Newsom to close all California beaches, state parks over coronavirus: memo

California Gov. Gavin Newsom will be closing all beaches and state parks across the state starting Friday to help slow the spread of the coronavirus, according to a memo sent to California police chiefs Wednesday.
The decision comes less than a week after Newsom called out the massive crowds that flocked to Newport Beach in Orange County last weekend during a heatwave.
Newsom called the beach crowds an example of "what not to do"  for the state to make progress toward easing restrictions in the statewide stay-at-home order.
“We wanted to give all of our members a heads up about this in order to provide time for you to plan any situations you might expect as a result, knowing each community has its dynamics,” the memo, sent by the California Police Chiefs Association, said.
Many beaches across the state are closed, but some, such as Ventura and Orange Counties, are open and starting to get more people as the weather gets warmer.
The Newport Beach City Council Tuesday voted down a measure that would close the beach for the next three weeks after an estimated 80,000 flocked to the water over the weekend.
Orange County Supervisor Don Wagner on Wednesday called the order an "overreaction," saying that while he believes Newsom has the power to close the beaches he thinks it's a bad idea because "Medical professionals tell us the importance of fresh air and sunlight in fighting infectious diseases."
He added it will make so far cooperative residents more likely to break the stay-at-home order.
Laguna Beach and some beaches in San Diego County recently reopened for limited use.
Protesters in nearby Huntington Beach demanded the state reopen businesses the weekend before last and the governor's order is likely to fuel frustration from Californians already stir-crazy after more than a month of staying at home.
Since mid-March, 3.7 million Californians have filed for unemployment, more than 47,000 coronavirus cases have been confirmed and nearly 2,000 have died of the virus as of Wednesday, according to The Times.
Fox News reached out to Newsom's office in an after-hours call.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

New Jersey professor assigns blame for coronavirus outbreak: ‘F--- each and every Trump supporter’

Brittney Cooper

A professor at a New Jersey university is blaming President Trump and his supporters for the impact of the coronavirus outbreak, claiming it’s their fault African-Americans have been dying at a disproportionate rate.
“F--- each and every Trump supporter. You absolutely did this. You are to blame,” was among the comments – several of them containing profanity -- posted on Twitter this week by Brittney Cooper, an associate professor in the Department of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Rutgers University.
In another post, Cooper wrote that she and other African-Americans suspect that recent efforts to reopen the country following stay-at-home orders were “all about a gross necropolitical calculation that it is Black people who are dying disproportionately from COVID.”
“Not only do white conservatives not care about Black life,” she wrote, “but my most cynical negative read of the white supremacists among them is that they welcome this mass winnowing of Black folks in order to slow demographic shifts and shore up political power.”
Last week Dr. Athony Fauci, a member of President Trump's Coronavirus Task Force, said during an online interview that high coronavirus death rates among African-Americans were largely attributable to pre-existing health conditions that are common in the black community, such as hypertension, obesity, diabetes and asthma.

Brittney Cooper, associated professor of Women's, Gender and Africana studies, Rutgers Univeristy. (Getty Images)

"It’s really terrible, because it’s just one of the failings of our society, that African-Americans have a disproportionate prevalence in incidents of the very comorbid conditions that put you at a high risk,” Fauci told actor Will Smith, who conducted the interview.
In another post, Cooper claimed Trump supporters’ loyalty to the president impaired their judgment about the outbreak.
“They are literally willing to die from this clusterf---ed COVID response rather than admit absolutely anybody other than him [Trump] would have been a better president,” she wrote. “And when whiteness has a death wish, we are all in for a serious problem.”

'Depths of white depravity'

Five days earlier, on April 23, Cooper wrote about “the depths of white depravity,” claiming whites refused “to be swayed by facts, reason or the value of life itself, especially when those lives are Black.”
“It staggers me,” Cooper wrote.
Cooper has a history of criticizing President Trump. Last October she asserted the president’s policies were partly to blame for weight problems among African-American women. Last August she claimed Trump was willing to “get us into war” to keep the economy strong to bolster his 2020 reelection hopes.
She is the author of “Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower,” which The Guardian ranked among its “Top 10 Books About Angry Women,” according to Amazon.

Alyssa Milano offers Biden unsolicited advice on how to handle allegations

Actress and notable #MeToo activist Alyssa Milano wrote an op-ed Wednesday attempting to explain her ongoing support for former Vice President Joe Biden despite the developments in the sexual assault allegation from his former Senate staffer, Tara Reade.
In a piece titled "Living in the Gray as a Woman" that was published by Deadline, Milano wrote about how the #MeToo movement "changed" her.
She wrote that there are some instances that are obvious: Weinstein and Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. She wrote Kavanaugh’s "actions, told consistently over decades by his victim (and supported by her polygraph results), were clearly wrong." He denied the allegations.
She wrote that there is a concern that advocates start to see things as black and white.
"Except it’s not always so easy, and living in the gray areas is something we’re trying to figure out in the world of social media. But here’s something social media doesn’t afford us– nuance," Milano wrote.
"The world is gray. And as uncomfortable as that makes people, gray is where the real change happens. Black and white is easy. Gray is the place women can come together out of the glare of the election and speak our truths, our doubts, our hopes, our convictions and test them against the light and the dark," she wrote.
She wrote that in an ideal world, it would  be a woman who took on President Trump "instead of an electoral college which says white men are the people driving the charge yet again this year."
The former "Charmed" actress insisted that Reade's allegations against Biden "concern me, deeply," but that Biden is someone "who I can’t picture doing any of the things of which he’s accused."
She went on to offer Biden some advice as to how to handle the allegations going forward.
"I’d advise him to face the allegation head-on, answer every question, and admit any wrongdoing, and to be the example for all men who face these kinds of accusations whether founded or not," Milano urged her preferred candidate.
Milano then addressed Reade, who she only referred to as "his accuser," and how she believed every survivor should "have space to tell their story" but cautioned her not to be "fodder for the machine."
"Believing women was never about 'Believe all women no matter what they say,' it was about changing the culture of NOT believing women by default. It was about ending the patriarchy’s dangerous drive for self-preservation at all costs, victims be damned," Milano continued to explain her dismissal of Reade.
In an interview with Fox News, Reade blasted Milano after she had made an appearance at the tense Kavanaugh confirmation hearings in support of his accuser, Christine Blasey Ford.

