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Home Front: Politix

America First Legal sues FEC to force action on Hunter Biden laptop deniers during 2020 campaign

2024-03-03

*Snicker* Alinsky ‘em good, guys.

[FoxNews] AFL Legal claims the 51 former intelligence officials gave Biden an in-kind campaign contribution by calling the Hunter Biden laptop 'disinformation'.

After the Federal Election Commission declined to act against Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign for the laptop-denying statement by 51 former intelligence officials, a conservative watchdog group is trying to force action.

America First Legal sued the FEC in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to force the agency that polices campaign donations and spending to act.

"The FEC decided we’re not going to act on this. So, what the district court will do, our hope, is that it will order the FEC to investigate and take this seriously," Daniel Epstein, vice president of America First Legal, told Fox News Digital.

In October, the group filed an FEC complaint against the Biden for President campaign from 2020, the Biden Victory Fund, the Biden Action Fund and the Democratic National Committee for failing to report indirect contributions from the later-debunked statement by the 51 officials released on October 19, 2020, just weeks before the November 8 election, and just days before a presidential debate.

The statement claimed without evidence that the Hunter Biden laptop was likely part of a "Russian disinformation" campaign.

If the FEC doesn’t act, it is "effectively encouraging disinformation to the public that may influence the election," Epstein continued.

An FEC spokesperson told Fox News Digital that the agency doesn’t comment on litigation. Neither the 2024 Biden presidential campaign nor the DNC responded to inquiries for this story.

The FEC has 60 days to respond to the lawsuit. Epstein anticipates the agency will file a motion to remand the matter back to the FEC for investigation.

In March 2023, former Obama administration CIA Deputy and Acting Director Michael Morrell testified to the House Judiciary and House Intelligence Committees that on October 17, 2020, then-Biden campaign staffer Antony Blinken, now the secretary of state, contacted him to discuss drafting a statement to attack the Hunter Biden laptop story first reported by the New York Post.  Morrell circulated the statement among other anti-Trump former intelligence officials. The 51 former officials who signed on included Leon Panetta, John Brennan and James Clapper from the Barack Obama administration, as well as Michael Hayden from the George W. Bush administration — all vocal critics of Trump.

Eventually, both the New York Times and Washington Post verified the authenticity of the Hunter Biden laptop.

"Because Morrell, Brennan, Clapper, and the other signatories were supposedly ‘nonpartisan’ national security and intelligence experts, their public statement was a campaign contribution of substantial value to the respondents, who solicited the ‘Letter of 51’ from them for the express purpose of influencing the 2020 presidential election," the AFL lawsuit says. "Yet, the respondents failed to report the contribution and to identify the individuals who made it."

Link

Government Corruption

Jack Smith asks judge to block Trump from making ‘partisan political attacks' during trial

2023-12-28

[FoxNews] The filing seeks to prevent Trump from pointing out security failures at the Capitol on Jan 6, 2021.

Special Counsel Jack Smith has filed another motion with the district court, which seeks to tamp down what former President Donald Trump's legal team can tell a jury in his federal trial currently scheduled for March.

The motion, filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, is seeking to limit what statements Trump can make leading up to his scheduled March 4 federal trial on alleged 2020 election interference.

That includes a request to prevent Trump from telling the jury he is being prosecuted by the DOJ in coordination with President Biden, as well as suggestions by Trump of undercover agents fomenting violence at the Capitol riots, and of "foreign influence" in the 2020 election.

"Through public statements, filings, and argument in hearings before the Court, the defense has attempted to inject into this case partisan political attacks and irrelevant and prejudicial issues that have no place in a jury trial," Smith's team told U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan.

"Although the Court can recognize these efforts for what they are and disregard them, the jury — if subjected to them — may not. The Court should not permit the defendant to turn the courtroom into a forum in which he propagates irrelevant disinformation, and should reject his attempt to inject politics into this proceeding. To ensure that the jury remains focused on its fact-finding duty and applies the law as instructed by the Court, the defendant’s improper evidence and argument should be excluded."

The filing claims that "through his groundless demand for discovery of evidence regarding ‘investigative misconduct,’" Trump "has suggested that he intends to impeach the integrity of the investigation by raising wholly false claims such as the Government’s non-existent ‘coordination with the Biden Administration’ and other empty allegations recycled from the selective and vindictive prosecution motion that he based on anonymous sources in newspaper articles.

"Although the defendant is entitled to cross-examine the Government’s law enforcement witnesses about matters fairly within the scope of their direct testimony, he cannot raise wholly irrelevant topics in an effort to confuse and distract the jury. Much as the defendant would like it otherwise, this trial should be about the facts and the law, not politics."

The motion seeks to prevent Trump from telling jurors about the potential punishment he could face if convicted, as well as blaming law enforcement agencies for a lack of preparation in advance of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

"Evidence about undercover actors holds no probative value here," Smith's team wrote in the filing regarding the riot, saying the "defendant also appears poised to blame undercover agents, government informants, or confidential human sources (collectively, ‘undercover actors’) for the violence at the Capitol on January 6."

Fox News Digital reached out to the Trump campaign for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

The motion to preclude Trump from introducing broad categories of arguments is a way for prosecutors to try to set parameters on what information they believe the jury should, or should not, hear when the case reaches trial. It was filed as the case is effectively on hold during an appeal of the former president’s claims that he is immune from prosecution for acts taken while in the White House.

