Tag Archives: Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)

I Wish I Were Surprised By This

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Yesterday I posted an article that included the following:

Citing an increase in harassment, intimidation and threats of violence against school board members, teachers and workers in our nation’s public schools, today Attorney General Merrick B. Garland directed the FBI and U.S. Attorneys’ Offices to meet in the next 30 days with federal, state, Tribal, territorial and local law enforcement leaders to discuss strategies for addressing this disturbing trend. These sessions will open dedicated lines of communication for threat reporting, assessment and response by law enforcement.

Please understand–I do not support threats of violence or other intimidation tactics against anyone–however, I do support the rights of parents to speak up against anything they disagree with in their children’s school curriculum.

An article posted at The Conservative Treehouse yesterday tells another aspect of the story.

The article at The Conservative Treehouse reports:

Well, well, well… This is interesting.  U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland recently instructed the FBI to begin investigating parents who confront school board administrators over Critical Race Theory indoctrination material. The U.S. Department of Justice issued a memorandum to the FBI instructing them to initiate investigations of any parent attending a local school board meeting who might be viewed as confrontational, intimidating or harassing.

Attorney General Merrick Garland’s daughter is Rebecca Garland.  In 2018 Rebecca Garland married Xan Tanner [LINK].  Mr. Xan Tanner is the current co-founder of a controversial education service company called Panorama Education. [LINK and LINK]  Panorama Education is the “social learning” resource material provider to school districts and teachers that teach Critical Race Theory.

The article notes:

Yes, the Attorney General is instructing the FBI to investigate parents who might pose a financial threat to the business of his daughter’s husband.

The article includes the following screenshot and link to the memo from the Department of Justice to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) regarding parents protesting what is being taught in our schools:

If only the Department of Justice had been this conscientious about investigating Antifa and the Black Lives Matter movement, we might still have intact downtown areas in some of our major cities.

This Would Be Funny If It Were Not So Serious

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One of the problems with the political left’s claim that January 6th was an insurrection is that none of the ‘insurrectionists’ had weapons. The only person shot was an unarmed civilian by a policeman, and there are a lot of questions surrounding the incident. I somehow think real insurrectionists might have been armed. I also wonder why they are called insurrectionists when there is public video showing the police waving them into the building. But a narrative is a narrative I guess. At any rate, the political left is not done with January 6th. Their next step is somewhat unbelievable.

Yesterday BizPacReview posted the following:

The FBI has previously stated that no firearms were found in connection to the Jan. 6 storming of the Capitol, but despite that contention, the media is now breathlessly reporting that authorities have found guns in the homes of protesters.

“Numerous people arrested in connection with January 6 have also had weapons in their homes, including this latest case just today — 3 pistols and an AR-15,” Mother Jones explosively tweeted in reference to an NBC report.

“Some January 6 defendants, including additional Oath Keeper members charged with conspiracy, have lied to investigators and went to significant lengths to destroy evidence of their communications related to the insurrection, according to court documents. Others have kept weapons in their homes in violation of pretrial orders. And some defendants have threatened future attacks,” they reported.

The defendants have not been found guilty of anything yet. They still have Second Amendment rights. I seriously doubt the part about future attacks since there was never an attack to begin with.

The article continues:

NBC New York is reporting that a man named Antonio Vuksanaj was arrested Thursday in connection with the Jan. 6 protest on federal trespassing-related charges. An AR-15 as well as three other guns were allegedly found in his home. The media outlet notes that it is unclear if these were his and if they were possessed legally. It should have been fairly simple for a major media outlet to find out if that was or wasn’t the case but it apparently doesn’t make for as good a headline.

Vuksanaj was turned in by a tipster and has pleaded not guilty. He’s facing trespassing and disorderly conduct-related charges which don’t appear to have any connection to possessing firearms. Nevertheless, outlets such as Mother Jones are seizing on the fact that he had guns at home which may or may not have been perfectly legal.

The article also notes:

Sanborn (Jill Sanborn, an FBI official) contended at the time that nobody from the riot was facing weapons charges, though a firearm was recovered from a van containing Molotov cocktails found near the Capitol. It is not publicly known whose van that was and if those involved were actual protesters taking part in the riot.

Please follow the link above to the article. The tweets in response to the Mother Jones article are hilarious. Mother Jones needs to go back to her days of Acapulco Gold and give up on the magazine.

Haven’t They Got Better Things To Do?

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The Gateway Pundit is reporting today that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is investigating the U.S. Veterans’ groups that are going into Afghanistan that are going into Afghanistan and rescuing Americans and Afghans who were stranded there by our government.

The article reports:

The FBI has contacted veterans’ groups which helped evacuate Americans and at-risk allies left behind after the chaotic Afghanistan evacuation last month to make sure they did not violate federal laws.

Agents have enquired about financial records and flight manifests, and visited at least one group leader at home, Politico reported.

Agents are reportedly looking at whether any groups solicited money, offered bribes, or hired for-profit contractors for security and escort services.

The controversial private military contractor Erik Prince, who founded Blackwater, offered to safely evacuate people for $6,500 each, sparking allegations of profiteering. It is unclear if Prince has been contacted by the FBI.

Dozens of private groups made up of veterans and workers with experience in Afghanistan cropped up to aid those looking to flee the country.

Many were coordinated over messaging apps like WhatsApp, and some have continued their work since American military forces left the country for good on August 31.

This is amazing after the State Department has been accused of blocking the take-offs of some refugee  planes and then giving the names of the passengers to the Taliban. If the State Department is not willing to rescue Americans, they should at least get out of the way and let someone else do it!

The Roots Of January 6th

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The Constitution does not grant us our rights–it specifically states that our rights come from God. The Constitution is there to protect those rights. Unfortunately, many of our leaders have forgotten that. Those on the political left have begun to use our federal agencies as an arm of the Democrat party. They have also learned to use the media to blunt the blow when information about their questionable activities is about to come out.

Yesterday American Greatness posted an article that noted the role played by The New York Times in downplaying the pending indictment against Michael Sussman. Sussman, as you probably remember, was instrumental in getting the idea that Donald Trump was colluding with the Russians out into the public square. Well, The New York Times is at it again.

The article reports:

On Saturday, the Times published a carefully constructed bombshell intended to soften the blow of an explosive scandal in the making: the FBI had at least one informant among the group of Proud Boys who marched on the Capitol on January 6. The informant, according to “confidential documents” furnished to the paper, started working with the FBI in July 2020 and was in close contact with his FBI handler before, during, and after the Capitol protest. 

“After meeting his fellow Proud Boys at the Washington Monument that morning, the informant described his path to the Capitol grounds where he saw barriers knocked down and Trump supporters streaming into the building, the records show,” reporters Alan Feuer and Adam Goldman (the Times reporter most responsible for priming the ground for news that was unfavorable to the Russia collusion narrative) wrote on September 25. “In a detailed account of his activities contained in the records, the informant, who was part of a group chat of other Proud Boys, described meeting up with scores of men from chapters around the country at 10 a.m. on Jan. 6 at the Washington Monument and eventually marching to the Capitol. He said that when he arrived, throngs of people were already streaming past the first barrier outside the building, which, he later learned, was taken down by one of his Proud Boy acquaintances and a young woman with him.”