Actress Alyssa Milano watches a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, U.S., September 27, 2018. Matt McClain/Pool via REUTERS - RC13A7C2F350

"I think we need to compare how she responded to Brett Kavanaugh... quite different than the talking points she [used] regarding Joe Biden," Reade told Fox News. "She never reached out to me. I don't really want to amplify her voice because I feel like she hijacked my narrative for a while and framed it about herself... she knows nothing about it."
Milano "only knows Joe Biden, so she doesn't know me and has never talked to me. So, how could she possibly talk about the case?" Reade asked.
In response to Milano calling for "due process" for men accused of sexual assault, Reade said, "she really doesn't know anything about what happened to me," calling it "odd" that she would weigh in on an assault claim when she never attempted to seek information from the accuser.
"I don't know what her role is. She's not really a professional helping women. She was basically talking about protecting powerful men the last time she made a statement," Reade said. "It's just the complete opposite of how she approached Brett Kavanaugh, so it's kind of weird and strange and I think she's just looking for ways to be relevant."
Milano appeared to change her stance on Reade's claims on Monday night after more corroboration surfaced.
“I’m aware of the new developments in Tara Reade’s accusation against Joe Biden. I want Tara, like every other survivor, to have the space to be heard and seen without being used as fodder,” Milano tweeted before writing her op-ed. “I hear and see you, Tara.”
Representatives for Milano did not immediately respond to Fox News' request for comment.

University Of Delaware board members, who are keeping Biden's Senate records secret, have close ties to the former VP

Numerous top officials on the board of the University of Delaware, which is refusing to release Joe Biden's Senate records despite an earlier promise to do so, have close personal and financial ties to the former vice president, records reviewed by Fox News show -- and the chairman of the board even bought Biden's house in 1996 for $1.2 million, reportedly a "top dollar" price given its condition.
The documents suggest a significant conflict of interest as Biden faces increasing pressure to relinquish the documents that could contain information relevant to Tara Reade's sexual assault allegation against him.
Biden dropped off 1,875 boxes of “photographs, documents, videotapes, and files” and 415 gigabytes of electronic records to the University of Delaware in 2012. The university initially said it expected to make the records “available to the public two years after Biden’s last day in elected public office.” In April 2019, just hours before Biden announced his current presidential bid, the university changed its mind, and said the papers wouldn't be released until either December 31, 2019 or until two years after Biden “retires from public life,” whichever comes later.
This week, both The Atlantic and The Washington Post argued that Biden should instruct the university to turn over the records, saying they "could contain confirmation of any complaint Ms. Reade made, either through official congressional channels or to the three other employees she claims she informed not specifically of the alleged assault but more generally of harassment."
The University of Delaware’s charter states that the Board of Trustees has “entire control and management of the affairs of the university," and notes that no university bylaws "shall diminish or reduce the Board’s plenary authority over all matters related to the control and management of the affairs of the University."
The current chairman of the board at the University of Delaware, John Cochran, is a longtime Biden donor and former CEO of MBNA.
In a January 2008 article entitled "The Senator from MBNA," columnist Byron York recounted how Cochran, then MBNA's vice chairman, paid "top dollar" for Biden's home in February 1996, just prior to his Senate re-election bid, and that "MBNA gave Cochran a lot of money—$330,000—to help with 'expenses' related to the move."

FILE - In this Sept. 9, 2012 file photo, then-Vice President Joe Biden talks to customers, including a woman who pulled up her chair in front of the bench Biden was sitting on, during a stop at Cruisers Diner in Seaman, Ohio. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)

The $1.2M sale was a "pretty darned good deal for Biden," York wrote, noting that "Cochran simply paid Biden’s full asking price" even though the "house needed quite a bit of work; contractors and their trucks descended on the house for months after the purchase."
York noted that nearby houses were selling below their appraised value at the time. “It is customary for appraisers to evaluate homes in relation to similar properties in the area, or ‘comparables,''' York wrote. "In the case of Biden’s house, the appraiser compared the home to another large old house about a quarter of a mile away. That house—which was in similar condition—was judged to be worth $1,013,000. It sold in August 1995 for $800,000 (it should be noted that the house did not have a pool, which Biden’s does; on the other hand the house had central air conditioning, which Biden’s did not, and it was on a larger lot)."
The appraiser also "looked at two other newer houses in the area," York continued. "One was appraised at $1,230,000 and sold for $1,007,500. The other was appraised at $1,163,000 and sold for an even $1 million. In all three cases, the homes sold for a good deal less than their appraised value."
Asked how Cochran and Biden found each other for the sale, an MBNA spokesperson told York: "That’s a very personal question." Federal election records also showed top MBNA executives apparently made a "concerted" effort to donate to Biden's campaign, York reported.
Shortly after the house sale, Biden's son Hunter was hired on at MBNA. Rachel Mullen, a former senior personal banking officer at MBNA from 1994-2001 who later went into Republican politics, tweeted that managers referred to the younger Biden as "Senator MBNA" after he was hired into a lucrative management-prep track right after he graduated from Yale Law School.
An MBNA source who previously worked at the company told Fox News that other employees heard Biden boasting that his salary was unusually high, even for the management-prep track -- which was widely seen in the company as a way to groom and pamper well-connected executive candidates with powerful family members.

