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As early as next week, President Donald Trump could become only the third U.S. president to be impeached by the House of Representatives. If the Democratically-controlled House votes to impeach Trump for allegedly abusing his power related to his dealings with Ukraine, the case would move to the Republican-controlled Senate for an impeachment trial early next year where the political landscape is much more favorable to the president. From Washington, VOA National correspondent Jim Malone has more on what a Senate trial would look like.
President Donald Trump is now expected to become only the third U.S. president impeached by the House of Representatives.
If the Democratic-controlled House votes next week to impeach Trump for allegedly abusing his power related to his dealings with Ukraine, the case would move to the Republican-controlled Senate for an impeachment trial where the political landscape is much more favorable to the president.
While Democrats dominate the House, Republicans hold 53 of the 100 seats in the Senate. Democrats hold 45, and also count on the votes of two independents — Angus King of Maine and Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
In order for Trump to be removed from office, the Senate, sitting as jurors, would need to convict him of one or more articles of impeachment by a two-thirds majority vote, or 67 of the 100 senators, according to the U.S. Constitution.
Republican-Led Senate Looms as Trump’s Savior video player.
Democrats would need to find a way to get 20 Senate Republicans to support conviction. Given polls that show Republican voters are still firmly behind the president, experts see Trump’s removal as highly unlikely.
“I do not see how in the world you could ever get 20 Republican senators to vote to oust Donald Trump,” said University of Virginia analyst Larry Sabato via Skype. “They might as well vote to oust and then announce their resignations, because they won’t be serving for very long once they cast that vote.”
While House Republicans have stood with the president on impeachment, a few Senate Republicans such as Mitt Romney of Utah and Susan Collins of Maine have been critical of the president at times.
Associated Press Washington bureau chief Julie Pace said those senators will be watched closely in a Senate trial.
“It does not mean that they will vote to convict him, but it does mean that we may see a scenario in which you have at least some members of Trump’s party expressing real concern about his interactions with Ukraine.”
What kind of trial?
There is also the issue of how a Senate impeachment trial will be conducted. As laid out in the U.S. Constitution, Chief Justice John Roberts would preside. But the Senate approves the rules for consideration of evidence and witnesses.
Trump has said he would like to call a host of witnesses, including Democratic House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, former Vice President Joe Biden, his son Hunter Biden, and the whistleblower who filed the initial complaint over the president’s dealings with Ukraine.
,A copy of a page of the Articles of Impeachment is seen in Washington, Dec. 10, 2019.
House Democrats have accused Trump of abuse of power by demanding that Ukraine announce an investigation of the Bidens, and a discredited theory that Ukraine conspired with Democrats to interfere in the 2016 election in exchange for the release of $391 million in military aid that was temporarily held up by the White House.
White House officials expect the trial procedures will benefit the president. White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said Trump would be helped “where you get to introduce live witnesses and have them cross-examined, and introduce your own pieces of evidence, and challenge other people’s evidence.”
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and other Republicans are said to favor a shorter, streamlined trial that would not include witnesses. They would prefer to dispense of the impeachment case against Trump fairly quickly, perhaps in a few weeks. By contrast, the Clinton impeachment trial in 1999 ran for five weeks.
“I’m not in the camp of calling a bunch of witnesses. I think as an American, the best thing we can do is deep-six this thing,” Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham told Axios.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., denounces a report by the Justice Department’s internal watchdog, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Dec. 9, 2019.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has warned Republicans against a partisan trial.
“The best way to do something as important and almost as hallowed a procedure as this is in a bipartisan way,” the New York Democrat said.
That may not suit Trump, who reportedly wants to use impeachment as motivation to drive his supporters to the polls in next year’s presidential election.
Trump has denied the allegations and is counting on Senate Republicans to vote to acquit him in an impeachment trial.
“The radical left Democrats and the failed Washington establishment are trying to erase your votes, nullify the election and overthrow our democracy,” Trump told supporters this week at a campaign rally in Hershey, Pennsylvania. “It is not going to happen, don’t worry about it.”
