State and National Government

Rep. Bob Goodlatte

Congressman Bob Goodlatte says text messages involving an FBI agent who was in charge of the Russian election meddling investigation at the time show an intention to stop the election of President Trump. Goodlatte has subpoenaed him for a closed-door hearing on Wednesday as WFIR’s Ian Price reports:

Sarah Huckabee Sanders

Lexington, VA (AP) – White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders acknowledged Saturday in a tweet that she was booted from a Virginia restaurant Friday night because she works for President Donald Trump.

Sanders said she was told by the owner of The Red Hen in Lexington, Virginia, that she had to “leave because I work for @POTUS and I politely left.”

Sanders said the event said far more about the owner of the restaurant than it did about her.

“I always do my best to treat people, including those I disagree with, respectfully and will continue to do so,” Sanders said in the tweet from her official account, which generated 22,000 replies in about an hour.

Sanders’ treatment at the restaurant created a social media commotion with people on both sides weighing in to provide their critique, including her father, former Arkansas governor and Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee.

“Bigotry. On the menu at Red Hen Restaurant in Lexington VA. Or you can ask for the ‘Hate Plate,'” Huckabee said, quickly generating 2,000 replies in about 30 minutes. “And appetizers are ‘small plates for small minds.'”

On Yelp, a reviewer of the restaurant from Los Angeles wrote: “Don’t eat here if you’re a Republican, wearing a MAGA hat or a patriot.”

“12/10 would recommend. Bonus: this place is run by management who stuck up for their beliefs and who are true Americans. THANK YOU!!!!” said a reviewer from Commerce City, Colorado.

No one answered the phone at the restaurant.

WASHINGTON (AP) — A lawyer for immigrant children who say they were cuffed and beaten by staff inside a Virginia detention facility said Friday they plan to press forward with a federal civil-rights lawsuit, even though two of the teens involved in the case are no longer in the United States.

Hannah M. Lieberman said two of the unidentified teens who described severe abuse inside the Shenandoah Valley Juvenile Center recently left the country following the resolution of their immigration cases. A third teen remains in federal custody, but has been transferred to another detention facility in Alexandria, Virginia.

Shenandoah executive director Timothy J. Smith said Friday that an internal investigation had concluded that the incidents described in the lawsuit filed against his facility last year are unfounded and “can be readily dispelled.” Smith says his staff will fully cooperate with state and federal investigations.

Lieberman said her legal team at the Washington Committee for Civil Rights and Urban Affairs will consult with the federal district court judge overseeing the case about how to proceed.

“These kids show a remarkable consistency in their stories, and they have no connection to one another,” Lieberman said. “We believe our kids.”

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam on Thursday ordered two state agencies to open probes into the facility, hours after The Associated Press first published first-person accounts of severe abuse described by children as young as 14. The teens said they were handcuffed, shackled and beaten by guards. They also described being stripped of their clothes and locked in solitary confinement for days at a time.

The incidents described in sworn statements from six Latino teens are alleged to have occurred between 2015 and 2018, under both the Obama and Trump administrations.

Though incarcerated in a facility similar to a prison, the children detained on administrative immigration charges have not been convicted of any crime.

Virginia Democratic Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine sent a list of questions about the case Friday to the head of the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement, which oversees the care of immigrant children held in federal custody.

The senators asked whether regulators had received any past complaints involving the facility located near Staunton, Virginia. The Democrats also want to know whether there is a system in place to discipline staff members who abuse children in federal custody.

Officials at the Department of Health and Human Services, which includes the Refugee Resettlement office, have refused to discuss when they first learned of the abuse allegations at the Shenandoah center and whether any action has been taken to determine the veracity of those claims.

“HHS takes seriously the responsibly of ensuring the care of unaccompanied minors by our grantees,” said Ryan Murphy, a spokesman for the agency, referring to facilities that receive federal money to house immigrant children.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

The Shenandoah lockup is one of only three juvenile detention facilities in the United States with federal contracts to provide “secure placement” for immigrant children who had problems at less-restrictive housing.

The center was built by a coalition of seven nearby towns and counties to lock up local kids charged with serious crimes. Since 2007, about half the 58 beds are occupied by male and female immigrants between the ages of 12 and 17 facing deportation proceedings or awaiting rulings on asylum claims. It received $4.2 million in federal funds last year to house the immigrant children.

On average, 92 immigrant children each year cycle through Shenandoah, most of them from Mexico and Central America.

