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Matt Gaetz slams Don Lemon: 'He is like CNN's professional eye-roller'

CNN's Don Lemon lost journalistic credibility when he laughed on camera in reaction to a guest's derisive comments about supporters of President Trump, a Republican congressman said last week.
During an appearance on Fox Business' "Trish Regan: Primetime," U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., unloaded on Lemon, the host of "CNN Tonight."
“He is like CNN’s professional eye-roller who always wants to gasp himself out of breath at everything he sees from the president,” Gaetz, a close ally of Trump, told Regan.

“He is like CNN’s professional eye-roller who always wants to gasp himself out of breath at everything he sees from the president.”
— U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla.

But on Saturday, Gaetz doubled down in a Twitter message, referring to Lemon as "a hack," and "not a journalist."
"The Left and the mainstream media have contempt not just for President Trump, not just for his allies in Congress, but also for the American people who support President @realDonaldTrump," Gaetz wrote in a retweet of a clip from his "Primetime" appearance.
Lemon had been roundly criticized for falling into hysterical laughter Jan.25 when a panelist on his show mocked Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for claiming an NPR reporter couldn’t find Ukraine on a map before calling Trump’s base of supporters the “credulous boomer rube demo.”
While talking about a statement Pompeo put out Jan. 25 that suggested NPR reporter Mary Louise Kelly misidentified Bangladesh for Ukraine on a blank map, former GOP strategist Rick Wilson said Pompeo "also knows deep within his heart that Donald Trump couldn't find Ukraine on a map if you had the letter U and a picture of an actual, physical crane next to it."
Lemon started to laugh while Wilson continued.

'Defined by ignorance'

"He knows that this is, you know, an administration defined by ignorance of the world. And so that's partly him playing to the base and playing to their audience. You know, the credulous boomer rube demo that backs Donald Trump."
Lemon continued laughing uncontrollably as Wilson said in a mocking Southern accent: "Donald Trump's the smart one -- and y'all elitists are dumb!'"
"You elitists with your geography and your maps and your spelling!'" New York Times columnist and CNN contributor Wajahat Ali added.
Lemon addressed the issue on his show Tuesday, saying he didn’t catch everything that Wilson had said and he was not laughing at Trump supporters.
“Ask anyone who knows me, they'll tell you -- I don't believe in belittling people, belittling anyone for who they are, what they believe, or where they're from," he said. "During an interview on Saturday night, one of my guests said something that made me laugh. And while in the moment, I found that joke humorous. And I didn't catch everything that was said."
He added that journalists aren't perfect. "When we get it wrong, we say we got it wrong, we apologize, and we move on."
Wilson also addressed the backlash, tweeting last week that his wife and kids have started to received death threats, but he didn't apologize for what he said.

Gaetz's alternative view

In his "Primetime" appearance, Gaetz made his case for why he believes more Americans support President Trump rather than share the view of Lemon and his panelists.
"Donald Trump isn't just leading a campaign," Gaetz told Regan, "he is presiding over a political movement. That's why we've only gained strength leading into 2020 and why this impeachment sham is only intensifying our support for our transformational president. Because in real America we see things happening that will impact our lives -- a better trade deal in our hemisphere, actually standing up to China. President Trump functionally ending our involvemnet in the Syrian civil war and not starting any new 'forever wars.'
"These elements of an American nationalist economic agenda, paired with a realistic view of the world where we kill the terrorists and actually come home to bring the resources to our country? That is going to fuel a tranformational victory in 2020.
"And you know what? After the Democrats have impeached Trump and he comes back and wins anyway? Oh, wait till we get a load of Donald Trump in his second term. I think we're going to be even more transformative."

Pompeo, in Kazakhstan, warns of China’s growing reach

NUR-SULTAN, Kazakhstan (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Sunday pressed Kazakhstan to be wary of Chinese investment and influence, urging the Central Asian nation and others to join calls demanding an end to China’s repression of minorities.

Bringing a message similar to the one he has delivered repeatedly to other countries, Pompeo told senior Kazakh officials that the attractiveness of Chinese investment comes with a cost to sovereignty and may hurt, instead of help, the country’s long-term development.

“We fully support Kazakhstan’s freedom to choose to do business with whichever country it wants, but I am confident that countries get the best outcomes when they partner with American companies,” he said. “You get fair deals. You get job creation. You get transparency in contracts. You get companies that care about the environment and you get an unsurpassed commitment to quality work.”

