- Trump-era DOJ official Jeffrey Clark tries to move Georgia charges to federal court at Monday hearing CNN
- Judge will hold hearing on ex-DOJ official’s request to move Georgia election case to federal court The Associated Press
- Trump co-defendant Jeffrey Clark tries to move Georgia case to federal court NBC News
- Judge will hold hearing on ex-DOJ official’s request to move Georgia election case to federal court Yahoo News
- 900 prospective jurors to be called for first trial in Georgia election interference case FOX 5 Atlanta
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Tag Archives: DOJ
Texas governor to defy DOJ request to remove floating barriers in Rio Grande: ‘Texas will see you in court, Mr. President’ – CNN
- Texas governor to defy DOJ request to remove floating barriers in Rio Grande: ‘Texas will see you in court, Mr. President’ CNN
- DOJ Threatens to Sue Texas Governor Greg Abbott for Barrels Wrapped in Razor Wire in Rio Grande Democracy Now!
- Texas Gov Abbott swipes Biden in latest war of words over border security, impending DOJ lawsuit Fox News
- Texas Congressman calls on President to speak, feds to act, on potential abuses at Texas border WFAA.com
- Rep. Tony Gonzales, who represents 800 miles of U.S.-Mexico border, calls border tactics “not acceptable” CBS News
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Lawmakers Want DOJ To Investigate Warner Bros Discovery Merger, Claiming It Harmed Workers And Reduced Content Choice; Cite Axed ‘Batgirl’ In Letter – Deadline
- Lawmakers Want DOJ To Investigate Warner Bros Discovery Merger, Claiming It Harmed Workers And Reduced Content Choice; Cite Axed ‘Batgirl’ In Letter Deadline
- Warner Bros. Discovery Merger May Face Review by US Justice Department CBR – Comic Book Resources
- Warner Bros. Discovery Merger Under Fire From Lawmakers Asking Justice Dept. to Revisit Deal Hollywood Reporter
- Dem Lawmakers Call on DOJ to Investigate Warner Bros. Discovery Merger: ‘Content Creators Harmed in Unprecedented Ways’ Yahoo Entertainment
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Crypto ‘Mixer’ Laundered $700 Million For Customers, Including Russian And North Korean Spies, DOJ Says – Forbes
- Crypto ‘Mixer’ Laundered $700 Million For Customers, Including Russian And North Korean Spies, DOJ Says Forbes
- ChipMixer Is Shut Down for Allegedly Laundering $3 Billion in Crypto The Wall Street Journal
- Philly feds help dismantle popular crypto money-laundering site responsible for cleaning $3 billion in illicit funds The Philadelphia Inquirer
- ChipMixer Crypto Service Shut by US, Germany Over $3 Billion in Transactions Bloomberg
- Federal Police Take Down ‘Dark Web Cryptocurrency Laundromat’, Seize $42M in Bitcoin Decrypt
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DOJ tells GOP lawmakers it will not hand over most Biden special counsel probe documents until investigation complete
CNN
—
The Justice Department told Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio on Monday that it will not provide most of the information he requested about the ongoing special counsel investigation into President Joe Biden’s handling of classified material until that probe is complete, according to a new letter obtained by CNN.
In the letter, DOJ reiterates that it will uphold its longstanding practice of withholding information that could endanger or compromise ongoing investigations, specifically citing regulations in special counsel probes.
Jordan, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, has demanded access to a host of documents related to the Biden special counsel investigation.
“Disclosures to Congress about active investigations risk jeopardizing those investigations and creating the appearance that Congress may be exerting improper political pressure or attempting to influence Department decisions in certain cases. Judgments about whether and how to pursue a matter are, and must remain, the exclusive responsibility of the Department,” the DOJ letter states.
DOJ also states in the letter that “disclosing non-public information about ongoing investigations could violate statutory requirements or court orders, reveal roadmaps for our investigations, and interfere with the Department’s ability to gather facts, interview witnesses and bring criminal prosecutions where warranted.”
House Republicans have made clear they plan to examine the Justice Department’s handling of politically sensitive probes, including its role in the ongoing special counsel investigations related to the handling of classified material by Biden and former President Donald Trump.
