Share:
Ethics watchdog: ‘Substantial reason to believe’ Rep. Jackson improperly used campaign funds
The Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) said it found “substantial reason to believe” Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas) used campaign funds for membership dues and other services at a social club in his home state.
The OCE, an independent watchdog that looks into unethical lawmaker behavior and refers cases to the House Ethics Committee, found that Jackson’s campaign committee paid $5,907.13 to the Amarillo Club, a private dining institution in Amarillo, Texas. The money went towards dues, fees, meals and other services, according to the OCE report finalized in December and released publicly Monday.
Between October 2020 and September 2021, Jackson’s campaign paid the club a monthly membership fee of $175.37, totaling nearly $2,000, the OCE said.
The campaign also paid the club $3,147.06 for a large gathering in May 2021. The meeting was described as a “Fundraising Event” on the Amarillo Club’s Banquet Event Order Form, according to the OCE report.
The House has rules against members converting campaign funds to personal use, and the chamber’s ethics manual says “Campaign funds are not to be used to enhance a Member’s lifestyle, or pay a Member’s personal obligations.”
The OCE said its board voted 6-0 to recommend that the House Ethics Committee review the allegations against Jackson. The committee revealed in April that it was reviewing allegations that Jackson may have breached ethics rules, though the details were unclear. The congressman did not cooperate with the OCE’s probe.
In a statement responding to the OCE report, Justin Clark, whose firm represents Jackson and his campaign in the ethics probe, said the congressman’s campaign purchased a membership at the Amarillo Club to use meeting rooms at the facility “for internal and external meetings, including but not limited to fundraising events” and campaign purposes.
Clark cited the club’s close proximity to the campaign office and said purchasing a membership at the club cost less than renting meeting spaces.
The statement also includes a copy of an invitation for a May 2021 fundraising event that took place at the club, in addition to a calendar entry for a June 2021 roundtable meeting with stakeholders that the campaign hosted. Clark linked the exhibits to expenses on the campaign’s Federal Election Commission (FEC) report.
He asserted the campaign had done nothing wrong.
“Neither Congressman Jackson nor any members of his family have utilized any benefits of the Amarillo Club other than dining and meeting spaces for campaign purposes. Accordingly, all expenses at issue were made by Texans for Ronny Jackson for campaign purposes,” Clark said.
The OCE received a request to look into allegations against Jackson in September 2021, then launched a second-phase review into the matter the following month. In December, the OCE board voted to refer the case to the House Ethics Committee for further review. The report, however, was first released to the public on Monday.
Reached for comment on Monday, Jackson’s office referred The Hill to Clark’s statement, which is dated Jan. 14.
The OCE only has authority to make referrals or recommendations to the House Ethics Committee, which has the power to decide if punishments are needed or if the conduct in question breached ethics rules.
In addition to the Ethics Committee, Jackson is also under scrutiny by the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Earlier this month, the panel requested voluntary testimony from the congressman
In a letter to Jackson, the committee pointed to text messages sent between members of the Oath Keepers during the Capitol riot, which referenced the congressman. In one message, someone wrote that Jackson “has critical data to protect.”
Jackson, a freshman congressman representing Texas’ 13th Congressional District, previously served as then-President Trump’s White House doctor.
Source: TEST FEED1
Share:
HSBC CEO disavows executive's remarks about coping with Miami being underwater
HSBC’s CEO disavowed comments made by a senior executive of the bank in which he compared the financial threat of climate change to anxiety over Y2K and said people could “cope with” Miami being under water.
At a Financial Times conference over the weekend, Stuart Kirk, head of responsible investing for HSBC’s asset management division, delivered a presentation entitled “Why investors need not worry about climate risk.”
In the presentation, Kirk dismissed warnings of the financial risks of climate change as the latest in a series of “nut job[s] telling me about the end of the world.”
Kirk went on to compare such warnings to proponents of returning to the gold standard and those who warned the year 2000 could lead to widespread computer meltdowns by machines that did not recognize the digits “00” to represent the year. Numerous international governments tasked the public and private sector with preparing to avoid such a scenario for years leading up to the date.
