Stein found the Constitution’s “speech or debate” clause does not allow prosecutors to show jurors the evidence. The clause grants members of Congress a form of immunity that is mostly impenetrable in investigations relating to the official duties of lawmakers, their aides or other congressional officials.
Coincidentally, Stein based his order on a 1979 Supreme Court case about another New Jersey Democrat accused of corruption. In that case, the high court ruled the speech or debate clause barred prosecutors from introducing certain evidence against Rep. Henry Helstoski, who had been accused of accepting bribes.
Prosecutors had hoped to present the evidence in the Menendez case next week in the form of a summary of the years of text messages, phone records and other documents obtained during a multi-year investigation of the senator, his wife and various associates, including New Jersey business people accused of bribing him.
They wanted to show jurors two series of exhibits. First, 2019 text messages and phone records that allegedly show Menendez sought to assure bribers that he was not holding up military aid to Egypt after Egyptian officials heard he was. Second, a 2022 text message from Menendez’s wife about her husband having to sign off on military sales to Egypt, which prosecutors interpreted to mean she was signaling to “keep the bribes flowing.”
Citing the Helstoski case, Stein said “prior holds on foreign military assistance and prior sign-offs are precluded from coming in as evidence.”
Before the ruling, prosecutors called the evidence “critical” to parts of their case. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York declined to comment.
Menendez is also accused of taking other bribes to do other things, which are not immediately affected by Stein’s ruling.
So, while prosecutors can talk about alleged promises given in exchange for bribes, they can’t talk about legislative acts themselves.
Experts on the “speech or debate” protection for Congress have described this sometimes-awkward dynamic as a feature of the framers’ vision, not a bug. It is rooted in their desire to prevent members of Congress from being intimidated or coerced by the threat of prosecution from the Executive Branch. Punishing members for their official acts, therefore, can be extremely complicated — by design. This dynamic has frustrated several prosecutions of members of Congress, however, it has not precluded them altogether.
Unlike executive privilege, which shields a president’s private communication, or attorney-client privilege, the speech or debate protection is actually written into the Constitution, making it a far more absolute protection than the others. And though the text only explicitly protects their remarks on the House or Senate floor, it has long been interpreted by the Supreme Court to extend to any acts that are part “integral” to the legislative process.
Other recent battles over the issue have included a fight over the FBI’s seizure of Rep. Scott Perry’s cell phone — part of the investigation into Donald Trump’s effort to subvert the 2020 election. The ensuing legal fight resulted in the first-ever ruling that members’ personal cell phones are covered by the speech or debate clause. That, the court ruled, was a natural extension of perhaps the most significant ruling of its kind — a 2007 ruling by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals forcing prosecutors to return some documents seized from the congressional office then-Rep. William Jefferson.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland announces an antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation Entertainment during a press conference at the Department of Justice in Washington, U.S., May 23, 2024. REUTERS/Ken Cedeno Purchase Licensing Rights, opens new tab
WASHINGTON, May 23 (Reuters) – U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland on Thursday called former President Donald Trump’s claims that the FBI was authorized to shoot him during its 2022 search of his Florida club “false” and “extremely dangerous.”
Garland told reporters that Trump and some of his allies were referring to a “standard operations plan” that limits when agents can use lethal force while executing search warrants.
The FBI searched Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in August 2022 to retrieve classified material that he retained after leaving office. Agents found a slew of records that led to one of the four criminal prosecutions Trump currently faces.
Ahead of the search the FBI drafted a policy statement, which was made public this week, that authorized law enforcement to use deadly force only if an officer or another person was under immediate threat. Trump was not present when the search took place.
Trump, the Republican challenger to Democratic President Joe Biden in the Nov. 5 election, has falsely claimed in fundraising messages sent by his campaign this week that the FBI was authorized to attempt an assassination.
“BREAKING FROM TRUMP: BIDEN’S DOJ WAS AUTHORIZED TO SHOOT ME!” read one e-mail, titled “I nearly escaped death.”
“It’s just been revealed that Biden’s DOJ was authorized to use DEADLY FORCE for their DESPICABLE raid in Mar-a-Lago.”