Link

-Lurid Crime Tales-

Watchdog Group Sues Biden's DHS for Hiding ‘Special Amnesty' Policy to Fly Deported Illegal Aliens Back to U.S.

2023-10-25

[Breitbart] The Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI) is suing President Joe Biden’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for withholding details about its policy to fly certain illegal aliens back to the United States after they were deported under prior administrations.

On Monday, executives with IRLI announced their lawsuit against DHS, accusing the agency of refusing to disclose details about its policy, announced in July 2021, to allow certain illegal aliens who served in the U.S. Armed Forces to return to the U.S. despite having been deported for committing crimes.

“This administration has made clear its desire to keep criminal aliens in the country, and now they are exploiting the American people’s support of military veterans to allow more potentially dangerous aliens to stay,” IRLI Executive Director Dale Wilcox said in a statement:

To make it worse, this White House is ignoring its legal obligation to respond to requests for information about this program. We will pursue this case so our citizens can know the truth about yet another Biden Administration effort that goes against their interests. [Emphasis added]

Specifically, the lawsuit alleges that IRLI sent a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to DHS officials in April of this year, requesting “all documentation and policies related to the DHS initiative … that identifies and returns previously deported non-citizen veterans” to the U.S.

Likewise, the FOIA request asked for all details related to any cases where illegal aliens had been returned to the U.S. under the policy.

According to the lawsuit, DHS officials wrote in April that they had received the FOIA request but no further determination was given to IRLI as to whether the request would be granted or not.

The lawsuit asks the federal court to rule that DHS must hand over all related documents and information pertaining to the policy.

“IRLI would love to know why DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services think it’s appropriate to launch a special amnesty, by executive fiat, that gives foreign criminals special treatment merely because they served briefly in our military services,” IRLI Director of Investigations Matt O’Brien said in a statement.

The lawsuit is Federation for American Immigration Reform v. DHS, No. 1:23-cv-03136 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

Link

Government Corruption

Jack Smith's "Flight Risk" Deception

2023-08-19

[Julie Kelly] After the special counsel claimed in a secret court filing that Donald Trump was a flight risk, Twitter fought back. Then Smith insisted it was just a big mistake.

A few weeks after his appointment as special counsel to take over the Justice Department’s existing investigations into Donald Trump on two criminal matters, Jack Smith carefully plotted his first move.

Get Trump’s DMs.

For non-Twitter users, DM is short for "direct messages." But that’s not all Smith had in his crosshairs. According to a recently unsealed search warrant served on Twitter earlier this year, the longtime DOJ apparatchik also wanted tweets that the former president drafted, deleted, liked, or retweeted.

Certain that evidence of criminal activity existed deep in the bowels of Trump’s long-dormant Twitter file, Smith further sought the identity of accounts the former president "followed, unfollowed, muted, unmuted, blocked or unblocked, and all users who have followed, unfollowed, muted, unmuted, blocked or unblocked the subject account." The social media behemoth, at the time transitioning to its new owner, Elon Musk, also would be forced to disclose any purchases the @realDonaldTrump account made as well as associated credit card numbers and billing records.

And that wasn’t all Smith wanted. To ensure Trump didn’t learn of the search warrant and attempt to invoke executive privilege to protect his records from the prying eyes of Joe Biden’s Justice Department, Smith applied for a nondisclosure order. Twitter, if a judge approved both the warrant and the nondisclosure, would be prevented from notifying the former president of the warrant for 180 days.

Smith, of course, got his wish. Beryl Howell, the former chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, signed off on the broad search warrant on January 17. The Obama-appointed judge also approved a nondisclosure order under the terms of the Stored Communications Act, the statute Smith relied on to hide the warrant from Trump.

And that’s when Twitter cried foul.
Twitter: No, Donald Trump is Not a Flight Risk

In a motion asking to vacate or modify the nondisclosure order, Twitter made a number of arguments related to Trump’s First Amendment rights and the novel nature of the case. "[The] issues presented by the government's demand for private presidential communications without notice are weighty and entirely without legal precedent. These executive privilege issues are distinct from issues presented in a typical search warrant," Twitter’s legal counsel explained in a February 6 filing.

But one claim really irked Twitter: the suggestion that Donald Trump was a flight risk.

The Stored Communications Act requires the government to meet one of five criteria before seeking a nondisclosure order that would prevent a provider from notifying a customer about a search warrant: one is fear the target will flee prosecution—a claim Jack Smith’s office proposed in its application for the nondisclosure order.

And, it appears, a claim Smith later explained he made in error. Which is impossible to believe considering the flight risk threat was discussed by his lawyers during private conversations and at least one sealed court hearings.

In a phone call with Smith’s office on January 31, Twitter’s senior counsel "raised specifically the claim in the Non-Disclosure Order that the former President was likely to flee from prosecution if the Non-Disclosure Order or Warrant was disclosed." Counsel further told Greg Bernstein, one of Smith’s prosecutors, "that it seemed very unlikely that the former President presents a risk of flight because of a warrant for his Twitter data." (The name of Twitter’s senior counsel at the time is redacted in court documents.)

