Elijah Eugene Cummings was an American politician and civil rights advocate who served in the United States House of Representatives for Maryland's 7th congressional district from 1996 until his death in 2019,when he was succeeded by his predecessor Kweisi Mfume. The district he represented included over half of the city of Baltimore,including most of the majority-black precincts of Baltimore County,and most of Howard County,Maryland. A member of the Democratic Party,Cummings previously served in the Maryland House of Delegates from 1983 to 1996.
The Hatch Act of 1939,An Act to Prevent Pernicious Political Activities,is a United States federal law. Its main provision prohibits civil-service employees in the executive branch of the federal government,except the president and vice president,from engaging in some forms of political activity. It became law on August 2,1939. The law was named for Senator Carl Hatch of New Mexico. It was most recently amended in 2012.
The United States Office of Special Counsel (OSC) is a permanent independent federal investigative and prosecutorial agency whose basic legislative authority comes from four federal statutes:the Civil Service Reform Act,the Whistleblower Protection Act,the Hatch Act,and the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA). OSC's primary mission is the safeguarding of the merit system in federal employment by protecting employees and applicants from prohibited personnel practices (PPPs),especially reprisal for "whistleblowing." The agency also operates a secure channel for federal whistleblower disclosures of violations of law,rule,or regulation;gross mismanagement;gross waste of funds;abuse of authority;and substantial and specific danger to public health and safety. In addition,OSC issues advice on the Hatch Act and enforces its restrictions on partisan political activity by government employees. Finally,OSC protects the civilian employment and reemployment rights of military service members under USERRA. OSC has around 140 staff,and the Special Counsel is an ex officio member of Council of Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency (CIGIE),an association of inspectors general charged with the regulation of good governance within the federal government.
The Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) is an independent quasi-judicial agency established in 1979 to protect federal merit systems against partisan political and other prohibited personnel practices and to ensure adequate protection for federal employees against abuses by agency management.
Kohn,Kohn &Colapinto is a Washington,D.C.-based international whistleblower rights law firm specializing in anti-corruption and whistleblower law,representing whistleblowers who seek rewards,or who are facing employer retaliation,for reporting violations of the False Claims Act,Foreign Corrupt Practices Act,Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform,Sarbanes-Oxley Acts,Commodity and Security Exchange Acts and the IRS Whistleblower law.
David Keith Colapinto is an attorney for Kohn,Kohn &Colapinto,a Washington,D.C.,USA,law firm specializing in employment law.
The Whistleblower Protection Act of 1989,5 U.S.C. 2302(b)(8)-(9),Pub.L. 101-12 as amended,is a United States federal law that protects federal whistleblowers who work for the government and report the possible existence of an activity constituting a violation of law,rules,or regulations,or mismanagement,gross waste of funds,abuse of authority or a substantial and specific danger to public health and safety. A federal agency violates the Whistleblower Protection Act if agency authorities take retaliatory personnel action against any employee or applicant because of disclosure of information by that employee or applicant.
Robert J. MacLean is a former United States Federal Air Marshal and whistleblower.
The National Whistleblower Center (NWC) is a nonprofit,nonpartisan,tax exempt,educational and advocacy organization based in Washington,D.C. It was founded in 1988 by the lawyers Kohn,Kohn &Colapinto,LLP. As of March 2019,John Kostyack is the executive director. Since its founding,the center has worked on whistleblower cases relating to environmental protection,nuclear safety,government and corporate accountability,and wildlife crime.
Robert Hunter Biden is an American attorney and businessman. He has also been a hedge fund principal and a venture capital and private equity fund investor. He formerly worked as a banker,a lobbyist,and a legal representative for lobbying firms.
Dr. David Paul Weber is an American criminalist,and the former Assistant Inspector General for Investigations at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). He is the Principal Investigator of a $2.6 million grant by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,to test various white collar crime interventions concerning elder financial exploitation and high-tech crime. He is a Professor of the Practice in Fraud and Forensic Accounting at the Perdue School of Business,Salisbury University. In the past,Dr. Weber was a whistleblower who reported allegations about foreign espionage against the stock exchanges,and misconduct in the Bernard L. Madoff and R. Allen Stanford Ponzi scheme investigations. In June 2013,the SEC settled with Weber his whistleblower protection and U.S. District Court lawsuits,paying him one of the largest federal employee whistleblower settlements ever. In 2014,In Bed with Wall Street author Larry Doyle named Dr. Weber as one of his "top 5 whistleblowers". On July 30,2015,Weber was recognized by six United States Senators and one member of the House of Representatives at the First Congressional Celebration of National Whistleblower Appreciation Day. On August 5,2021,Dr. Weber met with the President,Speaker of the House,and Senators at the signing of H.R. 3325,the awarding of the Congressional Gold Medal for those officers who lost their lives at the Capitol Insurrection,as he represents one of the deceased police officers and his widow. Ultimately,he was successful in having his client Police Officer Jeffrey L. Smith designated as having died in the line of duty by the District of Columbia in March 2022,and in August 2023 by the U.S. Department of Justice. Dr. Weber is now a forensic accounting professor at the Perdue School,Salisbury University. As part of his teaching duties,he is a special investigator for the Maryland State's Attorneys Offices in two adjoining counties,and a Virginia financial crimes state prosecutor in the neighboring Virginia county. He supervises his students who act as intern investigators on financial crime cases.