As part of a federal class-action lawsuit, young immigrants held at the Shenandoah facility said in sworn statements said they were beaten while handcuffed and locked up for long periods in solitary confinement, left nude and shivering in concrete cells. Children as young as 14 also said the guards there stripped them of their clothes and strapped them to chairs with bags placed over their heads.

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RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that says states are allowed to collect taxes from online sales could boost Virginia’s tax revenues by up to $300 million a year.

The Richmond Times-Dispatch says the Thursday ruling may help in-state retailers compete against online rivals. Secretary of Finance Aubrey Layne says the ruling could generate an additional $300 million a year for the state. But Layne says Virginia’s general fund won’t see that revenue until the General Assembly adopts legislation on how to apply the sales tax.

The Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision overturns a 1992 court ruling that limited state tax authority to sales by businesses physically in the state. The newspaper reports that retailers say the ruling is long overdue.

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UPDATE: WASHINGTON (AP) – Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam has ordered state officials to investigate claims made by immigrant teens of severe physical abuse at a
juvenile detention facility. Northam announced the probe in a tweet on Thursday, hours after The Associated Press reported on a half-dozen sworn statements from Latino teens held at the Shenandoah Valley Juvenile Center. Youths as young as 14 say they were beaten while handcuffed and locked up for long periods in solitary confinement, left nude and shivering in concrete cells. Detainees also say the guards stripped them of their clothes and strapped them to chairs with bags placed over their heads. The governor, a Democrat, said the allegations are disturbing and ordered the state’s secretary of public safety and homeland security to report back to him about conditions inside the facility.The center’s lawyers deny all abuse allegations.

PREVIOUS — WASHINGTON (AP) – Immigrant children as young as 14 housed at a juvenile detention center in Virginia say they were beaten while handcuffed and locked up for long periods in solitary confinement, left nude and shivering in concrete cells.The abuse claims against the Shenandoah Valley Juvenile Center near Staunton, Virginia, are detailed in federal court filings that include a half-dozen sworn statements from Latino teens jailed there for months or years. Multiple detainees say the guards stripped them of their clothes and strapped them to chairs with bags placed over their heads. A former child-development specialist who worked there tells The Associated Press she saw kids with bruises and broken bones. She’s not authorized to publicly discuss the issue and spoke on condition of anonymity. The center’s lawyers deny all abuse allegations.

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) _ A group of women’s health care providers has filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn a number of Virginia’s abortion regulations in light of a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling. The lawsuit filed in federal court Wednesday challenges Virginia laws, some decades old, that restrict who can provide an abortion and how it can be provided. The plaintiffs argue the laws are unconstitutional obstacles to care not supported by medical evidence. The lawsuit was filed against Virginia’s health commissioner, other state officials and local prosecutors responsible for enforcing some of the laws being challenged. A Virginia Department of Health spokeswoman said she couldn’t comment on pending litigation.

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) – Virginia election officials have recently reassigned nearly 500 voters to new congressional districts as the state works to resolve mapping errors that created confusion in several close General Assembly races last year. The Richmond-Times Dispatch reports 482 voters have been reassigned. State Department of Elections Commissioner Chris Piper says that in a review of district lines prior to last week’s primaries, the department identified nearly 1,200 addresses potentially assigned to the wrong district. Local registrars determined 903 of the addresses were in the correct district, and 269 residences that house 482 voters were mapped incorrectly. Piper told the State Board of Elections on Tuesday that an additional 21 were still under review. Piper says the problems mostly came from human data entry errors and boundaries that can be difficult to outline at the house-to-house level.

Rep. Bob Goodlatte

Roanoke Congressman Bob Goodlatte says it’s about time a prominent FBI agent is agreeing to testify before the House Judiciary Committee that he chairs. Congressional Republicans say e-mails Peter Strzok sent to another agent show extreme bias in the FBI’s handling of both the Hillary Clinton e-mail server investigation, and that into alleged collusion between Russian and the Trump campaign.WFIR Intern Reporter Brandon Wells has more:

 

Virginia Senator Mark Warner says the Justice Department Inspector General’s report released yesterday should lead Republicans to stop trying to claim FBI bias against President Trump’s campaign two years ago. But Republican Congressman Bob Goodlatte says it demonstrates what he calls a shocking contrast in the ways the FBI investigated that campaign and that of Hillary Clinton — and that difference, he says, requires its own separate investigation. WFIR’s Evan Jones has the story: