Hunter Biden’s Name, Signature, and Shared Bank Account Showed Up in $60 Million Fraud Investigation

When a million-dollar securities fraud wrapped up two of Hunter Biden’s business partners at Burnham Asset Management, Hunter Biden escaped scrutiny. However, bank records and corporate document drafts now show one of the future first son’s shared bank accounts was used in the fraudulent bond transaction.

After his partners were arrested and charged in the scheme, Biden moved immediately to distance himself from the firm. He later told lawmakers during the impeachment inquiry into his father, former President Joe Biden, that the proposed work with Burnham never came to fruition.

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Jack Smith Drops Appeal of Classified Docs Case Against Trump’s Co-Defendants

Jack Smith

Special counsel Jack Smith on Monday withdrew his appeals request for his Florida classified documents case against President-elect Donald Trump’s co-defendants.

The attorney dropped his appeal against Trump last month after Trump won reelection to the White House, citing a Justice Department policy not to prosecute sitting presidents. Trump will be sworn in next month. 

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Rep. Jim Jordan Demands Documents Related to DOJ Investigation of Jack Smith Amid Misconduct Allegations

Rep. Jim Jordan

by Misty Severi   House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan on Wednesday sent a letter to the Justice Department (DOJ) requesting information about the department’s alleged misconduct investigation into special counsel Jack Smith. Justice Department officials briefed lawmakers on the investigation last month, which was opened after an employee under Smith “self-reported” possible misconduct by his office, according to the Washington Examiner. Jordan told Jeffrey Ragsdale, the DOJ Office of Professional Responsibility official who conducted the briefing, that he was not satisfied with the investigation, and that the letter should serve as a “preservation notice” of his records of the inquiry. Ragsdale told lawmakers that the inquiry was opened in June 2023, but he was unable to investigate further because of Smith’s prosecutions of President-elect Donald Trump. The investigation would have allegedly interfered with the cases. Details about the nature of the alleged misconduct was not immediately clear. “While we appreciate you confirming an open investigation into Jack Smith’s prosecutors, we are concerned that your refusal to take prompt investigative steps will allow these attorneys to evade internal accountability by leaving the Department,” Jordan wrote. The chairman said the briefing did not alleviate the committee’s concerns and asked the office to produce all relevant…

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Commentary: Pam Bondi Needs to Root Out Corruption in DOJ

Pam Bondi and Donald Trump

When she becomes attorney general, Pam Bondi should follow the law wherever it leads her to root out corruption within the Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and those acting as proxies for the hidden hand of the administrative state.

She is a highly qualified nominee, bringing two decades of experience as a prosecutor, including eight years serving as attorney general of Florida.

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Justice Department: Fulton County Jail Conditions Violate the Constitution

The deaths of at least four Georgia men with mental disabilities at the Fulton County Jail are “symptomatic of a pattern of dangerous and dehumanizing conditions,” the U.S. Department of Justice said.

The 97-page investigation also said inmates were not protected from harm by other inmates and the living conditions were “unsanitary and dangerous.” The conditions violate the Eighth and 14th Amendments of the U.S. Constitution, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the Justice Department said in a release.

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DOJ IG Horowitz Won’t Say How Many Confidential Human Sources Were Among Crowd on January 6, 2021

U.S. Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz on Wednesday would not say how many U.S. government confidential human sources were among the protestors during the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, when pressed on the matter by a lawmaker on Wednesday. Horowitz was asked if he has evidence of the number of confidential human sources that were operating on the Capitol grounds on January 6th.

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Bannon’s Lawyers Want a Hearing on Alleged Government Misconduct in Case, Judge Has Yet to Grant It

Months after the federal district court expressed concern about the government conduct during its investigation in Steve Bannon’s contempt of Congress case, the court has yet to hold a hearing on the claims that the prosecuting attorneys invaded the privacy of Bannon’s lawyer by subpoenaing his phone records and emails and potentially damaging the attorney-client relationship. 

The accusations against the prosecutors were detailed in several court filings over a year ago and Bannon had previously invoked them in a failed attempt to have the charges against him dismissed. According to the filings, defense attorneys argued prosecutors improperly obtained phone and email records and social media account information from Bannon’s then lawyer, Robert Costello.

