September, 2018

Eveline Cismaru, a citizen of Romania, pled guilty today to federal charges stemming from her role in a conspiracy to illegally access approximately 126 computers associated with Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) surveillance cameras and to use those computers in connection with a scheme to distribute ransomware in January 2017.

Cismaru, 28, and a co-defendant, Mihai Alexandru Isvanca, 25, were arrested on Dec. 15, 2017, in Bucharest, Romania. Both were charged in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Isvanca, also of Romania, remains held there pending extradition to the United States. Cismaru, who fled Romania weeks after her arrest, was apprehended in the United Kingdom on March 23, 2018, and extradited to the United States on in July 26, 2018.

Last week, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released its annual survey of Americans’ drug use and mental health. For the second year in a row, the number of Americans misusing legal or illegal opioids dropped. Even more encouraging, the number of Americans initiating heroin use dropped by around half from 2016 to 2017.

"We've arrested 41 individuals thus far that we've identified pursuant to that (memorandum),” Albence said in his testimony, according to CNN. “Close to 80% of the individuals that are either sponsors or household members of sponsors are here in the country illegally, and a large chunk of those are criminal aliens. So we are continuing to pursue those individuals."

In newly obtained emails, bureau officials noted there was not enough intelligence to support the January 2017 findings by the CIA

New Strzok Texts: "I hope this upcoming presidency doesn't fill my years with regret wondering what we might have done differently."

President Trump has signed a new National Cyber Strategy document authorizing offensive cyberattacks against foreign targets, the White House announced Thursday.

National security adviser John Bolton told reporters in an afternoon briefing that it was the first “fully articulated” national strategy document in 15 years and that “we are going to do a lot of things offensively and I think our adversaries need to know that.”

"Do you want them [the Senate] to drop everything and not confirm the Supreme Court justice?"
- Rep. Devin Nunes