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National News
Trump’s revenge crusade on Adam Schiff crashes into brick wall: report
President Donald Trump sought to target Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) after the lawmaker served on the House select committee that investigated the Jan. 6 probe and worked on both impeachment cases. That effort has reportedly hit a brick wall, however.
Last week, MSNBC revealed that the Maryland prosecutor who went after former National Security Advisor John Bolton was stuck on the Schiff case, so she pivoted to focus more on Bolton. Now it appears the Schiff case has stalled entirely.
Writing Thursday, Ryan J. Reilly, Kristen Welker, Michael Kosnar and Carol E. Lee wrote for NBC News that the investigation “came to a standstill," according to a federal law enforcement official.
U.S. Attorney Kelly Hayes reportedly met with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche earlier this week to ask how to move forward without the goods on Schiff.
"The decision out of that meeting was for Hayes to pursue more evidence, and the case remains ongoing," reported NBC, citing one of the sources.
Schiff has retained former Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara as his counsel.
In a statement to NBC News, Bharara said: “It seems pretty clear that a team of career prosecutors have thoroughly reviewed the politically-motivated allegations against Senator Schiff and found they are unsupported by any evidence and are baseless.”
“The transparently vindictive effort to pursue the Senator has no merit, and if there is any justice left in the Justice Department, this should be the end of the matter,” he added.
National News
Trump claims not to know fraudster who boosted his crypto venture after pardoning him
President Donald Trump said he pardoned Changpeng Zhao, a billionaire who boosted a crypto company owned by the Trump family, because "a lot of people" said he was innocent.
During a Thursday Oval Office event, a reporter asked whether Zhao's pardon had anything to do with his family's World Liberty Financial crypto venture.
"I do pardon a lot of people," Trump replied. "A lot of people say that he wasn't guilty of anything. He served four months in jail, and they say that he was not guilty of anything."
"That what he did, well, you don't know much about crypto," he told the reporter. "You know nothing about nothing, you know, fake news. But let me just tell you that he was somebody that, as I was told, I don't know him. I don't believe I've ever met him. But I've been told by — a lot of support, he had a lot of support. And they said that what he did is not even a crime."
Trump claimed that Zhao had been "persecuted by the Biden administration," even though he pleaded guilty to violating U.S. anti-money-laundering requirements.
"So I gave him a pardon at the request of a lot of very good people," Trump concluded.
