Opening up another legal front against the Democrats investigating him, President Donald Trump on Tuesday sued the House Ways and Means Committee and New York state officials to prevent his state tax returns from being turned over to the congressional committee.
 
The lawsuit seeks an injunction to block the application of a new New York state law that could allow the Democratic-controlled House and Ways Means Committee to obtain the returns. The lawsuit, filed in Washington, comes amid a furious White House attempt to prevent the president’s tax returns to wind up in Democratic hands.
 
“We have filed a lawsuit today in our ongoing efforts to end presidential harassment,” said Jay Sekulow, one of the president’s lawyers. “The targeting of the president by the House Ways and Means Committee, the New York Attorney General, and a New York tax official violates article 1 of the U.S. Constitution. The harassment tactics lack a legitimate legislative purpose. The actions taken by the House and New York officials are nothing more than political retribution.”
 
The state’s attorney general, Letitia James, said the act “will shine a light on the president’s finances and finally offer transparency to millions of Americans yearning to know the truth.”
 
“President Trump has spent his career hiding behind lawsuits,” James said in a statement, “but, as New York’s chief law enforcement officer, I can assure him that no one is above the law — not even the president of the United States.”
 
Trump’s tax returns have been a source of mystery — and contention — ever since the celebrity businessman broke with tradition and did not release his returns during his 2016 presidential campaign.
 
The House Ways and Means Committee sued the Treasury Department and IRS officials this month in an attempt to enforce a law that allows its chairman to obtain any taxpayer’s returns. Its chairman, Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., hasn’t indicated whether he would use the New York law, focusing instead on the federal lawsuit.
 
The lawsuit echoes what has become the White House consistent argument: that the committee’s pursuit of the president’s tax returns, as well as most of the Democrats’ investigative efforts, lack a legitimate legislative purpose and thus is outside Congress’s authority.
 
The suit also argues that the committee can’t have a legislative purpose in getting state records because its jurisdiction is limited to federal taxes. However, New York officials have argued that the state returns would contain much of the same information found on the president’s federal returns.
 
Trump has cited repeated IRS audits as a reason not to disclose his returns, but he isn’t legally prevented from releasing returns while under audit.
 
“Ultimately, this issue was litigated in the 2016 election,” the lawsuit said. “Voters heard the criticisms from Secretary (Hillary) Clinton, and they elected President Trump anyway. Democrats in Congress and across the country, however, have only become more eager to disclose the president’s tax returns for political gain.”
 
Democrats have argued that they need to review the returns in their search for potential conflicts of interest or corruption.
 
The administration and the Trump’s business have repeatedly tried to stall Democrats’ investigations by filing lawsuits and not cooperating. The White House has blocked several current and former officials from testifying, has refused to comply with document requests and the president has considered invoking executive privilege to stifle a series of probes.

…

Four Chinese nationals and a Chinese company were indicted Tuesday for conspiring to evade sanctions on North Korea, according to the U.S. Justice Department.

“Through the use of more than 20 front companies, the defendants are alleged to have sought to obscure illicit financial dealings on behalf of sanctioned North Korean entities that were involved in the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction,” said Assistant Attorney General John Demers in a statement.

The indictment charges Ma Xiaohong and her company, Dandong Hongxiang Industrial Development, as well as Zhou Jianshu, Hong Jinhua and Luo Chuanxu with conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) and to defraud the United States, along with conspiracy to launder monetary instruments. 

The indictment alleges that Ma, alongside Zhou, Hong and Luo “established front companies in offshore jurisdictions such as the British Virgin Islands, the Seychelles, Hong Kong, Wales, England, and Anguilla, and opened Chinese bank accounts held in the names of the front companies at banks in China that maintained correspondent accounts in the United States,” in order to engage in financial activity with North Korea, according to the release.

The defendants are each facing decades in prison if found guilty.

…

Russian activists confirmed Tuesday that a woman found dead of stab wounds in Saint Petersburg earlier this week was a well-known human rights activist who had been threatened over her work for LGBT rights and opposition causes.

Yelena Grigoryeva, 41, was active with Russia’s Alliance of Heterosexuals and LGBTQ for Equality and other activist causes, according to the Russian LGBT Network.

“An activist of democratic, anti-war and LGBT movements Yelena Grigoryeva was brutally murdered near her house,” opposition campaigner Dinar Idrisov wrote on Facebook. He said she had recently reported threats of violence to the police, but they took no action.

