Israel tried to frustrate US lawsuit over Pegasus spyware, leak suggests

Officials seized documents from NSO Group to try to stop handover of information about notorious hacking tool, files suggest

The Israeli government took extraordinary measures to frustrate a high-stakes US lawsuit that threatened to reveal closely guarded secrets about one of the world’s most notorious hacking tools, leaked files suggest.

Israeli officials seized documents about Pegasus spyware from its manufacturer, NSO Group, in an effort to prevent the company from being able to comply with demands made by WhatsApp in a US court to hand over information about the invasive technology.

Documents suggest the seizures were part of an unusual legal manoeuvre created by Israel to block the disclosure of information about Pegasus, which the government believed would cause “serious diplomatic and security damage” to the country.

Pegasus allows NSO clients to infect smartphones with hidden software that can extract messages and photos, record calls and secretly activate microphones. NSO’s clients have included both authoritarian regimes and democratic countries and the technology has been linked to human rights abuses around the world.

Since late 2019, NSO has been battling a lawsuit in the US brought by WhatsApp, which has alleged the Israeli company used a vulnerability in the messaging service to target more than 1,400 of its users in 20 countries over a two-week period. NSO has denied the allegations.

The removal of files and computers from NSO’s offices in July 2020 – until now hidden from the public by a strict gag order issued by an Israeli court – casts new light on the close ties between Israel and NSO and the overlapping interests of the privately owned surveillance company and the country’s security establishment.

The July 2020 seizures were made after Israeli officials and the company appear to have discussed how to respond to WhatsApp’s requests for NSO to disclose internal files about its spyware, raising questions about whether they coordinated to conceal certain information from US legal proceedings.

At one stage, one of NSO’s lawyers, Rod Rosenstein, a former US deputy attorney general in the Trump administration, appears to have asked one of Israel’s US lawyers whether the Israeli government would “come to the rescue” in the legal battle with WhatsApp.

Israel’s hidden intervention in the case can be revealed after a consortium of media organisations led by the Paris-based non-profit Forbidden Stories, and including the Guardian and Israeli media partners, obtained a copy of a secret court order relating to the 2020 seizure of NSO’s internal files.

Details of the seizures and Israel’s contacts with NSO regarding the WhatsApp case are laid bare in a separate cache of emails and documents reviewed by the Guardian. They originate from a hack of data from Israel’s ministry of justice obtained by the transparency group Distributed Denial of Secrets and shared with Forbidden Stories.

Combining US court records, information from sources and a forensic analysis by Amnesty International’s security lab of some of the files, the consortium has been able to confirm key details revealed in the hacked files.

According to Amnesty’s researchers, the files “are consistent with a hack-and-leak of a series of email accounts” but it is “not possible to cryptographically verify the authenticity of the emails as critical email metadata was removed by the hackers”.

In April this year, Israeli authorities obtained another sweeping gag order to prevent the country’s media from publishing information from the hack. The large cache of emails and documents was posted online by a self-described “hacktivist collective”, Anonymous for Justice. The identity of those behind the group is unclear.

Details of Israel’s behind-the-scenes activities in the WhatsApp case have emerged as litigation continues to play out in federal court in northern California.

Earlier this month, WhatsApp accused NSO of resisting its obligations to share internal files as part of a legal process, known as discovery, that would allow WhatsApp to gather information to help build its case and shed unprecedented light on how Pegasus has been used by NSO’s government clients.

However, the Israeli government’s hidden intervention has hindered WhatsApp’s ability to compel NSO to hand over crucial information. Lawyers for WhatsApp recently told the US court that NSO has “only produced 17 internal documents of its own”.

A spokesperson for NSO said that “as a law-abiding company” it cannot comment on the Guardian’s questions about the 2020 seizures. A spokesperson for the justice ministry said it “rejects the claim that it has acted in any manner as to harm or obstruct the [US] legal proceedings”.

‘Strange procedures’

Within months of WhatsApp filing the lawsuit against the company in October 2019, senior Israeli officials are understood to have closely monitored the progress of the case and considered how to prevent WhatsApp gaining access to classified information held by NSO.

Both Israel and NSO anticipated expansive requests from WhatsApp for sensitive internal company files, such as lists of its customers.

As discovery loomed large in the first half of 2020, NSO weighed asking the Israeli government for a “blocking order” that would prohibit the company from producing certain information to WhatsApp. An NSO memo considering the proposal was shared with Israel’s justice ministry in April of that year.

NSO’s fears were confirmed in early June 2020 when WhatsApp served its first discovery requests on the company and demanded access to a wide range of detailed information about its activities, customers and the technological capabilities of Pegasus.

The leaked emails reviewed by the Guardian suggest that senior Israeli officials met NSO’s representatives “to discuss issues related to disclosure” a day after WhatsApp’s requests for production of documents were received by the company.

At around this time, NSO and its lawyers at the elite US firm King & Spalding appear to have been seeking Israel’s help in trying to defend itself from WhatsApp’s lawsuit.

