![Maryland NAACP leader blasts Gov. Larry Hogan's posthumous pardons of lynching victims as 'political posturing'](https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/210509173014-01-larry-hogan-lynching-pardons-super-tease.jpg)
Maryland NAACP leader blasts Gov. Larry Hogan's posthumous pardons of lynching victims as 'political posturing'
CNN
The head of Maryland's NAACP on Sunday lambasted Gov. Larry Hogan's posthumous pardon of lynching victims as "political posturing," criticizing the Republican governor for issuing a blanket pardon of dozens of the state's Black victims even though many were never convicted of any crimes, but merely charged or accused of wrongdoing before they were killed.
The scathing criticism comes after Hogan on Saturday issued the blanket pardons for Howard Cooper, a 15-year-old Black child who was hanged from a sycamore tree after he was convicted of raping and assaulting a White woman, and 33 other victims of racial lynching in Maryland between 1854 and 1933. According to a historical marker erected during Saturday's news conference, Cooper faced an all-White jury, which reached a guilty verdict in under a minute despite the fact the victim did not testify she was raped. Cooper was killed before his attorneys had an opportunity to appeal to the Supreme Court.![](/newspic/picid-6252001-20250215043617.jpg)
The Trump administration is forcing out senior leadership at the National Archives and Records Administration in a major shakeup, according to a source familiar. President Donald Trump has been highly critical of the archives since the agency asked the Department of Justice to investigate Trump’s mishandling of classified documents after he left office.
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The morning after the mass resignation of prosecutors sparked a crisis inside the Trump Justice Department, acting Deputy Attorney General Emil Bove led a meeting with the Justice Department’s public integrity section. His message: they had to choose one career lawyer to file a dismissal of the corruption charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, according to three people briefed on the meeting.
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Seventh prosecutor in Eric Adams case resigns and calls out Trump’s former lawyer in scathing letter
A federal prosecutor assigned to the corruption case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams resigned Friday in a blistering letter that accused top leaders at the Justice Department of looking for a “fool” to dismiss the criminal charges.