18 March 2021
A federal appeals court moved on Thursday to reinstate a guilty verdict against the former business partner of ex-national security adviser Michael Flynn, the AP reports.
Why it matters: The case against Bijan Rafiekan, who also served as a member of the Trump transition team, was one of 11 cases transferred by special counsel Robert Mueller to other jurisdictions as he compiled a report on Russian interference in the 2016 election and potential ties to Trump. He again faces the conviction of acting as an unregistered foreign agent for the Turkish government.
Catch up quick: Rafiekan was found guilty in July 2019 of acting as an unregistered foreign agent for the Turkish government and lying about it to the Justice Department.
- Thursday's decision said that U.S. District Court Judge Anthony Trenga "erred" by tossing out the guilty verdict against Rafiekan last year, and by "concluding that his own rulings may have led jurors to base their decision on emails he admitted at the trial only for a limited purpose," Politico reports.
- Flynn, Trump's former national security adviser who pleaded guilty in the Mueller investigation to lying to FBI agents about his conversations with a former Russian ambassador, was not charged in the case against Rafiekan.
Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times
Section2Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.
Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.
The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.
- The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.
What the transcripts say:
- Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
- The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
- Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."
Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.