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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

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Judge orders Giuliani to testify before Georgia grand jury

Rudy Giuliani, former President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, is being ordered to appear in front of a Fulton County special grand jury next month after failing to attend a hearing in New York to challenge a recent subpoena.

A court filing submitted Wednesday morning stated that Giuliani didn’t appear before New York State Supreme Court Justice Thomas Farber on July 13 to argue why the court shouldn’t honor the Georgia subpoena, technically known as a certificate of material witness.

As a result, Farber ordered Giuliani to appear and testify before the Fulton grand jury beginning on Aug. 9, “and on any such other dates as this Court may order.”

Giuliani’s lawyer Robert J. Costello did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Senate NDAA to Pentagon: halt fight against extremism

The Senate Armed Services Committee has called on the Defense Department to halt its programs to prevent and root out extremism in the ranks.

The report accompanying the Senate’s National Defense Authorization Act, which was made public late Monday, states the committee’s view that “spending additional time and resources to combat exceptionally rare instances of extremism in the military is an inappropriate use of taxpayer funds, and should be discontinued by the Department of Defense immediately.”

The language has not previously been reported in the press. While not legally binding on the Pentagon, it appears to send a signal of congressional opposition to efforts to counter extremist narratives in the military – an initiative that was fueled largely by the fact that dozens of people charged with ransacking the Capitol on Jan. 6 were former or current service personnel, or about one in 10.

While the Senate report language suggests the committee as a whole supports halting counter-extremism training and analysis, the same document reveals that the committee approved including that section of the report by only the narrowest of margins: 14-12.

Secret Service still looks for lost Jan. 6 texts

The Secret Service has failed so far to provide Congress with any substantial new agency text messages from Jan. 5 and Jan. 6, 2021, but assures the House committee investigating last year’s Capitol attack it will continue searching for the lost material.

Secret Service Communications Chief Anthony Guglielmi said in a statement Wednesday that thousands of pages of documents, including those on agency mobile phone use and other policies, have been turned over under subpoena to the committee. Guglielmi previously confirmed texts sought by the committee were inadvertently lost during an equipment upgrade prior to the inspector general’s request for them.