Lazy Caturday Reads

Cat in frying pan

Happy Caturday!!

After all the excitement the last two weeks, today feels like a somewhat slow news day. It’s a long weekend, so that might have something to do with it. Anyway, I have found several interesting stories to share with you. 

First up, this fascinating long read at ProPublica by Jennifer Berry Hawes: How a Grad Student Uncovered the Largest Known Slave Auction in the U.S.

Sitting at her bedroom desk, nursing a cup of coffee on a quiet Tuesday morning, Lauren Davila scoured digitized old newspapers for slave auction ads. A graduate history student at the College of Charleston, she logged them on a spreadsheet for an internship assignment. It was often tedious work.

She clicked on Feb. 24, 1835, another in a litany of days on which slave trading fueled her home city of Charleston, South Carolina. But on this day, buried in a sea of classified ads for sales of everything from fruit knives and candlesticks to enslaved human beings, Davila made a shocking discovery.

On page 3, fifth column over, 10th advertisement down, she read:

“This day, the 24th instant, and the day following, at the North Side of the Custom-House, at 11 o’clock, will be sold, a very valuable GANG OF NEGROES, accustomed to the culture of rice; consisting of SIX HUNDRED.”

She stared at the number: 600.

A sale of 600 people would mark a grim new record — by far.

Until Davila’s discovery, the largest known slave auction in the U.S. was one that was held over two days in 1859 just outside Savannah, Georgia, roughly 100 miles down the Atlantic coast from Davila’s home. At a racetrack just outside the city, an indebted plantation heir sold hundreds of enslaved people. The horrors of that auction have been chronicled in books and articles, including The New York Times’ 1619 Project and “The Weeping Time: Memory and the Largest Slave Auction in American History.” Davila grabbed her copy of the latter to double-check the number of people auctioned then.

It was 436, far fewer than the 600 in the ad glowing on her computer screen.

She fired off an email to a mentor, Bernard Powers, the city’s premier Black history expert. Now professor emeritus of history at the College of Charleston, he is founding director of its Center for the Study of Slavery in Charleston and board member of the International African American Museum, which will open in Charleston on June 27.

If anyone would know about this sale, she figured, it was Powers.

Yet he too was shocked. He had never heard of it. He knew of no newspaper accounts, no letters written about it between the city’s white denizens.

“The silence of the archives is deafening on this,” he said. “What does that silence tell you? It reinforces how routine this was.”

Davila eventually approached ProPublica with her find. A reporter did further research, and eventually learned the source of the ad.

A ProPublica reporter found the original ad for the sale, which ran more than two weeks before the one Davila spotted. Published on Feb. 6, 1835, it revealed that the sale of 600 people was part of the estate auction for John Ball Jr., scion of a slave-owning planter regime. Ball had died the previous year, and now five of his plantations were listed for sale — along with the people enslaved on them.

The Ball family might not be a household name outside of South Carolina, but it is widely known within the state thanks to a descendant named Edward Ball who wrote a bestselling book in 1998 that bared the family’s skeletons — and, with them, those of other Southern slave owners.

“Slaves in the Family” drew considerable acclaim outside of Charleston, including a National Book Award. Black readers, North and South, praised it. But as Ball explained, “It was in white society that the book was controversial.” Among some white Southerners, the horrors of slavery had long gone minimized by a Lost Cause narrative of northern aggression and benevolent slave owners.

Based on his family’s records, Edward Ball described his ancestors as wealthy “rice landlords” who operated a “slave dynasty.” He estimated they enslaved about 4,000 people on their properties over 167 years, placing them among the “oldest and longest” plantation operators in the American South.

Read the rest at ProPublica, if you’re interested in this history.

Yesterday, a jury found Robert Bowers, the Pittsburgh Tree of Life shooter guilty on all charges. CNN: Gunman in Pittsburgh synagogue shooting found guilty of all 63 federal charges.

Robert Bowers, the gunman who killed 11 worshippers at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue in 2018, was convicted by a federal jury Friday on all 63 charges against him.

Bowers, 50, now faces the possibility of the death sentence at the hands of the same jury for the deadliest attack ever on Jewish people in the US.

Asked to individually confirm their verdicts, each juror answered “yes” without hesitation. Some were forceful in their replies. They deliberated for about five hours over two days.

Bowers was convicted of 11 capital counts of obstruction of free exercise of religious beliefs resulting in death and 11 capital counts of use of a firearm to commit murder during and in relation to a crime of violence, among other charges.

Bowers was also convicted of 11 counts of hate crimes resulting in death.

The convictions mean the trial will move to a separate penalty phase, with the jury weighing further evidence to decide whether to sentence him to death or life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The penalty phase is scheduled to begin June 26.

Steve Almasy at CNN: Jury in Pittsburgh synagogue massacre trial will hear more distressing testimony when penalty phase begins.

For much of the past two-plus weeks, many of the federal government’s 60 witnesses described the horror when a gunman entered the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018 and killed 11 worshippers – the deadliest attack ever on Jewish people in the United States.

