Before resigning under pressure as President Trump’s national security adviser, Michael Flynn submitted a personal financial disclosure form to federal ethics officials that failed to note speaking fees he received from Russia-related entities in 2015, new filings show.
Flynn later noted the payments on an amended form he signed Friday that listed among his sources of income the Russian government-backed television network RT, a U.S. air cargo company affiliated with the Volga-Dnepr Group and the U.S. subsidiary of Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab.
The White House released both sets of the forms Saturday as part of a broad release of documents detailing the financial holdings of top administration officials.
Flynn’s initial form was submitted to the Office of Government Ethics and the White House on Feb. 11 — just days before he was forced to leave his post amid controversy over his contacts with Russia’s ambassador. On the document, he noted that he received fees through a speakers bureau, but he did not detail the names of the organizations that paid to have him as a speaker.
A person familiar with his filing said Flynn’s initial form was a draft that would have gone through the usual process of review and revision in consultation with the White House Counsel’s Office and the Office of Government Ethics. However, that process was suspended when Flynn resigned. In recent days, White House officials asked him to finish the process and advised Flynn that he needed to itemize each organization that paid to have him as a speaker, the person said.
Flynn first acknowledged in a July interview with Yahoo that he had been paid for the December 2015 RT event in Moscow, where the retired Army lieutenant general sat with Russian President Vladimir Putin during a celebration for the network. He later confirmed to The Washington Post that the network provided his payment.
The U.S. government has said that RT, which receives Kremlin funding, is part of an array of propaganda outlets that help popularize a pro-Russian perspective through the media.
It was not until earlier this month that Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, disclosed new documents showing that Flynn had also been paid in 2015 for speeches in Washington by Volga-Dnepr Airlines and Kaspersky Government Security Solutions.
In all, Flynn earned at least $1.3 million in the past year, including more than $827,000 through his consulting firm, Flynn Intel Group, his disclosure shows.
Flynn’s amended filing included a dollar figure for an October speaking engagement paid for by Ibrahim Kurtulus, a former official with the Assembly of Turkish American Associations, a U.S.-based nonprofit. In his original form, Flynn included Kurtulus on a section of the form that requires officials to name all their sources of income exceeding $5,000 over the previous two years. He omitted Kurtulus, however, in another section of the form requiring more specific disclosures for income sources in the last year. In the amended form, he disclosed that he was paid a $10,000 speaking fee by Kurtulus in October 2016.
The Daily Caller reported that Flynn met with Kurtulus and another activist, Hilal Mutlu, a cousin of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, that same month. At the time, Flynn’s firm was also being paid by a Dutch company owned by a Turk to undertake efforts favorable to the Turkish government.
The amended form details several other speaking engagements, including a $15,000 speech delivered to conservative activist David Horowitz’s Freedom Center and a $22,500 speech to Randall-Reilly Publishing Company.
Flynn also reported that he was paid $14,454.20 to deliver a speech to BlackDuck Software in October, just weeks before the election. BlackDuck’s website shows that Flynn spoke about the government’s vulnerability to computer hackers in the speech.
Three people have been arrested in connection with the raging fire that collapsed a portion of Interstate 85 a few miles north of downtown Atlanta, crippling a major traffic artery in a city already known for dreadful rush-hour congestion.
Deputy Insurance Commissioner Jay Florence said Friday evening that Basil Eleby faces a charge of criminal damage to property, and Sophia Bruner and Barry Thomas each were charged with criminal trespassing.
“We believe they were together when the fire was set and Eleby is the one who set the fire,” Florence told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Florence would not discuss how the fire was started or why, saying those details would be released as the investigation progresses.
The fire broke out Thursday afternoon in an area used to store state-owned construction materials and equipment, sending flames and smoke high into the air.
Dozens of firefighters battling the roaring blaze beneath the roadway moved safely out of harm’s way amid telltale signs the roadway was breaking apart from the intense heat.
“They heard the cracking of the concrete,” Atlanta Fire Chief Joel Baker said. “They could see concrete was flying all over the place toward firefighters.”
Firefighters shut down the roadway before it fell and retreated safely without injury.
