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| 09-02-22 07:33am - 748 days | #351 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Dangle Trump read the story about a man in Los Angeles jail who wasn't given a bed or a blanket for 2 days. Says he is a fan of the Men In Blue. Says he will open his golf centers to house the inmates when they need extra beds and blankets. Says he will offer reduced rates for these services. God bless Dangle Trump, the man with the Balls of Brass. ----- ----- A man wasn't given a bed in L.A. County jails for 2 nights. A judge just declared a mistrial. LA Times Alene Tchekmedyian September 1, 2022, 5:38 PM A judge declared a mistrial after an inmate was held in cells without beds or blankets for two nights. (Al Seib / Los Angeles Times) A Superior Court judge declared a mistrial Wednesday in a case against a man facing life in prison because the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department kept him in jail cells without beds or blankets for two nights. "There is absolutely no way, if there was a conviction, that it would stand," Judge Daniel Lowenthal said during the hearing at the Long Beach courthouse, according to a transcript reviewed by The Times. Lowenthal cited arguments by the man's attorney indicating that his client was losing focus during the trial and unable to help with his own defense. "I've lost confidence in the sheriff's ability to provide the requisite support for this trial," Lowenthal added. "A mistrial is granted." Court records show the man, Vamazae Banks, 24, is charged with three counts of robbery and one count each of assault with a firearm and making criminal threats. Banks was in the third day of his trial when his attorney raised concerns over his treatment in L.A. County jail. "My client, due not to his own fault, has been deprived of sleep during a trial in which he faces life because they won't give him a place to sleep with a bed or a blanket," said Alan Nakasone, a public defender representing Banks. "I believe that is unconstitutional." He added: "This is probably the most important three days of his life." The Sheriff's Department, which runs the county's jails, did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday afternoon. In making his ruling, Lowenthal listed other failures by the Sheriff's Department to adequately handle the case. He said the agency last week defied his order to move Banks from the North County Correctional Facility in Castaic to Men's Central Jail in downtown L.A. so that he could be closer to Long Beach. That would mean he wouldn't have to be woken up at 3 a.m. to make it to court on time, and not risk getting held up by the Sheriff's Department's "well-known" jail bus shortage, Lowenthal said. 'Kept him in the holding cell with no bed or blanket all night' "Based on those two reasons, I ordered the sheriff to keep him at" Men's Central, he said. "They didn't." After his first day of trial Monday, Banks was taken to Men's Central Jail. Instead of being placed in a regular cell with a bed, sheriff's deputies placed him in a cell meant to hold people for short periods of time. "They ... kept him in the holding cell with no bed or blanket all night — literally all night," Lowenthal said. The next afternoon, Lowenthal said, Banks' attorney asked to cut the day short because his client couldn't stay awake. When the Long Beach Police Department, which has a jail across the street from the courthouse, agreed to hold Banks overnight, sheriff's officials refused the offer. "The Sheriff's Department, inexplicably, refused to release, despite this court's order, the gentleman to Long Beach police custody," Lowenthal said. "I was informed that they were requiring that he be transported back downtown." He said the Sheriff's Department promised him that Banks would get a bed and be brought to court the next morning. "Neither happened," Lowenthal said. Instead, Banks was not put in a cell with a bed until 3:30 a.m. and didn't arrive to court until late in the morning Wednesday, the judge said. The prosecutor argued against a mistrial, requesting that the judge postpone testimony in the case until the man was able to get rest. 'We don't know if the defendant contributed to any of the issues' "It is not fair to punish the people for the Sheriff Department's failures to provide what the court asked and ordered," Deputy Dist. Atty. Tricia Halstead said. She said a mistrial would be unfair to the three victims in the case who have testified. "We don't know if the defendant contributed to any of the issues that caused him not to get a bed," Halstead said. Lowenthal said he was also "horrified" that the victims would be required to relive their experience by having to testify again. At the end of the hearing, he sent the jurors home. Along with the bus shortage the judge mentioned, the county's sprawling network of jails has been beset by a host of problems in recent years stemming from the old, inadequate facilities, insufficient staffing and space for the mentally ill, and allegations of abusive deputies. For a decade, county officials and others have called for shutting down Men's Central Jail, which is antiquated and overcrowded. At one point, elected leaders came out with a serious plan for building a replacement. Those plans were scrapped in 2019 amid growing unease about whether they focused enough attention on mental health treatment. The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors then voted in 2020 to develop a plan to close the decrepit facility as it sought to find alternatives to incarceration for the thousands of people who filter in and out of the county’s sprawling jail system. But little has been done to follow through. - This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times. | |
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| 09-02-22 03:29pm - 748 days | #352 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Dangle Trump confesses: "It's true I had a cash-flow problem, but it was only a short-term problem. So I auctioned off a few papers to my buddies in North Korea, gChingeWa (GCingeWa name are hard to say), and Russia, because they were all de-classified. And my buddies at North Korea, gChingeWa, and Russia were nice enough to give me enough cash to pay off some of my debts. So, sue me for the capitalist that is the true mark of an American genius. And vote for me in 2024, when I will return to the Whitest House, to collect more papers to pay off my long-term debts. Die-hard Republicans are rallying around Dangle Trump, screaming that Dangle was barely paid enough money to stay above the poverty line, and that he is entitled to auction off papers that Dangle has de-classified, since they are now public property, and Dangle is a leading member of the public. ----- ----- Classified documents were mingled with magazines and clothes at Trump's Mar-a-Lago club USA TODAY Bart Jansen, Kevin Johnson and Josh Meyer, USA TODAY September 2, 2022, 10:54 AM A more detailed list of the documents seized from Donald Trump’s Florida estate was released Friday by the federal judge overseeing the former president’s lawsuit seeking a third-party special master to review the records, which FBI agents found stored in a haphazard way that mingled "top secret" records with magazines and articles of clothing. Aside from the classified materials, the list appears to show the chaotic nature in which thousands of documents were kept. Here's what was recovered in the search: Overall, the list described 31 confidential documents, 54 "secret" documents and 11 "top secret." 48 empty folders with classified banners 42 folders marked "return to staff secretary/military aide" More than 11,000 government documents or pictures without classification markings Nearly 1,673 magazines, newspapers, or press clippings 19 articles of clothing or gift items 33 books The comingled contents of the 33 boxes not only highlight a potential security risk posed by the unsecured classified documents but also underscore the chaotic nature of Trump's exit from the White House and his desperate attempts to cling to power, which federal and state prosecutors are reviewing in connection with other criminal investigations. At about the same time the more detailed list of evidence was made public, Patrick Cipollone, a former Trump White House counsel, arrived at the federal courthouse in Washington, D.C., where he was expected to appear before a grand jury investigating the Capitol attack. Cipollone would be the highest-ranking Trump administration official known to testify so far. Meanwhile, the thousands of unmarked government records recovered in the Mar-a-Lago search were not specifically identified, and it was unclear whether the volume of the material would factor into the judge's decision on whether to appoint a special master to oversee a document review. FBI agents searched Mar-a-Lago on Aug. 8 for documents from the Trump administration that may have provided evidence of violations of the Espionage Act or obstruction of justice. Trump filed a lawsuit for a special master to review the documents, to possibly block the Justice Department from documents related to communications from his lawyers or from administration aides. U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon released the list while deciding whether to appoint a special master and potentially limit Justice Department access to the documents. Who had control of Trump's records?: Meet Trump's cast of record keepers, who have taken on significance amid Mar-a-Lago probe In a status report filed with the document list, prosecutors described the inquiry as an “active criminal investigation." “It is important to note, ‘review' of the seized materials is not a single investigative step but an ongoing process in this active criminal investigation,” prosecutors said. “That said, the government can confirm for the court that the investigative team has already examined