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Grassley refers attorney Michael Avenatti and client Julie Swetnick for criminal investigation

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley said Thursday he has referred attorney Michael Avenatti and client Julie Swetnick -- who accused Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct during confirmation proceedings -- for criminal investigation regarding a potential “conspiracy” to provide false statements to Congress and obstruct its investigation.

Avenatti, who also is a potential 2020 Democratic presidential candidate and works as the attorney for porn star Stormy Daniels, represented Swetnick, who accused Kavanaugh of being involved in or present at “gang” and “train” rapes at high school parties during the 1980s. He denied it.

Grassley penned a letter to Attorney General Jeff Sessions and FBI Director Christopher Wray Thursday, claiming Swetnick and Avenatti’s allegations were leveled at a “suspicious” time.

“When a well-meaning citizen comes forward with information relevant to the committee’s work, I take it seriously. It takes courage to come forward, especially with allegations of sexual misconduct or personal trauma. I’m grateful for those who find that courage,” Grassley wrote.

“But in the heat of partisan moments, some do try to knowingly mislead the committee. That’s unfair to my colleagues, the nominees, and others providing information who are seeking the truth,” Grassley continued. “It stifles our ability to work on legitimate lines of inquiry. It also wastes time and resources for destructive reasons.”

Avenatti fired back: "It is ironic that Senator Grassley now is interested in investigations. He didn’t care when it came to putting a man on the SCOTUS for life. We welcome the investigation as now we can finally get to the bottom of Judge Kavanaugh’s lies and conduct. Let the truth be known."

In the letter, Grassley cited contradictory statements by both Avenatti and Swetnick in media interviews, specifically pointing to an NBC interview on Oct. 1, when Swentick walked back the claim that she watched Kavanaugh spike the punch at parties.

“I saw [Kavanaugh] giving red solo cups to quite a few girls,” Swetnick said in the interview, adding that she didn’t “know what he did.”

Swetnick merely claimed she “saw him” by the punch—a comment that contradicted her sworn statement to the committee.

Grassley also said that Avenatti and Swetnick provided “simply no credible evidence that Ms. Swetnick ever even met or socialized with Judge Kavanaugh,” but said “there is substantial evidence they did not know each other.”

Grassley blasted both Swetnick and Kavanaugh’s credibility, citing past personal and financial dealings.

The Swentick allegations surfaced during an explosive confirmation process for President Trump’s then-Supreme Court nominee.

Kavanaugh was first accused of sexual assault by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, who shared her testimony on Capitol Hill last month. Ford accused Kavanaugh of pinning to her a bed and trying to remove her clothing at a high school party more than 30 years ago.

Following Ford’s allegations, several other women—Swentick, and Deborah Ramirez, who claims Kavanaugh exposed himself to her while at a dorm party during their freshman year at Yale University—also came forward.

Kavanaugh vehemently denied the allegations, in sworn written statements and in testimony before the Judiciary Committee.

After bipartisan calls, the allegations were further investigated as part of an FBI supplemental background probe. Republican senators briefed on the findings said there was no evidence to support the allegations.

Earlier this month, Kavanaugh was confirmed by the Senate on a 50-48 margin to the high court, and sworn in by Trump at the White House.

Grassley’s criminal referral of Avenatti and Swetnick was not the first connected to the Kavanaugh confirmation process –last month, Grassley referred an individual who made false sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh.

”Thankfully, the law prohibits such false statements to Congress and obstruction of congressional committee investigations,” Grassley wrote. “For the law to work, we can’t just brush aside potential violations. I don’t take lightly making a referral of this nature, but ignoring this behavior will just invite more of it in the future.”

New emails bolster GOP claims of FBI, DOJ 'coordination' on Clinton case response

Emails reviewed by Fox News from February 2016 suggest the FBI and DOJ worked together to craft a response to a key development in the Hillary Clinton email investigation, amid newly raised Republican concerns about a “concerning level of coordination” between the two agencies during the probe.

The emails concern the period after 22 messages with "Top Secret" information were found on the former secretary of state's personal email server.

Republican Rep. Mark Meadows cited them in a letter earlier this week claiming former FBI Director James Comey’s testimony to Congress – in which he downplayed FBI-DOJ coordination on the Clinton case – may be at odds with documents suggesting “frequent” coordination.

Comey specifically said in public testimony that he did not coordinate with the DOJ for his July 2016 public recommendation not to pursue charges against Clinton. Meadows, however, pointed to a series of messages he claims indicate potential coordination at several “crucial moments of the investigation” – including the July statement and the period in February. While the FBI is part of the Justice Department and communication between the two agencies is inevitable, Meadows’ letter also suggests some at the FBI were concerned about the perception it was not acting independently in a politically explosive case.

