AG William Barr in Detroit, via DOJ.

By Steve Neavling

ticklethewire.com

Nearly 2,000 former Justice Department employees on Monday urged Attorney General William Barr to resign in an open letter that says he “once against assaulted the rule of law” when he intervened in the case against Michael Flynn.

The decision to drop the prosecution of Flynn, President Trump’s former national security adviser, was “extraordinarily rare, if not unprecedented.”

The letter, organized by the nonprofit Protect Democracy, also encourages Congress to censure Barr over “his repeated assaults on the rule of law in doing the President’s personal bidding rather than acting in the public interest.”

Ticklethewire.com was unable to immediately reach the Attorney General’s Office for comment Tuesday morning.

In February, Protect Democracy collected more than 2,600 signatures on a letter calling for Barr’s resignation for intervening in Roger Stone’s sentencing recommendation.

On Sunday, Mary McCord, former career Justice Department official, said Attorney General William Barr twisted her words to argue that former national security adviser Michael Flynn should not be prosecuted for lying to the FBI.

Michael A. Christmas, special agent in charge of the Pittsburgh Field Office.

By Steve Neavling

ticklethewire.com

Michael A. Christman, who was deputy assistant director for the Criminal Justice Information Services Division in West Virginia, has been named special agent in charge of the Pittsburgh Field Office.

Christman’s career with the FBI began in February 1992, when he served on the Safe Streets Task Force in Salt Lake City that targets violent gangs and Mexican drug-trafficking organizations. In addition, he investigated violent crime and other criminal issues.

Christman joined the Cleveland Field Office in 1997 to serve on the Caribbean Gang Drug Task Force and on the Joint Terrorism Task Force.

In 2005, he was promoted to supervisory special agent at the Criminal Investigative Division at FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C.

In 2007, he began working at the Pittsburgh Field Office, targeting drugs, gangs and violent crime. In addition, he led the Greater Pittsburgh Safe Streets Task Force.

In 2014, Christman was promoted to assistant special agent in charge of Criminal, Intelligence, and Administrative Programs in Pittsburgh. In 2015, he headed Pittsburgh’s Cyber and Intelligence Programs.

Two years later, he was promoted to chief of a Cyber Operations section at headquarters, managing all of the bureau’s cyber-criminal investigations. He also chaired the International Cyber Crimes Working Group.

In 2018, Christman was named deputy assistant director of the Criminal Justice Information Services Division’s Operational Programs Branch, where he oversaw the Global Law Enforcement Support Section, National Threat Operations Section, and Resources Management Section.

Before joining the FBI, Christman worked for the prosecutor’s office in the city of Akron, Ohio. He earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Youngstown State University and a juris doctorate degree from the University of Akron.