Former Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) and Truth Social CEO Devin Nunes talked to Breitbart News Saturday about how former President Donald Trump’s social media platform is about keeping world-wide lines of communication open.
Nunes explained that Truth Social was created “to make sure” that the lines of communication were “open for not only all Americans,” but everyone “around the globe.”
Nunes appeared with host Matthew Boyle on Breitbart News Saturday.
“We had to create Truth Social in order to make sure that we can keep the communication lines open for not only all Americans but people around the globe. And, we’ve successfully been doing that, and I think it’s something that, you know, President Trump is very proud of it. I mean, we’re all very proud of it. The left likes to say, ‘Oh, you guys are business guys. Just go learn to code and just do it yourself.’ Well, we did it, and we did it without Amazon, without Microsoft, without CrowdStrike. We did it all on our own, and we’re up. It works. Every day we grow, and we’re getting ready to launch a streaming service,” Nunes said.
Boyle noted how Trump had broken some “major stories” on Truth Social, including announcing that he was picking Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) as his running mate, adding that it was a “big deal.”
“Absolutely. As you can imagine, after the assassination attempt traffic’s just been high. It was already going to ramp up anyway because of the convention, but the fact that he uses it for so many things….but, that we’re able to do it with very few problems. I mean, we actually continue to get faster, the quality of the platform gets better.”
Nunes added that people ask him, “Well, what’s the difference between the platforms?”
“It’s real simple. We’ve tried to take the best of all the platforms, whether it be – everybody knows Trump for mean tweets and all that. But, I tell people, Truth Social is not a replacement for Twitter. Truth Social is taking the best of Twitter, the best of Facebook, the best of Instagram, the best of Reddit, the best of all the platforms. And, we try to make it simple and easy to use.”
“The most important part is that we don’t allow the bots and the fake accounts. We don’t have community notes, we’re not censoring people. The only requirement we have is, is that you follow the laws that are out there. You can’t break federal or state laws, and that you’re family-friendly.”
Nunes continued to point out that the Biden-Harris campaign has an account on Truth Social, as does Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA).
“We let Gavin Newsom on the platform, we let Biden and Harris on the platform, and we don’t kick them off. They post fairly regularly. So, we really are a free speech platform and we’re protecting people’s rights and access to the internet, so they can communicate with one another.”
A massive crowd of supporters gathered in Grand Rapids, Michigan, early Saturday morning to attend former President Donald Trump’s first rally since surviving an assassination attempt one week ago.
Videos taken over six hours before Trump is set to take the stage show thousands of people eagerly waiting in line, OANN’s Daniel Baldwin reported:
Another video taken later inside the venue shows the 12,000-seat Van Andel arena at full capacity:
WZZM13 spoke with several fans of the former president, who is also taking new vice presidential nominee JD Vance out on the rally stage for the first time.
Edward X. Young, of New Jersey, came straight to Grand Rapids from the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
He spent the night in a folding chair outside the arena.
“It was kind of cold at three in the morning, and I was dressed light, but it’s worth it,” Young, who has already been to 80 Trump rallies, said.
“The humor is out of it now. This is very serious. This is the first rally since the attempt to kill him and we have to get here to show our support,” he continued. “We didn’t flinch. We didn’t run and we’re not going to stop coming to the rallies.”
Kathleen Smilie also drove into the city early to get a chance to see Trump and Vance.
“We missed out on the last one in Muskegon, so we left early. We packed our snacks. We’re here. We really want to see Trump and see Vance. We watched the movie,” she said in reference to Hillbilly Elegy, the movie based on Vance’s memoir.
The Ron Howard-directed film has been trending on Netflix since Trump announced the book’s author as his running mate earlier this week, Breitbart News reported.
“Good movie, so we’re interested in Vance now,” Smilie said.
Randy Ritsema brought his children to see the rally. According to him, Trump’s triumphant reaction to being shot during last Saturday’s Butler, Pennsylvania, rally makes him a “shoo-in” to win the election.