In other words, one of the informant’s Proud Boy “acquaintances” was removing temporary barriers to allow a crowd to enter the restricted grounds around the building.

Sounds legit.

The article also notes that there was another informant who took part in the sacking of the Capitol.

The article concludes with the following story:

In fact, after Beattie’s articles posted in June, Alan Feuer, the same reporter who co-authored this weekend’s spin story, wrote a piece disclosing Rhodes had been interviewed by the FBI in May. (Feuer’s article, conveniently, was posted after FBI Director Wray testified twice on Capitol Hill this week.)

Further, in my interview with him this week, Thomas Caldwell, one of the first people arrested in the Oath Keepers case, told me Rhodes approached him during a Stop the Steal rally in Virginia last November. Rhodes told Caldwell the Oath Keepers provided security for conservatives and asked if he’d be interested in assisting in the future.

Caldwell gave Rhodes his contact information, which led to Rhodes connecting Caldwell with other Oath Keepers; plans were made to travel to D.C. and meet near the Capitol after Trump’s speech on January 6.

Caldwell’s home was raided and he was arrested on January 19, just two weeks after the protest. Prosecutors already had a trove of evidence against Caldwell, which is highly curious considering Caldwell never entered the building and was charged with no violent crime.

How did the government get Caldwell’s information so quickly? It certainly suggests the involvement of someone working on the inside, someone who immediately provided investigators with incriminating evidence.

Someone like an FBI informant.

One thing is certain; the Times damage-control article is just the tip of the FBI iceberg. And more proof January 6 was an inside job.

How are the actions of the FBI considered Constitutional?

When Your False Flag Event Doesn’t Happen

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I firmly believe that the rally held in Washington, D.C., yesterday was supposed to be a ‘false flag’ event. I am sure that those on the political left were hoping a large crowd would show up and act like the ‘protesters’ at Black Lives Matter protests. Despite the fact that the rally was for a good cause–there are people in Washington, D.C., jails that as you read this are being denied their Constitutional rights–the rally was small. Many people who are aware of the situation of the January 6th political prisoners were not willing to take a chance on being part of a ‘false flag’ event. Although that was probably wise, it is obvious that a damper is being placed on the free speech of conservatives.

Today, Townhall posted some tweets about the rally. Below are two of them.

 

 

Some Good News

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On Saturday, The Epoch Times posted an article about the successful rescue of 47 human trafficking victims in twelve states.

The article reports:

A human trafficking operation joined by 12 states has rescued 47 victims and arrested 102 people, Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt announced on Aug. 27.

“Using both buyer-centric and victim-centric ‘sting’ human trafficking operations, Missouri and participating states were able to rescue 47 victims and sex workers and provide needed medical services to 41, and arrested 102 across the country in connection with human trafficking,” the Missouri Attorney General’s Office said in a statement.

According to the information provided by the Missouri Attorney General’s Office, the operation rescued victims and made arrests in 12 states.

Missouri: four victims rescued, two arrests made.

Illinois: one victim rescued, three arrests made.

Iowa: 11 arrests made, a large amount of currency has been seized.

Kentucky: 21 adult victims rescued, two minor victims rescued, 46 arrests made.

Minnesota: eight victims rescued, three arrests made.

Nebraska: seven arrests made.

North Dakota: six victims rescued, three arrests made.

Oklahoma: one victim rescued, seven arrests made.

Tennessee: four arrests made.

Texas: four victims rescued, two arrests made.

Wisconsin: five arrests made.

South Dakota: nine arrests made.

The article concludes:

“Operation United Front was an unprecedented human trafficking operation that brought together law enforcement agencies from different jurisdictions—something that rarely happens. When we all come together, we can affect change and more effectively fight human trafficking, a crime that is often multi-jurisdictional in nature,” Schmitt said.

According to data collected by the FBI, there were 1,883 human trafficking offenses reported in 2019, with 875 of the offenses cleared or closed, including 18 offenses that involved minor victims under the age of 18.

The terms “cleared” or “closed” usually mean that law enforcement departments have made arrests, the suspects have been charged, cases have been turned over to the court for prosecution, or the offender has been identified.

This is a national problem that is being exacerbated by the border policies of the Biden administration. Many of the so-called family units coming in are cartel members bringing in young victims of sex trafficking. We need to close the southern border and increase our efforts to end this horrific crime.

The Friday Night News Dump

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If you are a political person who has to report on a story that does not support the media narrative, the best time to leak the story is on a Friday night. It is really advantageous to leak the story on a Friday night when something like the fall of Afghanistan is occurring. The chances of anyone seeing your story are minuscule compared to what they normally would be. So it is not surprising that the following story was posted by Reuters at 5 pm on Friday, August 20th.

Reuters reports:

The FBI has found scant evidence that the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol was the result of an organized plot to overturn the presidential election result, according to four current and former law enforcement officials.

Though federal officials have arrested more than 570 alleged participants, the FBI at this point believes the violence was not centrally coordinated by far-right groups or prominent supporters of then-President Donald Trump, according to the sources, who have been either directly involved in or briefed regularly on the wide-ranging investigations.

“Ninety to ninety-five percent of these are one-off cases,” said a former senior law enforcement official with knowledge of the investigation. “Then you have five percent, maybe, of these militia groups that were more closely organized. But there was no grand scheme with Roger Stone and Alex Jones and all of these people to storm the Capitol and take hostages.”

This is not news to anyone with a brain. There were a lot of eyewitness accounts about people who were not dressed like the Trump supporters at the rally and did not have the attitude that was prevalent at the rally. There was also the fact that the attack on the Capitol occurred before the rally was over. There was also the fact that President Trump instructed those at the rally to go to the Capitol to show their support for the Congressmen protesting the possible election fraud and to do it peacefully. This news article goes against the picture the Democrats and some Republicans were attempting to paint. Therefore it was released at dinnertime on Friday.

The article continues:

Stone, a veteran Republican operative and self-described “dirty trickster”, and Jones, founder of a conspiracy-driven radio show and webcast, are both allies of Trump and had been involved in pro-Trump events in Washington on Jan. 5, the day before the riot.

FBI investigators did find that cells of protesters, including followers of the far-right Oath Keepers and Proud Boys groups, had aimed to break into the Capitol. But they found no evidence that the groups had serious plans about what to do if they made it inside, the sources said.

The article includes a picture of one aspect of what happened in the Capitol that day with a predictable caption. There are no pictures taken from the video of the police waving the protesters in.

The article notes:

Prosecutors have filed conspiracy charges against 40 of those defendants, alleging that they engaged in some degree of planning before the attack.

Many of those defendants are still being held in intolerable conditions in the Washington, D.C., jail without bail or visits from their families. They are essentially political prisoners in America.

The article includes the usual spin, failing to mention that the assault on the Capitol began before President Trump told his supporters to peacefully march there and referring to the President’s speech as incendiary.

