FBI's new plea to public aims to break Jimmy Hoffa case wide open
More than 50 years after the mobbed-up Teamster boss disappeared, the FBI is still trying to figure it out — and is asking for tips to solve one of the country's most notorious and puzzling cases.
Calling it 'one of the most well-known missing person investigations in FBI history,' the federal agency's Detroit field office said in a press release Thursday it 'remains committed to following all credible leads' to 'assist in moving this case forward.'
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3 Teamster bigwig Jimmy Hoffa was on his way to a meeting at a Michigan diner in 1975 when he disappeared.
The LIFE Images Collection via G
'As the 50th anniversary of Mr. Hoffa's disappearance approaches, the FBI Detroit Field office remains steadfast in its commitment to pursuing all credible leads,' Cheyvoryea Gibson, the special agent in charge of the office, said in a statement.
Hoffa, 62, was trying to regain the leadership of the union when he left his cottage on July 30, 1975, for a meeting at the Machus Red Fox Restaurant in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan.
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He was never heard from again.
Hoffa's disappearance has since been the subject of folklore, most recently in the hit flick 'The Irishman,' in which actor Robert DeNiro portrayed mob hitman Frank Sheeran, who fires the fatal shots.
3 Jimmy Hoffa's final resting place has been the subject 50 years of rumor, innuendo and wild speculation.
Rob Jejenich / NY Post Design
3 Now, 50 years later, the FBI is asking for tips to solve one of America's most notorious missing person cases.
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But his body has never been found, with the hard-nosed union boss presumably buried anywhere from the Florida Everglades to the endzone of the former New Jersey Meadowlands stadium.
The FBI is still trying to get to the bottom of it.
Determined not to give up on the case, the FBI is urging anyone with any tips to reach out to the feds at 1-800-CALL-FBI or online at tips.fbi.gov.
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Trump administration won't release the Epstein files, but what would they contain?
The White House has continued to resist calls from Congress and President Donald Trump's own base to release the FBI's investigative files on Jeffrey Epstein. Instead, it has asked courts to release grand jury testimony and has interviewed convicted Epstein co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell to try to satisfy demands for transparency. So far, those alternatives haven't satisfied conservatives who believe − as Trump allies suggested for years − that Epstein was involved in a sex trafficking conspiracy with many other rich and powerful people. Top Trump officials came into office promising a new level of transparency in the Epstein case, and many Trump supporters maintain the administration should release all of the files it has. But what exactly is in those sought-after files? What would the public learn from their release? To answer those questions, USA TODAY talked to former FBI agents and prosecutors. They said the files are likely to be much more expansive than what's in the grand jury testimony, including records on witness interviews and investigative trails. "It could be an enormous universe of original documents, interview notes, memos of analysis," said Michell Epner, a former New Jersey federal prosecutor who handled sex trafficking cases. Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Kentucky, and Lauren Boebert, R-Colorado, cosponsored legislation in mid-July to release the government's Epstein records, with redactions to protect victims, active investigations and the national defense. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, announced July 22 that he was shutting down the House early for its summer recess to avoid a vote on releasing the Epstein files. Here's a look at what sorts of material the government is keeping hidden and the arguments for and against transparency: What could be in the FBI's 'Epstein files'? The FBI's investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, who died in a Manhattan federal jail cell in 2019 while awaiting a federal sex trafficking trial, goes back decades, and could include a wide swath of material. Around 2006, federal investigators looked into allegations that Epstein was paying several minor girls to perform sex acts with him. That inquiry led to what many regard as a sweetheart deal for Epstein, in which he pleaded guilty in 2008 to two Florida state prostitution charges, avoided a sex trafficking charge, and served just 13 months in a local jail. The case related to criminal activities in Epstein's Palm Beach mansion, which was about 2 miles away from Trump's Mar-a-Lago club. The federal prosecutor who negotiated the deal, Alex Acosta, became the labor secretary in Trump's first administration but resigned after fallout from a 2018 Miami Herald investigation that revealed Acosta's role in the deal. In July 2019, the convicted sex offender was arrested on the more serious charge of sex trafficking a minor. That same day, the FBI raided Epstein's Manhattan mansion, collecting computer hard drives and