Friends and fellow activists said Grigoryeva’s name was listed on a Russian website that identified LGBT activists and called for vigilante action against them.

Saint Petersburg online newspaper Fontanka said Grigoryeva was found with knife injuries to her back and face and had apparently been strangled. A 40-year-old male suspect from the region of Bashkortostan has been arrested, it reported.

…

Most Americans think that tanking levels of distrust in the government and in other people are hindering efforts to solve pervasive, persistent issues, ranging from immigration and racism to healthcare, taxes and voting rights. Pew Research Center released results for the poll on Monday. It was conducted from November to December 2018 and included over 10,000 adults.

“Many people no longer think the federal government can actually be a force for good or change in their lives,” Pew quoted one survey participant as saying. “This kind of apathy and disengagement will lead to an even worse and less representative government.”

Nearly 70% of Americans say the federal government purposely withholds information that it could safely release, and a further 64% say that when elected officials speak, it’s hard to tell what’s true and what isn’t.

Public confidence in government, which dipped in the 60s and 70s, made a recovery in the 80s and early 2000s, according to an April Pew poll. Now, at 17%, the American populace’s trust in government is near historic lows.

And a large majority of people think this distrust is justified, with 75% answering that the government shouldn’t have more public confidence than it does.

Republicans and Republican-leaning respondents were more likely to pin the blame for distrust on corruption and poor government performance, while their Democrat and Democrat-leaning counterparts were more likely to point at U.S. President Donald Trump’s performance.

Confidence in other people has dropped too, but most prominently when politics come into the mix. While majorities trust others to “do the right thing,” such as in following the law, this changes when it comes to accepting election results, voting in informed ways, reconsidering views upon learning new information and a host of other situations.

Trust in others differed based on race, age, income and education, with older, richer and more educated participants holding higher levels of personal trust. White people had high levels of trust for others 27% of the time, more than double the share of black and Hispanic respondents.

“Americans who might feel disadvantaged are less likely to express generalized trust in other people,” Pew noted.

Strikingly, Republicans and Democrats held similar levels of personal trust in others, but had markedly different views regarding the government, with Republicans expressing more general confidence.

Why does public trust in government matter? Besides being the basis of any government that proclaims its power is drawn from the people, 64% of Americans say low trust in government is hampering responses to the country’s biggest problems. Exactly 70% think the same for distrust in other people. Solutions to persistent, divisive issues, like immigration, healthcare, taxes, voting rights and gerrymandering, were suffering, survey respondents said.

However, fully 84% of participants thought low confidence in the federal government could be remedied. In open comments, participants suggested solutions, including tamping down political partisanship and minimizing sensationalist he-said-she-said media coverage.

“Trust is the glue that binds humans together. Without it, we cooperate with one another less, and variables in our overall quality of life are affected,” wrote one 38-year-old man.

…

South Korea says it fired warning shots at a Russian military aircraft after the plane breached South Korea’s airspace.

South Korea’s Defense Ministry says three Russian aircraft entered its air defense identification zone early Tuesday morning off its east coast before one of them breached the airspace. South Korean air force jets were deployed to intercept the plane and forced the Russian plane to leave the airspace. 

But the aircraft violated the airspace 20 minutes later, and stayed briefly before South Korean fighter jets fired another warning shot.

The ministry says it was the first time a Russian military aircraft violated South Korean airspace. Two Chinese aircraft also flew into the South’s air defense identification zone off the east coast hours earlier. The ministry says it will summon both Russian and Chinese embassy officials later Tuesday to lodge a formal protest.

The violation happened near a disputed group of islands claimed by both South Korea, which calls it Dokdo, and Japan, which calls it Takeshima.  

…

Brazil seized 25.3 tons of cocaine bound for Europe and Africa in the first half of 2019, up more than 90 percent on the same period last year, officials said Monday.

Nearly half of the drugs were found at Santos port in southern Brazil, not far from where police recently arrested two men suspected of belonging to Italian mafia ‘Ndrangheta.

Customs officials attributed the increase in seizures to better intelligence and increased vigilance along Brazil’s borders.

“Last year we seized 31.4 tons of cocaine, a record that we will surely beat again,” Arthur Cazella told AFP. 

The amount of cannabis confiscated more than doubled to 10.2 tons in the January-June period, up from 3.9 tons year-on-year.

Brazil, which has some 17,000 kilometers (10,500 miles)of land borders, is an important hub for international drug trafficking. 

