The Boston Globe - 08.08.2019

(Joyce) #1
Democratsaredividedover
PresidentTrump’sincreasingly
confrontationalapproachto
tradewithChina,a surprising
lack of unity for a party that
has stood starkly against most
of Trump’s positions.A2.

ATalibancarbombripped
throughabusyKabulneigh-
borhood,killing 14 people and
wounding 145.A3.

TheembattledFallRivermayor
cameunderfirefor granting a
key city approval to his girl-

friend’s brother to eventually
open two marijuana stores.B1.

Agroupofrelativesrepresent-
ingmorethan50peoplewho
diedinanEthiopianAirlines
planecrasharecallingonthe
FAAtoconductafullregulato-
ryreviewof Boeing’s 737 Max
before it is allowed to fly again.
B6.

TherookieoperatorofaGreen
Linetrainisbeingblamedfor
the derailment of a car that
disrupted the D line.B1.

VOL. 296, NO. 39
*
Suggested retail price
$3.

Thursday:Some clouds and sun.
High: 82-87. Low: 68-73.
Comics and Weather,C8-9.
Obituaries,A16.

Inthemix


abcde


Thursday, August 8, 2019


ANOTHER SURGERY —Dustin
Pedroia underwent a fifth knee
surgery this week. The procedure
sought to ease lingering discomfort
from a 2017 surgery.C1.

By Victoria McGrane
GLOBE STAFF
Massachusetts is producing a bumper-crop of
primary challengers this election season — an
early indication that the state’s long tradition of
respecting incumbency could be crumbling.
Many of these candidates have cited congress-
woman Ayanna Pressley’s victory over longtime
incumbent Michael E. Capuano as part of the rea-
son for their efforts — including Alex Morse, the
30-year-old, four-term mayor of Holyoke seeking
to oust Richard Neal, one of the most senior —
and powerful — members of the delegation, who
represents Western Massachusetts.
“Personally, for me it was inspiring to watch,”
Morse said of Pressley’s success in an interview
last week.
His takeaway from her race and other trium-
phant upstarts: “It wasn’t the candidate who
raised and spent the most money at the end of
the day, it was the candidate that was able to
build a grass-roots movement and organize a
campaign throughout the district that really
made the difference.”
Morse is drawing national attention but faces
long odds in toppling Neal, who has held the seat
since 1989, is a close ally of House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi, and leads the House Ways and Means
CHALLENGERS, Page A


E


VERETT — Against the bronze
glow of the towering Encore ca-
sino on a recent afternoon,
Steve Crosby spotted a blue her-
on on the muddy banks of the
Mystic River.
“Here he comes — gorgeous. Look at
the wing span!” he said to me as we sat on-
board one of the casino’s $1 million boats,
pulling away from the dock to head back to
Boston.
If you can believe it, the Encore Boston
Harbor has been open for more than a
month, and Crosby — who as the state’s
first gaming commission chairman was in-
strumental in it coming about — had not
yet checked out the casino until I invited
him to lunch.
Over the course of about two hours, he
walked the casino floor, posed for a picture
with Jeff Koons’s $28 million Popeye sculp-
ture, and gawked at the flower-covered
carousel (“holy cow!”). For the most part, it
was hard for the former gaming regulator
to contain his enthusiasm. He acted as if
LEUNG, Page A

By Milton J. Valencia
GLOBE STAFF
The federal convictions of two top City Hall
aides for extorting a concert promoter into hiring
union workers could trail Mayor Martin J. Walsh
as he embarks on future negotiations with labor
unions and other advocacy groups, as well as in
his own political career, according to legal and
political analysts who followed the case.
Allegations that aides Kenneth Brissette and
Timothy Sullivan pressured the concert promoter
into hiring union labor, under the fear of losing
out on lucrative permits vital to the event, date
back to 2014, the onset of Walsh’s administra-
tion. He had sidestepped questions about the
case in handily winning reelection two years ago.
But the swift verdict cast a chill across City
Hall Wednesday, an inescapable scarlet letter for
a mayor who takes pride in his union background
and has hoped his current perch could carry him
WALSH, Page A


MARIO TAMA/GETTY IMAGES
Miguel de Anda, born and raised in El Paso, held up a sign at a protest against President Trump’s visit to the city.