John Cochran, chairman of the Board of Trustees, on the left in a 2018 photo. (Kathy F. Atkinson / University of Delaware)

The source said Biden's "Senator MBNA" nickname was not politically motivated, but rather reflected a widely held belief among managers -- who did not work directly with Biden -- that he essentially was engaged in lobbying.
As Hunter cashed the checks, Biden was pushing successfully on the Senate floor for legislation that would make it harder for consumers to file for bankruptcy protection -- benefiting companies like MBNA.  In a contemporaneous interview, Tom Brokaw asked the elder Biden whether it was "inappropriate" for the then-senator to have his son "collecting money from this big credit card company while you were on the [Senate] floor protecting its interests."
In 2018, Cochran, who has supported each of Biden's political campaigns, joined Biden in attending the naming ceremony of the Biden School of Public Policy at the University of Delaware.
Further, at least seven other members of the University of Delaware's board of trustees have donated to Biden's political campaigns -- including a former Biden senior counsel from the Senate, as well as the state's governor and other senior officials.
Terri Kelly, the former president and CEO Of W.L. Gore & Associates, has served on the university's board of trustees since 2014 -- and donated the maximum legal amount to Biden in 2019.
Carol Ammon, who has been on the board since 2013, has given more than $10,000 to Biden's campaign and affiliated PACs, federal election records show.

Then-Vice President Joe Biden leans in to say something to Maggie Coons, next to her father Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., after Biden administered the Senate oath to Coons during a ceremonial re-enactment swearing-in ceremony, Jan. 6, 2015, in the Old Senate Chamber of Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

John Paradee, a lawyer, joined the board in 2018. He has also donated heavily to Biden.
John Carney, the state's governor and another board member, has also donated more than $1,000 to Biden.
Claire DeMatteis served as counsel to Biden. Since 2001, she has given over $16,000 to Democratic PACs, including Biden's, called Unite our States.
TIMELINE SHOWS MEDIA, DEMS TREATED KAVANAUGH MATTER VERY DIFFERENTLY
Chai Gadde, a CEO, has donated thousands to Biden.
William Lafferty, a partner at a Delaware law firm who serves on the board as well, has also given more than $2,500 to Biden's campaign.

Nov. 1, 2014: Then-Vice President Joe Biden with actress Eva Longoria in Las Vegas. 

Despite some outlets calling for the release of the records held by these board members, Senate Democrats and media outlets have been mostly silent on Reade's claims, even though they called for an immediate FBI investigation into claims against then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh in 2018. Reade, however, has presented substantially more corroborating evidence than Kavanaugh's accuser, Christine Blasey Ford.
Biden himself hasn't addressed the allegation against him, and no one in the media has asked him about it during interviews. Representatives for Biden's campaign have denied the allegations, even as some Democrats have urged Biden to address the matter himself.
Earlier Wednesday, The New York Times rebuked the Biden campaign, telling Fox News that the campaign was apparently circulating talking points to top Democrats that "inaccurately" described the paper's reporting. The talking points falsely claimed that the Times had disproven Reade's accusations, when it actually found some corroboration.
Business Insider, The Intercept, and Newsbusters have separately found additional contemporaneous corroboration for Reade's claims, including footage showing Reade's mother calling into "Larry King Live" to discuss an incident involving her daughter and a prominent senator.
The Times had earlier stealth-edited its coverage of the Biden accusations at the request of the Biden campaign. The paper specifically removed a section of its reporting referring to numerous other episodes in which Biden was accused of inappropriate touching -- including one instance in which he was caught on camera touching young girls and making them visibly uncomfortable.
"I think that the [Biden] campaign thought that the phrasing was awkward and made it look like there were other instances in which he had been accused of sexual misconduct," The Times' executive editor, Dean Baquet, admitted the day after the article was published.
According to a copy of the Times' article saved by the Internet archive Wayback Machine, the Times originally reported: "No other allegation about sexual assault surfaced in the course of reporting, nor did any former Biden staff members corroborate any details of Ms. Reade’s allegation. The Times found no pattern of sexual misconduct by Mr. Biden, beyond the hugs, kisses and touching that women previously said made them uncomfortable."
That paragraph now reads: "No other allegation about sexual assault surfaced in the course of reporting, nor did any former Biden staff members corroborate any details of Ms. Reade’s allegation. The Times found no pattern of sexual misconduct by Mr. Biden."
Baquet also struggled to explain why his paper had waited weeks to even report on Reade's allegations. Baquet implied that Kavanaugh was urgently in the public spotlight, while Biden -- who was locking up the Democratic presidential nomination as Reade's claim surfaced -- somehow was not in the public eye.
"Kavanaugh was already in a public forum in a large way," Baquet said. "Kavanaugh was in a very different situation. It was a live, ongoing story that had become the biggest political story in the country. It was just a different news judgment moment."
Biden has previously said he would change his interactions with women going forward, but stopped short of apologizing for his conduct.