Pompeo began his brief visit to the country by meeting with ethnic Kazakhs whose families have gone missing or been detained in China’s widespread crackdown on Muslims and other ethnic and religious minorities in its western Xinjiang region.

“The protection of basic human rights defines the soul of a nation,” he said, thanking Kazakhstan for taking in those fleeing persecution. “The United States urges all countries to join us in pressing for immediate end to this repression. We ask simply for them to provide safe refuge and asylum for those seeking to flee China. To protect dignity, just do what’s right.”

Pompeo also congratulated Kazakhstan on its repatriation of Islamic State fighters from Iraq and Syria. Kazakhstan has taken back nearly 600 fighters and family members detained in areas formerly controlled by the group.

“I have and will continue to commend the Kazakhstani government for its leadership in repatriating foreign terrorists fighters and their families from Iraq and Syria,” he said. “I hope this commitment to justice will inspire other nations to do the same.”

However, Kazakhstan has some under some criticism for pressuring an activist who had campaigned for the release of ethnic Kazakhs in China. Threatened with a long prison sentence, the man signed an admission of guilt for inciting ethnic tensions.

In addition, Pompeo was urging senior officials in the Central Asian nation to continue reforms that would allow greater U.S. investment in the country.

At a news conference with Foreign Minister Mukhtar Tleuberdi, Pompeo praised Kazakhstan for its efforts to counter the spread of a new virus from China. He said the United States is helping the country with expertise from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and providing laboratory equipment.

Kazakhstan’s “quick action to stop the spread of the virus has been incredibly impressive,” he said.

Kazakhstan is among the growing list of countries that have suspended travel links with China.

___

This story corrects the spelling of the foreign minister’s last name to Tleuberdi.

Sanders calls for unity, but his supporters have other ideas

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) — When Bernie Sanders addresses throngs of supporters who gather at his rallies, the divisions that plague the Democratic Party can feel far away. The Vermont senator speaks of building a “mutliracial, mutli-generational movement” that will cut through economic divides, catapult him into the White House and transform the nation.

Some of the highest-profile surrogates campaigning on his behalf are less sanguine.

Speaking at a concert for Sanders on Friday night, Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., led sustained booing from the stage at the mention of Hillary Clinton, his rival in the 2016 primary. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat who has campaigned for Sanders across Iowa, says the Democratic establishment should conform to the progressive movement, not the other way around. “We aren’t pushing the party left, we are bringing the party home,” she says.

Then there’s filmmaker Michael Moore, who fires up Sanders crowds by bashing “corporate Democrats” and suggesting that the party’s own leadership may swoop in and steal the 2020 nomination from Sanders in a way that some of the senator’s supporters believe it did in 2016.

Such episodes demonstrate the tension at the heart of Sanders’ campaign as he shows signs of strength heading into Monday’s caucuses. While the self-described democratic socialist has never backed away from his call for political revolution, the visions of unity he also articulates are sometimes at odds with the rhetoric espoused by his supporters. The dynamic is playing out at a precarious time for the Democratic Party, which will have to unite to unseat President Donald Trump.

“The Sanders supporters are demanding that everybody unite behind Bernie, but if they want Democrats to unite behind Bernie they have to be ready to unite behind the moderate Democrats,” said Democratic strategist Brad Bannon. “And they’ve not yet shown that they will do that. They’ve not shown that, if things don’t go their way, they won’t just stay home in November.”

Sanders is bunched near the top of many polls in Iowa with progressive rival Elizabeth Warren and with former Vice President Joe Biden and Pete Buttigieg, the former Mayor of South Bend, Indiana, who represent the moderate wing of the party, along with Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar. If he were to win the caucuses and also notch a victory in New Hampshire, which holds its primary on Feb. 11, Sanders will face growing pressure to show his campaign will be open to all factions of the party.

Conversely, a series of losses would amplify calls on Sanders to ensure that his supporters rally behind the ultimate nominee. He insisted on Saturday that he would do just that.

“Let me say this so there’s no misunderstanding,” he told a rally in Indianola, Iowa. “If we do not win, we will support the winner and I know that every other candidate will do the same.”

Sanders has earnestly tried to quell intra-party division in other ways, too, describing many of his fellow Democratic presidential rivals as his longtime friends who are “good people.” But, often in the same breath, he gleefully fans the flames, calling his campaign the political and corporate establishment’s “worst nightmare.”