During a February hearing before Judge Howell, the flight risk matter was discussed on numerous occasions by the judge and lawyers representing Twitter. Howell asked Bernstein to directly respond "to Twitter's comment that there is no reason to believe notification would suddenly cause Trump or potential confederates to destroy evidence, intimidate witnesses, or to flee prosecution (emphasis added)." Bernstein stated they would address those concerns in another sealed motion.

Howell herself said she reviewed her own nondisclosure order "to see, is that language just as specific as that, and it is"—meaning the language in her order specifically determined Trump was a flight risk and therefore he should not know about the warrant. She continued: "It doesn't have to be. Under [the nondisclosure statute], it's not just by the account holder, it's by any other person who might flee, might obstruct. And this NDO was written fairly narrowly, to say the least."

Howell, once again, reiterated the fact the NDO declared Trump as a flight risk. And Smith’s lawyers, once again, did not object to her reading of their proposed order.

Howell further challenged Twitter’s request to remove the flight risk statement from the NDO. "Your modification was to take out of the NDO ’potential risk of flight by the President,’ although he does have properties overseas that would be probative," Howell said.

When Twitter pressed the matter, Howell suggested the company was trying to get in Trump’s good graces. "Is it because the CEO wants to cozy up with the former President, and that's why you are here?" Howell sneered at Twitter’s legal team. "No, Your Honor," George Varghese, one of Twitter’s retained lawyers, replied. "In this case, one of the arguments was flee from prosecution. As this Court has already noted, the former President of the United States, who has announced that he is rerunning for President, is not at flight from prosecution. Presumably, with his security detail, he is not fleeing."

But it appears that Twitter at least partially got their way. In her March 3 order denying Twitter’s motion to vacate the NDO and impose a $350,000 fine for allegedly delaying fulfillment of the subpoena—another falsehood as I explained here—Howell disclosed in a footnote that the NDO accidentally stated Trump was a flight risk. "By contrast to the Application for the NDO, the NDO itself also offered as grounds for nondisclosure the basis that the user of the Target Account would ’flee from prosecution.’ The government has since explained that justification to the NDO was erroneously included."

Sure.

A subsequent appellate court decision upholding the search warrant and NDO also revealed Smith’s deception: "The district court also found reason to believe that the former President would ’flee from prosecution.’ The government later acknowledged, however, that it had ’errantly included flight from prosecution as a predicate’ in its application. The district court did not rely on risk of flight in its ultimate analysis."

That may be true since Howell completely ignored the matter, with the exception of a footnote, in her March order despite the fact Twitter made the "flight risk" excuse a major point of contention with Smith’s office. And since Smith’s application for the NDO remains under seal, the public cannot see exactly how it was presented to Judge Howell.

Here’s what likely happened. Smith cited Trump’s risk of flight in both the application and proposed order sent to Howell. (Government motions seeking any court order often include a proposed order ready for the judge to sign.) Howell, who has issued unprecedented rulings against Trump in both the classified documents case and January 6 investigation, probably didn’t even read the text of either the application or proposed order before signing it.

If it targeted Trump, that’s all she needed to know.

It wasn’t until Twitter busted Smith and Howell for claiming Trump would flee the country if he found out about the warrant that both offices retracted the claim. Howell actually backtracked on her own order during the February 7 hearing. When Twitter’s lawyer again insisted that the ’risk of flight for a former President of the United States doesn't make a lot of sense," Howell confessed, "I would agree with that."

Huh?

Not that any of it matters. Smith will face no sanction for misleading the court. The court will face no sanction for filing an NDO against the former president of the United States partially based on Judge Howell’s belief he is a flight risk.

And these same deceptive villains now have all of Trump’s Twitter records in their dirty little hands.

Link

-Lurid Crime Tales-

US Government Sued for Allegedly Seizing $100,000,000 in Cash, Gold and Jewelry From Citizens Without Explanation

2023-06-19

[DailyHodl] The US government won’t specify why it abruptly seized more than $100 million from people’s safety deposit boxes in California, according to a new lawsuit.

The nonprofit Institute for Justice says it’s seeking to halt forfeiture proceedings for a group of citizens who’ve had their assets confiscated by the FBI with little to no explanation.

The case is centered on a Los Angeles-based couple who says the FBI abruptly seized $40,200 of their life savings from a safety deposit box.

Linda and Reggie Martin want to know why the FBI took their cash, along with the contents of hundreds of other people’s safety deposit boxes, from a financial storage company in Beverly Hills in March of 2021.

The couple says the agency seized their money without providing any evidence of illegal activity.

Attorney Bob Belden says the FBI’s move is plainly immoral and violates the Martins’ rights as American citizens.

“The government shouldn’t get to take your property if it can’t tell you what you did wrong.

Using civil forfeiture, the government decides for itself whether to take and try to keep property, even when it doesn’t suspect the owners of any crime. Then, the FBI sends copy-and-paste forfeiture notices that fail to tell owners anything about why it is trying to take their property. That’s not only wrong; it’s unconstitutional.”

In total, the FBI’s operation seized more than $100 million in cash, gold, jewelry and other valuables from hundreds of people at the Beverly Hills location, according to the Institute for Justice.

The agency sent blanket notices that “indirectly refer to hundreds of federal crimes”, but the government refuses to say what the couple specifically did wrong.

The new lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, asks the court to halt administrative proceedings for everyone who has received one of the FBI’s forfeiture notices.

To date, Linda says she and her husband have not been charged with a crime, and there is no indication that they will ever see their money again.