Garland, who oversees the FBI as attorney general, said such policies are routine and were also in effect during consensual searches of Biden’s homes conducted by the FBI in a separate classified documents investigation.
“That allegation is false and it’s extremely dangerous,” Garland told reporters during a press conference announcing a lawsuit against the concert promoter Live Nation.
The use-of-force document was among hundreds of pages of records unsealed this week in the criminal case accusing Trump of unlawfully retaining sensitive government documents after leaving the White House in 2021. Trump has pleaded not guilty.
His defense team is seeking to suppress evidence seized during the search, arguing that it violated Trump’s rights under the U.S. Constitution.
FBI agents seized about 100 classified documents from Mar-a-Lago during the court-authorized search, which came after Trump thwarted government demands to return the documents, according to prosecutors.
The uncertainty ushered in by the death of Iran’s president, Ebrahim Raisi, in a helicopter crash, just weeks after an unprecedented exchange of military attacks with Israel, has brought a chilling question to mind: Is 2024 the year that Iran finally decides it can no longer take chances with its security and races to build a nuclear bomb?
Up to now, for reasons experts often debate, Iran has never made the decision to build a nuclear weapon, despite having at least most of the resources and capabilities it needs to do so, as far as we know. But Mr. Raisi’s death has created an opportunity for the hard-liners in the country who are far less allergic to the idea of going nuclear than the regime has been for decades.
Even before Mr. Raisi’s death, there were indications that Iran’s position might be starting to shift. The recent exchange of hostilities with Israel, a country with an undeclared but widely acknowledged nuclear arsenal, has provoked a change of tone in Tehran. “We have no decision to build a nuclear bomb but should Iran’s existence be threatened, there will be no choice but to change our military doctrine,” Kamal Kharrazi, a leading adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, said on May 9.
In April, a senior Iranian lawmaker and former military commander had warned that Iran could enrich uranium to the 90 percent purity threshold required for a bomb in “half a day, or let’s say, one week.” He quoted the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, saying that the regime will “respond to threats at the same level,” implying that Israeli attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities would cause a rethinking of Iran’s nuclear posture.
Iran’s relationship with nuclear technology has always been ambiguous, even ambivalent. Both during the regime of the pro-western Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi in the 1960s and 1970s and the anti-American Islamic Republic that has held power since 1979, Iran has kept outside powers guessing and worrying about its nuclear intentions. But it has never made the decision to fully cross the threshold of weaponization. There are several important reasons for this, ranging from religious reservations about the morality of nuclear weapons to Iran’s membership in the global Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). But the biggest reason has been strategic.
Historically, Iran’s leaders have repeatedly concluded that they have more to gain from “playing by the rules” of the international nonproliferation order than they do from racing for the bomb. To do so, they would have to first withdraw from the nonproliferation treaty, which would immediately signal their intentions to the world and could invite American military intervention. At the same time, the revolutionary government has been reluctant to cave into Western demands and dismantle their program altogether, as that would demonstrate a different kind of weakness. Iran’s leaders are no doubt keenly aware of the example of Libya’s Muammar el-Qaddafi, who agreed in 2003 to abandon his country’s nuclear program, only to find himself overthrown eight years later following military intervention by a NATO-led coalition.
That strategic happy medium has worked well for the Islamic Republic — until now. Two decades of dysfunctional U.S. nuclear policy toward Iran have created a dangerous dynamic, in which Iran enriches more uranium than it otherwise might, either as a defensive posture or a negotiating tactic, and gradually inches its way toward being able to make a weapon that it might not even really want.
When the U.S.-Iran nuclear dispute first emerged in the early 2000s, Iran had only 164 antiquated centrifuges and little real appetite for a weapons program. But the Bush administration’s unrealistic insistence that Iran agree to “zero enrichment” turned it into a matter of national pride. During the years that the Obama administration spent negotiating with Iran, the regime kept enriching uranium and adding to its stockpile, in part as a hedge against future concessions. And of course, President Donald Trump’s withdrawal from the nuclear deal in 2018 and subsequent campaign of maximum pressure only added to Iran’s defiance.
Today, Iran has thousands of advanced centrifuges and a large stockpile of enriched uranium. This, in turn, has provoked some camps inside Iran to adopt a “might as well” argument for nuclear weaponization. If we’ve already come this far, the argument goes, then why not just go for a bomb?
