https://nypost.com/2017/06/29/trump-calls-out-mikas-bleeding-facelift-in-low-blow-tweetstorm/
Trump calls out Mikaâs âbleeding faceliftâ in low-blow tweetstorm
Mika has a history of picking fights with Donald Trump
Sep 24 2020 13:59:19 (EST)
Sep 24 2020 13:40:24 (EST)
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/24/us/politics/durham-clinton-foundation-investigation.html
In Politically Charged Inquiry, Durham Sought Details About Scrutiny of Clintons
''John Durhamâs team has sought information about the F.B.I.âs handling of the Clinton Foundation investigation, raising questions about the scope of the prosecutorâs review.''
By Adam Goldman, William K. Rashbaum and Nicole Hong
Sept. 24, 2020
WASHINGTON â From the beginning, John H. Durhamâs inquiry into the Russia investigation has been politically charged. President Trump promoted it as certain to uncover a âdeep stateâ plot against him, Attorney General William P. Barr rebuked the investigators under scrutiny, and he and Mr. Durham publicly second-guessed an independent inspector general and traveled the globe to chase down conspiracy theories.
It turns out that Mr. Durham also focused attention on certain political enemies of Mr. Trump: the Clintons.
Mr. Durham, the U.S. attorney in Connecticut assigned by Mr. Barr to review the Russia inquiry, has sought documents and interviews about how federal law enforcement officials handled an investigation around the same time into allegations of political corruption at the Clinton Foundation, according to people familiar with the matter.
Mr. Durhamâs team members have suggested to others that they are comparing the two investigations as well as examining whether investigators in the Russia inquiry flouted laws or policies. It was not clear whether Mr. Durhamâs investigators were similarly looking for violations in the Clinton Foundation investigation, nor whether the comparison would be included or play a major role in the outcome of Mr. Durhamâs inquiry.
The approach is highly unusual, according to people briefed on the investigation. Though the suspected crimes themselves are not comparable â one involves a possible conspiracy between a presidential campaign and a foreign adversary to interfere in an election, and the other involves potential bribery and corruption â and largely included different teams of investigators and prosecutors, Mr. Durhamâs efforts suggest the scope of his review is broader than previously known.
Mr. Durhamâs focus on the Clinton Foundation inquiry comes as concerns deepen among Democrats and some former Justice Department officials that his investigation is being weaponized politically to help Mr. Trump. Congressional Democrats last week called on the departmentâs inspector general to investigate whether Mr. Durhamâs review was free from political influence after his top aide abruptly resigned, reportedly over concerns that the teamâs findings would be prematurely released before the election in November.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/24/us/politics/durham-clinton-foundation-investigation.html
The Clinton Foundation investigation began about five years ago, under the Obama administration, and stalled in part because some former career law enforcement officials viewed the case as too weak to issue subpoenas. Ultimately, prosecutors in Arkansas secured a subpoena for the charity in early 2018. To date, the case has not resulted in criminal charges.
Some former law enforcement officials declined to talk to Mr. Durhamâs team about the foundation investigation because they felt the nature of his inquiry was highly unusual, according to people familiar with the investigation. Mr. Durhamâs staff members sought information about the debate over the subpoenas that the F.B.I. tried to obtain in 2016 and have also approached current agents about the matter, but it is not clear what they told investigators.
A spokesman for Mr. Durham declined to comment.
âThe Clinton Foundation has regularly been subjected to baseless, politically motivated allegations, and time after time these allegations have been proven false,â the foundation said in a statement.
Right-wing news media and prominent Republicans have long promoted a narrative that the F.B.I.âs leadership and the Justice Department under the Obama administration were biased in favor of Hillary Clinton. They have accused agents and prosecutors of aggressively investigating Mr. Trump and his associates â ignoring evidence to the contrary â while moving more cautiously on allegations of corruption at the Clinton Foundation and Mrs. Clintonâs use of a private email server to conduct government business while she was secretary of state.
âThere was a clear double standard by the Department of Justice and F.B.I. when it came to the Trump and Clinton campaigns in 2016,â said Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, the Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and a staunch supporter of Mr. Trump.
In the Russia investigation, F.B.I. officials did take aggressive steps such as obtaining a secret wiretap to eavesdrop on a former Trump adviser. But they also moved quietly, deploying informants and an undercover agent in part to keep the existence of the investigation from becoming public and affecting the 2016 election.
Mr. Barr has repeatedly attacked the Russia inquiry as Mr. Durham has investigated it, calling it âone of the greatest travesties in American historyâ and ignoring a policy that generally prohibits the department from making public statements about current investigations. Mr. Barrâs statements have raised hopes among the presidentâs supporters that Mr. Durham will unearth evidence of a plot to sabotage Mr. Trumpâs campaign and presidency.
Right-wing news media and prominent Republicans have long promoted a narrative that the F.B.I.âs leadership and the Justice Department under the Obama administration were biased in favor of Hillary Clinton. They have accused agents and prosecutors of aggressively investigating Mr. Trump and his associates â ignoring evidence to the contrary â while moving more cautiously on allegations of corruption at the Clinton Foundation and Mrs. Clintonâs use of a private email server to conduct government business while she was secretary of state.
