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The man accused of attacking Sen. Rand Paul on Friday may soon face more serious criminal charges because the Kentucky Republican is suffering from several rib injuries, law enforcement officials said Monday.
An attorney for the man charged in the attack, Rene Boucher, also said Monday that the dispute had “absolutely nothing to do with either’s politics or political agendas” and was merely “a very regrettable dispute between two neighbors over a matter that most people would regard as trivial.”
But new information about the extent of Paul’s injuries could prompt prosecutors to charge Boucher with a felony, according to Trooper Jeremy Hodges, a spokesman for the Kentucky State Police.
Paul, a second-term senator and former GOP presidential candidate, was attacked by Boucher, 59, on Friday outside his home in Bowling Green, Ky., police said. Boucher was charged with fourth-degree assault and released on Saturday on $7,500 bond.
The misdemeanor charge against Boucher applies to cases in which no weapon is involved and the victim receives minor injuries, Hodges said.
Rene Boucher, 59, of Bowling Green, Ky., was arrested on Nov. 3, 2017 and cahrged with assault against Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.). (Warren County Detention Center/Via Reuters)
At the time of the assault, Paul had “trouble breathing due to a potential rib injury,” according to a criminal complaint filed in Warren County District Court. On Sunday, Paul’s office announced he was recovering from five rib fractures, including three displaced fractures, meaning the bones are partly or completely cracked. He has lung contusions, or bruises, caused by the broken ribs, and his recovery could last several months, his office said.
Given those injuries, Hodges said police and prosecutors will now consider upgrading the charges.
“It requires serious physical injury in order for someone to be charged with a felony,” Hodges said. “Our arresting officer will submit his completed case report and then the prosecutors will make a decision about whether to upgrade those charges.”
[Sen. Rand Paul’s injuries far more severe than initially thought]
The state police investigation remains open and active and the formal police report on the incident has not yet been filed with county officials, Hodges said.
County and state prosecutors didn’t immediately return requests for comment.
The FBI is assisting state and local authorities to see whether there were any violations of federal law, but an FBI spokesman declined to comment Monday on a possible motive.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) speaks during a press conference on Capitol Hill on Oct. 12, 2017. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Boucher’s attorney, Matthew J. Baker, said Monday that the two men have been neighbors for 17 years and are both “prominent members” of the Bowling Green medical community and had worked together in the past. Paul is an ophthalmologist and Boucher is a retired anesthesiologist.
What could cause Boucher to attack Paul and break five of his ribs remained unclear on Monday. Baker didn’t immediately clarify his statement, and a number listed for Boucher went unanswered on Monday.
“We sincerely hope that Senator Paul is doing well and that these two gentlemen can get back to being neighbors as quickly as possible,” Baker added.
Paul did not return to Washington on Monday as he normally would for U.S. Senate proceedings, according to his chief of staff, Doug Stafford.
“It is a pending, serious criminal matter involving state and federal authorities. We won’t have any further comments at this time,” Stafford said in an email.
After the incident on Friday, Paul told police that Boucher had come onto his property and tackled the senator from behind, “forcing him to the ground and causing him pain,” according to the criminal complaint.
Boucher admitted to “going onto Paul’s property and tackling him,” the report said.
In addition to his broken ribs, Paul suffered small cuts to the nose and mouth area.
Boucher was released on Saturday on $7,500 bond and ordered to not have any contact with Paul, his family or offices or to obtain any firearms or weapons of any kind, according to bond paperwork provided by the county.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Monday wished his Bluegrass State colleague a speedy recovery. McConnell told reporters in Kentucky that Paul’s absence creates another challenge in what he described as a daily “Maalox moment” prompted by the struggles to hold together his 52-member caucus, according to the Associated Press.
“It’s potentially a challenge” any time a Republican senator is absent from the Senate, McConnell added, because his caucus isn’t “always totally in lockstep,” the AP reported.
Even as local authorities tried to piece together charges and a potential motive, there was an effort among some in national conservative media circles to find a political motive for the attack.
The Daily Caller noted that Boucher had been a registered Democrat and shared a post from his Facebook page “citing left-wing academic Noam Chomsky’s criticism of the Republican party.”
The Blaze, Glenn Beck’s online news site, told readers on Sunday that FBI investigators believed “the attack, which occurred Friday afternoon, was politically motivated.” That claim, widely circulated on Monday, came from a report on Kentucky’s WNKY-TV, which did not quote or name a source. As Paul’s office kept mostly quiet about the case, speculation ran rampant.
“It appears that Boucher’s assault of the Republican senator is another instance of political violence prompted by the climate of hate that has been fostered by the Democratic Party,” wrote John Hinderaker on the conservative blog Powerline. “Where will it end?”
The conservative Media Research Center, citing the Facebook posts, told subscribers to its newsletter that “Rand Paul’s Injuries From His ‘Socialist’ Neighbor May Be Worse Than First Thought.”
David Weigel and Devlin Barrett contributed to this report.
Read more at PowerPost
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TOKYO — President Trump was reciting the sort of rote praise that leaders of allied nations heap on one another when he suddenly cut himself off during a joint news conference Monday with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
“The Japanese people are thriving, your cities are vibrant, and you’ve built one of the world’s most powerful economies,” Trump said, before looking up from his prepared remarks. Turning his head to face Abe next to him, Trump ad-libbed: “I don’t know if it’s as good as ours. I think not, okay?” He emphasized the “okay” by drawing it out leadingly as a parent might with a child.
“And we’re going to try to keep it that way,” Trump added, for good measure. “But you’ll be second.”
Abe, listening to an interpreter through an earpiece, smiled and remained silent. But his face betrayed a touch of uncertainty as the U.S. leader returned to his script. After the Japanese government had rolled out the red carpet for Trump and his family for two days, the patron was being patronized. It is becoming a familiar theme for Abe.