“The FBI took my savings nearly two years ago but has never told me why. It’s been a confusing and frustrating process from the day my money was taken. No one should have to go through this.”

Institute for Justice senior attorney Rob Frommer says civil and criminal forfeiture is a big money maker for federal law enforcement.

“Thousands of times every year, people receive paltry notices that merely say the government wants to forfeit their property because it might be wrapped up in one of hundreds of federal crimes.

Linda’s plight highlights the ugly truth that federal forfeiture incentivizes agents to seize as much as they can, even absent any reason to think that a crime was committed. The FBI’s ‘policing for profit’ deliberately leaves property owners in the dark in order to keep them from fighting back.”

According to the Institute, a federal judge has stated that a separate client involved in the same safety deposit seizure operation received an “anemic” forfeiture notice, and the FBI violated due process and the Fifth Amendment.

Link

-Lurid Crime Tales-

Mother Sues D.C. Doctor Who Gave Kids COVID Vaccines Without Consent

2023-03-06

[CDF] The mother of two children who were given COVID-19 vaccines without the mother’s consent is suing the doctor who administered the vaccines.

An attorney representing NaTonya McNeil last week filed a lawsuit in Superior Court for the District of Columbia against Janine A. Rethy, M.D., M.P.H.

According to the complaint, on Sept. 2, 2022, McNeil took her two older children, ages 15 and 17, to the KIDS Mobile Medical Clinic/Ronald McDonald Care Mobile clinic, operated by Georgetown Hospital, to complete their required annual physical exam for the 2022-2023 school year.

The lawsuit alleges Rethy, director of the mobile clinic, held the children in the examination room longer than necessary for a regular check-up and vaccinated them against COVID-19 over their objections and without consulting their mother

In order to attempt to obtain the children’s consent — which they are not legally able to provide without a parent or guardian — the doctor falsely informed the children the COVID-19 vaccine was mandatory for school attendance and told them they could not lawfully decline it if they wanted to attend school.

The suit, filed by D.C. Attorney Matthew Hardin, seeks damages for false imprisonment, battery and fraud.

Children’s Health Defense (CHD) is financing the lawsuit because, according to CHD President and General Counsel Mary Holland, "CHD couldn’t just sit still and not allow this wrong to go unpunished and not bring this to the public’s attention."

In an exclusive conversation with The Defender, McNeil explained why she is suing the the doctor:

"I just feel like people shouldn’t be able to do whatever they want to do to other people and especially not to children. As a mother, I feel like, ’You all just took all my rights away from me to do what you wanted to do to my kids.’

"I do want justice to be done in this case. I feel like something needs to be done. This can’t just continue to happen."

’I FEEL VIOLATED’
According to the complaint, Rethy’s stated goal is to vaccinate all children against COVID-19. The complaint quotes her statement to the press:

"Our goal is to increase vaccination rates in children here in D.C. . . . For more than 30 years our role has been to be in the community to help address the problem of health disparities, bringing families care where they are.

"For this particular effort, we are glad to be partnering with DC Health to provide both regular childhood vaccines and COVID-19 vaccines to all children."

In addition to her role as director of the mobile clinic, Rethy is chief of MedStar Georgetown University Hospital’s Division of Community Pediatrics and assistant professor of pediatrics at Georgetown University School of Medicine.

McNeil said that when she took her older children to the clinic, she stayed outside the examination room to care for her infant. As soon as the children entered the doctor’s office, she called her daughter’s cellphone to let Rethy know she was just outside the door if the doctor needed to consult her for anything.

According to McNeil, the doctor did not ask or inform her about any vaccinations, and did not ask her to sign anything. At the end of the physical, Rethy came out to talk to her.

McNeil said the doctor explained her son’s asthma treatment plan, but that’s all they discussed.

As they were heading home, McNeil said she was shocked when her daughter complained that her arm hurt "pretty bad." When McNeil asked her why it hurt, her daughter said she was given the COVID-19 shot, even though she told the doctor she didn’t want it.

When McNeil asked her why she allowed the doctor to administer the shot, her daughter said:

"When she had the needle in her hand and she was coming towards me, I backed up and I asked her what is that needle, and she said it was the COVID shot and I ... told her I didn’t want it and she said, ’Well it is mandatory, you have to get it in order to go to school.’"

Rethy allegedly administered the shot to her daughter, and then to her son. McNeil said:

"He’s 14 and he said they didn’t even ask him if he wanted it or not, but when they gave it to him, he said he thought he had to get it because his sister got it."

According to the complaint, both children received the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, authorized for emergency use, and the meningococcal vaccine. Her son was also injected with TDaP.

Both children were upset and angry they had been coerced into vaccination, the complaint says.

NO SCHOOL MANDATE, DESPITE WHAT CLINIC AND DOCTOR ALLEGED
When she got home, McNeil said she called the doctor’s office, and asked them why they vaccinated her children without her consent.

"I would have never consented to you all vaccinating my children," she said. "I’m not vaccinated and I’m not getting vaccinated and my kids were never supposed to be vaccinated for COVID period, under no circumstances."

She said the person on the phone said they were supposed to get them for school.

After hanging up, McNeil said she was "so irritated I even started crying" because she couldn’t believe "they put this poison" into her children’s bodies.

