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FBI agents searched a Washington Post reporter's home on Wednesday as part of a leak investigation into a Pentagon contractor accused of taking home classified information, the Justice Department said. Hannah Natanson, who has been covering President Donald Trump's transformation of the federal government, had a phone, two laptops and a Garmin watch seized in the search of her Virginia home, the Post reported. Natanson has reported extensively on the federal workforce and recently published a piece describing how she gained hundreds of new sources leading one colleague to call her the federal government whisperer. While classified documents investigations aren't unusual, the search of a reporter's home marks an escalation in the government's efforts to crack down on leaks. The Post was told that Natanson and the newspaper are not targets of the probe, executive editor Matt Murray said in an email to colleagues. Nonetheless, this extraordinary, aggressive action is deeply concerning
The FBI said Friday it disrupted a New Year's Eve attack plot targeting a grocery store and fast-food restaurant in North Carolina, arresting an 18-year-old man who authorities say pledged loyalty to the Islamic State group. Christian Sturdivant was charged with attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organisation. Investigators said he told an undercover FBI employee posing as a supportive confidant about his plans to attack people with knives and a hammer. Worried Sturdivant might attempt violence before New Year's Eve, the FBI placed him under constant surveillance for days, including on Christmas, US Attorney for western North Carolina Russ Ferguson said. Agents were prepared to arrest him earlier if he left his home with weapons, Ferguson said at a news conference. At no point was the public in harm's way. Sturdivant was arrested Wednesday and remained in custody after a federal court appearance Friday. An attorney representing him did not immediately ...
Authorities knocked on doors and scoured yards Monday in search of any video or other evidence that might lead them to the Brown University gunman, whose face was covered or not visible in footage captured before and after the weekend attack that killed two students and wounded nine others. Officials released three new videos of the man they believe carried out Saturday's attack that show him wearing a mask and a dark two-tone jacket. Although his face wasn't visible, the footage from about two hours before the shooting provided the clearest images yet of the suspect. The FBI said the man is about 5 feet, 8 inches (173 centimetres) tall, with a stocky build. The agency offered a USD 50,000 reward for information leading to the identification, arrest and conviction of the person responsible. "We're asking for the public's assistance, Providence's police chief, Col Oscar Perez, said at a news conference, urging people who might recognise the suspect to call a tip line. Police renewed
Federal authorities said Monday that they foiled a plot to bomb multiple sites of two US companies on New Year's Eve in Southern California after arresting members of an extremist anti-capitalist and anti-government group. The four suspects were arrested Friday in the Mojave Desert east of Los Angeles as they were rehearsing their plot, First Assistant US Attorney Bill Essayli said during a news conference. Officials showed reporters surveillance aerial footage of the suspects moving a large black object in the desert to a table. Officials said they were able to make the arrests before the suspects assembled a functional explosive device. In the criminal complaint, the four suspects named are Audrey Illeene Carroll, 30; Zachary Aaron Page, 32; Dante Gaffield, 24; and Tina Lai, 41. They are all from the Los Angeles area, Essayli said. Officials did not describe a motive but said they are members of an offshoot of a pro-Palestinian group dubbed the Turtle Island Liberation Front. The
Twelve former FBI agents fired after kneeling during a 2020 racial justice protest in Washington sued Monday to get their jobs back, saying their action had been intended to de-escalate a volatile situation and was not meant as a political gesture. The agents say in their lawsuit that they were fired in September by Director Kash Patel because they were perceived as not being politically affiliated with President Donald Trump. But they say their decision to take a knee on June 4, 2020, days after the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police, has been misinterpreted as political expression. The lawsuit says the agents were assigned to patrol the nation's capital during a period of civil unrest prompted by Floyd's death. Lacking protective gear or extensive training in crowd control, the agents became outnumbered by hostile crowds they encountered and decided to kneel to the ground in hopes of defusing the tension, the lawsuit said. The tactic worked, the lawsuit assert
The FBI has continued its personnel purge, forcing out additional agents and supervisors tied to the federal investigation into efforts to overturn the 2020 US presidential election. The latest firings took place despite efforts by Washington's top federal prosecutor to try to stop at least some of the terminations, people familiar with the matter told The Associated Press. The employees were told this week that they were being fired but those plans were paused after DC US Attorney Jeanine Pirro raised concerns, according to two people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to publicly discuss personnel matters. The agents were then fired again on Tuesday, though it's not clear what prompted the about-face. The total number of fired agents was not immediately clear. The terminations are part of a broader personnel upheaval under the leadership of FBI Director Kash Patel, who has pushed out numerous senior officials and agents involved in ...
Lawyers for former FBI Director James Comey urged a judge Monday to dismiss the case against him, calling it a vindictive prosecution motivated by personal animus and orchestrated by a White House determined to seek retribution against a perceived foe of President Donald Trump. The lawyers separately called for the indictment's dismissal because of what they said was the illegitimate appointment of the US attorney who filed the case days after being hastily named to the job by Trump. The two-prong attack on the indictment, which accuses Comey of lying to Congress five years ago, represents the opening salvo in what is expected to be a protracted court fight ahead of a trial currently set for January 5. The motions take aim not at the substance of the allegations but rather on the unusual circumstances of the prosecution, which included Trump exhorting his attorney general to bring charges against Comey as well as his administration's abrupt installation of a White House aide to serve
On a visit to New Zealand, FBI Director Kash Patel gave the country's police and spy bosses gifts of inoperable pistols that were illegal to possess under local gun laws and had to be destroyed, New Zealand law enforcement agencies told The Associated Press. The plastic 3D-printed replica pistols formed part of the display stands Patel presented to at least three senior New Zealand security officials in July. Patel, the most senior Trump administration official to visit the country so far, was in Wellington to open the FBI's first standalone office in New Zealand. Pistols are tightly restricted weapons under New Zealand law, and possessing one requires an additional permit beyond a regular gun license. Law enforcement agencies didn't specify whether the officials who met with Patel held such permits, but they couldn't have legally kept the gifts if they didn't. It wasn't clear what permissions Patel had sought to bring the weapons into the country. A spokesperson for Patel told the
The FBI has fired agents who were photographed kneeling during a racial justice protest in Washington that followed the 2020 death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers, three people familiar with the matter have said. The bureau had reassigned the agents last spring but has since fired them, said the people, who insisted on anonymity to discuss personnel matters with The Associated Press. The number of FBI employees fired was not immediately clear, but two people said it was roughly 20. An FBI spokesman declined to comment Friday.
James Comey has been charged with lying to Congress in a criminal case filed days after President Donald Trump appeared to urge his attorney general to prosecute the former FBI director and other perceived political enemies. Thursday's indictment makes Comey the first former senior government official involved in one of Trump's chief grievances, the long-concluded investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, to face prosecution. Trump has for years derided that investigation as a "hoax" and a "witch hunt" despite multiple government reviews showing Moscow interfered on behalf of the Republican's campaign, and has made clear his desire for retribution. Minutes after the former FBI director was indicted, his son-in-law Troy Edwards resigned as a federal prosecutor. Edwards quit his job "to uphold my oath to the Constitution and the country", he wrote in a one-sentence resignation letter addressed to Lindsey Halligan, the newly appointed acting US Attorney in Virginia'