Free Republic

U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon on Friday granted James Cromitie, 58, compassionate release from prison, six months after the three other members of the "Newburgh Four" were freed. The group was arrested in 2009 on charges of conspiracy to bomb Jewish buildings in New York and shoot down National Guard planes. The group was convicted in 2011 and sentenced to twenty-five years in prison. Last July, Judge McMahon ordered the other three conspirators released on the grounds that they had been manipulated into the plot by the FBI...

A high-ranking official from Turkey’s second-largest state-owned bank was arrested in New York City March 27. On the orders of the acting US attorney for the Southern District of New York, Joon H. Kim, FBI agents arrested Mehmet Hakan Atilla, Halkbank’s vice president for international banking, for violating the US-led sanctions against Iran. The press release from Kim’s office accused Atilla with participating “in a years-long scheme to violate American sanctions laws by helping Reza Zarrab, a major gold trader, use U.S. financial institutions to engage in prohibited financial transactions that illegally funneled millions of dollars to Iran.” Zarrab, a Turkish citizen...

Republicans are blasting the Obama administration for detaining a Somali terror suspect for two months aboard a U.S. warship before flying him to New York over the July Fourth holiday to face charges in a civilian trial. Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame, who has ties to the Al Qaeda-linked group al-Shabaab, was captured April 19 in the Horn of Africa region, possibly in Yemen. At his arraignment in New York Tuesday, he pleaded not guilty to the nine charges he's been indicted on by a federal grand jury, including providing material support to a terrorist organization. "The Obama administration won't detain terrorists...

Note: The following text is a quote: Hassan Nemazee Pleads Guilty in Manhattan Federal Court to $292 Million Bank Fraud PREET BHARARA, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced that HASSAN NEMAZEE pleaded guilty today to charges of defrauding Bank of America, N.A. ("BofA"), Citibank, N.A. ("Citibank"), HSBC Bank USA, N.A. ("HSBC"), and a longtime friend and business associate of a total of more than $290 million in loan proceeds. NEMAZEE entered his guilty plea before United States District Judge SIDNEY H. STEIN in Manhattan federal court. According to the superseding Information, filed today, to...

Marc Thiessen confirms in the Washington Post: “…the Clinton campaign proactively sought dirt on Trump from Russian government sources. They did it through cutouts. In April 2016, Clinton campaign lawyer Marc Elias retained opposition research firm Fusion GPS to compile incriminating information on Trump. Fusion GPS in turn hired Christopher Steele, a former British MI6 operative with sources among Russian government officials. The result was the salacious dossier, whose sources included “a senior Russian Foreign Ministry figure” and “a former top level intelligence officer still active in the Kremlin.” Steele’s work was paid for by Clinton’s presidential campaign and the...

Natalia Veselnitskaya was charged with obstruction of justice Tuesday to prevent her from coming back to the United States to testify in the Robert Mueller-related cases because her statements have already contradicted Mueller’s narrative, according to high-level FBI sources. Veselnitskaya, who is now in Russia, was charged for making a “misleading declaration” in a civil money-laundering case. Veselnitskaya’s indictment was filed in federal court in Manhattan and unsealed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York, formerly led by anti-Trump activist Preet Bharara and still dominated by his underlings. Now Veselnitskaya can’t return to the United...

The lawyer for Christine Blasey Ford's "beach friend"-- the one who worked for the FBI in the office of former Schumer staffer Preet Bharara--just so happens to be the FBI official who oversaw the Clinton e-mail and Trump Russia probes... One of Ford's lawyers just so happens to be fired former FBI official Andrew McCabe's lawyer.

Former US attorney Preet Bharara applauded Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein for his response to reports that some members of the House Freedom Caucus were moving to seek his impeachment as a last resort to hamstring the Russia investigation. Rosenstein slapped down that threat on Tuesday during a discussion with reporters, saying "The Department of Justice is not going to be extorted." The deputy attorney general oversees the Russia probe being led by special counsel Robert Mueller. Preet Bharara, a former US attorney and an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump, applauded Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein's response to news...

George W Bush has seen off Al Gore, John Kerry and Saddam Hussein. But with the varnish fast disappearing from his administration, the president may finally be about to meet the man who could prove his undoing. Preet Bharara is a 38-year-old Indian-American lawyer, who made his name prosecuting the bosses of the Gambino and Colombo crime families in New York. Now the former district attorney has President Bush in his sights, as well as the man they call "Bush's Brain": Karl Rove, the president's chief political adviser. Mr Bharara is spearheading the Democrat campaign to uncover corruption, mismanagement, incompetence...

