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Home Front: Politix
FBI’s Kash Patel and Dan Bongino hit the talk circuit to explain everything
2025-05-19
FBI's top boss Kash Patel says bureau ran cover for Hillary but it all ends under Trump
[FoxNews] Kash Patel claims former FBI leadership also 'bastardized the FISA process' and hid documentation in Crossfire Hurricane investigation

FBI Director Kash Patel hinted at a "wave of transparency" on the horizon as the agency struggles to rebuild public trust, especially in the wake of longstanding controversy over alleged politicization and selective prosecution.

Sitting alongside FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino for a "Sunday Morning Futures" exclusive interview, Patel pointed to the FBI's handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation as an example of political bias and institutional failure. He claimed senior officials within the Department of Justice "hijacked" their constitutional responsibilities by selectively deciding which cases to pursue.

"You asked in the beginning how the FBI was weaponized," he said to host Maria Bartiromo. "Well, the FBI hijacked the constitutional responsibility of the Department of Justice and the Attorney General, and James Comey and others specifically decided what cases to prosecute and not prosecute. Don't believe me? Go to the videotape in the Hillary Clinton investigation."

"We don't decide prosecutions, and neither does any agent or intel analyst. We have great partners under Attorney General [Pam] Bondi. We work with them and discuss the matter with them, but the prosecutorial decision is with them," he said.

Patel said that new agency leadership has uncovered additional details regarding the Crossfire Hurricane investigation into President Donald Trump's alleged ties to Russia and are working with Congress to put out information surrounding the episode.

"That's how vindictive and vicious the former leadership structure here was. Not only did they bastardize the FISA process and lie to the American public, they withheld and hid documentation and put it in rooms where people weren't supposed to look," Patel said.

"It's a good thing we're here now to clean it up, and you're about to see a wave of transparency… Just give us about a week or two."

FBI Director Patel Says Transparency on Russia Collusion Claim in 'a Week or Two' ‐ 'The Biggest D.C. Deception Game We Have Ever Seen'
[Breitbart] During this week’s broadcast of FNC’s “Sunday Morning Futures,” FBI Director Kash Patel discussed the 2017 claim that President Donald Trump’s first presidential election win resulted from Russian collusion.

Despite the statute of limitations having expired on prosecuting any criminality, Patel told host Maria Bartiromo to expect a “wave of transparency” in a week or two.

Partial transcript as follows:

BARTIROMO: I watched it with you and Devin Nunes, when you were truth-tellers on all of this, and you were as well, Dan, throughout the Russia collusion story and the rest.

PATEL: Look, I can speak to the folks that were in our seats, our predecessors, and they intentionally failed the American public by putting on the biggest D.C. deception game we have ever seen. They said the FBI was the most storied institution for law enforcement, and it was. And it will be again very soon.

But when the likes of Comey and McCabe and Strzok and company came in here with the James Bakers of the world and intentionally lied to a federal court, only to rig a presidential election by lying to the American public and using taxpayer dollars, likely illegally, to fund this entire operation, and then withholds sculptor information from a federal court that I used to appear before to manhunt terrorists, that’s what broke the FBI.

And then, when they were caught, they lied about it. And you and a few others like Dan and others were brave enough to cover it six, seven, eight years ago. And we’re still talking about it today, because, as Congress is working rigorously with us, the Crossfire Hurricane documents are coming fast and hard. And they’re being sent there unredacted, so we can have full accountability.

And that’s how you restore what the — the trust that was lost to the American public when it comes to the FBI.

BARTIROMO: Yes, but, come on, Director. With all due respect, we have been talking about this for a long time, and I have been demanding accountability for many, many years.

One of the — you mentioned Comey, Strzok and the rest. They have got TV shows. They have got media platforms. They’re fine. There’s been no accountability.

PATEL: Well, look, it’s a fair criticism. But what I will tell people is, we weren’t here in the FBI in the last five years, when we had statute of limitations that were still in play, where we could have investigated criminal conduct. Most of these statute of limitations are 5 years old.

And we will investigate criminal conduct where we find a righteous case to do so and the law and the facts allow us to. But a lot of it, we’re precluded from. So we will take the criticism, and it’s rightfully so, that could we have done more in the past? Sure, people before us could have.

But what we can do now is continue to put out the documents and the information that these people withheld from the American public. And I’m just telling you, right now, as much as we know about Crossfire Hurricane, he and I just found out more last week. And we’re continuing to work with Congress to put those documents out.

That’s how vindictive and vicious the former leadership structure here was. Not only did they bastardize the FISA process and lie to the American public. They withheld and hid documentation and put it in rooms where people weren’t supposed to look. And it’s a good thing we’re here now to clean it up, and you’re about to see a wave of transparency.

BARTIROMO: What do you mean?

PATEL: Just give us about a week or two.


Two from Besoeker:
Bartiromo to FBI Director Patel: Why Don't We Have More Info On Trump Assassination Attempts? (video)
[Real Clear Politics] FOX News host Maria Bartiromo asked FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino when we will learn more about the assassination attempts against President Trump last summer during an interview on "Sunday Morning Futures."
Worth the time to watch.

‘We're Gonna Ruin Your Summer': Dan Bongino Warns Americans Not To ‘Buy Movie Tickets' In Unhinged Rant About FBI (video)
[MSN-Maria Sara Bartiromo] Former podcaster and FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino warned Americans not to buy movie tickets, and that he will 'ruin their summer' during an interview this morning.
“We’re going to ruin your summer …if you’re a bad guy.” That’s a malevolently bad headline. Interview with FBI Director Kash Patel and Deputy Dir Dan Bongino. They looked at the data to see where the problems are worst — Memphis,TN per capita murder capitol, human trafficking in Ohio because of the highways, domestic inner city gangs metastasized as well as the Latin American narco gangs — and will be concentrating on the basics to make a difference. More impressive hires by President Trump — this is an A Team bringing their A game.
Link


Government Corruption
Ex-FBI Counsel Behind Russiagate, Biden Laptop Censorship Now Part Of Left-Wing Election Network
2024-07-04
[Federalist] The former FBI general counsel who pushed Twitter to censor the Hunter Biden laptop story is now working with a left-wing election influencers’ group.

