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President Donald Trump is expected to pardon former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, according to a person familiar with the plans.Blagojevich served eight years in prison on charges stemming from his effort to sell Barack Obama's Senate seat after Obama won the 2008 presidential election, until Trump commuted his 14-year sentence in 2020. Why it matters: Trump and Blagojevich have a relationship dating back to 2010, when the former governor appeared on the Trump-hosted "Celebrity Apprentice" after being impeached and removed from office.Blagojevich, who was a Democrat while in office, supported Trump in the 2024 election and attended the Republican National...

Craig supervised Alex van der Zwaan, who has pleaded guilty to lying about communications regarding his work for Ukrainian politicians. Former Obama White House counsel Gregory Craig has left his law firm, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, the firm told NBC News. His departure comes after he and his law firm became caught up in special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Alex van der Zwaan, who had been a lawyer in Skadden's London office, pleaded guilty to lying to prosecutors and the FBI about communications involving work the firm had been...

"And what we have when someone charges obstruction of justice is the umpire gets sand thrown in his eyes. He's trying to figure out what happened and somebody blocked their view. DOJ press conference"- Patrick Fitzgerald pdf p. 6

Many find it shocking the Department of Justice (DOJ) could be capable of ginning up false allegations against a former president in a previous election and would again do the same prior to the 2024 election. This shock, however, is a mark of just how drastically conservatives have failed to recognize the long decline of the DOJ and its ultimate transformation into a political subsidiary of a radicalized Democratic Party. Conservatives would do well to observe seminal moments that have led the country’s top law enforcement entity to its present dire state. In that review, all roads ultimately lead back...

Northwestern has fired coach Pat Fitzgerald amid allegations of widespread hazing within the football program, university president Michael Schill announced Monday. "The head coach is ultimately responsible for the culture of his team," Schill wrote in an open letter to the school community. "The hazing we investigated was widespread and clearly not a secret within the program, providing Coach Fitzgerald with the opportunity to learn what was happening. Either way, the culture in Northwestern Football, while incredible in some ways, was broken in others." Defensive coordinator David Braun is expected to be named the Wildcats' acting coach, sources told ESPN.

the U.S. Navy released a long-awaited, but heavily redacted report of its investigation into the circumstances surrounding USS Connecticut hitting an uncharted seamount while sailing in the Pacific region on Oct. 2, 2021, an accident that caused extensive damage. The War Zone has now had a chance to review the entire 67-page document in detail. In the report, investigators describe how a weak command environment and lax attitudes when it came to performing key tasks ultimately put the submarine, which was also suffering issues with some of its sensor systems and other equipment, on a direct path to the accident....

On Monday, June 6, we will be live blogging as the court releases orders from the June 2 conference and opinions in one or more argued cases from the current term.

NEW YORK - It was like a classic episode of "Perry Mason," with an FBI agent charged with murder, a mouthy mob moll and a twist at the end: The FBI guy walked after a reporter with a secret tape exposed the gangster's girlfriend as a liar who couldn't keep her story straight. In a stunning finish to one of the worst law enforcement corruption cases in U.S. history, former FBI agent Lindley DeVecchio was cleared Thursday of giving up confidential information that a Colombo family hit man used to kill four fellow mobsters — either rivals or potential rats....

How did Barack Obama emerge from Chicago in 2008 untainted by political corruption? His rise to power began at the 2004 Democratic Party Convention when Illinois State Senator Barack Obama was catapulted onto the national stage by the alluring force of his oratory.

A badly burned body found on the floor of a River North parking garage early Tuesday has been identified as a 60-year-old real estate attorney, officials said. Louis S. Cohen, 60, was of the 200 block of Ivy Lane in Highland Park, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office. An autopsy Wednesday was pending and did not determine a cause and manner for Cohen’s death, the office said. Just before 6 a.m. Tuesday, police and fire crews responded to a fire in the 11th floor of a parking garage in the 300 block of North LaSalle Drive and found...

President Donald Trump commuted the sentence of former Democratic Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, the New York Times reported Tuesday.Several Trump administration aides had claimed to ABC that the president is planning to grant the former governor clemency. Trump had previously hinted he was looking into commuting the 14-year sentence, which was originally handed down after Blagojevich was convicted of trying to sell the Senate seat of then-president elect Barack Obama in 2008, according to NBC Chicago. https://twitter.com/DailyCaller/status/1229845536511070209 “Yes, we commuted the sentence of Rod Blagojevich. he served eight years in jail, a long time. He seems like a very nice person, don’t know him,” Trump...

