Paul Rosenzweig, the deputy assistant secretary for policy at DHS during the George W. Bush administration, confessed in an interview with CNN International host Christiane Amanpour that he thought Bill Barr would "rescue" the Justice Department. Instead, it's clear that hasn't worked out.
“I confess to being disappointed," said Rosenzweig. "Barr sees himself more as a handmaiden of President Trump’s political interests than he does as attorney for the United States of America.”
He said that in addition to the concerns outlined by Amanpour there was also the time Barr mischaracterized the DOJ's inspector general report as well as special counsel Robert Mueller's report.
"All of which seem to me to be inconsistent to the fair and impartial administration of justice," he said, going on to call it a tragedy.
"I think that the evidence is, unfortunately, is increasingly clear that Attorney General Barr sees himself as more as a handmaiden of President Trump's political interests.
On Tuesday, The New York Timesreported that House Democrats are opening an investigation into a White House lawyer and former gun lobbyist, for his potential role in the Trump administration's decision to lift a ban on selling silencers to overseas buyers.
"Democrats are focusing in part on the involvement of Michael B. Williams, a White House lawyer who had worked for two years for a trade group representing silencer manufacturers that had lobbied to overturn the ban," reported Ken Vogel. "The administration lifted the ban this month, paving the way for as much as $250 million a year in possible new foreign sales for companies that Mr. Williams had championed as general counsel of the American Suppressor Association."
"Representative Stephen F. Lynch, Democrat of Massachusetts and chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee’s subcommittee on national security issues, sent a letter Tuesday to the White House budget office requesting documents related to the move, and Mr. Williams’s role in pushing it," continued the report.
Silencers, also known as suppressors, are devices that reduce the volume and flash of a gunshot, as well as dull recoil and improve accuracy. They are heavily regulated in the United States, and pro-gun advocates argue that they should be more readily available to protect the hearing of hunters and sportsmen. The State Department banned U.S. companies from selling silencers abroad in 2002, for fear they could facilitate ambushes against U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
On Tuesday, the Newark Advocatereported that Ohio's Republican state House caucus has voted to remove indicted Speaker Larry Householder, following reports that he has refused to resign voluntarily.
"There was no immediate word on the vote, nor when it would be made official by a formal vote of the full House," reported Benjamin Lanka. "Householder, barred from interacting with potential witnesses in the criminal case against him, did not show up despite some lawmakers’ assurances he would."
The full House still needs to take a formal vote to remove him, which has yet to be scheduled.
Householder was arrested by the FBI last week and charged in an alleged $60 million bribery scheme. He is alleged to have taken the bribe from lobbyists through a dark money group in exchange for passage of bills, including a controversial energy law that wiped out state support for renewable energy and energy efficiency upgrades.
The Veterans Administration inspector general has delivered a report detailing the facts that led to a veteran shooting and killing himself six days after seeking help in a D.C. VA facility.
The report, which was released Tuesday, outlined the poor communication and judgment of several mental health and emergency room staff. Worse, however, it showed a callous lack of concern by one of the ER's attending doctors, the Washington Post reported.
“[The patient] can go shoot [themself]. I do not care,” the physician shouted, dismissing the vet's symptoms. He then told police to eject the veteran, deciding that he was "malingering" and "ranting."
The doctor doesn't have a history of any verbal attacks, but the information made it into the report that the hospital had been under fire for years of poor patient care.
According to a report from BuzzFeed News, journalists and legal observers on the ground observing the unrest in Portland say they were shot at and had pepper spray deployed against them — all actions that are in violation of a federal judge’s order.
"US District Judge Michael Simon entered a temporary restraining order on July 23 that blocks federal officers from arresting or using physical force against clearly marked journalists and legal observers in Portland," BuzzFeed reports. "In first-person declarations filed in court on Tuesday, legal observers and reporters described being shot at and maced, and in some instances provided video footage of the incidents."
Lawyers representing the journalists and legal observers want the US Department of Homeland Security and US Marshals Service in contempt of court.
Federal authorities are using a new tactic in their battle against protesters in Portland, Oregon: arrest them on offenses as minor as “failing to obey” an order to get off a sidewalk on federal property — and then tell them they can’t protest anymore as a condition for release from jail.