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Justice Department Says TikTok Has Collected User Data on Issues Such as Gun Control and Abortion

The Justice Department on Friday evening accused the social media app TikTok of gathering information on users’ opinions on social issues such as abortion and gun control.

Attorneys for the DOJ said in documents filed at an appeals court in Washington that TikTok and its parent company ByteDance used an internal web-suite system called Lark to get TikTok employees to communicate with ByteDance engineers in China.

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DOJ Wants to Hide Why It Spied on Congressional Staff, Whistleblower Groups Fight Back

Jason Foster

Several major whistleblower groups are fighting the Justice Department’s efforts in federal court to permanently hide why it spied on congressional investigators by obtaining their phone records during a leaks investigation years ago.

The whistleblower group, Empower Oversight, whose founder Jason Foster was one of the investigators whose phone records were taken when he was still in a top Senate staffer, had asked a federal judge to unseal the underlying documents that allowed DOJ to acquire the records in 2017.

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Former CIA and White House Official Indicted for Allegedly Acting as South Korea Agent

Sue Mi Terry

A former Central Intelligence Agency and White House National Security Council official has been indicted for allegedly working for a South Korean intelligence officials in exchange for luxury gifts, according to the Justice Department.

The indictment, which was filed on Monday in a New York federal court and made public Tuesday, charges Sue Mi Terry, who worked for the U.S. government from 2001 to 2011, for providing confidential information to South Korea’s government.

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Commentary: Project 2025 and the Continued Democrat Meltdown

Project 2025

Tying Donald Trump to Project 2025 is the latest desperation tactic from Democrats. But it’s likely to backfire. It might actually create a new generation of Conservatives in the process.

Last year, the Heritage Foundation published the Mandate for Leadership as assembled by a consortium of people and think tanks called Project 2025. It is a compilation of long-standing recommended Conservative policies for the next Republican administration. The Project 2025 group claims the document is “the Conservative movement’s unified effort to be ready for the next Conservative administration to govern at noon, January 20, 2025.”

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Another Complaint Adds to Mounting Evidence of FBI’s Political Bias and Whistleblower Retaliation

Evidence is mounting that the FBI—the country’s premier law enforcement agency—has resorted to basing decisions to suspend or revoke security clearances on FBI employees’ political views.

The evidence, which suggests political motivations in how the bureau has treated several of its own workers, has surfaced through whistleblower complaints recently filed internally and with the Justice Department’s watchdog.

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Bombshell: FBI Supervisor Alleges Bureau Improperly Pulling Conservative Agents’ Security Clearances

An FBI supervisor is blowing the whistle on his own organization, alleging to the Justice Department’s chief watchdog and Congress that the bureau has been improperly suspending or revoking the security clearances of agents it believes hold conservative political views.

The new whistleblower’s allegations surfaced Tuesday in correspondence obtained by “Just the News” that was sent to the House and Senate Judiciary committees and DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz, dramatically claiming that as a supervisory special agent he witnessed efforts by senior FBI brass to target employees who supported Donald Trump or opposed COVID-19 vaccines.

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‘Social Justice Lawyers’ Told WPATH to Avoid ‘Evidence-Based Review’ of Sex-Change Guidelines for Minors, Docs Reveal

Pediatrician with child patient

The World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH) avoided “evidence-based” reviews of child sex-change procedures on the advice of “social justice lawyers,” a court filing states.

Republican Attorney General Steve Marshall of Alabama filed a motion for summary judgment in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama Wednesday, seeking to beat back a challenge to Alabama’s law restricting the procedures. The Alabama attorney general’s office accused WPATH of placing “advocacy concerns” at the forefront of the creation of the organization’s “Standards of Care for the Health of Transgender and Gender Diverse People, Version 8” (SOC-8), which was based in part on the advice of the “social justice” attorneys who advised the organization to avoid seeking evidence-based recommendations.

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New Evidence Turned over to Congress Disputes Hunter Biden Testimony About Controversial Firm

Hunter Biden in front of US Capitol building (composite image)

Already accused of lying to Congress about other issues, Hunter Biden’s February impeachment inquiry testimony distancing himself from a controversial securities firm directly conflicts with evidence the FBI seized years ago, including his signature on an employment contract that made him the firm’s vice chairman.