Benjamin Wittes, a friend of former FBI Director James Comey, said that he's unable to say how far President Trump is willing to push the legal bounds of the presidency because it would involve "looking into his soul" — and he's not quite sure Trump has one. Asked by former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara on his podcast "Stay Tuned with Preet" how far he thinks Trump is willing to stretch the constitutional constraints of his office, Wittes said he would need to look into Trump's soul to answer that question. "I'm hesitant to answer that question because it involves looking...

Former acting Attorney General Sally Yates and former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said Wednesday that it will be difficult for special counsel Robert Mueller to prove criminal conduct in his probe into possible coordination between the President Trump's campaign and Russia. “I know a lot of people are sort of putting all their hopes into Bob Mueller. And I’ve got tremendous confidence in Bob Mueller,” Yates said in a joint interview with Bharara at Vanity Fair's New Establishment Summit in New York, according to The Wall Street Journal. “But the fact of the matter is, he’s going to determine whether...

Former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara criticized President Trump's decision to pardon the controversial former Sheriff Joe Arpaio on Friday, saying on Twitter that it was "contrary" to the Justice Department's standards for issuing pardons. "This pardon is contrary to DOJ guidelines, unsurprisingly. Pure politics. Wonder what the pardon attorney's official recommendation was," Bharara tweeted.....

Among the most frequent — and, at least according to those on the left, credible — critics of President Trump has been Preet Bharara, who was the most powerful federal prosecutor in the country until Trump fired him on March 10, along with 45 of his fellow US attorneys. That credibility took a hit Thursday, when an appeals court vacated the conviction of former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver. Silver’s conviction was supposed to be a major feather in Bharara’s cap. Now his record of having convictions overturned will, deservedly, get more scrutiny.

Former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara slammed President Trump Thursday, saying the problem people have with Trump isn’t about his policies or ideology, but his “lack of decency.” “Much of the issue with Trump is not about party, policy or ideology, but lack of decency, honesty, character, temperament, adulthood, shame,” Bharara, who was fired by Trump in March, tweeted. Much of the issue with Trump is not about party, policy or ideology, but lack of decency, honesty, character, temperament, adulthood, shame. — Preet Bharara (@PreetBharara) June 30, 2017 Bharara’s tweet comes after Trump faced widespread criticism for early-morning tweets on Thursday...

Special counselor Robert Mueller added a top New York prosecutor to his team investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election who also happened to be an official who worked for fired U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara. Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Goldstein of the Southern District of New York has been selected to join the probe, according to multiple reports late Friday.

Full title: In Freeing Illegal Alien Gang Member Obama Judge Says U.S. Violated Rights of Due Process, Family Unity An Obama-appointed federal judge in Virginia ordered an illegal immigrant member of a violent street gang released from prison because immigration authorities supposedly violated his rights when he entered the U.S. illegally through Mexico. The Honduran teen crossed the Rio Grande during the influx of illegal alien minors a few years ago and turned himself into the U.S Border Patrol, according to a lengthy mainstream newspaper article , after acknowledging his gang history. The feds held him without a hearing in...

The only trial during which Preet Bharara sat at the prosecutor’s table while serving as Manhattan U.S. Attorney did not go smoothly — despite the presence of the high-profile lawman. Judge J. Paul Oetken vacated a conviction last week from the jury trial of John “JJ” Pauling, assailing prosecutors for using “misleading” charts and alleging the defendant conspired to distribute at least 100 grams of heroin — without adequate proof.... Bharara, 48, who was fired from his post by President Trump on March 11, did not make arguments to jurors or question witnesses.

Former Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, whom President Donald Trump fired earlier this month, will join New York University's law school on April 1 as a distinguished scholar in residence, the school announced on Tuesday. In a statement provided by the school, Bharara said he was honored to join NYU, and welcomed the opportunity "to continue addressing the issues I so deeply care about - criminal and social justice, honest government, national security, civil rights, and corporate accountability, to name a few." Bharara was fired by Trump on March 11 after refusing to step down. He had been among 46...

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has reportedly hired a prosecutor to examine the activities of the Trump administration. Schneiderman has tapped public-corruption expert Howard McMaster from the office of former Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, The Wall Street Journal reported. Bharara was fired by Trump last week even though he was in the middle of a number of investigations, including one allegedly involving stock trades by Trump’s Health And Human Services Secretary Tom Price. Schneiderman spokesman Eric Soufer confirmed McMaster’s hiring, and told the Journal that McMaster will work on a range of “civil and criminal investigations ... including...

Former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, who was removed from his post by the Trump administration last week, was overseeing an investigation into stock trades made by the president’s health secretary, according to a person familiar with the office. Tom Price, head of the Department of Health and Human Services, came under scrutiny during his confirmation hearings for investments he made while serving in Congress. The Georgia lawmaker traded hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of shares in health-related companies, even as he voted on and sponsored legislation affecting the industry. Price testified at the time that his trades were lawful...