James Baker, also prominent for his role in pushing the FBI’s political persecution of former President Donald Trump for the "Russiagate" hoax, is listed as a member of the National Task Force on Election Crises. The group is a subsidiary of the left-wing Protect Democracy Project, a litigation group formed to oppose Trump’s policies, according to InfluenceWatch.

The task force pushes early and mail-in voting, claims to help prevent "cyber or other attacks by foreign adversaries or domestic disrupters," promotes "pre-canvassing of absentee ballots," seeks to discourage legal election challenges, and advocates for censorship of certain online speech about elections.

WORKING FOR THE REGIME
Baker’s key areas of expertise, according to the group’s website, are "legal and legislative issues," "political violence and intimidation," "foreign and cyber interference," and "election subversion."

Baker certainly knows about "legal issues." While serving as the FBI’s lead counsel, he met with Michael Sussmann — who he later admitted was a "friend" — and who provided "intel" supposedly proving connections between the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank, a Russian company. Sussmann claimed he was acting on his own behalf, though he was later found to have been working for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign.
Related:
James Baker 06/17/2024 Do the Plotters of the ‘51 Intel Experts' Coup Deserve Prison?
James Baker 02/10/2024 Stabbing of Palestinian American in Texas meets hate crime standard, police say
James Baker 09/03/2023 Last gasp of the neo-cons

Related:
Michael Sussmann 09/29/2023 Matt Taibi Gets DARPA Feed-‘Forget Collusion. Was ‘Interference’ Also Fake News?’ - Seth Rich Stirs At Last
Michael Sussmann 04/01/2023 Durham bombshell: Prosecutor unveils smoking gun FBI text message, 'joint venture' to smear Trump

Michael Sussmann 09/16/2022 Durham Investigation Grand Jury Term Ends - Anyone Surprised?

Link


Government Corruption
Do the Plotters of the ‘51 Intel Experts' Coup Deserve Prison?
2024-06-17
[American Thinker] People of a certain age will remember the name "Donald Segretti." In the 1972 re-election campaign of President Richard Nixon, this youthful campaign aide made the phrase "dirty tricks" part of the American political lexicon. Segretti’s mischief included sending embarrassing letters under the names of Nixon’s political rivals. Although his dirty tricks had little or no effect on the election’s outcome, Segretti served four and a half months in prison.

With Segretti’s four and a half months as a baseline, the 51-plus dirty tricksters who conspired successfully to get Joe Biden elected president in 2020 would seem to deserve no less. Confident to a fault about the Democrat control of the media, 51 intel officials signed on to the most flagrant disinformation campaign in anyone’s memory. "I think there needs to be an investigation into every single one of them," said Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.), and that investigation deserves a special counsel.

More deserving of prison time than the 51 were the Biden apparatchiks who set the plot in motion. On October 14, 2020, when they saw the New York Post headline "Smoking-Gun Email Reveals How Hunter Biden Introduced Ukrainian Businessman to VP Dad," they were ready to roll. They had known since December 2019 that this story might drop. That was when Mac Isaac alerted the FBI to a laptop Hunter Biden had abandoned at his computer repair shop in Delaware.

Fearing that the story might break at any time, operatives within the FBI reached out to Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms well before the 2020 election and warned them of a potential Russian pre-election "hack and dump" operation. If done with ill intent, these operatives deserve prison time as well.

On the day the Post story broke, representatives from the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force met with Facebook execs. As would later be confirmed at a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing, the FBI knew that the laptop was, in fact, Hunter Biden’s.

Facebook founder — and future un-indicted co-conspirator — Mark Zuckerberg did not need to have his arm twisted. He and his wife, Priscilla Chan, had already invested $300 million, in CNN’s words, toward "enhancing access to voting in the United States." CNN failed to add that the Zuckerbucks enhanced access almost exclusively in Democrat districts.

With a little prodding from the FBI, Facebook promptly "deamplified" the Post story, dramatically reducing its circulation. On the same day the story broke, the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force also leaned on Twitter. The Twitter people needed little persuasion — some 98 percent of their political donations went to Democrats. They were all in for Biden, and Twitter blocked not only the Post story, but also the Post itself.

At a House Judiciary Committee hearing, former disgraced FBI general counsel-turned Twitter exec James Baker was asked about his role in silencing the Post. To virtually every salient question regarding the laptop, Baker pleaded — in vintage Watergate fashion — memory loss.

"You were entrusted with the highest level of power at Twitter, but when you were faced with the New York Post story, instead of allowing people to judge the information for themselves, you rushed to find a reason why the American people shouldn’t see it," said committee chair James Comer. "You did this because you were terrified of Joe Biden not winning the election in 2020."

A May 10, 2023 report by the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government filled in the details. The plot was hatched on October 17, 2020, when Biden campaign adviser — now secretary of state — Antony Blinken contacted Michael Morell. Morell had served as acting director of the CIA under Obama. At Blinken’s request, Morell began assembling the draft of a statement that would dismiss this epic October surprise as more of the same old Russian disinformation. At the very least, Blinken should resign immediately.

Morell had a motive. He was in the running for the post of CIA director. Needing a Biden win to secure it, Morell went to work lining up co-conspirators. "Thereafter," reads the subcommittee report, "Morell contacted several former intelligence officials to help write the statement, solicit cosigners, and help with media outreach." On October 19, Morell emailed Nick Shapiro, his former deputy chief of staff, asking him to place the statement in major publications.

"On background," Shapiro was to tell reporters that Morell, in talking to Russian intel experts, "was struck by the fact that all of them thought Russia is involved here." In truth, Morell had talked to no Russian intel experts before organizing the draft.

Politico bit first, running a story on October 19 under the bold headline "Hunter Biden Story Is Russian Disinfo, Dozens of Former Intel Officials Say." As Morell testified to the House subcommittee, one major purpose of the statement was "to help Vice President Biden in the debate."

In an October 19, 2020 email, Morell told former CIA director John Brennan he wanted to "give the [Biden] campaign, particularly during the debate on Thursday, a talking point to push back on Trump on this issue."

During the October 23 debate, when Trump played the laptop card, Biden countered with the Russia card as planned. "Look, there are fifty former National Intelligence folks who said that what this, he’s accusing me of is a Russian plan," said a well rehearsed Biden. "They have said that this has all the characteristics — four — five former heads of the CIA, both parties, say what he’s saying is a bunch of garbage. Nobody believes it except him, his, and his good friend Rudy Giuliani."

In an estimate more conservative than many, Trump pollster John McLaughlin found that 4.6 percent of Biden voters would not have voted for Biden if they had known about the contents of Hunter’s laptop. Even if those people had simply not voted, their absence at the polls would have handed several swing states to Trump.

Kept purposefully in the dark, too many Americans chose to believe Biden and his co-conspirators. "On November 3, 2020, the American people went to the polls to elect the president of the United States with the false impression that Hunter Biden’s laptop was Russian disinformation," the House subcommittee concluded three years too late. "The American people cannot get back the 2020 election."

They cannot get the election back, but they can get justice. If prison seems an extreme remedy for the conspirators, it pays to remember that 40 government officials were indicted or imprisoned for Watergate.
Link


Home Front: WoT
Stabbing of Palestinian American in Texas meets hate crime standard, police say
2024-02-10
BLUF: Drunken idiot challenges truck full of excitable young men returning from yet another pro-Hamas rally; trouble ensues, CAIR demands Soros DA José Garza label it a hate crime.
[IsraelTimes] Authorities say Bert James Baker tried to rip flagpole with a keffiyeh scarf reading ’Free Paleostine’ off vehicle in which 23-year-old Zacharia Doar was riding.

The stabbing of a 23-year-old Paleostinian American who advocates say was attacked near the University of Texas campus while riding in a truck displaying support for Paleostine merits the label of a hate crime, Austin police announced Wednesday.

Bert James Baker, 36, was arrested following the Sunday evening attack on Zacharia Doar, who was hospitalized. Baker was charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Police said Wednesday that their Hate Crimes Review Committee had determined that the stabbing met the definition of a hate crime. They have provided that information to prosecutors, who will make the final decision on whether to enhance the offense.

The Travis County District Attorney’s Office said Wednesday that they are in the process of receiving the evidence from police and "look forward to working with them."

Doar was one of four Moslem Americans who were in the truck, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations
... the Moslem Brüderbund's American arm ...
(CAIR), which said Baker allegedly tried to rip a flagpole with a keffiyeh scarf reading "Free Paleostine" off of their vehicle. CAIR said the four had previously attended a pro-Paleostinian protest.

An arrest affidavit said that Baker, who was on a bicycle, rode up to the truck Doar and three others were riding in, opened the tailgate and doors and yelled racial slurs at them. The group exited the truck and approached Baker, who punched Doar in the shoulders, the affidavit said. A fight ensued, with Baker eventually pulling out a knife and stabbing Doar in the rib, the affidavit said.

When Baker was interviewed by police, he said he was an alcoholic and had more to drink that day than he normally did, the affidavit said.
Is drunken bicycle riding even possible?
Baker was being held in jail on Thursday on $100,000 bond. Jail records did not list an attorney for him.
The Austin Chronicle adds:
On Sunday, thousands traveled from across the state to rally for a ceasefire in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
The second statewide protest organized by the Austin for Paleostine Coalition drew an estimated 10,000-15,000 people to the south lawn of the Capitol. Nizar Doar, his son Zacharia, and three friends had driven in from Dallas for the protest, and late on Sunday, Nizar was on his way back. "I just left my son in good condition. I told him, ’Let's go to Dallas, I will pay for your dinner, you and your friends, I want you to come with us.’ They're young, they decided to try the good food in Austin. They stayed. An hour and a half, hour and 45 minutes [into the drive] and I get a terrible call saying, ’Uncle, you have to turn back.’"

Nizar’s 23-year-old son Zacharia had been attacked and stabbed by 36-year-old Bert James Baker around 7pm as he and his friends were leaving the protest. At Nueces and West 26th Street, Baker allegedly approached their car on a bicycle and tried to rip a flag pole with a keffiyeh scarf reading "Free Paleostine" off the car, then screamed the N-word and pulled Zacharia from the car.
What does “the N word” have to do with Palestinians? Our drunken knifeman is very confused.
The other three got out of the car to fight Baker off, who then allegedly stabbed Zacharia with a knife, breaking his rib. Zacharia underwent a successful surgery and is currently recovering in a hospital, according to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).
Related:
Austin: 2024-02-06 Body found in same Austin lake where other deceased individuals discovered in recent months
Austin: 2024-02-04 Iraqi groups said they fired at a US base in Syria using a UAV
Austin: 2024-02-04 US launches strikes on Iraq and Syria. What is known
Related:
Travis County District Attorney: 2023-04-15 ‘Soros-Backed' Texas DA Accused of Evidence Tampering, Witness Retaliation in Army Sgt. Self-Defense Murder Case
Travis County District Attorney: 2023-04-10 Austin DA says it's 'deeply troubling' that Texas Gov Abbott wants to pardon Army sergeant convicted of murder
Travis County District Attorney: 2022-10-20 Texas man gets no jail time for beating girlfriend, killing their unborn child: report
Link