Under Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran has remained adamant that it is better off demonstrating to the world its willingness to stay within the nonproliferation treaty. But in recent years, as Western sanctions have piled up and Iran’s economy has been strangled, hard-liners have occasionally suggested that the country has gained nothing from this posture and might be better off following the “North Korea model”— that is, pulling out of the nonproliferation treaty and racing for a bomb as North Korea did in 2003. Until now, these voices have been quickly marginalized, as it’s clear the supreme leader does not share the sentiment. An early 2000s fatwa, or religious ruling, by Ayatollah Khamenei declared nuclear weapons to be “forbidden under Islam” and decreed that “the Islamic Republic of Iran shall never acquire these weapons.”
Mr. Raisi’s death has quickly and dramatically shifted the landscape. A regime that had already begun to drift into militarism and domination by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (I.R.G.C.) now risks moving more firmly into this camp. Some in the I.R.G.C. see the fatwa as outdated: One senior former regime official recently told me that the top brass of the corps is “itching” to engineer the fatwa’s reversal — and will most likely do so at the first opportunity.
Regardless of who wins the snap presidential election that now must be held by early July, the ultimate succession battle will be for the role of supreme leader, and the I.R.G.C. is likely to play a decisive role in the transition. The late president was seen as a front-runner to succeed the 85-year-old ayatollah. Now, other than Ayatollah Khamenei’s son, there are few strong contenders. Whoever prevails is likely to rely heavily on the I.R.G.C. for his legitimacy.
Historically, Iran has felt a nuclear hedging strategy is its best defense against external aggression and invasion. And Tehran may continue to calculate that racing for a bomb would only invite more hostility, including from the United States. Then again, an increasingly distracted and unpredictable Washington might not be in a position to react forcefully against a sudden and rapid Iranian rush for a bomb, especially if Iran chooses its moment wisely.
Between the war in Gaza, a possible change in American leadership, and a domestic power vacuum that the I.R.G.C. could step into, it is not difficult to imagine a brief window in which Iran could pull out the stops and surprise the world by testing a nuclear device.
Would I bet the house on this scenario? Perhaps not. But from the perspective of a historian, the possibility of an Iranian rush for a bomb has never felt more real than it does today.
John Ghazvinian is executive director of the Middle East Center at the University of Pennsylvania and author of “America and Iran: A History, 1720 to the Present.” He is working on a book on the history of Iran’s nuclear program.
The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.
It began last month with the arrest of a Russian deputy defense minister. Then the head of the ministry’s personnel directorate was hauled into court. This week, two more senior military officials were detained. All face charges of corruption, which they have denied.
The arrests began after President Vladimir Putin began his fifth term and shuffled his ally, longtime Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, into a new post.
It immediately raised questions about whether Putin was reasserting control over the Defense Ministry amid the war in Ukraine, whether a turf battle had broken out between the military and the security services, or whether some other scenario was playing out behind the Kremlin’s walls.
A look at what’s behind the arrests and why they are happening now:
HOW SERIOUS IS CORRUPTION IN RUSSIA?
Corruption scandals are not new and officials and top officials have been accused of profiting from their positions for decades.
Graft in Russia functions as both a carrot and stick. It’s a way of “encouraging loyalty and urging people to be on the same page,” as well as a method of control, said Sam Greene, director of Democratic Resilience at the Center for European Policy Analysis.
FILE – In this undated photo distributed by the Russian Defense Ministry Press Service on Saturday, Aug. 28, 2021, Lt. Gen. Yury Kuznetsov is seen during a military parade in Krasnodar, Russia. Kuznetsov was arrested on bribery charges. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP)
Putin wants everyone to have “a skeleton in their closet,” security expert Mark Galeotti said on a recent podcast. If the state has compromising material on key officials, it can cherry-pick whom to target, he added.
Corruption, “is the essence of the system,” said Nigel Gould-Davies a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.
The war in Ukraine has led to ballooning defense spending that only has increased opportunities for graft.
WHO WAS ARRESTED?