Experts in structural engineering said fires on highways and bridges rarely burn long enough or hot enough to cause a complete collapse — but it has happened. Intense heat can compromise even steel-reinforced concrete, said Lauren Stewart, director of the Structural Engineering and Materials Laboratory at Georgia Tech in Atlanta.
“With fires, especially fires that burn for long periods and with high heat, you can see structures, anything from buildings to bridges, can have their material properties degrade,” Stewart said.
It’s happened before. In 1996, a fire in a big pile of tires beneath I-95 in Philadelphia left a span too weak to handle cars, forcing authorities to shut down four miles of the busy East Coast route for repairs.
Andy Herrmann, a retired partner with the New York-based engineering firm Hardesty Hanover, said there have also been a few instances of gasoline trucks crashing and causing intense heat that damaged overpasses.
Herrmann said concrete will undergo severe cracking at about 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit and start disintegrating at higher temperatures. Building roads to withstand such heat would be prohibitively expensive, he said.
“We have limited dollars for maintaining our bridges,” Herrmann said. “This is such a rare thing to occur.”
The highway collapse in Atlanta forced commuters Friday to find different routes to work or to use mass transit. Things won’t be back to normal for months, said Russell McMurry, commissioner of the Georgia Department of Transportation.
McMurry told a news conference Friday that 350 feet of highway will need to be replaced in both directions on I-85, which carries about 400,000 cars a day through Atlanta and is one of the South’s most important north-south routes. He said repairs will take “at least several months.”
Traffic was bumper to bumper Friday on streets near the closed stretch of highway. Amelia Ford picked a new route to drive to work and said it took her 45 minutes to travel three miles from her Atlanta home to the nearest open on-ramp to the interstate.
McMurry said his department stored coils of plastic conduit, used in fiber optic networks, beneath the span but insisted they were noncombustible.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao promptly released $10 million for the initial repair work, and the Federal Highway Administration promised more in emergency repair funds. Officials gave no estimate of how much the job would cost.
Built in 1953 and renovated in 1985, the collapsed span scored a sufficiency rating of 94.6 out of 100 in its last inspection in 2015, said Natalie Dale, a spokeswoman for the Georgia DOT.
Caption‘Ghost In The Shell’ movie review by Justin Chang
Justin Chang reviews « Ghost In The Shell, » directed by Rupert Sanders, starring Scarlett Johansson, Juliette Binoche, Takeshi Kitano, Michael Pitt, Pilou Asbaek and Chin Han. Video by Jason H. Neubert.
Justin Chang reviews « Ghost In The Shell, » directed by Rupert Sanders, starring Scarlett Johansson, Juliette Binoche, Takeshi Kitano, Michael Pitt, Pilou Asbaek and Chin Han. Video by Jason H. Neubert.
Caption‘I Called Him Morgan’ movie review by Kenneth Turan
Kenneth Turan reviews « I Called Him Morgan » a new documentary about jazz great Lee Morgan. Video by Jason H. Neubert.
Kenneth Turan reviews « I Called Him Morgan » a new documentary about jazz great Lee Morgan. Video by Jason H. Neubert.
CaptionTrump supporter survival skills
Here are the skills Trump supporters need to survive behind California’s Blue Curtain.
Here are the skills Trump supporters need to survive behind California’s Blue Curtain.
In a White House where President Donald Trump commands reverence, Jared Kushner often refers to the president by one name: Donald. And while cable TV can dominate the president’s mood and set the agenda for senior administration staff, Kushner usually keeps his large flat-screen TV in his office turned off, a stark departure from other top aides.
Kushner, the president’s 36-year-old son-in-law and White House senior adviser, does essentially what he wants, having the benefit of not only Trump’s ear but — as a family member — his implicit trust.
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That trust has resulted in a vast portfolio that so far includes negotiating an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal, helping oversee relations with Canada, China and Mexico and, as of this week, reinventing the federal government through the new White House Office of American Innovation.
