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President Trump granted clemency on Tuesday to 20 people, including three former Republican members of Congress and two people who were convicted of crimes as part of the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. He also pardoned four military contractors convicted of killing 14 unarmed Iraqi civilians in Baghdad in 2007, and extended clemency to several people convicted of drug offenses. The pre-Christmas pardons and commutations came as the president has been exploring how to reward friends and allies in the waning days before leaving office next month, with more acts of clemency expected to come.

The House Judiciary Committee heard testimony on Wednesday involving allegations that the Trump administration had politicized the Department of Justice. The testimony comes on the same day that a D.C. Court of Appeals officially ordered the case against former Trump National Security Advisor Michael Flynn to be thrown out because, it turns out, the Obama Justice Department had ensnared Flynn in a perjury trap. We now know that former President Obama and former Vice President Biden, along with a cadre of Obama-era White House officials, conspired to target Flynn and use the Justice Department to damage the incoming Trump administration....

The successor to prison-bound former Rep. Chris Collins and the challenger to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will be decided Tuesday along with nominees for dozens of House seats as six states hold elections. But it may take several days for votes to be counted as states cope with an expected surge in mail-in ballots because of the coronavirus pandemic. Elections in Kentucky, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina and Virginia had already been delayed, while South Carolina’s runoffs for state-level offices were always planned for Tuesday.In New York, Kentucky and North Carolina, which is hosting a GOP runoff for White...

Former Congressman Chris Collins has learned his fate in his federal insider trading case. A U.S. District judge sentenced him to 26 months in prison Friday. He was also fined $200,000. Collins pleaded guilty to securities fraud conspiracy and making false statements to the FBI. He was sentenced in federal court in Manhattan. It’s the culmination of a case that began back in August 2018 when Collins was first arrested and charged with this insider trading scheme. He maintained his innocence and won re-election. Then last year, he reversed course, pleaded guilty, and resigned from his office in Congress. Collins...

Prosecutors want former Rep. Chris Collins to go to federal prison for up to 57 months for launching an insider trading scheme with a phone call to his son from the White House lawn in June 2017. In a new court filing Monday, prosecutors said that what Collins did merits significant punishment. Not only did Collins share secret information that allowed his son and others to dump stock at the expense of others, the then-congressman also lied about it all later to the FBI, prosecutors noted. "Collins’s decision to break the law while making the law – a decision that...

Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.) will plead guilty to insider trading, for which he was indicted last August, according to Bloomberg. Collins, his son Cameron, and Stephen Zarsky, the father of Cameron’s fiancée, were arrested in August 2018 and pleaded not guilty on charges of trading on non-public information about an Australian biotech company. Cameron Collins and Zarsky also plan to change their pleas, according to Bloomberg. Collins, the first sitting representative to endorse President Trump in the 2016 Republican primaries, said after his arrest that he would "continue to fight the meritless charges brought against me and I look toward...

Congressman Chris Collins will resign from Congress according to a source. The congressman is set to appear in federal court on Tuesday where he will change his plea related his insider trading case. A hearing on the matter is scheduled for Tuesday afternoon at 3:00. The Associated Press reported that he is expected to plead guilty. Collins had previously entered a not guilty plea, and had said as recently as this summer that he maintained his innocence and had no intention of taking a plea deal. "I've said all along that I'm not doing anything to get a plea deal....

Congressman Chris Collins is taking a swing at Governor Cuomo's recently-signed Green Light NY bill with one that would withhold federal highway money from states that give drivers licenses to illegal immigrants. “Once again, Governor Cuomo has put his socialist agenda ahead of the safety of American citizens,” said Congressman Collins. “Governor Cuomo should be enforcing laws that protect Americans instead of supporting those who break our laws. Citizens should feel safe behind the wheel, but now in New York there will be a strong likelihood that illegals could be driving uninsured and unregistered vehicles wreaking havoc on our roads.”...

The last time we checked in on New York Congressman Chris Collins (R) after his arrest for insider trading, the bizarre story of his continuing political career had quieted down considerably. After initially suspending his campaign, Collins decided to make a run for another term in office in his western New York district. Since his trial wouldn’t be starting until this year, there was no danger of him being frog-marched out of office in the middle of the campaign. He went on to win (though far more narrowly than in previous years) and I’d assumed he’d be spending a fair...