Stupid Democrat Mistakes Cartoons

Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio learns who his Dem opponent will be in November after primary

Republican U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio learned Tuesday night that he’ll likely face Democrat Shannon Freshour in November’s general election for the state’s 4th Congressional District seat.
The Associated Press projected Freshour to win the district’s Democratic primary race Tuesday, defeating challengers Jeffrey Sites and Mike Larsen. With more than 51 percent of precincts reporting, Freshour had more than 47 percent of the vote compared to 29 percent for Sites and 23 percent for Larsen, The Lima News reported.
Freshour had spent about $500,000 in the race, topping the other Democrats, the Columbus Dispatch reported.
JORDAN SKEWERS DEMS FOR BOGGING DOWN CORONAVIRUS RELIEF
The Ohio primary was held by mail because of the coronavirus outbreak, with early voting having begun Feb. 19. In-person voting was supposed to have been held March 17, but Republican Gov. Mike DeWine postponed the primary the day before, citing public health concerns.
Jordan, who ran unopposed in the GOP race, initially won the seat in 2006 and has posted solid victories ever since, often winning by more than 30 percentage points, according to the newspaper. As of April 8, the incumbent had raised an all-time high of nearly $2.6 million for his campaign war chest.
The staunch ally of President Trump, who serves as ranking member of the House oversight and judiciary committees, hasn’t received less than two-thirds of the vote in the 4th district since 2012, the Columbus Dispatch reported.
The 4th district zigzags from the suburbs west of Cleveland and southeast of Toledo, down to suburbs northwest of Columbus, then out west toward the Indiana border. It’s nicknamed the “duck district” because of its shape.
Freshour, who has played up Jordan’s ties to Trump as part of her campaign, later told the Lima News she was looking forward to the general election.
“Really, I would be honored to battle Jim Jordan in November,” Freshour told the newspaper. “I would be honored to fight with everything on the line, and I’ll also be doing it with Jeff and Mike’s support, as they would have my support if they would win, because there is such a need to defeat Jordan.”
In other Ohio congressional races, Republican Reps. Steve Stivers and Troy Balderson defeated their primary challengers, while Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty awaited results of her race against Morgan Harper, the Dispatch reported.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.

FBI docs show extensive efforts to surveil Stone, but no evidence of collusion

FBI affidavits released Tuesday show the extent of the bureau's far-ranging surveillance of former Donald Trump confidant Roger Stone -- and confirm that while Stone spoke to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, there was no evidence that he conspired to hack or release top Democrats' private emails ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
At the same time, the dozens of documents — including FBI affidavits submitted to obtain search warrants in the criminal investigation into Stone — highlighted Stone's hard-charging tactics as he sought to obtain information relevant to Trump.
The documents were released following a court case brought by The Associated Press and other media organizations. They were made public as Stone, convicted last year in Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into ties between Russia and the Trump campaign, awaits a date to surrender to a federal prison system that has grappled with outbreaks of the coronavirus.
THE WARRANT FILES: EXHIBIT 1, EXHIBIT 2, EXHIBIT 3, EXHIBIT 4, EXHIBIT 5
Stone's prosecution began with a dramatic pre-dawn raid by a heavily-armed SWAT team that was attended by a CNN videographer, for reasons that remain unclear. Stone, a part-time fashion critic and notorious pot-stirrer, was convicted last year on seven counts of obstruction, witness tampering and making false statements to Congress, although none of the charges related to any conspiracy with Russia. Instead, Stone was charged with lying in relation to inquiries into possible collusion.
Weeks after Mueller was appointed special counsel in the Russia investigation, Stone reassured Assange in a Twitter message that if prosecutors came after him, “I will bring down the entire house of cards," according to the FBI documents.
It was no secret that Stone had spoken to Assange; he admitted as much during a speech on August 8, 2016, when he acknowledged, "I actually have communicated with Assange. I believe the next tranche of his documents pertain to the Clinton Foundation, but there's no telling what the October surprise may be." Stone later insisted he had spoken to Assange only through an intermediary.
But, the records reveal the extent of communications between Stone and Assange, whose anti-secrecy website published Democratic emails hacked by Russians during the 2016 presidential election.
On October 13, 2016, "while WikiLeaks was in the midst of releasing the hacked [Democratic] emails," the FBI wrote in one affidavit, the Twitter account @RogerJStoncJr "sent a private direct message to the Twitter account @wikileaks"  The message read: "Since I was all over national TV, cable and print defending WikiLeaks and assange against the claim that you are Russian agents and debunking the false charges of sexual assault as trumped up bs you may want to rexamine the strategy of attacking me- cordially R."
Less than an hour later, the FBI said, @wikileaks responded by direct message: "We appreciate that. However, the false claims of association are being used by the democrats to undermine the impact of our publications. Don't go there if you don't want us to correct you."
On or about October 15, 2016, the FBI alleged, @RogerJStoneJr sent a direct message to @wikileaks: "Ha! The more you \"correct\" me the more people think you're lying. Your operation leaks like a sieve. You need to figure out who your friends are." On or about November 9, 2016, "one day after the presidential election, @wikileaks sent a direct message to @RogerJStoneJr containing a single word: 'Happy?' @wikileaks immediately followed up with another message less than a minute later: 'We are now more free to communicate.'"
In a June 2017 Twitter direct message cited in the records, Stone reassured Assange that the issue was “still nonsense” and said “as a journalist it doesn't matter where you get information only that it is accurate and authentic."
He cited as an example the 1971 Supreme Court ruling that facilitated the publishing by newspapers of the Pentagon Papers, classified government documents about the Vietnam War.
“If the US government moves on you I will bring down the entire house of cards," Stone wrote, according to a transcript of the message cited in the search warrant affidavit. “With the trumped-up sexual assault charges dropped I don't know of any crime you need to be pardoned for — best regards. R."
Stone was likely referring to a sexual assault investigation dropped by Swedish authorities. Assange, who at the time was holed up in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, was charged last year with a series of crimes by the U.S. Justice Department, including Espionage Act violations for allegedly directing former Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning in one of the largest compromises of classified information in U.S. history.
According to the documents, Assange, who is imprisoned in London and is fighting his extradition to the United States, responded to Stone's 2017 Twitter message by saying: “Between CIA and DoJ they're doing quite a lot. On the DoJ side that's coming most strongly from those obsessed with taking down Trump trying to squeeze us into a deal."
Stone replied in June 2017 that he was doing everything possible to “address the issues at the highest level of Government.”
“I am doing everything possible to address the issues at the highest level of government,” Stone wrote to Assange. “Fed treatment of you and WikiLeaks is an outrage. Must be circumspect in this forum as experience demonstrates it is monitored.”
“Appreciated. Of course it is!” Assange responded.
The documents showe the extent of the FBI's surveillance, which included monitoring essentially all of Stone's Apple services, from email to browsing history. Utility bills, address books, WhatsApp messages -- all were also under the bureau's review.
Additionally, records illustrate the Trump campaign's curiosity about what information WikiLeaks was going to make public -- and reinforce Mueller's conclusion that the Trump team didn't conspire with WikiLeaks or Russian hackers to obtain the materials. Former White House adviser Steve Bannon told Mueller's team under questioning that he had asked Stone about WikiLeaks because he had heard that Stone had a channel to Assange, and he was hoping for more releases of damaging information.
Mueller’s investigation identified contacts during the 2016 campaign between Trump associates and Russians, but did not identify any conspiracy to tip the outcome of the presidential election. The lengthy investigation fueled numerous conspiracy theories that aired regularly on MSNBC and CNN, as well as in print in The Washington Post, The Huffington Post, and elsewhere.

