A federal judge on Tuesday dismissed the felony convictions of five retired military officers who had admitted to accepting bribes from a Malaysian contractor nicknamed "Fat Leonard" in one of the Navy's biggest corruption cases.
Leonard Glenn Francis, pleaded guilty to offering more than $500,000 in cash bribes, along with other gifts and wild sex parties in Southeast Asia, to Navy officials, defense contractors and others. The scheme allowed him to bilk the maritime service out of at least $35 million by getting commanders to redirect ships to ports he controlled and overcharging for services, according to the prosecution.
The dismissals came at the request of the government not the defense citing prosecutorial errors.
Prosecutors said in legal filings outlining their request for Tuesday's dismissals that the action does not mean the defendants did not commit the charged crimes but because information was withheld from the defense and other mistakes were made, they wanted to ensure justice was served fairly.
From the "Classified Document investigation "
"We have also considered that, at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory,” Hur wrote.
“Mr. Biden’s memory also appeared to have significant limitations,” Hur wrote in another passage, adding that his conversations with his ghost writer “from 2017 are often painfully slow, with Mr. Biden struggling to remember events and straining at times to read and relay his own notebook entries.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu , in an interview Tuesday afternoon with CNN 's Jake Tapper, continued to condemn the arrest warrant being sought against him by International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutors.
Netanyahu said the warrants against himself and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over the country's conduct in its fight against Hamas in the Gaza Strip sets a "dangerous" precedent for other democratic countries, including Israel's allies.
What is Netanyahu is saying here exactly? We all are alike? If we got elected, what we do ... Just a thought.
"I'm not ruling anything out, because we are facing someone who is not ruling anything out," Macron said when asked about his earlier comments that NATO troops could be deployed to help defend Ukraine.
He said he'd consider sending French troops to Ukraine "if the Russians were to break through the front lines, if there were a Ukrainian request, which is not the case today."
He added that if Russia defeated Ukraine, it would then probably seek to attack another European country.
