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CONTENT © 2020The Washington Post / Year 143, No. 254

business news ............................................. A15comics.............................................................C5opinion pages...............................................A17lotteries.........................................................B3obituaries.......................................................B4television.......................................................C4world news..................................................A10

Reclaiming lost lives The design of a moving memorial to enslaved workers at the University of Virginia makes visitors’ private conversations public in a way that echoes the larger challenge, writes critic Philip Kennicott. Arts & Style

On a break The Washington Post Magazine is taking the week off. It will return.

Old isolation lessons Ten years ago, typhoid forced him to isolate at a rustic hotel in the Himalayas. Through the prism of the pandemic, he believes it helped him rethink the modern aversion to boredom. Travel, E13

In Sunday’s post

$48Evelyn Hockstein For The Washington Post

InsideREAL ESTATE

Choosing a smart lockWith the potential for complicated installation and setup, it pays to get a grip on your doors’ options.

THE DISTRICT

Here comes the cubThe National Zoo activated its 24-hour panda cam, as Mei Xiang is expected to give birth soon. B1

THE NATION

Nautical border barriersThe U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is soliciting private firms for a system of buoys to deter migrants. A3

STYLE

A plucky rivalry In the Great Chicken Sandwich Wars, Wendy’s fires a salvo at Popeyes, with more to come. C1

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BY ERIN COX,ELISE VIEBECK,

JACOB BOGAGE ANDCHRISTOPHER INGRAHAM

Anticipating an avalanche of absentee ballots, the U.S. Postal Service recently sent detailed let-ters to 46 states and D.C. warning that it cannot guarantee all ballots cast by mail for the November election will arrive in time to be counted — adding another layer of uncertainty ahead of the high-stakes presidential contest.

The letters sketch a grim possi-bility for the tens of millions of Americans eligible for a mail-in ballot this fall: Even if people fol-low all of their state’s election rules, the pace of Postal Service delivery may disqualify their votes.

The Postal Service’s warnings of

potential disenfranchisement came as the agency undergoes a sweeping organizational and pol-icy overhaul amid dire financial conditions. Cost-cutting moves have already delayed mail delivery by as much as a week in some places, and a new decision to de-commission 10 percent of the Postal Service’s sorting machines sparked widespread concern the slowdowns will only worsen. Rank-and-file postal workers say the move is ill-timed and could sharply diminish the speedy pro-cessing of flat mail, including let-ters and ballots.

see usps on A8

USPS says delays could mar electionharried AGENCY WARNS 46 STATES and D.C.

Disqualified votes a risk amid flood of mail ballots

BY MATT ZAPOTOSKY AND DEVLIN BARRETT

A former FBI lawyer has agreed to plead guilty to altering an email that helped justify surveillance of a former Trump campaign adviser as part of the 2016 investigation into Russian interference in the election, according to his lawyer and a person familiar with the matter.

Kevin Clinesmith, who worked in the FBI general counsel’s office,

is expected to admit he doctored an email so it said that former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page was not a source for the CIA, even though Page previously had a relationship with the agency. Rely-ing on what Clinesmith had said, the FBI ultimately did not disclose Page’s relationship with the CIA as it applied to renew a warrant to monitor him as a possible agent of a foreign power.

The case is the first against someone involved in the Russia probe brought by U.S. Attorney John Durham, who was tapped by Attorney General William P. Barr to broadly look into how the FBI handled that matter.

Clinesmith is hardly a house-hold name, and the allegations

see SURVEILLANCE on A5

Ex-FBI lawyer to plead guilty in case tied to Russia probe

Accused of altering email used to justify surveilling

former Trump adviser

BY NICK MIROFF

The Department of Homeland Security has withdrawn its offi-cers from the front lines of the protests in Portland, Ore., but the backlash that President Trump’s intervention in the city triggered — and the lead role DHS has played in his presidency — could prove far more lasting.

