Month: February 2018

WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, W.Va. — With new controversy surrounding the release of a memo alleging FBI abuse ― a memo that Democrats say Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) materially changed ― Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) has a theory as to why Democratic leaders are calling on him to remove the Intelligence Committee chairman: They want a distraction.

“I think they’re just playing politics and I think they’re looking for a political distraction, is what I get out of that,” Ryan said Thursday, speaking from congressional Republicans’ annual policy retreat at the Greenbrier resort in West Virginia. “Look, the tax cuts are working. Tax reform is working.”

Ryan continued that the economy is going well, America has ISIS on the run, and Democrats want to “sidetrack us for some political gain.”

“I think they would love nothing more than to play politics and change the subject,” he said.

Ryan showed little awareness that he himself was sidestepping a question about a Republican effort to play politics: The Nunes memo is, after all, being used by Republicans to try to undermine and distract from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russia’s alleged connections to the Trump presidential campaign.

The speaker did later address the reports that Nunes changed the memo, saying those changes had occurred before the Intelligence Committee voted to release the document, not after as the ranking Democrat on the House panel, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), had alleged. Ryan also said those changes were an important step before releasing the memo, so that sources and methods of intelligence collection would be protected.

The speaker continues to insist that the Nunes document is not intended to discredit the FBI, the Department of Justice or the Mueller investigation ― even as President Donald Trump and other Republicans acknowledge that’s how the memo will be perceived.

When Ryan was asked if he really believed this memo wouldn’t be used to undermine the Mueller investigation, he said he was suggesting that “people should not draw lines, people should not implicate—”

“People are drawing lines,” NBC reporter Kasie Hunt interjected.

“Well, that’s what I’m suggesting. People should not be drawing lines. People should not be implicating independent issues. This does not implicate the Mueller investigation,” Ryan said, apparently happy to believe people weren’t already using the memo to do just that.

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s investigators say Robert Wagner is “more of a person of interest” in the death of actress Natalie Wood, who died nearly 40 years ago under mysterious circumstances. 

“As we’ve investigated the case over the last six years, I think he’s more of a person of interest now,” Lt. John Corina told “48 Hours” in an interview that’s set to air Saturday. “I mean, we now know that he was the last person to be with Natalie before she disappeared.”

Wood, who starred in “West Side Story” and “Rebel Without a Cause,” was found dead in the water in 1981, near Santa Catalina Island off the coast of California. She had gone on a yachting weekend with Wagner, as well as Christopher Walken, who at the time was starring with the actress in the movie “Brainstorm,” and Dennis Davern, the boat’s captain.

Wood’s death was originally ruled an accident, but the case was reopened in 2011. The coroner changed her cause of death to “drowning and other undetermined factors” the following year. 

Detectives who spoke to “48 Hours” said an autopsy report indicated there were a number of bruises on Wood’s body that appeared to have been fresh at the time of death. 

“She looked like a victim of an assault,” Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Detective Ralph Hernandez said, noting that the marks made “it suspicious enough to make us think that something happened.”

Investigators said Wagner — who was married to Wood twice, first from 1957 to 1962, and again from 1972 until her death — has been uncooperative since they reopened the case. 

“I haven’t seen him tell the details that match all the other witnesses in this case,” Corina said of Wagner. “I think he’s constantly changed his story a little bit. And his version of events just don’t add up.”

Walken, however, has spoken with investigators.

Wagner wrote in his 2008 memoir, Pieces of My Heart, that “nobody knows” how Wood died. 

There was a lot of drinking that night, he wrote. He said he and Walken also got into a fight about Wood’s career path. 

“I picked up a wine bottle, slammed it on the table and broke it into pieces,” he wrote. 

As to how Wood ended up in the water, Wagner said: “There are only two possibilities: either she was trying to get away from the argument, or she was trying to tie the dinghy. But the bottom line is that nobody knows exactly what happened.”

In a harsh rebuke of Rep. Devin Nunes, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi sent a letter to Speaker Paul Ryan on Thursday demanding that Nunes step down from his position as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

Thursday’s letter comes a day after Nunes was accused of making “material changes” to a secret memo before it was sent to the president for public release. The memo reportedly accuses the Justice Department and the FBI of inappropriately surveilling Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. Democrats have called the memo misleading, and in a rare public move, the FBI has warned that the memo withholds key facts.