But Kushner’s status as the big-issue guru has stoked resentment among his colleagues, who question whether Kushner is capable of following through on his various commitments and complain that his dabbling in myriad issues and his tendency to walk in and out of meetings have complicated efforts to instill more order and organization into the chaotic administration. These people also say Kushner can be a shrewd self promoter, knowing how to take credit — and shirk blame — whenever it suits him.
“He’s saving the government and the Middle East at the same time,” one senior administration official quipped.
In addition to being arguably the president’s most trusted and influential adviser, Kushner also serves as Trump’s unofficial hatchet man. And all eyes are on Kushner as White House insiders predict a broader staff shakeup amid rising tensions between Kushner and White House chief strategist Steve Bannon.
Kushner would like to present Trump a plan for improving the White House within weeks, around the 90-day mark, according to a person familiar with the plan.
In a move that’s alarming the West Wing’s hardline conservatives, Kushner is increasingly aligning himself with national economic adviser Gary Cohn, who’s participating in Kushner’s innovation office and a Democrat whose moderate political positions in some ways mirror Kushner’s own.
Kushner, the person familiar with his plans said, wants fewer zealots and less ideology in the West Wing — and is frustrated with the constant leaking and infighting that have characterized the administration’s early days.
“Everyone is jealous,” said one person close to the White House. Kushner is “the ultimate decider. Mostly people are jealous. »
This account of Kushner’s role is based on more than a dozen interviews with senior White House officials, allies, donors, lawmakers and others.
White House chief of staff Reince Priebus said Kushner has been an asset to the Trump administration. “Jared has been a top advisor to the president from the beginning. Using his wealth of private-sector experience, he is always finding innovative solutions to our country’s biggest problems.”
Kushner spends his days bopping from meetings on Capitol Hill to pacing the Oval Office with Trump to calling Trump’s friends and potential media allies, like morning show host Joe Scarborough. He involves himself in high-level discussions on all manner of policy priorities, ranging from health care and tax reform to trade policy. In foreign policy, he’s been publicly tasked with solving Middle East peace, while also handling Canada, China and Mexico issues.
He created the innovation office last week — which is amorphous but designed to save the government money, improve technology and reduce bureaucracy, officials say. He is particularly interested in large infrastructure projects, a senior administration official said.
The creation of the office added to a perception around the White House that Kushner’s portfolio is almost impossibly ambitious, and that he prefers big-picture discussions to the sometimes mundane and detail-oriented work involved in carrying out policy changes.
On Wednesday, White House staffers and outside allies passed around a story from the parody website The Onion indicating that Kushner had “quietly moved the task ‘solve Middle East crisis’ to his to-do list for next week” because “there was simply too much on his plate right now to bring stability to the fractious region by end of day Friday.” Kushner did not see the piece, a person close to him said.
Yet he is frequently the last person Trump speaks to at night. He spends most weekends with his father-in-law, traveling to Florida aboard Air Force One. Last week, he called lawmakers from a vacation in Aspen, Colo., as the health care bill went off the rails — and, while several aides questioned his decision to go on holiday at such a critical time, Kushner was the one who went to dinner with the president the day after the bill failed, joined by his wife Ivanka Trump–who is now also taking a formal position alongside her husband in her father’s administration.
Kushner’s boosters see him as “a visionary” who is bringing to government a disruptive Silicon Valley mindset that helped him succeed in the technology and real estate industries, as well as on Trump’s unconventional presidential campaign.
Kushner signed off on a mini-shakeup formalized on Thursday, when White House Deputy Chief of Staff Katie Walsh packed her bags and headed to the non-profit group created to support Trump’s agenda, sources familiar with the move said. His involvement with White House staffing echoes his role in orchestrating Trump’s campaign, where Kushner was instrumental in the removals of Corey Lewandowski as campaign manager, as well as Paul Manafort as campaign chairman, and later New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie as transition chief, according to people involved in all three shakeups.
Kushner has told people that he believes at least some of the resentment of him is being whipped up by people who worked on the campaign but didn’t get the jobs in the White House, such as Lewandowski, as well as conservatives concerned that he’s too liberal.
Lewandowski did not respond to a request for comment, but Kushner’s allies contend that Lewandowski and other critics have tried to plant negative stories about Kushner in the media.