Sanders’ problem is he may only be able to achieve true unity by compromising on what many supporters see as his greatest strength: consistency over his decades in political office — even on positions that bucked this own party.

“For young people in particular, there’s an authenticity and a level of trust that is hard to garner from some of the other candidates,” said Evan Weber, political director for the Sunrise Movement, a youth-led activist group supporting the sweeping “Green New Deal” to combat climate change which has endorsed Sanders’ presidential bid. “His record is being consistent and relentless in demanding what he thought was just and was right for decades.”

But what some see as unwavering commitment to core ideals, others see as hostile.

“I just think he’s too angry,” said Paula Peeper, a 76-year-old retired office worker from Waterloo, Iowa, “especially when he says he’s the one to unite the party.”

Peeper, attending a rally Saturday for Buttigieg, said Sanders risks alienating voters in the closing stretch, especially when they see him leading in some Iowa polls, giving undecided voters reason to think harder about his rivals.

“It’s not helpful for Bernie to be fighting,” she said. “I think Biden, Pete and Klobuchar could be the beneficiaries of it.”

Melissa Dunlevy, 34, was a stalwart Sanders supporter and campaign volunteer in 2016, but now plans to support Buttigieg, thinking he could do a better job attracting Republicans and independents needed to beat Trump.

“I’m passionate about every single thing Bernie says, I’m 100 percent there,” Dunlevy said. “But it’s just another giant extreme, it’s another thing that’s so partisan, it’s another thing that divides us.”

___

Associated Press writers Thomas Beaumont and Julie Pace in n Waterloo, Iowa, contributed to this report.

Amy Klobuchar helped jail teen for life, but case was flawed

MINNEAPOLIS — It was a prime-time moment for Amy Klobuchar.
Standing in the glare of television lights at a Democratic presidential debate last fall, she was asked about her years as a top Minnesota prosecutor and allegations she was not committed to racial justice.
“That’s not my record,” she said, staring into the camera.
Yes, she was tough on crime, Klobuchar said, but the African-American community was angry about losing kids to gun violence. And she responded.
She told a story that she has cited throughout her political career, including during her 2006 campaign for the U.S. Senate: An 11-year-old girl was killed by a stray bullet while doing homework at her dining room table in 2002. And Klobuchar’s office put Tyesha Edwards’ killer -- a black teen -- behind bars for life.
But what if Myon Burrell is innocent?
An Associated Press investigation into the 17-year-old case uncovered new evidence and myriad inconsistencies, raising questions about whether he was railroaded by police.

Conflicting accounts

The AP reviewed more than a thousand pages of police records, court transcripts and interrogation tapes, and interviewed dozens of inmates, witnesses, family members, former gang leaders, lawyers and criminal justice experts.

The case of Myon Burrell, convicted in the murder of Tyesha Edwards, an 11-year-old girl pierced in the heart by a stray bullet in 2002 while doing homework at her family's dining room table, has drawn a growing number of legal experts, community leaders and civil rights activists who are worried that he may have been wrongly convicted. He is seen Oct. 23, 2019, in Stillwater, Minn. (Associated Press)

The case relied heavily on a teen rival of Burrell’s who gave conflicting accounts when identifying the shooter, who was largely obscured behind a wall 120 feet away.
With no other eyewitnesses, police turned to multiple jailhouse snitches. Some have since recanted, saying they were coached or coerced. Others were given reduced time, raising questions about their credibility. And the lead homicide detective offered “major dollars” for names, even if it was hearsay.
There was no gun, fingerprints, or DNA. Alibis were never seriously pursued. Key evidence has gone missing or was never obtained, including a convenience store surveillance tape that Burrell and others say would have cleared him.
Burrell, now 33, has maintained his innocence, rejecting all plea deals.
His co-defendants, meanwhile, have admitted their part in Tyesha’s death. Burrell, they say, was not even there.
For years, one of them -- Ike Tyson -- has insisted he was actually the triggerman. Police and prosecutors refused to believe him, pointing to the contradictory accounts in the early days of the investigation. Now, he swears he was just trying to get the police off his back.
“I already shot an innocent girl,” said Tyson, who is serving a 45-year sentence. “Now an innocent guy -- at the time he was a kid -- is locked up for something he didn’t do. So, it’s like I’m carrying two burdens.”

“I already shot an innocent girl. Now an innocent guy -- at the time he was a kid -- is locked up for something he didn’t do. So, it’s like I’m carrying two burdens.”
— Ike Tyson

Difficult timing

Asked for comment on the case, a Klobuchar campaign spokesperson said Burrell was tried and convicted of Tyesha’s murder twice, and the second trial occurred when Klobuchar was no longer the Hennepin County Attorney. If there was new evidence, she said, it should be immediately reviewed by the court.
Questions about the case come at a difficult time, as Klobuchar and other presidential hopefuls, including Joe Biden and Michael Bloomberg, face scrutiny for their records on racial justice in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Black and brown communities were being decimated by the war on drugs, and the since-discredited “super-predator” theory prevailed, predicting that droves of poor, fatherless young men devoid of moral conscience would wreak havoc in their neighborhoods.
Democrats joined Republicans in supporting harsher policing and tougher sentencing, leading to the highest incarceration rates in the nation’s history.
Some politicians have tried to distance themselves from the period’s perceived excesses. In January, for instance, Klobuchar returned a $1,000 campaign donation from Linda Fairstein, who prosecuted New York’s infamous Central Park Five, four black teens and one Hispanic who were later exonerated in the rape of a white jogger in 1989.
While campaigning to be the top prosecutor in Minnesota’s most populous county in 1998, Klobuchar advocated for harsher penalties for juvenile offenders.

While campaigning to be the top prosecutor in Minnesota’s most populous county in 1998, Amy Klobuchar advocated for harsher penalties for juvenile offenders. The Democratic presidential candidate is seen Jan. 25, 2020, in Bettendorf, Iowa. (Associated Press)

In Minnesota, allegations of gang affiliation or motive played on the fears of mostly white jurors and led to harsher sentences.
“If you were young and black, and your case was tied to gangs or drugs, it was an especially scary time,” said Mary Moriarty, a public defender in Minnesota’s Hennepin County for nearly three decades. “I do firmly believe that there were people convicted of crimes that they did not do.’
She said that the murder Burrell went down for was problematic from the start.
“In the case of Myon Burrell -- where you had a really high-profile shooting of an innocent girl and you put a lot of pressure on the system to get someone to be responsible for that -- I think a lot of corners were probably cut.”

“In the case of Myon Burrell ...  I think a lot of corners were probably cut.”
— Mary Moriarty, Hennepin County public defender

In Minneapolis, soaring homicides had briefly earned the city the grim nickname “Murderapolis.” By the time Klobuchar took office in 1999, crime rates had started to drop. But tensions remained high. Tyesha’s death set off an uproar.
Police pulled out all stops, deploying more than 40 officers and gang task force members.
Despite the lack of physical evidence, they all but wrapped up their case against Burrell in four days.
Ike Tyson, 21, and Hans Williams, 23, were easy. Several people saw them roll by in their car minutes before the attack, and a 911 tip from one of their girlfriends helped seal the deal.
Burrell, then 16, was arrested only after a tip from an often-used jailhouse informant. During his lengthy legal process, Burrell hired and fired six attorneys as they failed to cross-examine witnesses, pursue alibis or challenge glaring irregularities in the investigation.
In the end, his sentence stuck: Natural life in prison.
The Minneapolis police declined to comment for this story. Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman’s office said it’s confident the correct person was convicted but it’s always open to reviewing new evidence.
Assistant County Attorney Jean Burdorf, the only prosecutor left who was directly involved in the case, insists that Burrell received justice. “I’ll tell you what I’ve told a lot of people over the years. I have a lot of confidence in Minnesota's justice system,” she said.
“Certainly, he's been through the court process, and his conviction has remained intact.”