Rep. Chris Collins' lawyers appear to be honing a new argument to press against the federal prosecutors in New York who charged the Republican lawmaker from Clarence with insider trading: It's none of your business. That's the key new message underlying a host of legal documents the Collins defense team filed in federal court in Manhattan earlier this month. Why, the Collins defense team appears to be asking, is Collins being prosecuted in U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York for an alleged violation – launching a series of insider stock trades – that supposedly started with...

Democratic challenger Nate McMurray has conceded to Rep. Chris Collins in the race for New York’s 27th Congressional district.

"Two long running, Obama era, investigations of two very popular Republican Congressmen were brought to a well publicized charge, just ahead of the Mid-Terms, by the Jeff Sessions Justice Department. Two easy wins now in doubt because there is not enough time. Good job Jeff......"

Two long running, Obama era, investigations of two very popular Republican Congressmen were brought to a well publicized charge, just ahead of the Mid-Terms, by the Jeff Sessions Justice Department. Two easy wins now in doubt because there is not enough time. Good job Jeff...… 2:25 PM - 3 Sep 2018 ....The Democrats, none of whom voted for Jeff Sessions, must love him now. Same thing with Lyin’ James Comey. The Dems all hated him, wanted him out, thought he was disgusting - UNTIL I FIRED HIM! Immediately he became a wonderful man, a saint like figure in fact. Really...

Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.) announced Saturday he is suspending his reelection campaign in light of charges of insider trading. “After extensive discussions with my family and my friends over the last few days, I have decided that it is in the best interests of the constituents of NY-27, the Republican Party and President Trump’s agenda for me to suspend my campaign for re-election to Congress,” Collins said in a press release. The Justice Department charged Collins, 68, with securities fraud and lying to the FBI about his efforts to tip off family members with nonpublic stock information to help them...

How long did Matthew Miller lay in bed last night working up his line? The former spokesman for Eric Holder seemed giddy with schadenfreude-fueled excitement as he came out with it on today’s Morning Joe. Referring to the fact that GOP Rep. Chris Collins has been charged with making an insider-trading phone call while on White House grounds, and that former NSA Michael Flynn allegedly lied to the FBI in an interview at the White House, Miller said: “You could make a case that the White House compound now has the highest crime rate of any neighborhood in Washington.”Get the...

ew York Republican Rep. Chris Collins has been charged with alleged securities fraud, wire fraud and false statements, the Justice Department announced Wednesday.

U.S. prosecutors on Wednesday said Christopher Collins, a Republican congressman from New York, has been indicted for insider trading in connection with the securities of Australian biotechnology company Innate Immunotherapeutics Ltd. The indictment also charged Collins’ son, Cameron Collins, as well as Stephen Zarsky, the father of Cameron Collins’ fiancee.

Insider trading was a family affair for upstate New York congressman Chris Collins, federal prosecutors charged Wednesday. The Republican lawmaker, one of President Trump’s earliest supporters, was charged along with his son Cameron Collins and the father of Cameron’s fiancée, Stephen Zarsky, in a scheme that allowed them to avoid $768,000 in stock losses, prosecutors say. The trio are accused of securities fraud related to Innate Immunotherapeutics, an Australian biotechnology company. The elder Collins sits on the firm’s board of directors and is one of its largest shareholders. Manhattan federal prosecutors say the upstate New York congressman passed to his...

Congressman Chris Collins was indicted by a federal grand jury of conspiracy to commit securities fraud on Wednesday morning. Collins, along with his son Cameron, and Cameron's future father-in-law Stephen Zarsky, were accused of insider trading related to the Australian biotechnology company Innate Immunotherapeutics Limited. The indictment alleged that in June of 2017, Congressman Collins violated the duties he owed to the biotechnology company by passing material, nonpublic information regarding the drug trial results to his son so that Cameron could use that information to make timely trades in Innate stock and tip others. Cameron Collins allegedly traded on that...

House conservatives on Wednesday revolted against a massive bipartisan deal to raise the debt ceiling and bust spending caps, complaining that the GOP could no longer lay claim to being the party of fiscal responsibility. “I’m not only a ‘no.’ I’m a ‘hell no,’ ” quipped Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Ala.), one of many members of the Tea Party-aligned Freedom Caucus who left a closed-door meeting of Republicans saying they would vote against the deal. It’s a “Christmas tree on steroids,” lamented one of the Freedom Caucus leaders, Rep. Dave Brat (R-Va.). “This spending proposal is disgusting and reckless — the...