Created after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks as a bulwark against further atrocities inside

the American homeland, DHS had become a symbol of the government’s response to the na-tional trauma, carefully project-ing a staid, strait-laced image. It grew exponentially larger and more powerful on the strength of broad bipartisan support.

Nearly two decades later, Trump has changed that.

see DHS on A5

DHS’s Trump-centric mission has critics calling for breakup

BY STEVE HENDRIX

JERUSALEM — In November 2015, Dore Gold was doing some-thing no Israeli diplomat had ever done: opening an official government mission in the Unit-ed Arab Emirates. It was a small office at an obscure United Na-tions outpost — a renewable-energy agency hosted by an oil power — but its debut marked a

milestone in the secret-not-secret ties between Israel and one of its Arab foes.

And it didn’t go very well. One of Gold’s colleagues tweeted en-thusiastically about the visit, which coincided with an energy conference. An Israeli newspaper ran a story hinting that the mis-sion was about more than solar panels.

see Israel on A11

Before Israel-UAE accord, a long and quiet courtship

BY JOSE A. DEL REAL,KAYLA RUBLE

AND VICKIE ELMER

Several times a week for more than two months, Kenya Fen-tress and other Black activists have gathered in southwest De-troit to march against police brutality and structural racism. For Fentress, the grass-roots fight for racial justice, ­taking place city-by-city across America, feels personal and urgent and immediate.

The news this week that Ka-mala D. Harris had been selected as Joe Biden’s running mate on the Democratic presidential tick-et, though, registered as little more than a blip.

Fentress simply does not feel the same excitement or energy about the presidential election as she does about the protests, which were sparked this summer after George Floyd died in Min-neapolis while in police custody.

see voters on A4

Some Black activists look at Harris selection with skepticism

election 2020

Apu Gomes/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/Getty Images

A brushfire threatens homes Friday in the San Gabriel foothills above Azusa, Calif., 25 miles east of Los Angeles. Evacuation orders issued to Azusa residents were lifted early Friday as the Ranch Fire, which started Thursday, moved away from residential areas, KABC reported. The fire was reported to be at 2,500 acres on Friday, down from 3,000, but still at “0% containment.”

Brushfires burn near Los Angeles amid triple-digit heat

BY INGRID ARNESENAND ANTHONY FAIOLA

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Jovenel Moïse is president of Haiti, but ask the people of the terrified shanty-towns who’s in charge in this im-poverished Caribbean capital, and they’ll point to a man called Barbe-cue.

A former police officer who por-trays himself as the savior of the streets, Jimmy “Barbecue” Cheriz-ier has come to symbolize the accel-erating erosion of Haiti’s already challenged rule of law during the coronavirus pandemic. Accused of orchestrating massacres that left dozens of men, women and chil-dren dead, he has succeeded in accomplishing the once unthink-

able: uniting the warring gangs of Port-au-Prince into a powerful new confederation aimed at what he calls “revolution.”

Cherizier announced the alli-ance on YouTube in June in a pow-der-blue three-piece suit. His newly formed “G9 Family and Allies” pa-raded triumphantly through the streets of the capital last month, led by gang leaders and dozens of armed men — both a flagrant viola-tion of coronavirus rules and a warning to all.

On a recent afternoon, Cherizier led a reporter through the run-down neighborhood of La Saline, stomping over festering piles of garbage, barging into one corrugat-ed shack after another, bellowing,

see Haiti on A9

Haiti’s virus instability gives rise to gang rule

Former police officer and self-avowed savior of the streets Jimmy “Barbecue” Cherizier formed his“G9 Family and Allies” gang federation in June.

photos by Pierre Michel Jean For The Washington Post

Léogâne portal, at one end of the Grand’Rue, is the main crossing leading to one of the two main highways out of Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

Inroads: Democrats turn attacks on USPS into political message. A7

Mailboxes: Relocations strike fear, but agency says they’re routine. A7

DHS leaders: Top two not legally eligible for roles, GAO finds. A16