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Home Front: Politix

Trump Son-In-Law Jared Kushner Borrowed $250 Million from Soros Family

2017-05-04

[Breitbart] Mr. Kushner co-founded Cadre in 2014 with his brother Joshua and Ryan Williams, a 29-year-old friend and former employee of Kushner Cos., the family-controlled business that Mr. Kushner ran until recently... Cadre also secured a $250 million line of credit from the family office of George Soros, a top Democratic donor whom Mr. Trump criticized during his presidential campaign, the people close to the company said. Mr. Soros’s family office is also an investor in Cadre. [Kushner’s lawyer Jamie] Gorelick said the Cadre stake is described in a revised version of [Kushner’s] financial-disclosure form that will be made public after it has been certified by ethics officials. She said Mr. Kushner has previously discussed his Cadre ownership with the Office of Government Ethics and that Mr. Kushner has "resigned from Cadre’s board, assigned his voting rights, and reduced his ownership share." A spokesman for the Office of Government Ethics didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Jamie S. Gorelick is an American lawyer who served as the Deputy Attorney General of the United States from 1994 to 1997, during the Clinton administration. Is that why she is revealing things that, it seems to me, her fiduciary duty requires her to keep confidential at least until the client makes them public? I also note that having a line of credit is not the same as borrowing money; it is a way of nailing down the possibility of quickly borrowing money in the future, should an opportunity arise making it necessary. Mr. Wife and I had a line of credit from our bank for years that we never touched, because we never needed to -- it came with the bank account Mr. Wife's company had us open so they could pay him more easily when they sent us to Germany, and it would have been useful in an emergency.

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Home Front: WoT

Should We Close Gitmo?