Former Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov — the first official arrested in April and the highest-ranking one so far — oversaw large military-related construction projects and had access to vast sums of money. Those projects included rebuilding parts of Ukraine’s destroyed port city of Mariupol.
The team headed by the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny alleged that Ivanov, 48, and his family owned elite real estate, enjoyed lavish parties and trips abroad, even after the war began. They also alleged that Ivanov’s wife, Svetlana, divorced him in 2022 to avoid sanctions and to continue living a luxurious lifestyle.
Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday the recent arrests are not a “campaign” against corruption but rather reflect ongoing activities in “all government bodies.”
Peskov and Ivanov were once part of an embarrassing episode caught on camera. Navalny’s team has shared 2022 images of the Kremlin spokesman celebrating at a birthday party for Ivanov’s former wife. In the video, Peskov, with Ivanov at his side, is seen wearing a watch estimated to cost $85,000.
In April, the Investigative Committee, Russia’s top law enforcement agency, reported that Ivanov is suspected of taking an especially large bribe — a criminal offense punishable by up to 15 years in prison.
Since then, other arrests on bribery charges have included Lt. Gen. Yury Kuznetsov, head of the Defense Ministry’s personnel directorate; Maj. Gen. Ivan Popov, a career soldier and former top commander in Ukraine; and Lt. Gen. Vadim Shamarin, deputy chief of the military general staff. Shamarin is a deputy to Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the general staff.
A fifth ministry official was reported arrested Thursday — Vladimir Verteletsky, who headed a division in the ministry’s defense procurement department. He was charged with abuse of office that resulted in damages worth over 70 million rubles (about $776,000), the Investigative Committee said.
Also, the deputy head of the federal prison service for the Moscow region, Vladimir Telayev, was arrested Thursday on charges of large-scale bribery, Russian reports said.
WHY IS THIS HAPPENING NOW?
The arrests suggest that “really egregious” corruption in the Defense Ministry will no longer be tolerated, said Richard Connolly, a specialist on the Russian economy at the Royal United Services Institute in London.
Shortly after his inauguration, Putin replaced Shoigu as defense minister with Andrei Belousov, an economist. Peskov said Russia’s increasing defense budget must fit into the country’s wider economy.
FILE – In this photo released by the Russian Defense Ministry Press Service on June 8, 2023, Maj. Gen. Ivan Popov, the commander of the 58th Army, is seen in a photo at an undisclosed location. Popov was arrested on bribery charges. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP, File)
Peskov said Russia’s defense budget is 6.7% of gross domestic product. That is a level not seen since the Soviet era.
“There is a view that this needs to be spent more wisely,” Connolly said.
Before his death in a still-mysterious plane crash last year, mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin led a brief rebellion against the country’s military leadership, saying it mismanaged the war and denied weapons and ammunition to his forces.
Belousov’s appointment is “a grudging recognition from the Kremlin” that it has to pay attention to these problems, said Gould-Davies.
It’s also critical the war is managed correctly because Russia’s economy depends on it. Russians are earning higher salaries driven by the booming defense sector. While that has created problems with inflation, it allows Putin to keep delivering on promises to raise living standards.
Greene said the government needs to “keep the war going in order to keep the economy going,” but also must ensure the costs — and corruption — are not higher than needed.
FILE – This photo released by Russian Defense Ministry Press Service, shows Lt. Gen. Vadim Shamarin, deputy chief of the military general staff, posing for an official photo in Moscow, Russia, on Friday, Oct. 6, 2023. Shamarin was arrested on bribery charges. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service photo via AP, File)
Connolly said it’s also possible that Belousov, the new defense minister, is clearing out his predecessor’s associates and sending the message that “things are going to be done differently.”
Popov’s case may be different. He fought in Ukraine and was suspended in July 2023 for criticizing the Defense Ministry leadership — like Prigozhin did — and blaming it for a lack of weapons and poor supply lines that led to many Russian casualties.
He now may be facing the consequences for that criticism.
COULD THIS BE A TURF BATTLE?
It is unclear whether the Kremlin or Russia’s security services, particularly the State Security Service, or FSB, are the driving force behind the arrests.
It’s possible that officials sufficiently distant from Putin could have been caught in the middle of a turf war unconnected to the appointment of the new defense minister.