-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-
Last gasp of the neo-cons
2023-09-03
[HotAir] The Washington Post on August 15, 2023, in a story by Mariana Alfaro, writes about Bill Kristol’s launch of "Republicans for Ukraine," which is using a $2 million ad campaign "to get congressional Republicans to commit to continue funding aid for Ukraine ahead of what is likely to be a lengthy appropriations fight."
The odd thing is that the noted Conservative public intellectual, founder of the now-defunct The Weekly Standard, has been a vehement NeverTrumper since 2016 — going so far in 2020 as to register as a Democrat and endorse Joe Biden. So it’s puzzling that he continues to refer to himself as a Republican.
According to Alfaro, advertisements, which will include "testimony" from pro-Ukraine Republican voters, will appear on television, billboards, and online. After two decades of promoting failed and costly wars and interventions, Kristol and what is left of the neoconservative movement are making a last gasp at relevance by once again promoting American involvement in another war.

Fortunately, neoconservatives are a dying breed in American politics. At least in the Republican Party. Having achieved relevance in the latter stages of the Cold War by breaking with the Democratic Party (where most of them came from) and supporting President Ronald Reagan’s policies that won the Cold War, the neoconservatives spent much of the post-Cold War world finding new "monsters to destroy" (to use the famous phrase of John Quincy Adams). They first picked Saddam Hussein in Iraq. But after the U.S. military achieved a quick victory on the battlefield in 1991 and forced Iraqi forces to leave Kuwait, the neoconservatives criticized the Bush 41 administration for not toppling the Iraqi regime. During the Clinton administration, the neocons were ardent champions of U.S. intervention in the Balkans. Then, after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the neoconservatives persuaded the George W. Bush administration not only to retaliate against our enemies in Afghanistan but to declare a "Global War on Terror" and launch a crusade to democratize the Arab regimes of the Middle East. Bush 43, backed by the neoconservatives and using Wilsonian rhetoric, preemptively attacked Iraq, overthrew the heinous Hussein regime, declared "victory," and then needlessly expended the lives of American soldiers and American treasure in failed efforts to remake the Middle East in America’s image.
As I understand it, at the time Americans were given - essentially identical - advice by the Saudi King and the Israeli PM: "Now find a nice (one who'd remember what happened to Saddam) Sunni general and make him the new boss." But no, Americans had to play at Democracy - ignoring the fact that Shia are the majority and the only organized Shia are the ones owned by Iran.
At the same time that the neoconservatives promoted the democratization of the Middle East, they also urged the Bush 43 administration to expand NATO closer to Russia’s border, ignoring the prudent counsel of Bush 41 Secretary of State James Baker (who told Russian leaders that NATO would not expand if Russia didn’t contest German reunification), and Russian expert and elder statesman George F. Kennan who presciently warned that NATO expansion would revive the worst aspects of Russian nationalism and imperialism.
Basically, they've convinced Russia that it's 17th century again - the Time of Troubles.
Bush 43 not only expanded NATO further (Romania, Estonia, Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia and Slovenia were given membership in 2004, while Albania, and Croatia were invited during the Bush 43 administration but formally joined in 2009), he also publicly called for Ukraine and Georgia to join the alliance. The neocons also urged U.S. intervention in Syria and Libya in 2011 as part of their championing of the so-called "Arab Spring," which led not to democracy but instead to anarchy, chaos, and increased Russian and Chinese influence in the region.
Related:
Bill Kristol: 2021-08-21 How I Murdered The Weekly Standard
Bill Kristol: 2021-05-01 'Disgusting' robocall accuses Texas candidate Wright of causing husband's death
Bill Kristol: 2021-02-11 Exclusive: Dozens of former Republican officials in talks to form anti-Trump third party
Link


Government Corruption
Durham bombshell: Prosecutor unveils smoking gun FBI text message, 'joint venture' to smear Trump
2023-04-01
[JUSTTHENEWS] Special Counsel John Durham is revealing new smoking gun evidence, a text message that shows a Clinton campaign lawyer lied to the FBI, while putting the courts on notice he is prepared to show the effort to smear Donald Trump
...Oh, noze! Not him!...
with now-disproven Russia collusion allegations was a "conspiracy."

In a bombshell court filing late Monday night, Durham for the first time suggested Crooked Hillary Clinton
...former first lady, former secretary of state, former presidential candidate, Conqueror of Benghazi, Heroine of Tuzla, formerly described by her supporters as the smartest woman in the world, usually described by the rest of us as The Thing That Wouldn't Go Away. Politix is not one of her talents, but it's something she keeps trying to do...
's campaign, her researchers and others formed a "joint venture or conspiracy" for the purpose of weaving the collusion story to harm Trump's election chances and then the start of his presidency.

"These parties acted as 'joint venturer[s]' and therefore should be 'considered as co-conspirator[s],'" he wrote.

Durham also revealed he has unearthed a text message showing Hillary Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann falsely told the FBI he was not working on behalf of any client when he delivered now-discredited anti-Trump research in the lead-up to the 2016 election. In fact, he was working for the Clinton campaign and another client, prosecutors say.

The existence of the text message between Sussmann and then-FBI General Counsel James Baker was revealed in a court filing late Monday night by Durham's team. Prosecutors said they intend to show Sussmann gave a false story to the FBI but then told the truth about working on behalf of the Clinton campaign when he later testified to Congress.

"Jim — it's Michael Sussmann. I have something time-sensitive (and sensitive) I need to discuss," Sussmann texted Baker on Sept. 18, 2016, according to the new court filing. "Do you have availability for a short meeting tomorrow? I'm coming on my own — not on behalf of a client or company — want to help the Bureau. Thanks."