other potential evidence. After Epstein died, law enforcement also raided his property in the U.S. Virgin Islands. Those investigations would have produced a range of materials and documents, according to former law enforcement officials. It would include records of various witness interviews and details that could span well beyond information that was relevant to the criminal charges brought against Epstein and Maxwell. "People volunteer whatever they want and and sometimes people are very vocal, and they tell you personal things that have nothing to do with the investigation," said Katherine Schweit, a former FBI special agent and former Illinois state prosecutor. That could mean the files contain information or allegations dealing with third parties who have never been charged with a crime. In a news release in February, the Justice Department said it planned to release "thousands of pages" of never-before-disclosed documents after reviewing and redacting them to protect the identities of Epstein's victims. In a memo in July, however, the department reversed course and said no further disclosure was warranted. Trump was reportedly told in May that he is named multiple time in the files. Trump and Epstein were friends for many years, living near each other and partying together as far back as the early 1990s. Archived video footage and photos revealed by CNN July 22 show Epstein attending Trump's wedding to his second wife, Marla Maples, at the Plaza Hotel in 1993. The two men's friendship ended in about 2004, around the time they battled over an oceanfront Palm Beach mansion, according to The Washington Post. Trump recently said he banned Epstein from his Florida Mar-a-Lago club because Epstein "stole" staffers from the spa, including Virginia Giuffre, a well-known victim of Epstein who died by suicide earlier this year. Will grand jury transcripts cover the Epstein files? The grand jury transcripts requested by the Justice Department probably amount to just a sliver of what the FBI has in its possession, Epner said. "Grand jury testimony – while it could be, in theory, very broad – in this case, is very narrow," Epner said. A federal judge in Florida already rejected the Justice Department's request for the release of grand jury transcripts from around 2006. Two separate requests for the grand jury transcripts that led to charges against Epstein and Maxwell in New York more than a decade later are still pending. Epner explained that grand jury materials are just a subset of the work product the FBI and DOJ likely put together in the course of their Epstein-related investigations. And the Justice Department isn't even seeking all grand jury materials – only the grand jury transcripts. That wouldn't include, for instance, bank records obtained through a grand jury subpoena. Theoretically, a list of grand jury witnesses can be long. Prosecutors may call many witnesses before a grand jury so they can be confident of what the witnesses will say under oath at trial. Some grand juries also conduct investigations and call a wide range of witnesses for that purpose. But that's not what happened in Maxwell and Epstein's New York criminal cases. Only two witnesses testified before the grand juries, according to the Justice Department. They were an FBI agent and a New York police detective who, at the time, was working with the FBI's Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force. Those witnesses summarized what interview subjects said. That means the transcripts wouldn't include direct testimony from victims. It also suggests the grand jury processes in the two cases were streamlined rather than sprawling. In addition, if the Manhattan federal court agrees to release the transcripts, the Justice Department has said it plans to redact not just victim-related information, but also "other personal identifying information." That may mean blocking out identifiers for third parties tied to Epstein – the type of people whom members of the public may want to investigate as potential clients of Epstein. "I don't think the people that are behind all this, people that are have so much of an outcry about this, that they're going to be satisfied with just grand jury information, unless they don't know what it is," said Rick Smith, a former FBI special agent who now provides investigative services to law firms. That doesn't mean the grand jury transcripts couldn't contain revelations. Schweit noted that court rules that restrict testimony at trial are relaxed before grand juries, so the jurors who charged Maxwell and Epstein may have heard things that weren't discussed at Maxwell's public trial in 2021. "You might include in a grand jury somebody's criminal background, or ask questions about where they went to college and who their roommates were, and did they know this person or that person? Some things that in a regular court might be hearsay, it might be secondary information," Schweit said. Why not release the files? There are arguments against releasing the files. The Justice Department has said its review of the files didn't produce evidence to justify investigating anyone who hasn't been charged already. Assuming that was a fair assessment of the evidence, releasing the files could unfairly tie third parties to Epstein's suspected crimes. "The thing that happens with something like this is there are a lot of people out there that are scared to death of this thing, who had nothing to do with anything untoward," Smith said. Trump isn't the only famous person who has been tied to Epstein in ways that fueled speculation – without proof – of Epstein-related criminal conduct. Former President Bill Clinton flew repeatedly on Epstein's private jet, according to flight logs reported on by The Palm Beach Post. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak met with Epstein dozens of times and also took flights on the jet, according to a Wall Street Journal investigation. Others may simply have been present at one of the many glamorous parties Epstein attended in his social heyday. If the Justice Department one day finds new evidence and concludes investigating someone else is appropriate, releasing the evidence it has could jeopardize that investigation. There is no statute of limitations that would restrict federal prosecutors from going after someone else for suspected sex trafficking. "We want to ensure that we can continue to truthfully look for whether somebody is guilty or innocent, whether further investigation needs to be done," Schweit said. Still, releasing the files also could clear people who have come under suspicion in some corners of the court of public opinion. Actor Kevin Spacey, who – according to Law & Crime – acknowledged in court testimony flying on Epstein's plane along with Clinton, wants the files released so he can clear his name. "Release the Epstein files. All of them," Spacey, 65, posted on X July 15. "For those of us with nothing to fear, the truth can't come soon enough. I hate to make this about me – but the media already has." And part of what makes the Epstein-related investigations different is the level and spread of conspiracy theories surrounding how Epstein died and who may have also been involved in his crimes. Several members of Trump's own administration fanned the flames of those conspiracy theories for years. Now, those same officials are facing a wide segment of the public that doesn't trust that all investigative leads have been followed. "If there wasn't so much of an outcry that there was a conspiracy, I don't think we'd be where we are right now," Smith said. "But now that the people that had the most say about it are in the position to do something about it, it becomes a problem." This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: If Epstein files were released, what would be in them? Solve the daily Crossword
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8 hours ago
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WILLIAM SHIPLEY: What the Durham Annex tells us about the Russiagate hoax
On July 31 and Aug. 1, The New York Times ran two stories pouring cold water on the release of the previously classified "Annex" to the Report of Special Counsel John Durham dated May 23, 2023. But the authors – Charlie Savage and Adam Goldman – misdirected their readers' attention from the start to a non-issue, with the help of a literally false headline claiming Durham found certain documents in the Annex to have been "faked" by Russian intelligence. That's the basis upon which the Times, Washington Post, Politico, network news, and other legacy media have myopically focused their reporting on the FBI's Crossfire Hurricane investigation of President Trump – which we know was "faked" by the FBI, CIA, and Obama White House. Part of Durham's investigation looked into why the FBI did NOTHING – literally – after first receiving the Russian intelligence information in late July 2016, as contrasted with how the FBI reacted to information nearly 60 days old received from an Australian diplomat about a meeting in a London bar. The Annex includes previously classified information on the receipt of "Special Intelligence" throughout the first part of 2016 from a friendly foreign government, showing Russia's seemingly real-time knowledge of the inner machinations of Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign. The Annex is a document authored by Durham's team. Since the source documents upon which the Russian memos were based were not provided – or at least not made public – the accuracy of Russian memos' paraphrasing/referencing to the source documents is unknown. All those qualifiers go to the work of "analysis" – what is this document, where does it originate, what does it say, what does it rely upon, can it be corroborated separately, what is our level of confidence in accepting the contents as accurate at face value, etc.? Two items that have attracted the most attention, and which the Times' stories focus on, are "emails" purportedly written by Leonard Bernardo, dated July 25 and July 27, 2016. Bernardo worked for a George Soros-related entity. His emails were hacked, and he had communications with senior Clinton campaign officials. The Annex does not have actual "emails" as you might find them on Bernardo's computer or a recipient's computer – they have none of the typical email formatting. What they appear to be are "retyped" versions of the text in the body of emails into a Russian language memo, the Russian memo was translated into English, with Durham "cutting & pasting" the English translation into