After Rosenstein is said to have asked if the Israeli government was going to “rescue” the company, one of Israel’s US-based lawyers, John Bellinger, a former senior national security lawyer in the George W Bush administration and now a partner at Arnold & Porter, appears to have told Rosenstein that Israel was “acutely focused on the discovery dangers and is still considering its options”.

Three days later, in mid-July 2020, Israel made a significant but secret intervention. At an urgent meeting with NSO, Israeli officials presented the company with an order issued by a Tel Aviv court granting the government powers to execute a search warrant at its office, access its internal computer systems and seize files.

The court order prohibited NSO from disclosing or transferring any documents or technical materials to “any external person or entity” without the authorisation of Israeli authorities. The order itself was also made secret; a gag order has prevented the government’s actions being made public in Israel.

Scott Horton, a US lawyer and adjunct professor at Columbia Law School, said these were “strange procedures to be taking in relation to a private entity”, suggesting NSO was in fact an “integral part of the Israeli defence establishment and they are trying to shield [this] from public discovery”.

According to court records and Israeli justice ministry files, the order obtained by Israel had a specific loophole that allowed NSO’s lawyers to inform the US court in the WhatsApp case of the seizures and the restrictions that had been imposed on the company prohibiting disclosure.

NSO persuaded a US judge in the case to keep information about these developments under seal, ensuring they have remained out of public view. It is not clear whether NSO has disclosed to the court its contacts and meetings with Israeli officials prior to the seizures.

Leaked files suggest that at one stage NSO’s lawyers drafted a declaration to be filed in the US proceedings informing the court the Israeli seizure order was not “announced in advance to, nor expected by” the company. Ultimately, however, it appears this statement was not included in the declaration that was filed. A spokesperson for King & Spalding said it “does not appear” in the declaration.

Israel’s actions appear to have had a material impact on the case. NSO has argued that its ability to participate in discovery has been limited by various restrictions under Israeli law.

Earlier this month, WhatsApp’s lawyers told the court they had not yet received any documents relevant to Pegasus and accused NSO of a “continued refusal to meaningfully participate in discovery”.

Additional reporting by Phineas Rueckert and Karine Pfenniger of Forbidden Stories.

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Revealed: US officials are investing public funds in Israeli bonds in deals that raise ethics concerns

State and local officials have invested $1.7bn of the public’s money in Israel Bonds since 7 October. An investigation reveals contacts between buyer and seller that experts say may cross a line

In August 2023, an executive at Israel Bonds – an organization that sells Israeli bonds to fund that nation’s government and buttress its military – emailed the Ohio state treasurer’s office a sales pitch: could the state of Ohio buy a batch of Israeli bonds for $5m?

In less than 40 minutes, the treasurer’s office approved the purchase, bringing Ohio’s Israeli bond purchases to a total of $35m for that year.

The fast deal was made between parties that were on exceptionally friendly terms, according to a trove of emails and other records obtained by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ). And it was not the only matter being discussed with Israel Bonds. At the same time that the Ohio treasurer, Republican Robert Sprague, allocated millions in state funds to the bond purchases, he was also making arrangements with the bond seller’s business development team to join a exclusive guided trip to Israel, scheduled for later that year.

Six weeks after the Ohio treasurer’s $5m purchase, Hamas launched its deadly 7 October attack, which killed an estimated 1,200 people in Israel. Another 250 were taken hostage.

In the following days, there was an outpouring of public support from lawmakers at all levels of government in the United States for the country’s closest ally in the Middle East. While Israel launched its retaliatory bombardment of the Gaza Strip – and Joe Biden shepherded billions in funding and military aid through Congress – many state and local governments showed their support through a lesser-known financial mechanism: investing in sovereign bonds issued by Israel.

Since the start of the war, US states and municipalities have bought at least $1.7bn in Israeli bonds, with Democratic and Republican officials around the country boasting of their investments demonstrating support for an Israel at war.

Israel Bonds, which is headquartered in New York, has meanwhile found itself caught up in a global political maelstrom that followed the Hamas attack and the war in Gaza. Activists have singled out Israel Bonds in demanding that corporations and institutions divest from financial instruments seen as supporting Israel’s government.

The more than 2,000 pages of emails and other records obtained by the ICIJ, largely through records requests, offer an unprecedented glimpse inside Israel Bonds’ extensive efforts to court public officials in the US while delivering highly personalized sales pitches in a stream of pro-Israel messaging. The documents show how some officials who buy these bonds have gained access to an often-glitzy world that includes gala dinners, cocktail celebrations and private meetings with top Israeli leaders and senior military officials – and how these dealings with Israel Bonds sometimes blurred the lines between private life and official business.

In a statement to the ICIJ, a spokesperson for Israel Bonds said that the bonds are a safe investment and that the group places importance on building relationships with its customers, partly to keep continuity if key decision-makers change due to elections or other reasons. “Investors usually choose to invest for a simple reason: Israeli bonds offer strong credit as well as strong and steady returns,” Nathan Miller, a spokesperson for Israel Bonds, said. “The state of Israel has never missed an interest or principal payment in almost 75 years of issuing bonds.”