Kirk expressed confidence that the populace would learn to deal with the impact of climate change, saying “human beings have been fantastic at adapting to change, adapting to climate emergencies, and we will continue to do so. Who cares if Miami is six meters underwater in 100 years? Amsterdam has been six meters underwater for ages, and that’s a really nice place. We will cope with it.”
The banker decried what he said was the disproportionate amount spent on mitigating the effects of climate change rather than adaptation.
In a LinkedIn post Saturday, CEO Noel Quinn wrote that “I do not agree – at all – with the remarks made at last week’s FT Moral Money Summit. They are inconsistent with HSBC’s strategy and do not reflect the views of the senior leadership of HSBC or HSBC Asset Management.” He did not name Kirk in the post.
The Financial Times reported Sunday that Kirk has been suspended in the wake of the comments. The Hill has reached out to HSBC for comment.
Although HSBC is headquartered in the United Kingdom, the remarks come as the Securities and Exchange Commission has proposed a rule requiring publicly-traded companies to disclose their greenhouse gas emissions, while the White House Office of Management and Budget warned of the “immense” fiscal risks associated with climate change in an April risk assessment.
Source: TEST FEED1
Share:
Johnny Depp, Amber Heard trial enters final week: What we've heard so far
The defamation trial between actor Johnny Depp and actress Amber Heard, who has accused her ex-husband of abuse, has entered what is expected to be its final week, with closing arguments scheduled to take place on Friday.
The “Pirates of the Caribbean” star filed a $50 million defamation lawsuit against Heard in response to her publishing an op-ed in the Washington Post in 2018 where she opens up about experiencing sexual violence.
Deep, 58, alleges that while Heard’s Post op-ed didn’t mention him by name, the article ruined his reputation and cost him roles. He said he hasn’t been cast in a major film since the release of the story.
Heard, 36, also filed a $100 million counterclaim lawsuit against Depp, alleging that her former husband damaged her reputation by calling her a liar for her allegations of sexual violence.
The Depp-Heard defamation trial, which is taking place in Virginia, has garnered massive media attention throughout its duration, with fellow celebrities such as Drew Barrymore publicly commenting on the matter.
Sources told The Hill on Monday that Heard’s legal team will not call Depp to the stand to testify again in the trial.
Here’s some of what we’ve heard so far in the trial
Amber Heard’s sister’s testimony
Whitney Heard Henriquez, Heard’s sister, was the first witness to testify on behalf of Heard in the trial.
She said she found herself in the middle of violent encounters between Heard and Depp and said she had seen bruises on Heard as a result of altercations with Depp.
Henriquez said that she witnessed one fight in 2015 where Heard found evidence that Depp was involved in an extramarital affair with another woman, adding that Depp began to blame Heard for forcing him into the affair.
She added that a physical confrontation broke out between Heard and Depp after he charged up the stairs to confront his wife. She also testified that Heard had landed a punch on Depp while she tried to intervene, being stuck in the middle of the couple.
One of Depp’s bodyguards eventually broke up the fight, but Henriquez said that Depp continued to assault Heard by grabbing her hair. The reported altercation happened a month after the couple married.
Henriquez also said at the trial that she saw bruises and injuries on Heard from the aftermath of her fights with Depp, but acknowledged during cross-examination that she sided with Depp during some of the disputes with Heard.
Heard accuses Depp of assaulting her with bottle
Heard told jurors in a tearful testimony that Depp sexually assaulted her using a liquor bottle during one incident.
Heard said that after the couple arrived in Australia, where the actor was filming his fifth “Pirates of the Caribbean” film, Depp began accusing her of sleeping with male co-stars in her movies, saying that the fight escalated when Depp threw her into a ping pong table and ripped off her night grown, noting that she was naked and exposed during the assault.
Heard also said that Depp used a liquor bottle to assault her, noting that she realized numerous liquor bottles have been broken during the altercation
“I looked around and saw so much broken glass. I just remember thinking, ‘Please God, please don’t be broken,’” Heard said in her testimony.
Depp has publicly denied assaulting Heard and said his finger was severed when Heard threw a vodka bottle toward him.
Heard testified that when Depp’s security team arrived at the residence where the couple was staying to tend to his injured finger, Depp left vulgar messages in blood and urine on the walls.