The security services, Greene said, could be trying to “push back” against the military’s dominance seen since Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
While the Kremlin denies that any kind of a purge was taking place, “if Putin didn’t want it to happen, it wouldn’t be happening,” Greene said.
WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT?
More arrests are likely as the new defense minister wants to show “there is a price to be paid” for corruption in order to rein it in, Connolly said.
Greene added that it’s also possible that “entrepreneurial” investigators will think launching a criminal case against a general is a great opportunity for career advancement.
Because corruption is so endemic, however, it could cause panic in the whole system.
If officials are arrested for behavior that previously was allowed even though it was illegal, it could shift the “red lines,” Greene said.
If the arrests continue or widen beyond the Defense Ministry, it could cause finger-pointing and for officials to “rush for the exits,” he said, and that is something the Kremlin wants to avoid.
Because the system is built on corruption, Greene said, attacking it too hard could cause it to “fall apart.”
Ebrahim Raisi’s crash: Neither Israel’s political leaders nor agencies like the Mossad would dare consider assassinating a foreign leader, not even of an enemy state like Iran
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May 20, 2024
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The death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash Sunday excited Israeli conspiracy theorists. Self-proclaimed pundits lacking the slightest clue, as well as lawmakers such as Likud firebrand Tally Gotliv, strove for hours to involve Israel in the accident, dropping hints as if they were insiders privy to state secrets.
En cette période très troublée en Nouvelle-Calédonie, le groupe d’amitié France-Azerbaïdjan de l’Assemblée nationale fait profil bas. Un seul député y siégeant a trouvé le temps de répondre à nos questions. « Nous avons de grandes sociétés françaises qui travaillent en Azerbaïdjan, avance André Villiers, député Horizons de l’Yonne. Les intérêts français doivent être ménagés. » Il indique que le groupe d’amitié avait « suspendu ses relations » avec son homologue de Bakou après les premiers signes d’épuration ethnique en septembre 2023.
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Le groupe d’amitié a déjà fait parler de lui en 2018, lorsque Marianne a révélé que son président, le tout fraîchement élu macroniste de l’Essonne Pierre-Alain Raphan, avait présenté à l’ambassade d’Azerbaïdjan un projet d’association visant à promouvoir le pays en France… Un lobbying clé en main, que Raphan se proposait de déployer avec trois collaborateurs à temps plein pour un budget de 2,8 millions d’euros par an, soit 230 000 euros par mois qu’aurait dépensés Bakou ! Depuis lors, l’ancien élu n’a visiblement pas changé sa bio sur son compte X, où s’affiche le mot-clé #Droitshumains. « Il a commis un certain nombre de boulettes, c’est le moins qu’on puisse dire », euphémise Jérôme Lambert, qui fut député PS de la Charente de 1986 à 1993 et de 1997 à 2022, et membre du groupe d’amitié de 2012 à 2022.
Cette association aurait fait concurrence à l’Association des amis de l’Azerbaïdjan (AAA), régulièrement pointée du doigt pour ses liens étroits avec l’ambassade du pays en France. Jérôme Lambert en est justement le président, depuis 2021. « Quand j’en ai pris la tête, j’ai dit à l’ancien président et aux Azerbaïdjanais de l’ambassade que je voulais bien m’en occuper, mais, attention, j’allais faire le ménage. Il ne sera plus question avec moi de pots-de-vin ou d’émoluments. Je serai un président bénévole et qui entend le rester », assure-t-il.
Du côté des habituels relais français de l’Azerbaïdjan, on condamne les ingérences évidentes en Nouvelle-Calédonie… tout en pointant l’attitude de la France. « Je ne peux pas cautionner des ingérences dans la politique française, c’est impossible », attaque la sénatrice de l’Orne Nathalie Goulet (UDI), qui, avec sept déplacements en Azerbaïdjan de 2015 à 2024, trouve néanmoins « regrettable »la dégradation des relations diplomatiques entre Paris et Bakou et fustige le « soutien systématique et inconditionnel » de la France envers l’Arménie.