Changing stories

For years, many caught up in Burrell’s case have insisted police got the wrong person. Some say they initially lied to protect themselves or their friends. Others say they told police what they wanted to hear to get deals on their own sentences or to punish a rival.
Even though some have changed their stories more than once, they insist they are now telling the truth because they have nothing to gain.
Burrell’s co-defendants were members of the Tyson Mob and the Vice Lords. They say drugs and guns were a way of life in their rough neighborhood. But the shooting wasn’t gang warfare as police claimed, they insisted -- it was personal.
Tyson said he and Williams were driving in south Minneapolis when they spotted a group of guys hanging out. Among them was 17-year-old Timmy Oliver, a member of the rival Gangster Disciples, who had menacingly waved a gun at them weeks earlier.
The pair slowed down, scowled at Oliver, then continued on. They picked up an unidentified acquaintance, got a gun and headed back. Tyson said it was his idea, and the intention was to scare Oliver, not to kill him.
The three parked a block away, with Williams waiting in the driver’s seat for a quick getaway. Tyson and the third man jumped out, cutting through an alley and ducking between houses. Shielded by a wall, Tyson said he could clearly see Oliver standing in the yard across the street with his back turned.
He said he fired off eight rounds, the last few as he was running backward toward the car. It wasn’t until later that evening that he learned one of his bullets killed Tyesha in the house next door.
“There was only one weapon, one set of shells,” said Tyson. “I’m the one that did this. I did this.”
Soon after the shooting, he was telling friends, his attorney, fellow inmates and even a prison guard that Burrell was not at the scene, court records show. But he said his lawyer told him he’d never see the outside of a prison unless he implicated the youth. Eventually he buckled, but only after being promised his plea would not be used against Burrell.
Tyson doesn’t want to name the other man who was with him, saying he doesn’t want to pull in a person who was only peripherally involved.
The getaway driver, Hans Williams, did identify a third man -- by his full name and in a photo lineup. Police initially said they didn’t want to “muddy up the case” with an unverified name, later that they didn’t believe him. They made no real effort to follow up. After getting a denial from the suspect in 2005, the chief homicide detective “permanently checked” out their recorded conversation and gave it to the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office. It has since gone missing.
The gun was never recovered and officers said prints on the magazine and the car were not sufficient for identification. Ballistic tests on Tyson’s jacket were not carried out to verify claims that he was the triggerman.
The killing of Tyesha Edwards topped television news that night.
That’s how a prison inmate first heard about it. Desperate to get money or time cut off his own sentence, he quickly reached out to Oliver, a friend and fellow gang member. Minutes later, the often-used informant gave the cops Burrell’s name, helping steer their investigation, the AP found.
Oliver, who had his own troubles with the law, didn’t go to police that day, as he promised. He said one of the bullets had pierced his pants, so he threw them away and went to buy a new pair.
But three days later, he was picked up by officers following another, unrelated shooting. Police now had their sole eyewitness in custody, interviewing him for more than eight hours. Though mandated by law, the interrogation was never recorded. Police later said they “made a mistake.”
Well after midnight, Oliver signed a statement saying he saw Burrell standing across the street in an open lot between two houses, shooting until he emptied his weapon. Later, Oliver’s story would change. He said his diminutive, 5-foot-3 rival was firing from behind a 5-foot wall, 120 feet away, but that his hooded face was still clearly recognizable.
Oliver’s best friend, Antoine Williams, said when the gunfire stopped, he ran to his side.
“I asked Timmy at the time, ‘Who, who did the shooting?’” Antoine Williams recalled in a recorded interview with a private investigator hired by one of Burrell’s attorneys. “He said, ‘I couldn’t see where it was coming from.’”
He later asked Oliver -- who died in a shooting in 2003 -- why he lied to police.
Oliver told him, “They threatened him, kinda put it like, ‘It was your fault because you were there. You were the intended target,’” Antoine Williams said.
With a new trial date approaching and their key witness, Oliver, gone to the grave, the police turned to informants in the jails and prisons. Some were offered generous sentence reductions, cash and other deals for those willing to come forward with a story about what happened in the shooting, even if it wasn’t true, inmates said.
There were at least seven jailhouse informants, two of whom had coughed up information in more than a dozen other cases. Another went by 29 different aliases.
Terry Arrington, a member of a rival gang, was among those who talked.
He said he was approached by four officers and the prosecutor at a federal correctional facility where he faced 19 years in prison and was told he could knock that down to three if he was willing to cooperate.
He said he knew nothing about the case: “They basically brought me through what to say. Before I went before the grand jury, they brought me in a room and said … ‘When you get in, hit on this, hit on this.’ I was still young and I had fresh kids that I was trying to get home to, so I did what they asked.”
He got his deal, but now lives with that burden.
“Like, I don’t wish jail on nobody,” he said, now back in prison at Rush City correctional facility on other charges. “Even though we was enemies ... that’s still a man ... So it really bothers me right now.”
He says at least three other men who were locked up with him in the same unit also cut deals with police. One other has recanted.
As far as Arrington knows, “everybody told a lie to get time cut.”