When an elected official tasked with investing taxpayers’ money buys government bonds, it’s usually a dry and straightforward process with little interaction between the seller and buyer. Government officials are generally discouraged from taking actions that could be construed as creating a conflict of interest – that could cause them, for instance, to favor certain assets for any reason other than selecting the best investments available. Ethics experts say some state officials may have crossed an ethical line in their dealings with Israel Bonds.

“This is an area of ethics where there are many potential conflicts of interest,” said Richard W Painter, a law professor at the University of Minnesota and former chief White House ethics lawyer in the George W Bush administration. “These types of practices, the mixing up of the personal and official, seem to go well beyond what’s seen as acceptable,” Painter said, referring to actions of public officials described in this article.

Miller said that “Israel Bonds’ marketing practices and events are legitimate, appropriate and common practice” in the industry.

The ICIJ interviewed a half-dozen experts on state treasuries who described a usual investment approach in which bonds were chosen based on expected performance alone and where extensive interaction with sellers was rare.

Bill Lockyer, a former treasurer of California, said his former office bought bonds only in arms-length transactions. Early in his tenure, he said, a major bank hosted a swanky event in Napa valley. Although he attended the daytime activities, he recalled declining to accept a hotel room or attend the bank’s dinner due to ethics concerns. “I got my own motel and ate at the local Mexican restaurant. I didn’t want to violate anything.”

In an era of war and rising concerns over antisemitism in the US and abroad, Israel Bonds sees itself at the vanguard of securing the future of the Jewish state. And given the historic scale of its operations, which have raised $52bn over more than seven decades, and the toll that the war has taken on the country’s economy, Israel Bonds’ performance could have real consequences for Israel’s future.

‘Now is the time to stand with Israel’

For decades after its launch in 1951, Israel Bonds, formally known as the Development Corporation for Israel, primarily focused on leveraging funds from the Jewish diaspora in the US to bolster the fledgling Middle Eastern state. Israeli bonds have long been pitched as gifts for celebrations such as birthdays and bar and batmitzvahs. But the group – and its marketing strategy – has evolved, becoming an important source of government financing as it courted banks and other institutional investors, more recently including US states and municipalities.

“In some ways, the Israel Bonds program is one of the – if not the – most successful sovereign debt issuance programs in the history of the world,” said Mitu Gulati, a law professor specializing in international debt finance at the University of Virginia School of Law.

In the early weeks of the war, though, the Financial Times reported that Israel quickly borrowed billions of dollars by issuing bonds through privately negotiated deals, despite growing concerns about the bonds’ risks. Over the past year, credit rating agencies have downgraded Israeli government bonds due to growing political instability, although the bonds are still considered well within “investment grade territory”, according to Bloomberg.

But many US state and local governments were undeterred by the turbulence. On 11 October, Sprague announced Ohio’s plan to invest an additional $20m in Israeli bonds. “Now is the time to stand with Israel,” he said in a statement.

Joseph Abruzzo, the Democratic chief financial officer of Palm Beach county, one of Florida’s wealthiest counties, announced an additional $160m investment in Israeli bonds in October alone.

On 12 March 2024, the Palm Beach county board of commissioners approved Abruzzo’s request to lift the cap on the investments from 10% to 15% of the county’s portfolio. Two weeks later, Abruzzo claimed, in a press conference, the county’s new title of “world’s largest investor in Israel Bonds”, which accounted for roughly $700m of its $4.67bn portfolio.

In May, three Palm Beach county residents – all US citizens with Palestinian heritage – sued Abruzzo for allegedly breaching his fiduciary duty to taxpayers and for investing for “social, ideological and political reasons”, which Florida banned under a 2023 law, according to court documents. One of the plaintiffs said in the complaint that the Israel Defense Forces had killed 37 of his family members since 7 October 2023.

“We expect the frivolous case brought against me in my capacity as clerk will be quickly dismissed with prejudice,” Abruzzo, who is also clerk of the circuit court, said.

In December 2023, both Sprague and Abruzzo joined Israel Bonds’ newly formed government, industry and financial services leadership group, alongside Illinois’ treasurer, a Democrat, and treasurers from Pennsylvania and Oklahoma – both Republicans. The purpose of the group was to help Israel Bonds strengthen ties with government and other institutional investors in the US, according to media reports. Sprague, the Ohio treasurer, was named chair.

High-level visits and access

The itinerary for Sprague’s planned October 2023 trip to Israel reads like a luxury vacation mixed with an official state visit. In a statement to the ICIJ, Sprague’s office said he had planned to pay for the Israel trip with personal funds, some of which he had already spent before the trip was canceled after Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack on Israel.

A spokesperson for Sprague said that there is nothing unusual or inappropriate about his relationship with Israel Bonds and that every Ohio treasurer since 1993 had invested in Israeli bonds, which have “consistently proven to be a strong and reliable investment for the state portfolio”. Since 2019, Sprague has bought $357.5m worth of Israeli bonds on behalf of Ohio.