« Il s’agit de toute évidence d’une manœuvre hostile » de la part de Bakou, complète l’eurodéputé RN Thierry Mariani, ancien président du groupe d’amitié France-Azerbaïdjan de l’Assemblée nationale (2012-2014). « Après, est-ce que tout cela a un vrai rôle dans le soulèvement en Nouvelle-Calédonie, personnellement, je suis sceptique. Qui a vraiment une influence dans cette zone et qui a de grands intérêts ? C’est plus la Chine que l’Azerbaïdjan », souligne-t-il.
« La seule ingérence, c’est l’Azerbaïdjan qui a pris le leadership des pays non alignés », estime de son côté Jérôme Lambert. Le « député honoraire » balaie les accusations portées contre Bakou et refuse de condamner ses agissements. « Ils ont invité des indépendantistes qui ont pignon sur rue. S’ils avaient reçu des terroristes, j’aurais été le premier à le condamner », affirme Lambert, qui a multiplié ces dernières années les missions douteuses, non seulement à Bakou mais aussi à Damas, pour y rencontrer le dictateur Bachar el-Assad, et en Crimée annexée par la Russie, pour y légitimer des élections illégalement organisées par le Kremlin.
Soutien. En 2017, le député (LR) Jean-François Mancel avait défendu la vision d’un pays laïque.
« Surenchère inutile »
Alors que le Sénat votait en janvier une résolution condamnant notamment l’offensive militaire de Bakou, Jérôme Lambert dénonçait, via le compte X de l’association, « une résolution à contre-courant de la reconnaissance internationale de l’Azerbaïdjan sur son territoire du Karabakh ». « Le lobby de la diaspora arménienne, plus extrémiste que leur propre pays d’origine, nous entraîne dans une surenchère inutile », complétait-il. La sénatrice Nathalie Goulet avait été la seule élue à voter contre la résolution.
« Est-ce qu’on a vraiment besoin de ces groupes d’amitié qui parfois se transforment en organes d’influence de pays étrangers ? » s’interroge de son côté le journaliste Laurent Richard. Auteur de plusieurs documentaires sur l’Azerbaïdjan et sa diplomatie du caviar, il avait été poursuivi en diffamation par Bakou pour avoir décrit le pays comme étant une « dictature parmi les plus féroces au monde ». Lors du procès, plusieurs élus français, parmi lesquels l’ancien député LR Jean-François Mancel, avaient défendu la vision d’un pays laïque, en progrès dans le domaine des droits de l’homme. Au bout du compte, la procédure avait été jugée irrecevable.
Former FBI Director James Comey warned Tuesday that Donald Trump “is coming” for the FBI and Justice Department.
In an interview with MSNBC, Comey was asked about the implications for the bureau if Trump is elected to a second term.
“Serious for the Justice Department and the FBI, because Trump is coming for those institutions,” Comey, who led the FBI from 2013 to 2017, said. “He knows their power, and I think he has regrets that he didn’t work hard enough to corrupt them last time. So, he’s coming for them, and that’s a danger for all Americans.”
Comey added, “He’s going to put people in positions in those organizations. He didn’t have all-stars the last time. He’ll have the bottom of the barrel this time, but people who will want to do his will, and that should worry every American. This election matters because of a reason like that,”
U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., went even further, saying Trump’s DOJ would “go on a murdering spree” if Trump wins a second term.
Pressley delivered the warning at a House Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing on the Office of Personnel Management,The Hill reports.
A deputy chief of the Russian military general staff has been arrested on charges of large-scale bribery, Russian news reports said Thursday, the latest in a series of bribery arrests of high-ranking military officials.
The arrest of Lt. Gen. Vadim Shamarin followed the arrest this week of Maj. Gen. Ivan Popov, a former top commander in Russia’s offensive in Ukraine, also on bribery charges.
In April, Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov was arrested for bribery. Ivanov was a close associate of Sergei Shoigu, whom President Vladimir Putin dismissed as defense minister soon after Putin’s inauguration to a new term in May.
Lt. Gen. Yury Kuznetsov, head of the defense ministry’s personnel directorate, was arrested on bribery charges two days after Shoigu was replaced.
Shamarin is also the head of the defense ministry’s main communications directorate.
He is being held in custody for two months, Russian news agencies cited a military garrison court as saying, but other details of the case were not reported.