The documents were gathered by FBI and SEC agents back in 2016 and were recently obtained by Congress and shared with Just the News, but not until after Hunter Biden had already given his deposition in February to the U.S. House as part of his father’s impeachment inquiry.

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Criminal Referral Accuses DOJ’s Kristen Clarke of ‘Perjury,’ ‘False Statements’

assistant attorney general for civil rights Kristen Clarke

The Justice Department’s Kristen Clarke, assistant attorney general for civil rights, will be hit with three ethics complaints and a criminal referral Monday, The Daily Signal has learned.

Article III Project is filing both the ethics complaints and criminal referral, which calls upon Attorney General Merrick Garland to open a criminal probe into Clarke on the grounds that she “knowingly and willfully” made “materially false statements” and that she committed “perjury.”

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Hunter Biden’s Seemingly Paradoxical Legal Defense Strategy

Hunter Biden courtroom

Defense lawyers are approaching Hunter Biden’s felony gun trial with a strategy to paint the first son as the victim of his drug addiction but at the same time convey that he did not believe he was an addict when he allegedly lied on a federal firearm purchase form.

The defense argument, described by one legal analyst as “remarkably clever,” is designed to sow reasonable doubt in the jurors’ minds that Biden had full knowledge he was lying when he marked that he was not using drugs on the purchase form when he bought a firearm in Delaware in 2016. At the same time, the defense attempted to paint Biden as a victim of his own addictions, possibly to elicit sympathy from the jury.

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Justice Department Investigated Conservative ‘Moms for Liberty’ in Same Manner as KKK: Report

Moms for Liberty

The internal emails appeared to show that the DOJ pressured local officials at times to accept their help, including by using emails from doj.gov accounts to allegedly pester them when they did not show interest.

The Justice Department (DOJ) appeared to investigate a conservative parental rights group in the same manner that it investigated the Klu Klux Klan (KKK), according to a news report on Wednesday.

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Justice Department Sues Iowa over Immigration Law After Warning

Kim Reynolds

The Justice Department sued the state of Iowa on Thursday, after the state failed to stop a new immigration law that makes it a crime for people to be in the state if they were previously denied admission to the United States.

The lawsuit is the second legal action taken against the state over the new law, which goes into effect in July. The first was a lawsuit from a civil rights group that was filed earlier Thursday. The department warned Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds that it would sue last week if she did not stop the law by May 7.

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Julie Kelly Commentary: The Supreme Court Can Right an Egregious Wrong in Jan 6 Cases, But Will It?

In July 2023, Joshua Youngerman was arrested in California on five misdemeanors for his participation in the events of January 6. According to charging documents, Youngerman entered the Capitol at 2:37 p.m. — 20 minutes after the House went into recess amid the escalating chaos — through an open door as Capitol Police stood by. He exited through the same door two minutes later. But just last week, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Matthew Graves added another charge to Youngerman’s case: 18 U.S.C. § 1512(c)(2), obstruction of an official proceeding. Youngerman is one of more than 330 J6ers charged with the evidence-destroying statute passed in the wake of the Enron-Arthur Anderson accounting scandal that Joe Biden’s Justice Department has weaponized to punish Americans who protested Biden’s election that afternoon. The count also is included in both of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s indictments against Donald Trump. Graves’ decision to indict Youngerman now is a stunning act of hubris and defiance. Why? Because the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments this Tuesday in Joseph Fischer v. USA, which challenges the government’s interpretation of the obstruction count in Jan 6 cases. Many legal and court observers expect the court to wholly or partially overturn how the…

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Federal Investigators Want More Money to Go After Pandemic Fraud

Merrick Garland DOJ

The federal officials tasked with tracking down widespread fraud during and after the COVID-19 pandemic want more time and more money to finish the job.

The Justice Department’s COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force, made up of nearly 30 federal agencies, released its 2024 report on Tuesday. The report details the efforts of the task force in response to fraud involving COVID-19 relief programs.

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Bob Menendez Says He Won’t Run for Reelection as Democrat in 2024

Bob Menendez

Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez of New Jersey announced he would not run in the Democratic Senate primary Thursday, saying he was “hopeful” that he could eventually run as an independent candidate.