The trip to Israel was to begin with Sprague checking into a five-star Jerusalem hotel before being shuttled to a gala dinner at a subterranean venue with vaulted stone ceilings. The itinerary for the days afterward included a trip to the City of David, the controversial archaeological site, for “an exclusive tour of places not yet open to the public, including groundbreaking archeological artifacts”.

The itinerary also included meetings with Israeli politicians, a wine tasting at an Israeli vineyard, exclusive tours of two Israeli military bases and a private, after-hours tour of Tel Aviv’s Museum of the Jewish People to see the earliest copy of the Hebrew Bible. On the final day of the trip, the itinerary listed a visit to Israel’s presidential residence for a meeting with the Israeli president, Isaac Herzog.

In a statement, Miller, the spokesperson for Israel Bonds, said that only one public official – presumably Sprague – had registered for the ultimately canceled 2023 trip, and that the official planned to pay for the trip himself at the same rate as other attendees. No US public officials have attended an Israel Bonds trip since 2019, Miller said. He added that Israel Bonds “has frequently facilitated missions to Israel for our leadership and investors” and called the trips “substantive educational opportunities for our investors to learn more about the financial health and economy of the country that they have invested in”.

Sprague listed a personal email address on the registration form for the bond seller’s trip to Israel, but his Ohio treasurer’s office email account was used for at least some communications around the planned trip.

This wasn’t the first time Israel Bonds had helped plan Sprague’s travel. In March 2023, Israel Bonds hosted a conference in Washington DC to commemorate 75th anniversary of Israel’s founding. In an email message to Sprague’s office, a sales executive for Israel Bonds said he had reserved a hotel room for Sprague at the four-star Grand Hyatt.

The Washington event featured a cocktail reception, dinner and a Q&A with Sprague and the Illinois treasurer, Michael Frerichs, for which Israel Bonds provided Sprague questions in advance. Israel Bonds also offered Sprague and Frerichs a private meeting with Israel’s finance minister at the event, according to Israel Bonds emails to Sprague. Frerichs did not respond to the ICIJ’s questions about the potential meeting, and a spokesperson for Sprague said that it did not take place.

Three months later, Sprague’s office – the Ohio treasurer’s office – reimbursed Israel Bonds $727 for his hotel and meal expenses at the event.

Late last year, Sprague traveled to Florida, where he attended an Israel Bonds gala dinner in Palm Beach to present an award honoring that state’s chief financial officer, Jimmy Patronis, for his support of Israel Bonds, including the state’s major bond purchases.

A spokesperson for Sprague said the trip “included work not for state business and that no public funds were used in paying for the trip”. Instead, Sprague used campaign funds to pay for “travel expenses and meals related to the trip”, the spokesperson said.

Sprague was already serving his second term as treasurer, and was ineligible to run for a third given term limits on his position. His office did not answer questions about what campaign activity took place in Florida, but noted that the term limit did not preclude him from running for a different office. Sprague’s campaign told the ICIJ that he attended political meetings in Florida without providing further details.

Ohio’s ethics law forbids public officials from taking substantial gifts from an “improper source”, including from any person or organization “seeking to do business with the agency”. Things of substantial value, according to the website, include lavish meals, entertainment activities and travel to exotic locations. Sprague’s 2023 financial disclosure form lists nothing related to Israel Bonds.

The office of the Illinois treasurer, Michael Frerichs, did not respond to the ICIJ’s repeated requests for comment, which included questions about who paid for his hotel and dining costs at the March 2023 Israel Bonds conference in Washington. (Illinois ethics laws forbid a public official from accepting gifts of more than $100 total in a calendar year from anyone who does business with the state.)

Archon Fung, a professor focusing on democratic governance at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, said that transparency is key for officials, who naturally face a variety of potential ethical pitfalls. “Conflicts of interest are ubiquitous in public life,” Fung said. “For somebody in a public role, they have to explain how they are managing these issues. If there is a conflict suspected, then the public is owed an account.”

Israel Bonds said it paid the expenses for speakers at the Washington event, and that “expenses were modest and we did not ask our speakers for reimbursement”.

“Just like any other business, it is common practice for broker dealers to host seminars, meetings and conferences, during which clients and potential clients attend to discuss issues of interest to them,” Miller, the Israel Bonds spokesperson, said in a statement. “We invite a variety of speakers to present, including elected officials, and often pay for housing and transportation for those speakers who are coming in from far away.”

Florida’s growing commitment

Few states, if any, have formed the kind of partnership with Israel Bonds that Florida has. The Sunshine state has a treasury holding more than a quarter billion dollars worth of the bonds. As the state’s chief financial officer, Patronis, who has led a major drive to invest Florida’s money in Israeli bonds, has been recognized by Israel Bonds several times in recent years.