The All Circuit Review Extension Act is an Act that extended for three years the authority for federal employees who appeal a judgment of the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) to file their appeal at any federal court,instead of only the U.S. Court of Appeals. This was a pilot program established in the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act of 2012 to last only two years.
David Charles Weiss is an American attorney. He was nominated by President Donald Trump to be United States Attorney for the United States District Court for the District of Delaware,and was retained by President Joe Biden. He has served in that office since February 22,2018.
The Trump–Ukraine scandal was a U.S. political scandal that arose from the discovery of U.S. President Donald Trump's attempts to coerce Ukraine and other countries into providing damaging narratives about 2020 Democratic Party presidential candidate Joe Biden and giving misinformation relating to Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections. Trump enlisted surrogates within and outside his official administration,including his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and Attorney General William Barr,to pressure Ukraine and other foreign governments to cooperate in supporting conspiracy theories concerning American politics. Trump blocked payment of a congressionally-mandated $400 million military aid package in an attempt to obtain quid pro quo cooperation from Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Trump released the aid after becoming aware of a whistleblower complaint about his activities relating to Ukraine,before the complaint was known by Congress or the public. A number of contacts were established between the White House and the government of Ukraine,culminating in a phone call between Trump and Zelenskyy on July 25,2019.
In October 2020,a controversy arose involving data from a laptop that belonged to Hunter Biden that was abandoned at a Delaware computer shop in 2019. John Paul Mac Isaac,the shop owner,said that the laptop was left by a man who identified himself as Hunter Biden. The proprietor also stated that he is legally blind and could not be sure whether the man was actually Hunter Biden. Three weeks before the 2020 United States presidential election,the New York Post published a front-page story that presented emails from the laptop,alleging they showed corruption by Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. According to the New York Post,the story was based on information provided to Rudy Giuliani,the personal attorney of incumbent president and candidate Donald Trump,by Mac Isaac. Forensic analysis later authenticated some of the emails from the laptop,including one of the two emails used by the Post in their initial reporting.
Following the results of the 2020 United States presidential election,an obstruction scheme was devised by 45th U.S. president Donald Trump and his allies in seven key swing states to create and submit fraudulent certificates of ascertainment that falsely asserted Trump had won the electoral college vote in those states. The intent of the scheme was to pass the fraudulent certificates to then-vice president Mike Pence in the hope he would count them,rather than the authentic certificates,and thus overturn Joe Biden's victory. This effort was predicated on a fringe legal theory outlined by Trump attorney John Eastman in the Eastman memos,which claimed the vice president has constitutional discretion to swap official electors with an alternate slate during the certification process,thus changing the outcome of the electoral college vote and the overall winner of the presidential race. This scheme infamously came to be known as the Pence Card.
The United States House Judiciary Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government is a select subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee created by the House on January 10,2023. Established to investigate alleged abuses of federal authority,including collusion between federal agencies and private sector entities to suppress conservative viewpoints,the committee has broad authority to subpoena law enforcement and national security agencies,including with regard to ongoing criminal investigations.
The United States House Oversight Committee investigation into the Biden family is an ongoing investigation by the United States House of Representatives into whether US President Joe Biden is improperly involved in his family's foreign business practices,with allegations of "international influence peddling schemes",bribery,money laundering and a Justice Department cover-up. The investigation was initiated on January 11,2023,by Republican committee chairman James Comer and includes examination of the foreign business activities of Biden's son,Hunter,and brother,James. The committee is also investigating Twitter's involvement in the Hunter Biden laptop controversy. By December 2023 the investigation had not found evidence of wrongdoing by President Biden. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy nevertheless directed Comer to lead a formal three-committee impeachment inquiry in September 2023.
The Weiss special counsel investigation is an ongoing criminal investigation into Hunter Biden,the son of U.S. President Joe Biden. Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the appointment of Delaware United States attorney David Weiss as the special counsel on August 11,2023,three days after Weiss requested such authority.