Legal experts describe the move as a blatant violation of the constitutional right to free assembly, but at least 12 protesters arrested in recent weeks have been specifically barred from attending protests or demonstrations as they await trials on federal misdemeanor charges.
“Defendant may not attend any other protests, rallies, assemblies or public gathering in the state of Oregon,” states one “Order Setting Conditions of Release” for an accused protester, alongside other conditions such as appearing for court dates. The orders are signed by federal magistrate judges.
For other defendants, the restricted area is limited to Portland, where clashes between protesters and federal troops have grown increasingly violent in recent weeks. In at least two cases, there are no geographic restrictions; one release document instructs, “Do not participate in any protests, demonstrations, rallies, assemblies while this case is pending.”
Protesters who have agreed to stay away from further demonstrations say they felt forced to accept those terms to get out of jail.
“Those terms were given to me after being in a holding cell after 14 hours,” Bailey Dreibelbis, who was charged July 24 with “failing to obey a lawful order,” told ProPublica. “It was pretty cut-and-dried, just, ‘These are your conditions for [getting out] of here.’
“If I didn’t take it, I would still be in holding. It wasn’t really an option, in my eyes.”
It could not be learned who drafted the orders barring the protesters from joining further demonstrations. The documents reviewed by ProPublica were signed by a federal magistrate in Portland. Magistrates have broad authority to set the terms of release for anyone accused of a crime. They typically receive recommendations from U.S. Pretrial Services, an arm of the U.S. Courts, which can gather input from prosecutors and others involved in the case. ProPublica identified several instances in which the protest ban was added to the conditions of release document when it was drafted, before it was given to the judge. It remained unclear whether the limits on protesting were initiated by Justice Department officials or the magistrates hearing the cases.
Constitutional lawyers said conditioning release from jail on a promise to stop joining protests were overly broad and almost certainly a violation of the First Amendment right to free assembly.
“The government has a very heavy burden when it comes to restrictions on protest rights and on assembly,” noted Jameel Jaffer of Columbia University’s Knight First Amendment Institute. “It’s much easier for the government to meet that burden where it has individualized information about a threat. So for example, they know that a particular person is planning to carry out some unlawful activity at a particular protest.”
Over the past week, the federal government has sharply increased the number of protesters it’s charging with federal crimes — often for petty offenses that are classified as federal misdemeanors only because they occur on federal property. Court documents reviewed by ProPublica show that over a third of the protesters are charged with “failing to obey a lawful order,” which 14 protesters were charged with between July 21 and July 24 alone.
The office of the U.S. attorney for Oregon, Billy J. Williams, did not respond to ProPublica’s questions about who was making charging decisions. In a recent interview with The Oregonian, Williams urged local citizens to demand that “violent extremists” who have attempted to break through the fence outside the federal courthouse leave. “Until that happens, we’re going to do what we need to do to protect federal property.”
Craig Gabriel, an assistant U.S. attorney who works for Williams, insisted the office understood and respected the right to protest racial injustice. “People are angry. Very large crowds are gathering, expressing deep and legitimate anger with police and the justice system,” Gabriel told The Oregonian. “We wholeheartedly support the community’s constitutionally protected rights to assemble together in large, even rowdy protests and engage in peaceful and civil disobedience.”
Gabriel did not mention the written restrictions against protest that have been made a condition of release for some of those arrested.
Several protesters who were let go on July 23 had bans against demonstrating added by hand on their release documents by Magistrate Judge John V. Acosta, who signed off on them, a review by ProPublica found. Acosta’s office did not respond to ProPublica’s questions.
For those released on July 24, the restriction was added to the original typed document, also signed by Acosta. One protester arrested and released earlier in the month had his conditions of release modified at his arraignment on July 24. The modified order, signed by Acosta, added a protest ban not previously included.
Magistrate Judge John V. Acosta modified a court order to prohibit a Portland protester from attending “protests, assemblies, demonstrations, or public gatherings in the state of Oregon.” The defendant’s name was redacted by ProPublica. (Obtained by ProPublica)
Three of the 15 protesters charged on July 27, in orders signed by Magistrate Judge Jolie A. Russo, also had explicit protest restrictions added to their release terms. (One release order has not yet been posted to the federal courts database.) Russo’s office did not reply to ProPublica’s questions.