Heard claims that Depp injured his finger himself when he smashed his phone. Surgeon Richard Moore testified on behalf of Heard Monday that the photograph of Depp’s injury was inconsistent with a “glass explosion.”
Heard: Depp kept around a group of enablers for his substance abuse problems
The actress also testified that her ex-husband kept a group of enablers around him in an effort to shield him from facing consequences for his substance abuse problems.
Heard said that Depp was either drunk or high when he physically and sexually assaulted her, saying that during a plane ride in 2014 the couple got into an argument over his displeasure with her filming a movie with actor James Franco where he slapped and kicked her, adding that no one on the plane intervened to stop Depp.
Jurors in the trial also heard an audio recording of Depp speaking incoherently at the end of the incident, also viewing text messages of Depp admitting to his friend that he was to stop drinking due to his altercation with Heard.
“I’m admittedly too f——- in the head to spray my rage at the one I love for little reason as well,” Depp texted his friend.
Heard added that Depp has a team of people who clean him up when gets sick from his substance abuse, adding that this allowed him to go about his business without facing consequences for his issues.
Depp has denied Heard’s claims of his substance abuse, as family, friends, and current and former employees of his backed up his claim.
Depp testifies that Heard physically and mentally abused him during their relationship
During Depp’s testimony in the trial, his team revealed an audio recording of Heard admitting that she hit the actor during an altercation.
“You didn’t get punched, you got hit. I’m sorry I hit you like this, but I did not punch you. I did not f—ing deck you. I f—ing was hitting you,” she said in the audio recording.
Ben King, a former employee of Depp, testified that Heard also threw a vodka bottle at him during an altercation in Australia, which resulted in the actor severely wounding his middle finger.
King, a former house manager for Depp, said he found Depp’s severed fingertip in a “scrunched-up piece of paper on the tiled floor at the end of the bar, saying their altercation damaged the whole residence.
The actor told the jury that the fight in Australia was over Heard’s displeasure with a prior meeting with his attorneys that did not grant them a post-nuptial agreement, noting that he tried to remove himself from the situation first.
“She was irate and she was possessed, and when I tried to remove myself as I normally would from the situation, she’s hammering me with brutal words,” Depp said.
Source: TEST FEED1
Share:
Michelle Obama lauds Winfrey: Oprah could be country's 'common denominator'
Michelle Obama is praising her “wonderful friend” Oprah Winfrey, calling the media mogul a unifying figure in hyper-polarized America.
The former first lady penned a tribute to Winfrey as part of Time magazine’s “100 Most Influential People of 2022” issue, released Monday.
“Whether she’s talking to pop stars, presidents, schoolgirls, scholars — or she’s asking you about your life over a glass of wine in the living room — Oprah has always had that uncanny ability to open us up, to hear beyond our words, and to uncover a higher truth, to be vulnerable with us in a way that allows us to be vulnerable back,” Obama wrote of the former talk show host.
“That’s her secret,” Obama said. “But what I love most about Oprah is that she has never been content to keep it for herself.”
“When Oprah connects with something — a person, a book, a song, an idea — she makes sure to shine her light on it. She validates it. She anoints it,” Obama said.
“People know that when Oprah is involved, there is no pretense, no fluff — whether it’s her work in arts and media or her philanthropic work on health care, food equity, and more.”
Winfrey, the ex-executive mansion resident said, challenges the public to “think critically about our society and how it works, reminding us of our common humanity, and challenging us to take our victories and failures, our pride and vulnerability—and make it all seen.”
Winfrey famously endorsed Barack Obama’s 2008 White House bid.
Michelle Obama wrote on Twitter on Monday that 68-year-old Winfrey, who has shot down chatter over the years of a possible political run, carries a “remarkable legacy.”
“No matter where you go,” Obama wrote in Time, “everyone knows her name.”
“And all of it makes me wonder: maybe her success isn’t rooted in the fact that she found a common denominator that unites us all,” Obama said.
“Maybe Oprah is our common denominator.”
Source: TEST FEED1
Share:
El Salvador’s gangs are becoming Frankenstein’s monsters
After a record-setting gang killing spree in El Salvador this past March, the country’s lawmakers approved emergency powers that suspended constitutional guarantees to counter gang-related violence. Revealingly, in recent days audio recordings of members of the MS-13 gang disclosed that the killings were in response to what they characterized as a “betrayal” by the administration of President Nayib Bukele of a covert pact that reduced homicides.
