Report: DOJ believes Trump may still be holding onto government documents – National & International News – FRI 7Oct2022

Report: DOJ believes Trump may still be holding onto government documents. Alabama prisoners strike over inhumane conditions. Iran protests: Family say 2nd girl murdered by police.

NATIONAL NEWS

Report: DOJ believes Trump may still be holding onto government documents

Citing anonymous sources familiar with the investigation, the New York Times is reporting that the Justice Department is skeptical that Trump has returned all the government documents he carried off from the White House. The DOJ has reportedly been in continuous talks with certain members of Trump’s legal team in recent weeks. The reporting implies that these talks are similar in nature to months of talks with Trump’s team aimed at recovering stolen documents. It was only after months of bad faith negotiations that the DOJ authorized a search of Trump’s home at Mar-a-Lago.

Since that August 8th search, questions have been swirling about dozens of empty folders with classification markings found by the FBI. It’s likely that the documents once contained in those folders are still in Trump’s possession. The question is, “Where?”. Some have pointed to a video from 2021 which has recently received attention. The video shows Trump getting on a private plane in Florida headed to New Jersey, where Trumph has his Bedminster golf resort. In the video, Trump aides can be seen carrying several heavy boxes which are identical to the boxes found to contain government documents at Mar-a-Lago. The reason this is significant is that this May 8, 2021, flight took place just two days after the National Archives reached out to the Trump team with concerns that documents belonging to the government may be at Mar-a-Lago.

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Alabama prisoners strike protesting inhumane conditions

Since late last month, prisoners at all 13 Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC) prisons have been on strike from unpaid prison service jobs. Alabama prisoners routinely perform laundry, food service and maintenance work in prisons for no compensation. Since the strike began, ADOC has reduced the daily meals prisoners receive from three to two and canceled weekend visitations. While some prisoners say this is retaliation, ADOC says the cutbacks are due to logistical constraints due to the strike. However, ADOC insists the prisons remain fully operational.

Without prisoners to do much of the work, ADOC likely is experiencing logistical setbacks due to a long-standing staffing shortage that only worsened during the pandemic. This is in part why prisoners are striking. Advocates say these staffing shortages have led to, among other things, inadequate food, increased violence in the prisons, dangerous living conditions, and appalling shortfalls in medical and mental healthcare. In 2017, the Justice Department said these and other deficiencies in ADOC’s prisons violated inmates’ constitutional rights. But since that report, the situation has only gotten worse.

Prisoners are also demanding reforms to the state’s parole system and sentencing laws, both of which have led to dangerous overcrowding. ADOC prisons currently house over 20,000 prisoners in prisons designed to hold a maximum of 12,115.

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INTERNATIONAL NEWS

Family say second girl murdered by police in Iran protests

Iranian authorities claim that Nika Shakarami, 16, fell from a building during recent historic protests against the country’s morality police. Shakarami’s family say that she was beaten to death by police. Furthermore, Shakarami’s family say authorities kept her death a secret for nine days, then snatched her body from a morgue and buried her in a remote area.

Conflicting reports over Shakarami’s death signal that Iran’s elites fear that her death at the hands of police may stir further anger and protests. The protests began nearly four weeks ago when Zhina Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, died in the custody of Iran’s morality police. Amini had been arrested for wearing her headscarf improperly. Meanwhile, the state coroner has ruled that Amini’s death was not a result of blows to her body but an underlying condition. Iran’s protesters are not likely to accept these findings

Another 16-year-old Sarina Esmailzadeh died after being beaten in the head and body with batons at a rally. Authorties are insisting that Esmailzadeh also died from jumping off a building.

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