In July 2022, D.C. public schools imposed a vaccine mandate for schoolchildren ages 12 and up for the 2022-2023 school year. But on Aug. 26, just weeks after imposing the mandate, officials walked it back, postponing it until 2023.

That means when McNeil’s children saw the doctor, there was no school vaccine mandate in place, despite what the Rethy allegedly told the children.

THE AGE OF CONSENT
The District of Columbia in March 2021 enacted the D.C. Minor Consent for Vaccination Amendment Act of 2020 (D.C. Minor Consent Act), allowing children 11 and older to consent to the administration of any vaccine — including COVID-19 shots — recommended by the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) — without parental knowledge or consent if the medical provider believed "the minor is capable of meeting the informed consent standard."

The law also required healthcare personnel to provide accurate immunization records to the Department of Health and to the student’s school, but not to parents with religious exemptions.

CHD and Parental Rights Foundation filed a lawsuit seeking a court order to declare the D.C. Act unconstitutional.

A judge for the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on March 18, 2022, granted a preliminary injunction prohibiting the D.C. mayor, Department of Health and public schools from enforcing the law.

That means at the time McNeil’s children visited the clinic, they could not legally provide consent to be vaccinated without their mother’s consent.

McNeil said:

"To do that to my little children, my innocent children. They took her rights. When she backed away from you [the doctor] and said she didn’t want it, that should have been the end of it.

"Or you [the doctor] should have called me on the phone to find out what I feel about the situation. But you [the doctor] basically told my child a lie so you [she] could do what you [she] wanted to do to my kid."
[I'd love to beat the living f*ck out of this doctor.]

Link

Government Corruption

Judicial Watch Sues to Uncover Details of Ashli Babbitt's Shooter's Special Housing at Joint Base Andrews

2022-10-11

[JudicialWatch] Judicial Watch announced today that it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Defense and U.S. Department of Justice for records related to the housing of U.S. Capitol Police Lieutenant Michael Byrd at Joint Base Andrews after he shot and killed U.S. Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt inside the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021 (Judicial Watch v U.S. Department of Defense and U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:22-cv-02948)). Judicial Watch has received information that Byrd was housed at Andrews in the immediate period after he killed Babbitt.

The unarmed Babbitt was shot and killed as she allegedly climbed through a broken interior window in the United States Capitol. She was a 14-year Air Force veteran. The identity of the shooter was kept secret by Congress, the Justice Department, and DC police for eight months until Byrd went public in August 2021 to try to defend his killing of Babbitt.

Judicial Watch filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after Joint Base Andrews, the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, and the FBI failed to respond to three July 2022 FOIA requests about Byrd’s housing at Joint Base Andrews while his name as the shooter of Ashli Babbitt was being withheld from the public by the government.

In its complaint, Judicial Watch explained to the court that it had asked all three government agencies for all records relating to the billeting of Byrd at Joint Base Andrews during the period from January 6, 2021, to July 2022, including authorization papers, housing, meals, transportation, and visitor logs.

"This is a rather extraordinary January 6 cover-up of why the Defense Department was involved with the aftermath of the improper police killing of an unarmed woman (and a veteran)," said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

In June 2022, Judicial Watch produced DOJ records related to the shooting of Babbitt that included a memo recommending "that the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia decline for criminal prosecution the fatal shooting of Ashli McEntee [Babbitt]," also noting that the shooter, Byrd, "did not create a police report or documents" related to the shooting of Babbitt. A footnote details missing evidence: "During the debrief of Lieutenant Byrd, he did recall writing a few sentences on an evidence bag the evening of January 6, 2021, at the request of a crime scene officer. To date, the bag has not been located by USCP or MPD."

In November 2021, Judicial Watch received multiple audio, visual and photo records from the DC Metropolitan Police Department about the shooting death of Ashli Babbitt on January 6, 2021, in the U.S. Capitol Building. The records include a cell phone video of the shooting. An audio file of a police interview of the shooter, Byrd, indicates he declined to cooperate.

Judicial Watch previously uncovered records from the DC Metropolitan Police showed that multiple officers claimed they didn’t see a weapon in Babbitt’s hand before Byrd shot her, and that Byrd was visibly distraught afterward. One officer attested that he didn’t recall hearing any verbal commands before Byrd shot Babbitt. The records include internal communications about Byrd’s case and a crime scene examination report. Investigators who wrote the January 6, 2021, Metro PD Death Report for Babbitt (identified as Ashli Elizabeth McEntee-Babbitt Pamatian) note that the possible Manner of Death was "Homicide (Police Involved Shooting)."

Judicial Watch is engaged in a comprehensive, independent investigation into the January 6 disturbance:

February 2022: Judicial Watch filed an opposition to the U.S. Capitol Police’s (USCP) effort to shut down Judicial Watch’s federal lawsuit for January 6 videos and emails. Through its police department, Congress argues that the videos and emails are not public records, there is no public interest in their release, and that "sovereign immunity" prevents citizens from suing for their release.

In November 2021: Judicial Watch — in its FOIA lawsuit asking for records of communication between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and several financial institutions about the reported transfer of financial transaction records of people in DC, Maryland and Virginia on January 5 and January 6, 2021 — told a federal court that the FBI may have violated law in its January 6 probes.

