CORONA, CA — A Corona resident was sentenced to serve six years in jail for his decade-long scheme of filing fraudulent tax returns for his clients, defrauding the IRS of at least $28 million, authorities said Tuesday.

Salvador Gonzalez received his sentence Monday and will have to pay $403,908 in restitution, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Central District of California.

Gonzalez’s scheme began in 2013 when he opened Grace’s Lighthouse Resource Center, Inc., a tax preparation business under which he prepared thousands of returns for Corona residents.

Gonzalez would direct his clients to create a fake corporation and to title their homes, cars and other assets under it. Then, an associate would prepare a sham tax return for each of these corporations and ask clients to record fake business expenses in a spreadsheet.

Clients included personal expenses such as mortgage payments, car payments and utility bills. Prepared tax returns inevitably showed a loss, which trickled down to the clients’ income tax returns and fradulently reduced the amount of taxes each client paid, according to the Justice Department.

These fraudulent business losses offset clients income. Gonzalez also faked deductions on their returns, such as unreimbursed employee expenses, cash contributions to charity and medical and dental expenses. Due to these practices, his clients paid much less than they owed in taxes.

For these services, Gonzalez charged clients a flat fee of $500 per tax return. By 2019, he started charging clients 1% of their gross income as a fee for his services.

The complaint seeks to bar Gonzalez from preparing, assisting in, directing or supervising the preparation or filing of federal tax returns, amended tax returns or other related documents or forms for others, the Justice Department said.

Over the past 10 years, the Justice Department says it has obtained injunctions against hundreds of similarly fraudulent tax preparers.

“Taxpayers seeking a return preparer should remain vigilant against unscrupulous tax preparers,” the department said.

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He was charged on May 22 with one count of stalking, seven counts of transmitting threats in interstate commerce, seven counts of engaging in hoaxes, and three counts of transmitting threats or false information regarding fire and explosives.

He was arrested May 21 and his arraignment was scheduled for Wednesday afternoon in United States District Court in Riverside.

“Swatting” refers to falsely reporting in the name of another person that an emergency is in progress or about to occur, with the intent to result in emergency services or law enforcement responding to that other person’s location or investigating them.

According to the indictment that a federal grand jury returned on May 16 and unsealed May 22, Rodriguez in January and February 2023 used a Voice over Internal Protocol (VoIP) service to place more than a dozen calls impersonating the victim.

Initially, Rodriguez called a suicide prevention center and a veterans crisis hotline, claimed to be the victim, and said that he was contemplating committing suicide or killing others.

Rodriguez allegedly then called school staff at seven different schools — in Riverside and San Bernardino counties, as well as Sandy Hook Elementary School — and threatened to commit either a mass shooting or bombing at the schools. Finally, Rodriguez allegedly called Nashville International Airport in Tennessee, said he had planted a bomb on a plane and in the airport, and said, “this is for ISIS,” and “one hour, boom.”

Law enforcement responded to these phone calls and determined they were fake.

United States Attorney Martin Estrada said the crimes alleged against Rodriguez “are highly troubling.”

“The indictment alleges that the defendant placed calls to schools, airports, and other locations that were designed to cause maximum fear and trigger an emergency response. ‘Swatting’ is a serious crime that can cause great trauma and risk loss of life, so it is important that we hold wrongdoers accountable.”

Krysti Hawkins, the acting assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office, said Rodriguez “is alleged to have conducted swatting attacks, to include the callous targeting of an open wound at Sandy Hook, without regard for the potential consequences of this insidious type of hoax. “Perpetrators of swatting hoaxes should understand that the FBI and our local partners take these threats seriously and that the penalties — if convicted — are considerable.”

An indictment is merely an allegation, and the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

If convicted of the charges, Rodriguez would face a statutory maximum sentence of five years in federal prison on the stalking count, five years on each of the threats counts, five years on each of the hoax counts, and 10 years on each of the counts relating to fire and explosives.

The FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force is investigating this matter. Riverside Police Department, Riverside County Sheriff’s Department, San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department, Newtown Police Department, and Nashville Airport Authority provided substantial assistance.

Assistant United States Attorney Jenna W. Long of the Terrorism and Export Crimes Section is prosecuting this case.

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NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump lashed out on social media against the U.S. Justice Department on Wednesday after it stopped supporting his claim that the presidency shields him from liability against a defamation lawsuit brought by a woman who says he sexually attacked her in the mid-1990s.

Trump said in a post on his social media platform that the department’s reversal a day earlier in the lawsuit brought by advice columnist E. Jean Carroll was part of the “political Witch Hunt” he faces while campaigning for the presidency as a Republican.

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Carroll, 79, sued Trump, 77, for defamation months after he vehemently denied her claims first made publicly in a 2019 memoir that a chance encounter between the pair at a Bergdorf Goodman store began with flirtations but ended in a violent encounter inside a dressing room in a desolate section of the store.

The progression of the lawsuit, filed in 2020, was delayed for three years as an appeals court considered claims by Trump and the Justice Department that he was protected from liability for remarks he made while president. When Joe Biden became president, the Justice Department did not change its position.

But the department said in a letter to a Manhattan federal judge on Tuesday that circumstances have changed since it made its original recommendation and it no longer believes Trump can claim that his comments about Carroll were carried out as part of his official duties as president.

It noted that a court in Washington, D.C., had recently further defined when a president is immune from civil lawsuits, and it cited a federal jury’s $5 million award to Carroll in May after finding that Trump had sexually abused and defamed her, though he didn’t rape her. It also considered that the lawsuit has been updated with remarks Trump made about Carroll’s claims after leaving the presidency.

In three posts Wednesday on Truth Social, Trump offered fresh support for claims he made about Carroll that led the jury to conclude he had defamed her.

“The statements that I made about Carroll are all true. I didn’t Rape her (I won that at trial) and other than for this case, I have NO IDEA WHO SHE IS, WHAT SHE LOOKS LIKE, OR ANYTHING ABOUT HER….,” he wrote.

The trial resulted from a lawsuit Carroll filed in November after New York state temporarily enabled adult victims of sexual attacks to sue their abusers for damages even if the abuse occurred decades earlier. Her defamation claim at the trial resulted from statements Trump made last October.

For several days, Carroll testified that Trump’s attack caused her to shut down her romantic life afterward, and his comments after her memoir was published shattered her reputation and led to a “staggering” onslaught of hateful and occasionally threatening messages toward her.

Trump did not appear at the two-week trial, though significant portions of an October videotaped deposition were shown to the jury.

In Wednesday’s social media posts, Trump called the trial “very unfair,” criticized the judge as hostile and biased, and said his lawyers “due to their respect for the Office of the President and the incredulity of the case, did not want me to testify, or even be at the trial…..”

He added: “WE ARE STRONGLY APPEALING THIS TRAVESTY OF JUSTICE!!!”

A day after the verdict, Trump repeated many of his earlier claims about Carroll during a CNN town hall, prompting Carroll to amend her original defamation lawsuit to include those remarks. She now seeks $10 million in compensatory damages and substantially more in punitive damages at a trial scheduled for January that may consist only of a damages phase.

Trump then countersued, saying Carroll defamed him with comments she made a day after the verdict.

The Associated Press typically does not name people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they come forward publicly, as Carroll has done.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department asked a judge on Friday night to postpone until December the criminal trial of former President Donald Trump for retaining classified documents.

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon earlier this week set an initial trial date of Aug. 14 for Trump, who faces 37 felony counts accusing him of illegally hoarding classified documents and obstructing Justice Department efforts to get them back.

Prosecutors with special counsel Jack Smith’s team asked Cannon to reschedule the trial for Dec. 11. They said the delay was necessary because the case involves classified information and will require Trump’s lawyers to obtain security clearances, a process that is underway.

The Justice Department said this week that it has begun sharing with the Trump legal team evidence relevant to the case.