They point, for example, to a burst of inquiries from at least seven media outlets chasing a tip that Kushner was lobbying Trump to pardon Kushner’s father Charles Kushner, who pleaded guilty in 2005 to tax evasion, witness tampering and making illegal campaign contributions. There’s no evidence Jared Kushner sought such a pardon, and no media outlets have corroborated the rumor.
Kushner defenders argue that he has a moderate sensibility that benefits the White House. Kushner, for his part, believes striking middle ground means people are often going to be mad at him from all sides.
But it’s made him a target for those who believe Trump is being encouraged to jettison some of the promises that got him elected—or adopt new positions at odds with what his Trump Train voters thought they were getting. Influential conservative talk show host Mark Levin has name-checked Kushner several times as a liberal influence in the White House, including late last month when Kushner reportedly was considering supporting a border adjustment tax proposal. Levin called the tax “an old-time liberal Democrat protectionist” policy and called Kushner “some 32-year-old, liberal Democrat kid out of New York.”
When the White House is planning initiatives on those issues that might offend moderates, one of the senior administration officials said, “You can expect to read the anonymous story that Jared and Ivanka are trying to stop it.”
Others are more concerned about what Kushner hasn’t done. One pro-Israel operative who works with the administration said “there were high hopes” that Kushner — an Orthodox Jew and the grandson of Holocaust survivors, whose only picture in his office is of his grandparents — “was a guy who really understood our community” when Trump tapped him as a point person on the Middle East.
But, the operative said, those hopes mostly have been supplanted by “deep concern that Jared is not the person we thought he was — that this guy who is supposed to be good at everything is totally out of his depth.”
Those concerns have been fueled by a series of disappointments, including Trump’s equivocation on campaign trail pledges to move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem and to support Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, as well as his unwillingness to force personnel moves at the State Department sought by neoconservatives.
Influential Jewish Republicans including the mega-donor casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson lobbied Kushner to convince Trump to appoint prominent neoconservative foreign policy hand Elliott Abrams as the No. 2 official in Foggy Bottom and to remove Michael Ratney, a State Department official who previously served as U.S. consul in Jerusalem under Obama, from his role handling Middle East affairs.
Kushner was non-committal about Ratney, according to two sources familiar with the lobbying. But Kushner did go to bat for Abrams, only to have Trump veto the appointment because Abrams had criticized Trump during the campaign and was opposed by Bannon. Nonetheless, Adelson, who has spoken repeatedly by phone with Kushner, was disappointed with Kushner’s inability or unwillingness to deliver on the personnel recommendations, as well as the stasis on the embassy, said three Jewish Republicans active in Israel causes.
On Abrams, Kushner “got outmaneuvered by Bannon and couldn’t turn it around,” said a leading neoconservative who has spoken to both Kushner and Adelson in recent weeks. The leader added that, despite the attendance of Vice President Mike Pence at this week’s conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in Washington, Kushner’s absence was noted by attendees, who questioned the administration’s Israel policy and Kushner’s role in it.
“One of the things that people are realizing now for the first time is that he’s in charge of too many things, and therefore his ability to get deeply involved in any one of them is limited,” said the neoconservative leader.
That dynamic was apparent during the debate over the failed health care bill, the Trump administration’s first major public policy fight. Kushner privately expressed displeasure with the GOP replacement bill to the president repeatedly and in no uncertain terms, three people familiar with the discussions told POLITICO. He voiced his displeasure so often that Trump at one point grew exasperated, telling his son-in-law that he fully understood his position, according to the two senior administration officials.
Kushner played a key role in arranging for health expert Zeke Emanuel, an architect of Obamacare, to meet at the White House three times with senior staff and at least once with the president himself to discuss healthcare, according to three people familiar with the visits. Two of the people said the meetings drew eye rolls from conservative Trump staffers, who viewed Emanuel—brother of former Obama chief-of-staff Rahm Emanuel—as the opposition. (The third Emanuel brother, talent agent Ari, represented Trump during his “Apprentice” days.)