Link

Government Corruption

Watchdog suit forces DOJ to release memo declining criminal prosecution of Ashli Babbitt's shooter

2022-06-11

[JustTheNews] Babbitt, an unarmed 14-year veteran of the Air Force, was fatally shot by USCP Lt. Michael Byrd on Jan 6, 2021.

Legal watchdog group Judicial Watch says it has received 102 pages of new Justice Department records related to the fatal shooting of Jan. 6 protester Ashli Babbitt.

Included in the documents is a memo recommending that the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia "decline for criminal prosecution" the fatal shooting of Babbitt.

The documents also state U.S. Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd, the shooter, "did not create a police report or documents" related to the incident.

Babbitt, an unarmed 14-year veteran of the Air Force, was fatally shot and she attempted to climb through a broken window and into the lobby of the House chamber during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

Congress and the Justice Department did not reveal the identity of the shooter until about eight months after the riot – until Byrd was ready to go public himself and defend his actions.

Judicial Watch filed its lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after the Executive Office for United States Attorneys, the Civil Rights Division and the Federal Bureau of Investigation would not provide the requested records following two Freedom of Information Act requests from the organization.

The memo recommending not to prosecute Byrd justifies that decision, "based on a review of law enforcement and civilian eyewitness accounts, physical evidence, recorded radio communications, cell phone footage, [Metropolitan Police Department] reports, forensic reports, and the autopsy report" for Babbitt.

The memo also states that "after a thorough review of the facts and circumstances in this case, there is insufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Lieutenant Byrd violated [Babbitts'] civil rights by willfully using more force than was reasonably necessary, or was not acting in self-defense or the defense of others."

The report also sets out the federal government's timeline of events: "Once the demonstrators broke the glass, Lieutenant Byrd took up a tactical position to the immediate right of the barricaded entry doors, [Capitol Police Officer Reggie Tyson] took up a tactical position behind Lieutenant Byrd on the right side behind the third pillar and Sergeant McKenna took up a tactical position behind Officer Tyson and behind the fourth pillar on the right side of the Speakers Lobby."

The memo also states that officers repeatedly instructed the "mob" to stand back, a request protesters ignored while continuing to break the glass on the doors to the lobby.

Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton says that the department memo suggests that Byrd was given "special treatment by the Biden DOJ and that there was a miscarriage of justice in the half-baked shooting death investigation of Ashli Babbitt."

He also said "Lt. Byrd, who works for Congress, shot an unarmed woman for no good reason. I suspect that this unjustified shooting isn’t of much interest to the Pelosi rump January 6 committee."

Link

Government Corruption

More Jan. 6: 2 sentenced, one to sue Capitol cops

2022-02-27

[EpochTimes] A California woman who broadcast her trip through the U.S. Capitol on Facebook on Jan. 6, 2021, was sentenced to 45 days in jail and levied a $5,000 fine by U.S. District Senior Judge Reggie B. Walton, who lectured her for blaming Black Lives Matter and Antifa for some of the violence that day when that “obviously was not the case.”

Imelda Acosta, who was described in court documents by her social media name—Mariposa Castro—was sentenced in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on one count of parading, demonstrating, or picketing in the Capitol building, a misdemeanor. As part of a plea agreement, several other charges were dismissed.

Clips from her 47 minutes of Facebook broadcasts were played by prosecutor Jordan Konig at the sentencing hearing. Konig argued for a 60-day jail term. The government’s sentencing memo cited statements Acosta made on the live-stream, including “we’re coming” and “this is war.”

During one broadcast, Acosta said, “We’re breaking in! We are breaking in! We’re doing this. We’re breaking in, right? … We’re taking our house back. This is our Capitol. We’re taking it back. No more bull[expletive]!” according to prosecutors. Acosta entered the Capitol through a broken window, court documents said.

Judge Walton said jail time is a necessary punishment, to send a message to others who harbor a similar mindset.

Capitol rioter who stole Nancy Pelosi’s lectern on Jan. 6 gets prison time
[NYPost] The Florida man who pranced around with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s podium during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot was sentenced to more than two months in prison Friday.

Adam Johnson — who once boasted that a photo of his shenanigan “broke the Internet” — was sentenced to 75 days behind bars by a federal judge in Washington, DC, for one count of entering and remaining in a restricted building or ground.

Johnson pleaded guilty in November and will also have to complete 200 hours of community service as part of the sentence.

He was part of a pro-Donald Trump mob who roamed the Capitol building that day and encouraged his fellow rioters to break down an entrance onto the House floor by using a bust of George Washington, prosecutors said in a sentencing memorandum filed in his case.

Johnson turned himself in two days after the riot and cooperated with prosecutors after his arrest.

His lawyers wrote in a court filing before sentencing that he was being punished in part because of the viral photo that showed him with Pelosi’s lectern.

“Arguably, if he latched onto some other piece of government furniture for his photo opportunity, jail time would not even be a consideration,” they wrote.

Protester Allegedly Shoved Off Ledge by Officer on Jan. 6 Comes Forward, Plans to Sue
[EpochTimes] The protester who was allegedly shoved by a police officer off a ledge near the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, identified himself for the first time on Feb. 22 and said he plans to sue the police for attempted murder.

Before Feb. 22, Derrick Vargo was the unnamed subject of a video in which a police officer appears to push him off a 20-foot-high ledge, plunging to what many assumed was a tragic death.

