Tonight:
Surveillance powers and the Russia investigation.
Cutting off Qatar.
And…
The woman on trial—for a young man’s suicide:
— When I sat down and read
all the suicide notes, I cried.
— British police identified the third man responsible
for Saturday’s attack in London as Youssef Zaghba.
Police say the 22-year-old wasn’t
on their radar before Saturday,
but there are reports that Italian authorities
alerted British and Moroccan officials
about his travels to Syria through Turkey.
Another attacker, Rachid Redouane,
wasn’t on a watchlist either.
But Khuram Shazad Butt,
a British-born London resident, was.
Last year, he appeared in the documentary
“The Jihadis Next Door” on the U.K.’s Channel 4.
Paris authorities have opened a counterterrorism
investigation after a man shouted, “This is for Syria,”
before attacking a police officer with
a hammer outside Notre Dame cathedral.
Another officer shot and wounded the man,
who also had knives on him.
The assailant, who police haven’t identified yet,
was carrying an Algerian student ID card.
During the attack, several hundred people
were trapped inside the church
and witnesses outside began running
when they heard the gunshots.
After months of preparation,
American-backed Kurdish and Arab fighters
began a direct assault to retake control of Raqqa,
the Islamic State’s de-facto capital since 2014.
— Uber has fired more than 20 people today.
The dismissals are a result of the first of two
internal investigations the company launched
after a former employee wrote a blog post
alleging sexual harassment and discrimination.
Uber hasn’t yet released the recommendations
from the other larger investigation
being led by former U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.
— In Washington, the countdown is already
beginning to the biggest public event—
so far—
in the Russia investigation:
the public testimony of fired FBI Director James Comey
in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee
on Thursday.
But Thursday’s showdown comes with a warmup act—
a hearing today featuring four of the most
powerful players in the intelligence community:
the acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe,
NSA Chief Mike Rogers,
Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats,
and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
The hearing will focus not on what investigators
know about Trump campaign collusion with Russia,
but on how the government conducts
domestic surveillance in the first place.
Alexandra Jaffe explains.
— There’s no way around it:
at least part of tomorrow’s hearing will be
Democrats trying to drag answers out of
the witnesses on the Russia investigation.
Multiple Senate Democratic aides have told me that
they want Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein
to admit what they say he told a closed-door
briefing of senators last month—
that he knew about James Comey’s firing before
he wrote the memo that Trump used to justify it.
They also want to press Coats and Rogers on reports
that Trump asked them to downplay
the Russia investigation,
which they say is evidence of obstruction of justice.
But the actual focus of the hearing—
the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA—
is arguably just as big an issue for national security
as whether the President tried to obstruct justice.
FISA’s the law governing foreign intelligence collection,
and parts of it are said to expire at the end
of the year without congressional approval.
That includes a key, controversial part:
Section 702,
which gives the government broad authority for
“the targeting of persons reasonably
believed to be located…”
“…outside the United States to acquire
foreign intelligence information”—
without a warrant.
That means American citizens could
get swept up in that surveillance—
that’s that “incidental collection” you hear Republicans
complain about a lot in the Russia investigation.
It’s how, for example, House Intelligence Chairman
Devin Nunes tried to deflect controversy over
General Mike Flynn’s contacts with
the Russian ambassador:
— What I’ve read seems to me to be
some level of surveillance activity—
perhaps legal, but I don’t know that it’s right
and I don’t know that the American people
would be comfortable with what I’ve read.
— And it’s going to be to focus of
a lot of debate at tomorrow’s hearing.
It also poses a new challenge
for Republicans on the committee.
On the one hand,
most of the committee’s hawks are pretty
big supporters of government surveillance.
On the other hand, their playbook for avoiding the real,
troubling developments out of the Russia investigation
has been railing against government leaks
and what they see as the mishandling of
classified information by the intelligence community.
It’s going to be tough for them to defend
government surveillance and Section 702
while trying to pivot away from Russia
by attacking the intelligence community.
— Today, Brazil’s electoral court restarted a trial
that could bring down the country’s
president, Michel Temer,
in an oozing corruption scandal
that's contaminated every level
of Brazil’s political establishment.
Temer, along with the former president,
Dilma Rousseff,
is accused of funding his campaign with money
connected to a $2-billion bribery scheme
revealed in the country’s notorious
“Car Wash” investigation.
Temer faces a separate charge for allegedly
trying to buy the silence of Eduardo Cunha,
an imprisoned politician and
a key witness in that investigation.
And just three days ago,
a congressman and aide to the president
was arrested carrying a bag containing
$154-thousand in alleged hush money.
Temer only became president because Rousseff
was impeached for breaking finance laws last year.
Half of the members of the
commission that impeached her
face charges of corruption or
other serious crimes themselves.
