East Oregonian
Page 7A
NATION
Trump to Russia: Uncover deleted Clinton emails
Thursday, July 28, 2016
Joe Kline/The Bulletin via AP
A picture of missing person Kaylee Sawyer is
displayed on a screen as Deschutes County District
Attorney John Hummel speaks on Tuesday at the
Deschutes County Courthouse in Bend.
Details emerge after
arrest in death of
Oregon woman
By ANDREW SELSKY
Associated Press
SALEM — Kaylee
Sawyer was walking alone
in the middle of the night on
the edge of the picturesque
town of Bend, Oregon, after
getting into an argument with
her boyfriend.
Police
believe
she
encountered Edwin Lara, a
31-year-old with an associate
degree in criminal justice
who was working as a secu-
rity guard at a community
college.
A body that resembles
the 23-year-old Sawyer was
found later but has not yet
been positively identiied.
Lara was in the Tahama
County Jail in California
on Wednesday, a day after
authorities say he shot a
man at a motel in Yreka,
California, and stole a car
with a woman and her two
sons inside.
Lara’s wife, Isabel Ponce-
Lara, went to police in their
hometown of Redmond,
Oregon, on Monday, crying
uncontrollably and saying
Lara had told her that he
hit Sawyer with his patrol
vehicle, killing her, then
panicked and hid her body,
according to documents iled
in court.
After tearfully telling his
story to her, Lara drove off,
said his wife, a new Bend
police oficer who was
worried that he was suicidal.
Police went to their
home and found Sawyer’s
blood-soaked purse, bloody
women’s and men’s clothing
and other belongings in a
shed, according to 62 pages
of afidavits iled with the
Deschutes County Circuit
Court in Bend.
The oficers said evidence
showed Lara had committed
crimes of vehicular homi-
cide, assault and hit-and-run.
Deschutes County District
Attorney John Hummel isn’t
buying the story about Lara
having accidentally run over
Sawyer.
Lara “did unlawfully and
intentionally cause the death
of Kaylee Anne Sawyer,” the
murder charge iled against
him Tuesday reads.
Circuit Court Judge Alta
Brady has prohibited all
parties in the case, including
attorneys and the district
attorney’s
ofice,
from
publicly commenting on it.
Hummel told The Asso-
ciated Press in an email that
consequently he could not
say what evidence led his
ofice to charge Lara with
murder instead of vehicular
homicide.
But he added: “I can tell
you that I would not ile
charges alleging a person
intentionally killed a person
if I did not have evidence to
support the assertion.”
In California, Lara is
accused of shooting a man at
a motel before stealing a car
and forcing one of the sons
to drive at gunpoint. Lara let
the family members go along
Interstate 5. The gunshot
victim at the Super 8 was last
listed in critical condition on
Tuesday.
A mug shot showed Lara
with medium-length black
hair and beard stubble staring
sullenly into the camera.
A motive was unclear in
the case against Lara, whose
judicial record consists of 10
trafic citations and a ish and
game violation.
His
court-appointed
attorney, Benjamin Kim, did
not immediately return a call
or email seeking comment.
Hundreds of people
attended a candlelight vigil
for Sawyer in a Bend park on
Tuesday evening. TV news
reports showed mourners
remembering her as a caring
person with a radiant smile.
A 19-year-old woman
from Salem, Oregon, was
arrested with Lara when he
pulled over after being chased
by California Highway
Patrol at speeds over 100
mph. She was initially taken
into custody on suspicion
of attempted murder and
kidnapping in relation to the
mayhem in Yreka but was
later released and all charges
were dropped.
Family members told
reporters that the woman had
been kidnapped. The Yreka
Police Department called
her another victim of Lara
instead of a suspect.
Prosecutors abandon case
against police in Gray’s death
BALTIMORE (AP) —
More than a year after a
young black man suffered a
broken neck in a police van,
the effort to hold six oficers
criminally responsible for his
death collapsed Wednesday
when the city dropped all
charges in the case that tore
Baltimore apart and exposed
issures between the police,
prosecutors and the people.
Just one day before
another trial was to begin,
prosecutors dismissed the
three remaining cases,
blaming police for a biased
investigation that failed to
produce a single conviction
in the death of Freddie Gray.
Gray, 25, was fatally
injured in April 2015 while
he was handcuffed and
shackled but left otherwise
unrestrained in the back of
the van. His death added
fuel to the growing Black
Lives Matter movement, set
off massive protests and led
to the city’s worst riots in
decades.
But prosecutors suffered
blow after crippling blow
in the courtroom. A judge
acquitted three other oficers,
including the van driver
who prosecutors considered
the most responsible and
another oficer who was
the highest-ranking of the
group.
The case took shape
soon after the rioting, when
Democratic State’s Attorney
Marilyn Mosby conidently
announced the charges atop
a sweeping staircase across
from City Hall.
On Wednesday, she was
iery and indignant as she
spoke from behind a podium
across the street from the
public-housing
complex
where Gray was arrested. She
angrily blamed the outcome
on an uncooperative police
department and a broken
criminal justice system.
Mosby outlined what
prosecutors have called
sabotage, saying oficers
who were witnesses were
also part of the department’s
investigative team. She said
“obvious questions” weren’t
asked during interrogations.