every item seized (other than the materials that remain subject to the filter protocols), even as its investigation and further review continues.” In addition to the criminal investigation, the Justice Department said in court records it is working with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to assess the potential national security risk posed by the discovery of the unsecured classified documents. Although the newly unsealed search warrant receipt does not contain enough information to determine what happened to the documents within the empty “classified” folders retrieved by the FBI, one former senior White House information security official said the discrepancy raises serious concerns. “It’s tough to know, but empty folders could raise some alarm bells. Important decision memoranda and other papers often need to be returned from the president to the staff secretary for distribution and implementation by senior aides on the whole range of subjects," said Rajesh De, a White House staff secretary in the Obama administration who was in charge of securing classified documents and managing the paper flow to the president and senior staff. "As for the empty classified folders, one also has to wonder what became of the contents and what if they fall into the wrong hands?” said De, a former senior Justice Department and National Security Agency official who now chairs the national security practice at law firm Mayer Brown. Bradley Moss, a national security lawyer, said in a tweet that if empty folders were used to store classified documents, there will be documentation indicating who put the records in that folder and what they were. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee sent a letter Friday to Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray calling for testimony and hearings about the search. The DOJ's obstruction case against Trump, aides: DOJ mapped out strong obstruction evidence against Trump, aides in filing, experts say FBI Director Christopher Wray speaks to journalists at the Omaha FBI office on Aug. 10. Wray addressed threats made to law enforcement after agents raided Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Fla. FBI Director Christopher Wray speaks to journalists at the Omaha FBI office on Aug. 10. Wray addressed threats made to law enforcement after agents raided Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Fla. Classified documents were mingled with magazines, clothes, news clippings At least seven boxes of documents, photographs and other materials were taken from the former president's Mar-a-Lago office and included at least 24 classified documents and an array of emptied folders. Two of them were labeled with directions to "return to staff secretary military aide." The list describes 15 “secret” documents, seven “top secret” documents and 43 empty folders with “classified” banners from a box retrieved from Trump’s office at Mar-a-Lago. Another secret document was found separately in the “45 Office.” The haphazard nature of the storage was revealed in Box 10, recovered from the Mar-a-Lago storage room. The contents included 32 classified documents along with articles of clothing, magazine clippings, a book and a mix of 255 unidentified records and photographs. Thousands of pictures were found in boxes in the storage room. The list also featured hundreds of magazines, press articles and other documents without classified markings. Several articles of clothing were retrieved from the storage room. The trove of records was seized after Trump's lawyers certified in June that all records had been turned over to federal authorities in response to a grand jury subpoena seeking any remaining classified material at the property. Prosecutors cited the prior certification in a scathing assessment of how the records were handled, asserting that the Trump team likely concealed and moved the remaining documents to obstruct the government's investigation. "That the FBI, in a matter of hours, recovered twice as many documents with classification markings as the ‘diligent search’ that the former President’s counsel and other representatives had weeks to perform calls into serious question the representations made in the June 3 certification and casts doubt on the extent of cooperation in this matter," Justice officials stated in court documents earlier this week. Trump Mar-a-Lago investigation: Laws cited in Trump search warrant rarely lead to charges. In Trump's case, experts say they might This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump classified documents mixed with magazines, clothes at Mar-a-Lago | |
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| 09-02-22 03:39pm - 748 days | #353 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Dangle Trump warns that Sleepy Joe Biden is putting the Untied States of Trumperland in danger. After talking with best bud Vlad Putin, Dangle screams that Russia has it's finger on the launch pad of long-range nuclear missiles. Those missiles are aimed squarely at the Untied States, and a few others are aimed at the European countries that have worked against Mother Russia. Vote for Dangle Trump, and he will talk to Putin, and calm Putin down, once Dangle is put back in the Whitest House. Deutschland uber alles...err, Untied States of Trumperland over all! But Sleepy Joe Biden is waking up. And he is considering ordering a full-scale nuclear attack on Russia. That would shut up Vlad Putin for a while. ----- ----- Russia warns US off sending long-range weapons to Ukraine Associated Press VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV September 2, 2022, 8:36 AM MOSCOW (AP) — A senior Russian diplomat sternly warned Washington Friday against supplying long-range weapons to Ukraine, noting that the U.S. is balancing on the edge of direct involvement in the conflict. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov also pointed to the country's military doctrine that envisages the use of nuclear weapons in case of a threat to the existence of the Russian state. “We have repeatedly warned the U.S. about the consequences that may follow if the U.S. continues to flood Ukraine with weapons," Ryabkov said. “It effectively puts itself in a state close to what can be described as a party to the conflict.” Speaking on state television, Ryabkov warned that ”a very narrow margin that separates the U.S. from becoming a party to the conflict mustn't create an illusion for rabid anti-Russian forces that everything will remain as it is if they cross it.” He emphasized that Russia will push its offensive in Ukraine until it reaches its aims. “Russia is capable of fully defending its interests, and the goals of the special military operation will be fully achieved,” Ryabkov said. He pointed out that Russia’s military doctrine stipulates that it could use nuclear weapons in case of aggression against Russia and its allies involving mass destruction weapons, or an aggression involving conventional weapons that threatens the very existence of the Russian state. Supplies of the U.S. HIMARS multiple rocket launchers strengthened the strike capability of the Ukrainian army, which has used them to hit key infrastructure facilities and other targets. The truck-mounted systems fire GPS-guided missiles capable of reaching targets up to 80 kilometers (50 miles) away. U.S. authorities so far have refrained from providing Ukraine with longer range missiles for HIMARS launchers that can reach targets up to 300 kilometers (186 miles) and could potentially allow the Ukrainian military to hit areas deep inside Russia. “We are warning the U.S. against making provocative steps, such as deliveries of longer-range and more devastating weapons,” Ryabkov said. “It's a road to nowhere fraught with grave consequences, the responsibility for which will lie entirely with Washington.” | |
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| 09-02-22 04:16pm - 748 days | #354 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
NYC police officer caught on video hitting 19-year-old woman in the face. Cop says he was doing what he'd been trained for: putting down suspects and arresting them. The cop union says it's considering filing a civil suit against the woman on behalf of the officer. The woman sustained injuries to her face from the cop's blow, and she fell to the ground, where she was handcuffed and arrested for assault on a police officer, resisting arrest and obstructing governmental administration, police said. I'm not sure how she was resisting arrest, since the cop punched her in the face and she fell to the ground, and then was lifted by two cops and handcuffed and arrested. Maybe she should have offered her face in a better pose to be punched in the face: that might be why she was charged with resisting arrest. Do cops give lessons to be on the best way to present themselves for arrest, so they won't be charged with resisting arrest? Dangle Trump was not at the scene, but he offered his wise opinion: The cop was a solid citizen, and if you're not gonna grab a babe by the pussy, punching her face is the next best thing. ----- ---- NYC police officer caught on video hitting woman, 19, in the face NBC Universal Marlene Lenthang September 1, 2022, 10:49 AM A New York City police officer was caught on video hitting a woman in the face, sending her reeling onto the ground, as police officers were trying to arrest a man allegedly in connection with an attempted murder. The incident unfolded Tuesday as police were arresting Elvin James, 22, at West 136th Street just before 5 p.m. During the arrest, “multiple individuals” at the scene “interfered by physically assaulting numerous officers,” the New York Police Department said. One officer sustained a minor injury to the head, police said. Bystander video circulated online. Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell released a brief snippet of the scuffle captured in body camera video Thursday. The video shows multiple officers and bystanders at the scene in front of a home. A young woman runs up to an officer and appears to shove his shoulder. The officer immediately responds and appears to hit her in the face with an audible blow, causing her to fall on her back, smacking against the sidewalk. People in the background are heard clamoring after the hit. One person yells: “Why would you do that? That’s a little girl.” She is then lifted by two officers and placed in handcuffs, the video shows. The woman, identified by NBC New York as Tamani Crum, 19, of the Bronx, was charged with assault on a police officer, resisting arrest and obstructing governmental administration, police said. In a statement, Sewell said the incident and the officer who used force are under “ongoing review” by the Internal Affairs Bureau’s Force Group. Sewell said Crum was an acquaintance of James’. She said that after the woman "struck" one of the officers, “the officer fended off that interference and struck the woman with an open hand." Crum remained conscious and was transported to a hospital at her request, Sewell said. NBC News has asked a lawyer for Crum's family for comment. The attorney, Jamie Santana Jr., told NBC New York, “This has to stop, and we are seeking full accountability in this action." Her next court date is Oct. 11 in Manhattan Criminal Court. The detective was identified as Kendo Kinsey, who has had six complaints against him over the past 10 years, NBC New York reported, citing the Civilian Complaint Review Board, which investigates citizen police misconduct allegations. None of the claims was substantiated. Crum’s mother said her daughter was covered in bruises. “I get blown away to see this happen to my daughter. It’s so painful for a mother to see that,” the woman, who did not share her name, told the station. “They are just violating these kids’ rights. It’s not right.” Two other women were charged with interfering with police officer actions, Sewell said. James was arrested in connection with an investigation of an attempted murder that took place on Aug. 12. During the arrest, he was found to have a ghost gun and a large amount of a “controlled substance” police said. He was hit with the same charges as Crum, as well as several counts of criminal possession of a weapon and criminal possession of a controlled substance. Detectives’ Endowment Association President Paul DiGiacomo said in a statement, “When you assault a New York City Detective in order to interfere with an arrest of a man armed with a gun there are repercussions.” He said the group is exploring a possible civil suit against the woman on behalf of the officer. | |
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| 09-02-22 05:09pm - 748 days | #355 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Cops enforce the law. But the laws don't apply to cops. They can hit and punch people, and then charge the people with resisting arrest. And they can shoot people, and claim self-defense. Never trust a cop. Cops are dangerous. Enough said. | |
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| 09-03-22 01:07am - 748 days | #356 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Dangle Trump confesses: "I'm only soory we didn't finish off Sleepy Joe Biden before the bleeping Congress falsely gave him the Whitest House. That is my main regret. But as soon as I return in triumph, I will give my supporters a full pardon, and an apology, for not supporting them through their time of need." In the meantime, Sleepy Joe Biden reveals his stupidity: He says that Dangle Trump supporters are not a threat. What is a threat is the way they think: they think Sleepy Joe stole the election, that violence is OK, that Sleepy Joe Biden is a pussy that should be stomped on. But not to worry: the people are not a threat, only their ideas. Which is the bullshit that fills our President's mind. ----- ----- Trump floats 'full pardons' for Jan. 6 rioters while Biden emphasizes 'rule of law' Yahoo News David Knowles September 2, 2022, 11:12 AM Scroll back up to restore default view. Hours before President Biden delivered a combative speech decrying former President Donald Trump and his "MAGA" followers, who he said "do not believe in the rule of law," Trump declared in an interview that he would look to pardon his supporters convicted for crimes committed during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol. “I will tell you, I will look very, very favorably about full pardons. If I decide to run and if I win, I will be looking very, very strongly about pardons. Full pardons,” Trump said in a Thursday interview with conservative Pittsburgh broadcaster Wendy Bell, adding, “We'll be looking very, very seriously at full pardons because we can't let that happen. ... And I mean full pardons with an apology to many.” At least 903 people have been charged with crimes stemming from the deadly riot at the Capitol building that sought to block Congress from certifying Biden's win over Trump in the 2020 presidential election, while nearly 250 have been sentenced. During the interview Trump said he had been offering financial support to some of those charged for their role in the riot and that he had met with some of those charged, including former police officers and ex-members of the U.S. military. “I met with and I’m financially supporting people that are incredible,” he said. “They were in my office two days ago. It’s very much on my mind.” On Thursday, Thomas Webster, a former New York City police officer and Marine veteran was sentenced to 10 years in prison for attacking a Capitol Police officer during the Jan. 6, 2021, riot with a flagpole and ripping a gas mask from the officer’s face. That marked the longest sentence to date among those who have been convicted. During the interview, Trump, who experts believe could himself face indictment over his handling of classified materials at his Florida home, also falsely claimed that voter fraud had cost him victory in 2020. “The election was a disgrace,” Trump said. “We won the election by a lot. You understand it. Everybody understands it, except people who don’t want to say it, especially Democrats. They cheated, and it was a horrible thing. We ran the election like a third world country.” In his speech at Independence Hall in Philadelphia on Thursday night, Biden cited the persistent and unsubstantiated view that the election had been decided by fraud as a further example of the threat Trump and his supporters pose to democracy. “MAGA Republicans do not respect the Constitution. They do not believe in the rule of law. They do not recognize the will of the people. They refuse to accept the results of a free election,” Biden said. “And they’re working right now, as I speak, in state after state, to give power to decide elections in America to partisans and cronies, empowering election deniers to undermine democracy itself.” On Friday, Biden was asked by Fox News reporter Peter Doocy if he considered “all Trump supporters to be a threat to the country.” “I don’t consider any Trump supporter a threat to the country,” Biden said. “I do think anyone who calls for the use of violence, fails to condemn violence when it is used, refuses to acknowledge when an election has been won, insists upon changing the way that ... you count votes, that is a threat to democracy, to democracy and everything we stand for.” | |
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| 09-03-22 01:45am - 748 days | #357 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Dangle Trump's lawyers reveal the truth: The Federal Government is making a mountain out of a molehill. Yes, Dangle Trump had some papers he took from the Whitest House. But he was only keeping them as souvenirs. So why is the Federal Government making such a big deal out of nothing? Are they trying to distract attention from the Evil Doings of Sleepy Joe Biden's son? Dangle Trump is an honorable man. Yes, he took a few souvenirs from his time in the Whitest House. But he plans on returning to his home in Washington very soon. And then he will have the power to put Sleepy Joe Biden, and his allies, in jail, where they belong. But there is a special note of importance here: the Federal Government is stating that Dangle Trimp is no longer the President. But Dangle disagrees. Dangle says he is still the One, True President of the Untied States of Trumperland, and that Sleepy Joe Biden is a ringer who stole the election in a corrupt and unfair way. Hail, Dangle Trump, the biggest and baddest Swinging Dick in politics. ----- ----- Federal judge puts off ruling on Trump's request for a special master as Trump lawyer calls refusal to turn over documents 'an overdue-library-book scenario' Sonam Sheth,Kimberly Leonard Thu, September 1, 2022 at 1:56 PM A federal judge put off ruling on Trump's request for a special master and said she needs more time to consider. But she elected to unseal some additional records related to the Mar-a-Lago search. Judge Aileen Cannon said she would unseal a status report about the DOJ's investigation. WEST PALM BEACH, Florida — US District Judge Aileen Cannon heard arguments Thursday related to former President Donald Trump's request that a special master be appointed to sift through and filter out any materials seized in the Mar-a-Lago search that could be privileged. After the nearly two-hour hearing, in which an attorney for Trump downplayed the former president's communications with the National Archives, Cannon said she would not yet rule on Trump's request and wanted to take more time to consider national security and privilege issues raised by the Justice Department and the former president's defense lawyers. But she did rule to unseal a status report from the team investigating Trump's handling of national security information. Cannon kept under seal a status report from the filter team responsible for sifting through materials seized from Mar-a-Lago