A federal jury convicted the gunman Friday on all 63 charges against him, including 22 capital charges. On June 26, the same jury will again hear horrible details of the massacre and what those losses mean to families, as it decides the fate of Robert Bowers….

Testimony from prosecution witnesses included a 911 operator who listened to a victim’s last words before she was fatally shot, a survivor who said one of the people who was killed fell inches from her, a police officer who had to step over bodies while rescuing a wounded SWAT member, and a wounded woman who refused to leave her mother as her mom died.

Other witnesses included medical, firearms and computer experts….

The president of the Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh said Friday that survivors have taken the witness stand to provide important testimony despite the immense difficulty of that task. They will continue to do so in the next phase of the trial, Brian Schreiber said.

“We look forward to hearing the direct victim-impact testimony. They will be able to tell, in their own words, what that loss feels like,” said Schreiber, who lost friends in the attack.

Schreiber did not take an official stance on a potential death sentence for the gunman.

“It’s going to be gut-wrenching,” said Jeff Finkelstein, president of the Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh. “It’s going to reopen wounds that keep getting reopened for us here in our Pittsburgh community – not just the Jewish community, but this greater Pittsburgh region. And I just encourage everyone to seek the support that they might need.”

The Jewish Community Center of Greater Pittsburgh has been providing support for those affected by the shooting through its 10.27 Healing Partnership program, which Schreiber said will continue to offer resources. The name of the program is a nod to the date, October 27, 2018, when the attack took place.

Also yesterday, Merrick Garland released the results of a federal investigation of the Minneapolis Police that was begun after the murder of George Floyd. The New York Times: Minneapolis Police: Scathing Report Exposes Racist and Unconstitutional Policing.

The Justice Department on Friday released a damning account of systemic abuses and discrimination by the police in Minneapolis, the result of a multiyear investigation that began after the murder of George Floyd in police custody ignited protests across the country.

In an 89-page report, investigators laid out repeated instances of the police engaging in unlawful discrimination against Black and Native American people, as well routinely failing to take arrestees’ health complaints seriously and violating the First Amendment rights of demonstrators and journalists at protests.

“The patterns and practices we observed made what happened to George Floyd possible,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland, who ordered the investigation in April 2021.

The Justice Department found there was “reasonable cause to believe” that police officers engaged in a “pattern or practice of conduct that deprives people of their rights under the Constitution and federal law.”

Among many other examples of discrimination by officers, investigators outlined an episode in which an officer said his goal was to wipe the Black Lives Matter movement “off the face of the earth.” Mr. Garland added that officers often used some version of the line, “You can breathe, you’re talking right now,” when placing citizens in chokeholds.

The city has agreed to negotiate a court-enforced agreement that, if enacted, would require a sweeping overhaul of the city’s police force, which has faced an exodus of officers and a lack of community support since the death of Mr. Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, in May 2020.

Read details of the agreement and reactions to the report in Minneapolis at the NYT link.

A bit of Trump investigation news broke yesterday. CNN: Special counsel seeks court order to ensure Trump and his defense don’t share materials turned over in discovery.

Special counsel Jack Smith’s team is asking the judge in the classified documents case against Donald Trump to bar the former president and his defense team from publicly disclosing some of the materials shared in the criminal case as part of the discovery process.

In a new filing on Friday, Smith’s team said that among the unclassified materials that prosecutors are set to turn over to the defense is “information pertaining to ongoing investigations, the disclosure of which could compromise those investigations and identify uncharged individuals.”

The filing, which includes a proposed protective order, is an expected, procedural step now that Trump has entered his not guilty plea and the proceedings are moving forward. Lawyers for Trump and his co-defendant Walt Nauta do not oppose the requested protective order, according to the filing.

US Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart, citing local court rules. Reinhart approved the search warrant the FBI executed at Mar-a-Lago last year.

Smith’s team said in the filing that the “government is ready to provide unclassified discovery to the defense.”

“The discovery materials include sensitive and confidential information,” including personal and financial data, information that reveals “sensitive” investigative techniques and information about potential witnesses, according to the filing. Some of that information could be in grand jury transcripts or recordings of witness interviews.

“The materials also include information pertaining to ongoing investigations, the disclosure of which could compromise those investigations and identify uncharged individuals,” the filing said.

[Emphasis added] That sounds interesting. From Alan Feuer at The New York Times: Evidence in Trump Documents Case Hints at ‘Ongoing Investigations,’ Filing Says.

The federal prosecutors overseeing the classified documents case against former President Donald J. Trump said in court papers on Friday that the evidence they are poised to give the defense as part of the normal process of discovery contained information about “ongoing investigations” that could “identify uncharged individuals.”

The court papers — a standard request to place a protective order on the discovery material — contained no explanation about what those other inquiries might be or whether they were related to the indictment detailing charges against Mr. Trump of illegally retaining dozens of national defense documents and obstructing the government’s efforts to get them back. The papers also did not identify who the uncharged people were.

Still, the reference to continuing investigations was the first overt suggestion — however vague — that other criminal cases could emerge from the work that the special counsel Jack Smith has done in bringing the Espionage Act and obstruction indictment against Mr. Trump in Miami last week.

