Washington
Blanche seeks to rally a depleted DOJ workforce in first speech as attorney general
WASHINGTON (AP) — Attorney General Todd Blanche sought to rally a depleted Justice Department workforce Thursday in his first speech since taking the reins of the beleaguered agency, promising rank-and-file staff that he will lead them with integrity.
Blanche’s speech inside the storied Great Hall at Justice Department headquarters represented an effort to reassure lawyers and law enforcement officials on the heels of a tumultuous confirmation battle that exposed deep concerns about the direction of the agency under Republican President Donald Trump.
Blanche vowed to uphold the rule of law “without fear or favor,” and told staff he would welcome their ideas and encourage disagreement. Without mentioning specific moves that have raised alarms from critics that Blanche is still functioning as Trump’s personal lawyer, the attorney general acknowledged he would “not get every decision right.”
“Everything that I do will not be the right path or the right decision,” said Blanche, who served as Trump’s criminal defense lawyer before entering the department last year as deputy attorney general. “No one does that, but I do promise you this: I promise you that I will work as hard as any of you. I promise that I’ll listen to you. That I will listen to the ideas that you have, or adjustments that we need to make, and if we need to make them, I will make them.”
Blanche is assuming control of the Justice Department at a turbulent time, with mass firings and resignations having hollowed out the workforce and a slew of politically charged investigations drawing concerns that the agency is being used as a weapon to target the president’s perceived foes.
He was confirmed by the Senate early Saturday by the narrowest of margins, opposed by two Republicans who expressed concerns about what they described as the politicization of the Justice Department under Trump.
Blanche told the workforce he is proud of the department’s work under the second Trump administration to tackle violent crime, illegal drug trafficking and violent gangs and cartels.
“It’s easy to focus on the negative or the news story that is critical of something we’re doing or something that we’ve done, or questions something that we’re doing or something that we’ve done,” Blanche said. “But do not forget that we have accomplished a tremendous amount of good, positive work in the past year and a half.”
Australia
Jury convicts former Catholic bishop of sexually abusing 2 men
PERTH, Australia (AP) — An Australian jury on Thursday convicted a former Catholic bishop renowned for hosting alcohol-fueled house parties of sexually abusing two young Indigenous men.
The District Court of Western Australia jury convicted Christopher Saunders, 76, of 13 out of 19 charges of sexual abuse that allegedly occurred between 2008 and 2019 in his sprawling diocese on the country’s tropical northwest coast.
Prosecutors alleged he lured young Indigenous men to his church-owned house in the tourist town of Broome with free alcohol and cigarettes paid for with church funds. House rules included that the male-only guests had to remove their shirts.
“The accused had a sexual interest in young Aboriginal men and a tendency to act on that interest when the opportunity presented itself,” Prosecutor Adam Ebell had told the court.
The convictions included one count of sexual penetration without consent and a dozen indecent assaults.
He was acquitted of six charges that included a third alleged victim and indecent dealing with a child over the age of 16. While the age of consent in the state is 16, the law raises the effective age of consent to 18 if an older person is in a position of trust, power or responsibility.
Four charges of sexual penetration of a child younger than 13 years were dropped on the first day of Saunders’ three-week trial.
Saunders is one of the most senior Australian Catholics to be convicted in a global clergy abuse scandal that has besieged the Vatican for years.
Cardinal George Pell was convicted of abusing choirboys, and Archbishop Philip Wilson was convicted of covering up child sex abuse. But both Australian clerics successfully appealed their convictions.
Saunders showed no reaction as the verdicts were announced. He had been free on bail since he was charged two years ago. He did not apply to remain on bail after his convictions and will be sentenced on Sept. 21.
Defense lawyer Tony Hager had told the jurors in his closing address that Saunders did not deny holding “boozy parties” where young men often stripped off their shirts and shorts.
Saunders’ behavior had been at times unusual, boozy and “might even be sleazy,” but it was never sexual, Hager argued.
Saunders led the remote Broome Diocese from 1996 until he resigned in 2021. The Outback diocese covers an area larger than France with a population of only 50,000 people. Most of the region’s Catholics are Indigenous.