“CFO Patronis is committed to providing the best return on investment for taxpayers’ dollars,” Devin Galetta, a spokesperson for Patronis, told the ICIJ in an email, adding that four Florida state treasurers have purchased Israeli bonds. “Since 2001, Florida has earned approximately $29m in interest from state of Israel bonds.”

In 2018, after Patronis began dramatically increasing the state’s holdings of Israeli bonds, the bond seller honored him at a celebration during which he was presented a plaque by Israel Defense Force Maj Gen Mickey Edelstein, then the nation’s military attache to the United States.

The following year, in 2019, Patronis went on a trip to Israel that was reported by the Tampa Bay Times to be partly sponsored by Israel Bonds, which said it hosted a meal for the delegation. Patronis and a delegation of Florida politicians and business people were joined on the trip by two Israel Bonds executives, according to an official itinerary of the trip.

In 2020, Israel Bonds held a celebration in which Patronis was honored for promoting state legislation that enshrined a commitment to continue buying Israeli bonds. In 2022, Israel Bonds hosted Patronis as a special guest at its annual Prime Minister’s Circle Gala in Boca Raton. And last year, the bond seller made Patronis the main attraction at the same gala event, presenting him with a top honor called the Israel Bonds Leadership award. This was the same December event that Sprague attended.

In response to the ICIJ’s questions about who paid for Patronis’s costs around Israel Bonds events, Galetta responded only that “all appropriate statutory requirements have been met”.

Warnings of risk

Last year, Democracy for the Arab World Now, or Dawn, a non-profit organization that has accused Israel of human rights violations, submitted a complaint to the US Department of Justice alleging that Israel Bonds appeared to be violating a federal law designed to keep tabs on foreign influence operations in the US. The complaint urged the justice department to investigate whether Israel Bonds broke the law by not registering as a foreign agent.

Miller called Dawn’s letter “false and defamatory” and said Israel Bonds “is not a foreign agent, and never has been”.

Since 7 October Israel Bonds has raised a staggering $3bn worldwide. At the same time, the group has attracted new attention from activists seeking divestments from Israel. In May, the advocacy group Jewish Voice for Peace protested outside Israel Bonds’ Philadelphia offices, shutting down city streets and demanding government offices withdraw investments in Israel.

As previously reported by the Guardian, many of the US states that answered the call to buy Israeli bonds are the same ones that have railed loudly against investment strategies based on social and environmental issues, such as the climate crisis. The Guardian found that the majority of state financial officials who invested millions in Israeli bonds in the first month of the war belonged to a conservative group that is now lobbying to keep “the left” out of state treasuries.

In mid-2021, Thomas Clancy, the then chief investment officer of Pennsylvania’s treasurer, Stacy Garrity, cautioned that Israeli bonds could be a risky investment for the state, according to emails obtained by the ICIJ. Clancy emphasized Israel’s political instability and the country being “frequently involved in military violence”. He also noted that the bonds are not traded on the open market – meaning, regardless of headwinds the nation may face, buyers are stuck with the bonds until they pay out. He proposed “investing in more liquid securities, with fewer risks to the investment capital”.

His advice was not followed. Erik Arneson, a spokesperson for Pennsylvania’s treasury department, pointed out in an email to the ICIJ that the chief investment officer “is one member of the Pennsylvania treasury department’s investment committee” and that “in this case, the other members of the investment committee did not agree with the former CIO’s view on Israel Bonds”. Arneson also emphasized that Israel Bonds has never defaulted on its payments.

On 10 October 2023, Pennsylvania’s new chief investment officer conveyed an opportunity from Israel Bonds for the state to make an additional investment “given everything taking place”. It took Garrity just an hour to confirm that she would “love” to temporarily increase the state’s investment in Israel bonds by $10m. By 12 October, she publicly pledged to double that amount to $20m worth of bonds.

This story was co-published with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists

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IOC faces calls for investigation into inclusion of child rapist at Olympics

Steven van de Velde set to compete in beach volleyball
Rape Crisis England & Wales says inclusion is ‘shocking’

The IOC is facing calls for an investigation into how a convicted child rapist has been allowed to compete at Paris 2024, on the eve of the opening of the Games.

Amid growing public outrage at the presence of the Netherlands beach volleyball player Steven van de Velde, who was convicted of raping a British 12-year-old girl in 2016, groups have warned that sporting bodies are sending a dangerous message to rapists and causing “collateral damage” to victims of sexual abuse.

Ciara Bergman, the CEO of Rape Crisis England & Wales said the “irresponsible” inclusion of Van de Velde at the Olympics created an “enormous sense of impunity”, adding: “If you can rape a child and still compete in the Olympics, despite all athletes signing a declaration promising to be a role model, that is just shocking,” she said.

The inclusion of Van de Velde in the Dutch team would have a “serious impact”, she added: “There is always an impact on the individual victim survivor, but every act of violence against women and girls is a crime against society. It has a collateral and collective impact on all other women and girls.”

