RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the Week

RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the Week 
Dec. 31 to Jan. 6 

Featured Investigations

Remember the long-running "Spy vs. Spy" comic strip in Mad magazine? In Washington, a more modern analog could be "Prober vs. Prober," with the scheming, big-beaked rivals presented in congressional/GOP red versus FBI/Democratic blue.

It's a visual oversimplification, for sure.  But it helps sum up the competing - and byzantine - investigative dynamics taking hold ever since the infamous anti-Trump dossier was revealed to have been a Democratic campaign operation that may have inspired the FBI's Trump-Russia “collusion” probe under false pretenses. Now procedural time bombs are ticking away, and charges of duplicity and obstruction seem everywhere. The red side, from Congress and the White House and in the courts, is hammering away at what it sees as blue efforts to hide blatant FBI bias in favor of Hillary Clinton (see here, here, here, here and here). But the blue side is warming to new grounds for impeachment: the prospect that even if there’s no evidence of Russian collusion, President Trump obstructed justice by trying to stop the inquisition, empty as it may have been.

And as if those weren't intrigues enough, it was also disclosed this week that FBI field agents from Little Rock, Ark., were looking anew into whether the Clinton Foundation engaged in any pay-to-play politics while Clinton was Secretary of State. 

There, it seemed, the investigative color scheme could well take on a rich hue of green.

Other Noteworthy Articles and Series

'Brotopia': Inside Silicon Valley's Secretive, Orgiastic Dark Side
Vanity Fair
Some of the most powerful men in Silicon Valley are regulars at exclusive, drug-fueled, sex-laced parties—gatherings they describe not as scandalous, or even secret, but as a bold, unconventional lifestyle choice. Yet, while the guys live out their fantasies, the women – all of whom are professionals – often pay the price at work, whether they participate or not. In an adaptation of her new book "Brotopia" for Vanity Fair,  Emily Chang casts the lavish parties as gatherings where self-proclaimed progressive men exercise the ancient forms of entitlement and coercion -- part Roman bacchanalia, part revenge of the nerds.

Falsified Drug Tests, Thousands of Convictions
Rolling Stone
Sonja Farak was a standout forensic chemist for the Massachusetts State Police for nine years, helping send away between 8,000 and 10,000 defendants.  During that time she was also an addict who used the drugs she was analyzing – often smoking crack in the crime lab’s restroom and cooking up her own batches of the drug in the lab. Five years after Farak’s arrest in 2013, very few of the people she helped to imprison have been told of her misconduct.

Secret Document Has China Conditionally Offering Kim Missiles
Washington Free Beacon
China's Communist Party adopted a secret plan in September to bolster the North Korean government with increased aid and military support, including new missiles, if Pyongyang halts further nuclear tests, according to an internal party document.  It states that China will allow North Korea to keep its current arsenal of nuclear weapons, contrary to Beijing's public stance that it seeks a denuclearized Korean peninsula.

Two Major Flaws Found in World's Computers
New York Times
Computer security experts have discovered two major security flaws in the microprocessors inside nearly all of the world’s computers. The two problems, called Meltdown and Spectre, could allow hackers to steal the entire memory contents of computers, including mobile devices, personal computers and servers running in so-called cloud computer networks. There is no easy fix for Spectre and the fix for Meltdown could slow down computers by as much as 30 percent.

He Killed His Parents, Escaped From Prison And Vanished
Omaha World-Herald
William Leslie Arnold murdered his parents in 1956 because his mother had refused to let him take his girl to the drive-in. He kept that date and went to school and church the next two weeks until his web of lies unraveled. He was a model prisoner for nearly a decade until he escaped from the Nebraska State Penitentiary. A half century later, Arnold, who would be 75, remains at large.