Gangs have terrorized El Salvador for decades, but the real rub comes by supposing that the Bukele administration is further politicizing gang violence.
Despite Bukele’s dubious denials about talking to terrorists in the past, El Salvadoran officials held secret negotiations with gang leaders. Bukele’s acute problem is that imprisoned MS-13 gang members — considered terrorists by El Salvadoran courts — reportedly received benefits by pledging a decrease in homicides in exchange for electoral support for Bukele’s political party. If true, turning violence on and off like a spigot is not only corruption but also mobilizes dangerous and violent terrorists as political surrogates. Bukele should be gravely concerned that his malign alliances with dangerous gangs like MS-13 are already coming back to bite the very hand that feeds them.
The recently declared state of emergency in El Salvador and past deal-cutting with violent gangs foreshadow how Bukele’s increasingly authoritarian strategies sow the seeds of more political violence. To consolidate more presidential power, Bukele’s administration makes MS-13 look more like state-sponsored terrorist proxies, rather than vicious criminals. Elevating criminal gangs to a status once held by leftist guerrillas during El Salvador’s civil war is dangerous. In other words, gangs in El Salvador must not be artificially politicized.
The troubles in El Salvador are not just about the recent spike in gang violence that triggered a state of emergency. Gang violence is symptomatic of a more worrying trajectory. Bukele, the charismatic populist president of El Salvador, is weaponizing the state to harass critics, journalists and activists. If that’s not concerning enough, El Salvador has been warming up to Russia and China, too.
Taken together, while the U.S. is focusing on Putin’s authoritarianism, the war in Ukraine, and a more threatening China, El Salvador’s president is emboldened enough to dip his toes into troubled Great Power Competition waters. During the Cold War, cozying up to Marxist Cuba and Russians proved to be the wrong side of an ideological divide in the Western Hemisphere.
Keep in mind that MS-13’s evolution, in particular, was an unintended byproduct of the Cold War and the 1980s civil war in El Salvador. For its survival, MS-13 constructed a cult-like social structure in prisons and vulnerable communities, where it used gruesome violence as a means of social control.
The good news is that the U.S. continues to go after MS-13. During the early years of the Trump administration, El Salvador’s MS-13 problem was not on the U.S. counterterrorism radar. In fact, MS-13 is not a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization. However, MS-13’s horrific wave of violence that terrorized communities across the U.S. garnered the attention of the Trump administration. Fittingly, the attorney general created Joint Task Force Vulcan (JTFV) to coordinate and lead interagency efforts against MS-13 in order to dismantle the group. Fortunately, the task force still relentlessly pursues MS-13.
In 2020, Joint Task Force Vulcan used terrorism charges against an alleged leader of MS-13 as part of a raft of charges against members of the El Salvadoran gang implicated in dozens of murders. A year later, JTFV again brought terrorism charges against what they characterized as the gang’s “board of directors” — 14 of its highest-ranking leaders, most of them jailed in El Salvador. Those gang leaders issued orders from prison and directed MS-13 violence for decades. Alarmingly, MS-13 even established military-style training camps for its members and obtained military arms, grenades, improvised explosives and rocket launchers.
El Salvador is at an inflection point. Security matters in El Salvador directly impact communities in the United States. Notwithstanding Bukele’s immense popularity, his authoritarian actions could be self-defeating for the former advertising executive turned president.
All of this takes me back to the 1980s. Then, during my time in Honduras as a U.S. intelligence officer, I focused on monitoring the activities of leftist guerrillas during El Salvador’s civil war and ended up in Manuel Noriega’s unsettled Panama during a U.S. invasion in 1989. There are few serious comparisons to be made between an appealing popular leader like Bukele and a dictator like Noriega, especially when El Salvadorans seem to tolerate authoritarianism measures as a tradeoff for stopping gang violence. But Noriega waded into a fast-moving current of corruption and repression of the media, and he flirted with Cold War competitors like Cuba. The Panama strongman mobilized units of thugs to suppress opposition to his rule, but perhaps most fatally, he negotiated deals with drug traffickers and was eventually indicted by federal grand juries on charges of racketeering, drug smuggling, and money laundering. It’s not a stretch, then, to imagine that there are risks for Bukele going too far harassing opposition groups and turning gangs into El Salvador’s Frankenstein’s monsters.
