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President Trump has commuted the sentence of Roger Stone. The timing, late on Friday, suggests internal embarrassment over the move, and we wish there were more. The commutation is a move fully within the president’s powers and in keeping with the long-established pattern of presidents’ pardoning or commuting the sentences of associates caught up in special-counsel probes, although usually the associates aren’t as sleazy as Stone. We’re a long way from George H. W. Bush’s pardoning Cap Weinberger, the great Reagan-era defense official, who had been indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice in the Lawrence Walsh investigation. [cut] It...

To almost no one's surprise, days before Roger Stone's prison sentence was about to begin, President Donald Trump has spared his long-time political crony from the pen — late Friday, Mr. Trump commuted Stone's sentence. It is time for New York prosecutors to answer this latest assault by Trump on the rule of law: They should ready a state prosecution of Stone. Bringing a new case against Stone is possible thanks to Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York Legislature for Assembly Bill 6653. Signed into law last October, AB6653 enables New York district attorneys to prosecute what effectively amounts...

Former Special Counsel Robert Mueller on Saturday penned an OpEd in the Washington Post, slamming President Donald Trump's decision to commute Roger Stone's sentence. According to Mueller, even though Stone's sentence has been commuted, he "remains a convicted felon, and rightly so." Mueller has repeatedly said his report speaks for itself, calling it his "testimony." It's why he refused to comment any further, until this opinion piece. Even during his testimony in front of Congress, Mueller remained rather tight-lipped to avoid straying away from the report's conclusions. "The work of the special counsel’s office — its report, indictments, guilty pleas...

Newly released documents about the investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn show additional “exculpatory evidence” linked to a Justice Department review of the case investigators built against him shortly after President Trump’s election, his lawyers argued in a court filing Friday. “These documents establish that on January 25, 2017 – the day after the agents ambushed him at the White House – the agents and DOJ officials knew General Flynn’s statements were not material to any investigation, that he was ‘open and forthcoming’ with the agents, that he had no intent to deceive them, and that he believed...

“Killing Eve” star Jodie Comer is in hot water on Twitter. The 27-year-old is facing “cancel” cries online after social media users discovered she’s possibly dating a Republican who supports President Trump. This comes amid her vocal support for several progressive causes, such as Black Lives Matter and Pride. Twitter sleuths linked the actress, who plays a queer woman on “Killing Eve,” to a man named James Burke after paparazzi photos surfaced of her sitting outdoors with a mystery man. A man by that name is a registered Republican. However, it’s not evidently clear how Burke’s name was discovered, or...

An Army officer who played a high-profile role in President Trump’s impeachment proceedings is retiring from the military over alleged “bullying” and “retaliation” by the president, his lawyer said Wednesday. Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who served as a national security aide at the White House until earlier this year and was up for promotion to colonel, will leave the military instead, his lawyer, David Pressman, said in a statement. “Through a campaign of bullying, intimidation, and retaliation, the president of the United States attempted to force LTC Vindman to choose: Between adhering to the law or pleasing a President. Between...

Breaking — Andrew Vindman retires from military…“Vindman was told by senior Army officials that he would no longer be deployable in his area of expertise, which includes Ukraine…He was also told by senior officers he would need a “rehabilitative assignment” even if he had opted to attend the National War College.” Breaking: Lt Col Alexander Vindman to retire from military. His lawyer blames White House 'campaign of bullying, intimidation and retaliation' - CNN exclusive. https://t.co/z2qKMTVYuR— Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) July 8, 2020

COVID-19 peak dates for every state Wake Forest coach to isolate from wife for entire season The Boston Globe logoThe prosecution of Michael Flynn is not over yet On Wednesday, two accounts of the Department of Justice — one grounded in fact, the other in fiction — were on display in the nation’s capital. The first occurred before the House Judiciary Committee, where Andrew Zelinksy, a career prosecutor currently working at the Justice Department, took the extraordinary step of testifying about political interference in criminal cases from “the highest levels of the Department,” namely by Attorney General William Barr. Zelinsky...

Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is now demanding an investigation into President Trump’s financial ties with foreign governments — a longtime goal of Democrats — after John Bolton’s book was leaked to news outlets. Bolton’s book claimed that Trump tried to persuade Chinese President Xi Jinping to buy more agricultural goods from the United States to help him win re-election. Menendez said that “raised new questions about how much the President may be profiting from his company’s relationship with the state-run Industrial and Commercial Bank of China.”

Bon Appetit editor-in-chief Adam Rapoport has resigned his position after several Bon Appetit staff members and freelance contributors publicly called for his resignation on Monday, alleging that a racist culture permeated throughout the brand. ... In a post on his personal Instagram account, Rapoport announced his departure: “I am stepping down as editor in chief of Bon Appetit to reflect on the work I need to do as a human being and to allow Bon Appetit to get to a better place. From an extremely ill-conceived Halloween costume 16 years ago to my blind spots as an editor, I’ve not...