By Michael Crowley,
Maggie Haberman,
and Mitch Smith
NEW YORK TIMES
EL PASO — President
Trump visited Dayton, Ohio,
and El Paso on Wednesday on a
day intended as a show of com-
passion to cities scarred by a
weekend of violence, but one
that quickly devolved into an
occasion for anger-fueled
broadsides against Democrats
and the news media.
Trump’s schedule was
meant to follow the traditional
model of apolitical presidential
visits with victims, law enforce-
ment officials, and hospital
workers after calamities like
the mass shootings that result-
ed in 31 deaths in Dayton and

El Paso and that created a new
sense of national crisis over as-
sault weapons and the rise of
white supremacist ideology.
That plan went awry even
before Trump, who has ac-
knowledged his discomfort
with showing empathy in pub-
lic, departed Washington. On
Tuesday night, he attacked on
Twitter the former Democratic
congressman from El Paso, Be-
to O’Rourke, and as he pre-
pared to leave the White House
on Wednesday morning, he
went after former vice presi-
dent Joe Biden.
The result was the latest ex-
ample of Trump’s penchant for
inflaming divisions at mo-
ments when other presidents
TRUMP, Page A

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By Maria Cramer
GLOBE STAFF
Two top aides to Boston Mayor Mar-
tin J. Walsh were convicted Wednesday
of conspiring to extort organizers of the
Boston Calling music festival, a stun-
ning development in a high-profile
public corruption case that cast scruti-
ny on City Hall’s ties to organized labor
and tested the limits of advocacy by
government officials.
The jury’s swift verdict, reached af-
ter only six hours of deliberation,
marked a major defeat for Walsh, a for-
mer labor leader swept into office by
overwhelming union backing.
Kenneth Brissette, the city’s director
of tourism, and Timothy Sullivan, chief
of intergovernmental affairs, resigned
shortly after they were convicted by a
jury of eight women and four men of
strong-arming the festival into hiring
union workers in 2014. Federal prose-

cutors said they leaned on concert or-
ganizers to promote Walsh’s political
agenda and exploited the organizers’
fear that city officials might shut down
the popular event if they failed to com-
ply.
Brissette, 54, was found guilty of ex-
tortion and conspiracy to commit ex-
tortion, charges that carry a maximum
penalty of 20 years in prison. Sullivan,
39, was convicted of conspiracy to com-
mit extortion but acquitted of extor-
tion.
MassachusettsUSAttorneyAndrew
Lelling said the conviction in the “hard-
fought” case — which prosecutors re-
vived even after an early setback — re-
affirmed his office’s commitment to
pursue cases against public officials.
“Today is a reminder that pursuing a
political agenda is one thing but forcing
citizens to do your business through
CONVICTIONS, Page A

City Hall aides guilty in Boston Calling case


Pairconvictedofconspiringtoextortconcert


organizersinpushtohireunionworkers


PHOTOS BY DAVID L. RYAN/GLOBE STAFF
Timothy Sullivan (left) and Kenneth Brissette
resigned from their City Hall jobs Wednesday.

‘Ihavealwaysbelievedthattheir


heartswereintherightplace.’


MAYOR MARTIN J. WALSH
In a statement after the guilty verdicts

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By Jazmine Ulloa
GLOBE STAFF
EL PASO — Hours before Presi-
dent Trump arrived in this desert city
on the Mexico border, high school
students clad in black released white
balloons for every one of the 22 vic-
tims killed in one of the 10 deadliest
mass shootings in modern American
history.
Hundreds of people later gathered
at a central park to protest the presi-
dent’s visit, saying he had inflamed
the kind of racial and ethnic hostili-
ties that led the shooter to target Lati-
nos at a Walmart in the commercial
EL PASO, Page A

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