Bergman called on the International Olympic Committee to carry out an investigation into how Van de Velde had been allowed to compete. “How did we get here? How did we get to a place where raping a child is seen as less important than the medal someone might win at the Olympics? It’s just extraordinary,” she said. “I think there has to be some kind of investigation into this and how it was allowed to happen. It has to be a moment for real thinking and real change.”

The backlash has cast a shadow over one of the Olympics’ marquee events, which starts on Saturday in an outdoor stadium at the foot of the Eiffel Tower. On Wednesday Paula Radcliffe apologised after being asked on the Tonight With Andrew Marr show about outright bans at the Olympics. She originally said it was a “tough thing to do to punish [Van de Velde] twice” adding that she wished “him the best of luck”.

Andrea Simon, executive director of the End Violence Against Women Coalition said Van de Velde’s inclusion in the Games sent a “worrying message” to men who commit rape “that there will unlikely be any consequences, and therefore no deterrent”.

She supported calls for an investigation into Van de Velde’s inclusion at the Olympics and called for mandatory consent training for sporting figures and education around healthy sexual relationships for young players in sporting academies.

Van de Velde, who is now 29, was sentenced to four years in prison in 2016 after pleading guilty to raping the British girl. He had flown to England to meet her in 2014 with full knowledge of her age, having met her on Facebook.

When he was sentenced Judge Sheridan told him: “Prior to coming to this country you were training as a potential Olympian. Your hopes of representing your country now lie as a shattered dream.” The court heard that his victim had self-harmed and taken an overdose.

Van de Velde served 12 months in a British prison, before being transferred to his home country where he was released after a further month. He has since gone on to play internationally for the Netherlands.

After coming out of jail, he gave an interview to Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad, and said: “I do want to correct all the nonsense that has been written about me when I was locked up. I did not read any of it, on purpose, but I understand that it was quite bad, that I have been branded as a sex monster, as a paedophile. That I am not – really not.”

Anti-violence against women and girls campaigner David Challen, whose mother, Sally Challen, spent decades as a victim of her husband’s coercive and controlling behaviour, said allowing Van de Velde to compete “tells young women and girls that the harm men inflict on them will be easily forgotten about in men’s paths to their dreams and glory”.

The IOC has said the selection of athletes for the Games was the responsibility of individual committees. The Netherlands’ Olympic Committee, which selected Van de Velde, said he had served his sentence, completed an extensive rehabilitation programme and experts had concluded there was no risk of him reoffending. The volleyball player had shown that he had “grown and positively changed his life”, it said.

The British Olympic Association would not have permitted Van de Velde’s inclusion in Team GB owing to its safeguarding rules and the Australian Olympic team confirmed that it had the same position.

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French athlete may swap hijab for a cap to avoid Olympic opening ceremony ban

Sounkamba Sylla reportedly reaches compromise after France’s strict laws on secularism threatened to bar her

A French sprinter is expected to swap her headscarf for a cap in order to participate in the opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympics, in a compromise reportedly struck after the country’s strict laws on secularism threatened to bar her from the event.

Earlier this week Sounkamba Sylla, a Muslim member of France’s 400m women’s and mixed relay teams, said she would not be able to take part in Friday’s ceremony because she wears a hijab.

“You are selected for the Olympics, organised in your country, but you can’t participate in the opening ceremony because you wear a headscarf,” the 26-year-old wrote on social media.

Her predicament has once more highlighted tensions that have surrounded the issue since France’s minister for sport said last September that athletes representing France would be barred from displaying religious symbols, including headscarves, during sporting events.

Rights groups responded by calling on the French government to reverse its decision, describing it as discriminatory and one that had left many Muslim athletes “invisible, excluded and humiliated”. The French stance was also criticised by the UN, which said “no one should impose on a woman what she needs to wear, or not wear”.

The rules do not affect foreign athletes in France for the Games. But this week, as thousands of athletes, including some who wear headscarves, began arriving in the country, the government appeared keen to downplay the longstanding tensions between the laïcité laws on the wearing of religious symbols and the perception that these laws discriminate against Muslims.

David Lappartient, the president of the French Olympic Committee, said French Olympians were bound by secular principles. “It’s perhaps sometimes not understandable in other countries in the world, but it’s part of our DNA here in France,” he added.

The French minister for sport and the Olympic and Paralympic Games, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, said the authorities were working to find a solution. “Our citizens expect us to follow these principles of secularism, but we also need to be inventive about solutions to make everyone feel good,” she said on Wednesday.

Late on Wednesday Sylla said an agreement had been reached to allow her to participate in the opening ceremony.

While she did not offer further details, the French Olympic Committee told Agence France-Presse that the sprinter had accepted the idea of wearing a cap as the parade winds along the Seine River.

However, this appeared unlikely to quell the disquiet over the French rules. In a video posted on social media this week the Australian boxer Tina Rahimi said she was “grateful” to be able to compete while wearing a hijab.

“But it’s so unfortunate for the athletes in France because it has nothing to do with your performance. And it should not get in the way of you being an athlete,” she said. “It’s so hard for you to be an Olympic athlete and to think that you have to give away your faith to participate in these events.”