âThere was a clear double standard by the Department of Justice and F.B.I. when it came to the Trump and Clinton campaigns in 2016,â said Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, the Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and a staunch supporter of Mr. Trump.
In the Russia investigation, F.B.I. officials did take aggressive steps such as obtaining a secret wiretap to eavesdrop on a former Trump adviser. But they also moved quietly, deploying informants and an undercover agent in part to keep the existence of the investigation from becoming public and affecting the 2016 election.
Mr. Barr has repeatedly attacked the Russia inquiry as Mr. Durham has investigated it, calling it âone of the greatest travesties in American historyâ and ignoring a policy that generally prohibits the department from making public statements about current investigations. Mr. Barrâs statements have raised hopes among the presidentâs supporters that Mr. Durham will unearth evidence of a plot to sabotage Mr. Trumpâs campaign and presidency.
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Right-wing news media and prominent Republicans have long promoted a narrative that the F.B.I.âs leadership and the Justice Department under the Obama administration were biased in favor of Hillary Clinton. They have accused agents and prosecutors of aggressively investigating Mr. Trump and his associates â ignoring evidence to the contrary â while moving more cautiously on allegations of corruption at the Clinton Foundation and Mrs. Clintonâs use of a private email server to conduct government business while she was secretary of state.
âThere was a clear double standard by the Department of Justice and F.B.I. when it came to the Trump and Clinton campaigns in 2016,â said Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, the Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and a staunch supporter of Mr. Trump.
In the Russia investigation, F.B.I. officials did take aggressive steps such as obtaining a secret wiretap to eavesdrop on a former Trump adviser. But they also moved quietly, deploying informants and an undercover agent in part to keep the existence of the investigation from becoming public and affecting the 2016 election.
Mr. Barr has repeatedly attacked the Russia inquiry as Mr. Durham has investigated it, calling it âone of the greatest travesties in American historyâ and ignoring a policy that generally prohibits the department from making public statements about current investigations. Mr. Barrâs statements have raised hopes among the presidentâs supporters that Mr. Durham will unearth evidence of a plot to sabotage Mr. Trumpâs campaign and presidency.
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So far, only one person has been charged with criminal wrongdoing: Kevin E. Clinesmith, a former F.B.I. lawyer who pleaded guilty to altering an email that investigators relied on to renew an application for a secret wiretap on the former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
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The president and his Republican allies have tried to cast the Clinton Foundation, a philanthropic organization, as corrupt, accusing Mrs. Clinton of taking steps as secretary of state to support the interests of foundation donors.
Critics have suggested that she was part of a quid pro quo in which the foundation received large donations in exchange for supporting the sale of Uranium One, a Canadian company with ties to mining stakes in the United States, to a Russian nuclear agency. The deal was approved by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States when Mrs. Clinton was secretary of state under President Barack Obama and had a voting seat on the panel.
The allegations against Mrs. Clinton were advanced in the book âClinton Cash,â by Peter Schweizer, a senior editor at large at Breitbart News, the right-wing outlet once controlled by Mr. Trumpâs former top aide Stephen K. Bannon. The book contained multiple errors, and the foundation has dismissed its allegations.
But the book caught the attention of F.B.I. agents, who viewed some of its contents as additional justification to obtain a subpoena for foundation records.
Top officials in Justice Department criminal division denied a request in 2016 from senior F.B.I. managers in Washington to secure a subpoena, determining that the bureau lacked a sufficient basis for it and that the book had a political agenda, former officials said. Some prosecutors at the time felt the book had been discredited.
The decision frustrated some agents who believed they had enough evidence beyond the book, including a discussion that touched on the foundation and was captured on a wiretap in an unrelated investigation. Other F.B.I. officials at the time believed the conversationâs relevance to the foundation case was tenuous at best.
The disagreement erupted anew later in the summer of 2016, when a top Justice Department official suspected that F.B.I. agents in New York were trying to persuade federal prosecutors in Brooklyn to authorize a subpoena after the departmentâs criminal division officials in Washington had declined such a request. By the time the F.BI. officials revisited the issue, the Justice Department officials were also concerned that serving subpoenas would violate the practice of avoiding such investigative activity so close to an election.
Ultimately, the Clinton Foundation dispute embroiled Andrew G. McCabe, then the F.B.I. deputy director, who was accused of leaking information about the case to a reporter and later lying about it to the Justice Department inspector general. The episode helped prompt Mr. McCabeâs firing in 2018 and a failed effort by the Justice Department to prosecute him.
The foundation case â which had been spread among F.B.I. field offices in New York, Los Angeles, Washington and Little Rock, Ark. â sputtered until Mr. Trump was elected. In early 2018, Patrick C. Harris, a career prosecutor in Little Rock, issued a grand jury subpoena for foundation records, two former law enforcement officials familiar with the investigation said.
A foundation official confirmed that the charity was served with a subpoena and complied with the request for information.
