW YORK, Nov 24 (Reuters) – Donald Trump was sued for defamation a second time on Thursday by a writer who accused the former U.S. president of lying by denying that he raped her 27 years ago.

In a complaint filed in Manhattan federal court, the former Elle magazine columnist E. Jean Carroll also accused Trump of battery in an alleged encounter at the Bergdorf Goodman department store in Manhattan.

Carroll, 78, brought the battery claim under New York’s Adult Survivors Act, a new law giving sexual assault victims a one-year window to sue their alleged abusers, even if the abuse occurred long ago and statutes of limitations have expired.

Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, was the first day that accusers could sue.

Trump, 76, has denied raping Carroll or knowing her at the time, and said she was “not my type.”

His first denial in June 2019 prompted her to sue for defamation five months later.

He repeated the denial in an Oct. 12 post on his Truth Social account, calling Carroll’s claim a “hoax” and “lie,” prompting the new defamation claim.

Both sides are awaiting appeals court decisions addressing Trump’s argument that he was legally immune from Carroll’s first lawsuit because he had spoken in his capacity as president.

Former U.S. President Donald Trump announces that he will once again run for U.S. president in the 2024 U.S. presidential election during an event at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, U.S. November 15, 2022. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo

If courts agreed that the U.S. government, which has sovereign immunity from defamation claims, could be substituted for Trump as a defendant, Carroll’s first lawsuit would fail.

That would likely not affect her second lawsuit because Trump is a private citizen, having left the White House in January 2021.

Carroll is seeking unspecified damages. To support her battery claim, she said Trump caused her lasting psychological harm, and left her unable to sustain a romantic relationship.

The first lawsuit is scheduled for trial on Feb. 6, 2023, before U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in Manhattan, but will likely be delayed because of the appeals process.

At a hearing on Tuesday, Carroll’s lawyer Roberta Kaplan asked for an April 10 trial covering both lawsuits, saying they have substantial overlap.

Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba sought a May 8 trial for only the first lawsuit. She also told the judge a longer delay made sense because Trump had not hired a lawyer for the second lawsuit.

“Your client in the present action, Ms. Habba, has known this was coming for months, and he would be well-advised to decide who is representing him in it,” the judge responded.

Judge Kaplan said he may decide early next week how to schedule both lawsuits.

Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Howard Goller and Nick Zieminski

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Trump rebuffed by judge in New York fraud lawsuit, trial date set

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NEW YORK, Nov 22 (Reuters) – A New York judge has scheduled an October 2023 trial for former U.S. President Donald Trump, three of his adult children and the Trump Organization in a lawsuit brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James accusing them of fraudulently overvaluing the real estate company’s assets and Trump’s net worth.

Justice Arthur Engoron of the state Supreme Court in Manhattan set the trial date during a contentious hearing on Tuesday following motions by the Trumps the night before to have the civil lawsuit dismissed.

“I ruled on all these issues. It seems to me the facts are the same. The law is the same. Parties are the same,” Engoron told Alina Habba, Trump’s lawyer. “You can’t keep making the same argument after you’ve already lost.”

Habba had accused the judge of bias. Trump, a Republican, has accused James, a Democrat, of suing him because she dislikes him and his politics.

In her lawsuit filed on Sept. 21, James accused Trump, his company, his children Donald Jr, Eric and Ivanka and others of inflating Trump’s assets by billions of dollars in a decade of lies to banks and insurers. James called the fraud “staggering.”

The complaint seeks $250 million in damages. It also seeks to stop the Trumps from running businesses in the state and ban Trump and his company from acquiring New York real estate for five years.

Engoron is expected to rule on the motions to dismiss by early January. Trump is already appealing Engoron’s order requiring an independent watchdog to monitor his company.

The trial, scheduled for Oct. 2, 2023, and other legal issues could complicate Trump’s campaign, announced last week, for the presidency in 2024.

The Trump Organization is now on trial in another Manhattan courtroom on criminal tax fraud charges.

In addition, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland last week named a special counsel to oversee two criminal investigations, one related to the FBI’s seizure of government documents from Trump’s Florida home and the other examining Trump’s role in efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Trump also faces a criminal investigation in Georgia into whether he interfered with the 2020 election results in that state.