Prosecutors said the text message will become essential evidence at trial to show Sussmann lied to the FBI.

You can read the court filing.
Related:
John Durham: 2023-03-28 Revelation of FBI Informants Shakes Proud Boys' January 6 Trial, Congress pondering adding protections to surveillance law
John Durham: 2022-10-19 John Durham unmistakably puts FBI on trial alongside its Russian collusion informant
John Durham: 2022-10-19 Steele Dossier Source Igor Danchenko Acquitted of Lying to FBI
Related:
Clinton campaign lawyer: 2022-06-08 10 Underreported Revelations From Trial of Former Clinton Lawyer
Clinton campaign lawyer: 2022-05-21 Hillary Clinton OK'd sharing Trump-Russia 'data,' campaign manager says
Clinton campaign lawyer: 2022-04-17 Durham says CIA found data alleging Trump-Russia connection not 'technically plausible,' was 'user created'
Related:
Crooked Hillary Clinton: 2022-12-15 UN removes Iran from women's rights body over protest crackdown
Crooked Hillary Clinton: 2022-10-26 It Will Be Fun to Finally Be Rid of Stacey Abrams
Crooked Hillary Clinton: 2022-09-03 Today the Walkback
Related:
Michael Sussmann: 2022-09-16 Durham Investigation Grand Jury Term Ends - Anyone Surprised?
Michael Sussmann: 2022-06-08 10 Underreported Revelations From Trial of Former Clinton Lawyer
Michael Sussmann: 2022-06-07 O's Fingerprints on Russiagate?
Related:
James Baker: 2023-03-29 Trilateral Commission Declares 2023 ‘Year One' of the New World Order
James Baker: 2023-02-13 Former top Twitter exec: We've used 'visibility filtering' to suppress certain political content
James Baker: 2023-02-11 Grassley Details How a ‘Triad' of Media, FBI, and Dems Tried to Thwart Investigation into the Biden Family's Corrupt Business Dealings
Link


Government Corruption
Trilateral Commission Declares 2023 ‘Year One' of the New World Order
2023-03-29
[News With Views] "Countless people ... will hate the new world order, be rendered unhappy by frustration of their passions and ambitious through its advent and will die protesting against it. When we attempt to estimate its promise we have to bear in mind the distress of a generation or so of malcontents, many of them quite gallant and graceful-looking people." -H.G. Wells, The New World Order (1940), p. 129.

"The nation-state as a fundamental unit of man’s organized life has ceased to be the principal creative force: International banks and multinational corporations are acting and planning in terms that are far in advance of the political concepts of the nation state.... A global human conscience is for the first time beginning to manifest itself.... [W]e are ... witnessing the emergence of transnational elites ... composed of international businessmen, scholars, professional men, and public officials. The ties of these new elites cut across national boundaries, their perspectives are not confined by national traditions, and their interests are more functional than national. These global communities are gaining in strength and ... it is likely that before long the social elites of most of the more advanced countries will be highly internationalist or globalist in spirit and outlook." -Zbigniew Brzezinski, Between Two Ages: America’s Role in the Technetronic Era (1970), pp 56-59.

"For more than a century ideological extremists at either end of the political spectrum have seized upon well-publicized incidents ... to attack the Rockefeller family for the inordinate influence they claim we wield over American political and economic institutions. Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as "internationalists" and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure—one world, if you will. If that’s the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it." -David Rockefeller, A Memoir (2002), p. 405.

"Today, a new dividing line exists in politics and society. It is the division between globalism and nationalism, between cooperation and protectionism, between embracing the new and preserving the old." -Klaus Schwab, World Economic Forum Annual Report, 2022.


Well, it’s happened. At a confab in New Delhi, India, its Annual Plenary Meeting (March 10-12), the Trilateral Commission declared 2023 ’Year One’ of the New World Order.

One speech comes to our attention courtesy of James Baker, who served in the (Trilateral Commission controlled) Carter administration and is described as having served on the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment. Baker did not identify the speaker. Apparently doing so would have violated Commission rules. In any event, this is what the speaker said:
Link


-Great Cultural Revolution
Former top Twitter exec: We've used 'visibility filtering' to suppress certain political content
2023-02-13
[JustTheNews] Former Twitter executives who worked for the company when the Hunter Biden laptop story was censored on the platform were in the hot seat on Wednesday at a marathon House Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing on "Protecting Speech from Government Interference and Social Media Bias."

The committee's chairman, James Comer, alleged that Big Tech giants such as Twitter are "under the control of people who are hostile to the fundamental American principles of free speech" and have colluded with federal agencies to censor stories embarrassing to President Joe Biden and his family.

"We owe it to the American people to provide answers about this collusion to censor information about Joe Biden's involvement in his family's business schemes," Comer said at a committee hearing on censorship in America with former executives from Twitter.

Comer said his investigators had substantiated that there was "coordination between the federal government and Big Tech to restrict protected speech and interfere in the democratic process" that began even before Twitter famously censored New York Post stories in October 2020 about the contents of Hunter Biden's now infamous laptop.

"In the months leading up to the laptop story, the FBI advised senior Twitter executives to question the validity of any Hunter Biden story," he said. "We also know that one of the witnesses before us today participated in an Aspen Institute exercise in September 2020 on a potential 'hack and dump' operation relating to Hunter Biden. Other Big Tech companies and reporters attended as well.

"This exercise prepared them for their future collusion to suppress and delegitimize information contained in Hunter Biden's laptop about the Biden family's business schemes."

Censorship of such stories in the midst of a presidential election might in earlier generations have been unthinkable but Comer said it was made possible by troubling biases in the leadership of Big Tech companies.