Nearly 14 months later, Vargo and his attorney announced a forthcoming civil suit against the U.S. Capitol Police for his serious injuries and mental trauma caused by the push and fall.

Vargo, 32, who works as a yacht builder in Tennessee, said he has no doubt the motorcycle officer who pushed him did it with the intention of hurting or killing him.

“He knows exactly where he was on that Capitol building. You know, he works there,” Vargo told The Epoch Times. “He’s not just a citizen. He works there. He knows how high up he is. He shoved me not with just one arm but two. That means he wanted me off of it. It was very intentional.”

The U.S. Capitol Police (USCP) didn’t respond to a request for the identity of the officer and whether the incident has been investigated.

Vargo’s case is the latest allegation of police brutality and misconduct during the protests at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. It brings the number of cases to at least seven, with victims, relatives, friends, and witnesses alleging police brutality or misconduct caused serious injuries and deaths.

“There is no justification under the sun for out-and-out police brutality, never mind police brutality that ends up in death or serious injury, as we have seen multiple occasions that day,” Joseph McBride, Vargo’s attorney, said. “Several people died through police negligence and/or police brutality and/or murder.”

McBride was referring to the killing of Ashli Babbitt by USCP Lt. Michael Byrd, the beating of Rosanne Boyland by Metropolitan Police Department officer Lila Morris, and the beating of Victoria White by an as-yet-unidentified DC Metro police commander who struck her more than 40 times with a steel baton and his fist.

Link

Home Front: Politix

Biden SCOTUS nominee went beyond call of duty to defend terror suspects

2022-02-26

[JustTheNews] Ketanji Brown Jackson's defense of Gitmo detainees and criticism of U.S. government likely to be spotlighted in confirmation process..

President Biden's nominee for the Supreme Court represented suspected terrorists when she was a federal public defender, going well beyond a bare-bones defense to lambaste the U.S. government for some if its counterterrorism policies and broader approach to the War on Terror.

Biden on Friday nominated Ketanji Brown Jackson, currently a federal judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, to replace retiring Justice Stephen Breyer on the Supreme Court.

Jackson's record will no doubt be heavily scrutinized in the coming days as the Senate prepares for its confirmation hearings. Perhaps no aspect of her past legal work will come under more scrutiny than her advocacy on behalf of prisoners detained at the Guantanamo Bay military prison as enemy combatants for their alleged role in terrorist activities.

During her time in the federal public defender's office, Jackson represented Guantanamo detainees who challenged their imprisonment in a federal court in Washington, D.C.

One of the most prominent cases involved Jackson representing Khiali-Gul, who the Defense Department said was a Taliban intelligence officer in charge of a terrorist cell planning to attack a U.S. base in Afghanistan in 2002. He may have also met with Osama bin Laden in November 2001, according to government documents.

The Defense Department assessed that if released Gul would immediately "seek out prior associates and reengage in hostilities and extremist support activities."

Gul said he was innocent, claiming he had a job in the Afghan government and helped Americans.

During Jackson's confirmation hearings for her current position last year and to be a judge on the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in 2012, Republican senators grilled the nominee on her work for Guantanamo Bay detainees. Jackson, whose brother served in Iraq, responded she was just doing her job and public duty.

"In all of those situations, the views that were expressed were the views of my clients that I represented them in that capacity, and the briefs did not necessarily represent my personal views with regard to the War on Terror or anything else," she said in 2012.

Nine years later, as part of her appeals court confirmation process, Jackson told the Senate Judiciary Committee that she was "keenly and personally mindful of the tragic and deplorable circumstances that gave rise to the U.S. government's apprehension and detention of the persons who were secured at Guantanamo Bay."

However, in the Gul case, Jackson went beyond simply defending her client against terrorism charges and attacked the conduct of the U.S. government, accusing it of torturing prisoners while condemning the George W. Bush administration's War on Terror policies.

For example, Jackson claimed Gul was treated inhumanely at Guantanamo, arguing the military treated Guantanamo detainees the same as prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, where U.S. government personnel abused and humiliated some of the inmates.

"Many of the most egregious interrogation techniques used in the Abu Ghraib detention center and other detention facilities in Iraq — such as the use of aggressive dogs to intimidate detainees, sexual humiliation, stress positions, and sensory deprivation — were pioneered at Guantanamo," Jackson wrote in a petition she filed in 2005 on Gul's behalf.

However, as the Washington Free Beacon noted, a Pentagon inspector general report from 2005 rejected that assessment, as did Vice Admiral Albert Church in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

While defending Gul, Jackson also accused government lawyers of ethical breaches, and in 2006 she asked the judge presiding over the case to sanction Justice Department attorneys over the government's response to detainee suicides.

In June 2006, three Guantanamo detainees committed suicide by hanging themselves in their cells. The suicides came shortly after an uprising in which prisoners attacked guards with fan blades and broken light fixtures. Rear Admiral Harry Harris, who commanded Guantanamo at the time, called the suicides a coordinated protest.

The Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) investigated the suicides, fearing more would come or inmates would attack Guantanamo guards. In the process of probing a potential conspiracy, the NCIS seized personal papers from some detainees, including Gul, some of which were legal materials protected by attorney-client privilege.

Ultimately, Gul was repatriated to his native Afghanistan in 2014. It's unclear whether he returned to extremism as the Pentagon warned he would if released from Guantanamo.