FILE - This Feb. 21, 2019, file courtroom sketch shows former campaign adviser for President Donald Trump, Roger Stone talking from the witness stand as prosecution attorney Jonathan Kravis, standing left, Stone's attorney Bruce Rogow, third from right, and Judge Amy Berman Jackson listen, during a court hearing at the U.S. District Courthouse in Washington. Kravis will run a new public corruption unit at the District of Columbia Office of the Attorney General, which has jurisdiction over juvenile offenses as well as misdemeanor crimes. (Dana Verkouteren via AP, File)

In a statement Tuesday, Stone acknowledged that the search warrant affidavits contain private communication, but insisted that they “prove no crimes.”
“I have no trepidation about their release as they confirm there was no illegal activity and certainly no Russian collusion by me during the 2016 Election," Stone said. “There is, to this day, no evidence that I had or knew about the source or content of the Wikileaks disclosures prior to their public release."
U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson in February sentenced Stone to 40 months in prison in a case that exposed fissures inside the Justice Department — the entire trial team quit the case amid a dispute over the recommended punishment — and between Trump and Attorney General William Barr, who said the president's tweets about ongoing cases made his job “impossible."

"There is, to this day, no evidence that I had or knew about the source or content of the Wikileaks disclosures prior to their public release."
— Roger Stone

The prosecutors who quit the Stone case objected after senior DOJ officials overrode their recommendation to the Jackson that Stone face up to nine years in prison. In its amended sentencing recommendation after the original prosecutors stepped down, the government that while it was "technically" possible to argue that Stone deserved the severe federal sentencing enhancement for threatening physical harm to a witness, such a move would violate the spirit of the federal guidelines.
It would place Stone in a category of the guidelines that "typically applies in cases involving violent offenses, such as armed robbery, not obstruction cases," the government argued, noting that Stone's "advanced age, health, personal circumstances, and lack of criminal history" also counseled against the harsh penalty.
Specifically, prosecutors said that although Stone had allegedly threatened witness Randy Credico’s therapy dog, Bianca -- saying he was “going to take that dog away from you" -- it was important to recognize that Credico, a New York radio host, has acknowledged that he "never in any way felt that Stone himself posed a direct physical threat to me or my dog."
Jackson, while taking a firm stance toward Stone in the courtroom, ultimately agreed with the DOJ that the up to nine years originally sought by federal prosecutors was excessive..'
Her sentence of 40 months in prison was considerably less than that -- yet far more than the probation sought by his defense.
Fox News' David Spunt, and the Associated Press, contributed to this report.

Then and now: How evidence in Kavanaugh case compares with Biden accusation

In the weeks after Christine Blasey Ford publicly accused Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her at a party in high school, she was unable to produce any corroborating, contemporaneous witnesses to demonstrate that she had mentioned the alleged assault to anyone -- or even that she had ever met Kavanaugh.
In fact, Ford's friend Leland Keyser would expressly contradict Ford's narrative, saying it "just didn't make any sense." Although Ford claimed Keyser had attended the 1982 party during which the alleged assault occurred, Keyser had no recollection of the event or anything like it, and asserted that it was implausible that Ford couldn't recall how she had gotten home or where exactly the party had occurred. Kavanaugh forcefully denied the accusation.
Nevertheless, Ford's accusation immediately reverberated throughout the nation's political landscape and dominated the coverage of every major media organization. Virtually all Democratic senators called for a serious inquiry, if not Kavanaugh's withdrawal from consideration for the Supreme Court. Later, accusations by Deborah Ramirez and Michael Avenatti client Julie Swetnick, although also uncorroborated, only added fuel to those calls.
Now, more than a month after Tara Reade alleged that Joe Biden sexually assaulted her when she worked for him as a staffer, those same Democrats and media outlets are mostly silent. Reade, however, has presented substantially more corroborating evidence than Ford did when she leveled her claims in 2018.
Biden himself hasn't addressed the allegation against him, and no one in the media has asked him about it during interviews. Representatives for Biden's campaign have denied the allegations.
At the same time, information has surfaced that has led critics to question Reade's story, just as Ford's changing narrative threatened to undercut her testimony.
A review of the evidence follows.

