Holder says he played no role in phone probe
WASHINGTON – Attorney General Eric Holder on Tuesday defended the Justice Department’s secret examination of Associated Press phone records though he declared he had played no role in it, saying it was justified as part of an investigation into a grave national security leak.
The government’s wide-ranging information gathering from the news cooperative has created a bipartisan political headache for President Barack Obama, with prominent Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill expressing outrage, along with press freedom groups.
The government obtained the records from April and May 2012 for more than 20 separate telephone lines assigned to AP and its journalists, including main offices. AP’s top executive called the action a massive and unprecedented intrusion into how news organizations do their work.
Federal officials have said investigators are trying to hunt down the sources of information for a May 7, 2012, AP story that disclosed details of a CIA operation in Yemen to stop an airliner bomb plot around the anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden. The probe is being run out of the U.S. Attorney’s office in the District of Columbia.
Abortion doctor gets life in prison
PHILADELPHIA – A Philadelphia abortion doctor convicted of killing three babies born alive at his grimy clinic was spared a possible death sentence Tuesday in a deal with prosecutors.
Dr. Kermit Gosnell gave up his right to appeal and in return will spend life in prison. Gosnell, 72, was found guilty Monday of first-degree murder in a case that became a flashpoint in the nation’s abortion debate.
Former clinic employees testified that Gosnell routinely performed illegal abortions past Pennsylvania’s 24-week limit, that he delivered babies who were still moving, whimpering or breathing, and that he and his assistants dispatched the newborns by “snipping” their spines, as he referred to it.
Lawyer: Tsarnaev’s widow to cooperate
PROVIDENCE, R.I. – A new lawyer for the widow of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev says his client will continue to cooperate with investigators.
New York criminal defense lawyer Joshua Dratel has represented several terrorism suspects. Last week, he joined the legal team for Katherine Russell, who lived with Tsarnaev in Cambridge, Mass., but has been staying with her family in North Kingstown, R.I.
Dratel tells The Associated Press that Russell is in a fluid situation that’s not yet at an end.
Russell hasn’t been charged with any wrongdoing. Her lawyers have said she had no reason to suspect her husband. But they haven’t spoken publicly about what she saw in the days surrounding the deadly April 15 bombing.
Soldier in sexual-assault office accused of abuse
WASHINGTON – A soldier assigned to coordinate a sexual-assault prevention program in Texas is under investigation for “abusive sexual contact” and other alleged misconduct and has been suspended from his duties, the Army announced Tuesday.
Just last week, an Air Force officer who headed a sexual-assault prevention office was himself arrested on charges of groping a woman in a parking lot.
Associated Press