Drugs produced in Colombia, Bolivia, Venezuela and Paraguay are smuggled into Brazil and then sent to mainly European markets. 

Some routes to Africa are also opening up, Cazella said.

Cocaine seizures have soared in recent years, from 958 kilograms in 2014 to last year’s record 31.4 tons.

…

Once upon a time, not too far from Hollywood, two of the world’s biggest movie stars were talking about what it’s like to screw up on set.  

“Messing up the lines in front of the entire cast and crew?” Leonardo DiCaprio said.  “It’s the going to school in your underwear nightmare.”

“It’s awful,” Brad Pitt chimed in. “When a scene’s not working. When YOU’RE not working in a scene…It goes beyond not being able to get the lines. You have 100 people there who are all ready to get on with their day and get home.”

DiCaprio hasn’t exactly had to resort to dunking his head in ice water after a too-late and too-fun night out, as his actor character does in “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood.”

But Pitt? “Oh I’ve done that,” he laughed.

The two actors, who skyrocketed to fame around the same time more than a quarter century ago, have joined forces for the first time in a major motion picture to take on their own industry, their own town and even their own egos in a time of great change — 1969 Hollywood. Out nationwide Friday, it’s also reunited them with Quentin Tarantino.

Once known only as “Tarantino’s Manson Movie,” the actual film is something very different. Manson is a character, as are his most notorious followers. And of course, Sharon Tate is depicted too and played by Margot Robbie. But as with most Tarantino movies, it’s not exactly what you think.

“The best of what 1969 had to offer you kind of experience through Sharon,” Robbie said.

Like going to the Playboy Mansion with Mama Cass and go-go dancing the night away. Or rolling up to a movie theater to check out your latest matinee and getting a free ticket because you’re on the poster.

“She kind of represented the arms open, doors open sort of policy,” she added. “After 1969 and after her death, things kind of changed in Hollywood and people closed their doors and shut the gates.”

The light and the dark of the imminent end of the ’60s is the backdrop to what is otherwise a classic star-driven two-hander. “Once Upon a Time…” is awash in nostalgia, showbiz lore (and cameos), wistfulness and Tarantino-wit that allows DiCaprio, as a past his prime television cowboy in a moment of crippling self-doubt, and Pitt, as his devoted stuntman, to do what they do best: Charm.

“I don’t think you can completely act that kind of dynamic,” Pitt said.

The change happening in Hollywood around 1969 led to many on-set discussions of what was going on at the time with the new batch of filmmakers upending the establishment and leaving room for the Coppolas and the Scorseses to break in.

“The ‘take and wait,'” Pitt said. “Like, we’ll get the take but we’re getting through this story.” Tarantino does that often.

It also made them all reflect on their own industry at the moment, where streaming is disrupting the old ways but once again ushering in new voices. As producers, Pitt, DiCaprio and Robbie all find it exciting.  

“What’s incredible is this wealth of talent from writers to directors to actors that are getting opportunities now. It’s quite extraordinary,” Pitt said. “You see that we’re not so special.”

DiCaprio is even a little jealous to see some “out of the box ideas” and “really ballsy storytelling” that he tried and failed to get made just a decade ago now not only being financed, but made at a high quality too.

“There’s so many more opportunities,” Robbie added. “I’m very grateful to be playing roles in this day and age than perhaps when Sharon was.”

But it’s not lost on them that they all happen to be promoting a “a big budget art piece like this,” as DiCaprio called it, from one of the major studios whose future is going to depend on people actually going to see films like “Once Upon a Time…” in a movie theater.

“Hopefully it becomes like a concert experience,” DiCaprio said. “People want to get together on the Friday night and feel the energy of the crowd and the excitement of a movie coming out that they’ve been anticipating rather than the isolation of being home. Hopefully that’s not lost in the sauce, because that’s half the fun of it, right?”

“Once Upon a Time…” is Tarantino’s ninth film, and, according to him, his second to last.

Pitt and DiCaprio believe him too.

“I always imagined it as his little box set that he wants to just hang up on the wall and that’s it,” DiCaprio said. “That completes the Tarantino, you know, cinematic experience.”

“The Tarantino 10,” Pitt added.

As with many button-pushing Tarantino projects, “Once Upon a Time…” has been at the center of a few heated public discussions, including the morality of making a movie about Tate and Manson, and the casting of Emile Hirsch, who in 2015 pleaded guilty to assaulting a female studio executive at Sundance.