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But in testimony before the House judiciary committee yesterday, FBI director Christopher Wray said it was not clear if that was indeed the case, or if Trump was struck by shrapnel:

Trump has been criticized for not being forthcoming about his health following the assassination attempt, which left one rally-goer dead and others wounded.

He released a memo about his recovery from the shooting from the former White House doctor and current Republican congressman Ronny Jackson, but has not allowed the medical professionals who treated him to talk publicly about his condition.

FBI director questions whether Trump was hit by bullet or shrapnel in shooting

Cause of Trump’s injury during assassination attempt is unclear, Christopher Wray tells Congress

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Christopher Wray, the FBI director, has raised questions about whether Donald Trump was actually shot by a bullet during the assassination attempt against the former president earlier this month or whether he was instead struck by shrapnel.

During a hearing on Wednesday in Washington, before the House judiciary committee, Wray told lawmakers that it was not clear what precisely caused the injury to Trump’s ear during the shooting at his campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, earlier this month.

The burst of gunfire from a shooter on a roof with a sightline to the stage and crowd killed one rally-goer and left others wounded.

“There’s some question about whether or not it’s a bullet or shrapnel that hit his ear,” Wray testified. “As I sit here right now, I don’t know whether that bullet, in addition to causing the grazing, could have also landed somewhere else.”

Shortly after the shooting, Trump said in a statement on Truth Social that he was shot with a bullet that pierced the upper part of his right ear.

“I knew immediately that something was wrong in that I heard a whizzing sound, shots, and immediately felt the bullet ripping through the skin,” the former president wrote. “Much bleeding took place, so I realized then what was happening.”

After the shooting, Trump released a memo about his recovery from Ronny Jackson, the former White House doctor and current Republican congressman, but the former president has not allowed the medical professionals who treated him to talk publicly about his condition.

Wray also testified to lawmakers on Wednesday that the shooter who had attempted to assassinate Trump, and was then shot dead himself by government snipers, had searched online for information about the 1963 assassination of former president John F Kennedy.

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Obama to endorse Kamala Harris for president, report says

Former president and current vice-president are discussing appearing together on the campaign trail, sources say

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Barack Obama is on the verge of publicly endorsing Kamala Harris as the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, after the pair spoke several times on the phone in recent days, according to NBC News.

The former president has privately expressed his support for Harris’s candidacy and plans to endorse her soon, with talks underway about the pair appearing together on the campaign trail, the TV network reported, citing several unnamed people familiar with the discussions.

“He has been in regular contact with her and thinks she’s been off to a great start,” one of the sources told NBC.

Obama’s support – and star quality – would further boost the Harris campaign, as the vice-president heads to Houston on Thursday to give the keynote speech at the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) national convention.

Delegates for the AFT, the second largest teachers union with 1.7 million members, voted Monday to endorse Harris’s bid to become the first woman and second African American to serve as president of the United States. Harris has received a flurry of endorsements from many of the country’s largest labor unions since she announced her candidacy for president.

With less than 100 days to the presidential election, high-profile endorsements could prove pivotal in helping maintain the momentum that Harris campaign has enjoyed among Democrats since she entered the race less than a week ago.

On Thursday, the Harris team launched its first campaign video, which touches on gun violence, health care and abortion and is soundtracked by Beyoncé’s song Freedom. Celebrity endorsements from George Clooney, Barbra Streisand, Spike Lee, Robert De Niro and Melinda French Gates among others have helped the Harris campaign raise record levels of funding within its first week.

Obama is the one of a handful of high-profile Democrats yet to publicly endorse Harris, who became the party’s presumptive nominee after Joe Biden stepped down on Saturday amid mounting questions about his health and flailing popularity. Bill Clinton, the former president, and his wife, 2016 defeated presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, were among the first influential Democrats to back Harris, urging voters to rally around her candidacy to defeat Donald Trump.

Obama’s support – and advice on how to win the White House – could be crucial for Harris. Michelle Obama, the former first lady, also supports Harris’s candidacy, two people familiar with the matter told NBC.

Meanwhile on Wednesday in Charlotte, North Carolina, Trump used his first campaign rally since Biden dropped out of the race to attack Harris, labeling her “the most incompetent and far-left vice-president in American history”. He repeatedly mispronounced her first name, and described her progressive views on abortion access and immigration as “crazy”.

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Trump monetizes assassination attempt by using photo as book cover

Former president further pushes self-mythology with new book and sneakers featuring shooting images

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Donald Trump has moved further to turn his survival of an assassination attempt into mythology by putting the memorable images of the incident on the cover of his latest book, due out next month.

The dramatic news picture, taken by the Associated Press photographer Evan Vucci, captured a defiant and bloodied Trump pumping his fist and mouthing “fight, fight, fight” to the crowd moments after the failed attempt on his life by a 20-year-old gunman at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on 13 July.