President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally in Hershey, Pennsylvania, Dec. 10, 2019.
A test for the Senate
The Senate has been down this road before.
In 1999, Clinton was acquitted of perjury and obstruction of justice related to his affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
In 1868, President Andrew Johnson survived a Senate trial by a single vote after he was impeached for violating a congressional act protecting high government officials from removal.
In Trump’s case, House Democrats have accused him of abuse of power for pressuring Ukraine to investigate the Bidens, and obstruction of Congress for ordering administration officials to refuse to testify or provide documents as part of the impeachment inquiry.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., center, unveils articles of impeachment against President Donald Trump, during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Dec. 10, 2019.
“Our president holds the ultimate public trust,” said House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, as he introduced the two articles of impeachment. “When he betrays that trust and puts himself before country, he endangers the Constitution, he endangers our democracy, and he endangers our national security.”
No matter the outcome, a Senate trial will be a demanding test for U.S. democracy.
“I would hope and pray that all of my Senate colleagues will take a deep breath no matter where we have been so far and step back and realize this is probably the most important constitutional responsibility we have,” Democratic Sen. Mark Warner told reporters at the Capitol.
Perhaps looking ahead to a January trial, Senate Chaplain Barry Black offered up an appeal this week for divine guidance as the Senate was gaveled to order.
“Lord, guide our senators to the right paths. Lead them beside still waters. Restore their souls.”
China’s Foreign Ministry, when asked about the trade deal with the United States, said it is committed to resolving the issues but the deal must be mutually beneficial.
Spokeswoman Hua Chunying made the comments on Friday at a daily briefing.
The United States and China are coming up against a natural deadline on Dec. 15 when a tariff hike will come into effect.
Washington has set its terms for the first part of the so-called “phased deal”, offering to suspend some tariffs on Chinese goods and cut others in exchange for Beijing buying more American farm goods, U.S. sources have said.
Shares in Saudi Aramco gained on the second day of trading Thursday, propelling the oil and gas company to a more than $2 trillion valuation, where it holds the title of the world’s most valuable listed company.
Shares jumped in trading to reach up to 38.60 Saudi riyals, or $10.29 before noon, three hours before trading closes.
Aramco has sold a 1.5% share to mostly Saudi investors and local Saudi and Gulf-based funds.
With gains made from just two days of trading, Aramco sits comfortably ahead of the world’s largest companies, including Apple, the second largest company in the world valued at $1.19 trillion.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is the architect of the effort to list Aramco, touting it as a way to raise capital for the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund, which would then develop new cities and lucrative projects across the country that create jobs for young Saudis.
He had sought a $2 trillion valuation for Aramco when he first announced in 2015 plans to sell a sliver of the state-owned company.
International investors, however, thought the price was too high, given the relatively lower price of oil, climate change concerns and geopolitical risks associated with Aramco. The company’s main crude oil processing facility and another site were targeted by missiles and drones in September, knocking out more than half of Saudi production for some time. The kingdom and the U.S. have blamed the attack on rival Iran, which denies involvement.
In the lead-up to the flotation, there had been a strong push for Saudis, including princes and businessmen, to contribute to what’s seen locally as a moment of national pride, and even duty. Gulf-based funds from allied countries also contributed to the IPO, though it has largely been propelled by Saudi capital.
At a ceremony Wednesday for the start of trading, Aramco Chairman Yasir Al-Rumayyan, described the sale as “a proud and historic moment for Saudi Aramco and our majority shareholder, the kingdom.”
Five candidates have their eyes on becoming the next president of Algeria — without a leader since April — as voting began in Thursday’s contentious election boycotted by a massive pro-democracy movement.
The powerful army chief and his cohorts in the interim government have promised the voting will chart a new era for the gas-rich North African nation that is a strategic partner of the West in countering extremist violence. Those opposed to the voting fear the results will replicate a corrupt, anti-democratic system they are trying to level.