If Temer is impeached or indicted,
Rodrigo Maia, the head of the Lower House,
will take over for 30 days—
but he too is being investigated in
the “Car Wash” scheme.
Brazil’s congress will then have
to elect someone to serve
until the country holds presidential elections
in October of 2018.
But it won’t be easy to fill the job—
at the moment,
half of all politicians in Brazil are
under investigation for corruption.
— The State Department’s new spokesperson,
Heather Nauert,
held her first press briefing Tuesday—
and the former “Fox and Friends” host came prepared…
...sort-of:
— And if you all will, uh, give me the
grace as I go through my book here,
because this is a, uh…
pretty meaty book.
Gimme a second.
— One subject she was prepped on was Qatar,
the new nation-non-grata of the Middle East:
— The Secretary talked about this today.
He said every country in the region
has their own obligations,
and they need to live up to terminate
their support for terrorism
and extremism however it manifests
itself anywhere in the world.
— But she did little to explain how the country
went from partner to pariah seemingly overnight…
...with full support from the White House.
— Qatar falling out with its neighbors
might not sound like a big deal,
but it could have huge consequences
for stability in the Gulf
and for international markets around the world.
As of yesterday, a number of Arab nations—
including Saudi Arabia, Egypt,
and the United Arab Emirates—
have cut diplomatic ties with Qatar and severed
all air, sea and land links with the country.
It’s escalated fast, and
the measures are unprecedented—
the tiny Gulf state imports 99% of its food,
so it’s essentially now under siege,
with supermarket shelves emptied
as residents stock up on supplies.
Why is this happening?
The countries involved are
all aligned with Saudi Arabia
in a foreign policy approach that
seeks to counter the influence of Iran
and curb support for groups
like the Muslim Brotherhood.
Why’s it happening now?
Well, it comes just a few weeks after President Trump
held a summit in the Saudi capital Riyadh,
where he stated unwavering support
for Saudi Arabia and its allies.
That seems to have been the greenlight
for a push to make Qatar,
which had been going its own way
on some of these issues,
fall in line with the Saudi-dominated
regional club known as the GCC.
Regional analysts I’ve spoken to say
what Saudi Arabia really wants
is regime change in Qatar—
but where Washington stands on all of this is unclear.
President Trump seemed to endorse
the move with some tweets,
but Qatar is also a close U.S. ally—
in fact, it’s home to the Middle East
headquarters of the U.S. Air Force.
There are more than 10,000
U.S. personnel based there,
and it’s a crucial hub for U.S. military
operations in the region.
In a conversation by phone with VICE News Tonight,
a spokesman for the U.S. Central Command
said the standoff was already
impacting U.S. servicemen
taking commercial flights
in and out of the country.
He said the U.S. military was grateful
for its relationship with Qatar,
and that he expected that to continue for some time.
Today in Massachusetts,
a trial began over the death of an 18-year-old
man who committed suicide in 2014,
after being encouraged to end his life
by his then-girlfriend, Michelle Carter.
Carter now faces jail time for involuntary manslaughter,
in a type of case that rarely goes to trial.
But in Missouri,
prosecutors recently charged another woman
in an even more unusual suicide case.
Michael Moynihan reports.
— On December 21st,
17-year-old Kenneth Suttner placed
a series of notes in his bedroom
and disappeared into the woods
behind his parents’ house.
— ...Suttner died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound...
— In Glasgow, Missouri,
a town of barely 1,000 people,
it didn't take long for the rumor mill to start churning:
whispers that at school and work,
Suttner had been intensely bullied.
The police began investigating.
A month after Suttner's death,
a young woman was led away in handcuffs,
and confronted with an unprecedented charge:
criminal responsibility for another person's suicide.
— We had an early dismissal that day.
We had emergency faculty meetings.
We took our kids, grade level by grade level,
walked them through as much as
we could about the tragedy.
— Mike Reynolds is the Glasgow
High School superintendent...
— Hi, guys.
How are ya?
— ...and also the bus driver for
this small K-through-12 school.
With only 300 students,
Reynolds has a personal relationship
with almost all of the kids—
including Kenny Suttner.
— Kenny was a polite, sweet young man.
Had a good sense of humor, outgoing.
The older he got, the more he got involved in things.
— Frank Flaspohler was one of the first people called
to the scene the night Kenny committed suicide.
He’s been the Howard County coroner for 28 years.
— It looked pretty obvious that it was a suicide.
I had a meeting with the sheriff’s department,
and at that meeting we talked about
what some of the neighbors had said,
what the suicide notes looked like,
and that’s when we kinda got the feeling that it was—
could have been caused by bullying.
When I sat down and read all the suicide notes, I cried.
— In one note, Suttner wrote:
“It’s just I can’t do this anymore.”
