Democrats and Republicans on Wednesday sparred over special counsel John Durham’s report on the FBI investigation of collusion between Russian officials and Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, rehashing the political implications of both Durham’s report and the original Trump-Russia probe.

Durham testified for over five hours before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday over the details of the 306-page report. Releasedon May 15","link":{"target":"NEW","attributes":[],"url":"https://www.politico.com/news/2023/05/15/durham-report-faults-fbis-trump-russia-probe-00096978","_id":"0000018f-e6f0-d005-a98f-f7f73f0a0008","_type":"33ac701a-72c1-316a-a3a5-13918cf384df"},"_id":"0000018f-e6f0-d005-a98f-f7f73f0a0009","_type":"02ec1f82-5e56-3b8c-af6e-6fc7c8772266"}">on May 15, following a four-year investigation, it concluded that the FBI should have launched a preliminary, not a full, investigation into ties between Trump and Russia. Durham also accused the department of a double standard in its probing of foreign interference on Trump’s campaign and then-Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s.

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The Justice Department has released portions of a previously unseen alternative version of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report on ties between former President Donald Trump and Russia.

However, the 37-page report prepared at the direction of Mueller deputy Andrew Weissmann and released this week under the Freedom of Information Act is heavily redacted. Justice Department officials withheld large swaths of the document on grounds of ongoing investigations, privacy and protecting internal deliberations.

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President Joe Biden has nominated Elizabeth Prelogar, the veteran appellate lawyer who has pursued the administration’s interests at the Supreme Court over the past seven months, to become solicitor General on a permanent basis, the White House announced early Wednesday.

Prelogar, a Harvard Law graduate and a former clerk to Attorney General Merrick Garland during his tenure as a judge on the D.C. Circuit, served as a prosecutor on the staff of special counsel Robert Mueller during his investigation into alleged ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.

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NEW YORK — A former senior Treasury Department official was sentenced Thursday to six months in prison for leaking thousands of confidential reports on suspect financial transactions.

The disclosures from Natalie Mayflower Sours Edwards, 42, fueled reports in BuzzFeed on issues related to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of ties between the Trump campaign and Russia, as well as a series by news organizations across the globe last September examining why banks around the world continued to do business with clients who regularly engaged in suspicious activity.

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Former special counsel Robert Mueller will take part in a University of Virginia law school class covering his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and potential ties to the Trump campaign, the school announced Wednesday.

Mueller, who graduated from the school in 1973, will lead "at least one class" of the course, which is being taught by three former senior Mueller team members, including deputy special counsel Aaron Zebley, according to a release from the school. The "short" class, called "The Mueller Report and the Role of the Special Counsel," will be taught in person this fall.

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A federal judge has ordered the release of a key Justice Department memo supporting former Attorney William Barr’s conclusion that former President Donald Trump should not be prosecuted for obstruction of justice over episodes investigated by special counsel Robert Mueller.

U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson issued that ruling in a withering opinion that accused Barr of being “disingenuous” when describing Mueller’s findings and found that the Justice Department was not candid with the court about the purpose and role of the 2019 memo prepared by Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel.

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The Justice Department official who spearheaded the department’s crackdown on unregistered foreign agents praised the department’s tougher approach to enforcing the Foreign Agent Registration Act and predicted that DOJ will continue the crackdown under the Biden administration.

“It is clear that this incoming Justice Department remains very focused on addressing the issues pertaining to covert and malign foreign influence, and that they have every intention to continue to robustly enforce FARA,” Brandon Van Grack, who recently stepped down from his post as the chief of the revamped FARA office, said in an interview. “Probably you're dealing with a FARA unit that is more, better staffed, than it has been probably in my lifetime.”

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Sen. Pat Toomey on Sunday said President Donald Trump had gone too far with some of his presidential pardons.

Speaking on “Fox News Sunday,” the Pennsylvania Republican said that while the president had the right to pardon anyone, “I think it’s a misuse of the power” to pardon people whose greatest claim to this special form of justice is a connection to the president.

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President Donald Trump issued a raft of pre-Christmas pardons and commutations Tuesday, favoring the well-connected and those with A-list advocates, while appearing to shunt aside — at least for now — more than 14,000 people who have applied for clemency through a small Justice Department office that handles such requests.

Some of Trump’s actions seemed intended to send clear messages, such as grants of clemency for the former campaign operative whose 2016 activities triggered the FBI probe that led to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation and to four security contractors convicted for massacring Iraqi civilians in 2008, including one serving a life-sentence for first-degree murder.