“He’s going to be the president. That’s my opinion, but I think it’s a wrap. I don’t think Biden stands a chance.”
Taylor Swift just wants to enter Arrowhead Stadium through the main gates.
Ahead of Thursday’s NFL opener, Chiefs team president Mark Donovan revealed what went into hosting the 14-time Grammy winner — who nearly broke the internet when she attended her first game at Arrowhead Stadium last September — and how the club prepared for her second year as a member of Chiefs Kingdom.
Swift and Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce began dating last summer, and she attended most of his games, including when the Chiefs beat the 49ers in the Super Bowl in February.
Chiefs president Mark Donovan talks about how the club is handling the Taylor Swift effect in her second season as a member of Chiefs kingdom. YouTube/Front Office Sports
“We’ll be prepared for her, and obviously welcome her with open arms,” Donovan said about Swift in an interview with Front Office Sports.
Swift, 34, will be in attendance when the Chiefs play the Ravens in an AFC Championship rematch Thursday night in Kansas City, The Athletic reported.
Donovan recalled speaking with Kelce numerous times last season to plan for Swift’s arrival in order to keep her safe and manage the crowd reaction.
He explained that Kelce was nonchalant about Swift coming to support him, and said the All-Pro emphasized that Swift wanted to enter the stadium through the main entrance like other Chiefs fans.
Donna Kelce and Taylor Swift cheer from a suite as the Kansas City Chiefs play the Chicago Bears at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium on September 24, 2023 in Kansas City, Missouri. Getty Images
“We’ve adopted her in Chiefs kingdom. Now, with Taylor, she brings a lot with her and it’s pretty valuable targeted demographic when you look at the makeup of her fanbase,” Donovan said.
“And we’ve looked at ways we can be respectful. I had a great conversation with Travis the first game that Taylor came to [against the Bears on Sept. 24].
“It was prior to the game and I grabbed Travis after practice and just said ‘Hey, I’m hearing through the grapevine Taylor is coming to the game.’
Donna Kelce and Taylor Swift cheer from a suite as the Kansas City Chiefs play the Chicago Bears at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium on September 24, 2023 in Kansas City, Missouri. Getty Images
“He said, ‘Yeah, she wants to come to the game and that’s on her. I’m going to focus on the game.
“And I was like, ‘OK that’s fine. Um, it’s Taylor Swift. So we’re going to have to plan for this and make sure we’ve got a plan for her. We’re going to take her through the certain entrances and make sure that she’s safe and we manage the crowd reaction.
“And Travis’s response was ‘She wants to come as a fan. She doesn’t want all this stuff. Deal with her, I’m playing football.
“And I was like, OK, but she can’t come through the main gate. That’s not gonna work,” Donovan said, laughing.
Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift arrive at the SNL Afterparty on October 15, 2023 in New York City. GC Images
The pair went back and forth and then Donovan explained the “intricate plan” the Chiefs’ security and Swift’s security came up with.
“Her security team came the day before and we had this great way of getting her in and out. Everything was great.
“So, the day of the game [Sept. 24] I get a call from my head of security saying ‘Taylor doesn’t like the plan. She’s going through the main gate.’
“And she did. She put on a hat and a Covid mask and some sunglasses and brought her group of people and they all came together he main gate.
Swift’s security detail made a trip to the stadium the day before the game to work something out with Chiefs security. “We had this entire intricate plan,” Donovan said. But that Sunday, Swift decided to enter through a main gate wearing a hat, sunglasses, and COVID mask pic.twitter.com/rQzGCLieJ5
— Tayvis Nation 🏈🫶🏻 (@tayvisnation) September 5, 2024
“Because that’s what he wants. She wants to be a fan, right. This is her off time. She wants to be there to support travis and were going to create that opportunity and we’re going to provide that opportunity.”
Donovan went on to explain that the Chiefs aren’t trying to capitalize on the Taylor Swift effect.