his report. The July 25 "email" includes the allegation that Hillary Clinton approved a plan conceived by a "foreign policy adviser" to "vilify" then-candidate Donald Trump by falsely linking him to Russia Pres. Putin. As for the Russian language memo – we don't know the date -- Durham provides an English translation that includes the following: "According to data from the election campaign headquarters of Hillary Clinton, obtained via the U.S. Soros Foundation, on July 26, 2016, Clinton approved a plan by her policy advisor Juliana Smith … to smear Donald Trump by magnifying the scandal tied to the intrusion Russian special services in the pre-election process to benefit the Republican candidate." The Russian memo says next "As envisioned by Smith…." This suggests that maybe among the documents supporting the memo is a description of Smith's plan either by Smith herself or someone else familiar enough with the details to describe it. "As envisioned by Smith, raising the theme of 'Putin's support for Trump' to the level of the Olympic scandal would divert constituents' attention from the investigation of Clinton's compromised electronic correspondence." The Russian memo, which had to have been written after July 27 since it had contents from a July 27 email in it, describes precisely what followed over the next 100 days leading up to the election – establishing "Putin's support for Trump" was the goal of the supposed "plan." The Russian memo goes on: "…by subsequently steering public opinion towards the notion that it [the public] needs to equate 'Putin's efforts' to influence political processes in the United States via cyberspace to acts against critically important infrastructure (resembling a national power supply network) would force the White House [read "OBAMA"] to use more confrontational scenarios vis-à-vis Moscow…." The memo says the Clinton campaign will seek to blow up the significance of Russian election interference – which happens in every election – by equating it to an attack on vital national infrastructure, and link Putin and Trump together in the effort, i.e., any election interference by Putin is really a proxy for an attack on democracy by Trump. Either the Russian intelligence services are clairvoyant and should be playing the lottery every week, or they wandered into a trove of correspondence between people associated with the Clinton campaign describing precisely the game plan executed by the campaign, and White House, CIA, and FBI on its behalf. The July 27 email attributed to Bernardo is also relatively short in terms of what Durham sets forth as the verbatim text taken from the Russian memo, and it confirms that Clinton approved "Julia's idea." The Times' authors falsely reported that Durham called the two Bernardo emails "fake" – and said that they were "concocted" by Russian intelligence. Hence, according to the Times, all the controversy surrounding the release of Annex materials was made irrelevant by that finding. But Durham didn't conclude the emails were fake. What did he conclude? His team's "best assessment" was that they were "composites" – some portion of the text of each was taken from other sources and combined into the text that appeared under Bernardo's name as an "email." It is clear that Bernardo did not write them, i.e., they are not "authentic." But it is also clear that some amount of the content in each was accurate – and predicted events that would unfold over the next 100 days. Durham reached that conclusion only after a long and involved process designed to understand both what the emails were, and how much of the content of the Special Intelligence was accurate. Everything – and I mean everything -- Durham did to answer those questions were things the FBI chose to NOT DO in or after August 2016. Durham asked intelligence analysts – FBI and CIA presumably – if the emails appeared authentic. Most said that they did. Some noted that Bernardo was, in fact, a victim of hacking by the Russians, so it would not be surprising if his emails were in the Russians' hands. It was noted by some that the Russians could have fabricated or altered the original information taken from the source documents. Just the fact that some analysts believed the emails appeared to be authentic should have been enough to push the FBI into action. But it did nothing. Durham interviewed Bernardo and showed him the emails. The FBI never did that. Bernardo said he did not recognize them, and there was language in them that he would not have used -- specifically the sentence "Later the FBI will put more oil into the fire." Judging intelligence translated from a foreign language is tricky. Bernardo denied using that phrase, but how far off is that from a very similar phrase more commonly used by a native English speaker – "Pour gas onto the fire"? Bernardo's original document would have been in English – then translated to Russian – then the Russian version translated back to English. That's how "gas onto the fire" ends up as "oil into the fire." Bernardo also said he did not know who "Julie" was as referenced in the July 25 email. But he noted that the final sentence in the July 25 email – that "things are ghastly for US-Russian relations" was phrased as something that he would write. Durham gathered documents with