She alleged lead detectives
were slow to provide
information and failed to
execute search warrants for
text messages pertaining to
the oficers in the case. She
also accused investigators of
creating notes after the case
was launched to contradict
the medical examiner’s
conclusion that Gray’s death
was a homicide.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald
Trump encouraged Russia on
Wednesday to ind and make public
missing emails deleted by his presiden-
tial opponent, Hillary Clinton, setting
off an instant debate over hacking and
his urging of a foreign government to
meddle in American politics.
Shortly after Trump’s extraordinary
remarks, his Republican running mate,
Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, took a
different tack and warned of “serious
consequences” if Russia interfered in
the election.
Democrats — and some Repub-
licans — quickly condemned the
remarks by the Republican presidential
standard-bearer.
They came as the Democrats met on
the third day of their national conven-
tion in Philadelphia, where Clinton
will accept the presidential nomination
Thursday night to face Republican
Trump in November.
Trump’s comments raised the
question of whether he was condoning
foreign government hacking of U.S.
computers and the public release
of information stolen from political
adversaries — actions that are at least
publicly frowned upon across the globe.
His brief remarks managed to divert
attention from an embarrassing leak of
other hacked emails that exposed sensi-
tive internal political communications
that had divided Democrats.
“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope
you’re able to ind the 30,000 emails
that are missing,” Trump said. He was
referring to emails on Clinton’s private
server that she said she deleted —
because they were private — before
turning other messages over to the State
Department. The Justice Department
declined to prosecute Clinton over her
email practices, but FBI Director James
Comey called her “extremely careless”
in handling classiied information as
President Barack Obama’s secretary of
state.
The Clinton campaign called
Trump’s statement the “irst time that
a major presidential candidate has
actively encouraged a foreign power
to conduct espionage against a political
opponent.”
At a news conference in Doral,
Florida, after Trump’s initial remarks,
he was asked whether he had any
qualms about asking a foreign govern-
ment to hack into computers in the
United States. Trump did not directly
respond except to say, “That’s up to
the president. Let the president talk to
them.”
He later added: “If Russia or China
or any other country has those emails,
I mean, to be honest with you, I’d love
to see them.”
Trump’s invitation was immediately
contradicted by his running mate.
AP Photo/Evan Vucci
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a
campaign rally at Lackawanna College, Wednesday in Scranton, Pa.
Pence condemned any possible cyber-
espionage, breaking from Trump for
the irst time since being selected to run
with him.
“If it is Russia and they are inter-
fering in our elections, I can assure
you both parties and the United States
government will ensure there are
serious consequences,” Pence said in a
statement.
Brendan Buck, a spokesman for
Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan
said bluntly: “Russia is a global menace
led by a devious thug. Putin should stay
out of this election.”
A Trump campaign communica-
tions adviser, Jason Miller, sought to
clarify Trump’s statements, saying
on Twitter that Trump never urged or
invited Russia to hack Clinton’s emails.
Instead, he said, Trump was “clearly
saying” that if Russia or anyone else
already had Clinton’s deleted emails
they should share them with the FBI.
But Trump never mentioned the FBI in
his comments.
It was not immediately clear where
or how Clinton’s deleted emails might
be recovered, unless an adversary had
previously hacked the computer server
she operated in the basement of her
home in Chappaqua, New York, before
she had deleted the messages.
The Associated Press, which discov-
ered the basement server’s existence
in March 2015, previously reported
that it was connected to the internet in
ways that made it more vulnerable to
hackers.
The FBI concluded it was possible
hackers broke into her server but found
no direct evidence.
Wednesday’s exchange occurred
hours after Obama identiied Russia
as almost certainly responsible for
hacking the Democratic National
Committee in a different case.
WikiLeaks published on its website
last week more than 19,000 internal
emails stolen from the DNC earlier this
year.The emails showed DNC staffers
supporting Clinton when they were
publicly promising to remain neutral
during the primary elections between
Sen. Bernie Sanders and her.
The head of the DNC, Debbie
Wasserman Schultz, resigned over the
disclosures.
Trump cast doubt on whether Russia
was behind that hack. He said blaming
Russia was delecting attention from
the embarrassing material in the emails.
“Russia has no respect for our
country, if it is Russia,” Trump said. “It
could be China. It could be someone
sitting in his bedroom. It’s probably not
Russia. Nobody knows if it’s Russia.”
Obama
traditionally
avoids
commenting on active FBI investi-
gations, but he told NBC News on
Tuesday that outside experts have
blamed Russia for the leak. Obama also
appeared to embrace the notion that
President Vladimir Putin might have
been responsible because of what he
described as Trump’s afinity for Putin.
Trump said he has no relationship with
Putin.
In Moscow on Wednesday, Putin’s
spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said
Russia would never interfere in another
country’s election.
“What the motives were in terms of
the leaks, all that, I can’t say directly,”
Obama said. “What I do know is
that Donald Trump has repeatedly
expressed admiration for Vladimir
Putin.”
Obama said he was basing his
assessment on Trump’s own comments
and the fact that Trump has “gotten
pretty favorable coverage back in
Russia.”
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange
said Tuesday on CNN that “a lot more”
material was coming.