A Washington, D.C., woman accused of assaulting a federal agent was found not guilty by a jury on Thursday, the latest embarrassment for Jeanine Pirro, President Donald Trump’s U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia.

Prosecutors had alleged Sidney Lori Reid kicked a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent during an altercation outside the D.C. Jail in July. Reid had been filming Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers while they were detaining a man who’d just been released from the jail.

Pirro’s office tried three times to indict Reid on a felony assault charge, but D.C. grand juries declined to return an indictment each time — a highly unusual occurrence that suggested the flimsiness of the government’s case.

After whiffing on the felony counts, prosecutors ended up trying Reid on a misdemeanor charge of assaulting or impeding a federal agent — but they couldn’t even win that case. The jury deliberated for less than two hours on Thursday before returning the verdict of not guilty, WUSA9 reported.

More...

John Bolton, a former national security adviser turned vocal critic of President Donald Trump, was indicted by a federal grand jury in Maryland on eight counts of transmission of national defense information and 10 counts of unlawful retention of national defense information.

According to the indictment, from April 2018 to September 2019, Bolton shared over 1,000 pages of “information about his day-to-day activities” as national security adviser in “diary-like entries” with two members of his family; reportedly, according to CNN, Bolton’s wife and daughter. Some of the entries allegedly included top-secret information.

Commenting on the charges against his former national security adviser from the Oval Office on Thursday, President Donald Trump remarked, “I didn’t know that. I think he’s a bad person. I think he’s a bad guy, yeah. Bad guy. Too bad, but that’s the way it goes.”

Bolton has denied any wrongdoing. Abbe Lowell, Bolton’s attorney, told HuffPost on Thursday that the “underlying facts in this case were investigated and resolved years ago.”

More...

Zohran Mamdani, the leading candidate to be the next mayor of New York, stepped into the lion’s den on Wednesday when he sat for an interview with Fox News, the rightwing news organization that has spent weeks demonizing him and his democratic socialist goals.

Speaking to host Martha MacCallum, Mamdani was asked about funding for his proposals, which include freezing increases on rent-stabilized apartments, providing free buses and offering free childcare – and whether other services would be cut to achieve those goals.

“I don’t think we have to cut,” Mamdani said. “I’ve spoken about raising taxes on the wealthiest. And, frankly, this is an issue that we have here in New York City, and, frankly, even across this country.”

Mamdani said he had spoken to people who voted for Donald Trump in New York who told him it was the “cost of living” that “drove them to vote” for the president.

Mamdani said that, despite that, “what we’re seeing time and time again is we’re more focused on the question of billionaires and the most profitable corporations than we are on people who can’t even afford to make ends meet in the city”.

More...

US Capitol police are reportedly investigating after a US flag bearing a swastika was discovered inside the office of Republican House member Dave Taylor of Ohio.

The image, obtained by Politico, shows a modified flag featuring red and white stripes arranged in the form of a swastika – which is virtually synonymous with the Nazis’ genocidal regime. The flag was displayed on what appears to be a cubicle wall behind Angelo Elia, one of Taylor’s staff members, during a virtual meeting.

Other items pinned nearby include a pocket constitution and a congressional calendar. It remains unclear whether Elia had any connection to the display.

“I am aware of an image that appears to depict a vile and deeply inappropriate symbol near an employee in my office,” Taylor said in a statement to the Cincinnati Enquirer.

“The content of that image does not reflect the values or standards of this office, my staff, or myself, and I condemn it in the strongest terms. Upon learning of this matter, I immediately directed a thorough investigation alongside Capitol Police, which remains ongoing. No further comment will be provided until it has been completed.”

More...