90 Miles From Tyranny

Tuesday, May 5, 2020

House GOP blasts FBI's Wray, demands key Russia interviews and documents

'Well past time that you show the leadership necessary to bring the FBI past the abuses of the Obama-Biden era,' letter says.

wo senior Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee sent a stinging letter Monday to FBI Director Chris Wray, suggesting he has failed to lead his agency past the abuses uncovered in the Russia scandal and demanding new access to witnesses and documents.

The letter, largely symbolic since Republicans are in the House minority, is nonetheless the latest signal that Wray's hold on his job may be in jeopardy after a series of devastating revelations about misconduct inside the nation's premier law enforcement agency.

Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the committee's ranking Republican, and Mike Johnson, ranking member on the panel's civil liberties subcommittee, said lawmakers were dismayed that numerous revelations about problems in the probe were delayed for years, including in the case of former Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.

"The American people continue to learn troubling details about the politicization and misconduct at the highest levels of the FBI during the Obama-Biden Administration," the wrote. "Even more concerning, we continue to learn these new details from litigation and investigations—not from you," the lawmakers wrote. "It is well past time that you show the leadership necessary to bring the FBI past the abuses of the Obama-Biden era."

Jordan and Davis asked Wray to answer six questions, including to "explain whether you or any other member of the FBI’s senior leadership prevented or delayed the disclosure of additional exculpatory information to LTG Flynn and his legal team."

They also demanded access to new documents and witnesses, including the FBI's former counterintelligence chief William Priestap, whose handwritten notes from 2017 raised concerns the bureau was "playing games" and possibly try to lure Flynn into an interview where he would be caught lying in order to...

A “reclusive” vegan who beat his girlfriend with a glass vinegar bottle because she “smelled of bacon” has been sentenced to a community order after pleading guilty to assault.

Christopher Ellam, 22, pleaded guilty at Kirklees Magistrates’ Court to two counts of criminal damage, sending indecent or grossly-offensive messages, and assault by beating of his girlfriend of four years, Bethany Smith, 23.

Miss Smith had told the court that she and Mr Ellam had started out as friends before becoming romantically involved in 2015. At the time, Mr Ellam was neither a vegetarian nor a vegan. Eventually, the couple moved in together in Huddersfield, West Yorkshire.

During the relationship, Mr Ellam then became a fanatical vegan — eschewing all animal products — with Miss Smith telling the court her then-boyfriend pressured her into becoming a vegan, as well, according to comments reported in the MailOnline on Sunday.

“He became completely set on the idea. He told me bluntly: ‘If you’re not going vegan, I’ll break up with you,'” she said.

The domestic abuse survivor described a controlling and destructive relationship, where Mr Ellam cut up his then-girlfriend’s clothes, and harshly criticised her for eating one cheese and onion crisp, with cheese being forbidden in veganism.

Miss Smith described her ex-boyfriend as “reclusive”, and said that “he barely left the flat”, meaning that the couple were dependent on the money the young woman earnt working at her step-father’s cafe in nearby Halifax.

Smith told the court: “During the week I helped out by waitressing, doing the washing up, working the till and serving customers. I enjoyed the job, interacting with people, and it gave me some time away from Christopher.

‘But when I got home from a shift one evening, Christopher was raging. He snapped and told me I ‘smelt of meat’.

“I assured him it was because I’d been in the cafe around food all day, but he launched into a...