Kushner is “genuinely interested in trying to find the right answers to solve difficult problems in the country in a bipartisan way,” Zeke Emanuel said. “Nothing suggests that he is deeply ideological, and unlike many people in Washington, he’s not afraid to acknowledge that there are things that he knows and other things he doesn’t know that much about.”
But during Emanuel’s final White House visit, on the Monday before the implosion of the healthcare bill, Kushner kept walking in and out of the meeting, according to a source who attended. Then, he disappeared for a few days of skiing and ice-cream outings in Aspen, an absence his critics saw as either a protest or a dereliction of a duty.
It didn’t help that a front page spread in The Washington Post unveiling Kushner’s new White House Office of American Innovation appeared on the same day that it was revealed that he had acquiesced to a Senate Intelligence Committee request to testify about meetings with the head of a Russian-government-owned development bank. Kushner failed to disclose the meetings to the White House, blindsiding colleagues managing fallout from the Russia-related scandals gripping the young administration.
He has encouraged allies not to worry about the Russia investigation because he believes it will go nowhere — and says the Trump administration will outgrow its early stumbles. But if it doesn’t, allies and aides say, one thing is clear: the president will surely find someone else to take the blame. And Kushner will likely be delivering the bad news.
HubSpot has dubbed 2017 “the year of video marketing”. With the ability to stand out on social media, videos give consumers a quick overview of a product without overwhelming them with text. In a matter of seconds, a consumer can get the information needed about a business, through video.
Online video is an ideal channel for marketers to use, as adverts are specifically targeted to a particular audience. Online video also offers consumers the opportunity the converse directly with advertisers, as well as to gain feedback from other users.
Mike Kelly, MD of Digital Ambro’s, tells media update that 78% of online video users trust peer reviews, while only 14% trust adverts.
“Online video is discoverable and available on-demand, so no more flicking through TV channels hoping to discover something you may be interested in.”
Kelly says that 85% of people would rather watch a web video than to read the rest of the text on a page. They further assert that if a consumer enjoys the video, they are 97% more willing to buy the product.
MD of World Wide Worx, Arthur Goldstuck, says that the growth of YouTube is testament to the success of video and that Facebook is going to reap the same rewards as it becomes more video friendly.
“Our research shows that YouTube is one of the most popular Online entertainment destinations in South Africa. More than 8 million people use it, and that number is growing fast. If that’s not viable, you should shut down every newspaper in the country.”
Marketers find video so appealing because of its analytics capabilities, says Duo Marketing director, Judith Middleton.
“You know, within a day or two, whether your video has been effective [or not] because Google Analytics will tell you who is watching, what the engagement layer is like. If it’s not working, the immediacy of a chance can happen within a few hours – you can create a new video. The analysis on the various approaches is very useful for marketing professionals, as they navigate the world of analytics and see where the traction is coming from.”
She tells media update that videos help to increase brand visibility.
“[Video] really does help brands become a lot more visible, a lot more present and a lot more engaged two-way. People are starting to see video as the new digital asset that really does prove return on investment.”
Mobile is the way forward
Judith Middleton, director of Duo Marketing, says that mobile is huge in South Africa.
“South Africa is being built for the mobile, which means that it is accessible and even though our data prices are quite high – a lot of people are accessing this through Wi-Fi, LANs and fibre networks, rather than on their own cellphone contracts.”
In an article by Brian Peters on Buffer Social, he says that mobile content consumption is increasing rapidly.
“Facebook alone has 1.09 billion mobile daily active users (a 22% increase a year over), and more than 92% of Facebook users access it via mobile.”
Peters goes on to explain that square videos outperform landscape videos in both views and engagement, owing to its suitability for social platforms. In certain cases, square videos had 30-35% higher views and 80-100% more engagement that its landscape counterparts.
In South Africa, the majority of consumers will watch video content online, via a mobile device.
Ericsson’s ConsumerLab Report says that online video consumption in South Africa will grow by 55% per year until 2019, suggesting that brands should capitalise on the growing reach and engagement value that video can provide.
Is video marketing the right fit for your business?
Goldstuck tells media update that video marketing is not necessarily the best option for all products and, like any other marketing strategy, needs to fit the brand.
“If you are able to put across a compelling message visually, both video and images can be a good fit. Even then, it’s all about the execution.”