When Jackson left the government for private practice in 2007, she continued to advocate on behalf of Guantanamo detainees.

In 2008, Jackson was a lawyer at Morrison & Foerster and got involved in the highly controversial Supreme Court case, Boumediene v. Bush, which had profound legal implications for the War on Terror.

"Do we treat terrorism with a war paradigm of justice or a criminal paradigm: Do we treat terrorists like war criminals or bank robbers?" That, according to Burlingame, was the central question of the case, in which Guantanamo detainees asserted a constitutional right to challenge their imprisonment in federal court.

The Supreme Court chose bank robbers: In a 5-4 decision, the court ruled that Guantanamo prisoners had a right to the writ of habeus corpus under the U.S. Constitution.

Jackson and two other lawyers filed an amicus brief on behalf of retired federal judges who backed the Guantanamo prisoners. In the brief, Jackson argued that some decisions to detain individuals were based on statements extracted under torture and that efforts by the U.S. government to review these decisions weren't sufficient to stop the problem.

Link

Home Front: Politix

Former clerk of SCOTUS contender Ketanji Brown Jackson changed her Wikipedia page to 'paint her in a more favorable light for a liberal audience' while altering those of her competitors to make them less appealing

2022-02-05

[Daily Mail, where America gets its news]

Ketanji Brown Jackson is a potential nominee for the Supreme Court

Her former clerk edited her Wikipedia page to 'paint her in a more favorable light for a liberal audience,' according to a Politico investigation

The anonymous editor was identified by a group of the judge's former law clerks as Matteo Godi who used to clerk for the judge

The user made more than 20 edits to the pages of seven judges seen to be in the running for Biden's nomination

Godi, a Yale Law graduate from Italy, clerked for Jackson from October 2019 to October 2020, according to his LinkedIn

President Biden said he will announce his nominee pick to replace retiring Justice Breyer before the end of February

Godi, who grew up in the Parma region of Italy, attended the Pierson College at Yale before going to law school at the Ivy League school. He completed clerkships with Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia and Judge Guido Calabresi of the Second Circuit.

Matteo was a visiting Lecturer at Yale Law School last fall, where he taught a course on Torts and Regulation.

During law school, he worked at NAACP LDF, Equal Justice Under Law, and the D.C. Public Defender Service.

The law clerks told Politico that their former colleague had edited Jackson's Wikipedia page 'as a matter of course' for several years.

The most recent changes to Jackson's page were on January 30 and February 1, and involved two rulings against the Trump administration that were later overturned.

The portion of the Wiki page detailing Jackson's most famous decision - to require former White House counsel Don McGahn to obey a congressional subpoena involving then-President Donald Trump - was altered.

The New York Times noted Jackson's 'slow pace' helped Trump 'run out the clock on the congressional oversight effort' before the 2020 election. Jackson's updated Wikipedia page shifts the blame for the ruling’s timing from Jackson to the D.C. Circuit court.

In the another, user H2rty cut a reference to Jackson's position on an advisory board of 'a Baptist school.'

Both were portions were replaced replaced with: 'Ahead of her confirmation hearing, 'Bloomberg Law' reported that conservative activists were pointing to certain decisions by Jackson that had been reversed on appeal as a 'potential blemish on her record,' in order 'to tarnish her so she won't get picked for the Supreme Court.'

Link

-Lurid Crime Tales-

USA TODAY fights FBI subpoena for readers' data from report on shooting that killed two agents

2021-06-06

[MSN] USA Today is fighting an FBI
FBI

...Formerly one of the world's premier criminal investigation organizations, something for a nation to be proud of. Now it's a political arm of the Deep State oligarchy that is willing to trump up charges, suppress evidence, or take out insurance policies come election time...
demand for information related to readers who accessed a report on the newspaper's website earlier this year about a shooting in which two agents were killed during a search at a Florida apartment.

The FBI made the request via subpoena to USA Today's owner, Gannett, in April. The agency sought information including the IP addresses and mobile identification information of people who accessed the Feb. 2 article about the agents during a 35-minute window. After Gannett objected to disclosing the subpoenaed records, the FBI confirmed on May 25 it had received the response, and the company moved to quash the subpoena as unconstitutional, according to a May 28 court filing in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

"Being forced to tell the government who reads what on our websites is a clear violation of the First Amendment," said USA Today publisher Maribel Perez Wadsworth. "The FBI’s subpoena asks for private information about the readers of our journalism. We have asked the court to quash the subpoena to protect the important relationship and trust between USA Today’s readers and our journalists."

USA Today was among several news outlets that covered the story centered on agents Daniel Alfin, 36, and Laura Schwartzenberger, 43, who were killed after a man, identified by authorities as David Huber, opened fire on them as they approached his Fort Lauderdale apartment on the morning of Feb. 2. Three other agents were maimed in the shooting. The agents were serving a search warrant in a child pornography investigation.

Huber, 55, took his own life shortly after killing the agents.

Last month, Charles Tobin, the attorney for the firm that represents Gannett, informed the FBI his client objected to turning over the records in a letter written to the agent who made the request.

Tobin cited First Amendment protections in his reasoning and noted that agents did not follow standard procedural policies in their request. The Justice Department typically asks law enforcement to first notify and negotiate with media members whose records they seek and to get approval from the U.S. attorney general.

Link

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