But, they said in their Friday filing, “Even with the prompt production the government has arranged, the inclusion of additional time for defense counsel to review and digest the discovery, to make their own decisions about any production to the government, and for the government to review the same, is reasonable and appropriate.”

The Justice Department said Trump’s lawyers do not object to pushing the trial date back. The judge will ultimately set the trial date.

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If allowed to stand, the order issued last week by U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk could restrict access to the abortion medication mifepristone as early as Friday, unsettling abortion providers less than a year after the reversal of Roe v. Wade already dramatically curtailed abortion access.

The Food and Drug Administration in 2000 granted approval to mifepristone, one of two drugs used for medication abortion in the United States. There is essentially no precedent for a lone judge overruling the FDA’s medical decisions, and pharmaceutical executives signed a letter Monday warning that the ruling could endanger other medications.

In appealing to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the Biden administration said Kacsmaryk’s “extraordinary and unprecedented order” should remain on hold while it challenges the decision.

“If allowed to take effect, the court’s order would thwart FDA’s scientific judgment and severely harm women, particularly those for whom mifepristone is a medical or practical necessity,” the Justice Department wrote.

Kacsmaryk, an appointee of Donald Trump, issued his decision Friday but ruled it would not take effect for seven days — meaning the end of this week barring another court stepping in.

Adding to the uncertainty was unresolved confusion Monday over a conflicting order by a different federal judge in the state of Washington, who within 20 minutes of Kacsmaryk’s decision issued a separate ruling that directed U.S. authorities not to make any changes that would restrict access to the drug in at least 17 states where Democrats had sued.

Underlining that confusion, the Justice Department on Monday separately asked the federal court in Washington state for clarity, given the competing orders.

The abortion drug has been widely used in the U.S. since securing FDA approval. The other drug used for abortion medication in the United States is misoprostol, which is also used to treat other medical conditions and was not part of Kacsmaryk’s decision.

Many providers must wait and see what happens in the courts between now and Friday before deciding what to do next, Jennifer Dalven, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Reproductive Freedom Project, told reporters.

If the Texas court’s ruling takes effect, some providers are prepared to pivot to a misoprostol-only regimen while others may transition to only surgical abortions.

“We don’t know exactly what will happen,” Dalven said. “What we do know is that there will be significant confusion and chaos as providers try to provide the best care they possibly can for their patients.”

The lawsuit in Texas was filed by the Alliance Defending Freedom, which was also involved in the Mississippi case that led to Roe v. Wade being overturned. At the lawsuit’s core is the allegation that the FDA’s initial approval of mifepristone was flawed because it did not adequately review its safety risks.

Courts have long deferred to the FDA on issues of drug safety and effectiveness. But the agency’s authority faces challenges in a post-Roe legal environment in which abortions are banned or unavailable in 14 states, while 16 states have laws specifically targeting abortion medications.

Among the pharmaceutical executives who signed the petition criticizing Kacsmaryk’s ruling was Albert Bourla, CEO of the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, which has produced the biggest-selling COVID-19 vaccine and treatment in the U.S.

The document warns that the decision diminishes the FDA’s authority over drug approvals. A Pfizer spokeswoman verified for The Associated Press that Bourla signed the letter.

“If courts can overturn drug approvals without regard for science or evidence, or for the complexity required to fully vet the safety and efficacy of new drugs, any medicine is at risk for the same outcome as mifepristone,” the letter states.

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The U.S. Justice Department has requested documents from Tesla related to its Autopilot and “Full Self-Driving” features, according to a regulatory filing.

“To our knowledge no government agency in any ongoing investigation has concluded that any wrongdoing occurred,” Tesla said in the filing Tuesday with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The Austin, Texas, electric vehicle maker cautioned that if the government decides to pursue an enforcement action, it could possibly have a material adverse impact on its business.

Messages were left Tuesday seeking comment from the Justice Department and from Tesla, which has disbanded its media relations department.

