Lesley Mumford became the first transgender woman to be accepted into the elite FBI National Academy.

By Steve Neavling
Ticklethewire.com

A Colorado SWAT team coordinator made history by becoming what is believed to be the first transgender woman accept into the FBI National Academy, an elite and intense training course in Quantico, Va.

Lesley Mumford, of the Summit County Sheriff’s Office, is among about 200 law enforcement agents who will attend the 10-week course beginning in July, the Summit Daily reports. 

“I think it’s a pretty amazing thing, a historical thing,” said Mumford, who transitioned last year. “It makes me feel that society is changing, it makes me feel that as individuals we do have the ability to change and influence the world around us.”

Summit County Sheriff Jaime FitzSimons, who nominated Mumford, hailed the moment as a groundbreaking moment for the transgender community.

“We were so proud to have her transition in the workplace, but this is the next, huge, huge, smash-the-ceiling moment,” he said. “We’re so proud of Lesley.”

Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.

By Steve Neavling
Ticklethewire.com

Special Counsel Robert Mueller was explicitly authorized by the Justice Department to investigate allegations that President Trump’s former campaign manager colluded with Russia to undermine the 2016 presidential election, according to a newly revealed memo.

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein gave Mueller the green light in a classified, Aug. 2 memo that was included in a court filing Monday aimed at defending the special counsel’s scope of the probe, which so far has netted indictments against 19 people and three Russian companies. 

The memo authorized Mueller to look into allegations that the former Trump campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, worked with the Kremlin to meddle in the election “in violation of United States law.” The memo authorized Mueller to look into “a crime or crimes arising out of payments [Manafort] received from the Ukrainian government before and during the tenure of President Viktor Yanukovych.”

Manafort and his business partner, another former Trump campaign aide, were first indicted in October with money-laundering and other charges related to work they did for a pro-Russian political party in the Ukraine. They were charged with additional crimes earlier this year, and Gates has pleaded guilty and is cooperating with prosecutors.

Special counsel Robert Mueller. Photo via FBI.

By Steve Neavling
Ticklethewire.com

A Dutch attorney accused of lying to federal law enforcement about his work with two indicted, former leaders of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign is expected to become the first person today to be sentenced as part of the 11-month-old special counsel investigation led by former FBI director Robert Mueller.

Alex van der Zwaan, who pleaded guilty to lying to prosecutors and the FBI about the Russia probe, faces an estimated zero to six months in jail, according to sentencing guidelines.

Mueller’s team plans to urge a judge to impose jail time. But prosecutors didn’t indicate how much time van der Zwaan should be sent to jail, but the attorney is asking for no time behind bars because his wife, who lives in London, is pregnant and due to deliver their child in August.

“To the extent the Court seeks to take into account the circumstances of van der Zwaan’s wife’s pregnancy, consideration of that circumstance would not preclude a term of incarceration,” the special counsel’s office wrote. “In any event, a sentence that ensured van der Zwaan’s return to the United Kingdom for the birth of his child in August 2018 would be within the recommended Guidelines’ range.”

Van der Zwaan admitted he lied to prosecutors and the FBI about work he did with former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his former business partner, Rick Gates, who also played a key role in the president’s campaign.

Four others who have pleaded guilty so far – including former Trump campaign deputy chairman Rick Gates, Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn, and former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos. But their sentencing hearings have been placed on hold while they cooperate with Mueller’s team.

Andrew and Jill McCabe’s family, via Twitter.

By Steve Neavling
Ticklethewire.com

Jill McCabe, wife of fired FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, broke her silence for the first time since coming under relentless attack from President Trump, accusing him of spreading “destructive lies” about her during what she described as a one-and-a-half-year “nightmare.”

In a Washington Post op-ed published Monday, McCabe defended her and her husband’s integrity and dismissed as “utterly absurd” the president’s suggestions that the FBI investigation of Hillary Clinton’s emails had been compromised because she accepted political donations from groups connected to longtime Clinton friend, then-Virginia Gov. McAluiffe.

“Andrew’s involvement in the Clinton investigation came not only after the contributions were made to my campaign but also after the race was over,” she wrote.

Jill McCabe, an emergency room pediatrician, described herself as “an accidental politician” who decided to run for a Virginia state Senate seat as a Democrat because she wanted to expand Medicaid.

“That decision — plus some twisted reporting and presidential tweets — ended up costing my husband, Andrew, his job and our family a significant portion of his pension my husband had worked hard for over 21 years of federal service,” she wrote. “For the past year and a half of this nightmare, I have not been free to speak out about what happened. Now that Andrew has been fired, I am.”

Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired Andrew McCabe last month, less than two days before he was set to retire, on claims of making an unauthorized disclosure to the media and “lack of candor under oath.”

Trump’s campaign to discredit the FBI gained traction among allies largely because of the president’s suggestion that the donation to McCabe’s wife compromised the Clinton email investigation.

To have my personal reputation and integrity and those of my family attacked this way is beyond horrible,” Jill McCabe wrote. “It feels awful every day. It keeps me up nights. I made the decision to run for office because I was trying to help people. Instead, it turned into something that was used to attack our family, my husband’s career and the entire FBI.”

The McCabe family more than tripled its fundraising goal in just three days to help pay for legal fees connected to future Department of Justice inspector general investigation, congressional inquiries and potential lawsuits.