Matt Zapotosky

Attorney General Jeff Sessions resigned at President Donald Trump’s request, ending the tenure of a loyalist President Trump had soured on shortly after Sessions took office in 2017 because the former senator from Alabama had recused himself from oversight of the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential campaign.

Apparently, a federal investigation into Facebook’s sharing of data with political consultancy Cambridge Analytica has broadened to focus on the actions and statements of the tech giant and involves three agencies, including the Securities and Exchange Commission. Representatives for the FBI, the SEC and the Federal Trade Commission have joined the Justice Department in its inquiries about the two companies and the sharing of personal information of 71 million Americans, suggesting the wide-ranging nature of the investigation, apparently.

Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz and FBI Director Christopher A. Wray faced lawmakers to defend a report on the FBI’s investigation of Hillary Clinton’s e-mails, which rebuked the conduct of former director James B.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Nov 14 again revised his account of what he knew about the Trump campaign’s dealings with Russians, acknowledging for the first time that he recalled a meeting where a foreign policy adviser mentioned having contacts who could possibly broker a meeting between then-candidate Donald Trump and Russian President Vladi­mir Putin. Testifying before the House Judiciary Committee, Sessions said he now remembered adviser George Papadopoulos saying in March 2016 that he knew people who might be able to help arrange a Trump-Putin meeting.

Federal prosecutors are weighing whether to bring criminal charges against members of the WikiLeaks organization, taking a second look at a 2010 leak of diplomatic cables and military documents and investigating whether the group bears criminal responsibility for the more recent revelation of sensitive CIA cyber-tools, apparently.

The Justice Department under President Barack Obama decided not to charge WikiLeaks for revealing some of the government’s most sensitive secrets — concluding that doing so would be akin to prosecuting a news organization for publishing classified information. Justice Department leadership under President Trump, though, has indicated to prosecutors that it is open to taking another look at the case, which the Obama administration did not formally close. It is not clear whether prosecutors are also looking at WikiLeaks’ role in 2016 in publishing e-mails from the Democratic National Committee and the account of Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John D. Podesta, which US officials have said were hacked by the Russian government.

The FBI told a federal judge that it needed to search a computer to resume its investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private e-mail server because agents had found correspondence on the device between Clinton and top aide Huma Abedin but they did not know what was being discussed, according to newly unsealed court documents. The bureau argued that Clinton and Abedin were previously on e-mail chains in which classified information was discussed, and so there was probable cause to search a computer belonging to Abedin’s estranged husband, disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner, for information potentially related to the Clinton e-mail case.

That search — along with FBI Director James B. Comey’s decision to tell Congress that the investigation into Clinton’s e-mail practices had resumed — came less than two weeks before the election and upended the presidential campaign. US Magistrate Judge Kevin Nathaniel Fox approved a search warrant in the case, but the FBI is likely to draw criticism that it relied on flimsy evidence to resume its Clinton probe.

A federal contractor suspected of leaking powerful National Security Agency hacking tools has been arrested and charged with stealing classified information from the US government, according to court records and a law enforcement official familiar with the case. Harold Thomas Martin III, 51, who worked for Booz Allen Hamilton, was charged with theft of government property and unauthorized removal and retention of classified materials, authorities said. He was arrested in August after investigators searched his home in Glen Burnie (MD) and found documents and digital information stored on various devices that contained highly classified information, authorities said.

The breadth of the damage Martin is alleged to have caused was not immediately clear, though officials alleged some of the documents he took home “could be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security of the United States.” Investigators are probing whether Martin was responsible for an apparent leak that led to a cache of NSA hacking tools appearing online in August, according to an official familiar with the case. Those tools included “exploits” that take advantage of unknown flaws in firewalls, for instance, allowing the government to control a network.

FBI Director James Comey said that his agency will not recommend criminal charges against Hillary Clinton for her use of a private e-mail server as Secretary of State, but called Clinton and her staff “extremely careless” in handling sensitive data.

Director Comey said the FBI investigations into thousands of e-mails by Clinton determined that “no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case.” The findings now go to the Justice Department. The announcement — which came only about 72 hours after FBI agents interviewed Clinton — in some ways lifts the cloud that has been hanging over Clinton’s presidential campaign for months. But it will almost certainly spark criticism that the outcome of the high-profile probe was a foregone conclusion, influenced heavily by political considerations. Director Comey said Justice Department prosecutors also must make a final determination, though he was unequivocal in stating his view. “We are expressing our view to Justice that no charges are appropriate in this case,” he said.