By Steve Neavling

Chris T. Clem, a 25-year veteran of the Border Patrol, has been tapped to serve as chief patrol agent in the Yuma Sector in Arizona. 

The appointment comes just five months after he took the helm at Border Patrol’s Big Bend Sector. He replaces Anthony Porvaznik, who recently retired after serving in the position for more than five years.

Clem’s joined the Border Patrol in 1995 at the Lordsburg Station in the El Paso Sector. 

During his career, he held a variety of leadership positions, including senior patrol agent, supervisory border patrol agent, field operations supervisor, and patrol agent in charge, as well as associate, assistant and deputy chief patrol agent. He also served as a canine handler, and intelligence agent and a firearms instructor. 

Clem has worked out of Border Patrol stations in Lordsburg, New Mexico and Casa Grande, Arizona; as well as stations across the southern Texas Border. He also worked at Border Patrol Headquarters in Washington D.C.

A native of New Orleans who grew up in Houston, Clem earned a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and a master’s degree in leadership management.  from Sam Houston State University.

Yuma Sector includes 126 miles of international border with Mexico and 181,000 square miles. There are three stations – Yuma, Wellton and Blythe – and three checkpoints, with more than 700 Border Patrol agents.

By Steve Neavling

President Trump has pardoned two more former aides and associates ensnared in Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation of Russian election inference. 

Trump on Wednesday issued pardons to his former campaign manager Paul Manafort and his longtime adviser Roger Stone. Both were convicted in the Mueller probe. 

Stone, whose sentence Trump commuted earlier this year, was convicted in November 2019 of lying to the House Intelligence Committee. Manafort was convicted of financial crimes in connection with his overseas lobbying work and was sentenced to more than seven years in prison. 

On Tuesday, Trump pardoned his former foreign policu adviser George Papadopoulos and Dutch lawyer Alex van der Zwaan, both of whom were convicted of lying to the FBI during the Russia investigation. 

Among those not pardoned in connection with the Mueller probe were Manafort’s deputy Rick Gates, who was sentenced last year to 45 days in prison after cooperating with prosecutors, and Michael Cohen, Trump’s former attorney who pleaded guilty to campaign finance laws. 

“The pardons from this President are what you would expect to get if you gave the pardon power to a mob boss,” tweeted Andrew Weissmann, a Mueller team member who helped prosecute Manafort.