The February messages reviewed by Fox News start on Feb. 8, 2016, when Gregory Starr, then the assistant secretary of state for diplomatic security, told FBI Head of Counterintelligence Bill Priestap that the State Department was prepared to punish those responsible for the misplaced messages.

"The Department of State is prepared to take appropriate administrative action for any instances of mishandling of classified information in accordance with our own internal processes," Starr wrote.

However, the official added that the department did not want to hinder the ongoing FBI investigation and, if instructed, would postpone the "administrative action" over the emails until after the bureau's case had concluded.

Five days later, on Feb. 13, an unidentified senior Justice Department official wrote to FBI agent Peter Strzok, Jonathan Moffa of the FBI’s criminal division and the bureau's Office of General Counsel, as well as members of the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia.

"Wanted to make sure that DOJ is kept in the loop as response is drafted," wrote the unnamed official in the Justice Department's National Security Division. "We have discussed a bit more here at CES and have some additional thoughts on the best response on the admin action question. Can we make sure we discuss as a group as response is put together?"

"CES" appears to refer to the Justice Department's "counterintelligence and export control section." That section was led by David Laufman, who left the department this past February citing personal reasons.

The State Department took no immediate administrative action over the 22 "Top Secret" emails on Clinton's email server. Many of those involved in the matter had left the department by the time the FBI investigation closed in July 2016.

Meadows has gotten support for his inquiry from House Oversight Committee chairman Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C.

On Wednesday, Gowdy asked Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, FBI Director Christopher Wray and Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz to review allegations of coordination between the FBI and the Justice Department in the Clinton investigation.

FBI spokesman Andrew Ames told Fox News the bureau had no comment on the newly uncovered emails and added that the FBI would respond to Gowdy "as appropriate."

The Justice Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Zodiac Killer: Detectives hope DNA will unlock murderer's ID at last

The "Zodiac Killer," a shadowy serial assassin who terrorized Northern California in the 1960s and '70s with a string of grisly slayings and mystifying, unsolvable riddles, may have finally given officials a code they can crack: His DNA.

Throughout his bloody rampage, the killer -- one of history’s most famous unidentified serial murderers -- taunted law enforcement with enigmatic ciphers and bizarre letters in which he claimed as many as 37 victims.

Now, a half-century later, a detective team has extracted DNA from one murder victim's clothing that may finally help put a name to the infamous, anonymous killer.

"We have the potential to obtain Zodiac’s DNA," cold case detective Ken Mains told Fox News.

In October 1966, Cheri Jo Bates was stabbed after leaving the library at Riverside Community College -- a murder the Zodiac Killer claimed as his handiwork, though authorities never officially linked him to the crime.

Zodiac Killer victims David Faraday and Darlene Ferrin. The killer terrorized California, and the nation, in the late 1960s and early '70s. (Getty)

"During the examination of Bates' clothing, I discovered, without a doubt, two bloody handprints at the bottom of her pants," said Mains, a former FBI task force member and Marine Corps veteran. "We have touch DNA from those handprints."

The revelation came during the recent premiere of HISTORY’s series "The Hunt For The Zodiac Killer," in which Mains, former Los Angeles homicide detective Sal LaBarbera and computer science professor and codebreaker Kevin Knight seek to solve the case. The five-part limited series, which began on Nov. 14, also features a "supercomputer" named CARMEL, which was fed Zodiac's writings so it could learn to "think" like the killer himself.

The team says it may have solved a significant portion of the diabolically complicated Zodiac code, Z340, and has obtained unprecedented access to police files, new witnesses and clues. It also has the cooperation of the CIA and FBI.

Mains said the team has so far focused on two suspects: Ross Sullivan and Lawrence Kane.

Sullivan, who would now be 76, worked in the library where Bates was last seen alive. He was known to wear military-style clothing and combat boots, according to library staff, and footprints that appeared to come from such boots were found at the murder scene. Sullivan also bears a striking resemblance to a police sketch of the Zodiac Killer released at the time.

Sullivan was questioned by police in the murder of Bates, who was never officially declared a Zodiac victim. But Mains noted that Bates' murderer sent a letter to police and newspapers confessing to the crime.

"That letter was very similar to ones the Zodiac sent -- so much so that he misused and misspelled the same letters," Mains said.

As for Kane, he was a Navy veteran who studied cryptography. The Zodiac, Mains noted, sent encrypted communication to area newspapers divulging intimate knowledge of the murders.

Kane, who died in 2010, "has some red flags in his background that jump out to me that make him a viable suspect," he said.