“I don’t fit in. It will be a better place once I’m gone.”
In another:
“I’m not crazy. It’s just I shouldn’t be here.”
“No one likes me. I have no future.”
“I’m a fat ass and no one likes a fat ass.”
“I really love you guys. It’s my choice. Respect it.”
— This is bullying so bad that a kid,
a 17-year-old boy, took his life.
We need to do something to
prevent that from happening again.
— Flaspohler invoked a power granted
to him by the state of Missouri:
— He convened something called a coroner’s inquest.
According to Missouri law,
a coroner's inquest can be used to determine,
quote, “how and by whom the deceased died.”
But the cause of Kenny’s death isn’t in dispute,
so Flaspohler interpreted the law in a unique way:
he’d try to determine the psychological
cause of Kenny’s death.
The inquest—
which isn’t a trial, but a public hearing
that can recommend criminal charges—
had a six-person jury and a special prosecutor.
Kenny’s suicide and the subsequent
investigation had transfixed,
and divided,
the community.
— And this is entirely up to you, right?
This is entirely your decision.
— Yes, that is correct.
— The inquest quickly zeroed in on Harley Branham,
Kenny’s manager at the local Dairy Queen.
Witnesses accused Harley of frequently berating Kenny,
once throwing a hamburger at him,
and regularly making him get on his stomach
and clean under chairs and an ice cream machine.
A friend claimed that Kenny once said Harley,
quote, “made him want to kill himself.”
But another testified that she, quote,
“didn’t think anything” of such comments,
dismissing them as the type of hyperbole
one often heard at work.
— And was Kenny calling out people in
the notes that had been his tormentors?
— No, no.
— So he didn’t mention the work incidents in the notes?
— No.
— Harley, for her part, testified that
she hadn’t ever mistreated Kenny at work,
and said that if she’d insulted him,
it was just as a joke.
But the testimony of the other witnesses was enough
to convince the jury that Harley Branham
was the “principal cause of” Kenny’s death.
The special prosecutor charged Harley with a felony:
involuntary manslaughter,
something that could result in four years in prison.
The coroner’s inquest didn’t allow
Harley legal representation.
Jeff Hilbrenner is now Harley’s lawyer:
— In this situation, there's simply just
one version of facts told, one story.
And so, no witness was subject to cross-examination.
No witness was subject to further inquiry.
How do you know these things?
When these things occur?
Who else was present?
Who else could have witnessed these things?
So I think that the six jurors there saw a set of facts,
and saw no criticism of those facts.
— But it isn’t just the process of
charging Harley that bothers Hilbrenner,
it’s the very premise that one person
can be criminally liable for a suicide.
While people have been prosecuted for
directly inciting others to kill themselves,
VICE News has been unable to find a single other case
where a defendant was held criminally liable
for what amounts to... being mean.
— Our system requires that a jury not convict someone
because they might have bullied someone before,
no matter what the charge is,
or convict someone because they were a mean person.
— It's not illegal to be mean to someone,
is basically what you’re saying?
— Well essentially no, it’s not illegal to be a jerk.
We are disputing these facts,
but let's assume Harley was mean to this guy at work.
How does that get us to being responsible for him,
you know, ultimately taking his own life?
— The inquest also went after
the Glasgow public school system.
And Reynolds says that, since the inquest, the
school has received a steady stream of hate mail.
— The aftermath and the reality is, here,
it has done a lot of damage to our
school community and our town.
— Critics of the inquest told us
that a singular focus on bullying
ignored a far more complex
psychological portrait of Kenny.
In the notes Kenny wrote the night
he killed himself, for instance,
he made an unexplained reference to
something that had happened “last night.”
He also wrote,
quote, “Please forgive me for my sin I’ve done.”
Flaspohler maintains that the inquest was
a fact-finding mission and a search for justice.
Jeff Hilbrenner thinks the inquest
unfairly targeted his client,
and that its outcome was preordained.
— If Harley is vindicated in a court of law,
is there long-term damage either way?
— Well, I mean, you used the word “vindication.”
And what does that really mean?
The reality is, she’s still gonna deal with
anytime or her a friend anyone ever
puts her name into a search engine.
There’s gonna be dozens and dozens of things
describing Harley in a way that I don't think is fair.
— Harley’s life has changed forever.
What do you think about that?
— Okay.
If I had to do it all over again, would I do it?
Yes.
Now, Harley’s life is changed?
Did I make it change,
or did she make it change when
she was doing the bullying?
So who do we blame for “her life changed”?
— Bullies typically don’t end up
in shackles though, do they?
— Well, I suppose not, so.
— Fuckin’ bankers and politicians—
they’re the ones who wanna make
[MOVIE STAR DRUG] illegal!
