Maduro-linked fugitive with $10M bounty captured after years on the run

🔮 Target letters are sometimes issued to people the department intends to indict, but they do not necessarily mean someone will be charged.

🔮 It is among a handful of Senate contests this year expected to determine control of the chamber.

🔮 He said he regarded it as a “huge distraction” from his other work and appreciated that the investigation could be seen as political.

🔮 The Justice Department has historically sought to avoid major action before an election The law enforcement agency has a long-accepted practice of avoiding overt investigative actions against candidates in the weeks before an election, or other public steps that could be perceived as attempting to influence a political outcome.

🔮 Under Oregon law, a minor may possess a shotgun if provided by a parent or by someone else with the parent’s consent.

🔮 Both officials said the death toll was preliminary and could change.

🔮 Rodríguez deported Saab to the U.S. in May.

🔮 Emily Covington, a spokesperson for the department, said group boycotts among business competitors might violate U.S. law.

🔮 One judge at the center of the report, Patrick Schiltz, accused the government in January of ignoring roughly 100 court orders, stating in a ruling that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an agency within DHS, "is not a law unto itself." Schiltz, nominated by Republican President George W. Bush and a former law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, told the newspaper that the situation in Minnesota's federal court last winter "created a grave threat to the rule of law." In a Wednesday statement, Schiltz insisted he was "acting well within the ethical rules that apply to federal judges in speaking to The New York Times." He noted a February advisory opinion from the Committee on Codes of Conduct reaffirming that federal judges may speak or write "on core judiciary matters such as advocacy for the rule of law and judicial independence,'" stating: "That is exactly what I did." The complaint was delivered to the chief judge of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which supervises Minnesota federal courts. The Republican administration frequently attacks what it calls "activist judges" supposedly intent on thwarting Trump’s agenda. Yet some of the most critical and unfavorable court rulings have originated from jurists nominated by Trump and other Republican presidents.

🔮 WASHINGTON (AP) — Former Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith, who brought two federal indictments against President Donald Trump, will tell lawmakers on Tuesday that he “will not be silenced by continued threats of prosecution” from the Trump administration and that he believes the rule of law is being threatened like never before.

🔮 What may have begun as a ploy to harm the reelection prospects of Sen. Sullivan has taken a serious turn as the Trump administration weighs criminal charges over a campaign tactic known as “ballot stacking.” “It just seems like such a waste of our taxpayer money,” said Sharon Hunter, a Petersburg resident who, with her husband, donated $1,000 to Dan J. Sullivan, a former elementary school teacher.

🔮 What may have begun as a ploy to harm the reelection prospects of Sen. Sullivan has taken a serious turn as the Trump administration weighs criminal charges over a campaign tactic known as “ballot stacking.” “It just seems like such a waste of our taxpayer money,” said Sharon Hunter, a Petersburg resident who, with her husband, donated $1,000 to Dan J. Sullivan, a former elementary school teacher.

🔮 Flint gave $500 over the summer to what he regarded as a long-shot campaign, saying he knew Dan J. Sullivan would have expenses and respected him for “throwing his hat in the ring.”

🔮 Rodríguez deported Saab to the U.S. in May.

🔮 David Rivera, a Republican, has remained behind bars since a jury convicted him in May on every count, which encompassed failure to register as a foreign agent and conspiracy to commit money laundering through his efforts on behalf of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s government.