Idaho
Catholic church can’t intervene in abortion lawsuit
BOISE, Idaho (AP) — The Idaho Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected a request by the Roman Catholic Church in Idaho to intervene in a lawsuit over a new Idaho law banning nearly all abortions.
The court did not explain why the church was excluded after the Diocese of Boise on Monday asked to be allowed to join the lawsuit in support of the ban.
Idaho last month became the first state to enact legislation modeled after a Texas statute banning abortions after about six weeks. The Idaho law would allow the potential fathers, grandparents, siblings, aunts and uncles of embryos or fetuses to sue abortion providers for at least $20,000 in damages within four years after the abortions. Rapists can’t file a lawsuit under the law, but rapists’ relatives have permission to do so.
Planned Parenthood of Great Northwest, Hawaii, Alaska, Indiana and Kentucky sued over the law, calling it unconstitutional and the Idaho Supreme Court last week blocked the abortion ban from taking effect while the lawsuit is underway.
The Diocese of Boise on Wednesday didn’t immediately respond to a phone message seeking comment about the high court’s decision.
In the request to intervene, attorneys for the church said the Diocese has “maintained a vested interest in the dignity and sanctity of all human life, including life of the unborn.”
The bishop of the Diocese, Bishop Peter Christensen, wrote in a legal filing that the church helped convince state lawmakers to approve the abortion ban.
The lawsuit is one of many legal fights going on nationwide over access to abortion. The U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority signaled willingness in a Mississippi case to severely erode or even strike down Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that made abortion legal nationwide until a baby can survive outside the womb. Numerous states with Republican majorities are poised to follow the strictest interpretation of the ruling.
Massachusetts
Company settles dog-leasing allegations for more than $900K
BOSTON (AP) — A California-based finance company has agreed to pay more than $900,000 to settle allegations that it was illegally leasing dogs in Massachusetts, the state attorney general’s office said.
As part of the agreement entered in Suffolk Superior Court on Wednesday, Monterey Financial Services LLC will stop collecting on active leases, cancel about $700,000 in outstanding consumer debt on the leases, and transfer full ownership of the dogs to Massachusetts residents, authorities said.
The company will also provide $175,000 in restitution to consumers and pay $50,000 to the state.
Leasing dogs is illegal in Massachusetts, and can often be an expensive way to own a pet because of high finance charges, according to the attorney general.
Authorities had alleged that the Oceanside, California, firm violated Massachusetts consumer protection laws by purchasing and collecting on leases for dogs, and also engaging in illegal practices to collect outstanding balances on those leases.
A voicemail seeking comment was left with Monterey.
“Families in Massachusetts looking to get a dog should not be trapped in leasing agreements that are harmful, expensive, and illegal,” Attorney General Maura Healey said in a statement.
Leasing a dog is much like leasing a car, the attorney general’s office said. The consumer must make monthly payments for the duration of the lease, plus an additional payment at the end of the lease to ultimately own the dog. Missed payments can result in the dog being repossessed, the office said.
The attorney general’s office learned of Monterey’s dog leasing practices while it was investigating another financial company, Nevada-based Credova Financial, which agreed to waive more than $126,000 in consumer debt.
Washington
Case against Clinton lawyer in counsel’s probe can proceed
WASHINGTON (AP) — The criminal prosecution of a Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer charged with lying to the FBI during the Trump-Russia investigation can move forward, a judge ruled Wednesday in denying a defense bid to dismiss the case.
The ruling means Michael Sussmann, charged last year by special counsel John Durham, remains set for trial on May 16 in Washington’s federal court.
Sussmann is charged with lying to the FBI during a September 2016 meeting in which he relayed concerns from cybersecurity researchers about a potential secret back channel of communications between servers of the Trump Organization and Russia-based Alfa Bank. The FBI investigated the matter but ultimately found no such suspicious links.
Prosecutors allege that Sussmann misled the FBI’s then-general counsel by saying that he was not attending the meeting on behalf of a particular client when he was actually presenting the information on behalf of the Clinton campaign and a technology executive with whom he had worked.
In order to prosecute someone for a false statement, the Justice Department must prove that the statement was not only fictitious but also “material” — that is, capable of influencing a government agency’s decision-making or functions.
In this case, Durham’s team says that had the FBI known Sussmann was representing the interests of the Clinton campaign at the meeting, it would have done more to examine his motives and the reliability of his information as it considered whether to open an investigation based on the tip he provided.
Sussmann’s lawyers have argued that his ties to the Clinton campaign were already well-known to the FBI, and have rejected the idea that the full disclosure of that relationship could have meaningfully influenced the FBI’s decision to investigate or act on his tip.
U.S. District Judge Christopher “Casey” Cooper said in a six-page ruling Wednesday that the dispute was ultimately up to a jury to decide.
“The battle lines thus are drawn, but the Court cannot resolve this standoff prior to trial,” Cooper wrote.
Durham, a former U.S. attorney in Connecticut, was appointed in 2019 by then-Attorney General William Barr to look for government misconduct during the investigation into Russian election interference in 2016 and possible ties to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.
Sussmann is one of three people charged so far. The other two are Kevin Clinesmith, a former FBI lawyer who pleaded guilty to altering an email and received probation, and Igor Danchenko, a Russian analyst and source of information for Christopher Steele, the former British intelligence operative who assembled a dossier of anti-Trump research. Danchenko was charged in November with lying to the FBI during a 2017 interview.
