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Trump aide arrested for Capitol riot worked for hate group Family Research Council -- and once held top secret clearance
March 04, 2021
Federal officials have arrested an appointee in Donald Trump's administration in connection with the fatal January 6th insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
"The FBI on Thursday arrested Federico Klein, a former State Department aide, on charges related to the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, marking the first known instance of an appointee of President Donald Trump facing criminal prosecution in connection with the attempt to block Congress from certifying President Joe Biden's victory," Politico reported Thursday. "Klein, 42, was taken into custody in Virginia, said Samantha Shero, a spokesperson for the FBI's Washington Field Office. Details on the charges against him were not immediately available."
<p>Prior to working for the State Department, Klein worked on Trump's 2016 campaign.</p><p>Politico interviewed the suspect's mother, Cecilia Klein.</p><p>"Federico Klein served as a Marine in Iraq, his mother said. He held a top-secret clearance from 2014 to 2019, issued by the Defense Department, according to his LinkedIn page," Politico reported. "Before joining the 2016 Trump campaign, Klein worked as a researcher for the conservative <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/extremist-files/group/family-research-council" target="_blank">Family Research Council</a> and served as a Republican state convention delegate in Virginia, according to his LinkedIn page. He graduated from George Mason University in 2002."</p><p>"Fred's politics burn a little hot," his mother said.</p><p>Read the <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/03/04/trump-appointee-arrested-for-capitol-riot-473825" target="_blank">full report</a>.</p>
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Two anti-LGBTQ+ bills — Mississippi's transgender youth sports ban and South Dakota's Religious Freedom and Restoration Act — are both heading to the states' governors for their signatures.
The two bills are the first in a spate of anti-LGBTQ+ measures to advance out of state legislatures in what advocates say has been an unprecedented campaign against transgender rights in particular.
<p>“Anti-equality forces are attacking our families," Human Rights Campaign President Alphonso David said on a call with reporters Thursday. “They're attacking our children. They're attacking our dignity, and they're attacking our existence."</p><p>According to the Human Rights Campaign, more than 70 anti-trans bills are pending in state legislatures, with new bills still being introduced. The organization estimates that 2021 will eclipse 2020 as the year with the most anti-LGBTQ+ legislation ever filed. </p><p><a href="http://billstatus.ls.state.ms.us/documents/2021/html/SB/2500-2599/SB2536CS.htm">Mississippi Senate Bill 2536</a> bars “males" from competing on interscholastic or intramural athletic teams. The bill states that a student's sex is to be determined by their reproductive anatomy, testosterone levels and “analysis of the student's genetic makeup," which a student can establish with a doctor's note. Its aim is to keep transgender girls, many of whom have yet to reach puberty, from playing on sports teams. </p><p>Last month, Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves criticized President Joe Biden's <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/01/20/executive-order-preventing-and-combating-discrimination-on-basis-of-gender-identity-or-sexual-orientation/">LGBTQ+ executive order</a>, which enforced the Supreme Court's 2020 ruling that prohibited employment discrimination against queer workers and extended sex protections in law to include LGBTQ+ kids in sports, as a “<a href="https://www.metroweekly.com/2021/02/mississippi-governor-rants-that-bidens-pro-lgbtq-executive-order-is-a-radical-social-experiment/">radical social experiment</a>." Reeves, a Republican, did not immediately respond to a request to comment from The 19th. </p><p>Mississippi resident Katy Binstead said she worries about her daughter, after her principal told her she couldn't play basketball with other middle schoolers.</p><p>“My daughter isn't comfortable playing with the boys because she's not a boy, and she never has been a boy," Binstead said. “And they're saying she can't play girls' basketball, based on a gender assigned at birth." </p><p>But for Binstead, the issues go beyond what team her daughter plays on. “There's so many mental health issues at play here," she said. “A lot of kids that are transgender, if they're not affirmed, the mental health risk of them dying by suicide is quite high." </p><p>At least two bills — in Alabama and <a href="https://www.them.us/story/anti-trans-bill-would-penalize-trans-girls-playing-sports-using-locker-room">Minnesota</a> — would criminilaze and even incarcerate transgender children for playing on athletic teams inconsistent with their sex assigned at birth. </p><p>However, state legislatures aren't just passing athletic bills. South Dakota has passed a <a href="https://19thnews.org/2021/02/36-anti-lgbtq-religious-freedom-measures-are-in-covid-church-bills/">Religious Freedom and Restoration Act</a> (RFRA), a type of anti-LGBTQ+ religious exemption law not seen since former Indiana Gov. Mike Pence inked one into law in 2015. The bills mirror a 1993 federal law that has been used to justify discrimination against LGBTQ+ people and women, advocates say. At least 36 states have RFRAs <a href="https://19thnews.org/2021/02/36-anti-lgbtq-religious-freedom-measures-are-in-covid-church-bills/">pending in state legislatures</a>. </p><p><a href="https://mylrc.sdlegislature.gov/api/Documents/214181.pdf">South Dakota Senate Bill 124</a> was intended to allow churches to stay open during the pandemic. However, the bill contains four lines that echo RFRA language. South Dakota has been used as the testing ground for anti-LGBTQ+ legislation since federal marriage equality became the law of the land in 2015, in part because its chambers are Republican-controlled. <br/>It's unclear if South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem will sign the bill into law. <a href="https://www.siouxlandproud.com/news/south-dakota-news/noem-welcomes-transgender-people-declines-to-discuss-bills/">The Associated Press reported last month</a> that the Republican said she welcomed transgender people in South Dakota but declined to comment on the transgender legislation moving through her state. </p><p><em>Originally published by </em><a href="https://19thnews.org/2021/03/first-anti-lgbtq-bills-2021-close-becoming-law/"><em>The 19th</em></a></p>
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The New York Times on Thursday evening published a bombshell report that changes the entire timeline in Gov. Andrew Cuomo's scandal over concealing coronavirus fatalities in nursing homes.
"Top aides to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo were alarmed: A report written by state health officials had just landed, and it included a count of how many nursing home residents in New York had died in the pandemic," the newspaper reported.
<p>"The number — more than 9,000 by that point in June — was not public, and the governor's most senior aides wanted to keep it that way. They rewrote the report to take it out, according to interviews and documents reviewed by The New York Times. The extraordinary intervention, which came just as Mr. Cuomo was starting to write a book on his pandemic achievements, was the earliest act yet known in what critics have called a monthslong effort by the governor and his aides to obscure the full scope of nursing home deaths," The Times reported.</p><p>The new report changes the scandal's timeline.</p><p>"After the state attorney general revealed earlier this year that thousands of deaths of nursing home residents had been undercounted, Mr. Cuomo finally released the complete data, saying he had withheld it out of concern that the Trump administration might pursue a politically motivated inquiry into the state's handling of the outbreak in nursing homes. But Mr. Cuomo and his aides actually began concealing the numbers months earlier, as his aides were battling their own top health officials, and well before requests for data arrived from federal authorities, according to documents and interviews with six people with direct knowledge of the discussions, who requested anonymity to describe the closed-door debates," the newspaper reported.</p><p>None of the political aides involved in the rewrite are public health experts.</p><p>"The aides who were involved in changing the report included Melissa DeRosa, the governor's top aide; Linda Lacewell, the head of the state's Department of Financial Services; and Jim Malatras, a former top adviser to Mr. Cuomo brought back to work on the pandemic. None had public health expertise," The Times reported.</p>
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The intervention was the earliest action yet know… https://t.co/OFBG9XwFPh</div> — Cliff Levy (@Cliff Levy)
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