“I don’t see that as constitutionally defensible,” Jaffer said. And I find it difficult to believe that any judge would uphold it.”
The ACLU’s Somil Trivedi said, “Release conditions should be related to public safety or flight” — in other words, the risk that the defendant will abscond. “This is neither.” He described the handwritten addition of a protest ban to a release document as “sort of hilariously unconstitutional.”
Publicly, the Trump administration has claimed that it has no problem with the protests that erupted in Portland and other American cities in response to the May 25 death of George Floyd, a Black man, in police custody in Minneapolis. The administration said it launched Operation Diligent Valor in July with a massive deployment of federal officers merely to protect federal property from “violent extremists.”
Geoffrey Stone of the University of Chicago Law School said that imposing a protest ban as a release condition undermines the distinction between protected protest and criminal activity. “Even if they’re right that these people did, in fact, step beyond the bounds of the First Amendment and do something illegal, that doesn’t mean you can then restrict their First Amendment right.”
A court order prohibits a Portland protester from attending “any other protests, rallies, assemblies or public gatherings in the state of Oregon.” The defendant’s name was redacted by ProPublica. (Obtained by ProPublica)
In many cases, the charges leveled at Portland protesters are closely tied to their presence at the protest — and not to any violent acts.
Eighteen of the 50 protesters charged in Portland are accused only of minor offenses under Title 40, Section 1315, of the U.S. Code. That law criminalizes certain behavior (like “failure to obey a lawful order,” as well as “disorderly conduct”) when it happens on federal property or against people who are located on that property. In other words, it describes behavior that wouldn’t otherwise be a matter for a federal court.
Dreibelbis, like other protesters to whom ProPublica has spoken, said he was arrested for being on the sidewalk outside the federal courthouse. Because the federal government owns the land under the sidewalk, another protester (who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid influencing his upcoming trial) told ProPublica it’s “common knowledge” among protesters that the sidewalk is a no-go zone, and setting foot on it risks federal prosecution.
Dreibelbis told ProPublica he roller-skated into the protest, expecting to attend only briefly. He said he knelt on the sidewalk and was arrested by officers. (The charging document filed against Dreibelbis offers no arrest details.)
Section 1315 is the same law the Trump administration is using to justify initiating the federal show of force in Portland, which the administration has said it intends to employ in other cities where protests have raged since Floyd’s death.
The law allows the secretary of homeland security to supplement the Federal Protective Service, the relatively small agency partly responsible for federal building security, with law enforcement agents from the department’s other agencies (such as Customs and Border Protection).
Both President Donald Trump and his predecessor, Barack Obama, have invoked that part of the law in the past. But the use of that same law to file criminal charges appears to be novel. The Obama administration sent a “surge force” of 400 FPS agents, and a dozen CBP agents, to Baltimore in 2015, when the police killing of Freddie Gray sparked broad unrest, but no charges were filed under Section 1315 itself in that response.
In Portland, the federal government has relied on the FPS and U.S. Marshals to write affidavits used to charge protesters in federal court. But it has detailed other agencies on the protest front lines: DHS agencies cited in court complaints include CBP, through its BORTAC tactical unit; Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s investigations unit; DHS’ Office of Intelligence and Analysis, in addition to FPS. Complaints also cite the U.S. Marshals and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which are Justice Department entities.
In the first weeks of the operation, the most common charge against protesters was assault of a federal officer — which, in some cases, counted as a crime on federal property because protesters on the streets were shining lasers at officers inside the courthouse. (DHS has claimed that some officers may permanently lose their vision, but as of July 24, the most serious injury detailed in federal charging documents was an agent who reported seeing spots in his eyes for 15 minutes after the laser attack.)
Over July 23 and 24, however, 10 of the 13 cases opened were charges only of “failing to obey a lawful order.” (One other defendant was charged with assaulting a U.S. Marshal while detained inside the courthouse — where she had been taken after an arrest for “failing to obey a lawful order.”)
Since then, almost all cases have accused protesters of assaulting a federal officer (generally a misdemeanor charge).
In many of the assault cases, files are thin and no details of the allegations have been posted, even for protesters charged as early as July 6. No case files identify an alleged victim — either by name or by the “unique identifier” on their uniforms. (DHS officials have claimed it’s unfair to describe the federal agents in Portland as “unidentified” because they clearly show identification.)