Their relationship can seem like an oddball mismatch of global leaders who are thrust together over their shared dislike of the nuclear-armed tyrant next door in North Korea, but who somehow hit it off amid golf course hijinks. Since Trump took office, Abe has been his most consistent suitor, courting him with luxurious gifts (a $3,800 gold-plated driver) and constant attention (numerous phone calls and a personal visit to the White House and Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida).
UPresident Trump toasts after delivering a speech at the opening of a welcome dinner hosted by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at Akasaka Palace in Tokyo, Nov. 6, 2017. REUTERS/Shizuo Kambayashi/Pool
But as Abe has lavished attention on Trump, their relationship has retained a subtext in which the U.S. president insists on asserting his dominance in a passive-aggressive manner. It started with Trump’s emasculating 19-second handshake with Abe in their Oval Office meeting in February, after which Abe appeared to grimace as though his fingers had been crushed.
[In Japan, Trump comes off as tough yet “friendly” on trade]
Trump has let up on the power grip since then but in more subtle ways he has continued to show who is the alpha — a price Abe appears willing to pay in his strategic servitude to keep Trump supporting the post-war security alliance that the president had openly questioned in his election campaign.
As Abe praised their relationship as the best of any two leaders in the history of U.S.-Japan relations — something George W. Bush and Junichiro Koizumi, who visited Graceland together in 2006, might dispute — Trump had obvious difficulty playing along. The two had played nine holes the day before, and Abe jokingly said the match had been “neck-and-neck.”
“What was the reality? I hope Mr. Trump can give his evaluation,” Abe said through an interpreter. Trump just smirked and cast him a skeptical sidelong glance.
Before their round of golf on Sunday, when Trump and Abe signed white hats emblazoned with the slogan, “Donald Shinzo, Make Alliance Even Greater” in gold lettering, Trump wrote his name in the center of the brim, in large lines, which meant that Abe had to curve his signature off to the side.
The prime minister was the first foreign leader to visit Trump after his election victory, showing up at Trump Tower after calling the president-elect and offering to stop by on his way to a regional economic conference in Peru. At that meeting — attended by Trump’s daughter, Ivanka, and her husband, Jared Kushner, now a senior White House adviser — Abe presented Trump with the golf club and suggested they play a round together.
President Trump talks with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe during a state banquet at Akasaka Palace in Tokyo, Monday, Nov. 6, 2017. (AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi, Pool)
He even went out of his way to inform the president-elect about the Japanese singer Pikotaro, whose goofy song “Pineapple Pen” was a global viral hit last year that caught the attention of Ivanka’s daughter, Arabella. Ivanka Trump visited Tokyo last week to speak at a conference on women in the workforce, prompting Abe to tell the president Monday that the Japanese have a “fever” for Ivanka — even though the conference hall was half-empty for her speech.
“Japan consistently supports the position of President Trump when he says that all options are on the table,” Abe said of the U.S. strategy on North Korea. “I once again strongly reaffirmed that Japan and the U.S. are 100 percent together.”
[Trump, in Tokyo, warns of the “menace” of North Korea]
The charm offensive has worked — to a degree. Although he made good on his campaign promise to pull the United States out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a 12-nation trade deal that included Japan, Trump has backed off some of his harshest rhetoric on trade, and this week he called Japan a “treasured partner” and a “crucial ally.” Abe was the first foreign leader Trump invited to Mar-a-Lago; the president personally drove him around on a golf cart, weaving around the course to show off the best views.
At the same time, Trump’s embrace has forced Abe into the role of a sidekick. Photos taken by Mar-a-Lago guests of Trump and Abe — in the middle of the restaurant, coordinating their response to a North Korean missile test moments after the news broke — made it seem as though the Japanese prime minister was being dragged into an uncomfortable new reality.
At the news conference Monday, a reporter asked Abe about his message to Trump regarding largely pacifist Japan’s role in its self-defense, amid reports that Trump was disappointed that the Japanese Self-Defense Forces did not shoot down a North Korean test missile. Before Abe could answer, Trump pulled rank and cut in.
“If I could just take a piece of the prime minister’s answer, he will shoot them out of the sky when he completes the purchase of lots of additional military equipment from the United States,” Trump declared.
[Despite “hire American” pitch, Trump secures foreign workers for Mar-a-Lago]
Abe has found himself in an undeniably better position than South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who has not bonded with Trump. There is great unease in Seoul as Trump prepares to arrive there on Tuesday. Yet some Japanese analysts have questioned whether Abe has tied himself too tightly to a mercurial president who tends to cycle through close aides, abruptly banishing those once thought to be in favor.
As one former Asia policy aide in the Obama administration put it last week, Abe could wake up one day and find himself “excommunicated by a tweet.”
On Monday evening, Trump and Abe, along with their wives, entered a gilded ballroom at the Akasaka Palace in the middle of Tokyo for a lavish state dinner. Abe had invited Pikotaro, the “Pineapple Pen” performer. Also in attendance was Japanese golf legend Isao Aoki, 75, whom Trump praised as one of the greatest golfers he has ever watched.
But as he turned his attention to Abe, Trump could not help but turn the toast into a roast.
He regaled the audience of high-level diplomats and senior advisers with a story about how Abe was so desperate to visit him at Trump Tower after the election that the Japanese leader would not take no for an answer — though Trump’s aides worried that such a visit would be “inappropriate,” given that Barack Obama was still president.
Finally, Trump said, he called Abe to tell him no, but the prime minister was already flying to see him.
“I said, ‘You know what? There’s no way he’s going to land and I’m not seeing him,’” Trump said. “So I saw him, and it worked out just fine.”
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