Still, it’s not too late for the Bukele administration to navigate a new course. In the near term, the most valuable currency in this fight should be rebuilding trust between the U.S. and the El Salvadoran government. And the most potent tools against gangs and corruption should be investigations, extraditions, and trials.
Christopher P. Costa, the executive director of the International Spy Museum, a former intelligence officer and former advisor to the Department of Justice on transnational criminal organizations, was special assistant to the president and senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council from 2017 to 2018.
Source: TEST FEED1
Share:
Activision Blizzard employees vote to form union; company charged with ‘threatening’ workers
Employees at a subsidiary of gaming company Activision Blizzard voted to unionize Monday, the same day the already embattled gaming company was found guilty of threatening workers to not speak about working conditions by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
On the same day, a former Activision Blizzard employee also filed an appeal to the company’s $18 million settlement in a federal sexual harassment case.
The union vote was among approximately two dozen workers at the quality assurance department at Raven Software, a division of the gaming company based in Wisconsin.
Nearly all participating workers voted in favor of the union, with just three votes against the union counted. Two ballots were challenged but it is not sufficient to change the count.
“We respect and believe in the right of all employees to decide whether or not to support or vote for a union. We believe that an important decision that will impact the entire Raven Software studio of roughly 350 people should not be made by 19 Raven employees,” an Activision Blizzard spokesperson said in a statement.
Activision had sought to block the petition workers filed to unionize, arguing that any union must include all approximately 230 employees, representing 80 different job positions.
But the National Labor Relations Board ruled last month the department could proceed with the vote separate from the rest of Raven Software.
Shortly before the Monday afternoon vote on the union, the NLRB released a charge against Activision accusing the company of threatening employees to not speak about wages, hours and working conditions, and of maintaining an “overly broad social media policy” that conflicted with workers’ rights.
An Activision Blizzard spokesperson denied the allegations in a statement.
“Employees may and do talk freely about these workplace issues without retaliation, and our social media policy expressly incorporates employees’ NLRA rights,” the spokesperson said.
“Our social media policy explicitly says that it ‘does not restrict employees from engaging in the communication of information protected by law, including for example, rights of employees in the United States protected by the National Labor Relations Act,’” they added.
Separately on Monday, a former Activision worker filed to appeal a $18 million settlement between the company and the U.S. Equal Employment and Opportunity Commission (EEOC)
Activision settled a federal sexual harassment case with the EEOC in March for the $18 million settlement, but it is still facing a lawsuit from a California regulatory agency.
Former Activision employee Jessica Gonzalez filed an appeal to the settlement based on the settlement’s conditions that make anyone who chooses to be part of the EEOC settlement waive their rights to be part of the California agency’s lawsuit against the company.
“The court allowed Activision and the EEOC to keep the affected workers and others who had an interest in holding the company accountable out of the process,” Gonzalez said in a statement. “Eligible employees should not have to give up their right to pursue other legal remedies if they accept the settlement.”
The lawsuits stemming from allegations of sexual harassment and the union push come at a time when Microsoft is proceeding with a deal to acquire the gaming company in a $70 billion deal.
This story was updated at 4:05 p.m.
Source: TEST FEED1
Share:
Greenhouse gas pollution trapping almost 50 percent more heat than 30 years ago
Planet-warming gases are trapping more and more heat in the atmosphere, holding in significantly more heat than they were in previous decades, a new assessment has found.
The Monday assessment from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) found that human-caused greenhouse gas pollution trapped 49 percent more heat in 2021 than in 1990.
“Our measurements show the primary gases responsible for climate change continue rising rapidly, even as the damage caused by climate change becomes more and more clear,” said Ariel Stein, the acting director of NOAA’s Global Monitoring Laboratory, in a statement.
Climate change is caused by an increased amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. These increases are primarily driven by human use of fossil fuels.
Last year, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said that climate change is “unequivocally” caused by humans.
