James Foley 'never cracked'

"We don't know why a jury of Rick Perry's peers decided to charge him with two felony counts," said Michael Czin, a spokesman for the Democratic National Committee.

But Democrat Lanny Davis, a special counsel to then-President Bill Clinton, disparaged the indictment against Mr. Perry. "A good lawyer can make a good argument even when he has bad facts," Mr. Davis said in an interview. "But I can't intellectually find an argument that passes the laugh test with this one."

Thursday, Mr. Perry cast the indictment as politically motivated. Listing Democratic and liberal figures who have criticized the charges, he said: "When David Axelrod, Lanny Davis, Alan Dershowitz, Jonathan Chait all say that this is sketchy, outrageous, totalitarian and McCarthyite, I agree with them—and that's just on the Democratic side."

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GOP Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, another potential 2016 presidential candidate, also came to Mr. Perry's defense. "I am proud to stand with Rick Perry," Mr. Cruz wrote on Facebook last week, saying that an indictment built on Mr. Perry exercising "his constitutional authority is, on its face, highly suspect."

Mr. Perry will test his public support as he visits three early presidential-nominating states—New Hampshire on Friday and Saturday; South Carolina next week; and Iowa in September. Next month he also heads to Asia for an economic tour that will give him a chance to rub shoulders with foreign leaders.

—Rebecca Ballhaus contributed to this article.

James Foley — brave until the end — was subjected to beatings and psychological torture with mock executions before he was butchered by his Islamic State captors, it was revealed Thursday.
“This group, which has a taste for the macabre, made him stand against a wall in a pose as if he had been crucified,” Didier Francois, a French reporter who had also been held by ISIS, told radio station Europe1.
A week before the Islamic fanatics released their barbaric video of Foley’s execution, they sent his family in New Hampshire a chilling email rife with misspellings and grammatical errors — but clear in its awful intent.
“Today our swords are unsheathed towards you, GOVERNMENT AND CITIZENS ALIKE!” the email states. It continues in all capitals: “And we will not stop untill we quench our thirst for your blood.”
The ugly Aug. 12 missive was released late Thursday by Foley’s employer, Boston-based GlobalPost.

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The news organization said the Foley family first heard from ISIS this past Nov. 26, when it demanded a ransom.It was evident from the email that the Obama administration refused to pay the $132 million ransom or exchange Foley for Aafia Siddiqui, an MIT-trained behavioral scientist from Pakistan who has been dubbed “Lady Al Qaeda.”

The ISIS email began with an apparent slam against President Obama that was written in caps: “How long will the sheep follow the blind sheppard?”
In closing, ISIS warned “you and your citizens will pay” for the air strikes that Obama recently ordered against the militant group.

“The first of which being the blood of the American citizen, James Foley!” the note read. “He will be executed as a DIRECT result of your transgressions towards us!”

Foley, 40, went missing in northern Syria in November 2012. There had been no public word of him until his execution was posted Tuesday on YouTube.

François and other French journalists who were prisoners with Foley said the American was targeted for extreme abuse after ISIS discovered his brother John was a U.S. airman who had served in Afghanistan.
But Foley “never cracked, even under the most difficult conditions,” François said. Foley was “one of the pillars of the group,” he said.

Asked if the cloaked terrorist looked familiar from the video, François, 53, said: “Recognized is a very big word. I see roughly who it is.”
Nicolas Henin, another former French hostage, told ABC News the doomed American managed to briefly escape at one point before he was found wandering in a Syrian desert.

“James was a bit punished for a presumed attempt to escape, but it had no real chance,” Henin said.
Henin added that watching the video was “extremely shocking” for him because he had literally stood in the murdered man’s shoes.
“The shoes that he was wearing when he was taken to this place in the desert, I wore them,” Henin said. “We had few shoes that we were using to go to the bathroom and we were sharing them.”
Henin said Foley showed what he was made of in his final moments — kneeling in the desert with all hope gone.
“That is someone, I mean, a real man,” Henin said. “Many people would’ve freaked out and (would have been) terrified because he knew very well what was going to happen to him. . . . But (he) was still standing up, looking forward and speaking with a clear voice.”