Shoigu had been widely blamed for Russia’s failure to capture Kyiv early in the Ukraine fighting and was accused of incompetence and corruption by mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin, who launched a mutiny in June 2023 to demand the dismissal of Shoigu and military chief of staff Gen. Valery Gerasimov.
Less than a month after Prigozhin’s failed uprising, Popov was dismissed as commander of the 58th Army. He said he had spoken to Shoigu about insufficient equipment that had led to excessive Russian deaths, and that his dismissal was a “treacherous” stab in the back to Russian forces in Ukraine.
Popov’s forces were fighting in the Zaporizhzhia region, one of the most hotly contested areas in the Ukraine conflict. His dismissal came one day after the 58th Army’s command post in the city of Berdyansk was hit in a Ukrainian strike, killing a high-ranking general.
The deputy chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation and head of its Main Directorate of Communications Vadim Shamarin has been detained on charges of “large-scale bribery”, Russian business news outlet RBC reported on Thursday morning.
Russian business daily Kommersant first reported Shamarin’s detention, citing a source in the country’s law enforcement agencies who said that his home had been searched on Wednesday, after which he had been detained for questioning by the Russian Investigative Committee’s Main Military Investigative Department on potential fraud charges.
Citing a military court, RBC later reported that Shamarin had been arrested on Wednesday and would be remanded in custody for two months.
Shamarin is the latest member of Russia’s military elite to be targeted in purges that began with the arrest on bribery charges of Deputy Defence Minister Timur Ivanov in April. Several weeks later, two other high-ranking officials, Lieutenant General Yury Kuznetsov and Major General Ivan Popov, were also arrested on the same charges.
All four men face up to 15 years behind bars if found guilty.
Shamarin is not the first deputy chief of Russia’s General Staff to be arrested on corruption charges. His predecessor Khalil Arslanov was also arrested on charges of accepting multimillion-euro bribes in 2020, Kommersant noted.
The pro-war Telegram channel Rybar said that Shamarin had a reputation for “window dressing, falsifying reports about how good everything is, and making unfounded organisational decisions that harmed the organisation of communication within the troops”, adding that his detention was part of an “audit” rather than a “witch hunt” in Russia’s Defence Ministry.
Political commentator Farida Rustamova described Shamarin as the “highest-ranking detainee” in Russia’s military leadership since Ivanov and recalled a meeting between military officials earlier in May in which Vladimir Putin had said that the General Staff was “operating successfully”, with “no changes envisaged”.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei held the service at Tehran University, the caskets of the dead draped in Iranian flags with their pictures on them. Khamenei was joined by senior figures from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, and the leader of Hamas Ismail Haniyeh. Following Khamenei’s service the coffins were loaded onto a semi-truck and a procession was held through the streets of Tehran.
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Iran’s Supreme Leader and Hamas chief at funeral ceremony for Iranian president
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei held the service at Tehran University, the caskets of the dead draped in Iranian flags with their pictures on them. Khamenei was joined by senior figures from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, and the leader of Hamas Ismail Haniyeh. Following Khamenei’s service the coffins were loaded onto a semi-truck and a procession was held through the streets of Tehran.
Farewell ceremony held in Tehran for late president Raisi
A farewell ceremony was held in Tehran late Tuesday for Iran’s late president, foreign minister and others killed in a weekend helicopter crash. (AP Video/Mohsen Ganji).
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran’s supreme leader and representatives of militia groups he backs in the Middle East prayed Wednesday over the coffins of the country’s late president, foreign minister and other officials killed in a helicopter crash earlier this week. Hundreds of thousands of people later followed a procession honoring the dead down Tehran’s main boulevard.
Iran’s Shiite theocracy views mass demonstrations as crucial evidence of its legitimacy and the people’s support.
Many of the participants said they came to Tehran for the ceremony from other cities and towns across the Islamic Republic, an indication of how those in Iran’s capital viewed Raisi, who won the presidency in a record low turnout and later oversaw repeated crackdowns on dissent — including in the wake of the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini that sparked street protests over Iran’s mandatory hijab, or headscarf.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who had openly wept for Soleimani, also remained composed while reciting the standard prayer for the dead.