Again, the article at Reuters is a classic example of a Friday-night news dump. They spun it as best they could, but a well-informed reader will see right through the spin.

This Really Is Not Surprising

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Yesterday The Washington Examiner posted an article about what is happening at America’s southern border.

The article reports:

Unprecedented numbers of known or suspected terrorists have crossed the southern border in recent months, the outgoing Border Patrol chief said.

The head of the Border Patrol, Rodney Scott, told his 19,000 agents before retiring on Aug. 14 that their national security mission is paramount right now despite the Biden administration’s focus on migrant families and children who are coming across the United States-Mexico boundary at record rates.

“Over and over again, I see other people talk about our mission, your mission, and the context of it being immigration or the current crisis today being an immigration crisis,” Scott said in a video message to agents, obtained by the Washington Examiner. “I firmly believe that it is a national security crisis. Immigration is just a subcomponent of it, and right now, it’s just a cover for massive amounts of smuggling going across the southwest border — to include TSDBs at a level we have never seen before. That’s a real threat.”

TSDB refers to known or suspected terrorists, as identified in the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Database.

The article concludes:

The Washington Examiner was first to report in June that Biden administration officials were forcing out Scott at Border Patrol headquarters in Washington after 16 months on the job.

One person with firsthand knowledge of Scott’s decision said in May that Scott was told to retire, resign, or move away from headquarters. The decision by Scott’s bosses was “completely driven by politics,” even though Scott’s position is apolitical and he is a 29-year employee of the Border Patrol.

“I did choose to retire, but I am not retiring to run away from this crisis. I’m just going to fight for you from a slightly different angle,” Scott said in his message to agents, though he did not explain his future plans.

“I am asking each one of you to look in the mirror and remind yourself, and if you haven’t thought about it before, think about the fact that you are not immigration police and our job is not immigration on the border,” Scott said. “Our job is to know who and what comes in this country and then to filter it out based on the rules applied by Congress and by law. That’s critically important, and when you put it in the context of immigration only, I think you miss the bigger fight. This job is extremely important. Your mission’s very important.”

Firing competent people is not the path to good government.

This Needs To Be Repeated Every Day Until It Ends

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The Federalist posted an article today about the contrast between how the Justice Department is treating those arrested in Washington on January 6th and those arrested during the riots in America’s major cities last summer.

The article reports:

One would think a major report from a group representing America’s top law enforcement leaders analyzing the widespread riots of 2020 would have garnered significant media attention. One also would think such a report would garner widespread discussion after the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capital due to the parallels between it and the 2020 riots. Given our hyper-partisan environment, however, one would be woefully wrong.

Specifically, back in October 2020, the Major Cities Chiefs (MCC) released a comprehensive report full of data from dozens of cities that provides deep insights into the 2020 riots that plagued America after George Floyd’s death in Minnesota. The MCC’s “Report on the 2020 Protests and Civil Unrest” served as an excellent after-action report that cities, states, and the federal government could use to reform their practices and, equally importantly, to prepare for future riots.

The article notes the difference in the events of last summer and the events of January 6th:

Now here’s a prime example of dissimilar treatment for far worse actions. The January 6 riot involved no guns or fires among protesters, only makeshift weapons like flag poles, batons, and objects from the area.

In contrast, the 2020 riots involved guns, incendiary devices, lasers, paint bombs, and fireworks that were used to torch buildings and cars, hurt police officers, and destroy meaningful parts of many U.S. cities. Despite the far greater violence and destruction the 2020 rioters perpetrated, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) haven’t hunted those rioters down with anywhere near the vigor and vim used against what are in many cases at most trespassers.

…In stark contrast, the left and the media continue to falsely claim law enforcement officers were killed on January 6. While some law enforcement officers were certainly injured during that riot, the numbers and severity are far below the law enforcement injuries from the 2020 riots.

More than 2,000 law enforcement officers were injured during the 2020 riots, with numerous officers being shot and one, retired captain David Dorn, brutally murdered while protecting his friend’s shop from rioters. The 2020 rioters also shot other protestors.

In contrast, the only person violently killed on January 6 was the unarmed protester Ashli Babbitt, at the hands of a Capitol Police officer whose identity still remains unconfirmed by public officials.

The article notes:

Left-wing rioters wisely did their acts in cities controlled by Democrats and with Democrat district attorneys, who went soft on them despite their disproportionate violence. In contrast, those who rioted on January 6 had the great misfortune of being in a jurisdiction controlled by anti-Trump Democrats and zealously left-wing U.S. attorneys looking to impress their fellow leftists.

Most of the people involved in the civil unrest that took place last summer have had their charges dropped. Many of the people involved in the January 6th unrest have been refused bail. Please follow the link above to read the entire article. It is a chilling commentary on what has happened to our justice system in recent years.

Big Brother Is Watching

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On July 22nd, Forbes posted an article about one method the Federal Bureau of Investigation is using to spy on Americans. The article is technical, but very important.

The article reports:

The FBI is using a controversial technology traditionally used to locate smartphones as a car tracking surveillance tool that spies on vehicles’ on-board WiFi.

Known as a Stingray or a cell-site simulator, the tool masquerades as a cell tower in order to force all devices in a given area to connect into it. Agents can then pick the number they’re interested in and locate the device. Normally that would be a mobile phone, but a search warrant application discovered by Forbes shows it can also be used to find vehicles, as long as they have onboard Wi-Fi. That’s because car Wi-Fi systems act like a phone, in that they reach out to mobile networks to get their data. So it makes sense that police would use it to find a car, though this appears to be the first case on record of it happening.

The application to use the Stingray was filed by the FBI in Wisconsin in May, as it sought to locate a vehicle – a Dodge Durango Hellcat – it believed was being used by a man indicted for drug dealing and firearms possession crimes.

The FBI had already been given permission to use other kinds of surveillance to locate another vehicle, a “black Jeep,” associated with the suspect, according to the warrant application. Again, they were surveillance techniques traditionally used to track cellphones, the first being a pen register, which gets data from a cellphone provider to monitor connections made by the device to other phones or electronic devices. The second was a so-called “ping warrant,” which shows the locations of cell towers used by a device. That gave them the location of a car dealership, where they learned the suspect had traded in the Jeep for the Dodge, the FBI wrote in its application.

The article concludes:

The case highlights how cars are no longer just vehicles, but networks on wheels, and all that data can be useful to government agencies. As Forbes recently reported, police can and have acquired location data from a car’s airbag system or brake light module. They’ve also previously requested location data from companies that have in-car systems that track millions of vehicles’ GPS coordinates every day, including GM OnStar, and fleet management providers Geotab and Spireon.

“Many people don’t realize that modern cars aren’t just wheels and an engine anymore, they are computers and cellphones too,” says Nate Wessler, deputy director of the ACLU Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project. “These features offer convenience and efficiency to drivers, but they also generate sensitive information about where we go and what we do. Strong privacy protections are important for this kind of vehicle information, just as they are for information generated by our cell phones and laptops.”

