By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com A former head of the Office of Inspector General’s Atlanta office faces charges of making false statements to a bank to obtain a mortgage loan and conspiring to obstruct an investigation, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Atlanta said Thursday. Herschell Harvell, Jr., 53, made his initial appearance in federal court in…
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com A state investigation into the mysterious fatal shooting of a friend of Boston Marathon bomber Tamerian Tsaranev during an FBI interview is expected to be released next month. The Boston Herald reports that Florida state Attorney Jeffrey Ashton anticipates releasing the report by the end of March. The Florida investigation is one…
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com Mythili Raman, the Justice Department’s top criminal attorney, is leaving the agency next month following high-profile cases of corporate misdeeds, Reuters reports. Raman is a 17-year veteran of the department and once acted as chief after her predecessor, Lanny Breuer, stepped down last year. Raman said she’s not sure what’s next in…
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com A special congressional panel will investigate revelations this week that the FBI was in direct contact with Osama bin Laden in the early 1990s, the Washington Times reports. The agency’s close contact with bin Laden was never included in the official investigations of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, but the Washington Times…
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com Budget cuts have forced Homeland Security to reduce the number of Federal Air Marshals whose job is to protect aircrafts from terrorists, CNN reports, citing internal emails. The department declined to say how many marshals the department has lost in the past three years. Critics blasted the department for its secrecy surrounding…
By John Diedrich and Raquel Rutledge Milwaukee Journal Sentinel ATF agents have lost track of dozens of government-issued guns, after stashing them under the front seats in their cars, in glove compartments or simply leaving them on top of their vehicles and driving away, according to internal reports from the past five years obtained…
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com The FBI had direct contact with Osama bin Laden in 1993 and learned that he was trying to finance terrorist attacks inside the U.S., according to the Washington Times. The information about the al Qaeda leader quietly emerged from an employment dispute case involving an FBI agent in 2010 and escaped the…
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com Automatic spending cuts last year resulted in the elimination of more than 2,000 FBI jobs and a freeze on training for new agents. Now the FBI is ready to hire and restart training, the Washington Post reports. FBI Director James Comey said Tuesday that he’s authorized the opening of 700 positions throughout…
