التصنيف: أخبار

Joe Biden won’t face criminal charges over the handling of classified documents, after he portrayed himself as an “elderly man with a poor memory”, said the special counsel.

Robert Hur said President Biden had “wilfully retained and disclosed classified materials” after he was vice president and when he was a “private citizen”, and his actions “present serious risks to national security”.

But the prosecutor said he chose not to bring criminal charges following a 15-month investigation because Mr Biden cooperated and would likely be difficult to convict.

“We have considered that, at trial, Mr Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” he wrote in a report.

Mr Hur said that Mr Biden’s memory was “significantly limited” when he was interviewed by members of his prosecution team.

The report claims he could not remember when he was vice president or when his son, Beau Biden, died.

Former president Donald Trump, who faces a 40-count indictment for retaining classified documents, has criticised the decision as the mark of a “two-tiered system of justice”.

Insisting he “cooperated completely”, Mr Biden, whose vice presidency started in January 2009 and ended in January 2017, welcomed the conclusion and said he agreed to five hours of in-person interviews over the two days following Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October last year.

Richard Sauber, special counsel to the president, said mistakes when packing documents while leaving office are “unfortunately a common occurrence” and happened with every administration for the past 50 years.

But he added the White House disagreed with “a number of inaccurate and inappropriate comments” in the special counsel’s report.

The report could embarrass Mr Biden, 81, amid criticism he is too old to serve another four-year term – having also tried to draw a contrast with Mr Trump on personal ethics and national security.

‘Classified stuff downstairs’

The investigation found Mr Biden took classified information about the US war in Afghanistan and other national security matters.

Mr Biden told a writer working on his memoir at a home he was renting in Virginia in February 2017 that he had “just found all the classified stuff downstairs”.

The writer deleted audio recordings of his conversations with Mr Biden after learning about the investigation, Mr Hur said, but he kept transcripts.

Mr Hur’s report said the conversation created “the best case” for charges against Mr Biden, but he also wrote the documents may have been taken to his home while he was vice president, when he had the authority.

Members of Mr Biden’s legal team found the classified papers at the office of his Washington think-tank and his personal residence in Wilmington in Delaware.

What’s the difference with Donald Trump’s case?

In a statement, Mr Trump described the report’s decision as “unconstitutional selective prosecution” as he battles his own case around the seizure of classified files.

While the two cases have similarities, there are also some notable differences.

Mr Trump was charged after prosecutors said he refused for months to turn over boxes of presidential records at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida and took steps to conceal the documents after the US government demanded their return.

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An FBI search in August 2022 turned up more than 100 classified documents on the property, prosecutors alleged.

He has pleaded not guilty and accused prosecutors of political motivations ahead of a trial scheduled for May, which is likely to be delayed.

Mr Biden’s lawyers have said they notified the National Archives after finding a “small number” of classified documents in November 2022.

Additional documents were later found in a garage and library at his Delaware home and turned over to the Justice Department.

Medal winners at the upcoming Paris Olympics and Paralympics will return with a piece of the Eiffel Tower.

Organisers unveiled the gold, silver and bronze medals at the iconic monument on Thursday, saying each will “be adorned with a small piece of Paris and a symbol of the country of France”.

The decision came from a desire to make the medals for podium finishers “unique” and link the Games with symbols of France.

“There was a huge amount done to try to bring together these precious metals – gold, silver and bronze – with the most precious metal in the Eiffel Tower, the jewel in the French crown,” said Tony Estanguet, president of the Paris 2024 Organising Committee.

Designed by Paris jewellery house Chaumet, the 18g centrepiece hexagon tokens are made of iron taken from the Eiffel Tower during previous refurbishments then stored for years at a secret location.

They are said to represent France. The French sometimes refer to their country as “L’Hexagone” because of its shape.

The fragments sit in the centre of the gold, silver and bronze medals, ringed with grooves evoking light rays bursting outward – drawn from a tiara design in Chaumet’s archives.

Six small clasps that hold the iron pieces in the medals are a wink at the 2.5 million rivets that bind the Eiffel Tower together.

The five Olympic rings are also stamped on the iron of the medals for the Olympic Games, which will take place from 26 July to 11 August.

The Paralympic logo of three swooshes, known as the Agitos, is stamped on the medals for the Paralympics, which take place from 28 August until 8 September.

The back of the medals features the Greek goddess of victory, Nike, as she has done at every Games since 1928 – with the Acropolis to one side and the Eiffel Tower to the other.

Paralympics medals feature a view of the Eiffel Tower from underneath, and are stamped with Paris 2024 in braille in homage to the Frenchman who invented the system of touch-reading which is universally used by people who are blind and partially sighted.