“This is another conversation we had with Travis. We did our very best to respect their relationship. So every week you see every single game broadcast that we have — they’re looking for Taylor.
“We made a conscious decision to respect the relationship. Not unlike any other player and their relationship. I think it’s telling that it’s a conscious decision to the point where [at Arrowhead] we didn’t play a single Taylor Swift song during the games. That was a sign of respect.
“We’re not trying to capitalize on this. We’re trying to celebrate it, but it’s not about doing too much or showing her every touchdown or anything like that. She never appeared on our big board. We had one day when we had six or seven big celebrities in the stadium. Prior to the game we show them on the big board… We show them on the big board and the fans will react.
“And I went to Travis afterwards and I was like, ‘it’s a little odd to me that we [showed all these celebrities on the big board] and Taylor’s in her suite watching, but we’re not showing her.
“He’s like, ‘Let’s just keep on doing it the way we’re doing it.’”
In a separate interview on the “Today” show, Chiefs chairman and CEO Clark Hunt said he doesn’t know where Swift will be sitting during the season opener.
“No, it’s always a little bit of a surprise, but I’m sure the TV cameras will find her,” he said ahead of Thursday’s game.
Swift was at a majority of Kelce’s games last season, including the team’s entire run through the playoffs that ended with a Super Bowl victory in Las Vegas.
The Chiefs have three home games before Swift’s Eras Tour picks back up in October.
If the Chiefs end up in the Super Bowl in their quest to complete a three-peat, Swift will be able to attend, as her tour concludes in December.
Super Bowl 2025 will take place in New Orleans and airs on Fox on Feb. 9..
Are we tired of watching rich people be terrible to each other? It certainly doesn’t seem that way, given how many shows there have been in this genre in the past few years. There’s no shortage of novels that involve wealthy families whose perfect facades are cracked by some sort of event, usually one that’s violent. A new series on Netflix, based on a Elin Hilderbrandnovel, is about just such a scenario.
THE PERFECT COUPLE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: Beach scenes on Nantucket.
The Gist: We see scenes from the rehearsal dinner for Amelia Sacks (Eve Hewson) and Benji Winbury (Billy Howle). Benji comes from an old-money Nantucket family; his very control-oriented mother, Greer Garrison Winbury (Nicole Kidman) married into it almost 30 years ago when she wed Benji’s father Tag (Liev Schreiber).
Everyone looks happy at the rehearsal dinner, from Amelia’s bestie and maid of honor Merritt Monaco (Meghann Fahy), to Greer and Tag, to Benji’s best man, Shooter Dival (Ishaan Khattar). Well, Benji’s older brother Thomas (Jack Reynor) seems miserable, but he might be under a bit of pressure because his wife Abby (Dakota Fanning) is pregnant and wants them to move to a much more expensive apartment. And he’s miserable because he’s an a-hole.
The next morning, a scream peals out over the beach, and Summerland police chief Dan Carter (Michael Beach) gets a call about a “floater” on the water, i.e. a body has washed up. It’s definitely someone from the wedding party, as he informs his cater waiter daughter Chloe (Mia Isaac) that the ceremony is cancelled.
Carter and Detective Nikki Henry (Donna Lynne Champlin), sent by the DA’s office to assist in the investigation, start questioning all of the non-relatives, including Abby, catty wedding planner Roger Pelton (Tim Bagley), flirtatious family friend Isabel Nallet (Isabelle Adjani) and house manager Gosia (Irina Dubova). Amelia, who found the body while wearing her wedding dress, is brought in for questioning, but is too traumatized to say anything.
They don’t paint a pretty picture. Greer, a famous novelist, mistrusts Amelia, a free-spirited and down-to-earth zoologist who works at the Central Park Zoo. Her “perfect couple” marriage to Tag isn’t as perfect as it seems. For his part, Tag is a huge pothead who hasn’t seemed to do much to maintain his family’s fortune. Youngest son Will (Sam Nivola) gets some welcomed but unwanted attention from Merritt. Thomas feels financially squeezed and goes to his father for help.