Mr. Smith is also overseeing the parallel investigation into Mr. Trump’s efforts to reverse his election loss in 2020 and the ensuing assault on the Capitol by a mob of his supporters on Jan. 6, 2021.

Some witnesses close to Mr. Trump have been questioned by Mr. Smith’s team in connection with the both the documents and election interference inquiries.

Very interesting.

One more crime story, h/t Dakninikat. From Marisa Sarnoff at Law and Crime: ‘BOOM’: Marine arrested in 2022 firebomb attack on Planned Parenthood clinic.

An active duty U.S. Marine is in federal custody after being arrested for allegedly firebombing a [Costa Mesa, CA] Planned Parenthood clinic in 2022.

Chance Brannon, 23, a Marine corporal, and Tibet Ergul, 21, were arrested Wednesday in the April 2022 attack, the U.S. Attorney’s Office announced in a press release. They are each charged with using an explosive or fire to cause property damage.

According to the criminal complaint, Brannon and Ergul attacked the clinic in the early morning hours of March 13, 2022. Prosecutors say they threw a Molotov cocktail — an incendiary device made up of a glass bottle containing a flammable substance, such as liquid gasoline, that is lit and then thrown, shattering on impact and igniting the liquid — at the clinic entrance. The fire damaged the building and, according to the Justice Department, caused the healthcare clinic to close the next day and cancel some 30 appointments.

Prosecutors say that a witness called in a tip to the FBI that Ergul had sent a text message describing the attack.

“BOOM [fire emoji],” the message from Ergul to the witness said in describing the impact of the Molotov cocktail on the building of the “Costa Mesa health center/Planned Parenthood clinic,” according to the complaint. Ergul allegedly told the witness that he wished he “could’ve recorded the combustion.”

The witness also identified Brannon to the FBI, in part through a picture Ergul sent the witness on March 14, 2022, appearing to depict the Molotov cocktail. The witness said the picture looked like it was taken inside Brannon’s car.

Both defendants are scheduled to be arraigned on July 24.

I’ll end with a little comic relief about the endless efforts of Republicans to prove that President Biden is corrupt.

The New Republic: Giuliani Says Key Biden Informant Is Dead.

There’s a new wrinkle in the Republicans’ totally legitimate investigation into Joe Biden: One of their informants is apparently dead, according to Rudy Giuliani.

Republicans have spent all week accusing the president of accepting a massive bribe from Ukraine (conveniently at the same time that Donald Trump was arrested for allegedly stealing and hiding classified documents), and have referred a number of times to a set of recordings that they claim prove his guilt. The GOP learned about these supposed recordings as part of the House Oversight Committee’s months-long investigation into the Biden family, which has yet to produce any actual evidence linking the president to wrongdoing.

House members were allowed last week to see a redacted version of an FD 10-23, a form the FBI uses to note unverified information from confidential sources. Several Republican lawmakers say that not only does the FBI form they saw last week mention this bribe but that a Burisma executive has audio recordings of Biden and Hunter Biden accepting the money. Both Anna Paulina Luna and Marjorie Taylor Greene said that the executive is Burisma owner Mykola Zlochevsky.

But according to Rudy Giuliani, the executive is actually the wife of Burisma co-founder Mykola Lisin. Giuliani told Newsmax over the weekend that Lisin died under suspicious circumstances. He seemed to imply the businessman left the recordings to his wife, but she died before the FBI could interview her.

The FBI “followed up on none of the evidence I gave them,” Giuliani said. “I gave them one witness that any investigator would jump through hoops to go to. Gave them a witness who is a woman, who is the chief accountant at this crooked company Burisma.”

“She was the wife of the former owner, who died under suspicious circumstances. And she was willing to give up all of the offshore bank accounts, including the Bidens’!”

Oh my goodness me! How very incriminating. Except there is simply no evidence that any tapes involving Biden actually exist.

From Tommy Christopher at Mediaite: Jim Jordan Notes ‘We Don’t Know For Sure If These Tapes Exist’ When Asked About Impeaching Biden Over Probe.

Ohio Republican Congressman Jim Jordan pointed out “we don’t know” if the tapes Republicans claim implicate President Joe Biden “exist” when he was asked about impeaching the president.

Republicans like Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Rep. James Comer (R-KY) are having a rough time with the media in their promotion of an FBI form they say details allegations against Biden and his son Hunter Biden — the latest wrinkle being the claim that an informant’s source claims to have over a dozen audiotapes implicating Biden.

Several Republicans have pumped the brakes by pointing out the tapes may not even exist, including Grassley, Comer, and Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson.

On a recent edition of The Chris Salcedo Show, Jordan pointedly brought up the uncertainty in the context of impeaching Biden over the tapes, telling host Chris Salcedo that “we don’t know for sure if these tapes exist.” [….]

When reached for comment, White House counsel spokesman Ian Sams told Mediaite, “Everything in their so-called investigation seems to be mysteriously missing: informants, audio tapes, and most importantly of all – any credible evidence. Maybe it’s time for House Republicans to join the President to focus on real issues that matter to the American people like fighting inflation and creating jobs instead of these sad sideshow stunts.”

That’s it for me today. I hope you are all having a nice long weekend.