The witnesses - Tara Reade

Jeanette Altimus. Reade's mother called in to CNN's "Larry King Live" on August 11, 1993, during a program titled “Washington: The Cruelest City on Earth?”
King introduced a caller from San Luis Obispo, Calif. The Intercept reported that congressional records "list August 1993 as Reade’s last month of employment with Biden’s Senate office, and, according to property records, Reade’s mother, Jeanette Altimus, was living in San Luis Obispo County."
The call did not explicitly reference Biden or sexual assault, but Reade has said her mother was indeed discussing her experience with Biden:
KING: San Luis Obispo, California, hello.
CALLER: Yes, hello. I’m wondering what a staffer would do besides go to the press in Washington? My daughter has just left there, after working for a prominent senator, and could not get through with her problems at all, and the only thing she could have done was go to the press, and she chose not to do it out of respect for him.
KING: In other words, she had a story to tell but, out of respect for the person she worked for, she didn’t tell it?
CALLER: That’s true.
Lynda LaCasse. Reade's former next-door neighbor, a self-described Biden supporter, came forward this week and spoke on the record with Rich McHugh of Business Insider. "This happened, and I know it did because I remember talking about it," LaCasse said, recalling a conversation with Reade that occurred in either 1995 or 1996.
Lorraine Sanchez. A former co-worker of Reade's also told Business Insider this week that Reade had mentioned the episode, although without referring to Biden by name. "[Reade said] she had been sexually harassed by her former boss while she was in DC," Sanchez told the publication, "and as a result of her voicing her concerns to her supervisors, she was let go, fired."
Collin Moulton and an unnamed friend. Reade's brother has told The Intercept that Reade mentioned the alleged assault at the time. "Both her brother and friend also confirmed Reade had told her mother, and that her mother, a longtime feminist and activist, urged her to go to the police," The Intercept reported.
The New York Times separately reported that Reade told two unnamed friends about the episode -- one at the time, and another in 2008. The paper later stealth-edited its story at the request of the Biden campaign.
Marianne Baker. The former executive assistant in Biden's office and a supervisor who would have received Reade's harassment complaint has come out in defense of Biden.
“In all my years working for Sen. Biden, I never once witnessed, or heard of, or received, any reports of inappropriate conduct, period -- not from Ms. Reade, not from anyone,” Baker said. “I have absolutely no knowledge or memory of Ms. Reade’s accounting of events, which would have left a searing impression on me as a woman professional, and as a manager. These clearly false allegations are in complete contradiction to both the inner workings of our Senate office and to the man I know and worked so closely with for almost two decades.”
Dennis Toner. Biden's former deputy chief of staff. Reade said she had complained about feeling uncomfortable to Toner, but said she did not mention the assault. Toner has called Reade's claim an "outrageous accusation that's totally untrue." He added, “I would remember something like this if it ever came up."
Ted Kaufman. Biden's former chief of staff. He has remarked: “It never came up. And I sure would have remembered if it did.”

The witnesses - Christine Blasey Ford

Leland Keyser. During the Kavanaugh hearings, a lawyer for Keyser told the Senate Judiciary Committee that she "does not know Mr. Kavanaugh and she has no recollection of ever being at a party or gathering where he was present." At the same time, Keyser said she was close friends with Ford since their days at the Holton-Arms all-girls school in Maryland, and believed her accusation.
“It’s not surprising that Ms. Keyser has no recollection of the evening as they did not discuss it," one of Ford's lawyers said. “It’s also unremarkable that Ms. Keyser does not remember attending a specific gathering 30 years ago at which nothing of consequence happened to her. Dr. Ford, of course, will never forget this gathering because of what happened to her there.”
However, in later interviews -- including with Mollie Hemingway and Carrie Severino, as well as The New York Times -- Keyser made clear her doubts about Ford's story ran deeper.

Christine Blasey Ford is sworn in before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington on Thursday, Sept. 27, 2018. (AP)

“It would be impossible for me to be the only girl at a get-together with three guys, have her leave and then not figure out how she’s going to get home,” Keyser said. She added that she didn't remember parties like the one Ford described, or spending much time with Georgetown Prep students like Kavanaugh, whom Keyser said she didn't recall.
“Those facts together I don’t recollect, and it just doesn’t make any sense,” Keyser said -- but she noted that she had spoken to many people who “wanted me to remember something different."
Hemingway and Severino also reported that Ford's father had supported Kavanaugh's confirmation.
Mark Judge. Ford identified Judge as one of her alleged assailants at the party. A self-described NBC News "hot take" at the time touted Judge as a major piece of potential corroboration.
"If you are still inclined to believe that Ford is lying, ask yourself: Why would she create a defense witness by identifying Mark Judge, who was and still is indisputably a friend of Kavanaugh’s, as being present and participating in this attack?" the hot-take author asked. "Why would she place at the scene an individual who could, because of loyalties to his friend, contradict her account if she were making this up? She wouldn’t."
However, Judge denied Ford's allegation, and he didn't provide any support for her claims. When The Washington Post hunted Judge down at a beach house in Delaware, he said only: "How did you find me?"

