News briefs

7 Capitol Police officers sue Trump, right-wing extremist groups over Capitol attack

WASHINGTON — Seven Capitol Police officers who were assaulted during the Jan. 6 insurrection are using a law passed after the Civil War to sue former President Donald Trump, his associates and far-right extremist groups for allegedly working together to stop Congress, through force and intimidation, from certifying the 2020 presidential election results.

The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Thursday, names Trump; his longtime associate Roger Stone; the groups Stop the Steal, Proud Boys and Oath Keepers; and others. It says Trump and those named are culpable for the violent insurrection.

The suit cites Trump's tweets and other remarks in 2020 laying the groundwork for saying the election would be “rigged.” After Trump lost, he and others conspired to challenge results in cities and states with large Black populations, and to stop Congress from certifying the Electoral College vote on Jan. 6, the suit says.

“TRUMP and other Defendants propagated false claims of election fraud, encouraged the use of force, intimidation, and threats,and incited violence against members of Congress and the law enforcement officers whose job it was to protect them,” the lawsuit says.

“Defendants’ unlawful efforts culminated in the January 6 mass attack on the United States Capitol and the brutal, physical assault of hundreds of law enforcement officers. Many Defendants in this case planned, aided, and actively participated in that attack. All Defendants are responsible for it.”

The officers allege the defendants violated the Ku Klux Klan Act from 1871 , which provides recovery for those injured by conspiracies such as one to stop Congress from certifying the Electoral College results. Other counts in the lawsuit allege negligence, assault, battery and violation of the D.C. Bias-Related Crimes Act.

The Capitol Police officers suing Trump are Conrad Smith, Danny McElroy, Byron Evans, Governor Latson, Melissa Marshall, Michael Fortune and Jason DeRoche.

—CQ-Roll Call

7 women file complaint alleging abuse, medical neglect at Florida ICE detention center

MIAMI — Seven women being held at a Florida immigration detention facility filed a federal complaint Thursday detailing what advocates call “an appalling pattern of abuses” — including medical neglect, sexual misconduct and COVID-19 protocol violations.

The 19-page document comes just six months after a group of 25 immigrants filed a complaint for similar concerns at the Glades County Detention Center in Central Florida, which is run by the Glades County Sheriff’s Office.

“Women at Glades — who are mothers, sisters, daughters, and valued community members — are subject to these egregious and nauseating abuses daily,” said Sofia Casini, director for visitation advocacy strategies with Freedom for Immigrants. “Nearly30 complaints have been filed to address abuses at Glades since the onset of the pandemic alone, yet the abuses continue. Enough!”

The complaint was sent to the Office of the Inspector General and the the Office for Civil Rights & Civil Liberties at the Department of Homeland Security Thursday. It was submitted with the assistance of Americans for Immigrant Justice, Immigrant Action Alliance, Freedom for Immigrants and 20 other local and national groups.

The hope: For anyone being held at the detention center to be immediately released.

“It’s clear these abuses are endemic, and until everyone is released and Glades is closed for good, immigrants will continue to be mistreated in ways that undermine our shared values of fairness, dignity, and human rights,” Casini said. “It’s past time for releases and closure.”

A spokesman for ICE said they were looking into the complaint.

—Miami Herald

Virginia GOP sues to keep McAuliffe off governor race ballot

NEW YORK — The Republican Party of Virginia asked a judge to vacate former Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe’s June primary victory in the race for his old job, alleging a crucial election document was missing his signature.

The Republicans claim in a lawsuit filed Thursday against Virginia’s top election officials that McAuliffe’s formal declaration of candidacy was also “infected with misrepresentations” because two witnesses who signed it allegedly falsely claimed to have witnessed McAuliffe sign it too.

“The omission of McAuliffe’s signature from his declaration, compounded by false witness attestations, is fatal to his candidacy under Virginia law,” the state Republicans said in the filing in state court in Richmond.

A prolonged court clash could throw a wrench in the high-profile Nov. 2 race between McAuliffe and the Republican candidate, former Carlyle Group co-CEO Glenn Youngkin. The GOP rival has the endorsement of former President Donald Trump, who lost Virginia by 10 percentage points in 2020.

“Our campaign submitted the required paperwork,” McAuliffe’s spokeswoman Christina Freundlich said in a statement on Twitter. “This is nothing more than a desperate Trumpian move by the Virginia GOP to deprive voters of a choice in this election because Terry is consistently leading in the polls.”

McAuliffe has a 5.5% lead over Youngkin, according to the RealClearPolitics average of recent polls. A Christopher Newport University poll conducted from Aug. 15 to Aug. 23 of 800 likely voters had McAuliffe 9 percentage points ahead.

The state board of elections didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment.

—Bloomberg News

Cuba’s leader, facing growing criticism, doubles down on order to crack down on protesters

With the world watching as Cubans protested on the streets all over the island on July 11, Cuban leader Miguel Díaz-Canel took what some experts believe was a decision that will come back to haunt him: He gave a “combat order” to fellow revolutionaries to squash those calling for freedom and the “end of the dictatorship.”

In the aftermath of images of police repression and pro-government mobs hitting protesters with clubs going viral, there has been a rare wave of criticism from government insiders, state journalists and prominent figures in the arts, pointing to a crisis of governance in the communist island that no other leader has faced in six decades.

Diaz-Canel recently told journalists working for state-sanctioned outlets that he doesn’t regret the order to crack down on anti-government demonstrators. But the fact that he felt the need to gather the journalists at a meeting Saturday to justify his decision is the latest example of a damage-control campaign to restore his dwindling popularity and political standing.

“I made a call to the people that day because it seemed to me that it was the right thing to do and that I do not regret or will not regret,” he said in a video of the meeting that was later edited and televised this week. “We had to defend against demonstrations that were not peaceful at all. And that is a false story that they have also put out there.”

But even in the controlled setting of the Palace of the Revolution, and among some of his more staunch defenders, he could not avoid criticism.

A young journalist who works on Editorial de la Mujer, or Women’s Publishing, stood up and told him that political troubles call for “political solutions ... not only, or not police actions.”

—Miami Herald