after lawyers for both Trump and the government agreed that the document should remain out of the public view. James Trusty, a defense attorney on Trump's team who previously served as a federal prosecutor, said the process with the National Archives was "ongoing" even though legal filings show Trump's lawyers told investigators they'd handed over all requested documents months ahead of the FBI uncovering more. "We've characterized it at times as an overdue-library-book scenario where there's a dispute — not even a dispute — but ongoing negotiations with [the National Archives] that has suddenly been transformed into a criminal investigation," he said. Chris Kise, who recently joined Trump's defense team, had argued that the judge was in a "challenging" and "unique position" to "help restore public confidence" in the DOJ. He added that the "temperature is very high on both sides," and there's also a "significant lack of trust between both parties." Kise also downplayed the legal and national security risks of Trump moving records from the White House to Mar-a-Lago after leaving office, saying the documents were stored "at a location that was used frequently during his time in office." Trusty said it was "extraordinary" for the government to push back on the appointment of a special master. He also referenced the DOJ's argument that the appointment of a special master would "significantly harm" the US's national security interests given the sensitivity of the documents recovered from Mar-a-Lago. "What is the harm that they are worried about?" he said. "What possibly could justify this kind of vehement objection and rejection of Fourth Amendment law," which relates to the search and seizure of individuals' property. "I would suggest to the court that all we are talking about today is a very modest step," Trusty said, before Cannon interjected. "To do what, exactly?" the judge asked. Trusty reiterated the request for a special master and pointed to attorney-client and executive privilege concerns. Cannon did not press Trump's lawyers to explain Trump's claim that he'd declassified the documents uncovered during the search. When the government was up, Jay Bratt, the DOJ's top counterintelligence official, reiterated the DOJ's position that Trump is not entitled to a special master because he does not have a "possessory interest" in the materials that were seized as they are the government's records. "He is no longer the president and because he is no longer the president he did not have the right to take those documents," Bratt said. Julie Edelstein, a deputy chief in the DOJ's counterintelligence division, doubled down on Bratt's argument, saying the records seized from Mar-a-Lago "were not [Trump's] at the time the search warrant was authorized and the search occurred and he does not have a property interest in those records." She also said it would be "unprecedented" for Trump, as the former president, "to be allowed to assert privilege against the executive branch." Edelstein pointed as well to the national security concerns associated with the documents recovered from Mar-a-Lago. Some materials FBI agents found were "some of the most highly classified" documents and "there was no place that was authorized for the storage of those records" after Trump left office, Edelstein said. She also noted that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is currently spearheading a review of the intelligence and national security risks that could come from the disclosure of information contained in the Mar-a-Lago records. But Cannon pushed back on the government's arguments, pointing to the unprecedented nature of the FBI searching a former president's home, and raising the possibility of a special master working in conjunction with the DNI's office. She floated the possibility that the DNI could continue its review but pause the DOJ's criminal investigation as the special master reviewed the documents. Cannon also later pressed the former president's counsel on why they wouldn't wait to challenge the results of the search in a future proceeding given that no charges have been filed, to which Trusty responded that they had the right to challenge the "preliminary" search. Cannon pushed back, asking why Trump's team then waited two weeks to file their lawsuit. "Part of that I don't think I can disclose," Trusty said, adding that they were "effectively exploring whether we were going to have a level of cooperation that would allow us not to have to run to the court for assistance." The Justice Department also revealed on Thursday that a government filter team had determined after an initial review that roughly 500 pages out of the records seized from Mar-a-Lago could be covered under attorney-client privilege but that a secondary review would likely result in a smaller set of documents being protected. Prosecutors emphasized that the filter team took attorney-client privilege concerns "very seriously" and "applied a very broad and expansive criteria" to make sure the government did not get access to material that could be protected. Any document that appeared legal or had an attorney's name on it was set aside, DOJ lawyer Benjamin Hawk said, adding that the filter team was "over-inclusive and erred on the side of caution." The initial review found that 520 pages, some of which were copies, could be potentially privileged, and he said those documents came only from the storage room at Mar-a-Lago as well as the presidential office Trump had there. A second team of attorneys then began reviewing those pages in order to determine if they were "actually privileged in nature" because such a broad set of criteria had been applied in the initial review, Hawk said. But the department put a pause on the process to give the court time to consider the issue, he added. The courtroom back-and-forth also delved into news overage of the investigation. Trusty bashed investigators for "selective leaking" and said the department was going for a "press release" when it made a "perfectly staged" photo public in a filing that showed documents strewn on the floor. Trump has bashed the photograph on TRUTH Social, saying that investigators made it seem as though they found the files that way and not that agents pulled them from where they were stored and laid them out. Cannon asked Bratt why so many details had surfaced in news reports that were not made public in filings, but Bratt said he didn't condone it and didn't think they were coming "on the part of anyone I work with." Trump's lawyers dodged questions from reporters as they exited the courthouse. | |
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| 09-03-22 01:55am - 748 days | #358 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
The GOP is the party of truth. A Wisconsin GOP candidate calls for pitchforks and torches to light up Democratic foes. This is the kind of thinking that makes me realize Sleepy Joe Biden is full of bullshit. Sleepy Joe says MAGA Republicans are not the problem, the problem is the way they think. A distinction that matters to a politician, but not to an average person. ----- ----- Wisconsin GOP candidate calls for 'pitchforks and torches' SCOTT BAUER Fri, September 2, 2022 at 12:24 PM MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The Republican candidate for governor in Wisconsin endorsed by Donald Trump is calling for people to take up “pitchforks and torches” in reaction to a story that detailed his giving to anti-abortion groups, churches and others — rhetoric that Democrats say amounts to threatening violence. Tim Michels, who co-owns the state's largest construction company, faces Democratic Gov. Tony Evers in the battleground state. If Michels wins, he will be in position to enact a host of GOP priorities passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature leading into the 2024 presidential election. Evers has vetoed more bills than any governor in modern state history and is campaigning on his ability to serve as a check on Republicans. Michels, a multimillionaire, this week reacted strongly to a story published by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel detailing charitable giving by he and his wife's foundation, some of which went to anti-abortion groups and churches that have taken anti-gay positions. Since the story's publication, Michels has gone after not just Evers and Democrats, but also the Journal Sentinel and, more broadly, all reporters. “I believe people should just, just be ready to get out on the streets with pitchforks and torches with how low the liberal media has become,” Michels said Thursday on a conservative talk radio show. “People need to decide ‘Am I going to put up with this? Am I going to tolerate this, taking somebody that gives money to churches or cancer research and use that as a hit piece in the media?’ I’m appalled. It’s disgusting.” That's further than he went in a campaign website posting on Thursday when he encouraged people to “Get involved. Push back. Speak up. Volunteer. Donate. Vote.” Evers' spokesman, Sam Roecker, tweeted Friday that Michels had gone too far. “Instead of explaining why he’s funding groups working to ban access to abortion and contraception, Tim Michels is encouraging violence,” Roecker wrote. “He’s too radical for Wisconsin.” Hannah Menchhff, a Wisconsin Democratic Party spokesperson, accused Michels of threatening violence in an “extreme attempt to pander to Donald Trump and the MAGA base.” Michels' campaign spokesperson, Anna Kelly, on Friday downplayed his comments. “Only political hacks and media accomplices would freak out about Tim using a figure of speech to emphasize the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s ridiculous characterization of his donations to churches, nuns, and charitable causes as ‘radical,’” she said. Michels, who has used the Journal Sentinel article in fundraising pleas, posted a lengthy response to the piece on his campaign website Thursday. He accused Evers and the “corrupt media” of turning his charitable giving and faith “into something malicious.” “I will never, ever apologize for giving to charitable causes, or for being a Christian,” Michels wrote. “However, the Journal Sentinel should be ashamed of their anti-religious bigotry.” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel executive editor George Stanley defended the article, noting that the paper ran a piece on the same day about security costs for the Democratic U.S. Senate candidate that his Republican opponent was urging people to read. “Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporters are independent of all political parties and special interest groups," Stanley said. “We are committed to accuracy so citizens can make up their own minds and stay in charge of their government.” The Timothy and Barbara Michels Family Foundation donated $1.66 million in 2020 alone, the Journal Sentinel reported. The bulk of it, $1 million, went to Cornell University in New York. where a faculty member pioneered a rare surgery that saved the life of Michels’ daughter, who had a brain tumor at age 11. The Journal Sentinel published a story in March about that donation and the surgery that Michels' daughter had. That was one month before Michels announced his run for governor. Michels also gave $175,000 to Wisconsin Right to Life, Pro Life Wisconsin Education Task Force and Avail NYC, a New York City crisis pregnancy center. Pro Life Wisconsin wants to outlaw abortion and ban most common forms of contraception and birth control. It also wants to prohibit in vitro fertilization. The Michels’ foundation also donated $10,000 to Christ Fellowship in Miami. The Journal Sentinel’s story noted that the church’s pastor, Omar Giritli, in June called arguments for exception to abortions in cases of rape or incest “deceptive reasoning.” The couple also donated $50,000 to Spring Creek Church in Pewaukee. Its pastor, Chip Bernhard, has suggested that people who have an abortion need forgiveness, and allowing transgender children to use the bathroom of their choice is “awful.” Kelly, Michels’ campaign spokesperson, did not immediately respond to questions about whether Michels supported those positions. Michels defended his giving to pregnancy resource centers, Wisconsin Right to Life and Pro Life Wisconsin, saying "we believe women who may feel overwhelmed by an unplanned pregnancy need and deserve compassion, love, support and options other than abortion. “I apologize for none of it,” Michels wrote. ___ This story was updated to correct that George Stanley is the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s executive editor, not its managing editor. | |
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| 09-03-22 02:04am - 748 days | #359 | |
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Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Online death threats against Biden after speech. But Sleepy Joe defends the right of people to have different ideas. "That's what makes America great", he says. Counterterrorism experts say Biden's speech is dividing the country, instead of uniting it. Should Sleepy Joe Biden be replaced with a more effective leader? ----- ----- Online death threats against Biden after speech Yahoo News Jana Winter September 2, 2022, 5:31 PM President Biden’s fiery speech in Philadelphia denouncing former President Donald Trump and what he described as “extreme MAGA ideology” has sparked online calls for violence, including death threats against the president, according to documents obtained by Yahoo News. Biden’s remarks also prompted immediate concerns from senior counterterrorism officials who said they fear that calling Trump supporters extremists would be viewed as a call to arms and would only inflame an already volatile threat environment. “Too much of what’s happening in our country today is not normal,” Biden said Thursday night at Independence Hall, flanked by two U.S. Marines. “Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.” Joe Biden President Biden delivers remarks on what he called the "continued battle for the soul of the nation" at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters) By Friday afternoon, posts on forums popular among white supremacists and far-right extremists called for the assassination of Biden, and named Jewish administration officials including Attorney General Merrick Garland, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas as potential targets. Declarations of civil war were also appearing, according to documents detailing some of the threats. “On Gab, one user posted a series of violent threats accusing Biden of stealing the election,” according to a threat alert from Site Intelligence Group sent to law enforcement agencies and others on Friday. Trump and many of his supporters have long claimed, without evidence, that the 2020 presidential election won by Biden was stolen from Trump due to widespread voter fraud. Site Intelligence Group, which tracks online extremism activity, issued several threat alerts detailing calls for violence in response to Biden’s speech. The potential threats were posted in online forums tied to the Proud Boys, neo-Nazis and other extremist groups. “Users on several far-right and ultranationalist venues made violent threats against President Joe Biden following his speech addressing political extremism on September 1, 2022,” said one of the alerts. “Users advocated for Biden to be murdered and predicted violence if he continues speaking about the topic.” Amid criticism, the White House has defended Biden's language, saying that the president is standing up for democracy and denouncing political violence. On Wednesday, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre singled out specific Republicans who’ve espoused extremist rhetoric. A far-right rally featuring Nick Fuentes A far-right rally featuring Nick Fuentes, a leader of the America First movement and a white nationalist, Nov. 14, 2020. (Leah Millis/Reuters) During Biden's speech, four current U.S. domestic counterterrorism officials told Yahoo News they were concerned the president’s words would further divide the nation and lead to increased threats against government and law enforcement officials. “I fear he is lighting a fuse that is not going to go well,” one senior Biden counterterrorism official said. “Sadly this is not a united speech but a very divisive one.” On Friday, this official said their fears appear to have been confirmed by what they described as an uptick in threats of potential violence. A different counterterrorism official said they were concerned that fringe right-wing and extremist groups will use Biden’s speech to recruit and fundraise, potentially increasing the longer-term threat from these groups. The officials requested anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to the media. Some said they also didn’t want to be seen as criticizing the president. The Department of Homeland Security referred Yahoo News’ request for comment to the White House National Security Council. Donald Trump Then-President Donald Trump tosses out MAGA caps at a rally in Waterford Township, Mich., in October 2020. (Carlos Barria/Reuters) Former senior DHS counterterrorism official John Cohen told Yahoo News he was also concerned about the potential ramifications of Biden’s speech. “The president provided a powerful portrayal of the complex dynamic and dangerous threat environment currently facing the U.S., a threat environment fueled by the conspiracy theories and other extremist content that is pervasive across the online and media ecosystem,” said Cohen, former acting undersecretary for intelligence at DHS and currently an adjunct professor at Georgetown University. “I am concerned, however, that his words will be used by America’s adversaries to incite attacks by those who believe that violence is an acceptable way to express one’s political or ideological beliefs,” he said. Cohen added that online calls for violence were extensive prior to the speech, but appear to be on the rise. In a statement to Yahoo News on Friday, the White House said that the calls for violence following Biden’s speech illustrate the threat the president described. "The President’s message couldn’t have been more clear: there is no place in our democracy for political violence,” the statement said. “None. And that some of the more extreme elements in our society are now calling for more violence only proves the very point of his speech ... that we are in a dangerous moment right now, a moment where simply stating the truth about the fragility of our democracy brings out the worst instincts of those who want to tear it apart. The President was right to call them out. The bigger risk to the body politic would have been to remain silent in the face of such a threat." Joe Biden Biden speaking in Philadelphia on Thursday night. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters) Some Republicans and former Trump administration officials have been critical of Biden’s strong rhetoric, accusing the president of being divisive. “I don’t understand how Joe Biden is so angry when his party controls the House, the Senate and the White House,” Richard Grenell, acting director of National Intelligence during the Trump administration, told Yahoo News on Friday. “He should be telling America how great the country is under his leadership and instead he’s attacking Republicans.” On Friday, Biden defended his remarks, noting that he does not believe all Trump supporters are a threat to the country. “I do think anyone who calls for the use of violence, fails to condemn violence when it is used, refuses to acknowledge when an election has been won, insists upon changing the way that ... you count votes, that is a threat to democracy, to democracy and everything we stand for,” he said on Friday. The FBI declined to comment on Biden’s speech but told Yahoo News: “The FBI takes all threats seriously. We work closely with our local law enforcement partners to assess and respond to threats to keep our community safe. As always, we would like to remind members of the public that if they observe anything suspicious to report it to law enforcement immediately.” | |