And things aren’t all great with Amelia and Benji, as Amelia admits to Merritt that while she loves Benji, she doesn’t burn as hot for him as she wants to. Merritt ascribes the feelings to cold feet, but Amelia’s actions with Benji in bed indicate otherwise.
Photo: Hilary Bronwyn Gayle/Netflix
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Created by Jenna Lamia and based on the book by Elin Hilderbrand, The Perfect Couple has shades of plenty of other recent rich-people-being-awful shows — some of which starred Kidman. You know which ones we’re talking about: The White Lotus, Big Little Lies, The Undoing, Apples Never Fall, Expats, etc.
Our Take: The first episode of The Perfect Couple, directed by Susanne Bier, is a beautifully-shot mess. Lamia and Bier purposefully keep the identity of whose body was found until the end of the episode, and the tired narrative-building method of having story be built via flashbacks and people talking to the police doesn’t yield a ton of clues. Even so, we nailed just who the body was about 2/3 of the way through the episode, because we realized exactly who wasn’t shown being interviewed by the cops.
It’s a frustrating storytelling method because, even though a lot of the story is being told in flashback, it didn’t really seem all that necessary to hide whose body it was. Sure, it makes for twist at the end, but the series is more about the murder and the family secrets it reveals more than anything else.
What we’re also tired of seeing is a wealthy white family swanning through their well-appointed homes doing everything they can to hide the roiling trauma underneath the perfect facade. It feels like being the matriarch of these kinds of families has become Kidman’s stock-and-trade of late, and while her accent may change, she plays all the roles with the same pained expression and barely-controlled despair. And whoever plays her husband generally has none of the raw emotional power that the actor usually has; this is one of the most passive roles we’ve seen Schreiber play in ages.
But there are aspects of the first episode that give us hope. For one, it has a sense of humor that other shows of this type — except for maybe The White Lotus — just don’t have. If we’re going to examine the cracks under the surface of yet another rich family, at least we can get some laughs out of it, right?
For two, we like Dakota Fanning as the deceptively cunning Abby. But we’re really intrigued by Hewson as Amelia. Sure, Hewson has wowed before, in shows like Bad Sisters and Behind Her Eyes. But here, she’s the audience’s representative into the horror that is the Winburys’ existence. Despite Hewson’s background (she’s Bono’s daughter, after all), she seems to bring an earthy vibe to her roles that help the audience connect with her. We see that here, and we want to watch more of her interacting with her awful in-laws for the duration of the series.
Photo: Netflix
Sex and Skin: A scene where Amelia and Benji try to have sex the day of the rehearsal party tells you all you need to know about how truly she is attracted to him.
Parting Shot: We see whose body Amelia found, as she kneels over it and screams while in her wedding dress.
Sleeper Star: Jack Reynor is an A-1 a-hole as Thomas.
Most Pilot-y Line: Gosia complains to the cops that Amelia washes her own dishes, which she calls “rude.”
Our Call: STREAM IT. The only reasons we’re recommending The Perfect Couple are Hewson, Fanning, and our fervent hope that the series continues to be more irreverent than most shows in this annoyingly persistent genre.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.
Rapper Rich Homie Quan has died, Page Six can confirm. He was 33.
The Fulton County Medical Examiner’s Office tell us that Grady Memorial Hospital notified them of the death of the “Type of Way” rapper, whose real name was Dequantes Devontay Lamar, on Thursday.
The spokesperson also said an autopsy has been scheduled for Friday.
Fellow rapper Boosie BadAzz, whose real name is Torrence Ivy Hatch Jr., was one of the first to confirm the news, writing via X Thursday, “JUST TALKED TO YOU BRA 😓 #tipQUAN Never go forget yo smile n the way talked n of course yo music 💯.”
The “Wipe Me Down” rapper, 41, also appeared to reveal the suspected cause of death, sharing in a separate X post Thursday, “JUST GOT WORD @RichHomieQuan JUST OD ‼️”
Quan’s official cause of death has not been confirmed.