His resignation followed a police announcement that they had dropped a criminal investigation into sexual allegations against him.
He had stood down from the church governance role a year earlier after news media reported the allegations.
The Vatican began its own investigation into Saunders in 2022, then handed the Western Australia Police Force a 200-page report on its findings the following year. Police reopened the criminal investigation and charged Saunders in 2024.
While the report’s contents were never officially made public, they were leaked to Australia’s Seven Network television news, which reported Saunders likely sexually assaulted four Indigenous youths and potentially groomed another 67 Indigenous youths and men.
The current Bishop of Broome, Tim Norton, issued an apology to Saunders’ victims and the diocese after the verdicts.
“We are acutely aware that the victims of this betrayal are not just those who have told their stories to police and before the court,” Norton said in a statement.
“The hurt extends to those who have placed their trust in our leadership and our church,” Norton added.
A national inquiry into the Catholic Church and other institutions’ responses to child abuse found that 7% of Australian Catholic priests were accused of sexually abusing children between 1950 and 2010.
Louisiana
Ex-officer accused of plotting New Orleans attack is released after grand jury declines to indict
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A former law enforcement officer accused of planning to kill Black people in a mass shooting at a New Orleans festival was quietly released from custody over the summer after a grand jury found there was not enough evidence to charge him with a crime.
A Louisiana grand jury in June declined to indict Christopher Gillum on a state terrorism charge that could have carried up to a 15-year sentence, court records show.
Gillum, who had been held without bond, was released shortly after the grand jury’s decision and is not facing charges in any other jurisdictions, according to his attorney, Dylan Utley. He declined to comment further.
Gillum’s release has not previously been reported.
The 45-year-old ex-police officer, who is from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, had been arrested in Florida in April with hundreds of rounds of ammunition and a handgun while on his way to Louisiana to commit a mass shooting, according to the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office. The investigation had involved the FBI and authorities across Louisiana, North Carolina and Florida.
Authorities did not name the event Gillum was allegedly targeting, but his arrest came on the eve of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, which attracts hundreds of thousands of festivalgoers annually.
Gillum, who is white, had “expressed recent threats to harm ‘Black people’ “, according to authorities. His family had reported him missing in North Carolina and said he had a history of self-harm.
Lester Duhe, a spokesperson for Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, said in a statement that Gillum’s family had taken him “to a treatment facility out of the state” and that he is not facing additional criminal charges.
Duhe said there were “several jurisdictional issues” that complicated the case after Gillum was extradited to Louisiana following his arrest.
“The threat relayed to a family member actually occurred in North Carolina,” Duhe said. “The defendant never entered the State of Louisiana until after his arrest.”
Gillum had been planning to travel to the Florida Keys “during the same period he would have been suspected to travel to Louisiana,” Duhe added.
Gillum was charged under a Louisiana statute for the crime of “terrorizing,” which requires that “a crime of violence is imminent or in progress or that a circumstance dangerous to human life exists or is about to exist.”
Jonathan Guidry, the foreperson for the grand jury, declined to comment on the decision to not indict Gillum.
Katherine Schweit, a former Chicago prosecutor and FBI executive who ran the agency’s active shooter program, said that thwarted acts of mass violence do not always lead to indictments, but prosecutors often seek an array of criminal charges when possible.
“It’s very difficult to convince a jury, or to convince a grand jury, that something might have happened,” Schweit told The Associated Press.
Law enforcement authorities in North Carolina, where Louisiana court records list Gillum as residing, told the AP that they were not aware he had been released from custody.
“If we’ve got an individual that was accused of such an action, we would want to know if in fact he did return to Alamance County,” said Byron Tucker, a spokesperson for the Alamance County Sheriff’s Office in North Carolina.
Nazneen Ahmed, a spokesperson for North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson, said there are no plans for the state to pursue charges against Gillum.
The office of the Florida Attorney General did not respond to a request for comment about whether Gillum may face additional criminal charges in its jurisdiction. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of Louisiana also did not return messages seeking comment.
In a statement, the FBI New Orleans office said the decision whether to charge Gillum rested with prosecutors.
The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival declined to comment.