And, it has been linked to more droughts and heat waves, stronger hurricanes and rising sea levels.
NOAA found that carbon dioxide, the most common greenhouse gas, which can last more than 1,000 years in the atmosphere, is the biggest contributor.
It also found that carbon dioxide levels are responsible for 80 percent of the increased heat tracked by the agency’s Annual Greenhouse Gas Index since 1990.
The 2021 increase in the second-biggest greenhouse gas, methane, was the largest increase recorded since the early 1980s.
Methane is about 30 times as powerful as carbon dioxide over a 100-year period, but spends less time in the atmosphere.
Source: TEST FEED1
Share:
Vulnerable House Democrats urge action to prevent ObamaCare premium hike this fall
A group of vulnerable House Democrats is warning of spikes in ObamaCare premiums this fall, saying that enhanced financial assistance from last year’s relief bill needs to be extended.
Rep. Lauren Underwood (D-Ill.) led the letter from 26 swing-district House Democrats to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), calling for the enhanced ObamaCare financial assistance to be extended as part of any party-line economic package that Democrats put together.
If Congress does not act, experts note ObamaCare enrollees will receive notices of increases in their premiums in the run-up to the midterm elections, adding a political blow for Democrats at a time when the party is already facing major electoral headwinds.
The American Rescue Plan signed by President Biden early last year temporarily provided enhanced premium help for ObamaCare enrollees. But those extra subsidies are slated to expire at the end of this year, leading to calls for Congress to act to make the enhanced help permanent.
“These out-of-pocket cost increases are imminent: starting this autumn, when enrollees begin receiving notices of their premium increases for 2023 health plans, our constituents will find that the same high-quality coverage that they have been able to afford thanks to the American Rescue Plan will now be out of reach,” the lawmakers write.
“We cannot allow the progress we have made to be temporary,” they add. “We must make lower out-of-pocket costs and expanded coverage a permanent pillar of our health care system, and reconciliation is our only chance to get this done.”
Extending the enhanced ObamaCare subsidies was part of President Biden’s Build Back Better package that House Democrats passed in November.
But negotiations over the Senate version of the package have been stalled for months, and it is unclear if leaders will be able to reach a deal with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), the key swing vote if Democrats hope to use reconciliation to bypass a Republican filibuster in the Senate.
Manchin has expressed openness to the enhanced ObamaCare subsidies in the past, though their fate is tied up in the larger negotiations.
If the enhanced subsidies are not extended, premium increases could be substantial. The Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that premiums would have been 53 percent higher on average this year without the extra financial assistance.
The lawmakers are also calling for a provision extending health coverage to low-income people in the 12 states that have not expanded Medicaid to be included in the package.
Source: TEST FEED1
Share:
Pentagon working on plans to send troops to protect US Embassy in Kyiv
Plans to send U.S. forces back into Ukraine to guard the recently reopened American Embassy in Kyiv are “underway at a relatively low level,” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said Monday.
The Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that officials are mulling plans to send special forces to Kyiv to guard the U.S. Embassy. The effort is a delicate one as it requires balancing the safety of American diplomats while avoiding what Russia could see as an escalation.
“Some of the things that may have been out there in the media, those are planning efforts that are underway at a relatively low level,” Milley told reporters at the Pentagon, seeming to refer to the Journal’s report.
Such plans “have not yet made it to [Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin] or myself for that matter, for refinement of courses of action and what’s needed,” he noted.
Milley added that any reintroduction of U.S. forces into Ukraine would require a presidential decision.
“We’re a ways away from anything like that. We’re still developing courses of action, and none of that has been presented yet to the secretary,” he said.
The Biden administration last week reopened the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv after closing it ahead of Russia’s Feb. 24 attack on Ukraine.
The embassy’s security currently comes from the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service, the Journal reported.
President Biden has consistently pledged no U.S. troops will be sent into Ukraine to help forces there, though there are thousands of service members based just outside its borders in countries including Poland and Romania.
Milley said there are now about 102,000 American troops based in Europe, a more than 30 percent increase since the war began.
“Last fall the United States military had about 78,000 in [U.S. European Command] — Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Space Force,” Milley said. “In a few short months, we bolstered that by over 30 percent.”
Source: TEST FEED1