Star Tribune
They investigated pandemic fraud, then earned thousands
Abrams has filed many lawsuits under GNGH2 Inc., targeting borrowers who had links to China, among other things. He has also filed some suits under his organization, the Zionist Advocacy Center, which he said seeks to do “pro-Israel work in the court system.”
In September, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia announced that Americans for Peace Now, a progressive Jewish nonprofit, had agreed to pay $261,890 to settle allegations that it improperly obtained a $130,945 PPP loan. In June, the office said the Middle East Institute had also agreed to pay $718,558 to settle allegations that it improperly obtained a PPP loan. Abrams, who sued both groups, accused them of fraudulently certifying that they were not “primarily engaged in political or lobbying activities,” according to the complaints.
Hadar Susskind, president and CEO of Americans for Peace Now, said officials thought they had qualified for the loan because they did not consider the nonprofit to be a political organization. He said they had settled because it could have been costlier to go to court.
Susskind said he had never met Abrams, but he believed the complaint was “very much ideologically motivated” because of the nonprofit’s work to promote Israeli-Palestinian peace.
In an email, Abrams said: “In America these anti-Israel organizations have the right to spin, distort or even outright lie about Israel. However, they do not have the right to subsidize their activities with government monies for which they were not eligible.”
Abrams said he had long done other activist work, including recently representing a Jewish high school student who was the victim of antisemitic bullying. He said he did not charge fees in those matters, and that the “whistleblower cases do generate significant revenue, so things more or less balance out.”
Star Tribune
Republicans lash out at Democrats’ claims that Trump intelligence pick Gabbard is ‘compromised’
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Republican senators pushed back on Sunday against criticism from Democrats that Tulsi Gabbard, Donald Trump’s pick to lead U.S. intelligence services, is ”compromised” by her comments supportive of Russia and secret meetings, as a congresswoman, with Syria’s president, a close ally of the Kremlin and Iran.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Illinois, a veteran of combat missions in Iraq, said she had concerns about Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s choice to be director of national intelligence.
”I think she’s compromised,” Duckworth said on CNN’s ”State of the Union,” citing Gabbard’s 2017 trip to Syria, where she held talks with Syrian President Bashar Assad. Gabbard was a Democratic House member from Hawaii at the time.
”The U.S. intelligence community has identified her as having troubling relationships with America’s foes. And so my worry is that she couldn’t pass a background check,” Duckworth said.
Gabbard, who said last month she is joining the Republican party, has served in the Army National Guard for more than two decades. She was deployed to Iraq and Kuwait and, according to the Hawaii National Guard, received a Combat Medical Badge in 2005 for ”participation in combat operations under enemy hostile fire in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom III.”
Duckworth’s comments drew immediate backlash from Republicans.
”For her to say ridiculous and outright dangerous words like that is wrong,” Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Oklahoma, said on CNN, challenging Duckworth to retract her words. ”That’s the most dangerous thing she could say — is that a United States lieutenant colonel in the United States Army is compromised and is an asset of Russia.”
In recent days, other Democrats have accused Gabbard without evidence of being a ”Russian asset.” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, has claimed, without offering details, that Gabbard is in Russian President Vladimir ”Putin’s pocket.”
Star Tribune
The rising price of paying the national debt is a risk for Trump’s promises on growth and inflation
”Clearly, it’s irresponsible to run back the same tax cuts after the deficit has tripled,” said Brian Riedl, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a former Republican congressional aide. ”Even congressional Republicans behind the scenes are looking for ways to scale down the president’s ambitions.”
Democrats and many economists say Trump’s income tax cuts disproportionately benefit the wealthy, which deprives the government of revenues needed for programs for the middle class and poor.
“The president-elect’s tax policy ideas will increase the deficit because they will decrease taxes for those with the highest ability to pay, such as the corporations whose tax rate he’s proposed reducing even further to 15%,” said Jessica Fulton, vice president of policy at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a Washington-based think tank that deals with issues facing communities of color.
Trump’s team insists he can make the math work.
”The American people re-elected President Trump by a resounding margin giving him a mandate to implement the promises he made on the campaign trail, including lowering prices. He will deliver,” said Karoline Leavitt, the Trump transition spokeswoman.
When Trump was last in the White House in 2020, the federal government was spending $345 billion annually to service the national debt. It was possible to run up the national debt with tax cuts and pandemic aid because the average interest rate was low, such that repayment costs were manageable even as debt levels climbed.
A man from Montrose, Minn., was killed late Friday when his sedan collided head-on with a westbound SUV on Hwy. 12 in Independence, a stretch of road that highway safety advocates have dubbed the “Corridor of Death” for its accidents.
Destin Michael Ertel, 32, was declared dead at the scene of injuries from the crash, according to the West Hennepin Public Safety Department. The SUV driver, a 35-year-old Bloomington man, was taken to a local hospital by North Memorial Ambulance in serious condition.
According to authorities, one of the vehicles crossed over the center line and collided with the other shortly after 10 p.m. Friday, near Lake Haughey Road. It wasn’t known whether alcohol was a factor, but driver distraction may have played a role in the crash, authorities said.
Authorities closed that area of Hwy. 12 for five hours from late Friday into Saturday, when they reopened the highway at 3 a.m. West Hennepin police were investigating the accident, with help from the State Patrol, Hennepin and Wright County sheriff’s offices, and other local agencies.
A Minnesota Department of Transportation report issued in 2022 found that fatal crashes were “expected to continue if no changes are made” to the busy stretch of Hwy. 12 that goes through Independence. The Highway 12 Safety Coalition has named Hwy. 12 between Delano and Maple Plain the “Corridor of Death” for the number of crashes there since 2009, including at least eight fatal collisions.
West metro leaders and law enforcement officers along Hwy. 12 have met since 2014 to improve the two-lane highway, which is said to have been mostly unchanged since the 1930s. Advocates have lobbied for four lanes and a median barrier in the area of Friday’s accident. The corridor carries between 14,000 and 19,000 vehicles daily.
Staff writer Tim Harlow contributed to this story.
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