Norfolk Southern Reaches $310 Million Settlement with EPA, DOJ over East Palestine Derailment

Norfolk Southern reached a $310 million settlement with the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Justice on Thursday over a train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, last year.

The settlement, which has yet to be approved by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, requires Norfolk Southern to spend an estimated $235 million for clean-up, $30 million for water quality monitoring, $25 million for a 20-year community health program, and $6 million to prioritize addressing historical pollution through a “waterways remediation plan,” reported the Washington Examiner.

Read More

Biden Attempt to Hide Tapes to Collide with Precedent from Past Democratic Probes

President Joe Biden’s attempt to assert executive privilege over the tapes of his interview with federal investigators in his own classified documents case could run into the history of Democratic tactics to obtain information from former President Trump.

For example, recent court decisions surrounding Trump’s efforts to invoke executive privilege over subpoenaed documents by the Jan. 6 Select Committee confirmed a legitimate congressional investigation is often a strong basis for requesting documents or information from the executive. Though, Biden’s current control of the executive branch may allow him to stonewall successfully.

Read More

Commentary: Defund and Investigate Jack Smith

Jack Smith

Special Counsel Jack Smith was supposed to be basking in glory right now.

In his ideal world, Smith would be hot off a quick conviction of Donald Trump in Washington, D.C. for the former president’s alleged role in the events of January 6 and attempts to “overturn” the 2020 election. The special counsel then would have immediately moved his victorious prosecutors to Palm Beach for the summer to prepare for Trump’s second federal trial related to allegedly stealing national defense information and impeding the Department of Justice’s investigation.

Read More

Commentary: Judge Cannon Puts Jack Smith on Trial

Jack Smith

U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon may have just indefinitely postponed Donald Trump’s espionage and obstruction trial but that doesn’t mean her federal courtroom in Fort Pierce, Florida will lie dormant over the next few months.

In officially vacating the existing May 20 trial date—an impossibility considering the defendant will be in a Manhattan courtroom for the foreseeable future—Cannon declined to set another date, calling it “imprudent” at this stage of the process. She noted a “myriad” of unresolved matters in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s 42-count indictment against the former president and his two co-defendants, Mar-a-Lago employees Waltine Nauta and Carlos De Olivera, for willfully retaining national defense information and attempting to impede the government’s investigation.

Read More

From Watergate to Now: John Solomon Exposes Deepening Collusion and Tampering in Trump Investigations

From his studios at Just the News, John Solomon joined Steve Bannon on WarRoom on Monday to examine previous impeachment proceedings and investigations concerning Donald Trump. He exposed some breaking news, reporting that there is extensive evidence of tampering and witness tampering in the Ukraine impeachment and subsequent investigations.

Read More

Julie Kelly Commentary: The DOJ’s Doctored Crime Scene Photo of Mar-a-Lago Raid

A few weeks after the armed FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago in August 2022, the Department of Justice released a stunning photograph depicting alleged contraband seized from Donald Trump’s Palm Beach estate that day; the image showed colored sheets representing scary classification levels attached to files purportedly discovered in Trump’s private office.

Read More

D.C. Bar Disciplinary Panel Makes Nonbinding Preliminary Determination of Culpability for a ‘Thought Crime’ in Disbarment Trial of Trump’s Former DOJ Official Jeffrey Clark

The disciplinary trial of Donald Trump’s former DOJ official Jeffrey Clark wrapped up on Thursday with the D.C. Bar’s disciplinary panel making a nonbinding preliminary determination that Clark was culpable on at least one of the two counts against him.

Read More

Feds Crack Down on Pernicious Chinese Hacking Group that Targeted U.S. Gov’t, Dissidents

Hacker mugshots

The U.S. on Monday announced actions aimed at exposing a sweeping Chinese hacking campaign that has targeted U.S. government institutions, critical infrastructure, media and political dissidents for more than a decade.

Wuhan Xiaoruizhi Science and Technology Company, Limited (Wuhan XRZ), served as a front company for China’s Ministry of State Security (MSS), which deals with overseas policing and espionage, allowing Chinese hackers to hide a multitude of malicious cyber operations, the Treasury Department said after sanctioning the organization on Monday in a statement alongside other U.S. agencies and the United Kingdom. In an indictment unsealed separately, the Department of Justice accused Chinese nationals Zhao Guangzong, Ni Gaobin and five others for their role “in furtherance of [China’s] economic espionage and foreign intelligence objectives” over the past 14 years.

Read More

Impeachment Probe Dramatically Pivots to Questions of CIA, DOJ Coverup in Hunter Biden Case

After a bombastic hearing with Hunter Biden’s business partners, House impeachment investigators are dramatically pivoting to allegations of a possible coverup in the first son’s criminal tax case as the inquiry transitions to a new phase.

On Thursday, the House Judiciary Committee sued the Justice Department seeking to force two attorneys there to comply with subpoenas and testify about whether there was any political interference in Hunter Biden’s tax prosecution.

Read More

Commentary: Biden’s DOJ Thumbs Nose at SCOTUS on Key J6 Felony Charge

Matthew Graves

Donald Trump filed his brief Tuesday at the U.S. Supreme Court to defend his argument that presidents are immune from criminal prosecution. Noting the lack of historical precedent and dire ramifications for the future, Trump’s attorneys warned that “a denial of criminal immunity would incapacitate every future President with de facto blackmail and extortion while in office, and condemn him to years of post-office trauma at the hands of political opponents.”

Oral arguments on the groundbreaking question are set for April 25; a final opinion, which could be announced in late May or sometime in June before the current SCOTUS term ends, represents a do-or-die situation for Special Counsel Jack Smith’s four-count indictment against the former president for the events of January 6 and his alleged attempts to “overturn” the 2020 election. The case is now on hold awaiting a decision by SCOTUS.

Read More