Then there was that tense moment at the Cannes Film Festival press conference where a reporter asked why Robbie’s character has so few lines and Tarantino curtly responded that he rejected the hypothesis.

Tarantino declined to be interviewed for this article. But his response touched a nerve culturally.

“He’s an incredibly unique filmmaker,” DiCaprio said. “And whatever choices he makes, he’s one of those rare filmmakers in this industry that has retained the right to say, ‘This is a piece of art that I’m going to give to the world. And this is what this character represents, and this is what this character represents. And it’s my piece of work’… That’s why we consistently want to work with somebody like that.”

It’s clear his actors are in awe of him and what he brings to their art form. It’s the kind of admiration that can result in two true movie stars talking like fans.

“You know he’s got a four-hour cut of this?” Pitt said excitedly.
 
“Yeah,” DiCaprio responded. “I’m still waiting to see the four-hour cut of ‘Django.'”

…

Mexico’s economy, the 2nd largest in Latin America, has hit a rough patch, weighed down by dwindling business confidence and an industrial slump.

But ahead of GDP data for the second quarter due on July 31, a debate has raged over whether all that gloom adds up to a recession.

Several banks say definitely yes – an assessment that could call into question the ability of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s eight-month-old government to deliver on his promises of development and improved fortunes for the country’s poor.

“We estimate GDP will also contract in the second quarter, putting Mexico in a technical recession, two consecutive quarters of negative growth,” Bank of America Merrill Lynch said in a client note in late June.

The government strongly disagrees.

“There has been a slowdown on a global level,” said Finance Minister Arturo Herrera in his first press conference earlier this month, after his predecessor abruptly resigned. “But we are very, very far from thinking that we are close to a recession.”

In theory, defining whether there is a recession in Mexico could decide whether policymakers need to take action.

“If the government thinks there is a danger of recession, it could implement countercyclical measures to boost the economy a bit, or the Bank of Mexico could cut the interest rate, said Marco Oviedo, head of Latin America economics research at Barclays.

While Lopez Obrador has raised eyebrows by saying “I’ve got other numbers” when presented with negative economic news, even he does not pretend Mexico is enjoying strong growth.

The split between the government and private sector economists over the “R word” appears to focus more on how to define that highly charged term than any disagreement over substantive data.

Those who are predicting recession cite the benchmark of two consecutive quarters of economic contraction – and say the preliminary GDP figures for April-June will most likely confirm that.

However, despite being commonly used by private economists around the world, not all governments use that measure. The highly respected Cambridge, Massachusetts-based U.S. National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) for example, looks at a more open-ended  significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months.”

Likewise, a senior official at Mexico’s Finance Ministry, who asked not to be named, said for the ministry two quarters of successive contraction do not necessarily signal a recession.

The ministry takes more factors into account, the official said, although it has not stated what those factors are.

Jonathan Heath, a former HSBC chief economist appointed to the central bank board by Lopez Obrador’s government has also pushed back against the “two quarters” definition, which he recently called a “rule of thumb for defining a recession” but “no guarantee.”

In a move that could make the debate less political in the future, Mexico’s statistics agency INEGI last month announced the creation of a group of experts, including Heath, who will look at the way other countries measure economic cycles.

The agency said the group would decide by next year whether Mexico should create a Business Cycle Dating Committee, after studying the experience of similar committees used by the NBER, the Euro Zone, Brazil and Canada to help identify recessions.

Worst Since 2009 Crisis

Regardless of what constitutes a recession, the government’s own numbers make sobering reading.

The economy shrank 0.2% in the first quarter versus the previous three month period, in seasonally-adjusted terms, and was flat in the fourth quarter of 2018.

Pollyanna De Lima, economist and author of the IHS Markit Mexico Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index report, said that in the first quarter Mexico’s manufacturing sector was at its weakest since the series began in 2011.

Business sentiment faded “to one of the lowest levels seen in the survey history,” said De Lima.

The slowdown has matched a broader, global trend, that has caused several other Latin American economies to slash growth forecasts. The region’s largest economy, Brazil, has also been teetering on the edge of a recession. It contracted in the first quarter of the year and figures suggest it barely recovered at all in the second.

It is not uncommon for Mexico’s economy to contract in one quarter over the previous three months – it has happened five times since 2009. The global financial crisis triggered by a U.S. housing meltdown was the last time Mexico was in recession, contracting for three quarters.

But the country’s sharpest decline in industrial output in a decade, a 2.1% drop in May, made economists wonder if this time was different.