The Justice Department unsealed an indictment against Menendez and his wife, Nadine, on three counts according to a September release by the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, then added additional charges in a March 5 superseding indictment. Menendez said he would not be running in June’s New Jersey Senate primary, but left the door open to running as an “independent Democrat.”

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Special Counsel Hur Squares Off with White House, Says Biden ‘Willfully Retained’ Classified Memos

Robert Hur

Special Counsel Robert Hur on Tuesday directly disputed the White House narrative on President Biden’s retention of classified documents after his vice presidency, confirming Biden “willfully” retained classified documents, indicated Biden lied to reporters when he said he did not share such information, and testified his report “did not exonerate” Biden of wrongdoing. 

He insisted in nationally televised testimony to Congress that Biden did “willfully” keep nationally secrets but that prosecutors did not believe they could prove it to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt.

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Special Counsel’s Report Gives Impeachment Inquiry New Leads in Biden-Ukraine Saga

On the heels of the long-awaited report by Justice Department special counsel Robert Hur on the possession and potential mishandling of classified documents by President Joe Biden, several of the memos cited in the report that were found in Biden’s possession are eliciting questions from Congress about why Biden retained those documents related specifically to countries where his son was conducting his foreign business dealings. The House Oversight Committee has demanded that the Department of Justice provide them access to the classified documents uncovered by the special counsel’s investigation.

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Biden Classified Memos Report Re-Ignites Debates About Dual Justice, ‘Diminished’ President

Biden Speaking

Special Counsel Robert Hur’s final report on Joe Biden’s willful retention and dissemination of highly classified information is rocking Washington, re-igniting concerns of a dual system of justice while putting the full weight of the government behind the notion that America is currently being served by a president with “diminished faculties.”

Hur’s 388-page report released Thursday may have spared Biden the spectacle of a criminal prosecution similar to that his Justice Department imposed on Donald Trump, but it delivered a devastating blow to the 46th president’s re-election hopes by going out of its way to explain criminal charges weren’t levied in part because jurors might see Biden as a dottering, forgetful old man incapable of criminal intent.

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Biden Pushes Inmate Voting with Help from Interest Groups

Inmate

A federal agency is working with left-of-center nonprofits to increase voting among prisoners and former prison inmates under an executive order from President Joe Biden designed to increase election turnout. 

The Federal Bureau of Prisons has partnered with and regularly consults on voting issues with the League of Women Voters, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Campaign Legal Center, and the Washington Lawyers’ Committee. 

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Alleged Foreign Agent Law Violations Loom over Hunter Biden as House Prepares to Depose Him

The U.S. law firm that did work for Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings was encouraged by the Justice Department to register as a foreign agent for the same type of work that Hunter Biden did for the company while he was a board member. Burisma was not registered as a foreign agent at the time.

Cravath, Swaine & Moore LLP (Cravath) as part of its representation of Burisma and its founder, litigation partner John Buretta met with State Department officials and sent a letter directly to the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine, according to Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) filings submitted earlier this month.

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Top Two Presidential Candidates, Relatives Facing Legal Woes as 2024 Voting Starts

The top two 2024 presidential candidates are running with lawsuits looming over them, as former President Donald Trump has multiple trials he faces this year while President Joe Biden’s son is having his own legal troubles.

On Thursday, both Trump and Hunter Biden were in court at opposite ends of the country, with the former president in New York and the first son in Los Angeles. Trump’s trial is a civil case brought by the state attorney general regarding alleged business fraud while Hunter Biden was in court for alleged tax fraud.

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Commentary: Enemies of the Administrative State

DOJ Logo

Amid allegations from conservative lawmakers and activists that Washington, D.C.’s most powerful agencies have been weaponized against their critics, one organization has not only played a key role in helping marshal evidence of such malfeasance, but found itself at the center of an emerging government targeting scandal that would seem to only further substantiate the claims of administrative state critics.

That organization is Empower Oversight Whistleblowers & Research. It has represented whistleblowers at the heart of some of the most consequential and contentious congressional investigations in recent years, touching on matters ranging from the impeachment inquiry into President Biden, to alleged FBI inflation of the domestic terror threat.