Tesla Inc. is already facing multiple investigations by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for problems with its two driver-assist systems, Autopilot and “Full Self-Driving.”

Despite their names, Tesla still says on its website that the cars can’t drive themselves. Teslas using “Full Self-Driving” can navigate roads in many cases, but experts say the system can make mistakes, which even CEO Elon Musk acknowledges. “We’re not saying it’s quite ready to have no one behind the wheel,” CEO Musk said in October.

Michael Brooks, executive director of the nonprofit Center for Auto Safety, said the Justice Department could be looking at safety issues with the systems, or it could be investigating Tesla claims that the cars can drive themselves when they can’t.

“When you get the car, it really can’t do everything that’s been promised,” Brooks said. “Tesla is putting a vehicle out on the road that is unable to perform to the capabilities claimed. Yet we have drivers relying on those promises and esentially not paying attention to the drive because they think it is more capable than it is.”

The systems have been under investigation by NHTSA since June of 2016 when a driver using Autopilot was killed after his Tesla went under a tractor-trailer crossing its path in Florida. A separate probe into Teslas that were using Autopilot when they crashed into emergency vehicles started in August 2021. At least 14 Teslas that have crashed into emergency vehicles while using the Autopilot system.

Including the Florida crash, NHTSA has sent investigators to 35 Tesla crashes in which automated systems are suspected of being used. Nineteen people have died in those crashes, including two motorcyclists.

The agency also is investigating complaints that Teslas can brake suddenly for no reason.

“Full Self-Driving” went on sale late in 2015, and Musk has used the name ever since. It currently costs $15,000 to activate the system. Tsl

In 2019 he promised a fleet of autonomous robotaxis by 2020, and he said in early 2022 that the cars would be autonomous that year.

Since 2021, Tesla has been beta-testing “Full Self-Driving” using owners who haven’t been trained on the system but are actively monitored by the company. Tesla said this month that 400,000 owners are participating.

Auto safety advocates and government investigators have long criticized Tesla’s monitoring system as inadequate. Three years ago the National Transportation Safety Board listed poor monitoring as a contributing factor in a 2018 fatal Tesla crash in California. The board recommended a better system, but said Tesla has not responded.

NHTSA has noted in documents that numerous Tesla crashes have occurred in which drivers had their hands on the wheel but still weren’t paying attention. The agency has said that Autopilot is being used in areas where its capabilities are limited and that many drivers aren’t taking action to avoid crashes despite warnings from the vehicle.

In addition, the National Transportation Safety Board determined in 2020 that Tesla’s system to make sure drivers are paying attention is not adequate, and it should be limited to areas where it can safely operate.

Tesla shares were up just under 4% in Tuesday morning trading.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — A judge ordered the Justice Department on Thursday to make public a redacted version of the affidavit it relied on when federal agents searched the Florida estate of former President Donald Trump to look for classified documents.

The directive from U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart came hours after federal law enforcement officials submitted under seal the portions of the affidavit that they want to keep secret as their investigation moves forward. The judge set a deadline of noon Friday for a redacted, or blacked-out, version of the document.

The order means the public could soon get at least some additional details about what led FBI officials to search Mar-a-Lago on Aug. 8 as part of an investigation into classified documents being retained at the Palm Beach property. Documents already made public as part of the investigation show that the FBI retrieved from the property 11 sets of classified documents, including information marked at the top secret level.

Search warrant affidavits typically contain vital information about an investigation, with agents spelling out why they want to search a particular property and why they believe they are likely to find evidence of a potential crime there.

In this case, though, the redactions proposed by the Justice Department are likely to be extensive given the sensitivity of the investigation and unprecedented nature of the search, lessening the chance that the public will receive a detailed glimpse of the basis for the search or the direction of the probe.

In his order Thursday, Reinhart said the department had made compelling arguments to leave sealed broad swaths of the document that, if disclosed, would reveal grand jury information; the identities of witnesses and “uncharged parties”; and details about the investigation’s “strategy, direction, scope, sources and methods.”