Rapper Rich Homie Quan has died. WireImage
The rapper, whose real name was Dequantes Devontay Lamar, was 33. Paul R. Giunta/BET
Podcaster Adam Grandmaison, known as Adam22, took to his Instagram Stories Thursday to post a photo of him and Quan writing over it, “RIP Rich Homie Quan.”
TMZ reported Thursday that Quan’s relatives are “shattered and heartbroken by his sudden death.”
The outlet also reported that the “Lifestyle” rapper died at his home in Atlanta. His family is reportedly still “searching for answers” on his cause of death.
Page Six has reached out to reps for Quan but did not immediately hear back. The rapper’s social media has also not released any official statements.
Rapper Boosie BadAzz claimed on X that Quan “OD.”
BadAzz also used the hashtag “ripQuan.”
Quan’s last post on Instagram was shared Monday and featured him wearing a football jersey and eyeglasses.
The slideshow, which also showed him performing, was captioned, “Vision clear even through the BS 🤫.”
Quan’s alleged drug use had gotten him in trouble in the past.
In May 2017, he was charged with felony drug possession with the intent to distribute but the case was then dismissed in 2019 due to lack of evidence, according to TMZ.
Quan, who was born in Atlanta, was famously known for being a member of Cash Money Records.
His 2015 single “Flex (Ooh, Ooh, Ooh)” topped the Billboard Charts at No. 26.
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Quan’s official cause of death has not been confirmed. WireImage
Tributes for the rapper have started pouring in online. Getty Images
Quan’s death comes just days after the rap world lost another one of its stars.
On Aug. 30, Fatman Scoop died at age 53 after collapsing onstage during a performance.
He was given CPR backstage and then rushed to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Scoop’s official cause of death has not yet been revealed.
Moon Unit Zappa, the daughter of musician Frank Zappa, says she was “conditioned” to believe a bizarre date she once had with Woody Harrelson was “perfectly normal.”
The pair, who went on a handful of dates after being set up by Michael J. Fox in 1989, were out for a meal when Harrelson used her finger to remove food stuck between his teeth.
Moon described being a human toothpick in her new memoir, “Earth to Moon,” but exclusively tells Page Six she wasn’t at all bothered by the unsanitary behavior.
Moon Unit Zappa, pictured here in with Woody Harrelson in 1989, once had a very strange date with the actor. Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images
According to Moon, Harrelson once used her finger to remove food from between his teeth. WireImage
The pair went on a few dates during Harrelson’s stint on “Cheers” in the late ’80s. Getty Images
Moon says growing up with her famous father — who was known for his bohemian lifestyle — made her think the unusual moment was just “what quirky artists did.”
She adds that on one of their first dates, her father blew his nose into her mother’s skirt.
“I was conditioned to think that was perfectly normal,” she explains.
A rep for Harrelson, 63, did not immediately return our request for comment.
Moon, who described the date in her new memoir, tells Page Six she wasn’t bothered by the bizarre moment. AP
Moon, the daughter of famous musician Frank Zappa, became an instant star at 14 when she appeared on her father’s song “Valley Girl.” Getty Images
Moon, 56, became a star at age 14 when she appeared on her father’s hit single “Valley Girl.” The song featured Moon’s “valley speak,” popularizing expressions like “grody to the max” and “gag me with a spoon.”
Her book briefly mentions the hoopla around the novelty song, but mostly centers on her dysfunctional childhood and often-fraught relationships with her parents and siblings, Dweezil, Ahmet, and Diva.
“This really is a story about feeling like a fish out of water in your home and in the world and I think it’s a chance for women to examine their projections,” she explains to us.
Her memoir details her tumultuous childhood with her father and mother, Gail Zappa. Getty Images
Moon wrote about her mother changing Frank’s final wishes regarding his estate. Getty Images
Moon wrote in her memoir, which came out Aug. 20, that following her father’s death in 1993 at the age of 52 from prostate cancer, her mother, Gail, disregarded Frank’s final wishes regarding his estate.