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House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerry Nadler intends to reissue a subpoena for former White House Counsel Don McGahn's testimony next year, the House told a federal appeals court Wednesday, confirming that Democrats intend to press ahead with its long legal battle to compel testimony from a star witness in special counsel Robert Mueller's obstruction of justice investigation of President Donald Trump.

"I expect to promptly reissue the Committee subpoena to Mr. McGahn to ensure this Committee’s litigation and corresponding legislative and oversight efforts continue uninterrupted," Nadler said ina memo to the Judiciary Committee, which accompanied the 66-page court filing signed by House Counsel Douglas Letter.

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A federal judge has closed the four-year-old criminal case against former national security adviser Michael Flynn, acknowledging the pardon that President Donald Trump issued last week to the only Trump administration official charged in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of alleged ties between the Trump campaign and Russia.

U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan — who’d been wrestling for months with a highly unusual request from Attorney General William Barr to drop the prosecution — said Tuesday that bid was rendered moot by Trump’s decision to grant Flynn a sweeping pardon for his alleged lies to the FBI and any other offenses he may have committed in connection with Mueller’s probe.

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Attorney General William Barr has appointed U.S. attorney John Durham as a special counsel to investigate the origins of the FBI’s probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The appointment formalizes Durham’s ongoing probe, but more significantly, would give Durham latitude to continue the politically explosive investigation after President-elect Joe Biden takes office in January.

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Rudy Giuliani on Tuesday appeared to deny aspects of a news report that he has allegedly discussed with President Donald Trump the possibility of being issued a preemptive pardon before Trump leaves office.

“#FakeNews NYT lies again,” Giuliani wrote on Twitter. “Never had the discussion they falsely attribute to an anonymous source. Hard to keep up with all their lies.”

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President Donald Trump’s pardon of his former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, includes an extremely broad reprieve from any possible crimes he might have committed connected to special counsel Robert Mueller’s two-year investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The formal language of the pardon emerged in a Justice Department court filing on Monday seeking dismissal of the lingering criminal case against Flynn, who pleaded guilty in 2017 to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russia. Flynn has since renounced his plea and accused prosecutors and investigators of framing him, charges echoed by Trump as he battled the Mueller probe.

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Outgoing President Donald Trump pardoned his former national security adviser Michael Flynn on Wednesday for lying to FBI agents investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election.

“It is my Great Honor to announce that General Michael T. Flynn has been granted a Full Pardon,” the president tweeted. “Congratulations to@GenFlynn and his wonderful family, I know you will now have a truly fantastic Thanksgiving!”

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The House is asking the Supreme Court to postpone consideration of Democrats’ 18-month effort to obtain former special counsel Robert Mueller’s secret evidence, citing the imminent inauguration of President-elect Joe Biden.

In a filing with the high court on Tuesday, House counsel Doug Letter urged the court to postpone a Dec. 2 hearing on the matter. Biden’s ascension to the Oval Office, combined with a newly constituted Congress taking office next year will require the House Judiciary Committee to reconsider how to pursue its investigation, Letter said.

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As attempted comebacks go, it’s an audacious gambit.

Rick Gates, the former Trump aide who pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges in the Robert Mueller probe — and then helped put other Trump associates in jail — hasn’t just launched a book tour aimed at clearing his name. He’s also started a new strategic consulting firm for companies looking to navigate the federal government.

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The Russians haven’t loomed so large as a dark, sinister hand influencing the course of American society since the Red Scares of the 20th century.

Then, it was largely the right that warned of Russian infiltration; now it is progressives who see Russians altering the course of American history through dark manipulations.

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The House's fight to subpoena former White House counsel Don McGahn — a central witness to evidence that President Donald Trump obstructed special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation — will stretch deep into 2021, a federal appeals court determined Thursday.

The move ensures that potential testimony from the GOP lawyer comes well after Trump's reelection or the inauguration of Joe Biden.

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If you believe the headlines, Andrew Weissmann was special counsel Robert Mueller’s “pitbull,” his closest aide, the shadow power behind the two-year investigation of President Donald Trump and his campaign’s contacts with Russia.

But in Weissmann’s own telling, his reputation as an outsize force was overstated — fueled, the longtime federal prosecutor believes, by a secret anti-Mueller public relations effort driven by Paul Manafort and Sean Hannity. And it’s belied by the sheer number of major prosecutorial decisions on which he ended up on the losing side.

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