2006-05-16

What is happening with Guantanamo? We hear President Bush say in Berlin that he would "like to close Guantanamo," but is "awaiting the Supreme Court to make a decision." What would he do with the detainees? "Put them on trial," according to the President. In fact Mr. Bush needs to be briefed that Military Commissions -- on hold for months while U.S. courts made glacial progress -- are finally underway as you read this. Detainees standing in front of the Commissions this week include the only white detainee in Guantanamo, Australian terrorist David Matthew Hicks, a veteran of the Pakistani LET, the Kosovo Liberation Army, and al Qaeda. I recently debated one of the attorneys for some of the detainees on BBC radio. Clive Stafford-Smith, a hard-left human rights lawyer who seems to find desirable clients principally from among the oppressed anti-American terrorist community, wistfully hoped that the "innocent" detainees would only get a "fair hearing." An admirable desire to be sure, and one that I personally wish would also be applied by irrational critics to America's actions -- practically alone -- in combating Islamofascism worldwide, including the need to detain and interrogate these thugs in places like Guantanamo. Not to be outdone by the President's expressed wish, the British government's top legal advisor, Lord Goldsmith, meanwhile issued a pontificatory statement informing us that "the existence of Guantanamo is unacceptable." One wonders if his Lordship would prefer that the fewer than 490 terrorists now detained at the facility take up residence in his Parliamentary district. Since at least two of the detainees have advanced degrees in economics from the London School and are proficient in terrorist money laundering and fundraising, they could have useful skills. No doubt in some areas of the UK that are already rapidly undergoing Islamification the idea of terrorists relocating to the neighborhood might be more than a hypothetical possibility. Meanwhile in the real world, the part that looks askance at the idea of taking hundreds of the "worst of the worst" terrorists and turning them loose again, the efficacy of Guantanamo needs to be discussed in more practical, serious tones. Consider if you will the artificial "wall" that Clinton-appointed Assistant Attorney General Jamie S. Gorelick erected to enforce a separation between law enforcement and intelligence gathering agencies is by now well known. It was loudly but hypocritically condemned by the 911 Commission since wall architect Gorelick was, herself, a member of the Commission. Not only did she fail to recuse herself from discussion of the aberration that she created, but some say she ought to have been subpoenaed to testify. Nevertheless the point was made: intelligence and law enforcement missions have become blurred and overlapping in this war. Information sharing must be conducted in a timely manner. It follows that analyzed material derived from interrogations and operational data sharing must take place as well. But is that happening? Word in the intel community seems to indicate that necessary exchanges are not taking place in a timely manner. Even more significantly since the missions of various agencies conflict with one another, focus is naturally on the needs of the particular agency perhaps to the detriment of others that ought to be involved. Disposition and handling of individual terrorist detainees has brought this issue to a head. This is an historical, not recently emerging issue. For example, back in the highly confused first few months of 2002 when Guantanamo Bay was hastily opened as a detention/interrogation center for enemy combatants captured for the most part in Afghanistan and Pakistan, several agencies were interested in these thugs, each for its own reasons. Primarily domestic-focused, law enforcement agencies such as Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation and major cities' police agencies were out to build cases against individual detainees that would stand up in the harsh light of a criminal court. They were concerned with niceties of a highly refined American legal system preoccupied with defendant's rights, rules of procedure, and evidentiary processes. While they were properly concerned with potential future attacks, FBI and other similar groups were focused in large part on alleged past criminal acts for which they could prosecute. Military and Central Intelligence Agency interrogators, on the other hand, were less focused on building a court case than they were in what would be properly classified as national security or military intelligence information. In a phrase they were out to learn the capabilities and intentions of the enemy especially regarding current operations and future attacks. They wanted to know everything about the al Qaeda organization, training, recruiting, financial processes, tactics, personalities, alliances with outside states and movements, technical and tactical proficiency, and planned operations. They were considerably less focused on prosecution of an individual and sought more to defeat a movement. Analysis of these early, admittedly confused months in Guantanamo shows that all too often the "wall" still existed and was a great impediment to proper interrogation of the detainees. Agencies operated without an overall, coordinated interrogation plan and with few common objectives. The result was akin to researchers conducting multiple science projects in the same Petri dish: each participant ruined the other participants' projects. On several occasions, according to present day Gitmo interrogators, detainees actually complained about the unprofessional nature of these early interrogations and some astoundingly even offered advice to the interrogators on how to conduct a more effective session. Some actionable information was derived but how much was lost is impossible to say. In these early days the interrogators argued and competed among themselves. Not only did they not share information, plans, and acceptable techniques but it was rare that they even discussed the situation civilly with each other. Principals in each competing agency exerted absolute control over their people. So rather than having unity of command -- the first principle in the art of war -- each organization stove-piped right down to the actors on the spot. Exacerbating the problem was that even within the military jurisdiction over the detainees was initially split between two Task Forces, TF-160 and TF-170. It was during these early months that accusations of abuse -- real and fabricated -- emerged from the fog of Guantanamo. FBI agents were unfamiliar with the latitude that military interrogators had, and CIA interrogators played their own secret hand. Partially as a result, a few poorly prepared FBI agents -- never briefed or trained to deal with wartime enemy combatants but accustomed to Mirandized accused criminals in a Stateside environment -- panicked and sent hysterically overstated "reports" back to the U.S. One of those emails made the floor of the Senate as Senator Dick Durbin (D, IL) used it as a political club to smack the Administration, tangentially attacking American troops. He carelessly, thoughtlessly besmirched our soldiers' worldwide reputations along with that of his country. But that was then, this is now. These issues have been long resolved and for several years Guantanamo interrogations have been extraordinarily professional and effective, a success totally ignored by the legacy media. Investigations such as that conducted independently by Admiral Church and his committee and by former Defense Secretary Schlesinger and his blue-ribbon, bipartisan panel, have given Joint Task Force Guantanamo the highest marks for humane treatment and proper interrogation procedure. But despite this amazing progress we still have evidence of the artificial wall keeping agencies apart and hampering American efforts. We are not so well off in our intelligence efforts against al Qaeda and other terrorists that we can afford to squander the small amount of precious human intelligence that we can access. Yet because of our "walls" we are doing exactly that. At this stage of evolution, Guantanamo is highly controlled, under intense scrutiny including 24-hour International Committee of the Red Cross oversight, and is functioning as the most effective detention/interrogation platform in the world. Yet we are using it for only a tiny number of those who merit proper interrogation, most especially the cell members and terrorists who have been apprehended and in many cases tried and convicted, in American courts. If someone like Sammi al-Arian is sentenced to jail time he ought to be assigned to Gitmo to fill out that time. During his confinement he can be properly interrogated. Otherwise he and the others such as John Walker Lindh, Zaccarias Mousaoui, the Beltway Snipers, the Lackawanna Six, and every one of the others who are just rotting in Federal prison cells while the information inside their heads is forever secret. Every terrorist captured abroad deemed sufficient threat or to possess actionable intelligence information ought to be evacuated and kept at Guantanamo. Similarly every terrorist convicted in American domestic courts should be assigned to Gitmo to serve their sentences. Our needs for this information are too great to give it up voluntarily in time of war by ignoring these potentially rich intelligence sources. Gordon Cucullu is a former Green Beret lieutenant colonel and author of Separated at Birth: How North Korea became the Evil Twin.