Tension was palpable on the eve of the vote as protesters in at least 10 towns denounced the elections. In Bouira, east of Algiers, the capital, security forces used tear gas to push back protesters who had invaded a voting station in a high school, according to the online TSA news agency, citing witnesses. Several thousand people demonstrated in Algiers.
Polls opened at 8 a.m. (0700 GMT) and are to close at 8 p.m. (1900 GMT). Results were not likely until Friday, to be announced by a newly created National Independent Electoral Authority overseeing the voting. The body was among the nods of authorities to protesters, like the decision for soldiers to vote in civilian clothes at regular polling stations, rather than in barracks.
The five candidates, two of them former prime ministers, Ali Benflis and Abdelmadjid Tebboune, endured insults and protests during the 22-day campaign. All five contenders have links to former President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who was forced to resign in April after 20 years in office under pressure from weekly street protests that began in February, with an assist from army chief Ahmed Gaid Salah.
The turnout rate should be a critical indication of whether the contender elected has popular legitimacy. There was no firm indication which of the five had the upper hand ahead of the vote. Opinion polls for elections are not permitted.
Tebboune, 74, was until recently seen as the favorite due to his reportedly close ties to Gaid Salah. However, a 60-year-old former culture minister, Azzedine Mihoubi, a writer and poet, has been touted in the media. Mihoubi has deep ties to the fallen Bouteflika regime. He took over leadership of the National Democratic Rally party, which governed in alliance with the FLN, the sole party for nearly three decades, until 1989, and now in tatters.
Benflis, 75, was making his third attempt at the presidency. A lawyer and former justice minister, he was Bouteflika’s top aide before falling out when he ran against him in 2004. He started his own party.
The other candidates are Abdelaziz Belaid, 56, a former figure in the FLN who started his own party, and Abdelkader Bengrini, 57, a one-time tourism minister and former member of the moderate Islamist party, Movement for a Society of Peace (MSP). He then started his own Islamist party el Bina, which like the MSP, backed Bouteflika.
Gaid Salah, who has emerged as the authority figure in the political vacuum, setting the date for the elections, has maintained that the voting is the shortest and surest way to raise Algeria out of its paralyzing political crisis and give birth to a new era. He was the force behind an anti-corruption campaign that has seen top figures jailed and convicted, including Said Bouteflika, the president’s brother and chief counselor, sentenced to 15 years in prison in September for “plotting against the state.”
Gaid Salah refers to Bouteflika’s entourage as “the gang,” as do pro-democracy protesters who include Gaid Salah among them.
India sent thousands of troops into the northeastern state of Assam Thursday to quell violent protests triggered by a new law that would make it easier for non-Muslims from some neighboring countries to gain citizenship.
Angry protesters defied a curfew imposed in the capital of Guwahati and elsewhere across Assam, setting cars and tires ablaze before being dispersed by security forces. Protesters also attacked the homes of members of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata (BJP) party.
Critics say the Citizenship Amendment Bill, which passed the upper house of Parliament Wednesday, would lead to a flood of immigrants into Assam and other northeast states, and would marginalize India’s minority Muslims, which they claim is a goal of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Hindu nationalist government.
“I want to assure my brothers and sisters of Assam that they have nothing to worry after the passing of #CAB,” Prime Minister Modi said in a statement posted on his Twitter account. “I want to assure them — no one can take away your rights, unique identity and beautiful culture. It will continue to flourish and grow.”
I want to assure my brothers and sisters of Assam that they have nothing to worry after the passing of #CAB.
I want to assure them- no one can take away your rights, unique identity and beautiful culture. It will continue to flourish and grow.
Opponents also say the bill is a ploy by Modi and the BJP to weaken the secular foundations of India’s democracy.
The bill will make six religious groups — Hindus, Sikhs, Christians, Jains, Parsis and Buddhists — who came to India from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan before December 31, 2014, eligible for Indian citizenship. The government says it is intended to give sanctuary to minorities who fled religious persecution in these countries.
With a day to go before Britons head to the polls to vote in their third general election in under four years, the question the ruling Conservatives are asking themselves is, will Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s gamble to hold an early ballot pay off?