grand jury subpoenas and search warrants. He looked for the documents obtained by Russian hackers. As for the July 25 and July 27 emails, Durham did not find those among the emails of the Soros Foundation. But he found other emails – either emails or attachments to emails sent by people other than Bernardo – with language identical to Bernardo. Specifically, a passage in the July 25 email was taken directly from an email written by Tim Mauer, who worked for the Carnegie Endowment as a cyber expert. Mauer had never seen the Bernardo emails but agreed that one passage was taken from an email he had sent to colleagues at Carnegie – also hacked by the Russians. Durham also interviewed Julianne Smith, who was a Clinton campaign foreign policy advisor, and who did involve herself in efforts to amplify the threat of the Putin-Trump relationship to U.S. national security. It is noteworthy that Durham begins this portion as follows: "Smith stated she did not specifically remember proposing a plan to Clinton or other Campaign leadership to try to tie Trump to Putin and Russia." That phrasing is never accidental – "did not specifically remember" leaves much room to extricate oneself if a document emerges later that says what it is you claim to not remember. Agents are trained to note such phrases exactly as stated by the person being interviewed. Smith did say "it was possible" she had proposed ideas to campaign leadership "who may have approved those ideas." Again – Durham is showing her emails about a "Clinton Plan" she supposedly hatched, and she cannot be confident what other documents he might have that he isn't showing her. While she didn't remember much of anything about anything, the one thing she was certain of is that she would never have made a proposal that had as part of its execution the involvement of the FBI in furtherance of the effort. Prior to Durham, the FBI did none of this – and has never offered an explanation for why. THAT was the point made by Durham's Annex.
Fox News
8 hours ago
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Former NFL running back convicted on 6 felony counts in record-breaking dog fighting operation
A former NFL running back was convicted on six felony counts for operating a large-scale dog-fighting trafficking venture following a multi-day trial in Oklahoma. The U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Public Affairs announced the conviction of Leshon Johnson, 54, who was convicted of violating the federal Animal Welfare Act's prohibitions against possessing, selling, transporting, and delivering animals to be used in fighting ventures. The announcement stated that Johnson, who played five seasons in the NFL with three different teams, surrendered to the government the "190 dogs seized in this case." "This criminal profited off of the misery of innocent animals and he will face severe consequences for his vile crimes," Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement. "This case underscores the Department of Justice's commitment to protecting animals from abuse — 190 dogs are now safe thanks to outstanding collaborative work by our attorneys and law enforcement components." FBI Director Kash Patel added: "The FBI will not stand for those who perpetuate the despicable crime of dogfighting. Thanks to the hard work of our law enforcement partners, those who continue to engage in organized animal fighting and cruelty will face justice." The conviction came from an unsealed indictment in March, which went into detail about Johnson's operation at "Mal Kant Kennels." There was evidence delivered to the federal jury that showed Johnson bred and trafficked "champion" and "grand champion" fighting dogs. "Authorities seized the 190 dogs from his property, which is the largest number ever seized from a single individual in a federal dog fighting case," the announcement read. Johnson had a prior dogfighting conviction from the state in 2004. He pleaded guilty to the crime in 2005, where he received a five-year deferred sentence. Two years later, the NFL was hit with another shocking dogfighting scandal, as Atlanta Falcons star quarterback Michael Vick pleaded guilty to his involvement in a fighting ring and spent 21 months in prison. Johnson now faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 on each felony count. "Dog fighting is a vicious and cruel crime that has no place in a civilized society," U.S. Attorney Christopher J. Wilson for the Eastern District of Oklahoma said in a statement. "I commend the hard work of our law enforcement partners in investigating this case and holding the defendant accountable for his crimes." Johnson, who became a star at Northern Illinois University, was a third-round pick by the Green Bay Packers in the 1994 NFL Draft. He didn't serve a large role in Green Bay, who ended up moving on from him midway through the 1995 season. Johnson joined the Arizona Cardinals, where he would see most of his career yardage on the NFL stage. He started eight of his 15 games in 1996, rushing for 634 yards with three touchdowns, while catching 15 passes for 176 yards and a score. Johnson spent one more season in Arizona before joining the New York Giants in 1999, where he played in a backup role. He also played in the XFL after his time in the NFL was over.