ProPublica obtained these police records from New York City’s Civilian Complaint Review Board. NYPD unions are suing to halt the city from making the data public.
Some assault accusations charge protesters with throwing unidentified objects at officers in body armor, who were unharmed.
Even those defendants who aren’t explicitly barred from attending protests are unable to return to the epicenter of Portland’s unrest as a condition of their release. They are placed under a curfew (either from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. or 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.) and told not to go within five blocks of the courthouse grounds except for court hearings.
Experts said that while restrictions of that sort are common, they’re still questionably constitutional. “Though ‘stay away’ orders from a place where a potential crime has been committed are generally standard,” the ACLU’s Trivedi said, “‘stay away’ orders from public places that are part of the public square are more questionable.” But he and others conceded that the government could make an argument that it was necessary to prevent further wrongdoing.
They saw no legitimate rationale for a blanket ban on protests.
“I suppose the government could argue, ‘You disobeyed a law enforcement officer at a protest, and we don’t trust you to not do it again,’” Trivedi said. But the release documents already instruct defendants that they are not allowed to break any laws while awaiting trial.
“If they want to say ‘don’t break a law again,’ they’ve already said that,” Trivedi told ProPublica. “Beyond that, the only part that’s left would be not letting you exercise your First Amendment right.”
Driebelbis, for his part, must now watch the protests proceed without him. “I work across the water from the protests, and I can see it every” night, he told ProPublica. “I’m protesting from this side.”
He hastened to clarify that he didn’t mean he was attending a protest in violation of the court order. “Not protesting! There’s no protesting going on in the party of one. But I am there in spirit.”
While taking questions in front of the House Judiciary Committee, Attorney General Bill Barr was asked by Rep. Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (D-FL) about federal agents firing teargas at protesters and "using brutal tactics to crush demonstrations."
As she spoke, Powell played a video clip of some of the unrest in Portland, saying that it's hard to distinguish the images from an event happening in the U.S. to an event happening in dictatorships around the world.
"How do you restore the trust in our democracy," she asked Barr.
According to Barr, the use of force in the video was being used against "rioters," and not peaceful protesters.
"Most of the protests have been peaceful, Mr. Barr, you know that," Powell said. "You're just using language for political purposes."
Barr tried to answer, but Powell pressed on, turning to the subject of healthcare in the midst of a global pandemic, accusing him of working to "strip" people's healthcare at "the worst possible moment when the coronavirus is killing thousands of people in my state."
When Powell tried to get Barr to answer if he agreed with President Trump's past comments saying Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was doing an "incredible job" combating the virus in the state, Barr switched the subject to New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo.
"Did Cuomo do an incredible job in New York?" Barr shot back.
While testifying before the House Judiciary Committee Tuesday, Attorney General Bill Barr was asked whether it is ever acceptable for a president to take foreign assistance for an election. Barr claimed it depended on the information, but was later forced to clean up the statement once someone explained to him that accepting foreign assistance for an election is still illegal.
Speaking to MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace, former FBI General Counsel Andrew Weissmann explained that it is a crime, something that Barr should be well aware of.
"First, there is a federal statute that makes it a crime to accept or solicit any assistance," Weissmann explained. "So, the congressman had it totally right. So the attorney general's initial statement was just wrong. And you could see what was going on there was that he was caught because he knew what the evidence was with respect to the president and the evidence with respect to the impeachment. And he was trying to duck it."
Weissmann said that it doesn't exactly speak well for Barr taking an oath to tell the truth, much less his oath of office.
"He eventually got to what was an obvious answer, which is, 'No. you cannot accept or solicit any foreign assistance,'" said Weissmann. "And it goes to sort of a larger point that people have been getting at, which is the partisan nature of what the attorney general was up to today. Where he talked about the 'Russian hoax,' but at the same time, he was willing to say that there clearly is going to be foreign interference in connection with having mail-in voting. But he also had to admit he had zero evidence to support that. So, you had enormous dichotomies between the truth and partisan effort on his part to support the president."
Two months ago, Tony Green — right-wing author and columnist for the LGBTQ website Dallas Voice — still bought into the claim that COVID-19 was a “hoax” designed to hurt President Donald Trump. But that was before he became seriously ill from it along with members of his family, and now, Green is urging others to take the pandemic seriously so that they won’t have to suffer a similar fate.