Will he be able to accomplish what his Downing Street predecessor, Theresa May, failed to do in 2017 with her snap election and secure a large parliamentary majority?
Johnson hopes to achieve what she failed to do — to persuade traditional working-class voters who favor Brexit in the north of England to ditch their lifetime habit of voting Labor. If successful, it would amount to a seismic reshaping of British politics.
Opinion polls suggest the Conservatives may pull off a big win Thursday and secure a sufficient majority for Johnson to end the long-running Brexit mess by taking Britain out of the European Union by the end of January. In the final days of the campaign, Johnson has focused on Labor’s so-called “red wall,” searching for cracks to widen in old towns and farming villages crucial to the Conservatives’ hopes of winning Thursday’s election, warning voters that they face a “great Brexit betrayal,” if they vote for an increasingly metropolitan and southern Labor Party.
Most polls have been giving the Conservatives, also known as Tories, a 10-percent lead over Labor, the country’s main opposition party. But the race appears to have tightened in the final stretch. One poll midweek had the lead cut to 8 percent and a further drop would point to a likely hung parliament. Few pollsters are ready to hazard a firm prediction of a Johnson win. In 2017, the opinion polls were upended by a late surge toward Labor and a high turnout by pro-EU youngsters. Labor has a strong record in getting out their vote.
Brexit has turned Britain into a politically tumultuous country — old party allegiances have weakened and a wide generation gap has been exposed, with younger voters shifting left and older voters shifting right. New political groups have emerged; the centrist pro-EU Liberal Democrats have enjoyed a revival thanks to lawmakers defecting to them from Labor and the Tories. Both main parties have lurched toward their extremes, putting off their moderate supporters.
All of that spells the possibility of some big surprises on election night. Twelve percent to 17 percent of Britons apparently are still undecided voters.
The conduct of this election, what has been dubbed Britain’s first post-truth election, has been anything but normal and that could come back to hurt the parties when voters are casting their ballots.
The campaigning has become more toxic as it unfolds. “Fake news” stories have been planted with abandon, and online disinformation and manipulation are being used to rally support by fomenting outrage and anger. Social media have become more influential in the national discourse than the newspapers or the broadcasters. The politicians have been lost in a world of spin, say election critics, playing fast and loose with the facts, determinedly evading serious examination of their policies and plans.
“This election has been marinated in mendacity: big lies and small lies, quarter truths and pseudo facts; distraction, dissembling and disinformation; and digital skulduggery on an industrial scale,” the country’s storied Economist magazine said this week.
The biggest lie by the Tories, say commentators, has been that Brexit can be delivered painlessly and without much disruption. “Get Brexit done” has been Johnson’s mantra throughout. And the Conservatives have stayed relentlessly on message, warning that a vote for anyone but them will condemn Britain to further “dither and delay” in a likely deadlocked hung parliament with a Labor-led coalition government.
“On Thursday, the country has the chance to end the delay, get Brexit done and move on to sorting out all the other things that matter to you,” Johnson has said.
But Brexit will take longer than just a month to sort out and there will be a high economic price to pay in terms of the national debt and deficit, and major disruption for businesses, according to analysts and the Bank of England. The January Brexit deadline Johnson wants to observe is just the start of a long process of negotiations to settle on a future arrangement with Britain’s largest trading partner, the EU. Most observers argue this second stage of negotiations will be tricky and could take years.
If Johnson wins, “Skies will begin to darken as flocks of Mr. Johnson’s chickens will come home to roost,” says Matthew Parris, a former Conservative lawmaker, and now a columnist at The Times newspaper.
Labor obfuscation, say commentators, has come with the party’s radical high-spending plans to re-nationalize the energy, rail and water industries, broadband providers and Royal Mail. It has promised to introduce a four-day work week, redistribute wealth and reinvest in Britain’s crumbling public services, all without increasing taxes except for billionaires. The Institute for Fiscal Studies, a respected British research institution, has dubbed those plans as “not a credible prospectus.”
