In brief: Details emerge in NSA shooting

FORT MEADE, Md. – Two cross-dressing men who were fired upon by National Security Agency police when they disobeyed orders at a heavily guarded gate had just stolen a car from a man who had picked them up and checked into a motel, police said Tuesday.

The FBI said the driver, Ricky Shawatza Hall, 27, died at the scene, and his passenger remained hospitalized Tuesday with unspecified injuries. An NSA police officer was treated for minor injuries and released.

NSA police opened fire on the stolen sport utility vehicle Monday after Hall failed to follow instructions for leaving a restricted area, authorities said.

As it turns out, Hall and his passenger had just driven off in the SUV of a 60-year-old Baltimore man, who told investigators that he had picked up the two strangers in Baltimore and brought them to a Howard County motel.

He called police to report the stolen car, and only minutes later, just before 9 a.m., the men took a highway exit that leads directly to a restricted area at the NSA entrance at Fort Meade.

The FBI has ruled out terrorism, and no one has explained yet why the men ended up in a restricted NSA area.

However, the new timeline suggests they may have simply taken a wrong turn while fleeing the motel, about 12 minutes away.

Panel seeks private Clinton interview

WASHINGTON – The House of Representatives committee that’s investigating the 2012 fatal attacks on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, formally asked Hillary Clinton on Tuesday to appear before lawmakers for a closed-door interview to answer questions about the use of a private email account while she was secretary of state.

Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., chairman of the House Select Committee on Benghazi, sent a letter to Clinton on Tuesday asking that she sit for a “transcribed interview regarding her use of private email and a personal server for official State Department business” by May 1.

“The committee believes a transcribed interview would best protect Secretary of State Clinton’s privacy, the security of the information queried and the public’s interest in ensuring this committee has all information needed to accomplish the task set before it,” Gowdy wrote to Clinton attorney David Kendall.

Clinton, through a spokesman, said she’d told the committee months ago “that she was ready to appear at a public hearing.”

“It is by their choice that hasn’t happened,” Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill said. “To be clear, she remains ready to appear at a hearing open to the American public.”

Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the ranking Democrat on the committee, blasted Gowdy’s request as a political stunt.

“Secretary Clinton agreed to testify months ago – in public and under oath – so the select committee’s claim that it has no choice but to subject her to a private staff interview is inaccurate,” Cummings said in a statement.

Bombing suspect’s lawyers rest case

BOSTON – Lawyers for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev rested their case in his federal death penalty trial Tuesday, a day after they began presenting testimony designed to show his late older brother was the mastermind of the 2013 terror attack.

The defense admitted during opening statements that Tsarnaev participated in the bombings. But Tsarnaev’s lawyer said he was a troubled 19-year-old who had fallen under the influence of his radicalized 26-year-old brother, Tamerlan, who died following a shootout with police days after the bombings.

Prosecutors and Tsarnaev’s lawyers will give closing arguments April 6. The jury is expected to begin deliberations the same day.

The defense has made it clear from the beginning of the trial that its strategy is not to win an acquittal for Tsarnaev, now 21, but to save him from the death penalty. Three people were killed and more than 260 were injured when two pressure-cooker bombs exploded near the finish line on April 15, 2013.

If the jury convicts Tsarnaev – an event that seems a foregone conclusion because of his lawyer’s admission – the same jury will be asked to decide whether he should be executed or spend the rest of his life in prison.

Secret Service agents subpoenaed

WASHINGTON – The chairman of the House Oversight Committee said Tuesday he is issuing subpoenas to two Secret Service agents who witnessed an episode in which two high-ranking agency officials are accused of driving into a secure area at the White House without authorization.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, said the agents can shed light not only on the March 4 incident, “but also on why the Secret Service appears to be systemically broken and in desperate need of both leadership and reform.”

Chaffetz had asked Secret Service Director Joseph Clancy to allow four agents and officers to testify at a hearing last week on the March 4 incident. Clancy declined the request and instead testified as the sole witness.

The committee is trying to get to the bottom of allegations that two senior agents had been drinking when they drove into the area. The agents were accused of nudging a construction barrier with their vehicle as they intruded during an investigation of a suspicious item.

Nevada rancher rallies for land bill

CARSON CITY, Nev. – Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, who garnered national attention a year ago when he and armed supporters engaged in a showdown with federal authorities, came to Carson City on Tuesday with scores of allies to rally behind a bill seeking to reclaim land from the federal government.

A bus from Phoenix and another from Las Vegas brought more than 100 people, according to Bundy’s son, Ammon Bundy, and others came on their own to fill several legislative hearing rooms. Many wore shirts and carried signs that read “the land belongs to the people.”

The proposal, Assembly Bill 408, is sponsored by Republican Assemblywoman Michele Fiore and would require the federal government to obtain permission to use land within the state’s borders. The proposal also strips the federal government of state water rights and would allow county commissions to parcel out state land for commercial use.

“We’re here to take our state back and act like we’re sovereign citizens,” Bundy said at a rally outside the Capitol before the hearing. “We’re going to have agency. We’re going to own our rights here on this land.”