Instead of it being split up evenly, Gail gave Ahmet and Diva control of the Zappa family trust with shares of 30 percent each, while Moon and Dweezil were each given 20 percent.
“I could never reconcile the actions that were taken in the name of my father but not doing his wishes,” she tells Page Six.
“The thing is it’s not the money,” Moon explains. “It’s not the stuff, it’s that I had a mother that at the end of her life, she wished two of her children well and two not so much.
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“I had a mother that at the end of her life, she wished two of her children well and two not so much,” Moon tells Page Six. Getty Images
Moon remains estranged from her siblings, but has recently started speaking to her brother Ahmet again. WireImage
“That is something as a parent that I cannot comprehend and it’s taken me a long time to get bigger than her final word.”
Gail died in 2015 at the age of 70.
Moon, who shares a daughter with ex-husband Paul Doucette, has been estranged from her siblings for many years but says that the “door is always open,” although relations seem to be improving with Ahmet.
“We just did a podcast and he actually read the book and he really loved it,” she happily adds.
Moon is doing a Q&A with Molly Jong-Fast at Oaks Church in Brooklyn on Sept 5.
Democratic vice presidential nominee Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz speaks on a campaign stop at Laborfest in Milwaukee on Monday, Sept. 2.
AP
The House Education and Workforce Committee is yet again doing the job the media won’t, by holding Dem VP hopeful Tim Walz accountable for his atrocious record as Minnesota governor — this time over an infamous, massive episode of COVID fraud.
Quick recap:A Minnesota charity, Feeding Our Future, took advantage of pandemic-era rules that let student-meal programs cooperate off school grounds to run as many as 250 utterly fake meal-assistance sites to siphon off close to a cool $250 million in federal aid funds.
That was spent not on feeding kids but on things like luxury cars and high-end real estate; per Attorney General Merrick Garland, it was the single biggest pandemic scam for which charges have yet been brought.
And it all happened on Walz’s watch, as his Department of Education was supposed to be providing oversight.
Now, Walz faces a big-time document subpoena from the committee, chaired by indefatigable Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC) — in service of digging up answers to the hard questions around the fraud.
Questions that should have been asked by every journo in America the day his name was pulled out of the veepstakes hat.
Above all: How can Americans now trust you in the second-highest office in the land?
The COVID scam was public and appalling — it literally stole food from the mouths of hungry kids — and he was the man in charge of the state where it happened.
Yet in general, Americans heard only the most muted response to this Walz scandal from the press.
As we have on his drunk-driving lies, his lies about his service,his disastrous delay in deploying the National Guard during the Floyd riots and on and on and on.
If the legacy media had its way, Walz would waltz into office with zero scrutiny.
So kudos to Foxx & Co. — but it’s still beyond pathetic Congress has to do the actual journalism these days.
China’s consul general in New York left his post as scheduled after completing his posting last month, the State Department said on Wednesday, hours after New York’s governor said she asked for his expulsion in the aftermath of the arrest of a former aide who was accused of secretly acting as a Chinese agent.
State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters that Consul General Huang Ping “was not expelled.”
“Our understanding is that the consul general reached the end of a regular scheduled rotation in August, and so rotated out of the position, but was not expelled,” Miller said.
“But of course, when it comes to the status of particular employees of a foreign mission, I would refer you to the foreign country to speak to it. But there was no expulsion action.”
China’s embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Huang Ping’s status.
Governor asked for envoy’s expulsion
Earlier on Wednesday, New York Governor Kathy Hochul told an event that she spoke by phone at the request of Secretary of State Antony Blinken to a high-ranking State Department official “and I had conveyed my desire to have the consul general from the People’s Republic of China in the New York mission expelled.”
“And I’ve been informed that the consul general is no longer in the New York mission,” she said.
Miller said Hochul had spoken on Wednesday to Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell.