Voters have become angrier and more disillusioned as the election has unfolded, with candidates reporting unprecedented vitriol on the doorsteps. None of the party leaders has impressed the electorate in what has become a “hold-your-nose” election, described as “an unpopularity contest.”
Both Boris Johnson and Labor’s Jeremy Corbyn, as well as the leader of Britain’s perennial third party, the Liberal Democrats, Jo Swinson, have been laughed at and mocked by hostile, disbelieving studio audiences. Johnson is the most unpopular new prime minister since the advent of opinion polls and seen widely as an opportunist. Corbyn is the most disliked leader of the opposition since polls began, and widely regarded as a tired far-left figure from a bygone era.
Their unpopularity goes some way to explain why so many voters are undecided, say pollsters. “We have never seen as many undecided voters this late in the campaign,” according to pollster Paul Hilder. “A much larger Conservative landslide is still possible — but so is a hung parliament,” he added.
As the campaign has unfolded, the Liberal Democrats appear to have failed to fill the gap in the middle of British politics. Their inexperienced leader made what looks like a fatal campaign mistake in deciding to campaign not for a second Brexit referendum, but for a revocation of the 2016 plebiscite altogether.
Labor’s position has been what critics describe as a fudge, involving a pledge to renegotiate another exit deal and then to hold a second referendum. Nigel Farage’s newly-minted Brexit Party has barely figured, having been squeezed by Johnson’s pledge to deliver Brexit.
The Conservatives are banking on voters, even those who would prefer to remain in the EU, of just being sick and tired of the whole Brexit mess, and seeing Johnson as the only escape route.
But if voters are more concerned about the crumbling state of Britain’s public services and the years of austerity under the Conservatives, then Labor could defy the opinions polls. Labor has relentlessly focused on the NHS and issues around social care.
A further high danger for Johnson is tactical voting by pro-EU voters — a strategy that’s been urged on Britons by two former prime ministers, Labor’s Tony Blair and the Conservatives’ John Major, who argue Brexit is toxic for Britain. They have urged pro-EU Britons to back the candidate from either Labor or the Liberal Democrats most likely to defeat the Tories in their constituency.
Ten percent of voters say they plan to vote tactically and the internet is full of helpful interactive maps to assist them. Johnson could technically be denied a majority on Thursday if just 41,000 people voted tactically in 36 out of 650 seats. But some pollsters say so far, the signs are that pro-Brexiters are uniting around the Conservatives, while pro-EU voters are split between opposition parties — and that is the way the Tories want it to remain.
Egypt’s president Wednesday called for “decisive” and “collective” action against countries supporting “terrorism” in an apparent reference to Turkey and Qatar, who back the Muslim Brotherhood group, which is outlawed in Egypt.
The three countries also support opposing factions in the war-torn Libya.
Addressing a two-day forum on peace in Africa in the southern city of Aswan, Abdel Fattah el-Sissi also said achieving sustainable development in Africa is needed, along with efforts to fight militant groups in Egypt and the Sahel region that stretches across Africa south of the Sahara Desert.
“There should be a decisive response to countries supporting terrorism and a collective response against terrorism, because the terrorist groups will only have the ability to fight if they are provided with financial, military and moral support,” he said.
The gathering in Aswan is attended by the leaders of Niger, Chad, Nigeria and Senegal along with officials from the U.S., Britain and Canada.
This photo provided by the office of Egypt’s president Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, dignitaries gather for a photo during a two-day forum on peace in Africa in the southern city of Aswan, Egypt, Dec. 11, 2019.
The Sahel region is home to al-Qaida and Islamic State group-linked militants. El-Sissi said Egypt could help train forces and provide weapons to countries in the region to fight extremists.
Egypt has for years been battling an Islamic State-led insurgency that intensified after the military overthrew an elected but divisive Muslim Brotherhood President Muhammad Morsi in 2013 amid mass protests against his brief rule.
Militant-related violence in Egypt has been centered on the Sinai Peninsula, as well as in the country’s vast Western Desert, which has witnessed deadly attacks blamed on militants infiltrating from neighboring Libya.