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Home Front: Politix

Carter allowed warrantless surveillance in 1977

2006-02-12

Former President Jimmy Carter, who publicly rebuked President Bush's warrantless eavesdropping program this week during the funeral of Coretta Scott King and at a campaign event, used similar surveillance against suspected spies. "Under the Bush administration, there's been a disgraceful and illegal decision -- we're not going to the let the judges or the Congress or anyone else know that we're spying on the American people," Mr. Carter said Monday in Nevada when his son Jack announced his Senate campaign. "And no one knows how many innocent Americans have had their privacy violated under this secret act," he said. The next day at Mrs. King's high-profile funeral, Mr. Carter evoked a comparison to the Bush policy when referring to the "secret government wiretapping" of civil rights leader Martin Luther King. But in 1977, Mr. Carter and his attorney general, Griffin B. Bell, authorized warrantless electronic surveillance used in the conviction of two men for spying on behalf of Vietnam. The men, Truong Dinh Hung and Ronald Louis Humphrey, challenged their espionage convictions to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, which unanimously ruled that the warrantless searches did not violate the men's rights. In its opinion, the court said the executive branch has the "inherent authority" to wiretap enemies such as terror plotters and is excused from obtaining warrants when surveillance is "conducted 'primarily' for foreign intelligence reasons." That was different, of course. Wonder if a NYT or WaPo reporter will call Jimmuah on it? That description, some Republicans say, perfectly fits the Bush administration's program to monitor calls from terror-linked people to the U.S. The Truong case, however, involved surveillance that began in 1977, before the enactment of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which established a secret court for granting foreign intelligence warrants. Democrats and some Republicans in Congress say FISA guidelines, approved in 1978 when Mr. Carter was president, are the only way the president may conduct surveillance on U.S. soil. Administration officials say the president has constitutional authority to conduct surveillance without warrants in the name of national security. The only way Congress could legitimately curtail that authority, they argue, is through an amendment to the Constitution. When Mr. Bell testified in favor of FISA, he told Congress that while the measure doesn't explicitly acknowledge the "inherent power of the president to conduct electronic surveillance," it "does not take away the power of the president under the Constitution." Jamie S. Gorelick, deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration and builder of walls, agreed. In 1994 testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Miss Gorelick said case law supports the presidential authority to conduct warrantless searches and electronic surveillance for foreign intelligence purposes. And who are we to argue with Ms. Gorelick? Earlier this week, however, Mr. Carter said it was "ridiculous" for Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales to say the spying is justified by Article II of the Constitution. Republicans say they welcome such criticism because it proves Democrats can't be trusted with national security. "Just when you thought that the Democrats' image of being soft on defense issues couldn't get any worse, enter the sage wisdom of President Jimmy Carter to save the day," said Brian Nick, spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