The first Zodiac message was a three-part cipher sent in portions to the Vallejo Times-Herald, the San Francisco Chronicle and The San Francisco Examiner on July 31, 1969. That cipher, cracked by a California schoolteacher and his wife, began with these chilling words: "I like killing people because it is so much fun it is more fun than killing wild game in the forrest because man is the most dangeroue anamal."

That code would be followed by many others that baffled investigators using every resource to solve the riddles. The most infamous was a 340-character cipher mailed to the Chronicle that has never been decoded.

"We’ve got five of the world’s best codebreakers working on these ciphers the Zodiac had taunted police with all these years," Mains said. "They’re using this supercomputer to try to help them decipher it."

Mains also said that four of the known Zodiac killings were "all done on the same day in the lunar calendar cycle."

"Coincidentally, the symbol for that is the Zodiac symbol," he said.

Police confirmed seven murders and two attempted murders were the work of the Zodiac because of information he provided in his letters that was unknown to the public. Among his many victims were David Arthur Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen, teens who were on their first date in December 1968 when they were gunned down in Benicia, California.

But the killer took credit for 37 murders in all.

Mains said he believes his team can uncover the killer's identity with advancements in DNA analysis and other forensic technology that was not available to investigators at the time.

"It’s probably the greatest American unsolved serial killing case," Mains said. "I'm very confident it can be solved."

FBI POSTED A BILLBOARD IN LAS VEGAS ASKING FOR HELP IN DECODING SHOOTER'S MOTIVE

It has been almost a week since Stephen Paddock terrorized Las Vegas with an event of carnage never before seen in this magnitude throughout the nation’s modern-day history. Despite their massive efforts, Police are no closer today in uncovering the motive behind Paddock’s killing spree, so a shout out to to the public in the form of billboards erected around Las Vegas is about to get underway.

The FBI has hopes of gathering more clues into the secret life of Stephen Paddock as they ask for the public’s help. “We still do not have a clear motive or reason why,” which is what a “frustrated Clark County Undersheriff Kevin McMahill said Friday,” according to Billboard.com. “We have looked at literally everything.”

Members of the FBI are looking for anyone who saw Paddock in the days leading up to this Las Vegas massacre, nothing is too small to report to the authorities who are trying to piece together who and what this man was all about. It is known that he frequented prostitutes while in Las Vegas and police are anxious to talk to any of the women he might have spent time with before this shooting.

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As Billboard.com suggests, tourists will soon see “grim reminders” of the carnage that took place in Las Vegas when coming into town. So far the authorities have chased down more than 1,000 leads and they’ve looked at anything pertaining to Stephen Paddock including his finances and social behavior.

“We have been down each and every one of these paths,” McMahill said. “We all want answers.” The billboards will soon be present around every corner, but for now, the FBI asks that anyone with any information to please call 1-800-CALL-FBI.

Bodies removed from Las Vegas Concert Shooting — [Image by Chris Carlson,/AP Images]

Aaron Rouse, who is the FBI agent in charge of the Las Vegas office asks, “If you know something, say something.” He also said, “We will not stop until we have the truth.” Authorities have questioned various call girls in the city and they’ve investigated several cruises that Paddock took over the past few years, including one to the Middle East.

According to the New York Times, law enforcement is now confident that Paddock acted on his own. McMahill said, “There are voluminous amounts of video from many different locations” in the hotel. We have reviewed it, and we have not located any other person that we believe to be a suspect at this point.”

The coroner’s office in Las Vegas completed daunting task of identifying the victims of the Las Vegas shooter. The victims of this massacre where 36 women and 22 men, who range in age from 20 to 67. These were the people who were fatally shot during the Las Vegas shooting last weekend.

Despite the amount of time and planning that went into this horrific event on the part of Paddock, there are still very few clues to go on as to what put him in the frame of mind to embark on such an event. This is one of the most baffling aspects of this case. Law enforcement and people everywhere want to know why this happened.

McMahill also noted that after five days, it is unusual to have so few clues in comparison to similar crimes. McMahill also said with the mass killings or terrorist attacks that they’ve seen in the past, the killers have left notes. They’ve at least had some sort of social media postings and information on their computer. Some have even phoned the police but this is not the case with Paddock.

Erroll Southers, director of homegrown violent extremism studies at the University of Southern California, suggests that “The lack of a social media footprint is likely intentional.” Paddock’s planning in this shooting seemed to have left no stone unturned when it came down to every last detail.

Fugitive Polygamist Lyle Jeffs Caught After One Year on The Run, FBI says

Federal authorities say polygamist religious leader Lyle Jeffs has been captured, almost exactly one year after he escaped from home confinement while he was accused in a multimillion-dollar food-stamp fraud scheme.