Distrust of police

Like many young black men in his neighborhood, Burrell’s distrust of police came early. He was 12 when a drug addict drew a switchblade, slashing his sister in the hand and drawing blood. His mom called the police, but they assumed the boy was the assailant, threw him up against a sharp fence before hauling him to the station in cuffs. Only then did they realize they had the wrong person.
Soon after, he was caught selling drugs and hanging out with the wrong crowd. Worried he might end up in jail, like his dad and oldest brother, his mother packed up the family and moved to Bemidji, a small city 3 1/2 hours away. But the 13-year-old struggled to fit in and found himself coming back to the Twin Cities often.
In 2002, the family traveled to Minneapolis to spend Thanksgiving with his grandmother.
Less than 24 hours later, Tyesha was dead and police were desperate to find her killer.
They decided early on it was Burrell, though he had not had any serious brushes with the law.
In a video taken by police hours before his arrest, chief homicide detective Richard Zimmerman is seen talking to a man brought to the station following another shooting. The officer says he is ready to pay “major dollars” for information about Tyesha’s murder -- even if it’s just street chatter.
“Hearsay is still worth something to me,” Zimmerman tells the man, offering $500 a name. “Sometimes ... you get hearsay here, hearsay there. Sometimes it’s like a jigsaw puzzle, things come together, you know what I mean?”
The man gave up three names, but Zimmerman paid for just one: Burrell’s.
The afternoon of the shooting, Burrell said, he was playing video games with a group at his friend’s house. Hungry, they decided to walk to Portland Market on 38th Street. When they didn’t see anything they liked, they continued on to Cup Foods, just a few hundred yards from Tyesha’s house.
During his nearly three-hour interrogation, Burrell identified two people he saw at Cup Foods -- Latosha Evans and his friend, Donnell Jones.
Police never followed up. But Evans and Jones told the AP they were with Burrell at Cup Foods, either as shots were fired or immediately after, when sirens were blaring.
Though the store itself was under police surveillance because of allegations of drug dealing and weapons sales, it appears officers never recovered video surveillance tapes.
Evans remembers worrying that Burrell would get caught up in a police sweep and told him he better leave.
“I’d hate to you get blamed for this,’” she remembers telling him. “I hugged him and he went his way.”

Latosha Evans, a friend of Myon Burrell who says she was with the Burrell the evening Tyesha Edwards was shot and killed at home in 2002, stands in her doorway, Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2019, in Minneapolis. (Associated Press)

Burrell was picked up four days later. He was not in a gang database, and had never been tied to a serious crime.
During the interrogation, he never asked for an attorney, but he did ask for his mother 13 times. Each time he was told, “no, not now,” though she was in a room next door.
A police officer told him that he was a huge disappointment to his mother, and that she had told officers she thought he was capable of the shooting.
“Are you kidding?” Burrell responded. “That’s a lie. ... That’s not truthful. ... I don’t believe that.”
Meanwhile, officers told his mother, falsely, that they had several eyewitnesses saying Burrell was the one and only shooter. Sinking into tears, she asked again and again to see him. “Not yet,” they said.
One month later, the day before Burrell’s indictment, his mother was driving back to Bemidji after a prison visit. She swerved off the road, crashing into a tree. The car burst into flames, killing her.
Klobuchar denied Burrell’s request to go to his mother’s funeral. He was, she said, a threat to society.
Burrell has spent most of his life in prison. He says he believes authorities knew that he was innocent all along: “They just didn’t feel like my life was worth living.”
If he had told police he was there, but had been an unwilling participant, as officers seemed to want, his nightmare might have been over by now. But he says he wants justice not just for himself, but for Tyesha. He could never admit to a crime he didn’t commit, he says.
“That’s something I struggle with to this day, you know. I coulda been home,” said Burrell. “At least I can look in the mirror and I can still be proud of who I see looking back.”
Associated Press writer Margie Mason contributed to this report.