But he also said he was satisfied “that the Government has met its burden of showing that its proposed redactions are narrowly tailored to serve the Government’s legitimate interest in the integrity of the ongoing investigation and are the least onerous alternative to sealing the entire Affidavit.”

The department had earlier contested arguments by media organizations to make any portion of the affidavit public, saying the disclosure could contain private information about witnesses and about investigative tactics. But Reinhart, acknowledging the extraordinary public interest in the investigation, said last week that he was disinclined to keep the entire document sealed and told federal officials to submit to him in private the redactions it wanted to make.

Multiple news media organizations, including The Associated Press, argued in court last week for the disclosure of the affidavit, citing the extraordinary public interest in the federal search of a former president’s home. Trump and some of his supporters have also encouraged the document’s release.

After the Justice Department submitted its filing under seal on Thursday, the media coalition responded by asking the judge to unseal portions of the department’s brief and to direct the government, “going forward,” to file publicly a redacted version of any sealed document it submits. The groups noted that significant information about the investigation is already public.

“At a minimum, any portions of the Brief that recite those facts about the investigation, without revealing additional ones not yet publicly available — in addition to any other portions that pose no threat to the investigation — should be unsealed,” the news organizations wrote.

They added, “If and when additional facts come to light and are confirmed to be accurate, or certain facts no longer pose a threat to the investigation for any other reason, there is no justification for maintaining them under seal either.”

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Fast forward to 2019! The lead author of that report, Gerard Anderson, a professor of health policy at Johns Hopkins University, revisited their work as a tribute to Reinhardt with a new study: “It’s Still The Prices, Stupid: Why The US Spends So Much On Health Care.” Anderson and colleagues found that their original thesis, which Reinhardt talked about so much, “remains valid.” It’s the prices charged for medical services that drive the exorbitant cost of U.S. health care. They noted, however, that the difference between what public insurers like Medicare and Medicaid pay and what private insurers like Blue Cross and Aetna pay had become wider in 2016 when they reexamined the data, an ominous sign suggesting providers now had more market leverage to raise their prices after consolidation. The authors also argued that lowering prices would need to start with pushback from insurers and self-insured corporations — a daunting task in America of 2021.

In a late August interview, Anderson explained why. “It’s the inability of private insurance to negotiate effectively. They have no ability, no desire, and not much interest” in doing that. They simply raise their premiums with little or no pushback on the hospitals, which are calling the shots and increasingly engage in surprise billing and upcoding practices that leave patients with unexpectedly high out-of-pocket costs. Indeed, the consolidation of hospital power all across the country and steep rise in prices may be one of the most underreported health policy stories of the day. Hospitals and insurers both have the ability to keep prices high with little pushback from government officials, the public, or the press.

Whether it’s Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Northern California, Washington, D.C., New York City, Charlotte, or Boston, major hospitals in those areas have only grown bigger over the past decade, Anderson says, as competition wanes. “They are more powerful than ever to set the price. When you can set the price, you do set the price, and it keeps rising. In any metropolitan area, the story is the same.”

“Hospitals are definitely privileged in part because they provide charity care and necessary services, but now most are more profit-oriented, and the public hasn’t caught up with the reality of what they’ve become,” he added. Anderson explained that all players in the game have “incentives to keep prices high and only a little incentive to negotiate slightly lower prices. There’s very little competition. It’s not a dynamic market.”

In other words, price competition that might lower the cost of hip surgery or treating pneumonia is scarce, but there are plenty of ads splashed on TV to promote the hospital’s burgeoning brand. Meanwhile, there’s no check on continuing hospital consolidations from government regulators.

That’s partly because federal and state antitrust laws are not up to the job of tackling the hospitals’ practices, says Dr. Paul A. Hattis, a retired professor at Tufts University Medical School in Boston. “Statutes, case law and federal regulatory pronouncements by the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department have so far failed to stop such practices. They are inadequate for the challenge to stop anti-competitive health care practices.”