Jordan has asked the department to produce documents related to the appointment of Robert Hur as special counsel in the Biden documents probe as well as the selection of Trump-appointed US Attorney John Lausch to lead the initial review of the case, in addition to a broad array of internal and external communications about the matter.
DOJ’s latest response raises the question of whether Jordan will now move to issue subpoenas for the documents in question, something he told CNN last week he would consider doing if the department refused to hand them over.
“We’ll see, but we’re definitely looking at asking for documents via subpoena,” he said. “But we don’t know whether that will happen yet.”
Jordan spokesperson Russell Dye responded to Monday’s letter by saying, “It’s concerning, to say the least, that the Department is more interested in playing politics than cooperating.”
In a letter sent to Jordan earlier this month, the DOJ also signaled it’s unlikely to share information about ongoing criminal investigations with the new GOP-controlled House but noted it would respond to the Judiciary Committee chairman’s request related to the Biden special counsel probe separately.
Together, both letters provide an early sign of the hurdles Jordan is likely to face, particularly as he tries to investigate the Justice Department and the FBI. They also underscore how the appointment of a special counsel has further complicated matters for Republican lawmakers seeking to launch their own probes into Biden’s handling of classified documents.
House Republicans have been especially eager to dig into the Justice Department’s ongoing probes, even authorizing a Judiciary subcommittee tasked with investigating the purported “weaponization” of the federal government, including “ongoing criminal investigations.”
DOJ Seeks to Ban Sam Bankman-Fried From Contacting FTX Employees
The Justice Department on Friday asked a federal judge to bar FTX founder
Sam Bankman-Fried
from communicating with current and former employees of the collapsed crypto exchange without a lawyer present after prosecutors alleged he recently contacted a potential witness in his criminal case.
Mr. Bankman-Fried, who faces federal charges related to the implosion of FTX, reached out to the general counsel of the company’s U.S. operation through an encrypted messaging application earlier this month, federal prosecutors said in a filing. Prosecutors said Mr. Bankman-Fried has also contacted other current and former FTX employees and are concerned that the communications could lead to witness tampering.
Prosecutors also requested the judge prohibit Mr. Bankman-Fried from communicating through encrypted messaging applications like Slack and Signal, saying that when he headed FTX he directed employees of the company and his crypto-investment firm Alameda Research to set their communications on these platforms to auto-delete after 30 days. That policy has impeded the government’s investigation, prosecutors said.
“Potential witnesses have described relevant and incriminating conversations with the defendant that took place on Slack and Signal that have already been autodeleted because of settings implemented at the defendant’s direction,” prosecutors said in the filing.
Lawyers for Mr. Bankman-Fried in a letter to the judge said the government was mischaracterizing innocuous conduct by their client in “an apparent effort to portray our client in the worst possible light.” They said the government’s request was overbroad and unnecessary, proposing instead that Mr. Bankman-Fried be prohibited from contacting certain limited witnesses, not all of FTX’s current and former employees.
FTX’s U.S. general counsel, Ryne Miller, couldn’t immediately be reached.
The Manhattan U.S. attorney’s office charged Mr. Bankman-Fried last month with stealing billions of dollars from FTX customers while misleading lenders and investors. He pleaded not guilty and is currently under court-ordered confinement in his parents’ Palo Alto, Calif., home while he awaits trial.
Mr. Bankman-Fried sent a Jan. 15 Signal message to the general counsel in which prosecutors allege he said he “would really love to reconnect and see if there’s a way for us to have a constructive relationship, use each other as resources when possible, or at least vet things with each other.”
Prosecutors didn’t identify the other employees that Mr. Bankman-Fried has allegedly tried to contact but called the communications to the general counsel and others troubling.
“Were the defendant to ‘vet’ his version of relevant events with potential witnesses, that might have the effect of discouraging witnesses from testifying in a manner contrary to the defendant’s narrative,” the Justice Department said in the filing.
Mr. Bankman-Fried’s lawyers said the message to Mr. Miller was more reasonably read as an attempt by Mr. Bankman-Fried to offer his assistance to FTX, not a “sinister attempt” to influence testimony at trial.
Write to James Fanelli at james.fanelli@wsj.com
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DOJ Sues Google, Seeking to Break Up Online Advertising Business
The Justice Department is seeking the breakup of Google’s business brokering digital advertising across much of the internet, a major expansion of the legal challenges the company faces to its business in the U.S. and abroad.
A lawsuit filed Tuesday, the Justice Department’s second against the
Alphabet Inc.
GOOG -1.98%
unit following one filed in 2020, alleges that Google abuses its role as one of the largest brokers, suppliers and online auctioneers of ads placed on websites and mobile applications. The filing promises a protracted court battle with wide-ranging implications for the digital-advertising industry.
Filed in federal court in Virginia, the case alleges that Google abuses monopoly power in the ad-tech industry, hurting web publishers and advertisers that try to use competing products. Eight states, including California and New York, joined the Justice Department’s lawsuit.
The lawsuit asks the court to unwind Google’s “anticompetitive acquisitions,” such as its 2008 purchase of ad-serving company DoubleClick, and calls for the divestiture of its ad exchange.
“For 15 years Google has pursued a course of anticompetitive conduct that has allowed it to halt the rise of rival technologies, manipulate auction mechanics, insulate itself from competition, and forced advertisers and publishers to use its tools,” Attorney General
Merrick Garland
said at a press conference Tuesday. “Google has engaged in exclusionary conduct that has severely weakened if not destroyed competition in the ad-tech industry.”
Attorney General Merrick Garland said Tuesday that the digital-advertising industry was harmed by Google’s allegedly monopolistic conduct.
Photo:
Al Drago/Bloomberg News
A Google spokesman said the lawsuit “attempts to pick winners and losers in the highly competitive advertising technology sector.”
“DOJ is doubling down on a flawed argument that would slow innovation, raise advertising fees, and make it harder for thousands of small businesses and publishers to grow,” the spokesman said.
By calling for specific divestitures from Google’s ad-tech business, the Justice Department lawsuit went further in seeking a breakup than some antitrust experts had expected. Shares of Alphabet fell by about 2% in trading on Tuesday.
Though largely invisible to internet users, the ad-tech tools controlled by Google facilitate much of the buying and selling of digital ads that helps fund online publishers. Google’s business includes a tool publishers can use to offer ad space, a product for advertisers to buy those slots and an exchange that automatically links bidders with webpages as they are being loaded for individual users.
Big tech companies such as Google are under a barrage from lawmakers and regulators across multiple continents who have targeted the companies’ dominance in online markets. Justice Department officials also are investigating
Apple Inc.
The Federal Trade Commission has sued
Meta Platforms Inc.’s
Facebook unit over antitrust allegations and
Microsoft Corp.
to block its planned $75 billion acquisition of
Activision Blizzard Inc.
President Biden recently urged lawmakers from both parties to unite behind legislation seeking to rein in tech giants. The European Union also has opened cases looking at alleged anticompetitive conduct by Google, Meta and other companies.
The Justice Department’s 2020 lawsuit against Google targeted its position in online search markets, including an agreement to make Google search the default in Apple’s Safari web browser. Google is fighting the case, which is expected to go to trial this year.
Alphabet gets about 80% of its business from advertising. The Justice Department’s new suit targets the subset of that ad business that brokers the buying and selling of ads on other websites and apps. Google reported $31.7 billion in revenue in 2021 from that ad-brokering activity, or about 12% of Alphabet’s total revenue. Google distributes about 70% of that revenue to web publishers and developers.
Last year, Google offered to split off parts of its ad-tech business into a separate company under the Alphabet umbrella to fend off the most recent Justice Department investigation. DOJ officials rejected the offer and decided to pursue the lawsuit instead.
For years, Google has faced allegations from advertising- and media-industry executives, lawmakers and regulators that its presence at multiple points of the online ad-buying process harms publishers and gives it an unfair advantage over rivals. Google also operates the most popular search engine and the largest online video-streaming site, YouTube, giving rise to allegations it has tilted the market in its own favor.
Rivals say that Google’s power in digital advertising stems from a series of acquisitions Google used to build its ad-tech business, beginning with the company’s $3.1 billion purchase of DoubleClick. The FTC approved the merger in a controversial decision. Google went on to purchase a host of other startups including the mobile-advertising company AdMob.
“Having inserted itself into all aspects of the digital advertising marketplace, Google has used anticompetitive, exclusionary, and unlawful means to eliminate or severely diminish any threat to its dominance over digital advertising technologies,” the complaint read.
Google has said it has no plans to sell or exit the ad-tech business. It has also strongly contested claims in a lawsuit filed by state attorneys general, led by Texas, containing allegations similar to the Justice Department complaint. A federal judge denied the bulk of Google’s motion to dismiss the case last year, allowing it to proceed to the discovery stage and ultimately toward trial.
Any divestiture of parts of Google’s ad-tech business would cause big ripple effects across the online advertising industry, which has recently shown signs of weakness as consumers dial back purchases in response to worsening economic conditions.
Breaking off parts of Google’s ad-tech business from the rest of the company could take years of litigation to resolve. Depending on the outcome of the case, ad-tech executives have said the results could range from a higher share of ad dollars flowing to publishers to lower overall spending because digital ads would be less efficient without Google brokering them.
The 149-page complaint makes detailed allegations about the internal workings of Google’s ad-tech operations. The suit alleges, for instance, that Google used anticompetitive tactics to build up the market share of its own ad server, which issues requests for advertisements on behalf of websites, and then used that market power to effectively push publishers into sending their ad inventory only to Google’s in-house ad exchange, AdX.
The Justice Department argues, in part, that this conduct locked out rival ad-tech providers, increasing prices for advertisers and costs of publishers.
“Google keeps at least thirty cents—and sometimes far more—of each advertising dollar flowing from advertisers to website publishers through Google’s ad tech tools,” the lawsuit alleges. “Google’s own internal documents concede that Google would earn far less in a competitive market.”
The lawsuit also alleges that Google executives worked to kill a rival online-bidding technology called “header bidding,” which the lawsuit says the company referred to internally as an “existential threat.” As part of a plan dubbed Project Poirot, the company allegedly changed its own ad-buying tools to underbid on behalf of advertisers when they turned to outside ad exchanges that used header bidding, so those rivals would lose more auctions and “dry out,” the complaint says.
At one point, Google also approached
Amazon.com Inc.,
to ask “what it would take for Amazon to stop investing in its header bidding product,” the complaint alleges, adding that Amazon rebuffed those requests.
“Google uses its dominion over digital advertising technology to funnel more transactions to its own ad tech products where it extracts inflated fees to line its own pockets at the expense of the advertisers and publishers it purportedly serves,” the complaint read.
The Justice Department case overlaps in some ways with the late 2020 lawsuit from the group of U.S. states led by Texas.
In Tuesday’s complaint, the Justice Department quotes some of the same internal communications as the Texas-led lawsuit, including how one Google executive compared the company’s control over ad-tech to the financial sector: “The analogy would be if Goldman or Citibank owned the NYSE,” referring to the New York Stock Exchange.
The case also shares similarities with an investigation that the EU’s top antitrust enforcer, the European Commission, opened in 2021, as well as one by the U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority. Those probes are exploring allegations that Google favors its own ad-buying tools in the advertising auctions it runs, but also look at other elements of Google’s ad-tech business. The EU, for instance, is also looking at Google’s alleged exclusion of competitors from brokering ad-buys on its video site YouTube.
Mr. Garland said Tuesday that the Justice Department filed its own lawsuit because the federal government was harmed by Google’s allegedly monopolistic conduct. Federal agencies have since 2019 spent over $100 million on display ads, the complaint says. The government paid inflated fees and was harmed by manipulated advertising prices because of Google’s anticompetitive conduct, the lawsuit alleges.
Jonathan Kanter,
the assistant attorney general for antitrust, said while there are similarities with other lawsuits against Google, the Justice Department’s complaint is based on its own investigation that yielded “meticulous detail” about Google’s ad-tech business.
“We detail many facts, many episodes that in the individual and in the aggregate have maintained numerous monopolies,” Mr. Kanter said.
Google has attempted to settle the claims against its ad-tech business. In addition to offering to split off parts of its ad-tech business to avoid the Justice Department suit, the company last year discussed with the EU an offer to allow competitors to broker the sale of ads directly on the video service.
In 2021, the company agreed to give U.K. antitrust regulators effective veto power over elements of its plans to remove a technology called third-party cookies from its Chrome browser to settle an investigation there into the plan.
In France, Google agreed to pay a fine of 220 million euros, equivalent to about $239 million, and to improve data access to competing ad-tech companies, to not use its data in ways rivals couldn’t reproduce to settle a similar antitrust investigation in the country.
—Keach Hagey contributed to this article.
Write to Miles Kruppa at miles.kruppa@wsj.com and Sam Schechner at Sam.Schechner@wsj.com
Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
DOJ sends first response to House GOP after request for investigation details
Jordan and other House GOP leaders in the new Republican majority have pledged an expansive list of probes into the Biden administration that shift some of the party’s political grievances into investigative priorities.
Jordan’s requests to the Justice Department include an ask for documents and information related to the court-authorized search of Mar-a-Lago, which was executed as a part of the ongoing probe into former president Donald Trump’s mishandling of classified information.
Uriarte’s letter, obtained by The Washington Post, says the Justice Department has commenced the process of responding to Jordan’s requests and lays out an approach that is largely consistent with the policy of previous administrations, writing that the department looks forward to a “productive relationship in the 118th Congress.”
“We look forward to beginning this process in response to your January 17 letters,” Uriarte writes. “We believe that good-faith negotiations will enable us to meet the Committee’s needs while protecting the Department’s institutional interests.”
But he reiterates the department’s long-standing practice of not providing information about ongoing investigations, setting the stage for a broader fight over congressional oversight authority.
Jordan has also asked for specific names and titles of FBI, U.S. attorney’s office and National Security Division employees involved in carrying out Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher A. Wray’s directives that instructed the FBI to coordinate with local leaders to address threats against school officials.
In his letter, Uriarte specifies that the Justice Department “refrains from making line agents and line attorneys available for congressional testimony or interviews” with the committee, in line with the department’s long-standing policy to protect the privacy and safety of individuals who are working on investigations.
In the past, unsatisfied demands for Justice Department documents have resulted in the House holding senior administration officials in contempt for defying congressional subpoenas — a largely symbolic vote.
Jordan’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Genesis bankruptcy filings – latest: Crypto lender to file for bankruptcy amid ‘major’ DoJ move
Crypto Outlook at The World Economic Forum
Cryptocurrency firm Genesis Global Capital is planning to file for bankruptcy as early as this week, Bloomberg reported today.
The bankruptcy filing has been expected since the November fall of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange.
Meanwhile, the US Justice Department has announced that Anatoly Legkodymov, the Russian operator of the China-based crypto exchange Bitzlato, has been arrested. Bitzlato was a crypto exchange that allegedly worked with the darknet blackmarket Hydra Market, which dealt in illicit trade and served as a safe haven for ransomware attackers, according to the DOJ.
The US Justice Department issued a vague statement on Wednesday that it would “announce a major, international cryptocurrency enforcement action”, and noted that the US Treasury Department would also be making its own statement.
The announcement comes at a time when former FTX crypto exchange CEO Sam Bankman-Fried is facing charges of wire fraud, securities fraud, and conspiracy. The DOJ stressed that criminals using the crypto space for scams and other criminal activity should be aware the agency will use “every tool” to crack down on their activities.
Mr Bankman-Fried’s company – long considered one of the biggest crypto exchanges alongside Binance – declared bankruptcy after allegedly using, and losing, customers’ funds as investment capital.
Crypto companies scale back Davos visibility after year of losses, scandals
In recent years, crypto companies have dominated the promenade at the Davos World Economic Forum, but this year they appear to have scaled back their visibility, CNBC reports.
With the exception of a lone, flash orange crypto-advertising sports car, crypto company advertisements were reportedly far less prominent this year.
An NFT shop that was selling digital tokens alongside images closed up this year after prices for the assets dropped significantly in 2022.
Cliff Sarkin, chief of strategic relations at Casper Labs, told the outlet that the remaining crypto businesses at Davos are “subtantive projects” and “the real deals.”
Graig Graziosi19 January 2023 07:00
FBI says it will ‘relentlessly’ pursue crypto criminals
FBI Assistant Deputy Director Brian Turner said the law enforcement agency would “relentlessly pursue” criminals acting in the crypto space following the arrest of Bitzlato crypto exchange founder Anatoly Legkodymov.
“The FBI will continue to pursue actors who attempt to mask their criminal activity behind keyboards and use means such as cryptocurrency to evade law enforcement,” he said, according to the DOJ. “We, along with our federal and international partners, will work relentlessly to disrupt and dismantle these types of criminal enterprises. Today’s arrest should serve as a reminder the FBI will impose risk and consequences upon those who engage in these activities.”
Mr Legkodymov, a Russian national living in China, was arrested in Miami on Wednesday.
Graig Graziosi19 January 2023 06:00
Financial leaders at Davos World Economic Forum bash crypto, insist traditional institutions are safe
Several financial leaders speaking at the Davos World Economic Forum made clear they did not trust cryptocurrencies, and insisted to attendees that traditional investment and banking institutions were still safe to use.
Senior Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam of Singapore said that crypto assets were “slightly crazy,” eliciting a laugh from the audience, according to Iris Market IQ.
UBS Chairman Colm Kelleher said that regulators had faltered in their ability to police “non-bank” entities, which includes cryptocurrencies.
“Regulators have — with respect — taken their eyes off the ball in terms of the non-banking sector,” Mr Kelleher said, according to Reuters.
European Central Bank Governing Council member Francois Villeroy de Galhau agreed, saying “we should rush to some urgent non-bank regulation starting with cryptos.”
Graig Graziosi19 January 2023 04:59
DOJ says Bitzlato head was aware Hydra transactions were illicit, customers were ‘known to be crooks’
The Department of Justice claimed that Bitzlato’s founder, Anatoly Legkodymov, was aware of the illicit nature of Hydra Market transactions, and knew that its users were using false identities while making transactions.
“Bitzlato’s customers routinely used the company’s customer service portal to request support for transactions with Hydra, which Bitzlato often provided, and admitted in chats with Bitzlato personnel that they were trading under assumed identities,” the DOJ said. “Moreover, Legkodymov and Bitzlato’s other managers were aware that Bitzlato’s accounts were rife with illicit activity and that many of its users were registered under others’ identities.”
According to internal chat logs obtained by the DOJ, Mr Legkodymov wrote to a colleague that their customers were “known to be crooks.” Officials at Bitzlato reportedly warned the founder that its users were “addicts who buy drugs [at Hydra]” and “drug traffickers.”
Graig Graziosi19 January 2023 04:00
ICYMI: Crypto market cap hit $1 trillion briefly before diving
Earlier today the crypto market cap touched $1 trillion for the first time since November, just before 2022’s mass sell-off and FTX collapse.
It’s unclear if the drop was the result of the DOJ’s announcement, or due to traders selling at the higher price, or both.
Despite the drop, Bitcoin has remained popular among investors, gaining 30 per cent this year.
Graig Graziosi19 January 2023 03:00
What was ‘Hydra Market’ ?
What was ‘Hydra Market,’ the darknet black market that was one of Bitzlato’s largest customers?
According to the Department of Justice, Hydra Market is “an anonymous, illicit online marketplace for narcotics, stolen financial information, fraudulent identification documents, and money laundering services that was the largest and longest running darknet market in the world.”
“Hydra Market users exchanged more than $700 million in cryptocurrency with Bitzlato, either directly or through intermediaries, until Hydra Market was shuttered by U.S. and German law enforcement in April 2022,” the DOJ wrote. “Bitzlato also received more than $15 million in ransomware proceeds.”
Graig Graziosi19 January 2023 02:00
ICYMI: Bitcoin price plummets amid major DOJ crypto announcement
The price of bitcoin has fallen by 5 per cent in the space of an hour after the US Department of Justice announced plans to introduce major international cryptocurrency enforcement action.
The world’s leading crypto dropped from $21,500 to around $20,500, reversing an upward trend that had seen its price rise by nearly a third since the start of the year.
Read more from The Independent’s Anthony Cuthbertson in his story below…
Graig Graziosi19 January 2023 01:00
‘Dr Doom’ economist says ‘90 per cent of crypto is a scam’ at Davos
Dr Nouriel Roubini — who is sometimes called “Dr Doom” for his grim economic predictions — said that “literally 90 per cent of crypto is a scam” during the Davos World Economic Forum on Wednesday.
“FTX and SBF are not an exception — they’re a rule,” he said during a Yahoo Finance event.
He went on to predict a forthcoming bust.
“Literally 90% of crypto is a scam. A criminal activity,” he said. “A total real-bubble Ponzi scheme that is going bust.”
Graig Graziosi19 January 2023 00:00
ICYMI: Crypto crime network shut down in ‘significant blow’ to fraudsters, DOJ announces
The US Department of Justice has announced that it has dealt a “significant blow” to the crypto crime landscape after arresting a Russian national alleged to have founded a major criminal online platform.
Cryptocurrency exchange Bitzlato processed more than $700 million dollars’ worth of illicit funds, according to the DOJ, advertising its services to users who were “known to be crooks”.
Alleged founder Anatoly Legkodymov was arrested in Miami on Tuesday. Read more from The Independent’s Anthony Cuthbertson in his story below…
Graig Graziosi18 January 2023 23:00
Crypto exchange targeted by DOJ responding with ‘oops, sorry’ to customers on automated social media channel
Chinese-based cryptocurrency exchange Bitzlato — whose CEO Anatoly Legkodymov, was arrested by the DOJ in Miami on Tuesday — is responding to its customers through an automated message on Telegraph with the phrase “oops, sorry” along with a sad face emoji, according to NBC News.
The DOJ alleges the company frequently dealt with Hydra Market, an illicit digital marketplace and haven for ransomware attackers. The agency alleged that Mr Legkodymov was aware that his customers were involved in criminal activity and using aliases to hide their identities.
Graig Graziosi18 January 2023 21:30
These Trump Allies ‘Very Well-Suited’ to Cooperate With DOJ: Legal Analyst
A legal expert expects that some in former President Donald Trump’s inner circle could cooperate with the Department of Justice (DOJ) if charges are filed against the former president.
The January 6 House Select Committee announced several criminal referrals at the culmination of its 18-month investigation last week. Trump was chief among those referred, with the committee urging the DOJ to file charges against Trump for alleged insurrection, obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to make false statements and conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government.
Also referred for charges were John Eastman, a lawyer who advised Trump; Mark Meadows, who was Trump’s chief of staff for part of his presidency; Rudy Giuliani, a member of Trump’s legal team and former New York City mayor; Kenneth Cheseboro, a lawyer who advised Trump; and Jeffrey Clark, an assistant attorney general during the U.S. Capitol insurrection on January 6, 2021.
So far, no charges have been filed by the DOJ. Of those referred with Trump, several could cooperate with the DOJ to protect themselves, according to Harry Litman, a lawyer, political commentator and former DOJ official.
GETTY
Litman appeared Sunday on MSNBC’s “The Sunday Show” to speak about the situation and identified key members of Trump’s inner circle most likely to turn on if the referred charges are pursued by the DOJ.
Litman said he expects anywhere from six to 10 of Trump’s allies to be “very well-suited” as cooperating defendants, including several referred for criminal charges by the House select committee.
“Normally in a setting like this, it’s a race to the prosecutor’s office for them because there’s a real advantage to being first,” Litman said.
Litman named Meadows, Eastman and Clark as being “tailor-made” to be cooperators, but that there were plenty of “co-conspirators to go around.”
“This, like so much else with Trump, is kind of a unique situation. Will they actually be the ‘et, tu, Rudy?’ persons?” Litman said, speculating that some of Trump’s friends could betray him.
Other legal experts have marked Meadows as a likely cooperating witness. This month, attorney and former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner appeared on an episode of “The Legal Breakdown” with Brian Cohen and said Meadows could be the key the DOJ needs to further investigate the referred charges.
Congress has already accused Meadows of being in contempt of Congress for refusing to cooperate with the House select committee, and Kirschner speculated that the DOJ might be delaying filing any charges so it can further glean information from Meadows.
Newsweek reached out to the DOJ for comment.