I am all for giving law enforcement all of the tools they need, but this seems to me to be a bit much. Unless I have broken a law, it is none of the government’s business where I am. I fear that this technology could easily be used to track innocent people in the future. It has the potential of being another step in the government’s efforts to limit the freedom of Americans.

Creating Further Division In America

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On June 16th, I posted an article about Biden administration’s plan “to create ways for Americans to report radicalized friends and family to the government, in an effort to fight domestic terrorism.” I am sure that the idea that your family and neighbors (or children for that matter) could report you for anything you say will help bring Americans together ((note sarcasm).

Well, it’s getting worse.

Yesterday The Daily Caller reported the following:

The FBI took to Twitter Sunday to encourage families to watch out for “homegrown violent extremism.”

“Family members and peers are often best positioned to witness signs of mobilization to violence. Help prevent homegrown violent extremism,” the FBI’s tweet read in part.

Family members and peers are often best positioned to witness signs of mobilization to violence. Help prevent homegrown violent extremism. Visit https://t.co/bql36iSbig to learn how to spot suspicious behaviors and report them to the #FBI.

This is the tweet:

The article continues:

The link included in the tweet takes readers to the 2019 edition of the Homegrown Violent Extremism Mobilization Indicators report.

The report separates extremism into three groups based on whether the action is highly, moderately, or minimally diagnostic on its own.

Behaviors that are considered highly diagnostic include taping a martyrdom video or last will, preparing travel in order to join a terrorist group, or “communicating intent to engage in violent extremist activity,” especially on social media. (RELATED: DOJ Considering New Domestic Terrorism Laws Aimed At Violent Domestic Extremism)

In June, Attorney General Merrick Garland said white supremacy was the greatest “domestic violent extremist threat” facing the U.S. as he announced President Joe Biden’s National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism.

This is frightening. We currently have an open southern border allowing members of MS-13 and other violent gangs to enter America and the FBI is worried about politically incorrect opinions being expressed on social media. Wow.

I realize that a lot of this is a reaction to what happened on January 6th, when some unarmed people forced their way into the Capitol. However, I firmly believe that January 6th is being used as an excuse to shut down any opposition to the current administration–on social media or elsewhere. We have watched the media censor news they didn’t like (Hunter’s laptop, election fraud, coronavirus deaths in nursing homes in various states, etc.). What is being proposed here is the next step to creating a one-party government which punishes political dissent.

Yesterday The Epoch Times noted:

Richard Grenell, a former acting director of national intelligence, wrote that the FBI’s tweet “is outrageous” because the agency “has a growing credibility problem and this type of sinister snitching is clearly unhelpful.” Several Republican lawmakers also criticized the tweet, saying the FBI is encouraging Americans’ family members to spy on one another.

“In both Cuba & China, they also ask children to spy on their parents,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) wrote.

Rep. Dan Bishop (R-Texas) wrote: “These people protected Hillary, abused NSA surveillance databases against Americans, used known, unreliable DNC-funded propaganda to spy on Trump, perpetuated the Russia hoax, & lied to the FISC repeatedly. And now they tell you that you should spy on your family.”

It’s not clear if the FBI posted the tweet in reference to the Biden administration’s campaign against “domestic violent extremists” or the longstanding intelligence operations against Islamist terror groups. Officials at the agency didn’t respond to a request by The Epoch Times for comment by press time.

 

Score One For The Good Guys

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NewsMax posted an article today about a global sting operation to catch members of organized crime in action.

The article reports:

The operation by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation, Australian and European police ensnared suspects in Australia, Asia, Europe, South America and the Middle East involved in the narcotics trade, the officials said.

Millions of dollars in cash were seized in raids around the world, along with 30 tonnes of drugs including more than eight tonnes of cocaine.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the operation had “struck a heavy blow against organized crime – not just in this country, but … around the world.”

Operation Greenlight/Trojan Shield, conceived by Australian police and the FBI in 2018, was one of the biggest infiltrations and takeovers of a specialized encrypted network.

It began when U.S. officials paid a convicted drug trafficker to give them access to a smartphone that he had customized, on which he was installing ANOM, also styled An0m, a secure encrypted messaging app. The phones were then sold to organized crime networks through underworld distributors.

The FBI helped to infiltrate 12,000 devices into 300 criminal groups in more than 100 countries, Calvin Shivers of the FBI’s Criminal Investigative Division told reporters in The Hague.

The article concludes with some of the numbers involved:

Australian police said they had arrested 224 people, including members of outlawed motorcycle gangs, and disrupted 21 murder plots.

On Monday alone, they seized 104 firearms, including a military-grade sniper rifle, as well as almost A$45 million ($35 million) in cash, including A$7 million from a safe buried under a garden shed in a suburb of Sydney.

In Europe, there were 49 arrests in the Netherlands, 75 in Sweden and over 60 in Germany, where authorities seized hundreds of kilograms of drugs, more than 20 weapons and over 30 luxury cars and cash.

Finnish police not only detained almost 100 suspects and seized 500 kg of narcotics but also found a warehouse with 3-D printers used to manufacture gun parts.

The operation also revealed that gangs were being tipped off about police actions, which prompted “numerous high-level public corruption cases in several countries,” according to an affidavit from an FBI agent.

Kershaw said the Australian underworld figure, who had absconded, had “essentially set up his own colleagues” by distributing the phones, and was now a marked man.

“The sooner he hands himself in, the better for him and his family.”

Please follow the link above and read the entire article. It is amazing.

Quietly Correcting What Was A Noisy Mistake

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The Gateway Pundit posted an article today about the FBI’s reclassification of the June 2017 shooting attack on Republican Congressmen playing baseball in Eugene Simpson Stadium Park near Washington, D.C. The shooting had been classified by the FBI as “suicide by cop.”

The article notes:

In June 2017, James Hodgkinson shot a number of Republicans who were at Eugene Simpson Stadium Park after asking GOP Rep. Jeff Duncan, who was leaving practice there, if the remaining players were Republicans or Democrats, signaling he was looking for a certain profile.

…According to the FBI, in an official report that was released on Friday, the brutal 2017 attack at the Alexandria, Virginia, baseball field that nearly killed Rep. Steve Scalise has been classified as “domestic terrorism” carried out by a “domestic violent extremist” targeting Republicans after the bureau previously classified it as “suicide by cop.”

…In late April of 2021, a US House representative instructed a reluctant Christopher Wray to investigate the origins of that odd report.

The article concludes:

Then the event was quietly updated to a domestic terrorist event.

Friday’s revelation was buried deep in the middle of a long FBI release and reversed that decision that was made by Andrew McCabe in 2017.  McCabe was apparently trying to soften the scrutiny of the motivation for the attempted murder of Republicans at the hand of a far-left radical activist.