The metamorphosis of the nation’s hospitals into ever-larger conglomerates began years ago, with Massachusetts leading the way. The state, which sparked the move to managed care and where Romneycare inspired the Affordable Care Act, also set in motion a pattern of hospital consolidation and expansion that began in the mid-90s in Boston, with hospitals such as Massachusetts General and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. They joined forces and created Partners Health Care, furnishing the template for what has grown into a national phenomenon today, with huge implications for what Americans and the government will pay for care. Massachusetts is once again a bellwether for the country.

It’s instructive to understand some history from the Bay State to comprehend what’s happening to hospitals in your own area and how they drive local health care costs. Back in 2008, the Boston Globe reported that Partners HealthCare, the state’s largest health care system, had cut a “quiet deal” with Blue Cross, the largest insurer, to grant Partners higher payment rates in the state, with the understanding that Partners would in turn seek higher prices from other insurers. It was a gentlemen’s agreement sealed with a handshake that gave Partners’ doctors and hospitals, including Massachusetts General, the big kahuna of the state’s hospitals, large insurance payment increases. In return, Partners agreed to protect Blue Cross from competition from other insurers that might otherwise pay less. It agreed to push for higher payment increases from Blue Cross’s competitors, thus assuring that “all major insurers would face tens of millions in cost increases,” as the Boston Globe put it. Blue Cross called it a “market covenant.”

Market consolidation continued, and in 2014 Partners tried to make a deal with the state attorney general to acquire three community hospitals in Eastern Massachusetts in exchange for limiting price increases to the rate of general inflation and prohibitions on acquiring more hospitals for seven years. The proposed acquisition had run into fierce opposition, and eventually a court decision prevented the Partner’s acquisition. However, Partners bought a large physician group connected with one of the hospitals it originally planned to buy. Since then Partners has purchased Massachusetts Eye and Ear, a Boston specialty hospital, and two hospitals in New Hampshire.

A new strategy for Partners, since renamed Mass General Brigham, is emerging with the news that Mass General Brigham is planning to build several ambulatory care centers in the Boston suburbs. The wealthy Boston Children’s Hospital is planning to do the same. Their goals seem to be grabbing a larger share of “the lucrative commercial insurance patient market and to create opportunities for referrals for additional inpatient and outpatient care at their expensive flagship hospitals,” Hattis wrote in Boston’s CommonWealth Magazine. When that happens, Hattis told me, there’s a potential to “weaken other providers in the area, especially those who care for a lot of Medicare and Medicaid patients” and “to steal market share and get immediate price increases.” It’s fair to ask what we as a country are getting as a result of all this consolidation and expansion. “If hospitals perform the same service, they have to compete with quality or price. If they’re the only game in town, they don’t necessarily have to focus on either,” said Nisarg Patel, a resident surgeon at UCSF Medical Center and cofounder of Memora Health, a software company, who also writes about health care prices.

The latest international health comparison survey by The Commonwealth Fund* released in August shows the U.S. is not producing the kind of stellar health outcomes one might expect from the incredible sums spent on care. The Fund reported that America ranked dead last overall in its comparison of the health systems of 11 high-income countries. In fact, the U.S. has ranked last in all seven surveys the Fund has conducted since 2004. “We stand out as a major outlier here,” said Reginald Williams, a vice president at the Fund.

If those kinds of dismal rankings are abstract to many Americans, the numbers from the actuarial firm Milliman are real and concrete. From 2011 to 2021, Milliman estimates that employees’ out-of-pocket spending on medical expenses rose 41%, “probably higher than wage gains” over that period, says Doug Norris, a Milliman principal and consulting actuary. At the same time, he said, the average employee contribution to health insurance premiums has increased 61%.

