Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 114, No. 183, Ed. 1 Thursday, February 1, 2018 Page: 3 of 22
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STATE/NATIONAL
3A
Denton Record-Chronicle
Thursday, February 1, 2018
FBI has
‘grave concerns’ about memo
committee’s own investigation into
Russian meddling in the election that
sent Trump to the White House.
The drama comes as special counsel
Robert Mueller also is investigating
whether the Trump campaign improp-
erly coordinated with Russia during the
campaign and whether Trump sought
to obstruct the inquiry by, among other
actions, firing Comey.
Under the House committee’s rules,
the president has five days to object to
the memo’s release, which the panel vot-
ed to authorize on Monday. But Trump
himself already has urged the release,
and it could come sooner. By late
Wednesday, it had not yet been settled
whether the White House or the com-
mittee would handle the actual release.
Huckabee Sanders told CNN Wednes-
day that a legal and national security re-
view of the document was continuing.
Trump had not read the memo “as of
last night prior to and immediately af-
ter the State of the Union,” she said.
White House Chief of Staff Kelly
said Wednesday on Fox News Radio
that he expected the memo to be re-
leased “pretty quick.”
Trump has been telling confidants in
recent days that he believes the memo
will validate his concerns that the FBI
and Justice Department had conspired
against him, according to one outside
adviser familiar with those conversa-
tions but not authorized to speak pub-
licly about private discussions.
The president also has told allies
that he believes the memo bolsters his
belief that accusations of collusion be-
tween his campaign and Russian offi-
cials are false and part of a conspiracy to
discredit his election.
On Wednesday afternoon, Rep. De-
vin Nunes, the House intelligence
chairman and a close ally of the presi-
dent, fired back at the law enforcement
agencies, calling the FBI and Justice
Department objections “spurious.”
“It’s clear that top officials used un-
verified information in a court docu-
ment to fuel a counterintelligence in-
vestigation during an American politi-
cal campaign,” Nunes said.
Agency casts doubt on
accuracy of document
Trump wants released
1
m
By Chad Day, Jonathan Lemire
and Eric Tucker
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - In a remarkably
public clash of wills with the White
House, the FBI declared Wednesday it
has “grave concerns” about the accuracy
of a classified memo on the Russia elec-
tion investigation that President Don-
ald Trump wants released.
The FBI’s short and sharp state-
ment, its first on the issue, laid bare a
Trump administration conflict that had
previously played out mostly behind
closed doors in meetings between top
Justice Department and White House
officials.
“As expressed during our initial re-
view, we have grave concerns about ma-
terial omissions of fact that fundamen-
tally impact the memo’s accuracy,” the
FBI said.
The agency’s stance on the memo,
conveyed in a two-paragraph state-
ment, escalates the dispute and means
that Trump would be openly defying his
hand-picked FBI director by continu-
ing to push for the memo’s disclosure. It
also suggests a clear willingness by FBI
J. Scott Applewhite/AP
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., a close ally
of President Donald Trump who has become a fierce critic of the FBI and
the Justice Department, strides to a GOP conference at the Capitol in
Washington on Tuesday.
Earlier this week, Wray and Deputy
Attorney General Rod Rosenstein
made a direct appeal to White House
chief of staff John Kelly not to release
the memo, warning that it could set a
dangerous precedent.
But the president has been unde-
Director Christopher Wray, who in the
early stretch of his tenure has been no-
tably low-key, to challenge a president
who just months ago fired his predeces-
sor, James Comey.
The FBI statement came the day af-
ter Trump was overheard telling a con-
gressman that he ‘TOO percent” sup-
ported release of the four-page memo,
which was drafted by Republicans on
the House intelligence committee. The
Republicans have said the memo re-
veals surveillance abuses by the FBI
and the Justice Department in the early
stages of the investigation into potential
ties between Russia and the 2016
Trump presidential campaign.
Democrats have called the memo a
“cherry-picked” list of GOP talking
points that attempts to distract from the
terred.
Television cameras captured Trump,
on the House floor after the State of the
Union address, telling South Carolina
Rep. Jeff Duncan that he backed the re-
lease. When Duncan implored him to
“release the memo,” Trump said: “Oh
yeah, don’t worry. 100 percent.”
White House spokeswoman Sarah
BRIEFLY
DA: No
charges
in death
of sniper
^ m
ACROSS THE STATE
Houston
Data: Juveniles jailed
for probation issues
Hundreds of juveniles in the
county where Houston is locat-
ed are jailed for weeks at a time
for minor probation violations,
records show.
Data from the Harris County
Juvenile Probation Department
show juveniles are often jailed
for infractions such as failing
drug tests, violating curfews,
running away or failing to attend
school classes or rehabilitative
programs, the Houston Chron-
icle reported.
The records show a pattern of
detaining children for technical
violations that should instead be
dealt with through the probation
system, according to attorneys
and juvenile justice advocates.
