All posts tagged "Unrest"

Washington (AFP) - Three years ago, Derrick Evans was taking part in the January 6, 2021,  assault on the US Capitol, joining hundreds of other Donald Trump supporters who refused to accept his defeat in the presidential election.  Now he is campaigning to serve in the very legislative body he targeted that day. And he's not alone: across the United States, around a dozen people involved in the siege of the Capitol -- an attack that shook confidence in the stability of American democracy -- have sought or are seeking to hold local or national office this year.   Evans is running in his state's......

Port-au-Prince (AFP) - Fourteen bodies were found in an affluent suburb of Haiti's capital Monday, as international efforts accelerated to fill a political vacuum created by weeks of gang violence that has forced the impending departure of the prime minister. Local residents told AFP they did not know the circumstances of the deaths but said that the Laboule and Thomassin neighborhoods, in the suburb of Petion-Ville, had been under attack by what they said were armed criminals since dawn. Witnesses said gang members attacked a bank, a gas station and homes in the area. Gunfire continued to rin......

Washington (AFP) - Weeks before the latest violence broke out in Haiti, the self-described "king" of a Haitian gang was in a US court pleading guilty to smuggling AK47s and a .50 caliber rifle to the Caribbean nation. "The Justice Department will aggressively pursue every tool at its disposal to hold accountable those who would smuggle US-origin weapons and other controlled goods for the benefit of malicious actors," prosecutors said at the time. But as conflict rages between Haiti's gangs and police, the guilty plea of Joly Germine, 31,  in late January for smuggling some two dozen weapons ha......

Waco (United States) (AFP) - Blood had already been spilled during the armed standoff between US agents and the Branch Davidian cult in Waco, Texas, when lawyer Dick DeGuerin got a phone call. The worried mother of cult leader David Koresh said her son needed legal help. She hired DeGuerin. He was the first outsider to pass through the security cordon and enter the Mount Carmel compound, where the Davidians were holed up. DeGuerin came face to face with a badly wounded Koresh, and was in position to try to broker an end to the stalemate. Three decades later, as the story pours forth from the 8......

Washington (AFP) - Filing criminal charges against Donald Trump would be a long and complex process ultimately requiring US Attorney General Merrick Garland to weigh the enormous legal and political implications of placing a former president on trial. The House committee that investigated the January 6, 2021 storming of the US Capitol by Trump supporters recommended Monday that Trump be prosecuted for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election won by Joe Biden. The bipartisan panel voted unanimously to refer Trump to the Justice Department for insurrection, obstruction of an official proceeding......

Washington (AFP) - Lawmakers investigating the attack on the US Capitol on Thursday detailed Donald Trump's efforts to recruit the Justice Department into his scheme to overturn his defeat to Joe Biden -- attempting to replace its head with a loyalist who was "meddling in the outcome of a presidential election." At the fifth hearing into its year-long probe of the January 2021 insurrection, the House of Representatives panel described Trump's pressure on officials to amplify his false claims that his presidency had been stolen by widespread voter fraud. "Donald Trump didn't just want the Justi......