CPAC declares Mitt Romney 'NOT invited' after Senate impeachment witness vote

The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) made clear on Friday that Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, who formerly won the event's straw poll in 2012, would not be welcome at the conference in February -- an apparent response to the senator's refusal to follow his party in the ongoing Senate impeachment trial of President Trump.
"The 'extreme conservative' and Junior Senator from the great state of Utah, @SenatorRomney is formally NOT invited to #CPAC2020," tweeted Matt Schlapp, who leads the organization behind CPAC.
Schlapp later told Fox News that each year, CPAC "formally disinvite[s] someone who has been particularly egregious."
"Mitt Romney deserved this [because] his Senate tenure is a waste and his vote was the latest outrage," he added.
Romney has angered some conservatives as one of the few Republicans who is openly critical of President Trump. The backlash seemed to intensify as Romney split from other Senate Republicans in calling for additional witnesses and evidence in Trump's impeachment trial.
Romney's office did not immediately responded to Fox News' request for comment.
It's unclear whether the Utah senator intended to speak at or visit CPAC, which serves as an annual gathering for conservative leaders and activists. Romney previously spoke at CPAC and served as the Republican Party's 2012 presidential nominee. Since Trump's election, he's become a symbol of the intraparty divide over Trump and the direction he's taking the party.
Before the House voted to impeach Trump, Romney derided the president's "brazen" requests for foreign nations to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden. "By all appearances, the President’s brazen and unprecedented appeal to China and to Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden is wrong and appalling," he said.
As senators deliberated impeachment, Romney said that he'd like to hear from former National Security Advisor John Bolton, who reportedly claimed that Trump explicitly conditioned Ukrainian aid on the nation's willingess to investigate the Bidens. On Friday, the Utah senator joined just one other Republican -- Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine -- in favoring a motion to consider new witnesses and evidence. The final vote was 51-49 against the motion.
Romney's position drew mixed reactions from Republican leaders. Former New Hampshire Governor John Sununu, who previously served as a top adviser during Romney's 2012 run, panned Romney earlier this week.
“It’s disappointing because I think Mitt Romney is clearly letting his personal dislike of the president influence him more than trying to deal with [what] this country needs,” Sununu told "America's Newsroom." While appearing on "Cavuto Live" Saturday, former South Carolina Rep. Trey Gowdy seemed less critical. While Gowdy said he was "disappointed" in Romney, he would give Romney an opportunity to explain his decision.
Gowdy also praised Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, for defending Romney amid intense criticism of his colleague. "Mitt Romney is a good friend and an excellent Senator. We have disagreed about a lot in this trial," Lee tweeted on Friday.
"But he has my respect for the thoughtfulness, integrity, and guts he has shown throughout this process. Utah and the Senate are lucky to have him."
Fox News' Marisa Schultz and Talia Kaplan contributed to this report.

Democrat Whistleblower Cartoons

Justice Dept. won’t oppose probation for ex-Trump aide Flynn

 

FILE - In this Feb. 1, 2017 file photo, National Security Adviser Michael Flynn speaks during the daily news briefing at the White House, in Washington. The Justice Department says it will not oppose probation for former Trump administration national security adviser Michael Flynn. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department said Wednesday that it would not oppose probation for former Trump administration national security adviser Michael Flynn — a more lenient stance than prosecutors took earlier this month, when they said he deserved prison time.

The latest sentencing filing still seeks a sentence of up six months, but unlike before, prosecutors explicitly state that probation would be a “reasonable” punishment and that they would not oppose it.

It was not clear why the Justice Department appeared to soften its position, though prosecutors did suggest Flynn deserves credit for his decades-long military service.

“There is no dispute that the defendant has an unusually strong record of public service,” prosecutors wrote.

As part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, Flynn pleaded guilty in December 2017 to lying to the FBI about his conversations with the then-Russian ambassador to the United States during the presidential transition period. He cooperated extensively, leading prosecutors to initially support a sentence of probation.

He was to have been sentenced the following year, but after he was sharply rebuked by the judge during the sentencing hearing, he abruptly asked that it be postponed so that he could continue cooperating with the government in hopes of getting additional credit for his behavior and avoiding any prison time.

Since then, though, he has fired his lawyers and replaced them with new ones who have taken a sharply adversarial approach toward the prosecution. They have raised allegations of government misconduct that a judge has rejected. Earlier this month, they asked to withdraw his guilty plea — a request that is still pending.

Prosecutors are expected to more fully respond to that request soon.

The Justice Department says that though Flynn did provide assistance to their investigation and that a judge may consider that in fashioning a sentence, any claims of acceptance of responsibility are hard to reconcile with his request to withdraw his guilty plea.

They also opted not to call him in the trial last year of a business associate after they said he had changed his account.

He’s due to be sentenced Feb. 27.