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DOJ Charges Two in Scheme to Supply Iran with Military Technology

The Justice Department announced charges against two men in a scheme to supply electronic technology to Iran, according to multiple media outlets.

Hossein Hatefi Ardakani and Gary Lam were indicted in September 2020 on charges of conspiracy to provide Iran with microelectronic technology to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Agence France-Presse reported. The pair, who made the purchases in 2014 and 2015, allegedly used front companies to carry out their plot, according to ABC News.

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Sen. Joni Ernst Releases List of Federal Agencies with High Employee No-Show Rates Post-COVID

Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA)

With Christmas fast-approaching, Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa put out a “naughty list” of government agencies that have high no-show rates of employees who have not returned to the office after the COVID-19 pandemic ended.

According to Ernst’s list, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Social Security Administration top the list with just 7 percent office occupancy rates.

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Hunter Biden Asks Judge to Subpoena Donald Trump, Ex-Justice Department Officials in Criminal Case

First son Hunter Biden on Wednesday asked the federal judge presiding over his criminal case in Delaware to approve subpoenas of former President Donald Trump and his former top Justice Department officials as he argues that his investigation was the result of “incessant, improper, and partisan pressure” from the former president and his allies. 

The court filing asked U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika, a Trump appointee, to subpoena the former president, former Attorney General Bill Barr, former acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue and former acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, according to NBC News. 

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Federal Prosecutors Spied on Congress in Search for Leaks, Now DOJ Is Being Investigated for It

Several current and former congressional oversight staff have been recently informed that the U.S. Justice Department seized their phone and email records back in 2017 as part of leak investigations, belated revelations that have touched off an inquiry by DOJ’s internal watchdog and raised serious concerns about the separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches.

Over the last week, several current and former Senate and House staff from both political parties have alerted Congress that they received belated notifications from Apple, Google or other Big Tech firms that their email or phone records were obtained from their personal devices via a grand jury subpoena.

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House Conservatives Say Any Spending Bill Must Address Border Security, DOJ Weaponization

The House Freedom Caucus, a group of conservative lawmakers in the House, outlined Monday what conditions would need to be met for them to vote for a new spending bill.

The group is calling for spending bills to include provisions on border security, the “unprecedented weaponization” of the Justice Department and FBI, and the Pentagon’s “cancerous woke polices.” The lawmakers also oppose “any blank check for Ukraine in any supplemental appropriations bill.”

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Trump Says His Team Met Prosecutors, Who Gave No Indication of Indictment in 2020 Election Probe

Former President Donald Trump said his legal team had a “productive meeting” Thursday with the Justice Department for Special Counsel Jack Smith’s probe, but prosecutors did not give any indication that he would receive a notice of indictment in the probe involving efforts to challenge the 2020 election results.

“My attorneys had a productive meeting with the DOJ this morning, explaining in detail that I did nothing wrong, was advised by many lawyers, and that an Indictment of me would only further destroy our Country. No indication of notice was given during the meeting — Do not trust the Fake News on anything!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

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Commentary: Censorship Is More Dangerous Than Disinformation

The First Amendment is under assault by the very people entrusted to protect it. The Biden administration and the corporate media removed any doubt about this after a July 4 ruling by U.S. District Court Judge Terry A. Doughty. Evidence revealed during the discovery process in Missouri v. Biden convinced the judge that administration officials illegally pressured social media platforms to censor disfavored views. Doughty issued a 155-page opinion and an injunction prohibiting federal officials from “pressuring or coercing social-media companies in any manner to remove, delete, suppress, or reduce posted content of postings containing protected free speech.”

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Bipartisan Effort to Reform FISA, End Abuses Could be Iced by GOP Outrage of Durham Report Findings

Congressional Democrats have joined in bipartisan effort to reform the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act amid abuses but GOP outrage over the findings in the Durham Report, including recent calls to impeach Attorney General Merrick Garland over such matters, has likely hurt such efforts.

Congressional reauthorization of FISA is due in December, with particular focus on Section 702 of the law, which permits the government to conduct targeted surveillance on foreign people outside the U.S., with the assistance of electronic communication service providers, to acquire foreign intelligence information.

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