Blanche seeks to rally a depleted DOJ workforce in first speech as attorney general
WASHINGTON (AP) — Attorney General Todd Blanche sought to rally a depleted Justice Department workforce Thursday in his first speech since taking the reins of the beleaguered agency, promising rank-and-file staff that he will lead them with integrity.
Blanche’s speech inside the storied Great Hall at Justice Department headquarters represented an effort to reassure lawyers and law enforcement officials on the heels of a tumultuous confirmation battle that exposed deep concerns about the direction of the agency under Republican President Donald Trump.
Blanche vowed to uphold the rule of law “without fear or favor,” and told staff he would welcome their ideas and encourage disagreement. Without mentioning specific moves that have raised alarms from critics that Blanche is still functioning as Trump’s personal lawyer, the attorney general acknowledged he would “not get every decision right.”
“Everything that I do will not be the right path or the right decision,” said Blanche, who served as Trump’s criminal defense lawyer before entering the department last year as deputy attorney general. “No one does that, but I do promise you this: I promise you that I will work as hard as any of you. I promise that I’ll listen to you. That I will listen to the ideas that you have, or adjustments that we need to make, and if we need to make them, I will make them.”
Blanche is assuming control of the Justice Department at a turbulent time, with mass firings and resignations having hollowed out the workforce and a slew of politically charged investigations drawing concerns that the agency is being used as a weapon to target the president’s perceived foes.
He was confirmed by the Senate early Saturday by the narrowest of margins, opposed by two Republicans who expressed concerns about what they described as the politicization of the Justice Department under Trump.
Blanche told the workforce he is proud of the department’s work under the second Trump administration to tackle violent crime, illegal drug trafficking and violent gangs and cartels.
“It’s easy to focus on the negative or the news story that is critical of something we’re doing or something that we’ve done, or questions something that we’re doing or something that we’ve done,” Blanche said. “But do not forget that we have accomplished a tremendous amount of good, positive work in the past year and a half.”
Australia
Jury convicts former Catholic bishop of sexually abusing 2 men
PERTH, Australia (AP) — An Australian jury on Thursday convicted a former Catholic bishop renowned for hosting alcohol-fueled house parties of sexually abusing two young Indigenous men.
The District Court of Western Australia jury convicted Christopher Saunders, 76, of 13 out of 19 charges of sexual abuse that allegedly occurred between 2008 and 2019 in his sprawling diocese on the country’s tropical northwest coast.
Prosecutors alleged he lured young Indigenous men to his church-owned house in the tourist town of Broome with free alcohol and cigarettes paid for with church funds. House rules included that the male-only guests had to remove their shirts.
“The accused had a sexual interest in young Aboriginal men and a tendency to act on that interest when the opportunity presented itself,” Prosecutor Adam Ebell had told the court.
The convictions included one count of sexual penetration without consent and a dozen indecent assaults.
He was acquitted of six charges that included a third alleged victim and indecent dealing with a child over the age of 16. While the age of consent in the state is 16, the law raises the effective age of consent to 18 if an older person is in a position of trust, power or responsibility.
Four charges of sexual penetration of a child younger than 13 years were dropped on the first day of Saunders’ three-week trial.
Saunders is one of the most senior Australian Catholics to be convicted in a global clergy abuse scandal that has besieged the Vatican for years.
Cardinal George Pell was convicted of abusing choirboys, and Archbishop Philip Wilson was convicted of covering up child sex abuse. But both Australian clerics successfully appealed their convictions.
Saunders showed no reaction as the verdicts were announced. He had been free on bail since he was charged two years ago. He did not apply to remain on bail after his convictions and will be sentenced on Sept. 21.
Defense lawyer Tony Hager had told the jurors in his closing address that Saunders did not deny holding “boozy parties” where young men often stripped off their shirts and shorts.
Saunders’ behavior had been at times unusual, boozy and “might even be sleazy,” but it was never sexual, Hager argued.
Saunders led the remote Broome Diocese from 1996 until he resigned in 2021. The Outback diocese covers an area larger than France with a population of only 50,000 people. Most of the region’s Catholics are Indigenous.
