Alex Whiting

The Trump administration's story of why FBI director James Comey was fired, which began to twist almost as soon as it was told, took another turn on Thursday when the president said this to NBC News:"And in fact, when I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said, 'You know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story.'"...That has led to speculation that the president may have obstructed justice - a criminal offense. But experts say that suspecting obstruction of justice and proving it are two very different things...The key legal statute in this case is 18 US Code Section 1512, which contains a broad definition allowing charges to be brought against someone who "obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so". "The statutes are quite broadly written," said Alex Whiting, a former prosecutor and law professor at Harvard Law School, "but the key factor, certainly in this case, is intent."

Some critics of President Trump have accused him of obstruction of justice in his firing of the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, amid the bureau’s investigation into the Trump campaign’s contacts with Russia. Here is a look at the complex legal concept. Several federal statutes criminalize actions that impede official investigations. While some examples of illegal ways to thwart the justice system are specific — like killing a witness or destroying evidence — the law also includes broad, catchall prohibitions...“To prove that he did it not because Comey was grandstanding or showboating or all the other excuses he has given, but because he wanted to impede the investigation, that would be awfully hard to prove,” said Alex Whiting, a former federal prosecutor who now teaches criminal law at Harvard Law School.

An op-ed by Alex Whiting. CNN is reporting that a federal grand jury sitting in Alexandria, Virginia, has issued subpoenas in the last weeks seeking documents and records from associates of Michael Flynn pertaining to Flynn’s activities after he was forced out as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2014 and before he became Trump’s National Security Advisor in 2017. Does this development represent a significant escalation in the investigation of Flynn? The answer is, not necessarily.

An interview with Alex Whiting. Is this Trump’s Watergate moment? Just as the FBI is investigating his administration's present and past ties to Russia, director James Comey heard on the news that he'd been fired. The official reason: Comey's handling of the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s emails. How will the sacking define Trump's presidency, his way of governing, and his relations with his own government agencies? Will this latest twist play to Vladimir Putin's advantage?

The FBI-led probe into whether Russian influence operations helped put Donald Trump in the White House is on a knife’s edge and could easily veer into either of two distinct directions...Some career investigators may not take kindly to the political pressure, said Alex Whiting, a former federal prosecutor who now teaches at Harvard Law School. “If they feel like this was designed to push them back, they will be emboldened,” Whiting said, and may confront Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, who has taken the reins of the Russia probe because Attorney General Jeff Sessions withdrew from involvement in the inquiry after it was disclosed that he met twice with Russia’s ambassador last year.

In a major and surprising shift, the Trump administration late Tuesday fired FBI Director James Comey. Citing recommendations by Justice Department officials, President Trump said Comey was dismissed for mishandling the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email practices. Skeptics of that rationale were quick to note that Comey oversaw the criminal and counterintelligence investigation into alleged ties between Trump associates and Russian officials, as well as Russia’s involvement in hacking the 2016 election. Comey had earned the ire of both political parties for his unusual pronouncements late in the campaign confirming the FBI’s probe into Clinton’s use of private emails for some public business while she was secretary of state....Alex Whiting is a professor of practice at Harvard Law School who focuses on complex international and domestic prosecutions...Whiting spoke with the Gazette about the legal issues surrounding Comey’s dismissal.

Alex Whiting, professor at Harvard Law School, and William Banks, Director of the Institute for National Security and Counterterrorism at Syracuse University Law School, discuss former acting attorney general Sally Yates’ testimony before Congress, in which she detailed the timeline that lead up to former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s expulsion. They speak with Greg Stohr on Bloomberg Radio’s "Bloomberg Law."

The evidence is staggering. Three tons of captured Syrian government documents, providing a chilling and extensive catalog of the state’s war crimes, are held by a single organization in Europe. A Syrian police photographer fled with pictures of more than 6,000 dead at the hands of the state, many of them tortured. The smartphone alone has broken war’s barriers: Records of crimes are now so graphic, so immediate, so overwhelming...Alex Whiting, a Harvard law professor, said accountability is a matter of politics and so far Syria has not been high in the world’s priorities. But he has been surprised, tenuously, since the latest chemical attack.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has brought sweeping change to the Department of Justice. In just two months as the nation’s top cop, Sessions has moved quickly to overhaul the policies and priorities set by the Obama administration...Alex Whiting, faculty co-director of the Criminal Justice Policy Program at Harvard Law School, said it appears Sessions is resurrecting the tough on crime policies last seen during the George W. Bush administration. “Obama moved away from that approach, and I think in the criminal justice world there seemed to be a consensus between the right and left that those policies, those rigid policies of the war on drugs and trying to get the highest sentence all the time, had failed,” he said.

Corrected version. Professors and students at the Law School gathered on Tuesday to argue whether aggressive acts by international states should be included under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court...Harvard Law professor Alex Whiting and Middlesex University London professors William Schabas and Donald Ferencz spoke on the panel. Law School Dean Martha Minow and Law School professor Gerald L. Neuman '73 also spoke at the event...The event continued with references to essays written by symposium contributors, including members of the Harvard International Law Journal that organized the symposium. Marissa R. Brodney [`18], an executive editor of Harvard International Law Journal, wrote an essay on the designation for victims of aggression. “The symposium explores what has always been a relevant question and has become an increasingly relevant question in our current geopolitical moment” Brodney said.