Middleton says that video can be good option for brands with complex products and that it is far easier to understand it with visuals than reading a press announcement.
“We’ve found video often humanises brands – so sometimes in a very clinical environment like tech or financial, products sometimes can be a little intimidating. When you see the innovator or you see the brand become a little bit more humanised with people who are real and every day, the impact and the call to action is often a lot higher.”
Difficult-to-explain products and services can be the best fit for video marketing, Kelly says.
“Video is a no-brainer for those products or services which are difficult to explain with words alone – and, if you use it properly, it will explain your passion and expertise in your field. We all have a story to tell and video marketing is an effective and persuasive way to educate consumers.”
Tips to successful video marketing
Goldstuck says that capturing the audience from the start is imperative.
“You are likely to lose your viewer in the first 20 seconds, if not less, so be prepared to waste your investment if a big chunk of it doesn’t go into catching people’s attention from the start.”
He goes on to say that the quality of the video can say a lot about the business.
“Production quality is critical in differentiating the professional or the skilled from the amateur and the chancer.”
Although production is important, Middleton says that content will always be the most important part of what separates a good video from an average one.
“YouTube is not expecting us to do full-blown explainer corporate videos, they want immediacy, they want efficient, they want quality and they want engagement. This can come from an interview where you film someone in a parking lot after a conference and say, ‘what are the key take-outs from this conference?’”
She says it is important to remember that video should not replace other parts of a marketing strategy, but merely form part of a broader strategy.
“Video is just another tool in a video marketing strategy and we mustn’t be over-reliant on video as a single strategy.”
LONDON — North Korea must be stopped on its path toward being able to threaten the United States with nuclear attack, U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Friday in a stark expression of America’s top national security concern at the moment. He emphasized diplomatic means of changing Pyongyang’s “reckless” agenda.
On his first visit to Britain as Pentagon chief, Mattis also took rhetorical jabs at Russia and said America’s priority in Syria is defeating the Islamic State group rather than bringing down President Bashar Assad.
At a joint news conference with his British counterpart, Michael Fallon, Mattis was reminded by a reporter that as commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East several years ago, he considered Iran to be the biggest threat to U.S. interests. Asked how he would deal with Iran as secretary of defense, Mattis called Tehran a problem but quickly pivoted to condemning North Korea and described the isolated, communist country as the more immediate threat.
“This is a threat of both rhetoric and growing capability,” Mattis said, alluding to the North’s recent progress in building nuclear bombs and developing an intercontinental ballistic missile to deliver such weapons to U.S. soil. Experts believe
North Korea will develop such capability in the next years, despite an array of international sanctions on the country. The Trump administration has been conducting a broad policy review of North Korea that includes military options, but Mattis stressed other approaches.
“We are working diplomatically, including with those that we might be able to enlist in this effort to get North Korea under control,” he said. “But right now it appears to be going in a very reckless manner.”
“That’s got to be stopped,” he concluded.
Mattis made clear he still worries about Iran’s involvement in what the U.S. sees as destabilizing activities across the Middle East. But he suggested that he now sees the world through a wider lens and that makes North Korea the more urgent problem.
He also aimed strong criticism at Russia, saying its “violations of international law are now a matter of record.” He was referring to its annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region in 2014 and “mucking around insider other people’s elections and that sort of thing.” He also cited Russian outreach to Afghanistan’s Taliban as a concern.
Mattis hinted the Trump administration was close to deciding how to respond to Russia’s recent deployment of a ground-based medium-range cruise missile — an action the Pentagon recently declared a violation of the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces treaty.
Britain’s Fallon said he and Mattis discussed the INF issue in their private talks Friday. More broadly, he said the NATO alliance cannot return to business as usual with Russia.
“There is a pattern of interference by Russia,” Fallon said. When the West does engage with Moscow, he added, “we need to be wary of what Russia is up to.”
On Syria, which has been wracked by years of civil and IS’ insurgency, Mattis said the U.S. government is “working this one day at a time.” He said the focus is IS’ stated intention of attacking the West, including Europe.
