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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...

Michael Flynn is the victim of one of the worst miscarriages of justice in modern times — an innocent man who was unfairly targeted by the FBI, wrongfully prosecuted by special counsel Robert Mueller, and coerced into a guilty plea under threat. New court documents finally handed over to Flynn’s lawyer contain exculpatory evidence that has been long sought, yet concealed until now. The charge against him should be dismissed. Then, he should sue the very people and government that persecuted him under the pretext of a legitimate prosecution. The unvarnished truth is that the retired Army lieutenant general and...

The Supreme Court on Monday asked the Trump administration and the House to further brief justices on whether the case over the president's financial records can be decided by the courts. The move comes two weeks before the justices will hear oral arguments over a set of subpoenas that House Democrats have issued to President Trump's banks and accountants. The request indicates that at least some of the justices may believe that the judiciary is not fit to resolve the dispute. "The parties and the Solicitor General are directed to file supplemental letter briefs addressing whether the political question doctrine...

House Democrats have voted to begin yet another witch hunt. In a strictly partisan vote, 212-182, the House voted on Thursday to create a select committee to oversee the federal response to the coronavirus crisis — and examine President Trump’s response. The panel will be led by House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-SC) — a longtime Trump hater who has also endorsed Joe Biden. It will be comprised of seven Democrats and five Republicans — which means every vote will be 7-5 in favor of the Democrats. The Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis within the House Oversight and Reform...

Speaking at his daily Coronavirus Press Briefing, President Trump slammed some Democrat Governors and members of Congress for trying to use the Coronavirus Crisis as a “Witch Hunt” – like they did the “Russia Witch Hunt,” that turned out to be a total phony. He’s right. It’s disgusting how the Democrats are trying to use this virus as a tool to destroy Trump’s Presidency. It’s all about politics for them. President Trump has done a truly outstanding job dealing with this unprecedented crisis. . . .

Georgia Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler traded millions in stocks in the days after a closed Senate briefing on the coronavirus – and dumped holdings in retail stores that have been battered by the pandemic. The wealthy Loeffler, who was appointed to her seat and is married to the president of the New York Stock Exchange, sold $18.7 million in International Stock Exchange, according to information her office shared with the Atlanta Journal Constitution. That is the company that owns the New York Stock Exchange. The trades came Feb. 26 and March 11, as the virus spread but the broader public...

“Even if the statements at issue — published by third parties named in Page’s first failed lawsuit — could be attributed to Defendants, those statements were substantially true, and thus cannot be defamatory as a matter of law,” the DNC’s attorneys asserted.