"Many social media platforms are under the control of people who are hostile to the fundamental American principles of free speech and expression protected in the U.S. Constitution," he said. "We've witnessed Big Tech autocrats wield their unchecked power to suppress the speech of Americans to promote their preferred political opinions. Twitter was once one of these platforms — until Elon Musk purchased the company a few months ago ...

"In the past, Twitter's employees made censorship decisions on the fly, often not following the company's own publicly stated policies. It worked hand-in-hand with the FBI to monitor the protected speech of Americans — receiving millions of dollars to do so."

James Baker, former deputy general counsel at Twitter, argued that Twitter was not working as a state actor.

"I think the best reading of the law is that as a private entity, the First Amendment protects Twitter and its content moderation decisions," he said.

Baker said he wasn't aware of unlawful collusion.

"Moreover, I'm aware of no unlawful collusion with or direction from any government agency or political campaign on how Twitter should have handled the Hunter Biden laptop situation," he said.

Ohio GOP Rep. Jim Jordan asked Baker if he ever talked to the FBI about the Hunter Biden laptop.

"I don't recall speaking to the FBI at all about the Hunter Biden matter, laptop," Baker said.

Vijaya Gadde, former chief legal officer at Twitter, said the company had received inquiries from federal agencies to remove certain content from the platform. She didn't specify if the laptop story was one of them.

She acknowledged that Twitter uses labels such as "do not amplify" to ensure the platform does not recommend certain tweets to users for engagement. She elaborated on ways that Twitter filtered content during her time with the company, describing it as visibility filtering.

"There was an ability of preventing something from appearing in one of the tabs of search results," she said.

Tennessee GOP Rep. Tim Burchett wrote on Twitter after his questioning that the labels like "do not amplify" equated to censorship.

Jordan was able to confirm with Yoel Roth, former head of trust and safety at Twitter, that accounts that have been tagged for content filtering are not informed about it.

Comer said it was troubling that Twitter was "a private company the federal government used to accomplish what it constitutionally cannot: limit the free exercise of speech."

The committee's ranking member, Maryland Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin said Twitter had the right as a private company to censor stories like the Hunter Biden laptop New York Post report.

Roth said that he personally had advocated against taking the Hunter Biden laptop story off of Twitter.

"Twitter made a mistake," he said. "I’ll be the first to admit that we didn’t always get it right. Individual content moderation decisions will always be contentious, and reasonable minds can differ about whether a specific choice was right or wrong."

Wednesday's hearing was only part one of the committee's investigation into political bias at social media platforms.
Link


Government Corruption
Grassley Details How a ‘Triad' of Media, FBI, and Dems Tried to Thwart Investigation into the Biden Family's Corrupt Business Dealings
2023-02-11
[American Greatness] In testimony before the House Judiciary Committee’s first hearing on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) detailed how a "triad" of partisan media, FBI, and Democrats used disinformation from a Russian agent to smear their investigation into Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings.

In addition to Grassley, the committee on Thursday heard from Senator Ron Johnson (R- Wis.), Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), former U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, former FBI agent Thomas Baker, Professor Jonathan Turley, and former FBI agent Nicole Parker.

"In the past few years, I’ve never seen so much effort from the FBI, the partisan media, and some of my Democrat colleagues to interfere with with and undermine very legitimate congressional inquiries," Grassley said at the beginning of his testimony.

As one glaring example of this, Grassley cited the FBI’s corrupt Crossfire Hurricane investigation that sought to torpedo Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign for president, and when that failed, hobble his presidency and punish his associates.

"Bit by bit, piece by piece, it’s been deconstructed and shown to be a politically motivated investigation," he testified.

The senator said that the most recent example of the "triad at work" involved their attempts to undermine his and Sen. Johnson’s investigation into Hunter Biden’s foreign business dealings, which began in August of 2019. At the time, Grassley was the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and Johnson was chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee.
Related:
Charles Grassley: 2022-08-31 FBI special agent who opened Trump investigation reportedly escorted out of Bureau
Charles Grassley: 2022-07-22 Hunter Biden Probe Will End With ‘Very Sympathetic Plea Agreement,' Former Federal Prosecutor Predicts
Charles Grassley: 2021-06-06 Senate senility
Related:
Ron Johnson: 2022-11-24 Kari Lake is fighting electoral theft in Arizona. Where is the GOP?
Ron Johnson: 2022-10-27 Grassley, Johnson share Hunter Biden's China-linked bank records with US attorney leading criminal probe
Ron Johnson: 2022-10-18 Hunter Biden-linked real estate firm got at least $100M from Russian oligarch: sources
Related:
Jamie Raskin: 2022-12-29 Call it Karma or Call it Payback
Jamie Raskin: 2022-12-08 With Biden cautious on new Israeli gov’t, Dems at J Street ready to take gloves off
Jamie Raskin: 2022-10-23 January 6 panel issues landmark subpoena to Trump over Capitol riot role
Related:
Tulsi Gabbard: 2023-01-22 Aruna Miller takes oath on Bhagwad Gita and radicals in US are unhappy
Tulsi Gabbard: 2022-12-14 ‘You Believe Your F*cking Intel Briefers!?' Tucker Says He Screamed at Top Republican Who Told Him He Was a Russian Agent
Tulsi Gabbard: 2022-11-01 Pump Prices Are Rising in US as Big Oil Profits Soar
Related:
Thomas Baker: 2003-11-13 "We’re sorry our ancestors ate those people."
Thomas Baker: 2003-10-15 Will They Return The Boots?
Related:
Jonathan Turley: 2022-12-29 Ten major revelations exposing extent of government pressure on Big Tech to censor Americans
Jonathan Turley: 2022-12-19 Democrats like Adam Schiff are scrambling to save censorship
Jonathan Turley: 2022-12-07 Why James Baker was fired from Twitter
Related:
Nicole Parker: 2023-02-10 Ex-FBI agent Nicole Parker: Bureau 'politically weaponized, starting from the top'
Link


Government Corruption
Ex-Twitter executive admits 'mistake' censoring Post's Hunter Biden scoop; House Oversight warns of Twitter/FBI arrests
2023-02-09
Golly. Thanks, dude — that really doesn’t help.
[NYPOST] A former top Twitter executive acknowledged to politicians Wednesday that the social media giant "made a mistake" in suppressing The Post’s bombshell October 2020 stories on Hunter Biden
...son of President Joe: cashiered from the Navy, a crackhead, wheeler dealer, leg humper, horn dog, and general all around ne'er do well. We're supposed to feel sorry for him...
’s laptop.