The Washington Examiner reported on the matter, telling us where to find the information:

The revelation appears in the middle of an appendix on page 35 of a 40-page FBI-DHS report released on Friday titled “Security Strategic Intelligence Assessment and Data on Domestic Terrorism.” In a section describing approximately 85 different “FBI-Designated Significant Domestic Terrorism Incidents in the United States from 2015 through 2019,” the Alexandria baseball field shooting appears, with the FBI categorizing the perpetrator as a “Domestic Violent Extremist” and describing the incident thusly: “An individual with a personalized violent ideology targeted and shot Republican members of Congress at a baseball field and wounded five people. The subject died as a result of engagement with law enforcement.”

It’s interesting when the FBI does things like that and forgets to update the public.

I realize that most FBI agents are honest, hardworking people who love their country. However, it sounds as if we need to remove an awful lot of the top brass at the agency.

Welcome To A Police State

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CNN reported yesterday that the Biden administration is considering the use of private corporations to track the social media of the political extremists among us. When you read the excerpts from the article, please remember that this is CNN.

The article reports:

The Biden administration is considering using outside firms to track extremist chatter by Americans online, an effort that would expand the government’s ability to gather intelligence but could draw criticism over surveillance of US citizens.

The Department of Homeland Security is limited in how it can monitor citizens online without justification and is banned from activities like assuming false identities to gain access to private messaging apps used by extremist groups such as the Proud Boys or Oath Keepers.

Instead, federal authorities can only browse through unprotected information on social media sites like Twitter and Facebook and other open online platforms. A source familiar with the effort said it is not about decrypting data but rather using outside entities who can legally access these private groups to gather large amounts of information that could help DHS identify key narratives as they emerge.

The plan being discussed inside DHS, according to multiple sources, would, in effect, allow the department to circumvent those limits. In response to CNN’s story, DHS said it “is not partnering with private firms to surveil suspected domestic terrorists online” and “it is blatantly false” to suggest that the department is using outside firms to circumvent its legal limits.

The purpose of this, of course, is to prevent domestic terrorism (you know, like from Trump voters). Meanwhile, how much effort have Democrats put into stopping riots in Portland and in Minnesota? How much compassion has been shown to the business owners whose businesses were destroyed in those riots? You can bet your life those rioters are not the ‘domestic terrorists’ the Biden administration is looking for.

The article notes:

FBI director Christopher Wray has been emphatic during recent public testimony that the bureau does not investigate ideologies or even conspiracy theories in and of themselves, but restricts its social media monitoring to cases where they believe a crime, or potential crime, was committed.

But if the DHS could help provide a broad picture of who was perpetuating the “narratives” of concern, the FBI could theoretically use that pool of information to focus on specific individuals if there is enough evidence of a potential crime to legally do so, the source added, noting the two agencies are working closely with one another in this area.
“What do you do about ideology that’s leading to violence? Do you have to wait until it leads to violence?” said one former senior intelligence official.

“We are exploring with our lawyers, civil rights, civil liberties and privacy colleagues, how we can make use of outside expertise,” the DHS official added, referring to the department’s efforts related to encrypted applications.
The problem with that, the source familiar with the effort acknowledged, is DHS would be operating in a space that would likely make civil liberties’ advocates, not to mention conservatives’, hair stand on end.

Privacy advocates on the Hill have already questioned the Defense Intelligence Agency’s efforts to get around restrictions on collecting Americans’ location data without a warrant by purchasing that data from commercially-available databases.

Make no mistake. This will result in the federal government being used as a political arm of the Democrat party. It does not say good things about the future freedom of Americans.

More Morning Raids

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Yesterday The Washington Examiner posted an article about a woman in Anchorage, Alaska, whose home was raided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) because she bears a resemblance to someone who was in Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office on January 6th.

The article reports:

The FBI and an agent from the U.S. Capitol Police served a warrant on Wednesday at the home of Paul and Marilyn Hueper, who said the search was related to the siege of Congress.

The couple said federal agents accused her of entering the U.S. Capitol and stealing Pelosi’s laptop and seized some laptops and cellphones from their home, according to an interview with KSRM-AM radio.

“So, I think almost right off the bat, they said, ‘Well, you probably know why we’re here,’ or something like that. It’s like, ‘Yeah, no, not really.’ And they said, ‘Well, we’re here for Nancy Pelosi’s laptop.’ And I said, ‘Oh.’”

Hueper said the warrant did not specifically name Pelosi but said she was told by officers they were searching for the laptop.

A spokeswoman for the FBI in Anchorage confirmed to Anchorage Daily News the agency did conduct a “court-authorized law enforcement activity” on April 28 at the address of the Huepers.

“We just can’t discuss the details or existence of an investigation,” FBI spokeswoman Chloe Martin said.

Hueper said agents broke down her door Wednesday morning as she, her husband, and other guests were asleep.

Officers had their guns drawn and handcuffed everyone in the home, including their guests, Hueper said. The woman said she and her husband were placed in different rooms and couldn’t see what was happening as officers searched.

An officer took out a photo of a woman from the riot and asked Hueper if she could identify the person. Hueper said she was surprised because the woman looked like her and had a coat like the one she owns. Hueper said a second picture of the suspect showed the woman in a sweater that she had never worn or owned.

The Huepers did attend a rally in Washington, D.C., for then-President Donald Trump just before the Capitol invasion that day, though the woman claims she and her husband never entered the U.S. Capitol or stole any materials from inside.

The article notes:

A Pennsylvania woman who was also accused of stealing Pelosi’s laptop during the Capitol riot was arrested in January, though her attorney said at the time the FBI did not obtain the device from his client.

First of all, it sounds as if the FBI needs to up their game on their investigative skills. Second of all, it seems as if a lot of people are being subjected to early morning raids that might not be warranted. We are getting very close to a government that is using intimidation tactics on its political opposition. That is not a good place to be.

Actually, There Were Two Early-Morning Events Involving The FBI Wednesday Morning

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On Wednesday, The New York Post reported that the FBI had seized electronic devices from lawyer Victoria Toensing.

The article reports:

Federal investigators on Wednesday morning seized electronic devices from lawyer Victoria Toensing, who is a close associate of former Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a source familiar with the events said.

The move came around the same time investigators executed a search warrant at Giuliani’s Manhattan apartment and office.

Agents came to Toensing’s Washington, D.C.,-area home, confiscated her phone and left without searching the house, the source said. 

“She would have been happy to turn over any relevant documents. All they had to do was ask. Ms. Toensing was informed that she is not a target of the investigation,” a spokesperson for her law firm said. 

I know it is just an incredible coincidence that both Rudy Giuliani and Victoria Toensing were both involved in investigating the election fraud that occurred in the 2020 presidential election.

The article concludes:

An attorney for Giuliani, Robert Costello, told The Post agents seized his electronic devices as they searched his Upper East Side apartment.

Costello blasted the raid in a statement, saying DOJ targeted the former mayor because of “Trump derangement syndrome.”

“It is outrageous that the Trump Derangement Syndrome has gone so far that hatred has driven this unjustified and unethical attack on the United States Attorney and Mayor who did more to reduce crime than virtually any other in American history,” the statement said.

“Mr. Giuliani respects the law, and he can demonstrate that his conduct as a lawyer and a citizen was absolutely legal and ethical.”

A spokesperson for the US Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York declined to comment on the raid.