Since Morsi’s ouster, tensions have grown between Egypt and Turkey and Egypt and Qatar. The political party of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, which Cairo designated as at terrorist group in 2013.
Upcoming conference
El-Sissi also said a “comprehensive, political solution would be achieved in the coming months” for the conflict in Libya, which descended into chaos after the 2011 civil war that ousted and killed long-time dictator Moammar Gadhafi. He did not elaborate.
He said that would put an end to a “terrorist hotbed that pushes militants and weapons to (Libya’s) neighboring countries including Egypt.”
El-Sissi apparently was referring to an international summit in Berlin that aims to reach an agreement on actions needed to end the conflict. The conference had been scheduled for October, but it has apparently been postponed.
After the 2011 civil war, Libya split in two, with a weak U.N.-supported administration in Tripoli overseeing the country’s west and a rival government in the east aligned with the Libyan National Army led by Gen. Khalifa Hifter.
Maritime border agreement
El-Sissi’s comments came amid heightened tensions with Turkey after a controversial maritime border agreement it signed last month with Libya’s Tripoli-based government.
Greece, Egypt and Cyprus, which lie between the two geographically, have denounced the deal as being contrary to international law, and Greece expelled the Libyan ambassador last week over the issue.
Hifter has for months been fighting an array of militias allied with the Tripoli authorities to wrestle control of the capital. He is backed by the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, as well as France and Russia, while the Tripoli-based government receives aid from Turkey, Qatar and Italy.
Russia’s foreign minister is back in Washington to discuss nuclear arms control, the wars in Syria and Ukraine, as well the continuing controversy over Moscow’s interference in the 2016 U.S. election. Patsy Widakuswara reports from the White House, where Sergei Lavrov met with President Donald Trump.
Governments around the world must allow the voices of human rights advocates, including young people, to be heard, the U.N. secretary general said Tuesday. The remarks came as the world body marked the 71st anniversary of the United Nations’ World Human Rights Day. VOA’s Arash Arabasadi reports.
After a bomb exploded in a downtown Atlanta park midway through the 1996 Olympics, a security guard initially cast as a hero was recast as a villain virtually overnight. More than 20 years later, a movie to be released later this week, “Richard Jewell,” explores the roles played by law enforcement and the media in the guard’s ordeal.
Now the movie is drawing its own share of criticism.
Kevin Riley, the current editor of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, is disputing the film’s depiction of the newspaper’s reporting and decision-making processes, especially the portrayal of reporter Kathy Scruggs, who the movie implies traded sex with an FBI agent for a tip on the story.
In an interview with The Associated Press, director Clint Eastwood dismissed the criticism of his movie, which is based on a 1997 Vanity Fair article by Marie Brenner, by saying the paper likely is looking to “rationalize” its actions.
Jewell’s saga began on July 27, 1996, when he spotted an abandoned backpack during a concert in Centennial Olympic Park shortly before 1 a.m. and helped clear the area as federal agents determined it contained a bomb. The explosion about 20 minutes later killed 44-year-old Alice Hawthorne of Albany, Georgia, and injured 111 people, some of them seriously. A Turkish television cameraman died after suffering a heart attack while running to film the explosion’s aftermath.
Jewell, who likely helped prevent many more casualties, was initially hailed as a hero but a few days later was reported to be the focus of the FBI investigation, and the public quickly turned on him.
FILE – Photographers surround Richard Jewell prior to his testifying before a House Judiciary Crime subcommittee hearing, July 30, 1997, on the Olympic bombing in Atlanta.
The park reopened within days, the games continued and Jewell was publicly cleared three months later. But he grappled with the fallout for the rest of his life, and Atlanta lived with the fear and unease of a bomber still at large.
A new book, “The Suspect,” attempts to bring clarity to the aftermath of the bombing. Its authors were in the thick of it: Kent Alexander was the U.S. attorney in Atlanta when the bombing happened and Kevin Salwen led The Wall Street Journal’s southeastern section.