“We have a growing proportion of Americans who have inadequate protection against the cost of medical care,” said Jonathan Oberlander, professor of health policy and management at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Nine years ago, Oberlander wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine, “Americans have been singularly unsuccessful in restraining health care spending. The United States has moved through fads at a dizzying pace in recent decades — from managed, to consumer-driven to accountable care— but they have thus far failed to produce reliable cost control,” Oberlander wrote. When we spoke, he told me, “We’re still trapped in the idea there’s a magic bullet. One thing we know works is price regulation. The ACA didn’t have it for political reasons.”

There’s a flicker of recognition that run-away hospital prices may no longer be acceptable and that maybe, just maybe, there needs to be some price controls. This summer in Massachusetts, Stuart Altman, the chair of the state’s Health Policy Commission, declared at a commission meeting that the commission is “now facing the greatest increase in pressure on health care costs” in the eight years the commission has been in business.

The 161,000 member American College of Physicians has just published a position paper that is deeply critical of the American health care system. “What many imagine to be a lean, market-based system is actually bloated, complex, and fragmented, increasingly directed toward generating profit,” the paper states. In its place, the group calls for “comprehensive health coverage like a public choice model or single payer model” and recommends that nonprofit hospitals “be required to provide measurable benefits to the community.” That’s huge considering that historically it has been the doctors who have fought so vigorously against national health insurance. Before the pandemic began, I wrote about the American College’s embrace of a single-payer or public option solution.

Increasingly, journalists like me who may have covered America’s health dilemma for a very long time are starting to revisit the debate over high medical costs and what to do about them including cost controls, the remedy used by other peer countries against soaring prices and the one solution that the special health care interests are fighting so hard to prevent. In May 2020 the New York Times published a bold story about how 20 of the nation’s wealthiest hospitals got more than $5 billion in federal grants while sitting on $100 billion in cash. Just last week WFAE, the NPR station in Charlotte aired a fine segment by Dana Miller Ervin dissecting the high costs in her area, driven in part by three dominant hospitals.

While hospitals sometimes seek to deflect blame to other sectors of health care, there’s no question they play an outsized role in rising costs.

“In the last 20 years hospital prices have increased, producing unconscionably high levels of cash and investments maintained by nonprofit hospitals in the many billions of dollars,” Dr. Robert Berenson, an Institute Fellow at the Urban Institute, told me. “The prices are the leading cause of high and rising health care costs.” Berenson noted that while drug prices are the “most egregious, prescription drugs represent only 11% of health care costs, whereas hospitals are about 35%.” When you add in spending on physicians and other health professionals who are increasingly owned by or employed by hospitals, “the percentage of spending for hospitals and health professionals exceeds 60%,” he said. “It is the main cost problem and not addressed at all by the federal government.”

On the last day of August, John Arnold, who heads the philanthropy Arnold Ventures, sent out a tweet that summed up America’s hospital consolidation crisis. “Sutter Health is one of the largest hospital systems in California. Today Sutter agreed to $90 million fine for Medicare fraud. Yesterday Sutter finalized a $575 million fine for using its market power to illegally drive up prices. Sutter is a nonprofit with a mission to serve the community.”

Who in Congress is paying attention?

—

Veteran health care journalist Trudy Lieberman is a contributing editor at the Center for Health Journalism Digital and a regular contributor to the Remaking Health Care column.

Trudy Lieberman | Columnist

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Garland issued a department-wide memo announcing the 30-day review, citing the “recent rise in hate crimes and hate incidents, particularly the disturbing trend in reports of violence against members of the Asian American and Pacific Islander community since the start of the pandemic.”

The memo comes as a number of police departments across the U.S. are reporting an uptick in hate crimes and attacks on Asian Americans and as lawmakers and community leaders have been increasingly outspoken about the need for the federal government to do more to combat hate crimes.

In July, about 150 members of Congress called on the Justice Department to take action against crimes targeting Asian Americans, and last week a bipartisan group of former U.S. attorneys penned an open letter expressing support for the Asian American community and condemning acts of hatred against any group.

For federal officials to combat the trend, federal prosecutors and law enforcement officials should place an emphasis on investigating and prosecuting hate crimes, while increasing community outreach, Garland said. They should also focus on improving the FBI’s collection of data on hate crimes, which is “critical to understanding the evolving nature and extent of hate crimes and hate incidents in all their forms,” he wrote in the memo.

