​Trump Nominates Rep. Matt Gaetz
As Reformist U.S. Attorney General

     President-elect Donald Trump’s announcement Wednesday that he plans to nominate conservative Republican firebrand Rep. Matt Gaetz to be U.S. attorney general is drawing a strong response from members of his own party.
     Gaetz, of Florida, is a strong supporter of Trump who has often been criticized for refusing to compromise on controversial issues. He also was under investigation by the House Ethics Committee for alleged sexual improprieties with a 17-year-old girl and illicit drug use.
     If approved by the Senate, he will oversee a Justice Department that recently participated in investigating him on the allegations. Gaetz called on Congress to defund the FBI when it began his investigation of him in 2021.
     Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said it would be “a significant challenge” for Gaetz to win Senate confirmation. “I don’t think it’s a serious nomination for the attorney general.”
     Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said, “Obviously, the president has the right to nominate whomever he wishes, but I’m certain that there will be a lot of questions.”
     Several senators said their questions will center on the House Ethics Committee investigation of Gaetz.
     The committee planned to vote Friday on whether to release a report expected to sharply criticize Gaetz and to reveal potentially embarrassing details.
     Gaetz ended the investigation two days earlier by resigning from Congress to pursue the nomination as attorney general.
     He said the allegations were politically motivated by his Democratic critics but not grounded in truth.
     Trump, along with his former attorney and policy advisers who were charged with crimes, also said they were targeted for political reprisal when allegations against them led to prosecutions. They and other Republicans called the prosecutions “the weaponization of the Justice Department.”
     Trump announced the nomination on his social media site Truth Social, writing that Gaetz was "a deeply gifted and tenacious attorney." He added that "Matt will end weaponized government, protect our borders, dismantle criminal organizations and restore Americans' badly-shattered faith and confidence in the Justice Department."
     Gaetz responded with a post on X that said, "It will be an honor to serve as President Trump's Attorney General!"
     Democrats generally said they were surprised by the nomination and would never vote to approve Gaetz.
     For more information, contact The Legal Forum (www.legal-forum.net) at email: tramstack@gmail.com or phone: 202-479-7240.

House Committee Plans to Review
Report of FBI Investigation of Trump

     The House Judiciary Committee is checking into a report that the former FBI director used his agents to secretly investigate the campaign of Donald Trump shortly after he announced in June 2015 that he planned to run for president.
     The report to the committee came from an undisclosed FBI whistleblower.
     It accuses former FBI Director James Comey of assigning two female FBI agents to infiltrate the Trump campaign at a high level, which sometimes included traveling with the former president. The two agents were described in the report as “honeypots.”
     They had no specific information of wrongdoing by Trump and his staff when the FBI investigation started, according to the report.
     In addition, Comey allegedly tried to hide the investigation from the Justice Department’s inspector general.
     If true, the report could show bias that violates the constitutional equal protection rights of Trump and his staff. Law enforcement agencies are required by Supreme Court precedent to have a “reasonable suspicion” of criminal activity based on factual information before they can begin an investigation.
     The whistleblower’s report is not associated with the Crossfire Hurricane counterintelligence operation led by the FBI. It investigated alleged Russian collusion in getting Trump elected.
     The “honeypot” investigation “had no predicated foundation, so Mr. Comey personally directed the investigation without creating an official case file,” according to the disclosure last week.
     The agents were primarily monitoring Trump campaign advisor George Papadopoulos, according to the whistleblower. Papadopoulos pleaded guilty in October 2017 to a felony charge of making false statements to the FBI.
     He served 12 days in federal prison before Trump pardoned him. Comey was the FBI director from 2013 until Trump fired him in May 2017.
     House Judiciary Committee officials said they plan further inquiries into the whistleblower report.
     For more information, contact The Legal Forum (www.legal-forum.net) at email: tramstack@gmail.com or phone: 202-479-7240.

Fed Chairman Refuses to Resign
Despite Criticisms by Trump

     Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell is saying he will not resign if requested by President-elect Donald Trump in a potential dispute over constitutional authority.
     The Federal Reserve is led by a seven-member Board of Governors. They can be removed only "for cause" that would include gross dereliction of duties.
     Similar to federal judges, their job security is supposed to ensure independence from political partisanship.
     Conservatives in the Republican Party in recent years have said their tenure protections are a threat to the presidential authority granted by the Constitution. The separation of powers in the Constitution makes the president the leader of the executive branch of government, which includes federal agencies.
     Powell disagreed during a press conference last week. He said federal law does not allow the president to demote or fire him at will.
     Trump has threatened to get rid of Powell previously. He accused Powell of not cutting interest rates quickly enough to spur economic growth.
     Powell, who has won praise among other economists, said he was trying to avoid inflation by keeping interest rates higher than preferred by some conservatives.
     Trump called Fed officials “boneheads” and said Powell had “No ‘guts’, no sense, no vision.”
     Former Trump economic policy advisor Peter Navarro said in May that if Trump is reelected, he would fire Powell "one way or the other."
     Powell admitted to uncertainty during his press conference. He said Trump’s reelection would have “no effects” on the Federal Reserve’s policy decisions but could not predict what the president might do.
     "We don't know what the timing and substance of any policy changes will be," Powell said. "We therefore don't know what the effects on the economy would be.”
     For more information, contact The Legal Forum (www.legal-forum.net) at email: tramstack@gmail.com or phone: 202-479-7240.

D.C. Voters Approve Initiative
For Ranked-Choice Voting

     District of Columbia voters made big changes to the local election system with their approval last week of Initiative 83.
     The initiative will allow independents unaffiliated with any political party to vote in primary elections and gives voters an opportunity to rank their preferred candidates.
     Under ranked choice voting, voters have the option to rank candidates by preference, such as first choice, second choice and third choice.
     After every voter’s first choice vote is counted, the candidate receiving the fewest votes will be eliminated. Each voter’s ballot and preferences then count for the remaining candidates until the top-ranked candidate wins with a majority of the votes.
     Candidates could win elections only if they receive at least 50 percent of the votes in their race.
     Supporters of ranked choice voting say it results in politicians who are more representative of the voters’ preferences while reducing the risk that candidates who lack broad support will win elections. 
     Four states also voted on ranked-choice voting initiatives last week amid growing concern about whether American democracy represents the will of the people. All four of them – Colorado, Idaho, Nevada and Oregon – rejected it.
     In the District of Columbia, Initiative 83 passed by a 73 percent majority. It will take effect after the D.C. Council appropriates funding for it.
     The strongest opposition came from Democrats. They said allowing independents to vote in primaries violates the D.C. Home Rule Act’s requirement that primary elections be partisan contests.
     They also said ranked-choice voting could create confusion and diminish the value of votes from marginalized voters.
     For more information, contact The Legal Forum (www.legal-forum.net) at email: tramstack@gmail.com or phone: 202-479-7240.

Virginia Corporate Executives Charged
With Violating Sanctions Against Russia

     Two executives from a northern Virginia-based freight forwarding company are facing criminal charges alleging they violated federal export controls with their shipments to Russia.
     The shipments consisted largely of telecommunications equipment and electronics allegedly destined for use by the Russian military.
     The exports are banned under U.S. and international sanctions imposed on Russia after its invasion of Ukraine.
     The arrests were made days before the election of Donald Trump as president, which is expected to result in a thawing of relations with Russia. He has spoken favorably of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is classified by the U.S. State Department as a war criminal.
     Chantilly-based Eleview International Inc. would try to get around the export controls by sending the goods to third party countries, such as Turkey and Finland, before having their associates forward them to Russia, according to the Justice Department.
     The two executives, Oleg Nayandin and Vitaly Borisenko, were arraigned last week in federal court.
     Nayandin is the owner and chief executive officer of Eleview International. Borisenko is the operations manager.
     They are accused of violating the Export Control Reform Act.
     The law approved by Congress in 2018 authorized the president of the United States to set export policies to protect national security and to advance foreign policy. It is administered by the Department of Commerce.
     The Biden administration used the act as a primary means of enforcing a variety of sanctions against Russia since 2022.
     The sanctions include bans on exports to Russia of technology for oil and gas exploration. Other sanctions eliminated credit lines for Russian banks and restricted travel to the United States by Russian officials close to Putin.
     “We must not allow critical systems and technologies to be transferred to anyone who may use them against America and our global partners,” U.S. Attorney Jessica D. Aber said in a statement after Nayandin and Borisenko made their first appearance in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.
     Eleview International operated an e-commerce website that allowed Russian customers to order U.S. goods and technology from Amazon and other U.S. retailers, who then shipped the items to Eleview’s warehouse in Chantilly, according to the Justice Department.
     The company would consolidate the packages before shipping them to Russian customers, often paying other freight forwarders to act as intermediaries, according to court documents.
     After the sanctions took effect in February 2022, Eleview International would send goods to people who they said were end use customers in Turkey, Finland, and Kazakhstan, the Justice Department said. In fact, they were intermediary shippers who forwarded them to Russia.
     “To facilitate these illegal exports, the defendants made numerous false statements to the Department of Commerce and other freight forwarders about the end users and ultimate consignees of the items in these shipments,” a Justice Department statement said.
     The company allegedly shipped $1.48 million in telecommunications equipment to Turkey. The Russian telecommunications company that ultimately received the equipment used some of it to help the Federal Security Service and the military in their war against Ukraine, the court filings say.
     The $3.45 million of goods Eleview International sent to Finland included what the U.S. Commerce Department called “high priority” items used for Russian suicide drones that destroy Ukrainian tanks and aircraft.
     Part of the $1.47 million in goods sent to Kazakhstan were what the Commerce Department said were “controlled dual-use items.” 
     If convicted, Nayandin, 54, and Borisenko, 39, each face a possibility of 20 years in prison.
     For more information, contact The Legal Forum (www.legal-forum.net) at email: tramstack@gmail.com or phone: 202-479-7240.​