College acceptances, particularly of high-profile teens and celebrities, make the news cycle each year.
Students come away with a clear message about how admissions works: If you have money, connections or 'insider' knowledge, you have a leg up. It's hardly surprising that many students of modest or lower means decide it's not even worth playing.
Rather than trying to find evidence of a crime, the FBI’s counterintelligence goal is to identify, monitor and neutralize foreign intelligence activity in the United States.
The Trump administration’s assault against the FBI’s efforts to assess a national security threat posed by suspected foreign agents only raises more questions about what went on in 2016.
Trump has repeatedly insisted that he is innocent of colluding with Russia and had no idea about his campaign staff’s Russia contacts. So he should be glad to know that the FBI appears to have been trying to thwart a hostile country’s efforts to infiltrate his campaign.
I know firsthand that it’s difficult to get a FISA warrant. From 2002 to 2005, when I was an F.B.I. agent conducting counterintelligence investigations in New York, my FISA applications went through many layers of approval and required very strong evidence.
The assumption that everyone in government is a bad actor imperils our democracy.
We are a nation founded on distrust of government power, and questioning that power is essential to promoting transparency and accountability.
Having conducted counterintelligence investigations, I can attest that not everything a foreign intelligence service does is necessarily illegal.
Under the 1991 Intelligence Authorization Act, US intelligence agencies cannot engage in covert actions abroad without a presidential finding that these operations are important to US national security.
President Trump is a defense lawyer's worst nightmare - and a dream defendant for special counsel Robert Mueller.
When it comes to the Russia investigation, President Trump would be wise to review Scandal 101: Plausible deniability is your friend.
Russia has taken advantage of its exalted status among right-wing extremists to expand its influence throughout Europe.
The Russian cloud over the Trump administration never seems to disappear.
I know firsthand from my experience working counterintelligence investigations for the FBI that kicking a diplomat out of the country is no small thing.
Naturally, the president, as a US citizen, cannot be removed from the country. Nor can the president, who is the country's chief executive, be restricted from access to classified information or provided with falsified information.
Exposing the activities of a foreign intelligence service renders them ineffective, since it removes plausible deniability, which is the hallmark of covert intelligence operations.
After all, clemency is by nature outside the rule of law. When conferred upon those already convicted of crimes, it unravels the decision of citizen-jurors who found guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
Originally, in fact, the power to pardon was used precisely for economic and political ends. Legal historians have noted that in England, kings used pardons for their own ends. For instance, criminals could be pardoned if they agreed to labor for the American colonies or the Crown's navy.
The uniqueness of executive clemency lies in the president's power to act without weighing guilt, innocence and legal principle.