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| 09-03-22 08:30pm - 747 days | #360 | |
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Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Man who made threat to crash plane into Walmart faces charges A man who stole a plane and flew it over northern Mississippi after threatening to crash it into a Walmart faces charges of grand larceny and terroristic threats. 'Will get the help he needs' But why is this different from a GOP candidate who calls for 'pitchforks and torches' to terrorize opponents? GOP candidate calls for 'pitchforks and torches' Tim Michels, Wisconsin's Republican nominee for governor, reacted strongly to a newspaper article citing his donations to anti-abortion and anti-gay groups. 'I apologize for none of it' The GOP candidate's workers say Tim Michels is only using a "figure of speech", that Michels is not advocating violence. And Michels can hide behind the theory of political speech, just like Dangle Trump often does. But it seems like some people are held accountable for what they say, while others are not. | |
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| 09-04-22 03:58am - 747 days | #361 | |
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Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
GOP says it's better for GOP politicians to set the rules instead of letting voters decide. GOP is smarter and more intelligent than the people. "We lead, you follow", says Dongle Trump, the most corrupt president we've seen. ----- ----- GOP escalates fight against citizen-led ballot initiatives Associated Press DAVID A. LIEB September 4, 2022, 1:13 AM Scroll back up to restore default view. JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Hundreds of thousands of people signed petitions this year backing proposed ballot initiatives to expand voting access, ensure abortion rights and legalize recreational marijuana in Arizona, Arkansas and Michigan. Yet voters might not get a say because Republican officials or judges have blocked the proposals from the November elections, citing flawed wording, procedural shortcomings or insufficient petition signatures. At the same time, Republican lawmakers in Arkansas and Arizona have placed constitutional amendments on the ballot proposing to make it harder to approve citizen initiatives in the future. The Republican pushback against the initiative process is part of a several-year trend that gained steam as Democratic-aligned groups have increasingly used petitions to force public votes on issues that Republican-led legislatures have opposed. In reliably Republican Missouri, for example, voters have approved initiatives to expand Medicaid, raise the minimum wage and legalize medical marijuana. An initiative seeking to allow recreational pot is facing a court challenge from an anti-drug activist aiming to knock it off the November ballot. Some Democrats contend Republicans are subverting the will of the people by making the ballot initiative process more difficult. “What is happening now is just a web of technicalities to thwart the process in states where voters are using the people’s tool to make an immediate positive change in their lives," said Chris Melody Fields Figueredo, executive director of the Ballot Initiative Strategy Center, which has worked with progressive groups sponsoring the blocked initiatives. "That is not the way our democracy should work,” she added Republicans who have thrown up hurdles to initiative petitions contend they are protecting the integrity of the lawmaking process against well-funded interest groups trying to bend state policies in their favor. “I think the Legislature is a much purer way to get things done and it represents the people much better, rather than having this jungle where you just throw it on the ballot,” said South Dakota state Rep. Tim Goodwin, who has perennially targeted the initiative process with restrictions. About half the states allow citizen initiatives, in which petition signers can bypass a legislature to place proposed laws or constitutional changes directly before voters. But executive or judicial officials often still have some role in the process, typically by certifying that the ballot wording is clear and accurate and that petition circulators gathered enough valid signatures of registered voters. In Michigan this past week, two Republican members of the bipartisan Board of State Canvassers blocked initiatives to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution and expand opportunities for voting. Each measure had significantly more than the required 425,000 signatures. But GOP board members said the voting measure had unclear wording and the abortion measure was flawed because of spacing problems that scrunched some words together. Supporters have appealed both decisions to the Michigan Supreme Court, which consists of a majority of Democratic-appointed judges. The Arkansas Supreme Court, whose justices run in nonpartisan elections, is weighing an appeal of an August decision blocking an initiative that would legalize recreational marijuana for adults. The State Board of Election Commissioners, which has just one Democrat among its many Republicans, determined that the ballot title was misleading because it failed to mention it would repeal potency limits in an existing medical marijuana provision. Because the deadline has passed to certify initiative titles, the Supreme Court has allowed the measure on the general election ballot while it decides whether the votes will be counted. A lawsuit by initiative supporters contends a 2019 law passed by the Republican-led Legislature violates the Arkansas Constitution by allowing the board to reject ballot titles. “The (initiative) process in Arkansas has gotten consistently harder each cycle, as the Legislature adds more and more requirements," said Steve Lancaster, a lawyer for Responsible Growth Arkansas, which is sponsoring the marijuana amendment. It would get even harder if voters support a legislatively referred amendment on the November ballot that would require a 60% vote to approve citizen-initiated ballot measures or future constitutional amendments. In Arizona, the primarily Republican-appointed Supreme Court recently blocked a proposed constitutional amendment that would have extended early voting and limited lobbyist gifts to lawmakers. The measure also would have specifically prohibited the Legislature from overturning the results of presidential elections, which some Republicans had explored after then- President Donald Trump’s loss in 2020. After a lower court initially ruled the measure could appear on the November ballot, Arizona's high court instructed the judge to reconsider. Then it upheld a subsequent ruling throwing out enough petition signatures to prevent the initiative from qualifying for the ballot. Still on the ballot are several other amendments referred by Arizona's Republican-led Legislature. Those measures would limit initiatives to a single subject, require a 60% supermajority to approve tax proposals and expand the Legislature's authority to change voter-approved initiatives. Those proposals come after Arizona Republicans have spent the past decade enacting laws making it more difficult to get citizen initiatives on the ballot. State laws now require petition sheets to be precisely printed and ban the use of a copy machine to create new ones. Other laws require paid circulators to include their registration number on each petition sheet, get it notarized and check a box saying they were paid. “The effect is to make it much harder, much more expensive to get the signatures to put one of these propositions on the ballot,” said Terry Goddard, a Democrat who served as the state’s attorney general from 2003 through 2011. After years of trying, Goddard finally succeeded this year in getting an initiative on the ballot that would require nonprofit groups that spend large amounts on elections to reveal their donors. Earlier this summer, South Dakota voters defeated a measure that would have made it harder to pass initiatives on taxes and spending. The proposal from the Republican-led Legislature would have required a 60% vote to raise taxes or spend over a certain amount of money. Voters rejected the measure by 67%. “This just seems like a way to suppress voters. honestly,” Joshua Matzner, a Democrat, said after voting against it. ___ Associated Press writers Bob Christie in Phoenix and Stephen Groves in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, contributed to this report. | |
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| 09-04-22 04:29am - 747 days | #362 | |