Alfonso Ramirez Cuellar, a member of Lopez Obrador’s leftist National Regeneration Movement who chairs the budget committee in the lower house of Congress, said that instead of getting hung up over whether Mexico is technically in a recession, “we have to accept that the country’s economy is weakening and work from there.”

Mexico’s commitment to a 1% primary budget surplus makes a major fiscal stimulus unlikely, although the government could tap some rainy day funds.

Lopez Obrador’s reaction to the negative data so far has been to blame critics for adhering to a “neo-liberal” mindset, He argues that by redistributing wealth better his government is able to help economic development among the poor even with lower headline growth numbers.

“That is not a particularly strong argument. If the economy contracts you have less to distribute. (I have) never seen development in an economy that shrinks,” said Goldman Sachs’ head of Latin American research Alberto Ramos.

…

Poland’s politicians are condemning violence against the first LGBT rights parade through the eastern city of Bialystok.

Police said Monday that 28 “hooligans” have been detained and have heard charges of disturbing a legal gathering.

Local police have published images of at least two more men suspected of having thrown bottles and stones at police and at the marchers Saturday.  Police responded with tear gas.

The interior minister in the right-wing government, Elzbieta Witek, and the deputy prime minister Beata Szydlo, have condemned the violence and spoke in favor of tolerance.  

The spokesman for Poland’s Roman Catholic Church said that “violence and contempt” can’t be accepted.  

The government has tolerated marches by far-right extremists in Bialystok in the past.
 

…

Puerto Rico braced early Monday for what many people expected to be one of the biggest protests ever seen in the U.S. territory as irate islanders pledged to drive Gov. Ricardo Rossello from office.

Hundreds of thousands of people were expected to take over one of the island’s busiest highways Monday morning to press demands for the resignation of Rossello over an obscenity-laced leaked online chat the governor had with allies as well as federal corruption charges leveled against his administration.
 

The anticipated march in the capital of San Juan came a day after Rossello announced that he would not quit, but sought to calm the unrest by promising not to seek reelection or continue as head of his pro-statehood political party. That only further angered his critics, who have mounted street demonstrations for more than a week.
 
“The people are not going to go away,” said Johanna Soto, of the northeastern city of Carolina. “That’s what he’s hoping for, but we outnumber him.”
 
Organizers labeled the planned road shutdown “660,510 + 1,” which represents the number of people who voted for Rossello plus one more to reject his argument that he is not resigning because he was chosen by the people.
 
Monday would be the 10th consecutive day of protests, and more were being called for later in the week. The island’s largest mall, Plaza de las Americas, closed ahead of the protest as did dozens of other businesses.
 
In a video posted Sunday night on Facebook, Rossello said he welcomed people’s freedom to express themselves. He also said he was looking forward to defending himself against the process of impeachment, whose initial stages are being explored by Puerto Rico’s legislature.
 
“I hear you,” he said the brief video. “I have made mistakes and I have apologized.”
 
The 889 pages of chat on the encrypted app Telegram between the governor and 11 close allies and members of his administration, all men, showed the governor and his advisers insulting women and mocking constituents, including the victims of Hurricane Maria.
 
Hours after Rossello spoke Sunday, another top government official submitted his resignation. “Unfortunately the events in recent weeks, including the attitudes reflected in the comments of officials and advisers of the current administration, do not match my values and principles,” wrote Gerardo Portela, principal investment officer, president of Puerto Rico’s Economic Development Bank and executive director of the Housing Finance Authority.

Since the chat leaked July 13, hundreds of thousands of Puerto Ricans have marched to Rossello’s official residence in the largest protest movement on the island since Puerto Ricans successfully demonstrated to bring an end to U.S. Navy military training on the island of Vieques more than 15 years ago.
 
Ramphis Castro of Guayama arrived in San Juan late Sunday after more than an hour-long drive to prepare for Monday’s march. He said he was incensed after Rossello’s announcement Sunday.
 
 “When is he going to say that he’s resigning,” Castro exclaimed. “This makes people even more angry.”
 

The upheaval comes as the U.S. territory is struggling to recover from Hurricane Maria and trying to restructure part of $70 billion in debt amid a 13-year recession in this territory of more than 3 million American citizens who do not have full representation in Congress or a vote for president.
 
Normally, a governor who resigns would be replaced by Puerto Rico’s secretary of state, but Luis Rivera Marin quit that job amid the uproar over the chat, so the next in line would be the justice secretary, Wanda Vazquez.
 