Now the photo will be used on the front of the Republican presidential nominee’s new tome, Save America, a book mainly of pictures, which goes on sale on 3 September, Axios reported.

The book, Trump’s third since leaving the White House in January 2021, is already being offered online for $99. Copies bearing the former president’s signature are being offered for $499.

It is not Trump’s first move to recycle the shocking event – which resulted in the death of one spectator trying to shield his family, and injured two others – as merchandise.

During last week’s Republican national convention, 45Footwear a company that previously sold golden Trump-branded sneakers, offered a pair of white sneakers carrying the same image for $299.

The monetisation of the failed assassination attempt which has led to hearings on Capitol Hill and triggered the resignation this week of the Secret Service director, Kimberly Cheatle – continues a theme of Trump converting apparent political and legal reverses into profit making enterprises.

He also recycled his notorious mugshot taken after surrendering himself to authorities at Fulton County jail in Georgia last August, after being indicted on election-related charges, onto mugs and T-shirts used as merchandise for his 2024 campaign.

Meanwhile, in his first rally since the withdrawal of Joe Biden from the presidential race, Trump on Wednesday night unleashed a fusillade of attacks against Kamala Harris, the president’s presumptive replacement as the Democratic nominee in the 2024 election.

Focusing on Harris’s White House-tasked role of dealing with migration into the US from the south, he told supporters in Charlotte, North Carolina: “Kamala’s deadly destruction of America’s borders is completely and totally disqualifying. She shouldn’t be allowed to run for president with what she’s done.” He mispronounced Harris’s first name repeatedly, apparently deliberately.

Interviewed on Fox News on Thursday morning, the former president also called for a swift end to Israel’s war on Gaza as he prepared to meet with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, who on Wednesday controversially addressed a joint session of the US Congress.

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Jennifer Aniston criticises JD Vance’s ‘childless cat ladies’ comment

The actor criticised Trump’s running mate’s views on Kamala Harris and other Democratic politicians in the US – adding that she hoped his daughter never needed IVF

Jennifer Aniston has taken issue with JD Vance’s description of some of the most powerful people in US politics as “childless cat ladies”.

Writing on Instagram, the actor said: “I truly cannot believe this is coming from a potential VP. All I can say is … Mr Vance, I pray that your daughter is fortunate enough to bear children of her own one day”.

Aniston was responding to recently resurfaced 2021 comments by Vance, who told Fox News host Tucker Carlson that the US was being run by “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.”

He continued: “Look at Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, AOC [Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez], the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children. How does it make any sense we’ve turned our country over to people who don’t really have a direct stake in it?”

Aniston has been increasingly vocal about her own struggles with fertility, including failed attempts at aided conception.

Aniston added to her post that she hoped Vance’s own daughter “will not need to turn to IVF as a second option. Because you are trying to take that away from her, too.”

Vance, who has three children has been vocal about his opposition to abortion and even fertility treatment.

Speaking last week at a campaign speech in Michigan, Harris drew attention to the stances adopted on women’s rights by Trump’s new running-mate.

“Understand, this is a fellow who – in the United States Senate – participated in blocking protections for IVF,” she said. “This is an individual who has made every indication that he is for a national abortion ban.”

In 2016, Aniston wrote an essay for the then Huffington Post about enduring many years of tabloid gossip and speculation over whether she wanted or could have children.

“Here’s where I come out on this topic: We are complete with or without a mate, with or without a child,” she wrote. “We get to decide for ourselves what is beautiful when it comes to our bodies. That decision is ours and ours alone.

“Let’s make that decision for ourselves and for the young women in this world who look to us as examples. Let’s make that decision consciously, outside of the tabloid noise. We don’t need to be married or mothers to be complete. We get to determine our own ‘happily ever after’ for ourselves.”

In 2022, she told Allure such fixation had been made more difficult to handle as she had undergone IVF, without success.

“All the years and years and years of speculation … It was really hard,” she said. “I was going through IVF, drinking Chinese teas, you name it. I was throwing everything at it.”

She added: “I would’ve given anything if someone had said to me, ‘Freeze your eggs. Do yourself a favour.’ You just don’t think it. So here I am today. The ship has sailed.”

Kamala Harris is stepmother to husband Doug Emhoff’s son Cole, 29, and daughter Ella, 25.

On Wednesday, their mother, Kerstin Emhoff, joined those expressing outrage over Vance’s comments.

“These are baseless attacks,” she said. “For over 10 years, since Cole and Ella were teenagers, Kamala has been a co-parent with Doug and I. She is loving, nurturing, fiercely protective and always present. I love our blended family and am grateful to have her in it.”

Meanwhile, Buttigieg also has children with his husband, Chasten. Responding to Vance’s comments, he said that they had been made after “a fairly heartbreaking setback in our adoption journey. He couldn’t have known that, but maybe that’s why you shouldn’t be talking about other people’s children.”

Major US celebrities have already exerted considerable leverage in this year’s election, with George Clooney’s op-ed in the New York Times calling on Joe Biden to step down considered a notable gamechanger.

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