In the frantic days after the bombing, Scruggs confirmed with law enforcement sources that the FBI was focusing on Jewell. The paper published that information three days after the explosion and scores of reporters descended on the apartment complex where Jewell lived with his mother, leaving them feeling as if they were under siege for months.
Jewell had made clear his dream of working in law enforcement and was endlessly mocked as an overzealous but bumbling wannabe cop.
It’s easy to say in hindsight that the investigation focused too heavily on Jewell, Alexander said. But some of Jewell’s actions and tips from people who knew him raised serious questions, the former prosecutor said. There was also the memory of a police officer at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles who was celebrated for disarming a bomb until it emerged that he’d planted it.
Doubts about Jewell’s guilt surfaced quickly, especially once it became clear he couldn’t have made a 911 call reporting the bomb from a pay phone blocks away.
In late October 1996, Alexander took the unusual step of sending a letter to one of Jewell’s attorneys saying Jewell was not a target of the investigation.
“His name had been so badly muddied and tarnished that it just seemed like we should do something, so I did,” Alexander said.
That left authorities sifting through dozens of possible suspects — the actual bomber, anti-government extremist Eric Rudolph, not among them. Rudolph, who was behind two more bombs in Atlanta in early 1997 and another in Alabama in January 1998, was eventually captured in 2003 and pleaded guilty in 2005.
‘Voice of God’
The media frenzy surrounding Jewell drew backlash, and the Journal-Constitution was criticized for the “voice of God” style in its initial story, which carried no attribution and left the origin of the information unclear.
Ron Martz, who shared a byline with Scruggs on the scoop, said questions and rumors swirled in the wake of the horrific attack and he saw it as a public service to let people know where the investigation stood.
Scruggs had solid sources and the story had been through several editors, Martz said. Editors even had him take the highly unusual step of reading the entire story to an FBI spokesman to confirm that the information was correct and to make sure it wouldn’t jeopardize the investigation.
But Martz said he regrets not pushing for clearer attribution on the original story, which could have spared the paper much grief with the addition of just five words: “according to law enforcement sources.”
Once he was effectively cleared, Jewell’s lawyers filed libel suits against numerous news outlets. Most settled, but the Journal-Constitution didn’t. The legal battle continued for more than a decade, beyond Jewell’s death in 2007 at age 44. The courts ultimately ruled the newspaper’s stories weren’t libelous because they were substantially true when published.
Criticism of the newspaper, and particularly Scruggs, was devastating to her, Martz said.
“She felt very hurt by the way she was being portrayed and the fact that this was to be the shining moment of her career and people were going after her personally to get at her professionally,” he said.
Scruggs was a “wild child,” loud, foul-mouthed and often provocative, Martz said, but she was also relentless, hard-nosed and one of the best reporters he ever worked with. She died at 42 in 2001 from an overdose of prescription drugs.
Demand for disclaimer
In an op-ed, Journal-Constitution editor Riley wrote that there’s no evidence Scruggs committed the breach of journalistic ethics implied in the movie and disputed implications that the newspaper’s reporting was sloppy.
Eastwood defended the depiction of Scruggs, saying he’d “read a lot of material” on her that seemed to “corroborate the fact that she was somewhat on the wild side.” He also said the news media sometimes rushes because of competition to be first, and “they pull the trigger before they’re dialed in.”
In a letter sent Monday to Eastwood, a Warner Brothers lawyer and others, a lawyer for the newspaper demands a public statement that dramatization was used in the film’s portrayal of events and characters, and asks that a “prominent disclaimer” to that effect be added to the film.
“It is highly ironic that a film purporting to tell a tragic story of how the reputation of an FBI suspect was grievously tarnished appears bent on a path to severely tarnish the reputation of the AJC,” lawyer Martin Singer wrote.
Warner Brothers fired back, saying that the newspaper’s claims are baseless, that the film seeks to confirm Jewell’s innocence and restore his name.
“It is unfortunate and the ultimate irony that the Atlanta Journal Constitution, having been a part of the rush to judgment of Richard Jewell, is now trying to malign our filmmakers and cast,” the studio wrote in a statement.