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Home Front: Politix

GOP Hits Back at Al Gore on Wiretapping

2006-01-17

Former Vice President Al Gore's assertion that President Bush "repeatedly and persistently" broke the law by eavesdropping on Americans without a court warrant did not fall on deaf ears in Washington, D.C. In fact, the Republican National Committee swiftly reacted to the loser of the 2000 presidential election, with RNC press secretary Tracey Schmitt stating: "Al Gore's incessant need to insert himself in the headline of the day is almost as glaring as his lack of understanding of the threats facing America. While the president works to protect Americans from terrorists, Democrats deliver no solutions of their own, only diatribes laden with inaccuracies and anger." The RNC then showed why Gore's comments are hard to swallow, providing these insightful reminders: Once Upon A Time, Gore Talked Tough About Cracking Down On Terrorists: In 1999, Vice President Gore Declared: "Hear Me Well - We Will Fight The Reckless Violence Of Terrorism And We Will Never Yield To Terrorism, Ever." (Joe Carroll, "Clinton Exhorts Parties to Surmount Last Hurdle," The Irish Times, 3/18/99) At A 1996 Counter-Terrorism Event Gore Said: "The Bottom Line Is That President Clinton And I And The Members Of This Commission Have Pledged To The Families Of The Victims Of Terrorism That We're Going To Take The Strongest Measures Possible To Reduce The Risk Of Another Tragedy In The Future." (Al Gore, White House Briefing, 9/5/96) Clinton/Gore Administration Used Warrantless Searches: Clinton Administration Deputy Attorney General Jamie S. Gorelick: "(T)he Department Of Justice Believes, And The Case Law Supports, That The President Has Inherent Authority To Conduct Warrantless Physical Searches For Foreign Intelligence Purposes And That The President May, As Has Been Done, Delegate This Authority To The Attorney General." (Deputy Attorney General Jamie S. Gorelick, Permanent Select Committee On Intelligence, U.S. House Of Representatives, Testimony, 7/14/94) In 1994, President Clinton Expanded The Use Of Warrantless Searches To Entirely Domestic Situations With No Foreign Intelligence Value Whatsoever. In A Radio Address Promoting A Crime- Fighting Bill, Mr. Clinton Discussed A New Policy To Conduct Warrantless Searches In Highly Violent Public Housing Projects." (Charles Hurt, "'Warrantless' Searches Not Unprecedented," The Washington Times, 12/22/05) "One Of The Most Famous Examples Of Warrantless Searches In Recent Years Was The Investigation Of CIA Official Aldrich H. Ames, Who Ultimately Pleaded Guilty To Spying For The Former Soviet Union. That Case Was Largely Built Upon Secret Searches Of Ames' Home And Office In 1993, Conducted Without Federal Warrants." (Charles Hurt, "'Warrantless' Searches Not Unprecedented," The Washington Times, 12/22/05) President Bill Clinton: "(T)he Attorney General Is Authorized To Approve Physical Searches, Without A Court Order, To Acquire Foreign Intelligence Information For Periods Of Up To One Year ..." (President Bill Clinton, Executive Order 12949, "Foreign Intelligence Physical Searches," 2/9/95) Meanwhile, Polling Shows Americans Support President Bush's Decision On Wire Tapping: "(A Rasmussen Reports Survey Found) Sixty-Four Percent (64 percent) Of Americans Believe The National Security Agency (NSA) Should Be Allowed To Intercept Telephone Conversations Between Terrorism Suspects In Other Countries And People Living In The United States 
 Just 23 percent Disagree." (Rasmussen Reports' Web site, http://www.rasmussenreports.com, Accessed 1/6/06) Eighty-One Percent (81 percent) Of Republicans Believe The NSA Should Be Allowed To Listen In On Conversations Between Terror Suspects And People Living In The United States. That View Is Shared By 51 percent Of Democrats ..." (Rasmussen Reports' Web site, http://www.rasmussenreports.com, Accessed 1/6/06) The FISA Court Does Not Provide Flexibility Needed To Fight The War On Terrorism: President Bush: "(T)he (9/11) Commission Criticized Our Nation's Inability To Uncover Links Between Terrorists Here At Home And Terrorists Abroad. Two Of The Terrorist Hijackers Who Flew A Jet Into The Pentagon, Nawaf Al Hamzi And Khalid Al Mihdhar, Communicated While They Were In The United States To Other Members Of Al Qaeda Who Were Overseas." (President Bush, Radio Address, Washington, D.C., 12/17/05) 9/11 Commission Report: "On January 15, (2000) Hazmi And Mihdhar Arrived In Los Angeles. ... After The Pair Cleared Immigration And Customs At Los Angeles International Airport, We Do Not Know Where They Went. ... We Do Not Pick Up Their Trail Until February 1, 2000 ..." ("Final Report Of The National Commission On Terrorist Attacks Upon The United States," The 9/11 Commission Report, 7/22/04) Attorney General Alberto Gonzales: "The Operators Out At NSA Tell Me That We Don't Have The Speed And The Agility That We Need, In All Circumstances, To Deal With This New Kind Of Enemy. You Have To Remember That FISA Was Passed By The Congress In 1978. There Have Been Tremendous Advances In Technology ... Since Then." (Attorney General Gonzales, Press Conference, 12/19/05) The Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol: "Remember Moussaoui? Remember August 2001? The FBI Wanted To Go To The FISA Court To Get Surveillance Capabilities Based On What They Found On His Computer, And The Justice Department Decided No. Now, The Patriot Act Did Not Change That Standard Of FISA ..." (Fox News' "Fox News Sunday," 12/18/05) Kristol: "I Wish Bill Clinton Had Done This. I Wish We Had Tapped The Phones Of The People Of Mohammed Atta Here Into The United States If We Discovered Phone Calls From Afghanistan To Him. That Was Why 9/11 Happened. That's What Connecting The Dots Is." (Fox News' "Fox News Sunday," 12/18/05) 9/11 Commission Report: "The Agents In Minnesota Were Concerned That The U.S. Attorney's Office In Minneapolis Would Find Insufficient Probable Cause Of A Crime To Obtain A Criminal Warrant To Search Moussaoui's Laptop Computer. Agents At FBI Headquarters Believed There Was Insufficient Probable Cause. Minneapolis Therefore Sought A Special Warrant Under The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act To Conduct The Search ... FBI Headquarters Did Not Believe This Was Good Enough, And Its National Security Law Unit Declined To Submit A FISA Application." ("Final Report Of The National Commission On Terrorist Attacks Upon The United States," The 9/11 Commission Report, 7/22/04) Bush Administration's Wiretapping Authorization Has Been Successful: "Officials Have Privately Credited The Eavesdropping With The Apprehension Of Lyman Faris, A Truck Driver Who Pleaded Guilty In 2003 To Planning To Blow Up The Brooklyn Bridge." (Peter Baker, "President Says He Ordered NSA Domestic Spying," The Washington Post, 12/18/05)