“As expressed during our initial review, we have grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo’s accuracy,” the FBI said in a statement.

Pelosi, the Democratic House leader, blasted Nunes in her letter, saying the California Republican has “disgraced the House Intelligence Committee.”

“It has now come to our attention that Congressman Nunes deliberately and materially altered the contents of the memo since it was voted on by the House Republicans,” Pelosi said. “This action is not only dangerous, it is illegitimate, and violates House rules.”

Ryan must “put an end to this charade,” Pelosi said.

“Congressman Nunes’ deliberately dishonest actions make him unfit to serve as Chairman, and he must be removed immediately from his position,” she said. 

Authorities in Michigan’s Meridian Township issued a public apology on Thursday to Brianne Randall-Gay, a woman who told police that former USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar had groped her breasts and buttocks and attempted to penetrate her vagina during an appointment for back pain in 2004. A Meridian detective investigated the report but ultimately took Nassar’s word over Randall-Gay’s, accepting that the actions were part of a legitimate medical treatment.

“We let you down, Brianne. And the outcome of that is that we’re all going to be better,” township manager Frank Walsh said at a press conference that Randall-Gay attended via video.

Nassar was sentenced in January on seven counts of criminal sexual conduct in one of the largest sex abuse scandals in U.S. history. Meridian police are now planning several steps to improve their response to such reports.

“We know we can be better. We will be better, and we are sorry that we were manipulated and deceived back in 2004,” Walsh said. 

Randall-Gay, then 17, told officers that Nassar’s treatment was unlike the back massages she had been receiving in physical therapy for scoliosis. 

Detective Andrew McCready interviewed Nassar but did not consult any outside medical experts to confirm his statements. Nassar supplied the police with an informational slideshow on the purported treatment, including photos of a doctor applying pressure between the legs of young women. Walsh said that Nassar also “brought in a stack of medical journals.”

The department’s decision not to press charges had left her feeling “disappointed” and “ignored,” Randall-Gay said Thursday.

“Although this doesn’t erase the pain I felt,” she said, “this process has been therapeutic for me and allowed me to let go of the anger I have had.”

Nassar, who was employed by Michigan State University and USA Gymnastics, is expected to spend the rest of his life in prison. The number of women who have now come forward to say he abused them, usually during medical treatments, stands at 265.

Randall-Gay’s partially redacted report to police was made public for the first time this week. She had seen Nassar twice, she said. At the end of her first appointment, to which she went with her mother, Randall-Gay said Nassar asked for a hug. The doctor referred her to another office for physical therapy, but told her to come back for a check-up.

At her second appointment, Randall-Gay was alone. She said he massaged her back and crotch for about 20 minutes and then moved on to massage her breasts for 10 to 15 minutes. Asked whether she felt pain, Randall-Gay told him no, even though she did.

According to the police report: “He was trying to put his finger in her vagina. She had a tampon in her vagina, and she said that she could tell he could tell that it was there.” Nassar asked for a hug after the second appointment, too, she said.

The day after the alleged assault, Randall-Gay told police that she felt “scared” and “uncomfortable” following the second appointment.

Nearly two weeks later, McCready interviewed Nassar, who said he’d touched his patient as part of a medical technique called “sacrotuberous ligament release.” 

Late last year, Walsh and Meridian Township police chief David Hall called Randall-Gay to apologize for how the department had handled her report. Recalling that phone call on Thursday, Randall-Gay said she broke down in tears.

She later met Walsh and Hall in person and discussed how the department could change for the better. 

McCready, now a sergeant, did not participate in the press conference, but Walsh said he had also apologized to Randall-Gay in a “private conversation” and is “extremely remorseful.” At the time of the assault, McCready was a four-year veteran of the department. 

Hall outlined several new initiatives, including better training for police officers and staff led by outside consultants and a new community outreach program aimed at teaching young people how to recognize and deal with sexual abuse. In November, the department began combing through criminal sexual conduct reports from 2000 to 2018, searching for other mistakes. Hall said they have not found any yet.

Nassar’s sentencing hearing for three additional counts of criminal sexual conduct is currently underway in Charlotte, Michigan.