This looks an awful lot like the intimidation tactics of a tyrannical government. Unless these abuses of government power are stopped, we will be continuing down a dangerous road.

Political Use Of The Justice Department?

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During the Obama administration (and possibly before) the Justice Department was politicized. When the New Black Panthers were not held accountable for voter intimidation in Philadelphia (despite video evidence), it was obvious that lady justice had removed her blindfold. The fact that no one in authority was held accountable for the violation of Carter Page’s civil rights during the Obama administration is another example of unequal justice. The fact that lying to Congress of the FBI  only matters when you are not a Democrat has become very obvious in recent years (contrast the treatment of James Comey with the treatment of Roger Stone). There was also the targeting of conservative groups by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) during the Obama years. Well, that pattern is going to continue in the Biden administration. Yesterday The Epoch Times posted an article about an early morning raid by the FBI at the home of Rudy Giuliani.

The article reports:

A lawyer for Rudy Giuliani said federal investigators executed a search warrant at the home of the former New York City mayor and attorney to former President Donald Trump and seized electronic devices.

Giuliani’s attorney Robert Costello told Fox News that seven FBI agents arrived at his Manhattan apartment at 6 a.m. on April 28 and remained there for about two hours. They seized laptops, cell phones, and other electronic devices, Costello said.

“This is totally unnecessary,” Costello told Fox News, adding that the raid was carried out to “make him look like he’s some sort of criminal.”

The New York Times was the first to report on the search, claiming that it may have at least partially stemmed from Giuliani’s dealings in Ukraine. Giuliani wasn’t arrested or charged with a crime, and it’s not clear exactly why the former mayor’s house was searched.

“What they did today was legal thuggery,” Costello told the paper. “Why would you do this to anyone, let alone someone who was the associate attorney general, United States attorney, the mayor of New York City, and the personal lawyer to the 45th president of the United States.”

Costello also told the Wall Street Journal that in recent years, he had offered to answer investigators’ questions, but they declined.

Rudy Giuliani’s son has since stated that the one thing the agents did not take was the hard drive containing a copy of Hunter Biden’s laptop. We could have a lot of fun speculating on why that is.

Unfortunately this is an example of the way the Biden administration will handle its political foes. Following closely in the trail of the Obama administration, negotiation is not an option–destruction is. Despite what he said in his speech last night about unity, President Biden does not really want the traditional definition of unity. The current Democrat definition of unity is ‘agree with me or else.’

When The Department Of Justice Forgets What It Is Supposed To Be Doing

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Yesterday Judicial Watch posted an article revealing documents that had received from the Department of Justice through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Request.

The article reports:

Judicial Watch today released 14 pages of records from the Department of Justice showing officials’ efforts in responding to media inquiries centering on talks within the DOJ/FBI allegedly invoking the 25th Amendment to “remove” President Donald Trump from office and former Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein offering to wear a “wire” to record his conversations with the president.

The records show that, following a September 21, 2018, report on Rosenstein suggesting he would wear a wire to secretly record Trump and his discussions on using the 25th Amendment, Rosenstein sought to ensure the media would have “difficulty” finding anyone in the DOJ to comment and a concerted effort within the DOJ to frame the reporting as “inaccurate” and “factually incorrect.”

The records show DOJ officials had also discussed characterizing Rosenstein’s reported offer of wearing a wire to record Trump as merely “sarcastic.”

Additionally, the records show DOJ Public Affairs officer Sarah Isgur Flores, after conferring with other top DOJ officials and Rosenstein’s office about her email exchange with New York Times reporter Adam Goldman, waited 12 hours to forward the email exchange to DOJ Chief of Staff Matthew Whitaker. Former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly had referred to Whitaker as the president’s “eyes and ears” in the DOJ.

Judicial Watch obtained the records through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed after the Justice Department failed to respond to three separate FOIA requests dated September 21, 2018 (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:19-cv-00388)). The lawsuit seeks all written and audio/visual records of any FBI/DOJ discussions regarding the 25th Amendment and plans to secretly record President Trump in the Oval Office.

The records obtained by Judicial Watch include a September 21, 2018, email from Assistant U.S. Attorney (DOJ/NSD) Harvey Eisenberg to Rosenstein informing the DAG that Washington Post reporter Ellen Nakashima had called inquiring about a New York Times report on the 25th Amendment/wire discussion, Rosenstein responds: “Thanks! Hopefully we are being successful, and the reporters are having difficulty finding anybody to comment about things. [Remainder of email redacted.]” Apparently in response to the redacted portion of Rosenstein’s reply, Eisenberg responds, “I’m aware. Besides letting you know, [redacted]. My best to you and the family.” Rosenstein replies, “I don’t mean about me. [Redacted.]”

The emails also detail the DOJ’s response to the initial story as it was being prepared by the New York Times. On September 20, 2018, the Times’ Goldman emails DOJ’s Flores that he and fellow reporter Mike Schmidt were working on a story and wanted a DOJ response to certain questions, including that at a May 16, 2017, meeting of senior federal law enforcement officials, Rosenstein offered to wear a “wire” to record his conversations with Trump. “He also said McCabe could wear a wire.”

In a second request for comment, Goldman alleges that in a separate conversation between Rosenstein and McCabe, they discussed using the 25th Amendment “to remove President Trump” and “Rosenstein said that he may be able to get (then-Attorney General Jeff) Sessions and Kelly to go along with the plan.”

In a third request for comment, Goldman said he’d learned that Rosenstein in a May 12, 2017, conversation at the DOJ Command Center “appeared ‘upset’ and ‘emotional’ over the Comey firing.”

In a fourth request for comment, Goldman said that in a May 14, 2017, conversation with McCabe, “Rosenstein asked McCabe to reach out to Comey to seek advice about appointing a special counsel. McCabe believed that was a bad idea.”

In a fifth and final request for which he sought DOJ comment, Goldman wrote, “Rosenstein considered appointing (former Deputy Attorney General) Jim Cole as the special counsel.”

On Sept 20, 2018, Flores forwarded the Goldman email to “Annie” and “Bill” — apparently White House Deputy Counsel Annie Donaldson and White House Communications Director Bill Shine — telling Donaldson, “Boss calling Don re the below – if you think appropriate, share with Don [presumably referring to White House Counsel Don McGahn]”. She tells Shine, “We’ve sent a response from the DAG that’s below and had someone in the room dispute the ‘wire’ part noting the dag was being sarcastic.” She then includes the DAG response, which reads, “The New York Times’s story is inaccurate and factually incorrect. I will not further comment on a story based on anonymous sources who are obviously biased against the Department and are advancing their own personal agenda. But let me be clear about this: based on my personal dealings with the President, there is no basis to invoke the 25th Amendment.”

Shine thanks Flores and asks her to “share with Elliott ASAP.” Flores responds that if Shine is directing her to share with Elliott, “I don’t think I know who that is referring to.” Flores sent that response at 10:09 PM on September 20, but Flores waits until 10:00 a.m. the next day to forward the entire exchange to DOJ Chief of Staff Whitaker, saying: “Should have sent this to you last night.”