Mark Judge is outside a friend's home in the seaside holiday village in southeast Delaware. (Photo by Gabriel Pogrund/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

Details of Judge's memoirs resurface and appear to show his hard-charging, party-heavy lifestyle, including episodes in which he drank and was told he behaved aggressively toward women. The Intercept reported that Kavanaugh's friendship with Judge undercut his clean image -- but didn't help prove that he engaged in a sexual assault with Judge.
Speaking with Fox News, Kavanaugh didn't speak much about his time with Judge. He said: “I was focused on academics and athletics, going to church every Sunday at Little Flower, working on my service projects, and friendship with my fellow classmates and friendship with girls from the local all-girls Catholic schools.”
Ford's ex-boyfriend. In a written declaration obtained by Fox News, Ford's ex-boyfriend directly contradicts her testimony that she had never helped anyone prepare for a polygraph examination.
The former boyfriend also said Ford neither mentioned Kavanaugh nor mentioned she was a victim of sexual misconduct during the time they were dating from about 1992 to 1998. He said he saw Ford going to great lengths to help a woman he believed was her "lifelong best friend" prepare for a potential polygraph test. He added that the woman, Monica McLean, had been interviewing for jobs with the FBI and U.S. Attorney's Office.
He further claimed that Ford never voiced any fear of flying (even while aboard a propeller plane) and seemingly had no problem living in a "very small" 500-square-foot apartment with one door -- apparently contradicting her claims that she could not testify promptly in D.C. because she felt uncomfortable traveling on planes, as well as her suggestion that her memories of Kavanaugh's alleged assault prompted her to feel unsafe living in a closed space or one without a second front door.
Ford "never expressed a fear of closed quarters, tight spaces, or places with only one exit," the former boyfriend wrote.
However, Ford testified: "I was hoping to avoid getting on an airplane. But I eventually was able to get up the gumption with the help of some friends and get on the plane." She also acknowledged regularly -- and, in her words, "unfortunately" -- traveling on planes for work and hobbies.
And Ford explicitly told Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., that she had a second front door installed in her home because of "anxiety, phobia and PTSD-like symptoms" that she purportedly suffered in the wake of Kavanaugh's alleged attack at a house party in the 1980s -- "more especially, claustrophobia, panic and that type of thing."

Changing narratives - Tara Reade

Last year, Reade told The Washington Post that Biden had "touched her neck and shoulders but did not mention the alleged assault or suggest there was more to the story," the paper reported.
Reade called Biden “a male of his time, a very powerful senator, and he had people around saying it was okay.” Reade told The Associated Press that Biden had “rubbed her shoulders and neck” and “played with her hair," echoing the accusations of many other women at the time.
However, Reade did not explicitly mention that Biden had penetrated her with his fingers, as she did in a podcast released March 25.
Additionally, Reade said that in 1993 she filed a complaint "with a congressional human resources or personnel office," but again, the complaint referred to harassment at work and not Biden's alleged sexual assault.
Reade has called on Biden to release the records from his 36 years as a senator, which are currently inaccessible to the public and are kept at the University of Delaware.
"I'm calling for the release of the documents being held by the University of Delaware that contain Biden's staff personnel records because I believe it will have my complaint form, as well as my separation letter and other documents," Reade told Fox News on Tuesday. "Maybe if other staffers that have tried to file complaints would come to light -- why are they under seal? And why won't they be released to the public?"

Changing narratives - Christine Blasey Ford

Ford told The Washington Post that there were a total of "four boys at the party" where the alleged episode occurred, and that two -- Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge -- had been in the room during her attack. She said that her therapist had made an error by indicating she had told him in 2012 that all four boys had been involved in attacking her. (Ford first mentioned the alleged assault decades later, in 2012 therapy sessions.)
Those boys purportedly included Kavanaugh, Judge, and another classmate, Patrick Smyth -- all of whom have since denied to the Senate Judiciary Committee, under penalty of felony, any knowledge of the particular party in question, as well as any misconduct by Kavanaugh.
Keyser, who has never been describable as "boy," has since been identified by Ford as the fourth witness at the party.
However, in Ford's letter to Feinstein in July 2008, she gave a different tally, writing instead that the party "included me and 4 others." Under oath, Ford for the first time mentioned that a fourth boy was at the party, but that she could not remember his name.
Ford refused to turn over notes from her 2012 therapy sessions in which she claimed to have discussed her alleged sexual assault decades ago. Ford claimed she could not say definitively whether she had shared those notes with The Washington Post just two months earlier, as opposed to describing them abstractly.  The Post wrote that it had reviewed a "portion" of Ford's notes.

Motivations - Tara Reade

In 2017, Reade retweeted posts praising Biden's efforts to combat sexual assault.
In 2018, Reade wrote a Medium post unreservedly praising Russian President Vladimir Putin. The post, titled, “Why A Liberal Democrat Supports Vladimir Putin," contains such lines as "President Putin has an alluring combination of strength with gentleness. His sensuous image projects his love for life, the embodiment of grace while facing adversity. It is evident that he loves his country, his people and his job.”
The piece also asserts that “President Putin’s obvious reverence for women, children and animals, and his ability with sports is intoxicating to American women."
Later that year, Reade wrote: "President Putin scares the power elite in America because he is a compassionate, caring, visionary leader.” Notably, Reade writes that she left Washington, D.C. because she was disenchanted with U.S. imperialism and “love[d] Russia with all her heart," although in 2009, she had written that she left D.C. because her husband received a job offer elsewhere.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has a fan in Tara Reade, although her praise for Putin came decades after she reportedly told friends about an alleged sexual assault. (Alexei Druzhinin, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)

In 2019, Reade continued the praise for Putin: "When the anti-Russia, anti-Putin propaganda starts up, personally, I shut down. I love Russia, I love my Russian relatives and friends. And like most women across the world, I like President Putin… a lot, his shirt on or shirt off."
Reade also defended Putin when a Twitter user mentioned that he apparently kills journalists, asking: "Have you examined objective evidence?"
While the written pieces and tweets came decades after witnesses said Reade first reported Biden's alleged sexual assault, they nevertheless raised eyebrows from critics in the wake of Russian election interference efforts.
Additionally, Reade first made her accusation on a pro-Bernie Sanders podcast. Reade, however, has reposted several articles on Twitter that are favorable to both Biden and Sanders.