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Home Front: WoT

Jamie Gorelick Major Beneficiary of Fraud at Fannie Mae

2005-04-08

You will recall that Gorelick is the 9/11 Commission member and Clinton Administration Justice Dept. official who erected "the wall" between intelligence agencies and law enforcement that made keeping foreign terrorists out of the U.S. all but impossible. EFL Fannie Mae employees falsified signatures on accounting transactions that helped the company meet earnings targets for 1998, a "manipulation" that triggered multimillion-dollar bonuses for top executives, a federal regulator said yesterday. Armando Falcon Jr., director of the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight, said the entries were related to the movement of $200 million in expenses from 1998 to later periods. The result of the changes was an increase in Fannie Mae's 1998 earnings per share and the release of a $27.1 million bonus pool for senior executives. Fannie Mae reported paying the following executive bonuses in 1998: chairman and chief executive James A. Johnson received $1.932 million; Franklin D. Raines, chairman-designate, received $1.11 million; Chief Operating Officer Lawrence M. Small received $1.108 million; Vice Chairman Jamie S. Gorelick received $779,625; Chief Financial Officer J. Timothy Howard received $493,750; and Robert J. Levin, an executive vice president, received $493,750. *snip*

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Home Front: Politix

Memos show Gorelick involvement in ’wall’