“We’re going to have to keep them on their back foot, and that’s where we’re concentrating at this point,” he said, alluding to U.S.-supported offensives in Mosul, Iraq, and Raqqa, Syria.
Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
ATLANTA — Atlanta’s notoriously tangled commutes were thrown into disarray Friday after a bridge on Interstate 85 collapsed amid a massive fire, shutting down the heavily traveled highway through the heart of the city.
Traffic was bumper to bumper on nearby streets as people scrambled to find alternate routes after the fire broke out during rush hour Thursday afternoon. However, officials said no one was hurt despite towering flames and plumes of smoke captured in dramatic video footage.
The interstate, which carries 250,000 cars a day, is a major artery for the South and a thoroughfare for traffic heading north and south through Atlanta. Many commuters in some of Atlanta’s densely populated northern suburbs will likely be forced to find alternate routes or ride public transit for weeks or even months.
“This is about as serious a transportation crisis as we can imagine,” Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed said. The bridge collapse effectively “puts a cork in the bottle,” Georgia State Patrol Commissioner Mark McDonough said.
Traffic is bumper to bumper as people scrambled to find alternate routes in Atlanta on Friday, March 31, 2017
Georgia’s top transportation official said there’s no way to tell when the highway can be safely reopened to traffic in either direction.
“We will have to continue to evaluate the situation and adjust as we do,” Department of Transportation Commissioner Russell McMurry said. “This incident – make no bones about it – will have a tremendous impact on travel.”
On Friday, the federal government announced $10 million in funds to bolster emergency repairs to the collapsed overpass, CBS News transportation correspondent Kris Van Cleave reports.
“The quick release of these funds will help to ensure the bridge is repaired safely and in a timely manner to prevent any further disruption to the hundreds of thousands of people who travel it on a daily basis,” Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao said in a statement announcing the funds.
Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal declared a state of emergency Thursday night for Fulton County.
Atlanta Fire Department spokesman Sgt. Cortez Stafford said no cars were on the overpass when it fell.
“Our guys got here quickly and shut down the interstate and said, ‘No one else is driving over this bridge,’” he said.
Firefighters noticed chunks of concrete falling from the bridge and got out of the way just minutes before it collapsed, Stafford said.
CBS Atlanta affiliate WGCL-TV reported that “Miles of cars were stopped on the bridge just yards from the collapsed section. Eyewitnesses reported seeing some people getting out of their vehicles and leaving them on the road, opting to walk to nearby areas.”
However, officials said no one was hurt despite dramatic images of towering flames and plumes of smoke.
Construction workers and firefighters survey a section of an overpass that collapsed from a large fire on Interstate 85 in Atlanta, Friday, March 31, 2017
Connie Bailey-Blake of Dacula, 37 miles northeast of Atlanta, was catching a MARTA commuter train Friday morning to reach her job in downtown Atlanta. She typically drives 46 miles to work, often using the interstate.
Bailey-Blake said: “The first few days are going to be difficult.” She arrived at the train station at 9:15 a.m. – 15 minutes past when her work day was supposed to start.
Amelia Ford, who lives in Atlanta, opted to find another route to work by car Friday said it took her 45 minutes to travel 3 miles from her home to the nearest open interstate exit. She said other drivers were being “surprisingly, pretty patient.”
Capt. Mark Perry of the Georgia State Patrol told the newspaper the agency doesn’t know what started the fire beneath the bridge but terrorism isn’t suspected.
Deal, the governor, told reporters some PVC plastic materials in a vehicle may have caught fire.
“I do not know why they did or what the source of their transport was,” Deal said Thursday. “But those are questions that will hopefully be answered at least by tomorrow morning.”
Atlanta Police told WGCL the fire burned piles of plastic wiring under the overpass.
Fire burns out of control under I-85 in Atlanta, causing highway overpass to collapse on March 30, 2017
Though the material burned was plastic, officials said there was no danger of particles in the air to the public, the station says.
Deal said inspectors were at the scene and they’ve contacted the original company that built the bridge to come in and assess the extent of the damage.
“We’re trying to determine everything we can about how quickly can we repair it and get it back in service,” Deal said. “I can assure you we will do everything to expedite the repair and replacement of that section of the bridge.”