Asked by an audience member if she had been interviewed by investigators, including the FBI, Hochul said: “They asked me one question.”
“I’m not able to talk about it but it had something to do with identifying whether or not something was my signature and that was it,” she said.
Former aide charged
Linda Sun, 41, a former aide to Hochul, was charged on Tuesday with secretly acting as an agent of the Chinese government in exchange for millions of dollars in compensation and gifts, including meals of gourmet duck.
Sun and her husband, Chris Hu, 40, pleaded not guilty to criminal charges before U.S. Magistrate Judge Peggy Kuo in Brooklyn, after being arrested on Tuesday morning.
Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn said that while working in state government, Sun blocked representatives of the Taiwanese government from meeting with officials and sought to arrange for a high-level New York state official to visit China. In exchange, Chinese government representatives allegedly arranged for millions of dollars in transactions for Hu, who had business activities in China.
Prosecutors said Sun and Hu used the money to buy a 2024 Ferrari Roma sports car, as well as property on New York’s Long Island and in Honolulu worth about $6 million.
Hochul was not accused of any wrongdoing. Her office fired Sun in March 2023 after discovering evidence of misconduct and reported Sun’s actions immediately to authorities. Her office also has assisted law enforcement throughout the process, a spokesperson for the governor said.
According to the website of China’s consulate in New York, Huang Ping had been the consul general since November 2018. Prior to that, Huang, 61, served as a Chinese ambassador to Zimbabwe and did stints as an official at the embassy in Washington and China’s consulate in Chicago.
Ukraine faces wildly different prospects under a potential Donald Trump or Kamala Harris U.S. presidency. But as their campaigns race to the finish line, neither candidate has laid out exactly how they plan to deal with Russia’s war on Ukraine. Experts say in that same space of time, the battlefield in Ukraine has itself radically changed, giving more power to Ukraine in determining its own fate. VOA White House correspondent Anita Powell reports from Washington.
When the U.S. State Department recently offered up to $2.5 million for information leading to the arrest of alleged cyber-fraudster Volodymyr Kadariya, it marked another turn in a saga that saw the man transform from suspected criminal to political dissident and back.
For 15 years, Kadariya has been wanted in his native Belarus on cybercrime charges.
American prosecutors accuse him of involvement in a scheme to transmit malicious malware to U.S. computers. Millions of internet users reportedly fell victim to the scheme.
But Kadariya has been particularly elusive.
After coming under suspicion in Belarus, he fled the country and lived abroad for many years. During this time, he managed to obtain asylum and eventually citizenship in Ukraine, according to multiple media reports and official government statements from the United States and Belarus.
When he was detained in Kyrgyzstan in 2022 on the Belarusian charges, he claimed to be facing political persecution. Even United Nations officials spoke out against his extradition.
Today, as the United States seeks his arrest, it is unclear whether Kadariya is even at liberty.
Volodymyr Kadariya’s photographs and biographical information, as published on the U.S. Secret Service website.
Mystery man
There is little publicly available information about Volodymyr — or, alternately, Vladimir Kadariya. That may not even be his real name.
Kadariya, 38, is a native of Belarus. Around 2008, he came under suspicion of stealing large sums of money “by modifying computer information,” according to the country’s investigative committee.
Kadariya allegedly purchased stolen bank card information on the “darknet,” encoded it onto dummy cards, and used them to withdraw money.
Belarusian investigators say citizens of the United States, Poland, France and Britain fell victim to the scheme.
They also claim that, in 2016, Kadariya applied for refugee status in Ukraine. Later, he likely obtained Ukrainian citizenship.
Equally, little is known about Kadariya’s life in Ukraine. According to open databases, someone with his rare name was previously among the beneficiaries of two Ukrainian companies: Cosmo Medical and Digital Med.
Kadariya also shows up in a photo from IT Nature Party International, a 2018 party held on the outskirts of Kyiv.
Arrest and extradition
According to Belarusian investigators, in 2022, they learned that Kadariya had been living for some time in Spain. After he flew to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, he was detained that September. Minsk requested his extradition.
