BREAKING LATE TONIGHT .. a federal judge in Fla. hammers Trump and his lawyers in a ruling, issuing a nearly million💲 sanction against them for bringing a frivolous lawsuit against Clinton, Comey, McCabe, Strozk, Page, the DNC .. w/@maggieNYT nytimes.com/2023/01/19/us/… Judge writes: "Trump is a prolific and sophisticated litigant who is repeatedly using the courts to seek revenge on political adversaries..."

Today a 12k word biography I wrote of Gen John Kelly is being released in paperback of my book telling tale of how he tried to stop Trump from plunging US into war w/North Korea and how he thought Jared/Ivanka should not be working in US govt, let alone have security clearances amazon.com/Donald-Trump-U…

NEW:
IRS says for ‘17 it randomly picked 5,000 taxpayers out of 153 million who filed for a highly invasive audit
IRS says for ‘19 it randomly picked 8,000 out of 154 mil for same audit
Among those picked: former FBI dir Jim Comey and his dep. Andy McCabe
nytimes.com/2022/07/06/us/… NEW: Former FBI director Jim Comey and his deputy Andy McCabe were the subjects of highly unusual and invasive IRS audits over the past three years. Comey's audit occurred at the same time he was under DOJ investigation.
nytimes.com/2022/07/06/us/…

To understand how a little known law school professor went from obscurity to the most important adviser in Trump's ear as he pushed the country into a constitutional crisis we looked at how he rose to prominence in Trump's orbit. nytimes.com/2021/10/02/us/… Like many Trump stories, it starts on Fox News where Trump first saw the professor rail against the Mueller investigation in 2019. Within months, Trump had him making a case to AG Barr about how Trump could use his powers as president.

NEW: Hear and see what it was like for officers as they engaged in hand to hand combat with Trump supporters on the Capitol steps and tried to "hold the line" in the hopes of stopping them from breaching the Capitol. w/@robinnyc7 @heytherehaIey
nytimes.com/video/us/10000… The police had never been in such sustained hand to hand combat in the U.S. We tell the story of trying to "hold the line" by synchronizing the radio traffic of one top commander with footage. “If I give this up they’re going to have direct access! We gotta hold what we have!”

A little more than a month after the Capitol siege, a fuller picture of the injuries suffered by police has emerged, showing how Jan. 6 resulted in one of the worst days of injuries for law enforcement in the U.S. since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. nytimes.com/2021/02/11/us/… w/@lukebroadwater @ktbenner @KannoYoungs @shailadewan

RUDY NEWS: A Giuliani confidant told former CIA agent Kiriakou last year that Giuliani could help him w/ pardon but it was going to cost him..$2 mil.. Kiriakou relayed this to someone at a party who thought Giuliani may be selling pardons and that person reported it to FBI in Oct RUDY NEWS: Kiriakou told Giuliani in a meeting last summer about his pardon quest. When Giuliani went to the bathroom, a Giuliani confidant turned to Kiriakou and suggested Giuliani could help with pardon. “It’s going to cost $2 million — he’s going to want two million bucks.”

EXCLUSIVE: Trump allies -- like a former campaign staffer and even his former personal lawyer, John Dowd -- have sold their access to Trump, taking $$$ from wealthy felons to lobby Trump and White House aides, like Jared Kushner, for pardons. w/@kenvogel nytimes.com/2021/01/17/us/… One of the big reasons Trump allies have been able to profit from selling access to White House for pardons is that Trump/Kushner have eschewed longstanding DOJ process to vet pardon applicants, which is designed to ensure pardons are handed out on merit, not because of $/access.

In explaining his move, the official said that his decision was rooted in an award that he had won several years earlier that recognizes a department official who “displayed extraordinary strength of character in a unique situation.” w/@ktbenner nytimes.com/live/2020/11/1… The award the official cited -- the John C. Keeney Award for Exceptional Integrity and Professionalism -- was created to recognize department officials who showed integrity over a long career and “displayed extraordinary strength of character in a unique situation.”

New voting story: The 100s of lawyers deployed is far beyond what has become normal since ‘00 election; is result of Trump/Rs efforts to disqualify votes on technicalities and baseless fraud charges. All comes as pandemic is severely testing voting system. nytimes.com/2020/11/02/us/… w/@jimrutenberg @NYTnickc @peterbakernyt

NEW: “We need to take away children,” AG Sessions told prosecutors, according to a draft DOJ IG report. That statement contradicts Sessions’ previous claim that “we never really intended” to separate children. w/@shearm @ktbenner nytimes.com/2020/10/06/us/… One top official told the IG, in implementing child separation policy DOJ officials were merely following orders from President Trump. In April 2018 meeting Trump was on “a tirade” as he “ranted” to Sessions and demanded as many prosecutions as possible, the official said.

Secret White House contemporaneous memos tell backstory of how Jared and Ivanka received security clearances. Here is an excerpt from my book on @NBCNews that quotes from the memos and tells the story. nbcnews.com/think/opinion/… Chief of staff Kelly and WH counsel McGahn were briefed on highly sensitive intel that led them to oppose granting Top Secret clearances.

EXCLUSIVE: From my new book .. DOJ in '17 secretly curtailed FBI counterintel investigation of Trump financial/personal ties to Russia. DOJ concealed this from FBI at time, leaving FBI w/ impression Mueller would do it. But Mueller ultimately didn't. nytimes.com/2020/08/30/us/… Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein concluded the FBI had not cleared the threshold needed to conduct a counterintel investigation into the president's ties to Russia. Rosenstein believed the FBI had acted far to hastily to open investigation as it grieved firing of director Comey.