He has called these cases and investigations politically motivated, and has labeled Engoron a “puppet judge” for James.

In seeking to dismiss the case filed by James, Trump maintained that the attorney general lacked authority to pursue a lawsuit designed to “get” him when neither the public nor the marketplace was harmed.

“Who stands to gain from this highly-politicized farse [sic], aside from the politically-compromised Attorney General of the State of New York?” Trump’s filing said.

Other defendants also urged dismissals.

Lawyers for Trump’s sons called the lawsuit a “textbook example of throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks.” Ivanka Trump’s lawyers said there were no allegations that she lied to or defrauded anyone.

The Trump Organization’s former longtime Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg and its Controller Jeffrey McConney also sought dismissals of claims against them. Both testified as prosecution witnesses in the Manhattan criminal trial in which prosecutors accused the company of engaging in tax fraud spanning 15 years.

Reporting by Karen Freifeld and Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Will Dunham

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Business

United Airlines to halt service at New York’s JFK airport in October

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WASHINGTON, Sept 30 (Reuters) – United Airlines (UAL.O) said on Friday it will suspend service in late October to New York’s John F. Kennedy Airport (JFK).

Earlier this month, United had threatened to take the action if the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) did not grant the air carrier additional flights.

United has been flying just twice daily to San Francisco and Los Angeles from JFK, the busiest New York-area airport, after resuming service in 2021.

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“Given our current, too-small-to-be-competitive schedule out of JFK — coupled with the start of the Winter season where more airlines will operate their slots as they resume JFK flying — United has made the difficult decision to temporarily suspend service at JFK,” United said in a memo seen by Reuters. The airline did not specify when it might resume service.

United said its “discussions with FAA have been constructive” but added “it’s also clear that process to add additional capacity at JFK will take some time.”

United said the decision would impact 100 employees who work at JFK but emphasized that “no one is losing their job” and employees will transition to other nearby stations.

United has been working to pursue additional slots – which are takeoff and landing authorizations – through the FAA and by seeking commercial agreements to acquire slots from other airlines.

The FAA said Friday it is “dedicated to doing its part to safely expand New York City airports and airspace capacity. We will follow our fair and well-established process to award future slots to increase competition.”

United said without permanent slots it cannot serve JFK “effectively compared to the larger schedules and more attractive flight times flown by” JetBlue Airways (JBLU.O) and American Airlines (AAL.O).

United in 2015 struck a long-term deal to lease 24 year-round slots at JFK to Delta Air Lines (DAL.N) as it ended JFK service to concentrate at its nearby Newark hub in northern New Jersey.

United argues there is room to grow at JFK, the 13th-busiest U.S. airport, because the FAA and the Port Authority since 2008 have made significant infrastructure investments, including “the widening of runways, construction of multi-entrance taxiways, and the creation of aligned high-speed turnoffs.”

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Reporting by David Shepardson
Editing by Sandra Maler and Aurora Ellis

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World

Exclusive: NATO chief says Putin won’t win in Ukraine despite ‘reckless’ escalation

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NEW YORK, Sept 21 (Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin will not win the war in Ukraine despite his order to mobilize thousands of extra troops, the secretary general of NATO said on Wednesday, calling the Russian leader’s threat to use nuclear weapons “dangerous and reckless rhetoric.”

Jens Stoltenberg told Reuters in an interview that Russia’s first mobilization since World War Two would escalate the conflict and cost more lives, but the move was evidence that Putin had miscalculated since the Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine.

In an address to Russians earlier, Putin announced he would call up 300,000 reservists to fight in Ukraine and backed a plan to annex parts of the country, hinting to the West he was prepared to use nuclear weapons to defend Russia. read more

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“If the territorial integrity of our country is threatened, we will use all available means to protect our people – this is not a bluff,” Putin said.

Russia possesses “lots of weapons to reply,” Putin added.

Stoltenberg, speaking to Reuters Editor in Chief Alessandra Galloni in New York, said the 30-nation Western defense alliance will stay calm and “not engage in that same kind of reckless and dangerous nuclear rhetoric as President Putin.”

“The speech of President Putin demonstrates that the war is not going according to President Putin’s plans. He has made a big miscalculation,” Stoltenberg said.