“You never want to have a
technical violation, especially for
a kid, result in detention, be-
cause we know the negative ef-
fects,” said Elizabeth Henneke,
an attorney with the Lone Star
Justice Alliance.
Nearly 73 percent of the
more than 1,000 juveniles cited
for violating probation in 2016
were detained, according to
county data.
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By Claudia Lauer
Associated Press
DALLAS — A grand jury has
declined to bring charges
against Dallas police officers
who used a bomb-carrying ro-
bot to kill a sniper who had just
gunned down five officers dur-
ing a downtown rally, prosecu-
tors announced Wednesday.
The Dallas County District At-
torney’s office said in a release that
investigators presented their find-
ings to a grand jury more than a
year after the July 7, 2016, attack
by Micah Johnson, a 25-year-old
Army reservist who investigators
said was upset by recent shoot-
ings of black men by police.
The use of the robot to deto-
nate a pound of C4 explosives
near Johnson, killing him, was a
first for a U.S. police department.
David Brown, who was the
police chief at the time and has
since retired, said shortly after
Johnson was killed that he made
the decision to use the robot be-
cause negotiations had failed
and he wanted to end the con-
tinued threat to officers. Police
said they believed Johnson was
also wounded by gunfire, but
few details about the police re-
sponse that night have been
shared with the public.
A spokeswoman for the dis-
trict attorney’s office said staff
could not discuss what evidence
was presented to the grand jury.
Veterans Health Administra-
tion documents showed that
Johnson sought mental health
treatment for anxiety, depres-
sion and hallucinations after he
returned from Afghanistan.
Federal court records don’t
show any pending lawsuits from
family members challenging the
police response or the use of the
robot.
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Salwan Georges/The Washington Post
Rosa Castro chats with her son’s girlfriend Isabel Lopez, carrying 9-month-old Raul Castro Jr. Because Castro, 70, can’t prove
she owns her lot, she can’t get basic services such as plumbing and electricity.
‘They’re asking for water’
In South Texas colonias, tens
of thousands hope for utilities
an area where those services are
available,” Webb County spokes-
man Larry Sanchez said in an
email. “Until there is a signifi-
cant reduction in the cost per
connection or other funding re-
sources are generated, this sub-
division will remain without wa-
ter and sewer service or other
utility services.”
By Maria Sacchetti
The Washington Post
LA PRESA -
Texarkana
Police believe stray
bullet killed woman
A ragged
American flag flutters outside
Rosa Castro’s trailer near the
U.S.-Mexico border. She has no
electricity, no running water,
and little hope that she ever will.
Castro is one of about
500,000 people residing in
hundreds of unincorporated
towns in South Texas, places
with quirky names such as Little
Mexico, Radar Base, Betty Acres
and Mike’s that were created
when developers carved up ran-
chland that was unprepared for
human habitation and sold the
parcels at bargain prices, mostly
to low-income immigrants and
Mexican-Americans.
Buyers plunked down dou-
ble-wide trailers or wood-and-
cinder-block houses and waited
for the paved roads, electricity,
and water and sewer systems to
small farm. They bought chick-
ens, cows and a pony, but they
eventually sold them all because
they had no water.
“Supposedly the United
States is the richest country,” she
said with a shake of her head. “I
tell my husband, he’s going to be
buried and we won’t see water.”
The improvements that have
trickled into La Presa over the
years have made abig difference,
residents say. Electrical hookups
arrived over a decade ago for res-
idents who could prove they
owned the land. Around the
same time, the government built
an adobe-tinted community
center where elderly residents
play loteria, the Mexican ver-
sion ofbingo, pick up bags of do-
nated sweet bread and ham
sandwiches, and gather for
meetings.
But for those, like Castro,
who cannot prove they own
their land, electricity was not an
option. And for county officials,
some improvements are simply
too expensive — extending wa-
ter and sewer service to La Pre-
sa, for example, would cost more
than $120,000 per family,
which is more expensive than
housing in Laredo.
The rightful homeowners in
colonias are often unclear be-
cause many paid for their land
in cash and did not have the
land formally mapped out and
deeded with the county govern-
ment. Others illegally carved up
existing plots and sold them.
And in other cases, the owners
died without having a will that
would indicate who owns the
property.
“Those property owners who
have chosen to live in the subdi-
vision without basic services are
also free to choose to relocate to
pushing a $25 billion border
wall and security upgrades at a
time when illegal border cross-
ings are low and colonias could
use a federal boost.
“We can’t move away from
here. We want Washington to do
something,” said Castro, a 70-
year-old grandmother. “We’re in
the United States after all.”
Jesse Gonzalez, an elected
commissioner in Webb County,
said he has made it his priority to
bring a park and a water pump
to La Presa. The county has ap-
plied for state grants to finance
both projects.
‘We don’t live in a Third
World country,” Gonzalez said.