Get that? Flynn is only seeking immunity — as was reported on Thursday evening — because the Democrats and the media are whipping up a rigged witch hunt and Flynn can’t trust the process.
That spin runs contrary to the assumptions of many fervent opponents of the president. As readily as Trump, Flynn and his allies rushed to criticism when aides to Hillary Clinton sought immunity in the probe of her email server, Trump’s opponents seized on the suggestion of an immunity deal as evidence that Flynn necessarily had secrets to hide.
The truth is probably far more subtle than that, according to Todd Bussert, a federal criminal defense attorney in Connecticut who spoke with The Washington Post by phone Friday morning.
“It’s not unusual for anybody who’s the subject of a federal investigation to want immunity before speaking to federal authorities,” Bussert said. “Even if they’ve done nothing wrong, there’s this fear that something they say could be used against them.”
But, of course, it’s not usually in the government’s interest to grant that immunity. For one thing, the government is in the business of prosecuting those guilty of crimes, not simply in hearing their stories. For another, granting someone immunity doesn’t guarantee that they will tell the truth — having immunity may make people more likely to couch or frame their words in whatever way they wish.
When immunity is granted, it’s often with an eye toward reeling in a bigger fish — which is why Trump critics have seized on the idea. But as Bussert noted in our conversation, that also makes Flynn’s request for immunity sort of an all-or-nothing deal: Either he’s got something that can take down the president or he has nothing that will take down anybody, since there aren’t many bigger fish than a top adviser to the president of the United States.
The government isn’t going to simply give immunity just to hear a confession. That’s not how such agreements work anyway; prosecutors only grant immunity once they know what information the person has. “You would have a difficult time seeing a scenario whereby they would be willing to look the other way if they think he engaged in criminal misconduct,” Bussert said. “They might say, ‘Come in and help yourself. Come in to a cooperation agreement and we’ll help you at sentencing — but we’re not going to simply let you walk away from this.’ ”
But, he added, “What a congressional committee might feel could be completely different.” And that’s key.
Remember: Defense attorneys generally are quick to advise clients not to talk to prosecutors at all. That Flynn’s attorney publicly demonstrated his willingness to “tell his story” under the cover of immunity gives us a hint of what the strategy might be. As Alex Whiting also noted at the blog Just Security, Flynn’s attorney may be hoping that Congress, not prosecutors, grant him immunity before he tells them anything. Congress can’t make Flynn immune from prosecution, but lawmakers can make his testimony immune from being used against him — as has famously been done in the past.
Oliver North addresses the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington on Feb. 9, 2012. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP)
In 1990, a federal appeals court vacated three convictions against Oliver North, a former Reagan administration official who had been caught in the Iran-contra scandal several years earlier. Convicted of bribery, destruction of documents and obstructing a congressional inquiry, he received a suspended sentence. Those convictions were overturned, however, because North had been granted immunity for his testimony before Congress as part of its investigation into the scandal. While that testimony wasn’t used as part of North’s criminal prosecution, the court determined that it may have tainted the evidence that was included. In 1991, the convictions were thrown out.
“Everyone familiar with these proceedings has recognized the difficulties presented by the grant of immunity by Congress,” prosecutor Lawrence Walsh told the New York Times when the appeals court decision was announced.
Flynn’s attorney may be hoping to do the same thing. Get a blanket immunity from a congressional committee. Tell the committee what you know, which may or may not be anything of any significance. Let that immunity then muddy the waters around any criminal inquiry. Since the North incident, Bussert said he wasn’t aware of any fixes that could prevent the same thing from happening again — after all, we’re talking about two independent branches of government. “Strategically,” he said, “it makes sense.”
If Flynn wants to get immunity from a congressional committee, one thing that might help is the perception that he’s being targeted unfairly out of political motivations. If the Republicans who run investigatory committees are convinced that there’s an unfair effort to impugn Flynn, they might be more willing to grant him immunity so that he can speak freely without worrying about partisan repercussions.
You know what might help reinforce that concern among Republicans? A tweet to that end from a Republican president.
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