In a recent column, Green (who voted for Donald Trump in 2016) recalls that in May and early June, he was still describing the pandemic as a “scamdemic.”
“I believed the virus to be a hoax,” Green explains. “I believed the mainstream media and the Democrats were using it to create panic, crash the economy and destroy Trump’s chances at reelection. And so, believing the pandemic to be a hoax, my partner and I hosted family members on Saturday, June 13. On Sunday, June 14, I woke up sick.”
Green, author of the 2019 book “Maxed Out: The Criminal Justice System Running Amok,” continues:
By Monday, June 15, my partner and my parents were all sick. That same Monday, my in-laws traveled to witness the birth of their first grandchild; they took with them my father-in-law’s mother and one of my partner’s sisters. That night, my father-in-law became ill. Then, my mother-in-law and their daughter began feeling sick. So, they cut their trip short. Two days later, my father-in-law’s mother got sick. The new mommy and daddy got sick too. We all tested positive for COVID-19. Only the newborn was spared.
On June 24, Green notes, he went to the hospital; COVID-19 “had attacked” his “central nervous system, and the staff stopped me from having a stroke.” Then, on July 1, his father-in-law’s mother died from COVID-19 pneumonia — and on July 14, Green adds, “five more of our family members tested positive for the virus. That evening, my father-in-law was put on a ventilator.”
Green describes the coronavirus symptoms that he now has first-hand knowledge of.
“Imagine the sound and vibration of an old-fashioned electric heater going through your whole body,” Green writes. “Imagine gasping for air with every step you take. Imagine rubbing Icy Hot all over your head to soothe a painful headache. Imagine your eyes in a bowl of water while you’re still seeing through them. Imagine collapsing and waking up in the ER only to find out COVID-19 attacked your central nervous system, and the doctor had just saved you from a stroke.”
That June 13 dinner party, Green stresses, shows how easily and how rapidly COVID-19 can spread.
“You cannot imagine the guilt I feel, knowing that I hosted the gathering that led to so much suffering,” Green writes. “You cannot imagine my guilt at having been a denier, carelessly shuffling through this pandemic, making fun of those wearing masks and social distancing. You cannot imagine my guilt at knowing that my actions convinced both our families it was safe when it wasn’t. For those who deny the virus exists or who downplay its severity, let me assure you: the coronavirus is very real and extremely contagious. Before you even know you have it, you’ve passed it along to your friends, family, co-workers and neighbors.”
Park Police Chief Gregory T. Monahan testified before Congress Tuesday claiming that his agents used "tremendous restraint" when they were ordered to clear Lafayette Square for President Donald Trump's photo-op," reported the New York Times.
Monahan is coming under fire after the park police was caught using tear gas on peaceful protesters. While some antagonists threw water bottles over the fence at police, protesters had been good about stopping those individuals and working to ensure the protests were calm. Reporters with cameras were on hand observing the protesters as the Park Police advanced on horseback.
"An Army National Guard officer who also testified on Tuesday as part of the House Natural Resources Committee’s investigation of the clash said the Park Police subjected protesters to 'excessive use of force,'" the report explained.
But Monahan swore his officers were attacked with “severe violence from a large group of bad actors” and that the response “centered around public safety.”
Second-by-second, the videos of the siege on Lafayette Square we examined, none of them confirm an attack of "severe violence from a large group." Finally, after being pressed, Monahan backed down.
Rep. Mike Levin (D-CA) showed the video of the protesters and reporters racing away from the police in riot gear before they attacked an Australian news crew, punching and hitting both the reporter and the cameraman and beating a reporter in the back with a truncheon as she tried to run away.
“The officers you saw in those clips, were they surging against the crowd and assaulting a news crew, yes or no?” asked Levin.
“The video shows a moment in time,” said Monahan, claiming it he didn't want to comment because it's part of an ongoing investigation.
In wake of the siege, officials tried to claim that they announced multiple times that they were clearing the square. But Rep. Jared Huffman (D-CA) played a clip of the so-called announcement.
“You must have superhuman hearing, because I don’t think any of us could hear it,” said Huffman.
Monahan went on to call the protest "one of the most violent protests that I’ve been a part of in my 23 years."