A main criticism from lawmakers and civil rights groups has been that the U.S. government vastly undercounts hate crimes because the FBI’s reporting system is voluntary. In some states, just 5% of police departments reported any hate crimes last year.

“We must recommit ourselves to this urgent task and ensure that the Department makes the best and most effective use of its resources to combat hate,” the memo says.

The review is aimed at determining how the Justice Department can better prioritize investigations and prosecutions, increase and track reporting of hate crimes and other incidents that could violate federal law and use civil remedies to address bias incidents that don’t amount to federal hate crimes.

It will also seek to ensure each of the 94 U.S. attorney’s offices across the country has resources dedicated to identifying hate crimes and bias incidents and review how the department can better engage with communities, among other things.

Michael Balsamo • AP

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The former acting U.S. attorney in the nation’s capital likely violated Justice Department rules when he gave an interview to CBS’ “60 Minutes” about the investigation into the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, and has been referred to an internal office for review, a prosecutor said Tuesday.

The chief of the criminal division for the U.S. attorney’s office in the District of Columbia made the comments after a federal judge scolded the Justice Department over the TV interview along with another recent news report and warned that further press statements could lead to a gag order or sanctions.

“These types of statements in the media have the potential to affect the jury pool and the rights of these defendants,” U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta said during a hearing held via videoconference in the case against 10 members and associates of the far-right extremist group Oath Keepers, who are charged with conspiracy in the attack.

“Let this hearing serve as notice on the Department of Justice that I will not tolerate continued publicity in the media that I believe affects the fair trial rights of these defendants,” the judge said.

The flap over the interview highlights the Justice Department’s challenges in handling the sprawling case that involves hundreds of defendants from across the country. Prosecutors have sometimes struggled to maintain a consistent narrative across multiple cases, and have had to walk back some statements made in court hearings or papers because they weren’t in line with what leaders were prepared to publicly argue.

Mehta said he was “surprised to say the least” to see Michael Sherwin, who until recently was leading the investigation into the Jan. 6 riot, discussing the cases on “60 Minutes.” During the interview, which aired Sunday days after Sherwin was replaced as Washington’s top prosecutor, Sherwin suggested that some of the rioters could face rarely used sedition charges.

“I personally believe the evidence is trending towards that, and probably meets those elements,” Sherwin said.

Sherwin first floated the possibility of seditious conspiracy charges, which carry up to to 20 years in prison, in January and has said that a special group of prosecutors was examining whether they would apply to any of the rioters. But prosecutors have yet to levy the charge in any of the cases.

The criminal division chief, John Crabb, said the “60 Minutes” matter has been referred to the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility for investigation. Crabb said the Department also plans to investigate a New York Times article quoting anonymous sources that said prosecutors have been weighing bringing sedition charges against members of the Oath Keepers.

“We understand and we share the court’s concerns about the media contacts and disclosures that have been made,” Crabb said. “The Department has already taken steps with respect to both of those.”

More than 300 people have been charged so far in the Jan. 6 riot and prosecutors have said up to 100 more people are expected to face charges. The most serious conspiracy charges have been brought against members of the Oath Keepers and fellow extremist Proud Boys faction, who authorities say came to Washington prepared to stop the peaceful transition of power.

Also on Tuesday, a federal judge ordered pretrial detention for Timothy Hale-Cusanelli, a man described by prosecutors as a white supremacist and Nazi sympathizer, charged with storming the Capitol.

Hale-Cusanelli, a military veteran, wore a “Hitler mustache” while on duty as a security contractor at at Naval Weapons Station Earle in Colts Neck, New Jersey, where he had a “secret” security clearance, prosecutors say. U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden concluded that Hale-Cusanelli poses a danger to the public, saying the defendant has a “well-documented” history of racist and violent rhetoric, including talk of another civil war.

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