Professors and students at the Law School gathered on Tuesday to argue whether aggressive acts by international states should be included under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court...Harvard Law professors Gerald Neuman and Alex Whiting and Middlesex University London professor William Schabas spoke on the panel...The event continued with references to essays written by members of the Harvard International Law Journal that organized the symposium. Marissa R. Brodney [`18], the executive editor of Harvard International Law Journal, wrote an essay on the designation for victims of aggression. “The symposium explores what has always been a relevant question and has become an increasingly relevant question in our current geopolitical moment” Brodney said.

United Nations Security Council talks on Syria hit a familiar snag on Wednesday, with clashes between the United States, Russia and other members blocking action on the latest case of poison gas killings in the country’s civil war...With the administration of US President Donald Trump edging closer towards accommodating Russian and Iranian efforts to keep Assad in power once the six-year-old war grinds to a halt, prospects for justice are bleak. “Though the crimes in Syria are on a staggering scale, there has been a blockage for any accountability,” Alex Whiting, a former ICC lawyer, told Middle East Eye.

Tommy [Tucker] talks to Alex Whiting, Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and a former prosecutor, about the investigations into Russia and Trump associates and why Mike Flynn was asking for immunity.

Michael Flynn, the short-tenured national security advisor for President Trump, is offering to testify to both the FBI and the congressional intelligence committees about possible connections between the Trump campaign and Russia in exchange for immunity...What does Flynn's public offer to testify mean? Alex Whiting, a Harvard law professor and national security law expert, makes a convincing case that Flynn is attempting to "bait" one of the congressional committees, not federal prosecutors, into getting him to testify: "I suspect that Flynn's lawyer is really targeting Congress. He is hoping that one of the Congressional committees will take the bait and grant him immunity in exchange for his testimony. If that happened, it would be extremely difficult to prosecute Flynn after he testified. Remember Oliver North?..." Whiting concludes the gambit wouldn't work and wonders if Flynn's lawyer knows his client doesn't have much to offer prosecutors and may be looking for a way to avoid charges himself.

As the Malaysian police seek further evidence to back their suspicions that the North Korean government was behind last month’s assassination of Kim Jong-nam in Kuala Lumpur, international investigators are gathering testimony to put top North Korean leaders on trial for a much broader range of heinous crimes. The UN special rapporteur on human rights in North Korea on Monday called on the world to bring members of the dictatorial regime to justice at the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity...And history can take sudden twists, points out Alex Whiting, a professor of international criminal law at Harvard Law School. At one time, he recalls, few expected anyone ever to face justice for crimes committed in Cambodia or the former Yugoslavia. International tribunals have since tried and sentenced perpetrators of crimes against humanity and war crimes during those conflicts.

The Syrian government commits an atrocity. The United States and the United Nations denounce it. Nothing happens. It’s a pattern that experts say will likely continue with the revelation this week that, since 2011, officials at a military prison in Syria have summarily executed as many as 13,000 people by hanging...The U.N. has several options, said Alex Whiting, a professor at Harvard Law School and former war crimes and genocide prosecutor. The Security Council could refer the matter to the International Criminal Court, as it did in Libya just weeks after fighting began there in 2011. It could create an ad-hoc war tribunal, as it did after reports of war crimes emerged in the former Yugoslavia in 1993. Or if a peace deal were imminent, the U.N. could ensure that its terms included a tribunal, as was agreed to in South Sudan in 2015. “Where there is political will and political agreement the Security Council can act very quickly,” Whiting said. “The problem is that the five permanent members of the Security Council have to agree.”

People know Allison Dale Burroughs as fearless. As a prosecutor who cracked down on organized crime in Philadelphia during the 1990s at the US attorney’s office, Burroughs garnered a reputation as a whip-smart attorney who was attracted to challenging, demanding work, said John Pucci, who worked alongside her in Philadelphia...In 2014, Nancy Gertner, a former federal judge, was part of the committee that recommended Burroughs to her current position. “She is someone who knows her way around the US attorney’s office, knows her way around the Boston legal community, and more significantly,” she said, “we knew she would have guts.”...Alex Whiting, who worked with Burroughs as a prosecutor at the US attorney’s office in Boston, also said he was always struck by another thing. “She is fair, and she has great judgment,” said Whiting, now a professor at Harvard Law School. “Prosecutors have a lot of power, and she was always thoughtful of how that power was being used.”

Last Thursday, as forces loyal to the Syrian government advanced through eastern Aleppo and despondent civilians there wondered whether they would be massacred, Syria’s President, Bashar al-Assad, stood in a sunlit courtyard in Damascus, dressed in a crisp blue suit, and compared his victory to the births of Jesus Christ and the prophet Muhammad...“If civilians are being told that they should leave or risk being deliberately targeted by military forces, that amounts to forcible transfer,” Alex Whiting, a former prosecutions coördinator at the I.C.C., who now teaches at Harvard Law School, told me. “The ‘force’ in forcible transfer is not limited to physical force,” he added. “It also includes threats of force or coercion, or fear of violence or duress.”

Recent withdrawals from the International Criminal Court have raised questions about the court’s future...Alex Whiting is a law professor at Harvard University in Massachusetts. He once supervised investigations and legal action against suspects for the International Criminal Court. He expects the court to survive. “I think there will be some difficulties, but that the court is not going to collapse,” Whiting told VOA. He said one reason is the court’s special power to bring action against the world’s worst kinds of crimes.