In a mostly redacted email exchange on the evening of September 20, 2018, shows the efforts of officials in the Public Affairs and DAG’s office to produce a response to the impending news article. DOJ Official Bradley Weinsheimer forwarded to Flores the “DAG response” to the allegations in the article, saying “DAG has cleared this, which is what we just discussed.” He then provides the official DAG response about the allegations over Rosenstein wanting to invoke the 25th Amendment against Trump as being “inaccurate and factually incorrect.” Deputy Attorney General’s office official Ed O’Callaghan responds, “Think good.” The rest of his response is redacted under (b)(5) – deliberative process.

In the final draft of the official DAG response approved by O’Callaghan, the statement is changed from “Based on my dealings with the President, there is no basis to invoke the 25th Amendment” to “Based on my personal dealings with the President, there is no basis to invoke the 25th Amendment.”

The article concludes with an amazing statement:

“It is remarkable that Judicial Watch has done more to investigate the DOJ/FBI’s discussions about overthrowing President Trump than the DOJ or Congress,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “These documents essentially confirm the coup discussions about wearing a wire when speaking with President Trump and plans to remove him under the 25th Amendment.”

America just survived an attempted coup, and the Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) were part of that coup. No one has been held accountable, and that is frightening.

The Truth Continues To Seep Out

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Yesterday The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) posted the following on its website:

The ACLJ has just obtained previously unreleased documents related to the Clinton investigation and immunity agreements given to top Clinton aids. These agreements reveal that James Comey’s Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Loretta Lynch’s Department of Justice (DOJ) granted immunity to Hillary Clinton’s aids and lawyers, Cheryl Mills and Heather Samuelson, from prosecution for anything found on their laptops violating multiple felony criminal statutes governing the mishandling of classified information and/or the removal or destruction of records, including Espionage Act provisions. Further, the DOJ and FBI also agreed to evade the statutory requirements of the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) by purporting to deem the contents of the laptops as not under DOJ or FBI “custody or control.”

These laptops were critical to any meaningful investigation of Hillary Clinton’s handling of classified emails and records. According to the DOJ Inspector General, who identified these as the “culling laptops,” “[a]ll 62,320 emails pulled from the Clinton servers were stored at one time on these laptops.” Having taken control of these laptops, agreeing to severely limit its searches, agreeing to unlawfully shield the laptops from FOIA, then agreeing to dispose of the laptops, it appears the Comey FBI and Lynch DOJ did everything in their power to protect Clinton’s senior aids and lawyers from both criminal liability and public scrutiny.

While these immunity agreements and related news have been publicly discussed to some extent, the ACLJ has now obtained the actual documents so the public may see and judge them accordingly.

The article also states:

According to the DOJ’s immunity agreement with Mills:

As we have advised you, we consider Cheryl Mills to be a witness based on the information gathered to date in this investigation. We understand that Cheryl Mills is willing to voluntarily provide the Mills Laptop to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, if the United States agrees not to use any information directly obtained from the Mills Laptop in any prosecution of Cheryl Mills for the mishandling of classified information and/or the removal or destruction of records as described below.

And, according to the immunity agreement:

To that end, it is hereby agreed as follows:

    1. That, subject to the terms of consent set forth in a separate letter to the Department of Justice dated June 10, 2016, Cheryl Mills will voluntarily produce the Mills Laptop to the Federal Bureau of Investigation for its review and analysis.
    2. That no information directly obtained from the Mills Laptop will be used against your client in any prosecution under 18 U.S.C. § 793(e) and/or (f); 18 U.S.C. § 1924; and/or 18 U.S.C. § 2071.
    1. That no other promises, agreements, or understandings exist between the parties except as set forth in this agreement, and no modification of this agreement shall have effect unless executed in writing by the parties.

The agreement was then executed by Cheryl Mills. The immunity agreement with Samuelson reads the same.

Mills and Samuelson Were Granted Immunity From Prosecution Under Multiple Felony Statutes for Anything Found on Their Laptops.

Please follow the link to read the entire article. Unfortunately this is a glaring example of unequal justice under the law.

The Need To Hold Individuals Accountable

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I think one of the most frustrating things about watching the news these days is watching people in power say things that have no foundation in fact and do things that an ordinary person would go to jail for. Those days may be coming to an end (one can only hope).

Yesterday The Gateway Pundit reported that Judicial Watch has filed an ethics complaint with the Office of Congressional Ethics against House Intel Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA).

The article reports:

The official complaint filed by Judicial Watch with the Office of Congressional Ethics, requests House Intel Chairman Adam Schiff (D-CA) be investigated in connection with recent revelations that he secretly met with Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson in Aspen, Colorado in July of 2018.

The complaint also requests Schiff be investigated after it was revealed his staff traveled to New York and met with Michael Cohen for 10 hours prior to Trump’s former lawyer testifying to the House Intel Panel.

The article includes a portion of the ethics complaint:

Dear Chairman Skaggs,

Judicial Watch is a non-profit, non-partisan educational foundation, which promotes transparency, accountability and integrity in government and fidelity to the rule of law. We regularly monitor congressional ethics issues as part of our anti-corruption mission.

This letter serves as our official complaint to the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) concerning the activities of Rep. Adam Schiff. Rep. Schiff appears to have violated House Code of Official Conduct, Rule 23, clauses 1 and 2, by inappropriately communicating with witnesses. Clauses 1 and 2 provide:

1.A Member, Delegate, Resident Commissioner, officer, or employee of the House shall behave at all times in a manner that shall reflect creditably on the House.

2.A Member, Delegate, Resident Commissioner, officer, or employee of the House shall adhere to the spirit and the letter of the Rules of the House and to the rules of duly constituted committees thereof.

Rep. Adam Schiff attended the Aspen Security Forum conference in July 2018, which was also attended by Glenn Simpson, the founder of the firm Fusion GPS. Press reports have detailed evidence of a meeting and discussion between Rep. Schiff and Glenn Simpson at the July 2018 Aspen Security Forum. As noted in The Hill newspaper:

At the time of the encounter, Simpson was an important witness in the House Intelligence Committee probe who had given sworn testimony about alleged, but still unproven, collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign.

Fusion GPS is the political opposition research firm involved in procuring “unverified” information claiming the Trump presidential campaign had “colluded” with Russia, among other things. That Fusion OPS-supplied information was the basis upon which the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) obtained Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) surveillance warrants against Trump campaign volunteer Carter Page.

Mr. Simpson’s leadership of Fusion GPS and his centrality to events resulted in his having to testify before congressional committees or their staffs. Specifically, Mr. Simpson testified before the House Intelligence Committee, of which Rep. Schiff was the ranking Democratic member, on October 16, 2018 – approximately three (3) months after the Aspen Security Forum.