Attorney General William Barr has asked a U.S. attorney to look into the practice of “unmasking” before and after the 2016 presidential election, a spokesperson for the Justice Department said Wednesday on Fox News’s “Hannity.” Justice Department spokesperson Kerri Kupec said Barr has asked U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Texas John Bash to review the “unmasking.” "Unmasking inherently isn't wrong, but certainly, the frequency, the motivation and the reasoning behind unmasking can be problematic, and when you're looking at unmasking as part of a broader investigation – like John Durham's investigation – looking specifically at who was unmasking...

For well over a year we’ve been saying AG Bill Barr’s biggest challenge is not investigating the soft-coup but rather managing through what We The People are already aware of. With that in mind; and with congress moving to put former DAG Rod Rosenstein and former Special Counsel Robert Mueller under a microscope; it is interesting to note AG Bill Barr recently conceding his two friends were corrupt. WATCH: [Transcript] …”Now what happened to the president – and I’ve said this many times – what happened to the president in the 2016 election; and throughout the first two years of...

Kevin Gough, a lawyer for Mr. Bryan, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. In an interview last week, he said Mr. Bryan “had no role or involvement in that shooting. He has committed no crime. He is a witness.” Mr. Arbery’s family and civil-rights activists have pressed for weeks for authorities to charge Mr. Bryan, arguing he wasn’t simply a witness but was involved in the young man’s killing. In an April letter to the Glynn County Police Department, George Barnhill, the district attorney in Waycross who oversaw the case for a period before recusing himself, wrote that...

A federal appeals court on Thursday ordered the judge handling the criminal case of President Donald Trump’s former national security advisor, Michael Flynn, to respond to a request by Flynn’s lawyers to dismiss the case. The order came two days after Flynn’s lawyers asked the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia to drop the case and assign any future court proceedings to another judge. The Department of Justice two weeks earlier made the surprise move to abandon its own prosecution of Flynn, who had pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his conversations with then-Russian...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s longtime personal lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen will be released from federal prison Thursday and is expected to serve the remainder of his sentence at home, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press. Cohen has been serving a federal prison sentence at FCI Otisville in New York after pleading guilty to numerous charges, including campaign finance fraud and lying to Congress. He will be released on furlough with the expectation that he will transition to home confinement to serve the remainder of his sentence at home, the person said. Cohen, 53,...

The Democrat-led House Judiciary Committee told the Supreme Court it needs the grand jury materials redacted in special counsel Robert Mueller’s report to decide whether to impeach Trump over his alleged obstruction of the Russia investigation. Douglas Letter, the Democratic committee's top lawyer, filed a 33-page motion on Monday opposing a Justice Department effort that seeks to have the nation's highest court block the release of the documents. Democrats insist they need the information quickly because the House Judiciary Committee’s “impeachment investigation related to obstruction of justice pertaining to the Russia investigation is ongoing.” “The Mueller Report grand-jury material remains...

Former Rep. Trey Gowdy accused reporters from CNN, Politico and The New York Times on Sunday of helping House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff “peddle” the now-debunked conspiracy theory of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian government. Gowdy was asked in an interview on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” to identify reporters he believed took leaks from Schiff for stories related to the Intelligence panel’s Russia investigation. “Well, I hope you have a three hour show,” Gowdy quipped.

WASHINGTON -- To his critics, Attorney General William Barr is doing all he can to undercut the conclusions of the Mueller investigation to please the White House. To his supporters, he is scrutinizing the probe of a presidential candidate that even the Justice Department's inspector general said was flawed. Those fault lines were in sharp relief after Barr directed federal prosecutors to abandon their prosecution of Michael Flynn, who served briefly as national security adviser in the early days of the Trump administration. Barr's decision to abandon the Flynn case renewed criticism that he was doing the president's bidding. He...

In an exclusive interview with CBS News senior investigative correspondent Catherine Herridge, Barr dismissed the notion from critics that he is doing the bidding of Mr. Trump. Catherine Herridge: The last thing most Americans remember about General Flynn is that he was fired. And that he admitted lying to the FBI. Does the fact remain that he lied? Attorney General William Barr: Well, you know, people sometimes plead to things that turn out not to be crimes. ... And the Department of Justice is not persuaded that this was material to any legitimate counterintelligence investigation. So it was not a...

If the "first rough draft of history" in the news media sounds dubious, the second draft made by Hollywood will almost certainly be worse. I'm not talking about documentaries, which can be judged as journalism. I'm talking about movies and TV shows, which will inevitably be pressed to dramatize things so they are evermore loosely "based on real events." CBS has been preparing a miniseries based on former FBI Director James Comey's memoir, pompously titled "A Higher Loyalty." In the memoir, he lectured, "Ethical leaders choose a higher loyalty to those core values over their own personal gain." But the...