Pressure on Rossello to step down has intensified as the chorus calling for his resignation grew to include Puerto Rico music superstars Ricky Martin, Bad Bunny and Residente and a string of U.S. politicians including Congress members from both parties, several Democratic presidential candidates and Puerto Rico’s non-voting representative in Congress.
 
Rossello was elected governor in November 2016 with nearly 50% of the vote, and he had already announced his intention to seek a second term. A graduate of MIT with a doctorate in genetics, he is the son of former Puerto Rico Gov. Pedro Rossello, who flew to the island to marshal support after the chat was made public.
 
The governor belongs to the New Progressive Party, which seeks statehood for the island, and he is also a Democrat. Most of his time has been spent seeking federal funds since Hurricane Maria devastated the island on Sept. 20, 2017, and battling austerity measures implemented by a federal control board that Congress set up to oversee the island government’s finances.
 
The upheaval against Rossello prompted at least four cruise ships to cancel visits to Puerto Rico, and many officials worry about the impact a resignation would have on the already fragile economy as the island rebuilds from Maria, a Category 4 storm that caused more than an estimated $100 billion in damage.
 
Another concern is the recent string of arrests involving federal corruption charges targeting Puerto Rico officials, among them two former agency heads, including former education secretary Julia Keleher.

…

Areas of the central and eastern United States are getting relief Monday in the form of lower temperatures after suffering through days of sweltering conditions that led to power outages, canceled events and several deaths.

A cold front sweeping to the east is bringing with it some severe storms and heavy rain that forecasters warn could produce flash flooding and damaging winds.

But behind the front, the coming days will feature weather with lower humidity and high temperatures below 30 degrees Celsius in many areas that had experienced temperatures around 38 degrees Celsius.

Events were canceled across the country on Saturday and Sunday, from festivals and concerts to sporting events. In New York City, tens of thousands of people were still without power Monday as crews worked to repair the grid and try to prevent a more widespread outage.  

Officials in Boston and Washington expanded access to public pools to help residents cope with the heat.

…

Kenya’s Finance Minister Henry Rotich and other treasury officials were arrested Monday on corruption and fraud charges over a multi-million dollar project to build two mega dams, police said.

Director of Public Prosecutions Noordin Haji had ordered the arrest and prosecution of Rotich and 27 other top officials on charges of fraud, abuse of office and financial misconduct in the latest scandal to rock graft-wracked Kenya.

Rotich, his principal secretary and the chief executive of Kenya’s environmental authority then presented themselves to the police.

“They are in custody now awaiting to be taken to court,” police chief George Kinoti told AFP.

“We are looking for (the) others and they will all go to court.”

Haji said the conception, procurement and payment processes for the dam project — part of a bid to improve water supply in the drought-prone country — was “riddled with irregularities”.

“Investigations established that government officials flouted all procurement rules and abused their oath of office to ensure the scheme went through,” said Haji.

He pointed to the awarding of the contract to Italian firm CMC di Ravenna in a manner that he said flouted proper procurement procedures, and despite financial woes that forced the company into liquidation and had led to it failing complete three other mega-dam projects.

According to the contract, the project was to cost a total of $450 million (401 million euros), but the treasury had increased this amount by $164 million “without regard to performance or works,” said Haji.

Some $180 million has already been paid out, with little construction to show for it.

Another $6 million was paid out for the resettlement of people living in areas that would be affected by the project, but there is no evidence of land being acquired for this, the chief prosecutor said.

“I am satisfied that economic crimes were committed and I have therefore approved their arrests and prosecutions,” said Haji.
‘Well-choreographed scheme’ –

“The persons we are charging today were mandated with safeguarding our public interest and deliberately breached this trust.

“Under the guise of carrying out legitimate commercial transactions, colossal amounts were unjustifiably and illegally paid out through a well-choreographed scheme by government officers in collusion with private individuals and institutions.”

Rotich has previously denied any wrongdoing in the scandal.

The dams scandal is one of several in the poverty-plagued country that has seen hundreds of millions of dollars of public money disappear due to fraud.

In 2017 Kenya fell to 143rd out of 180 countries in Transparency International’s annual corruption index.

In March 2018, a damning report from the auditor general showed the government could not account for $400 million in public funds.

A string of top officials have been charged since last year as President Uhuru Kenyatta vows to combat corruption — a refrain weary Kenyans have heard from multiple presidents.

…