We note that following revelations in 2017 that Rep. Devin Nunes had informed President Trump that U.S. intelligence agencies had been engaging in “incidental collection” of his campaign’s communications, Rep. Schiff demanded that Rep. Nunes, then Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, recuse himself from any investigations involving alleged Trump collusion with Russia. Indeed, Rep. Schiff wrote the following on twitter:

This is not a recommendation I make lightly … But in much the same way that the attorney general [Jeff Sessions] was forced to recuse himself from the Russia investigation after failing to inform the Senate of his meetings with Russian officials, I believe the public cannot have the necessary confidence that matters involving the president’s campaign or transition team can be objectively investigated or overseen by the chairman.

Then-Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi concurred with Rep. Schiff’s call for Mr. Nunes to recuse himself.

The July 2018 contacts between Rep. Schiff and Mr. Simpson create, at a minimum, the appearance of impropriety. As a result of Rep. Schiff’s previously undisclosed, private discussions with Mr. Simpson, the public’s confidence in Mr. Schiff’s ability to objectively and impartially carry out his duties as Committee Chair of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence have been gravely damaged.

Further, Rep. Schiff’s contacts with Mr. Michael Cohen should also be scrutinized in the same light as the Simpson contacts. Journalists have reported:

President Trump’s former personal attorney Michael Cohen told House investigators this week that staff for Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., traveled to New York at least four times to meet with him for over 10 hours immediately before last month’s high-profile public testimony, according to two sources familiar with the matter – as Republicans question whether the meetings amounted to coaching a witness.

The sources said the sessions covered a slew of topics addressed during the public hearing before the oversight committee – including the National Enquirer ‘s “Catch and Kill” policy, American Media CEO David Pecker and the alleged undervaluing of President Trump’s assets.

Judicial Watch is a watchdog group that fights for government transparency. The are equally hard on Democrats and Republicans. They have been major players in exposing much of the deep state in recent years.

Oversight Is Difficult When Needed Information Is Being Withheld

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Scott Johnson at Power Line posted an article today about the ongoing efforts of Devin Nunes, Chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in the U.S. House of Representatives, to obtain information from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The article notes that Kimberley Strassel has entitled her weekly column at The Wall Street Journal “What is the FBI hiding?” It is beginning to look as if they are definitely hiding something.

The article at Power Line notes:

Strassel notes that House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes has just sent another letter to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray to demand yet again that they comply with an August 2017 subpoena and hand over, among other things, the electronic communication—“EC” in investigative jargon—that officially kicked off the counterintelligence investigation. In his letter, Rep. Nunes states that the FBI has provided only a “heavily redacted” version of the EC. Beyond that, the FBI would prefer not to give it up.

Rep. Nunes is not amused. He writes: “On March 23, 2018, the FBI’s Assistant Director for Legislative Affairs informed the Committee that the FBI would refuse to further unredact the EC based on its supposed sensitivity. The document in question is not highly classified, and law enforcement sources have apparently not been shy about leaking to the press information that the Department and Bureau refuse to share with Congress.”

The article at Power Line includes a copy of the letter sent by Representative Nunes. It is unfair to ask Congress to exercise Congressional oversight without giving them the requested information. Hopefully the FBI will cooperate in the near future.

Sara Carter has also been following this story. More details are available on her website.

Is The Department Of Justice Just?

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The following statement was posted at Judicial Watch yesterday:

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton made the following statement regarding the  Department of Justice’s decision not to bring charges against Lois Lerner, former director of the Exempt Organizations Unit of the IRS, whose own emails place her at the heart of the politicization of the IRS for the targeting of conservative groups:

I have zero confidence that the Justice Department did an adequate review of the IRS scandal. In fact, we’re still fighting the Justice Department and the IRS for records about this very scandal. Today’s decision comes as no surprise considering that the FBI collaborated with the IRS and is unlikely to investigate or prosecute itself. President Trump should order a complete review of the whole issue. Meanwhile, we await accountability for IRS Commissioner Koskinen, who still serves and should be drummed out of office.

Judicial Watch released 294 pages of FBI “302” documents revealing top Washington IRS officials, including Lois Lerner and Holly Paz, knew the agency was specifically targeting “Tea Party” and other conservative organizations two full years before disclosing it to Congress and the public.  An FBI 302 document contains detailed narratives of FBI agent investigations.  The Obama Justice Department and FBI investigations into the Obama IRS scandal resulted in no criminal charges.

The FBI 302 documents confirm the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) 2013 report that said, “Senior IRS officials knew that agents were targeting conservative groups for special scrutiny as early as 2011.” Lerner did not reveal the targeting until May 2013, in response to a planted question at an American Bar Association conference.  The new documents reveal that then-acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller actually wrote Lerner’s response: “They used names like Tea Party or Patriots and they selected cases simply because the applications had those names in the title. That was wrong, that was absolutely incorrect, insensitive, and inappropriate.”

Judicial Watch’s litigation forced the IRS first to say that emails belonging to Lerner were supposedly missing and later declare to the court that the emails were on IRS back-up systems.  Lerner was one of the top officials responsible for the IRS’ targeting of President Obama’s political opponents.  Judicial Watch exposed various IRS record keeping problems:

  • In June 2014, the IRS claimed to have “lost” responsive emails belonging to Lerner and other IRS officials.
  • In August 2014, Department of Justice attorneys for the IRS finally admitted Judicial Watch that Lerner’s emails, indeed all government computer records, are backed up by the federal government in case of a government-wide catastrophe. The IRS’ attorneys also disclosed that Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration (TIGTA) was looking at several of these backup tapes.
  • In November 2014, the IRS told the court it had failed to search any of the IRS standard computer systems for the “missing” emails of Lerner and other IRS officials.
  • On February 26, 2015, TIGTA officials testified to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that it had received 744 backup tapes containing emails sent and received by Lerner.  This testimony showed that the IRS had falsely represented to both Congress, Judge Sullivan, and Judicial Watch that Lerner’s emails were irretrievably lost. The testimony also revealed that IRS officials responsible for responding to the document requests never asked for the backup tapes and that 424 backup tapes containing Lerner’s emails had been destroyed during the pendency of Judicial Watch’s lawsuit and Congressional investigations.
  • In June 2015, Judicial Watch forced the IRS to admit in a court filing that it was in possession of 6,400 “newly discovered” Lerner emails. Judge Emmet Sullivan ordered the IRS to provide answers on the status of the Lerner emails the IRS had previously declared lost. Judicial Watch raised questions about the IRS’ handling of the missing emails issue in a court filing, demanding answers about Lerner’s emails that had been recovered from the backup tapes.
  • In July 2015, U.S District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan threatened to hold John Koskinen, the commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, and Justice Department attorneys in contempt of court after the IRS failed to produce status reports and recovered Lerner emails, as he had ordered on July 1, 2015.

Obama IRS Commissioner Koskinen was nearly impeached in September 2016 for misleading Congress on Lerner’s emails.

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) clearly violated the free speech rights of American citizens because the Obama Administration wanted to silence their views. This is a serious affront to our representative republic and should not go unpunished. Attempting to use the IRS for political purposes was one of the items of impeachment drawn up against President Richard Nixon. Has the Justice Department forgotten what the law is? If so, it is time for a new Justice Department.