Politicians—
they’re the ones who wanna make
[CALIFORNIA PANCAKES] illegal!
They’re the ones who wanna make
[SKI EQUIPMENT] illegal!
They’re the ones who wanna make
[DESIGNER JEANS] illegal!
They’re the ones who wanna make
[WHITE POWDER] illegal!
— The U.K. goes to the polls in two days
to choose the winner of a general election
that has been both joy-less and exhausting.
And the British government has
given artist Cornelia Parker
the unenviable job of discovering some
artistic inspiration in those campaigns.
The role was created by Parliament in 2001,
and it’s funded by the taxpayer.
— I spend more time out of the studio
investigating the world than I do in,
so I’m always out and about taking photographs.
And so, my work is almost
commentary on what’s happening,
but not in the literal way, though.
In past elections, the official
artworks have been predictably dull.
That doesn’t figure to be the case with Parker though,
who's made her mark on the art world
with offbeat, experimental works—
like erecting a house on the roof the Met in New York,
or displaying the actress Tilda Swinton,
asleep, in a glass case.
Her latest exhibition is at
the Frith Street Gallery in London,
and also takes inspiration from an election campaign.
— So this piece is made in New York, at Halloween.
And I made it with the backdrop of
the American election going on,
because both the candidates were from New York,
and that’s what people talked about.
Because I was making this kind of work,
and all I could do is watch the news and
read the papers and feel very paralyzed almost,
when they asked me if I wanted to be
the election artist, I said, “Yeah, why not?”
— Cornelia Parker’s work has often been political.
In 2015, she created the Wikipedia page for
the Magna Carta as a 43-foot long embroidery.
This tribute to a document about freedom
was hand-stitched by 203 people—
36 of them serving prisoners.
However, being selected as the election artist
also means sacrificing some creative control.
The terms of the role state that Cornelia’s work
can’t favor one political party over another.
— That must be really frustrating for you,
as somebody who is passionate about politics,
do you not want to just jump in sometimes
and go, “What are you saying?!”
— All they can do is sack me, really.
— One of Cornelia's most famous works is
“Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View”—
quite literally, as the project involved
requesting the army to blow up a shed.
Cornelia is recording the events of the
U.K.’s general election via Instagram—
a real time stream of imagery that
will help inform her finished work.
— I’m doing an Instagram feed.
So, if first I could get your name?
— I quite like the idea of having to
be completely impartial.
So I’m very…
I’m finding, you know, that I’ve got
a photograph of a tree leaning to the left,
then I have to have a photograph of a tree
leaning to the right.
— One spirited moment captured by Cornelia
came days after the Manchester terror attack,
as a crowd of supporters of the U.K.
Independence Party turned on a reporter:
— Is that the BBC? Is that the BBC?!
IS THAT THE BBC?!
— There are lots of little themes that are emerging,
and they’re things that I didn’t know
were there beforehand.
I described it to somebody else as
like having Jerusalem syndrome.
Even the slightest of shadow looks like Jesus,
or, you know, a spilt cup of coffee
looks like the Virgin Mary or whatever.
— So you’re just looking around,
constantly trying to absorb everything?
— I’m finding it’s very obsessive compulsive,
I’m going to have to lie in a dark room after this.
— Taking what she’s observed, Cornelia Parker
will produce a piece of art by by the end of the year.
— Can we squeeze it out of you,
will it be material-based?
Or will it be video-based?
— It might be photographic or
video-based at the moment.
Because that’s the medium I’ve been working in.
And it sor-of lends itself to that.
I can think of loads of ideas,
but I don’t know what I’ll feel like
once the election’s over.
— It’s fire!
Oh, shit!
That was sick!
Oh shit.
That was sick!
This song is dark, bro.
Oh my God, it's so dark.
You got the all stars—
you got Young Jeezy, Big Boi,
and a fucking dope ass sample on dope beat.
Atlanta’s in the house on this one.
This should be in, like, a French film—
dark film about kids that are doing drugs,
got stuck in some bad situation
they’re trying to get out.
Who is it?
— LCD Soundsystem.
— That’s LCD Soundsystem?!
Holy shit.
Oh my God.
I love James Murphy.
— This song’s dope.
Her voice is, like, as she talks,
it’s just so... it sucks you in.
I just love her voice.
No idea.
— Selena Gomez.
— Selena Gomez!
Holy shit.
Just don’t, because you can
see her versatility, you know,
she can do, like, these big, soaring
vocal songs and then she does,
like, these indie-vibe songs
where she can play that role too.
I like that—I’m digging this song.
He's got this young voice,
but it sounds like someone that
would listen to Willie Nelson…
but at the same time would
listen to Bright Eyes.
He’s got, like, that old soul in his voice, too.
— That’s VICE News Tonight
for Wednesday, June 6th.
