ED raids a comedy of errors, officials found nothing,claims Chidambaram

Agencies

January 13, 2018

New Delhi, Jan 13: Congress leader P Chidambaram today termed the ED raids against his son "a comedy of errors" and claimed the officers were left "embarrassed" and "apologetic" as they could not find anything.

He was reacting after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) conducted searches at multiple premises linked to Karti Chidambaram, the senior Congress leader's son, in connection with its money laundering probe in the Aircel-Maxis case.

"They have searched premises in Chennai again but in a comedy of errors they came to search my premises in Jorbagh. Officers told me that they believed that Karti was an occupant of the house. I told them he is a resident of Chennai and I am the occupant of this house," Chidambaram told reporters.

"Since they had the search warrant, I did not raise any objections to the search but I said I will record my protest that there is no FIR in respect of the scheduled crime registered by any investigating agency including the CBI.

"There are obviously no proceeds of crime and the ED has no jurisdiction under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA)," he added.

The former finance minister said that the ED officials searched the place "including the kitchen and the bathroom and obviously they found nothing. They were embarrassed and apologetic that they found me as the occupant but they had no option but to complete the search".

"Since they had to justify the search, they took some background papers related to a statement made by the government in Parliament in 2012-13. In Chennai also they found nothing, seized nothing," he claimed.

The ED case pertains to the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) approval granted in 2006 by P Chidambaram, the then finance minister.

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Trump’s associates told to avoid racist language making them ‘look like Nazis’

News Network

November 18,2024

Advisors to US President-elect Donald Trump have instructed his allies and associates to refrain from using the inflammatory language they previously employed when discussing issues related to migrants and the deportation of asylum seekers, in a bid to avoid “looking like Nazis.”

US media reports said that Trump’s associates had been asked to stop using the word “camps” to describe potential facilities that would be used to accommodate migrants rounded up in deportation operations across the country.

The reports said the US president-elect’s allies had been ordered to stave off such charged terms as they would bring to mind “Nazis,” and be used against Trump.

“I have received some guidance to avoid terms, like ‘camps,’ that can be twisted and used against the president, yes,” one Trump ally told American monthly magazine Rolling Stone.

“Apparently, some people think it makes us look like Nazis.”

The presidential advisers also cautioned surrogates and allies to keep racist terms, which have dogged Trump’s campaign, out of their remarks.

They said with Trump’s heated rhetoric that used to compare undocumented immigrants to “animals” and his slight that they are “poisoning the blood of our country,” detractors did not need to reach too far to find parallels to Nazi Germany.

Stephen Miller, who Trump tapped to be his deputy chief of staff of policy, specifically used the word “camps” to describe holding facilities that he hoped the military could put together for immigrants.

Tom Homan, who served as the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and is chosen by Trump to be in charge of the US borders, was no stranger to such language.

“It’s not gonna be a mass sweep of neighborhoods,” he said in an interview earlier this week. “It’s not gonna be building concentration camps. I’ve read it all. It’s ridiculous.”

Becoming a little more forthright about the new government’s aggressive deportation plans, Homan likened the early days of the Trump administration to the initial invasion of Iraq in 2003.

“I got three words for them – shock and awe,” he said. “You’re going to see us take this country back.”

Trump made immigration a central element of his 2024 presidential campaign but unlike his first run, which was mainly focused on building a border wall, he has shifted his attention to interior enforcement and the removal of undocumented immigrants already in the United States.

People close to the US president and his aides are laying the groundwork for expanding detention facilities to fulfill his mass deportation campaign promise.

The businessman-turned-politician deported more than 1.5 million people during his first term.

The figure do not include the millions of people turned away at the border under a Covid-era policy enacted by Trump and used during most of Biden’s term.

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