The Times reported that he "described what he called the 'unprecedented and sustained nature of violence and destruction”'in which demonstrators lobbed fireworks, bricks and planks of wood at the police. He told lawmakers that 50 of his officers were injured in the protests in front of the White House, though he acknowledged that one officer was harmed on June 1, and not until after the crackdown began."
“From my observation, those demonstrators — our fellow American citizens — were engaged in the peaceful expression of their First Amendment rights,” said Maj. Adam DeMarco, an Iraq war veteran who serves in the District of Columbia National Guard. He testified “Yet they were subjected to an unprovoked escalation and excessive use of force.”
In response to DeMarco's comments, Attorney General Bill Barr testified that DeMarco had nothing to do with the "planning" for the siege on the square. He was asked whether DeMarco's account was correct.
After unveiling their latest coronavirus aid package which slashes the federal benefit from $600 per week in addition to state unemployment to $200, Mitch McConnell and other top Republicans are finding themselves on the receiving end of backlash from members of their own party, Reuters reports.
While Democrats have rejected the package, saying that it falls short, some Republicans also offered their own criticisms, calling the plan too costly.
“I’m not for borrowing another trillion dollars,” GOP Senator Rand Paul told reporters.
“I’m very concerned about the amount of money we’re talking about,” Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) said according to POLITICO. “What I don’t want to do is bail out the states. That’s wrong.”
Also upsetting Republicans is a provision in the bill that allocates nearly $2 billion in funding for the construction of a new FBI headquarters in downtown Washington, D.C.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) said it “was kind of a strange addition,” while Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA) said he was “a little surprised by" the provision.
When asked about the provision, Graham said that it "makes no sense to me."
President Donald Trump though acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf (photo) will sidestep a Supreme Court ruling and move to drastically limit access to and limit the protections of the Obama-era program known as DACA.
The administration believes DACA, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, is still illegal, NBC News reports. Acting Secretary Wolf on Tuesday announced he will not accept any new applicants to the program that protects undocumented immigrants who were brought into the country as children.
Acting Secretary Wolf will also reduce the renewal period for existing participants from two years to one year, even despite the ongoing pandemic.
In a statement published Tuesday DHS says acting Secretary Wolf "will take action to thoughtfully consider the future of the DACA policy, including whether to fully rescind the program."
Last week Democrats demanded Trump begin accepting new applicants, in accordance with the Supreme Court's June 18 ruling.
"Based on the Court’s decision, because the rescission was unlawful, your Administration must immediately return to implementing the DACA memorandum as it existed prior to the attempted rescission," the letter, penned by House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and Citizenship Chair Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) and Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), reads. "This means processing new applications for DACA, which your Administration has refused to do."
"Compliance with the Supreme Court’s judgment is not a matter of Executive branch discretion," they say. “Failure to comply with the Supreme Court’s judgment is illegal, unconstitutional, and effectively an act of tyranny.”
David Solomon's side gig as a DJ generated unwanted attention Tuesday when New York Governor Andrew Cuomo slammed a concert where the Goldman Sachs CEO performed as "illegal and reckless."
Cuomo took to Twitter to express his displeasure with the "Safe & Sound" fundraiser, held over the weekend in the swanky beach town of Southampton.
Cuomo posted a video of participants -- some having paid as much as $25,000 -- dancing in crowds and seeming to ignore social distancing rules meant to counter the coronavirus.
"Videos from a concert held in Southampton on Saturday show egregious social distancing violations. I am appalled," said Cuomo.
"The Department of Health will conduct an investigation. We have no tolerance for the illegal & reckless endangerment of public health."
Cuomo's tweet did not mention Solomon, who was the opening act for the Chainsmokers, with proceeds set to go to No Kid Hungry, a child hunger charity, and other groups.
Solomon, who performs as DJ D-Sol, had said on Instagram that he was "excited" to be part of the event, which was a billed as a "drive-in fundraiser experience."
Solomon "performed early and left before the show ended," a Goldman Sachs spokesperson said.
"David agreed to participate in an event for charity in which the organizers worked closely with the local government and put strict health protocols in place," the spokesperson said.
"The vast majority of the audience appeared to follow the rules, but he's troubled that some violated them and put themselves and others at risk."