Vijaya Gadde, who received a $12.5 million severance package when she was fired as policy director in October by new Twitter CEO Elon Musk, testified before the House Oversight Committee that The Post’s reporting was censored in large part because photos from Hunter’s laptop "looked like they may have been obtained through hacking."

"In 2018, we had developed a policy intended to prevent Twitter from becoming a dumping ground for hacked materials," she said before adding: "It became clear that Twitter had not fully appreciated the impact of that policy on free press and others."

"In hindsight, Twitter should have reinstated The Post account immediately," Gadde went on.
Does that mean you’ll voluntarily give back the $12.5mil you really oughtn’t have taken, given your abysmal performance in that role, or should Mr. Musk sue you for it, based on your confession?

Courtesy of Skidmark:
House representative warns Twitter execs they could go to jail; FBI responds to allegations of censorship

[FoxNews] House Rep. Clay Higgins warned former Twitter executives on Wednesday of possible arrest for interfering with 2020 presidential election.

Former Twitter executives who met with the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday were given a stern warning from one representative, who said arrests were coming their way.

The purpose of the hearing was to address how Twitter blocked the sharing of a report on Hunter Biden’s laptop by the New York Post prior to the 2020 election.

Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey said in May 2021 that blocking the Hunter Biden story was a "total mistake."

Still, during questioning, several members of the House Oversight Committee, including Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., were firm in their questioning of the representatives who appeared on Wednesday.

Higgins told Twitter’s former Head of Trust and Safety Yoel Roth, former chief legal officer Vijaya Gadde, former Twitter deputy counsel James Baker and Anika Collier Navaroli, a former employee at Twitter, that the bottom line was the FBI had the "Biden Crime Family" laptop for a year, knowing it was leaking and that those leaks would hurt the Biden campaign.

Higgins accused the FBI of using its relationship with Twitter to suppress criminal evidence against Joe Biden, a month before the 2020 election.

"You, ladies and gentlemen, interfered with the United States of America 2020 presidential election, knowingly and willingly," Higgins said. "That’s the bad news, it’s gonna get worse because this is the investigation part. Later comes the arrest part. Your attorneys are familiar with that."

The FBI rejected the characterization of an inappropriate relationship with Twitter and issued a statement in response to Higgins' comments.

"The FBI does not instruct or direct any social media company to censor an account or remove information from their platform. In carrying out its law enforcement mission, the FBI receives voluntarily provided information from these companies, when the company believes there is a serious risk of death or serious physical injury," the FBI said in a statement obtained by Fox News correspondent David Spunt.

"In addition, the FBI also shares identified malign foreign influence information with these companies. The information we provide in these circumstances is specific to foreign actors — such as Russia, China, and Iran and their activities, we do not provide information based on content or narratives without attribution to a foreign actor. We may also alert social media companies about intentional attempts to post disinformation about voting times, places, or dates, which may be a federal crime. Private sector entities independently make decisions about what, if any, action they take on their platforms and for their customers in response to information we share."
Related:
Vijaya Gadde: 2023-01-12 Top Republican writes to Treasury Secretary demanding information about Biden family's suspicious business deals and asks Twitter executives to testify next month on suppression of the Hunter laptop story
Vijaya Gadde: 2022-12-09 Blacklists, Secret Censorship Cabal Exposed at Twitter
Vijaya Gadde: 2022-12-09 Twitter's secret 'blacklist': Second tranche of bombshell internal files reveal how conservative commentators were marked 'do not amplify' and COVID lockdown skeptics 'shadow banned' to stop accounts and topics trending
Related:
Clay Higgins: 2022-11-17 Wray Refuses To Say If FBI Had Sources 'Dressed As Trump Supporters' On January 6
Clay Higgins: 2017-06-05 Congressman Clay Higgins speaks out
Clay Higgins: 2016-12-11 Exactly what America needs more of: Our newest Congressman
Related:
James Baker: 2023-01-25 Spooks in Silicon Valley: Flow of U.S. intelligence analysts into Big Tech jobs raises alarm
James Baker: 2023-01-12 Top Republican writes to Treasury Secretary demanding information about Biden family's suspicious business deals and asks Twitter executives to testify next month on suppression of the Hunter laptop story
James Baker: 2022-12-27 When The FBI Attacks Critics As "Conspiracy Theorists", It's Time To Reform The Bureau
Link


Cyber
Spooks in Silicon Valley: Flow of U.S. intelligence analysts into Big Tech jobs raises alarm
2023-01-25
[JustTheNews] Those who once served to protect the nation are now using their intel smarts to regulate speech in America.

As Congress and the courts delve deeper into federally sanctioned censorship by Big Tech, a troubling revolving door has emerged between the U.S. intelligence community and the Big Tech giants on the front lines of one of the fiercest battles over free speech in modern American history.

A Just the News review of LinkedIn employment histories of senior Big Tech executives found that at least 200 former workers of the Central Intelligence Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation, National Security Agency, National Security Council and Homeland Security Department have landed Silicon Valley jobs, many within content moderation units regulating supposed "disinformation" and disproportionately throttling news and opinion deviating from approved, left-tilting norms.