Police say a northeast Texas
woman has died after being
struck by an apparent stray bul-
let in gunfire blamed on a fight
involving about 20 juveniles.
A statement from police in
Texarkana, Texas, says 23-year-
old Kaitlin Lee was shot in the
head and died Wednesday.
Police spokesman Shawn
Vaughn says investigators don’t
believe the Texarkana woman,
who died at a hospital, was part
of Tuesday night’s disturbance.
Police received a 911 call
about juveniles fighting on a
neighborhood street, shots fired
and suspects fleeing. Officers
were responding when a second
911 call came in about a woman
found wounded in an alley
about 150 feet from scene.
Waco
Man indicted in slaying
of woman, toddler
A grand jury has indicted a
Central Texas man on a capital
murder charge in the fatal No-
vember shooting of a toddler be-
lieved to be his daughter and the
child’s mother.
The McLennan County
grand jury in Waco on Wednes-
day indicted Christopher Paul
Weiss in the shooting deaths of
24-year-old Valarie Martinez
and her 1-year-old daughter,
Azariah. Their bodies were
found Nov. 5 near Tradinghouse
Reservoir near Waco.
Investigators say the 26-
year-old Temple man had a rela-
tionship with Martinez.
Weiss remains in McLennan
County Jail with bail set at $1
million.
Gov. Greg Abbott, R, this
eliminated
summer
$860,000 state ombudsman
program for colonias, which al-
lowed them to seek help from an
array of state agencies through a
single point of entry.
The Associated Press report-
ed that some of those agencies
lost funding they had used to
provide water and other services
to colonias.
an
State officials say the settle-
ments will continue to receive
funding and can seek help di-
rectly at each government agen-
About 330 colonias — and
nearly 38,000 people
stuck in the most extreme condi-
tions, without clean running wa-
ter, sewers or even clear bound-
aries needed to develop the land,
according to the state. Another
115,000 people live in enclaves
without paved roads, drainage
or solid-waste disposal.
Residents of La Presa, a com-
munity of 300 surrounding a
bluish lake at the center of town
that is hidden by mesquite and
sweet acacia trees, buy bottled
water for drinking. Two or three
times a week, they hitch empty
water tanks to pickup trucks and
drive about a dozen miles to La-
redo to pump water for their
washing machines, sinks, toilets
and tubs.
The cost is nominal, about
$1.25 each filling, but the supply
dwindles fast.
Sylvia Zuazua, a flea market
cashier, has lived without run-
ning water for decades. She and
her husband paid $5,200 for an
acre of land in the 1970s, dream-
ing of raising their family on a
are
arrive.
For thousands of people, they
never did.
The Federal Reserve Bank of
Dallas says the enclaves, known
in Spanish as colonias, re-
present one of the largest con-
centrations of poverty in the
United States. Texas outlawed
their creation and expansion in
1989. The state and federal gov-
ernment have spent hundreds of
millions of dollars to improve
some of the outposts, but have
done little in others, for reasons
that include the high costs and
questions about who owns
which land.
Critics of colonias say people
frustrated by the lack of services
should move to established cit-
ies and towns, but residents re-
fuse to abandon their land after
years of trying to make it work.
They are irked that the state gov-
ernment recently cut funding
for health care, water and other
services for colonias, and that
President Donald Trump is
cy-
But some Texas politicians
say the state and federal govern-
ments should find a way to bring
colonias up to basic standards.
Most residents of colonias are
U.S. citizens, they note. Many
served in the U.S. military.
Rep. Henry Cuellar, D- Lare-
do, a former secretary of state in
Texas who represents La Presa
and the surrounding area, has
suggested diverting border-wall
funding to improve the colonias.
Carlos Cascos, a Republican
and another former secretary of
state, under Abbott, said the
state and federal governments
should invest $100 million a
year for the next 15 years to mo-
dernize colonias.
“These are basic necessities,”
said Cascos, who lives in the bor-
der city of Brownsville and is
running for a judgeship in Cam-
eron County. “They’re not asking
for curbs and gutters and side-
walks. They’re asking for water.”
District Attorney Faith John-
son, who has no relation to the
gunman, noted that all police
shootings are required to be ex-
amined by a grand jury.
“Our thoughts and prayers
continue to be with the families
of those who lost their lives that
night, the officers who were in-
jured, and all of the men and
women who courageously put
themselves into harm’s way, all
in an effort to protect our com-
munity,” Johnson wrote.
Jay Stanley, a senior policy
analyst with the national Amer-
ican Civil Liberties Union, said
Dallas’ use of the bomb-carrying
robot to apply lethal force causes
concern because when things
“get easy to do and become
cheap enough to do, they get
overdone.”
— The Associated Press
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Parks, Scott K. Denton Record-Chronicle (Denton, Tex.), Vol. 114, No. 183, Ed. 1 Thursday, February 1, 2018, newspaper, February 1, 2018; Denton, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1138137/m1/3/: accessed July 9, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .