FBI policy strictly limiting which employees can speak to reporters was “widely ignored” in 2016, with over 50 officials having contact that year with one or more reporters using government-issued devices, a watchdog found. The Department of Justice’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) probed allegations that FBI employees improperly disclosed non-public information in 2016 before…

A federal judge postponed the sentencing of Kevin Clinesmith, the former FBI lawyer who pleaded guilty in August to falsifying evidence connected to a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) application. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg of the D.C. District again rescheduled the sentencing, postponing it to Jan. 29, after Inauguration Day on Jan. 20. Clinesmith was first…

News Analysis The FBI was listening to at least one phone call of former Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos, according to a recently released text message of Peter Strzok, former head of FBI counterintelligence operations. The text raises the question of what authority the FBI had to conduct such surveillance, particularly because, based on the…