These individuals range from Aaron Berman, who spent a decade and a half as a CIA analyst before joining Facebook parent Meta as product policy manager for disinformation, to James Baker, the former FBI general counsel recently fired by Elon Musk as Twitter's chief lawyer over a spat about prior review of "Twitter Files" releases exposing past censorship by the platform. Baker was one of the key FBI figures involved in obtaining a FISA warrant based on the now-debunked Steele dossier to surveil onetime Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.

The spooks-to-Silicon-Valley pipeline has sent an army of federal agents, intel analysts and even psychological operations experts once trained with taxpayer money to fight foreign enemies or capture big criminals into higher-paying private sector jobs where those same skills now target Americans' opinions in the name of fighting "disinformation."

None of the former intel world employees contacted by Just the News returned phone or email requests for comment. But in videos posted online, some acknowledged they are part of a new vanguard of Big Tech censors operating in a world where there is little consensus about what should be done and what is legal.

"There is very little agreement whether we should be leaving more content up or taking more content down," Berman said in a video posted on Meta's site. "With any particular rule or issue that we're looking at where something has come up, where the rules are not 100 percent clear, we're not going to make everybody happy."

Berman, whose LinkedIn biography boasts he used to prepare the presidential daily brief at the CIA, acknowledged there is some discomfort in the power he now wields in his new role in Big Tech to decide the difference between "harmful content" and free speech.

"It's a balance," he said in the video. "I think it should make me uncomfortable, and all of us who do this work."

Some of the federal intel veterans are less inhibited about expressing biases. For example, Nick Rossmann, former CIA analyst and current senior manager of Trust & Safety at Google, overtly supported defeated 2016 presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, said Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner should be strangled and declared, "Anti-vaxxers are like Nazis."

During the COVID-19 outbreak, Rossmann even seemed to wish death on elderly Trump voters, tweeting, "I hope they cough on their grandparents, who voted for Trump, & get to rot."

Jacqueline Lopour, another Hillary Clinton supporter and former CIA analyst — she served for 10 years in the agency — is currently Google Senior Manager, Intel Collection, Trust & Safety. In that capacity, she manages "Intel operations spanning multiple threat verticals, including violent extremism, cyber threats, misinformation, hate speech, spam, fraud, security and privacy, and more," according to her LinkedIn bio.

In a 2017 Canadian Broadcasting Company interview, Lopour invoked her CIA experience to uncritically vouch for the agency's assessment that Russia meddled in U.S. politics to tip the 2016 election in favor of Donald Trump, saying, "They [Russia] deliberately released the DNC information to @wikileaks ... with the specific motivation of helping Trump get elected."

Further LinkedIn profile checks revealed several other key members of Big Tech teams who served in either the Department of Defense, CIA, FBI, NSA, or DHS. The growing pipeline of intelligence and law enforcement officials was previously documented in detail by an anonymous Twitter account posted by the user @NameRedacted247 in a 30-part Twitter thread.

Former President Donald Trump weighed in on the issue with a video message, touting his proposal to end the revolving door between the Deep State" and the "tech tyrants" by imposing "a 7-year cooling off period, before any employee of these powerful agencies is allowed to take a job at a major platform."

Recent reporting "shows the FBI and other rogue agencies have been systematically colluding with former national security officials placed in high positions at Twitter and very likely other companies to advance their censorship regime," said Trump.

"This anti-American effort," he went on, has been "working to silence dissenting opinions on COVID and crucial issues in public health and on the [2020] election." The suppression of dissenting doctors and health experts "had nothing to do with science" or "saving lives," he alleged. "This was about government working with powerful corporations to seize power over you, the American people."

Twitter currently employs at least 10 former FBI agents, according to LinkedIn profile checks performed by Just The News.

Just the News reached out to several former members of the intelligence community now employed by Big Tech for comment but has received no replies.

Just the News also reached out to Facebook, Google, and Twitter, along with the FBI, NSA, and DOD, but only received a brief response from the CIA which read, "CIA's intelligence mission is foreign focused, and the Agency at all times abides by US laws, regulations, and executive orders that prohibit unlawful collection related to US persons."

The FBI field office in Washington, D.C. refused to comment directly, while the NSA recommended reaching out and questioning each Big Tech firm individually.
Link


Home Front: Politix
Top Republican writes to Treasury Secretary demanding information about Biden family's suspicious business deals and asks Twitter executives to testify next month on suppression of the Hunter laptop story
2023-01-12
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news]
  • James Comer (R-KY), chair of the House Oversight Committee, requested to see the Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) that were flagged by U.S. banks regarding the financial activity of the Bidens

  • Comer's committee is probing the president's knowledge and role in the financial activity and 'whether he has compromised our national security'

  • The Kentucky Republican also sent letters to former Twitter execs Vijaya Gadde, who served as chief legal officer, Yoel Roth, former global head of trust & safety, and James Baker, former general counsel, informing them they were requested to testify on Feb 6

  • 'Your attendance is necessary because of your role in suppressing Americans' access to information about the Biden family on Twitter shortly before the 2020 election,' Comer wrote
Last month with the takeover of Elon Musk came the 'Twitter Files' which revealed how a group of top executives at Twitter came to the decision to censor the Hunter Biden laptop story first reported by the New York Post.

Comer's letters follow Tuesday when the Oversight Committee launched a pair of investigations into President Biden's handling of classified files that were found at his think tank office just before the midterms.
Related:
James Comer: 2022-12-22 GOP Rep. Comer Calls to ‘Halt' All FBI Funding Until Testifying on ‘Cover-Up of the Hunter Biden Laptop Story'
James Comer: 2022-11-25 House GOP plans to turn tables from Trump tax return fight, track Hunter Biden's money to father
James Comer: 2022-11-24 Time is running out for Joe and Hunter Biden as GOP prepares investigation
Link



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