Republicans in 2017 had called for a second special counsel to investigate the foundation, but Rod J. Rosenstein, then the deputy attorney general, did not believe the scant evidence collected in the case justified one, a person familiar with the matter said. Instead, Jeff Sessions, the attorney general at the time, asked John W. Huber, the U.S. attorney in Utah, to review whether federal law enforcement officials had fully investigated the matter.
Shortly after Mr. Durham began his review, Mr. Barr said in an interview with CBS News in May 2019 that Mr. Huber was winding down his work related to Mrs. Clinton. In January, The Washington Post reported that Mr. Huberâs investigation had ended; its findings were not made public. Mr. Trump later attacked Mr. Huber, accusing him of doing âabsolutely NOTHING.â
Adam Goldman reported from Washington, and William K. Rashbaum and Nicole Hong from New York. Katie Benner and Michael S. Schmidt contributed reporting from Washington.
>The foundation case â which had been spread among F.B.I. field offices in New York, Los Angeles, Washington and Little Rock, Ark. â sputtered until Mr. Trump was elected. In early 2018, Patrick C. Harris, a career prosecutor in Little Rock, issued a grand jury subpoena for foundation records, two former law enforcement officials familiar with the investigation said.
https://www.fox16.com/news/u-s-attorney-for-eastern-arkansas-resigns/
NEWS
by: Staff
Posted: Mar 13, 2017 / 03:45 PM CDT / Updated: Mar 13, 2017 / 03:57 PM CDT
Law Gavel_1488941219727-118809306.jpg
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (News release) â As requested by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, United States Attorney Christopher R. Thyer, 47, of Jonesboro, announced his resignation effective March 10, 2017. Mr. Thyer, who has made serving the needs of the poor and crimeaffected citizens of eastern Arkansas a priority during his tenure, has been the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas since December 31, 2010.
Patrick C. Harris, 64, of Little Rock, who has served as the First Assistant United States Attorney for the past four years, assumed leadership of the office as Acting United States Attorney effective immediately upon Mr. Thyerâs resignation.
âOur laws and our law enforcement agencies are meant to do two things: to allow citizens of the United States to fully realize the pursuit of peace and prosperity, and to arrest and prosecute those who criminally interfere with those freedoms,â said Mr. Thyer. âI have seen communities where drugs and violence have stolen even the freedom to go for a walk or play in a park because of the brazenness of violent drug dealers. For more than six years I have had the privilege of working with local, state and federal law enforcement officers and prosecutors to fight these violent drug dealers. This has been a highlight of my professional life for which I am thankful.â
During his tenure, Mr. Thyer has led the U.S. Attorneyâs Office for the Eastern District of Arkansas in doing just that. He served on the executive board for the Gulf Coast High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) program, as well as the executive board of the FBIâs Joint Terrorism Task Force, and has been a key voice in expansion of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (OCDETF) in Arkansas. What Mr. Thyer has said that he is most proud of is his officeâs work helping disadvantaged communities to take back their neighborhoods from violent drug dealers. Under Mr. Thyerâs leadership, the U.S. Attorneyâs Office for the Eastern District of Arkansas has succeeded in prosecuting many violent drug organizations.
In October 2011, less than a year after Mr. Thyer was sworn in, a Grand Jury indicted 71 defendants in âOperation Delta Blues,â the first of many cases prosecuted by the U.S. Attorneyâs Office for the Eastern District of Arkansas aimed at tackling the dual epidemic of drugs and violence in eastern Arkansas and the Delta. âDelta Bluesâ dismantled an international cocaine ring operating out of West Memphis, Helena, and Marianna, that included five corrupt police officers. The case ended with the conspiracy leader, Sedrick Trice, receiving a 40-year sentence, Demetrius Colbert, who shot an FBI agent, receiving life plus 10 years in prison, and all police officers convicted. Other operations in the same area included âOperation Delta Crossroadsâ (19 defendants) and âOperation Plastic Castleâ (47 defendants).
Under Mr. Thyerâs leadership, the crime-ridden areas where local police most needed federal assistance received that assistance, including Mississippi, Craighead, Crittenden, Phillips, and Lee counties. Since 2013, multiple joint operations between local law enforcement and federal agencies such as the Arkansas State Police, DEA, FBI, and ATF have resulted in arrests of hundreds of criminals and the dismantling of drug networks in those areas. In the past three years in Blytheville alone, the U.S. Attorneyâs Office for the Eastern District of Arkansas has teamed with the ATF, DEA, and FBI in four major operations that resulted in the arrest of 127 individuals, including 70 in 2015âs âOperation Blynd Justus.â Also during Mr. Thyerâs tenure, his office successfully prosecuted multiple cases involving Mexican drug cartel members.
The U.S. Attorneyâs Office for the Eastern District of Arkansas was on the forefront of recognizing the opioid epidemic in Arkansas. In May 2015, Little Rock was the regional hub of a national DEA effort dubbed âOperation Pilluted.â Mr. Thyerâs office returned six indictments in which 113 defendants were charged, including five doctors, four nurses, and five pharmacists. These multiple cartel and large-defendant drug cases are why the U.S. Attorneyâs Office for the Eastern District of Arkansas has routinely ranked among the top-producing OCDETF districts in the nation for its size.