“Oh Allah, we didn’t see anything but good from him,” Khamenei said in Arabic, the language of Islam’s holy book, the Quran. Iran’s acting president, Mohammad Mokhber, stood nearby and openly cried.
The death of Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and six others in the crash on Sunday comes at a politically sensitive moment for Iran, both at home and abroad.
Raisi, who was 63, had been discussed as a possible successor to Iran’s supreme leader, the 85-year-old Khamenei. None of Iran’s living past presidents — other than Khamenei, who was president from 1981 until 1989 — could be seen in state television footage of Wednesday’s prayers. The authorities gave no explanation for their apparent absence.
Following the deadly helicopter crash, Iran set June 28 as the next presidential election. For now, there’s no clear favorite for the position among Iran’s political elite — particularly no one who is a Shiite cleric, like Raisi.
During Raisi’s term in office, Iran launched an unprecedented attack on Israel last month as its war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip rages on. Iran has supported Hamas throughout the war and provided weaponry to the militants.
AP correspondent Charles de Ledesma reports on a day of mourning for Iran.
The ICC prosecutor is also seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for their conduct in the war, which has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and also hundreds in the West Bank.
Haniyeh recounted Raisi telling him this year that the Oct. 7 attack was an “earthquake in the heart of the Zionist entity.” In a later meeting with Khamenei, the supreme leader told Haniyeh that the “destruction of the Zionist regime is feasible and, God willing, the day in which Palestine will be created from the sea to river will arrive.”
Haniyeh’s presence likely signaled Khamenei intends to continue his policy of arming militant groups in the wider Mideast — including Hamas, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthi rebels — as a way to pressure its adversaries like Israel and the United States. Mourners at the ceremony chanted: “Death to Israel!”
Hezbollah and Houthi representatives were also in attendance.
Statesmen from the Mideast and beyond attended a later memorial service, including Iraq’s Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and Tunisian President Kais Saied.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry was also there. Cairo and Tehran have been discussing reestablishing ties severed after the the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
A single black turban was placed over Raisi’s casket during the morning service, which signifies he was considered a direct descendent of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad. People then carried the coffins out on their shoulders as chants of “Death to America!” erupted outside.
People openly wept during the procession and beat their chests, a common sign of grief in the Shiite culture. They tossed scarves and other possessions up to the semitruck driving the caskets through Tehran, with coffin attendants brushing the items against the caskets in a gesture of blessing.
One man said he and his friends took a nearly seven-hour bus trip to attend the procession. Many expressed their sympathies for the dead, including Raisi.
“He was our president, the others were pilots and a minister, how can I be indifferent about their loss?” asked Sima Rahmani, a 27-year-old Tehran woman wearing a loose headscarf despite the risk of detention by police.
Prosecutors have warned people against showing any public signs of celebrating Raisi’s death and a heavy security force presence has been seen in Tehran since the crash. Many shops and stores noticeably remained open while some took off early for a long weekend despite bulk text messages and state TV broadcasting times for the procession.
“I did not vote for Raisi in 2021 election, but he was the president of all people,” said Morteza Nemati, a 28-year-old physics student at Tehran Azad University. “My presence is a way of paying tribute to him.”
Meanwhile, an Iranian official offered a new accounting of Sunday’s crash, further fueling the theory that bad weather had led to it. Gholamhossein Esmaili, who traveled in one of the two other helicopters in Raisi’s entourage, told state TV that weather had been fine when the aircraft took off. But Raisi’s helicopter disappeared into heavy clouds and the others couldn’t reach the aircraft by radio.
The Friday prayer leader from the city of Tabriz, Mohammad Ali Ale-Hashem, who was also on board, somehow answered two mobile phone calls after the crash, saying he was hurt, Esmaili said.
It wasn’t clear why Iran could not at that point track the phone signal. A Turkish drone helped find the crash site. Tehran had even asked the U.S., its longtime foe, for help.
“The conditions of the bodies found showed that they (died) immediately after the incident,” Esmaili said. “But Ayatollah Ale-Hashem (died) a few hours after the incident.”
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Associated Press writers Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran; Joseph Krauss in Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Samy Magdy in Cairo; and Munir Ahmed and Riazat Butt in Islamabad contributed to this report.