CHICAGO, Oct. 9 — The leader of a Chicago-area Islamic charity was indicted on racketeering charges Wednesday, and the government accused him of fraudulently obtaining donations to support Osama bin Laden’s network and other terrorist groups. Attorney General John Ashcroft said that, if found guilty, Enaam Arnaout faces up to 90 years in prison with no possibility of parole.

U.S. Links Charity to Chechen RebelsBy Nabi Abdullaev Staff Writer The head of a U.S.-based Islamic charity who is suspected of having ties to Osama bin Laden is in jail facing a grand jury investigation after the FBI showed he had lied about his support for Chechen rebels. Federal officials accused Enaam Arnaout, a Syrian-born U.S. citizen, and his Benevolence International Foundation of perjury last month for claiming they did not provide support to "people or organizations known to engage in violence, terrorist activities or military operations of any nature." Arnaout, 39, was arrested April 30. He had been under...

President Donald Trump says Rep. John Ratcliffe will no longer be nominated as director of national intelligence to replace Dan Coats. "Our great Republican Congressman John Ratcliffe is being treated very unfairly by the LameStream Media," Trump wrote on Twitter. "Rather than going through months of slander and libel, I explained to John how miserable it would be for him and his family to deal with these people John has therefore decided to stay in Congress where he has done such an outstanding job representing the people of Texas, and our Country. I will be announcing my nomination for DNI...

Deep State Playbook: Comparing Plamegate and Russiagate The only “Mueller Report” that matters was not written by Robert Mueller III. It’s written about him, and his co-conspirators. Long before the Russiagate hoax began, the authors examined the Special Counsel methods of then FBI director Robert Mueller, former Deputy Attorney General James Comey, and once U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, before and during Plamegate. We found that all three acted with an intent to serve and protect the Deep State.

[Excerpts from a very long and detailed article. Some restructuring made.] On Wednesday, the Navy said it was abandoning all remaining criminal charges against sailors involved in fatal accidents in the Pacific... In June 2017, the Fitzgerald was traveling at night 12 miles off the coast of Japan when it collided with the ACX Crystal, a 30,000-ton cargo ship. Two months later, disaster happened again. The McCain was hit by the Alnic MC, a 30,000-ton oil tanker, while traveling in the Singapore Strait. The 17 sailors who died on the destroyers drowned in their sleeping quarters. The two fatal accidents...

A little after 1:30 a.m. on June 17, 2017, Alexander Vaughan tumbled from his bunk onto the floor of his sleeping quarters on board the Navy destroyer USS Fitzgerald. The shock of cold, salty water snapped him awake. He struggled to his feet and felt a torrent rushing past his thighs. Around him, sailors were screaming. “Water on deck. Water on deck!” Vaughan fumbled for his black plastic glasses and strained to see through the darkness of the windowless compartment. Underneath the surface of the Pacific Ocean, 12 miles off the coast of Japan, the tidy world of Berthing 2...

.. so much worse than previously thought. A scathing internal Navy probe into the 2017 collision that drowned seven sailors on the guided-missile destroyer Fitzgerald details a far longer list of problems plaguing the vessel, its crew and superior commands than the service has publicly admitted. Obtained by Navy Times, the "dual-purpose investigation" was overseen by Rear Adm. Brian Fort and completed 11 days after the June 17, 2017 tragedy. Their report documents the routine, almost casual, violations of standing orders on a Fitz bridge that often lacked skippers and executive officers, even during potentially dangerous voyages at night through...

The probe exposes how personal distrust led the officer of the deck, Lt. j.g. Sarah Coppock, to avoid communicating with the destroyer’s electronic nerve center — the combat information center, or CIC — while the Fitzgerald tried to cross a shipping superhighway. When Fort walked into the trash-strewn CIC in the wake of the disaster, he was hit with the acrid smell of urine. He saw kettlebells on the floor and bottles filled with pee. Some radar controls didn’t work and he soon discovered crew members who didn’t know how to use them anyway. Fort found a Voyage Management System...

During his twelve-year reign as FBI Director, Robert Mueller not only protected his criminal friends by silencing those who could expose their bad acts, he projected his friends’ crimes onto others in order to fraudulently appoint a Special Counsel. And the FISA court judge Reggie Walton — who was hacked by Obama officials John Brennan and James Clapper, according to whistleblower evidence — has been involved in more than one of these plots. There is no better Deep State tool for punishing your enemies than a fraudulent Special Counsel (who is not accountable to anyone) with an unlimited budget and...