The 5,084 medals have been produced by France’s mint, the Monnaie de Paris.

The gold medals weigh 529g and are not pure gold, but made of silver and plated with 6g of gold. The silver medals weigh 525g and the bronze ones 455g and are a copper, tin and zinc alloy.

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The medals measure 85mm across and are 9.2mm thick.

They will come in a dark-blue box from Chaumet and a certificate from the Eiffel Tower Operating Co to illustrate the iron pieces came from the monument.

Five US marines have been killed in a helicopter crash in California. 

The aircraft, a CH-53E Super Stallion, went down on Tuesday night during stormy weather in mountains outside San Diego.

The helicopter was discovered on Wednesday morning near the mountain community of Pine Valley, about 45 miles from the city, said the military.

President Joe Biden said in a statement that he and First Lady Jill Biden were “heartbroken” to learn of the marines’ deaths.

“Our service members represent the very best of our nation – and these five marines were no exception,” Mr Biden said.

The marines who were killed were not immediately named but they were assigned to the Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 361, Marine Aircraft Group 16, 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, the military said.

Major General Michael J Borgschulte, commander of 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing, said in a statement: “It is with a heavy heart and profound sadness that I share the loss of five outstanding marines from 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing and the Flying Tigers.”

The helicopter had been returning to the Marine Corps Air Station Miramar in San Diego after training at Creech Air Force Base, northwest of Las Vegas.

A search and rescue effort got under way as a turbulent storm dumped heavy snow and record rain over California.

The operation involved federal, state and local agencies, including the US Forest Service, US Border Patrol, San Diego County Sheriff’s Department and the state Civil Air Patrol.

The Super Stallion helicopter – the US military’s largest – can carry dozens of people and requires four crew members – a pilot, co-pilot, crew chief, and mechanic.

More than 130 are in operation in the US military, with the aircraft performing “a full range of military combat operations in Beirut, Somalia, the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya”, according to a US Navy website.

The Super Stallion helicopter has been involved in several other deadly accidents.

Four US marines were killed in 2018 when their aircraft crashed near the California-Mexico border during a training mission.

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The Marine Corps ruled out pilot error for the accident. The victims’ families later sued two companies they alleged provided a defective part that they blamed for the crash.

In 2005, a Super Stallion went down in a sandstorm in Iraq, killing 31 people on board. The accident, blamed on pilot error, was the single deadliest loss of US troops during the war.

The Supreme Court has expressed scepticism of Colorado’s decision to disqualify Donald Trump from running for presidency. 

A landmark case that could decide whether the former president can run in November’s election heard arguments from both sides of the case as Trump appeals the decision.

The Supreme Court has a 6-3 conservative majority, after Mr Trump appointed three justices while in the White House and all but one of the nine sounded doubtful about backing the lower court’s ruling in Thursday’s opening session.

Colorado’s court ruled in December Mr Trump was not eligible to be on the Republican primary ballot because he engaged in insurrection over the 2021 US Capitol riot.

However, Trump’s lawyers argue that the 6 January attacks were a “riot”, not an insurrection.

Chief justice John Roberts said that if the Colorado decision is upheld, other states will also hold disqualification proceedings, adding “it will come down to just a handful of states that are going to decide the presidential election, a pretty daunting consequence.”

The case will be decided with reference to amendment 14 of the US constitution, which bans anyone who has “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” from competing in an election.

The legal challenge was filed on behalf of six Colorado residents, four of whom are Republicans, by watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and two law firms.

Mr Trump’s lawyer, Jonathan Mitchell, claimed his client is not subject to the disqualification language in the constitution, because a president is not an “officer of the United States,” a title which means an appointed official, as they are elected.

Mr Trump, who was not in court, told reporters attempts to ban him from running are “election interference” and claimed “every one of these cases [against him] comes out of the White House, from [President Joe] Biden.”

One of them, in Georgia, where he is charged with trying to overturn the election, was “a phony hoax,” he said, adding, “I hope democracy in this country can continue.”

He also repeated his well-worn complaints about migrants, who, he said, were “coming out of jails, mental institutions, and many of them are terrorists.”

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Earlier, he told a conservative radio show host that Mr Biden’s allies were trying to use the Colorado case to take him out of the presidential contest.

He said: “They want to have the Supreme Court rule or vote to take me out of the race. That would be a very terrible thing to do. It’s about the vote. It’s about our constitution.”

Attempts have been made to disqualify him in other states, over the 6 January riots, but most have failed.

He has also been barred from running by Maine, a decision put on hold pending the Supreme Court’s ruling in the Colorado case.

Colorado’s Republican primary is on 5 March.