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Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Dangle Trump reveals the TRUTH: Sleepy Joe Biden is the "enemy of the state". Although presidents are supposed to stick together and help the entire country, Sleepy Joe has been dragging down the Untied States of Trumperland after stealing the Whitest House away from its right owner, Dangle Trump, the Man with the Balls of Brass. And that is why Dangle felt he had the right to take top secret papers from the Whitest House to his home in Florida: he was safeguarding the secrets and memories from his days as the real President of the Untied States. Now Sleepy Joe is making people mad because he's using the federal government to try to punish Dangle, for made-up crimes. Vote for Dangle, and bring back the leader we need to make us safe from Russia and North Korea and China. And if Dangle is arrested, expect to see riots in the streets, where that lilly-white Republican, Lindsey Graham, will be leading the crowds with a pitchfork and flaming torches as he burns Democrats and Sleepy Joe Biden's allies in the name of freedom. ---- ---- Trump brands Biden 'enemy of the state' at Pennsylvania rally Anne LEBRETON Sat, September 3, 2022 at 5:52 PM Donald Trump branded Joe Biden an "enemy of the state" Saturday, as he hit back at the US president's assertion that the Republican and his supporters are undermining American democracy and slammed last month's FBI raid of his Florida home. Making his first public appearance since the August 8 raid, Trump said the search was a "travesty of justice" and warned it would produce "a backlash the likes of which nobody has ever seen." "There can be no more vivid example of the very real threats from American freedom than just a few weeks ago, you saw, when we witnessed one of the most shocking abuses of power by any administration in American history," Trump said. His suggestion that the Biden administration had overseen the raid goes against long-standing protocols which see the Justice Department and the FBI act independently of the White House. Trump told cheering supporters at the rally in the city of Wilkes-Barre that the "egregious abuse of the law" was going to produce "a backlash the likes of which nobody has ever seen." He also hit back at Biden's speech this week in which the president said his predecessor and Republican supporters "represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic." Speaking in Philadelphia, the cradle of US democracy, the president launched an extraordinary assault on those Republicans who embrace Trump's "Make America Great Again" ideology -- and urged his own supporters to fight back in what he billed as a "battle for the Soul of the Nation." Trump slammed it as the "most vicious, hateful and divisive speech ever delivered by an American president." "He's an enemy of the state. You want to know that," Trump said. "Republicans in the MAGA movement are not the ones trying to undermine our democracy," he continued. "We are the ones trying to save our democracy, very simple. The danger to democracy comes from the radical left, not from the right," he added. Trump was appearing in Pennsylvania to rally support from Republicans ahead of November's midterm elections, which could see Biden's Democrats lose control of both houses of Congress. It comes as Trump is under increasing legal pressure over the documents found by the FBI at his Mar-a-Lago estate. The Justice Department has said in court filings that highly classified government documents, including some marked "Top Secret," were discovered in Trump's personal office during the raid. A detailed list of what was seized also showed Trump held on to more than 11,000 unclassified government records that he claims are his to keep -- but legally are owned by the National Archives. Among the papers seized were 18 documents labelled "top secret", 53 labelled "secret" and another 31 marked "confidential." Of those, seven top secret files, 17 secret files and three confidential files were retrieved from Trump's private office. Agents also found several dozen empty folders labelled "classified" in the office, raising speculation that sensitive documents may have been lost, destroyed or moved. | |
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| 09-04-22 09:09am - 746 days | #363 | |
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Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Bed Bath & Beyond CFO plunges to death at New York's Jenga Tower. Dangle Trump in tears. "He was one of my closest buddies. He will be missed. But business is business, and he was causing me losses. So I ordered the hit. But I am protected, because of the Presidential Pardon I gave to myself before leaving office. So take that, Sleepy Joe Biden." ----- ----- Bed Bath & Beyond CFO plunges to death at New York's Jenga tower - reports Reuters September 4, 2022, 7:41 AM (Reuters) - Bed Bath & Beyond Inc's chief financial officer fell to his death from the 18th floor of New York's Tribeca skyscraper known as the "Jenga" tower on Friday afternoon, according to media reports. Gustavo Arnal, 52, joined Bed Bath & Beyond in 2020. He previously worked as CFO for cosmetics brand Avon in London and had a 20-year stint with Procter & Gamble, according to his LinkedIn profile. Police were called to 56 Leonard Street near Church Street around 1 p.m. ET (1700 GMT), where an unidentified man was pronounced dead at the scene, according to the New York Post. Bed Bath and Beyond and the New York Police Department did not immediately respond to emails and calls for comment. On Aug. 16, Arnal, sold 55,013 shares in the company, Reuters' calculations showed based on SEC filings. The big-box chain - once considered a so-called "category killer" in home and bath goods - has seen its fortunes falter after an attempt to sell more of its own brand, or private label, goods. Last week, Bed Bath & Beyond said it would close 150 stores, cut jobs and overhaul its merchandising strategy in an attempt to turn around its money-losing business. Bed Bath & Beyond forecast a bigger-than-expected 26% slump in same-store sales for the second quarter and said it would retain its buybuy Baby business, which it had put up for sale. (Reporting by Akriti Sharma in Bengaluru; Editing by Lisa Shumaker and Deepa Babington) | |
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| 09-04-22 09:24am - 746 days | #364 | |
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Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
A former federal prosecutor says Donald Trump should be arrested 'promptly' after 'unlawfully taking' classified records: 'Did he sell them to America's adversaries?' Yelena Dzhanova Sun, September 4, 2022 at 7:22 AM Ex-prosecutor Glenn Kirschner said Trump should be arrested "promptly" in light of the Mar-a-Lago search. The FBI recovered dozens of empty folders marked confidential or containing instructions to return the contents to an aide. "Did he sell them to America's adversaries? Did he use them to blackmail people?" Kirschner asked. Former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner believes Donald Trump should be arrested "immediately" following the FBI's Mar-a-Lago probe to recover confidential White House documents. In the probe, investigators recovered nearly 100 empty folders, according to a detailed inventory unsealed and released by the Justice Department. It's unclear where the contents of each empty folder are. - ADVERTISEMENT - Kirschner, speaking in an episode of his YouTube channel, questioned whether Trump might have sold or given away some of those classified government documents. "The most reasonable inference is that Donald Trump disposed of those classified documents after unlawfully taking them from the White House," Kirschner said. "To what purpose did he put them? Did he sell them to America's adversaries? Did he use them to blackmail people? Did he use them to leverage a favorable business deal in some country or another? We don't know yet." A legal expert who runs a law firm that specializes in national security told The Hill that Trump having given away the documents could be a possibility. "The least optimistic scenario is that they are nowhere to be found because they are already with someone else," Kel McClanahan, executive director of National Security Counselors, warned. Last month, the FBI probed into the former president's Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida and recovered several boxes containing classified records that Trump took with him from the White House once he left office, according to the court records made public. Some of the boxes were distinctly marked as "top secret," Insider's Sonam Sheth reported. Under the Presidential Records Act, he should have turned the records over to the agency upon leaving office. The Justice Department is now investigating whether Trump violated any laws pertaining to the handling of government documents. A legal analyst has previously said he could receive a 10-year prison sentence if he's convicted of violating the Espionage Act, a law that dates back to World War I that essentially bars anyone from sharing or disseminating information that could potentially harm or disadvantage the US. Trump has so far denied all assertions of wrongdoing, saying that he had "declassified" the documents. He also said that "everyone ends up having to bring home their work from time to time." Kirschner said Trump should be arrested immediately. "There is no legitimate argument, there is no persuasive argument, there is no compelling argument against arresting Donald Trump promptly," he said. Read the original article on Business Insider | |
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| 09-04-22 09:28am - 746 days | #365 | |