Motivations - Christine Blasey Ford

Although Ford left little social media footprint by the time she went public with her allegations, several indicators surfaced that she would not have otherwise supported Kavanaugh's confirmation -- already a hot-button issue, given that it threatened to swing the balance of the court to the conservative side amid tense debates over abortion and other issues.
Ford is a registered Democrat, and her lawyers during the Kavanaugh hearings -- Debra Katz and Lisa Banks -- are longtime Democrat operatives. They were recommended by Feinstein and are longtime contributors to Democrats, ranging from Barack Obama to Hillary Clinton.
Katz was even videotaped attending a left-wing rally and yelling, “We are going to resist. We will not be silenced.”
In 2019, Katz admitted that Ford was motivated to come forward in part by a desire to tag Kavanaugh's reputation with an "asterisk" before he could start ruling on abortion-related cases.
In comments at the University of Baltimore’s 11th Feminist Legal Theory Conference, entitled "Applied Feminism and #MeToo," Katz stated: “In the aftermath of these hearings, I believe that Christine’s testimony brought about more good than the harm misogynist Republicans caused by allowing Kavanaugh on the court. ... He will always have an asterisk next to his name. When he takes a scalpel to Roe v. Wade, we will know who he is, we know his character, and we know what motivates him, and that is important."
"It is important that we know, and that is part of what motivated Christine," Katz said.
Fox News' Joseph Wulfsohn contributed to this report.

Nearly 70 veterans killed in 'horrific' outbreak at Massachusetts elder care facility

The coronavirus has killed nearly 70 veterans at an elder care facility in Massachusettes, in what's being described as the deadliest known outbreak at a long-term care facility in the U.S.
An additional 82 veterans and 81 employees have also tested positive for the virus at Holyoke Soldiers' Home, and federal officials are trying to determine whether residents were denied proper medical care as deaths continue to climb.
“It’s horrific,” said Edward Lapointe, whose father-in-law lives at the home and had a mild case of the virus. “These guys never had a chance.”
The outbreak has now claimed the lives of nearly one-third of all residents at the veterans' home, with a new fatality being reported almost every day.

Cleaners unwrap their protective gear as they leave the Soldiers' Home in Holyoke, Mass on March 29. Nearly 70 residents have died from the coronavirus at the central Massachusetts home for aging veterans, as state and federal officials try to figure out what went wrong in the deadliest outbreak at a long-term care facility in the U.S. (Jessica Rinaldi/The Boston Globe via AP, File)

With limited staffing, workers were forced to routinely travel to other units in order to provide help, which caused the virus to spread at an extremely high rate, according to Joan Miller, a nurse at the home. Some workers were without personal protective equipment (PPE), the Boston Globe reported.
She added that an entire unit was forced to shut down because it didn't have enough employees to run it, forcing veterans into close proximity with those uninfected.
"Veterans were on top of each other. We didn’t know who was positive and who was negative and then they grouped people together and that really exacerbated it even more,” said Miller. “That’s when it really blew up."
Many of the veterans were at an age that made them susceptible to severe illness from the virus. Before the outbreak, about one-third of residents were 90 or older and needed round-the-clock care, the paper reported.
Only 106 residents remained as of Monday, according to Brooke Karanovich, a spokeswoman for Health and Human Services -- leading some to believe the worst is over.

Flags and wreaths honor veterans April 28 on the grounds of the Soldiers' Home in Holyoke, Mass., where a number of people died due to the coronavirus. While the death toll at the state-run Holyoke Soldiers' Home continues to climb, federal officials are investigating whether residents were denied proper medical care while the state's top prosecutor is deciding whether to bring legal action. (AP Photo/Rodrique Ngowi)

In late March, there were roughly 230 residents living at the home. Forty-three residents have since been hospitalized.
“We’ve mostly contained the crisis, but we have such a small number so that’s almost expected,” Miller added, according to the paper.
The crisis has prompted investigations by Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, Attorney General Maura Healey, and the federal Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, the Boston Globe reported.
The superintendent of the veterans' home, Bennett Walsh, has been placed on administrative leave following the outbreak. He's accused state officials of falsely claiming they were unaware of potential problems.
Earlier this month, he said they knew the home was in “crisis mode” when it came to staffing shortages and were notified early and often about the contagion at the facility.
Beth Lapointe said her father's roommate tested positive for the virus in March -- and later died -- but her father was initially denied a test because he didn't show any symptoms. As the virus spread, family members were kept in the dark about what was going on inside, she said.
“Every day I would ask different people, ‘What’s going on in there?' And I would never get information,” she said.
There is currently no official count of nursing home deaths across the country. The federal government has only recently required the nation’s more than 15,000 nursing homes to start reporting numbers of confirmed and presumed deaths and infections, but it is not yet clear when that count will be published.
The Associated Press contributed to this report

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