Kadariya claimed he was being persecuted for political reasons in his homeland. Whether or not that claim was true, it likely sounded plausible.
After the 2020 presidential elections in Belarus, which the United States deemed fraudulent, a wave of protests struck the country. Security forces arrested thousands of people. There are still more than 1,500 political prisoners in Belarus.
Some estimates suggest that up to half a million Belarusians left the country in the wake of the crackdown.
In Kyrgyzstan, Kadariya claimed he was a Belarusian citizen originally named Andrei Kovalev. He received refugee status in Ukraine in 2017. Later, when receiving citizenship, he changed his name, his Kyrgyz lawyer told RFE/RL’s Kyrgyz Service in March 2023.
In a March 2023 interview with Current Time, a Russian-language TV and digital network led by RFE/RL in partnership with VOA, Kadariya claimed he had worked as the administrator of an opposition website in Minsk that published articles about corruption. He said that Belarusian security forces detained him in 2008 and seized his laptop, but due to data encryption, they could not confirm his connection to the opposition. After being released in 2008, Kadariya immediately left the country.
The Kyrgyz Prosecutor General’s Office did not find any political motives in the charges against Kadariya and a court soon approved his extradition.
Kadariya tried to appeal. His lawyer said that his extradition would violate Kyrgyzstan’s obligations to international organizations.
After the court rejected Kadariya’s appeal, the United Nations weighed in. In a letter to the Kyrgyz prosecutor general, representatives of the U.N. Commissioner for Human Rights and the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said Kadariya should not be deported because he had requested asylum in Kyrgyzstan. According to them, the court’s decision to extradite him violated the U.N. Refugee Convention and local legislation, Current Time reported.
Kadariya penned an appeal to President Sadyr Japarov asking the Kyrgyz leader to prevent his deportation.
In March 2023, he was extradited back to Belarus.
In a video published that month by Belarusian investigators on the Telegram messenger, Kadariya states that he has no connections to the opposition and had never been involved in politics.
Dmytro Mazurok, a Ukrainian lawyer based in Kyiv who specializes in migration, says he would not trust a statement given in the presence of Belarusian investigators.
“They have a harsh system of coercion,” he said.
At the same time, it’s not unfathomable that Kadariya could have received asylum in Ukraine on false grounds — particularly at the time he applied.
“I can say for sure that obtaining refugee status and, subsequently, citizenship for a person with money is not a problem,” Mazurok told VOA.
American accusations
On August 12, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that Maksim Silnikau, the alleged leader of a cybercriminal group, was extradited from Poland to the U.S.
American prosecutors allege that he worked together with Kadariya and one other alleged cybercriminal, Russian citizen Andrei Tarasov. Like Kadariya, Silnikau holds both Belarusian and Ukrainian citizenships.
According to a New Jersey indictment, from 2013 to 2022 the three men used so-called malvertising on the internet to infect Americans’ computers with malicious software, including one called “Angler Exploit Kit.”
Among the ways they allegedly profited from this scheme was by selling stolen user information and access to infected devices to other cybercriminals.
To promote their scheme, the three accomplices created domains to host malware and posed as legitimate advertisers, the indictment states. It describes Kadariya as a “malicious advertiser.”
If found guilty, each man could face 27 years in prison for conspiracy to commit wire fraud, 10 years for conspiracy to commit computer fraud, and 20 years for each count of wire fraud.
In Kadariya’s case, one important question remains: Is he at large?
VOA was unable to contact Kadariya for comment or confirm his whereabouts.
He may be in custody in Belarus, where he was extradited a year-and-a-half ago, but the Belarusian Ministry of Internal Affairs did not respond to a request for comment.
The State Department and DOJ also did not answer VOA’s questions about Kadariya’s whereabouts.
Notably, the State Department announced August 26 that it is offering the $2.5 million reward for information leading to his arrest or conviction “in any country.”