Reuters Editor-in-Chief Alessandra Galloni interviews NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at the Reuters office in New York City, U.S., September 21, 2022. REUTERS/Amr Alfiky

“More troops will escalate the conflict. That will mean more suffering, more loss of lives – Ukrainian lives, but also Russian lives,” Stoltenberg added.

Putin’s speech followed mounting casualties and battlefield setbacks for Russian forces, who have been driven from areas they had captured in northeast Ukraine in a Ukrainian counter-offensive this month and are bogged down in the south.

Stoltenberg said that although Russian troops were ill-equipped and lacked proper command and control, it was hard see the conflict ending in the short term as long as Russia does not accept that Ukraine is a sovereign, independent nation.

“The only way to end this war is to prove that President Putin will not win on the battlefield. When he realizes that, he has to sit down and negotiate a reasonable agreement with Ukraine,” said Stoltenberg, the former Norwegian prime minister.

Stoltenberg added that members of the alliance have provided unprecedented support to Ukraine and that the NATO allies now need to replenish their stocks of weapons and ammunition.

As NATO was prepared for a “long haul” in dealing with Putin, it was now in close dialogue with the defense industry to build back its stocks of materiel, Stoltenberg said.

Stoltenberg said China is among the security challenges that NATO needs to face up to but does not see China as an adversary. Stoltenberg also noted China’s “coercive behavior” in the South China Sea and against its neighbors as well as “the way they violate basic human rights.”

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Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk in New York and John Chalmers in Brussels; Writing by John Chalmers; Editing by Will Dunham

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US

Trump lawyers don’t want to say if he declassified documents in FBI search

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Former U.S. President Donald Trump attends a rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, U.S., September 3, 2022. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly/File Photo

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NEW YORK, Sept 20 (Reuters) – Donald Trump’s lawyers resisted revealing whether he declassified materials seized in an FBI search of his Florida home as the judge appointed to review the documents planned his first conference on the matter on Tuesday.

Judge Raymond Dearie on Monday circulated a draft plan to both sides that sought details on documents Trump allegedly declassified, as he claimed publicly and without evidence, though his lawyers have not asserted that in court filings.

In a letter filed ahead of Tuesday’s hearing, Trump’s lawyers argued it is not time and would force the former president to reveal a defense to any subsequent indictment, an acknowledgement that the investigation could lead to criminal charges.

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Dearie, a senior federal judge in Brooklyn, was selected as an independent arbiter known as a special master. He will help decide which of the more than 11,000 documents seized in the Aug. 8 search of Trump’s Mar-a-lago home should be kept from the Department of Justice’s criminal investigation into the mishandling of the documents.

Dearie, 78, will recommend to U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon which documents may fall under attorney-client privilege or an assertion of executive privilege, which allows a president to withhold certain documents or information.

It is unclear whether the review will go forward as instructed by Cannon, the Florida judge nominated by Trump in 2020 who ordered the review.

Trump is under investigation for retaining government records, some marked as highly classified, at the resort in Palm Beach, Florida, his home after leaving office in January 2021. He has denied wrongdoing, and said without providing evidence that he believes the investigation is a partisan attack.

The U.S. Department of Justice on Friday appealed a portion of Cannon’s ruling, seeking to stay the review of roughly 100 documents with classified markings and the judge’s restricting FBI access to them.

Federal prosecutors said the special master review ordered by the judge would hinder the government from addressing national security risks and force the disclosure of “highly sensitive materials.”

The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ordered Trump to respond by noon Tuesday.

Cannon’s order calls for Dearie to conclude his review by the end of November.

She instructed him to prioritize the documents marked classified, though her process calls for Trump’s counsel to review the documents, and Trump’s lawyers may not have the necessary security clearance.

The Justice Department has described the special master process as unnecessary, as it has already conducted its own attorney-client privilege review and set aside about 500 pages that could qualify. It opposes an executive privilege review, saying any such assertion over the records would fail.

The August search came after Trump left office in January 2021 with documents that belong to the government and did not return them, despite numerous requests by the government and a subpoena.

It is still unclear whether the government has all the records. The Justice Department has said it fears some classified material could be missing, after the FBI recovered empty folders with classification markings from Mar-a-lago.

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Reporting by Karen Freifeld, additional reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Scott Malone, David Gregorio and Chizu Nomiyama

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