His resignation followed a police announcement that they had dropped a criminal investigation into sexual allegations against him.
He had stood down from the church governance role a year earlier after news media reported the allegations.
The Vatican began its own investigation into Saunders in 2022, then handed the Western Australia Police Force a 200-page report on its findings the following year. Police reopened the criminal investigation and charged Saunders in 2024.
While the report’s contents were never officially made public, they were leaked to Australia’s Seven Network television news, which reported Saunders likely sexually assaulted four Indigenous youths and potentially groomed another 67 Indigenous youths and men.
The current Bishop of Broome, Tim Norton, issued an apology to Saunders’ victims and the diocese after the verdicts.
“We are acutely aware that the victims of this betrayal are not just those who have told their stories to police and before the court,” Norton said in a statement.
“The hurt extends to those who have placed their trust in our leadership and our church,” Norton added.
A national inquiry into the Catholic Church and other institutions’ responses to child abuse found that 7% of Australian Catholic priests were accused of sexually abusing children between 1950 and 2010.
Louisiana
Ex-officer accused of plotting New Orleans attack is released after grand jury declines to indict
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A former law enforcement officer accused of planning to kill Black people in a mass shooting at a New Orleans festival was quietly released from custody over the summer after a grand jury found there was not enough evidence to charge him with a crime.
A Louisiana grand jury in June declined to indict Christopher Gillum on a state terrorism charge that could have carried up to a 15-year sentence, court records show.
Gillum, who had been held without bond, was released shortly after the grand jury’s decision and is not facing charges in any other jurisdictions, according to his attorney, Dylan Utley. He declined to comment further.
Gillum’s release has not previously been reported.
The 45-year-old ex-police officer, who is from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, had been arrested in Florida in April with hundreds of rounds of ammunition and a handgun while on his way to Louisiana to commit a mass shooting, according to the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office. The investigation had involved the FBI and authorities across Louisiana, North Carolina and Florida.
Authorities did not name the event Gillum was allegedly targeting, but his arrest came on the eve of the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, which attracts hundreds of thousands of festivalgoers annually.
Gillum, who is white, had “expressed recent threats to harm ‘Black people’ “, according to authorities. His family had reported him missing in North Carolina and said he had a history of self-harm.
Lester Duhe, a spokesperson for Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill, said in a statement that Gillum’s family had taken him “to a treatment facility out of the state” and that he is not facing additional criminal charges.
Duhe said there were “several jurisdictional issues” that complicated the case after Gillum was extradited to Louisiana following his arrest.
“The threat relayed to a family member actually occurred in North Carolina,” Duhe said. “The defendant never entered the State of Louisiana until after his arrest.”
Gillum had been planning to travel to the Florida Keys “during the same period he would have been suspected to travel to Louisiana,” Duhe added.
Gillum was charged under a Louisiana statute for the crime of “terrorizing,” which requires that “a crime of violence is imminent or in progress or that a circumstance dangerous to human life exists or is about to exist.”
Jonathan Guidry, the foreperson for the grand jury, declined to comment on the decision to not indict Gillum.
Katherine Schweit, a former Chicago prosecutor and FBI executive who ran the agency’s active shooter program, said that thwarted acts of mass violence do not always lead to indictments, but prosecutors often seek an array of criminal charges when possible.
“It’s very difficult to convince a jury, or to convince a grand jury, that something might have happened,” Schweit told The Associated Press.
Law enforcement authorities in North Carolina, where Louisiana court records list Gillum as residing, told the AP that they were not aware he had been released from custody.
“If we’ve got an individual that was accused of such an action, we would want to know if in fact he did return to Alamance County,” said Byron Tucker, a spokesperson for the Alamance County Sheriff’s Office in North Carolina.
Nazneen Ahmed, a spokesperson for North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson, said there are no plans for the state to pursue charges against Gillum.
The office of the Florida Attorney General did not respond to a request for comment about whether Gillum may face additional criminal charges in its jurisdiction. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of Louisiana also did not return messages seeking comment.
In a statement, the FBI New Orleans office said the decision whether to charge Gillum rested with prosecutors.
The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival declined to comment.