Jeffs, who fled from federal custody last summer in Salt Lake City, was arrested Wednesday night without incident at a marina more than 900 miles away in Yankton, S.D., the FBI said.

Fuhitive Polygamist Lyle Jeffs Caught After One Year on The Run, FBI says

“We knew that this was just a matter of time,” Eric Barnhart, FBI Special Agent in Charge for the Salt Lake City Division, said Thursday at a news conference. “He may not have been in physical custody … but he spent that whole time, I am sure, looking over his shoulder, wondering about every police officer he saw, every highway patrolman and what person would eventually give him up, and I believe all of those things played out.”

Following a tip about someone matching Jeffs’s description, an off-duty Yankton police detective spotted his vehicle at the marina Wednesday in Yankton, called for police backup and conducted a traffic stop, the FBI said.

Jeffs confirmed his identity to authorities and was taken into custody. He was being held without bond Thursday on a Federal Marshals Service hold in South Dakota’s Minnehaha County, according to online booking records. His initial court appearance was scheduled for later Thursday afternoon.

Investigators think Jeffs had been in the area for at least two weeks, living out of a Ford pickup truck. There was no solid evidence that anyone was helping him, authorities said, but they are investigating.

“Know this — when you flee a federal indictment, the long arm of the law will eventually catch up with you and bring you back to justice,” U.S. attorney John W. Huber said at the news conference.

Huber said Jeffs’s flight “will play a significant part in the prosecution.” Jeffs, the leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, will probably face another felony charge over his conduct the past year, according to prosecutors.

Jeffs assumed the role of leader of the church (known as FLDS) after his brother, Warren Jeffs, was sentenced in 2011 to life in prison for child rape.

The sect emerged when Mormon leaders suspended the practice of polygamy in the late 1800s, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which calls the group “a white supremacist, homophobic, anti-government, totalitarian cult.” FLDS, which is not connected to the Mormon Church, branched off and continues to practice polygamy in small towns along the Utah-Arizona border.

In 2016, Jeffs and other leaders were indicted on a charge of money laundering and using Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits for FLDS expenses.

“This indictment is not about religion. This indictment is about fraud,” Huber said at the time. The government, Huber said in 2016, was charging “a sophisticated group of individuals … who conspired to defraud a program intended to help low-income individuals and families purchase food.”

While awaiting trial last June, Jeffs was released from jail. But, The Washington Post reported then, he “was confined to his Salt Lake County home with few exceptions, told he couldn’t contact various people affiliated with the sect, and made to wear a GPS monitoring device.”

Less than two weeks later, he disappeared.

“He used a substance which may have been olive oil to lubricate the GPS tracking band and slip it off his ankle” on June 18, 2016, Barnhart, with the FBI in Salt Lake City, told Fox News affiliate KSTU at the time.

Jeffs’s attorney came up with an unusual explanation for the religious leader’s disappearance, arguing in court documents that he may have “experienced the miracle of rapture.” Last August, public defender Kathryn Nester filed for a continuance because Jeffs was still nowhere to be found, The Post’s Cleve Wootson reported.

According to the court papers:

As this Court is well aware, Mr. Jeffs is currently not available to inform his counsel whether he agrees to the Continuance. Whether his absence is based on absconding, as oft alleged by the Government in their filings, or whether he was taken and secreted against his will, or whether he experienced the miracle of rapture is unknown to counsel. However, his absence prevents counsel from obtaining his approval and thus further prevents counsel from filing a joinder with the Motion to Continue Current Trial Date in compliance with the local rules.

Nester said Thursday in an email that the reference to the rapture was meant to be “tongue in cheek.”

She said Jeffs would soon be transported back to Utah.

This post has been updated.

Comey Testimony: Samantha Bee Tweets Via Full Frontal Landed Her In Trouble

Samantha Bee is in hot water for a tweet her television show shared during former FBI Director James Comey's testimony Thursday.

"This is basically a domestic abuse case," the account for the TBS show "Full Frontal with Samantha Bee" tweeted Thursday.

Bee retweeted and then deleted the message from her personal account as fans began to respond, calling the joke distasteful.

Well, I'm an abuse survivor who doesn't like my experience being trivialized. This isn't the same at all. This isn't a very feminist take.
— Trace Oddity (@TraceOddity) June 8, 2017

A rep for Bee and for "Full Frontal" did not return' request for comment.

This is not the first time Bee has found herself in trouble on social media.

The comedian mocked a man's haircut on her TBS show comparing him to a Nazi. She apologized after it was revealed the man had a partially-shaven head because he was battling stage four brain cancer.

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