2004-04-29

EFL - hattip to WND Newly released Justice Department memos show that September 11 panel commissioner Jamie S. Gorelick was more intimately involved than previously thought with hampering communications between (We don’t need no education) U.S. intelligence and law-enforcement agencies fighting terrorism. As the No. 2 person in the Clinton Justice Department, Ms. Gorelick rejected advice from the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, who warned against placing more limits on communications between law-enforcement officials and prosecutors (we don’t need no force control) pursuing counterterrorism cases, according to several internal documents written in summer 1995. "It is hard to be totally comfortable with instructions to the FBI prohibiting contact with the United States Attorney’s Offices when such prohibitions are not legally required," U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White wrote Ms. Gorelick six years before the 2001 terrorist attacks in New York and at the Pentagon. Our experience has been that the FBI labels of an investigation as intelligence or (no dark sarcasm in the court room) law enforcement can be quite arbitrary, depending upon the personnel involved and that the most effective way to combat terrorism is with as few labels and walls as possible so that wherever permissible, the right and left hands are communicating," she wrote. The documents -- released yesterday by the Justice Department at the request of two Senate Republicans -- drew renewed calls for Ms. Gorelick to testify publicly before the September 11 commission about the so-called "wall" between law enforcement and intelligence agencies that many have blamed for allowing the 2001 terrorist attacks to occur. Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican, said yesterday that Ms. Gorelick’s policies regarding the wall contributed to "blinding America to this terrible threat." Also, he said, the newly released memos raised apparent conflicts with statements Ms. Gorelick has made recently defending herself and her role in the Clinton Justice Department. "These documents show what we’ve said all along: Commissioner Gorelick has special knowledge of the facts and circumstances leading up to the erection and buttressing of ’that wall’ that, before the enactment of the Patriot Act, was the primary obstacle to the sharing of communications between law enforcement and intelligence agencies," Mr. Cornyn said. In a June 19, 1995, memo, Ms. White recommended a series of changes to a Gorelick policy that went beyond legal requirements in separating law- enforcement and intelligence agencies. (Hey, Asst AG, leave those law enforcement agents alone) For instance, Ms. White said the local U.S. Attorney should be notified as soon as "criminal law enforcement concerns exist" while investigating terror suspects. Deputy Director Michael Vatis rejected her recommendation. "Notifying the [U.S. Attorney] as soon as law enforcement concerns exist -- but before [the criminal division] thinks that the investigation should ’go criminal’ -- is simply too early," wrote Mr. Vatis, who was concerned that Ms. White’s proposal could result in "prejudicing a possible criminal prosecution." In a handwritten note to Attorney General Janet Reno, Ms. Gorelick wrote, "I have reviewed and concur in the Vatis/Garland recommendations for the reasons set forth in the Vatis memo." The extent of Ms. Gorelick’s involvement, spelled out in these memos, in buttressing the law enforcement-intelligence wall also raises questions about statements she has made recently defending herself and distancing herself from the decisions about the wall. Asked by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer earlier this month about whether she had written a memo helping establish the wall, she replied: "No, and again, I would refer you back to what others on the commission have said. The wall was a creature of statute. It’s existed since the mid 1980s. And while it’s too lengthy to go into, basically the policy that was put out in the mid-’90s, which I didn’t sign, wasn’t my policy by the way, it was the attorney general’s policy, was ratified by Attorney General Ashcroft’s deputy as well in August of 2001." -snip- "Even before the horrific events of September 11, I witnessed firsthand, as the deputy attorney general, some of the problems that we in the department had with sharing information," said Mr. Thompson, who appeared before the panel on Dec. 8. Mr. Bond and his colleagues said Ms. Gorelick has critical information she can provide about the same topic, and said her private interview with the commission is not enough. "We believe, as was the case of [National Security Adviser Condoleezza] Rice, that public testimony by the decision-makers best serves the commission, the public, and ultimately Congress," the senators said, pointing to similar sentiments Ms. Gorelick herself expressed during the debate over Miss Rice’s testimony. "Unless Ms. Gorelick provides public testimony, like other key officials have done, there will be a significant gap of knowledge as far as what the public will know about its government prior to 9/11," they wrote. Hound her mercilessly. Make her say Uncle Sam.

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