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Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Trump, who received hundreds of millions of dollars from his father's real estate empire, calls John Fetterman spoiled: 'He lived off his parents' money' Isabella Zavarise Sat, September 3, 2022 at 9:21 PM Former President Donald Trump attacked Democrat candidate John Fetterman at a Pennsylvania rally. He called Fetterman spoiled and said he "leeched off his parents' money." Trump was in Pennsylvania to support Republicans Dr. Mehmet Oz and Doug Mastriano. Former President Donald Trump said Democrat candidate Lt. Gov. John Fetterman "is a spoiled and entitled socialist loser who leeched off his parents' money" during a rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday. In 2018, The New York Times debunked Trump's claims that he was a self-made billionaire. The outlet reported Trump received the equivalent of at least $413 million from his father's real estate empire, beginning when he was a toddler. Trump also said Fetterman, who is running against Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz for a seat in the US Senate, "lives on his parents' money" and alleged Fetterman uses drugs. Fetterman has served as the lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania since 2019. Prior to that, he was the mayor of Braddock, Pennsylvania, for 13 years. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that Fetterman's parents supported him well into his 40s because he was only earning $150 per month during his mayorship. Fetterman has acknowledged this support and now earns $217,610 as lieutenant governor. In response to Trump's comments, Joe Calvello, the director of communications for Fetterman tweeted "more and more lies from Trump and Dr. Oz; another day, but it's the same shit from these two desperate and sad dudes.' The former president was campaigning for Republicans Oz and Doug Mastriano — a candidate for state governor — before the November midterm elections. According to recent polls, Fetterman is ahead of Oz by 8.1 points in the race to represent Pennsylvania in the US Senate. Saturday's rally was the first one Trump has appeared at since the FBI searched his Mar-a-Lago estate on August 8 and discovered more than 10,000 government documents, according to a publicly released inventory. At the podium, Trump once again decried the search, claiming that the FBI raided the "hopes and dreams" of the American's he's been "fighting for." He then took the opportunity to call President Joe Biden "an enemy of the state" in response to comments Biden made on Thursday lambasting "MAGA forces" for fanning the "flames of political violence." Trump also ridiculed Mark Zuckerberg, saying the Meta CEO begged the former president to have dinner with him last week. Representatives for Trump and Fetterman did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment. Read the original article on Business Insider | |
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| 09-04-22 10:09am - 746 days | #366 | |
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Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Dangle Trump reveals the truth: "Yes, I have ties to the Mafia. My family forced me into a life of crime and corruption before I had a chance to escape. But since then, I've found that my Mafia ties are helpful in eliminating my enemies. And I have plenty of those. Sleepy Joe Biden is at the top of my "Enemies List". I'm trying to arrange a hit on Sleepy Joe, but both the Mafia and the Secret Service are giving me problems: they say Sleepy Joe is too public of a figure to just gun down. But what about the Kennedy family: John F. and his brother were both gunned down. So why not Sleepy Joe? And then I can return to the Whitest House in triumph". -------- -------- Trump calls Biden 'enemy of the state' during 1st rally since Mar-a-Lago search ABC News ALEXANDRA HUTZLER September 4, 2022, 2:16 AM In his first rally since the FBI searched his Mar-a-Lago home last month, former President Donald Trump took the stage in Pennsylvania for nearly two hours during which he responded to the raid on his home last month and President Joe Biden's remarks earlier this week. "The shameful raid and break-in of my home Mar-a-Lago was a travesty of justice," Trump said of the search. "The FBI and the Justice Department have become vicious monsters." Trump was in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania on Saturday campaigning in support of Doug Mastriano, who is running for governor against Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, and Dr. Mehmet Oz, who is taking on Democratic Lt. Gov. John Fetterman in the U.S. Senate race. Trump praised both candidates while emphasizing the importance of taking back the House and Senate this November. "Two months from now the people of Pennsylvania are going to fire the radical left democrats and you are going to elect Doug Mastriano as your next governor, and you are going to send my friend Oz, he is a great guy, to the US Senate," Trump said. "You're going to elect an amazing slate of true America first Republicans to Congress." And though Saturday's rally was in support of his Pennsylvania candidates, Trump spent the vast majority of his speech focused on his own issues— mainly with the FBI, the Department of Justice, fellow Republicans and Joe Biden. “Joe Biden came to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to give the most vicious, hateful and divisive speech ever delivered by an American president.....He's an enemy of the state," Trump said in response to Biden's remarks earlier this week. Amid these high stakes, Trump's rally also comes as fallout continues from the Aug. 8 FBI search at his Mar-a-Lago estate, where agents recovered classified documents as part of an investigation into his handling of presidential records after leaving office. On Friday, Judge Cannon unsealed a detailed inventory showing what the FBI seized during the search. The list states some documents bearing classification markings ranging from confidential to top secret were found intermingled with newspaper clippings, photographs and other documents. Trump almost immediately launched into a response to the raid of his Mar-a-Lago home Saturday, framing it as persecution of a political enemy. He attacked law enforcement without offering any substantive response to the allegations against him regarding his handling of classified documents. "There could be no more vivid example of the very real threats of American freedom than just a few weeks ago you saw when we witnessed one of the most shocking abuses of power by any administration in American history. The shameful raid and breaking of my home Mar a Lago was a travesty of justice," Trump said. Those in line to hear him speak on Saturday expressed beliefs that Trump was unfairly targeted. "I don't feel he did anything wrong. I think that will come out in the end, but they just want to turn people against Trump," said Barbara, a voter from Mountain Top, Pennsylvania. Trump's appearance in Pennsylvania comes just days after President Joe Biden's back-to-back visits in the battleground state, during which he condemned Trump and his fellow "MAGA Republicans" as a dominant force in today's GOP and a threat to American democracy. "Too much of what's happening in our country today is not normal," Biden said in a prime-time speech from Independence Hall in Philadelphia on Thursday. "Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic." Biden's ramped up rhetoric comes as he seeks to recast the November elections as a choice between those who want to save the "soul of the nation" or those who he says are a danger to democracy. "Joe Biden came to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to give the most vicious, hateful and divisive speech ever delivered by an American president," Trump said "You're all enemies of the state? He's an enemy of the state. You want to know the truth." MORE: Biden seeks to reframe midterms into stark choice between democracy and Trump-led extremism Trump supporters waiting in line to see the former president give remarks criticized Biden's rhetoric and said it has only energized them even more ahead of the midterms. Evy Mecjes, and Debbie Latsha called Biden's speech "very divisive." "We're now the bad guys. We are the terrorists of the United States of America," Mecjes said. Latsha said Biden's speech showed how "afraid" Democrats were of the power Trump still has over the Republican Party. "They're a little afraid of all the people that are rising up and whose eyes are being opened, who are waking up to what's truly happening in our government," Latsha said. "So let's see if we can smash them down a little bit more and divide people a little bit more. I mean, there was nothing unifying about that." They defended Trump supporters pointing to school closures during the pandemic and inflation as examples of how they felt Democrats have hurt Americans. "People are rising up because we're pissed off about how our government is treating us and you know, President Biden does not speak for the people," Mecjes remarked. Biden will be back in Pennsylvania again on Sunday, spending part of his Labor Day weekend in Pittsburgh. PHOTO: Merchandise is available for sale as people gather to hear former president Donald Trump speak as he endorses local candidates at the Mohegan Sun Arena, Sept. 3, 2022, in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images) PHOTO: Merchandise is available for sale as people gather to hear former president Donald Trump speak as he endorses local candidates at the Mohegan Sun Arena, Sept. 3, 2022, in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images) While Republicans have generally been favored to win back control of both chambers of Congress this midterm cycle, recent legislative victories for Democrats and some positive economic news has bolstered Democrats' chances to keep their majorities. MORE: From Kyle Rittenhouse to the president of World Taekwondo: Who's been inside Trump's Mar-a-Lago office? PHOTO: Former President Donald Trump arrives at a rally, Aug. 5, 2022, in Waukesha, Wis. (Morry Gash/AP, FILE) PHOTO: Former President Donald Trump arrives at a rally, Aug. 5, 2022, in Waukesha, Wis. (Morry Gash/AP, FILE) Trump calls Biden 'enemy of the state' during 1st rally since Mar-a-Lago search originally appeared on abcnews.go.com | |
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| 09-04-22 01:17pm - 746 days | #367 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Dangle Trump says he was going to donate the documents to his Presidential Library. So he doesn't know why Sleepy Joe Biden is making such a fuss about the documents. Also, Dangle says, he was holding onto them because he's returning to the Whitest House as our next President. So that's another reason why he kept the documents. ---- ---- Trump suggests the Mar-a-Lago documents were bound for his library. But advisers say he's rarely talked about it. NBC Universal Peter Nicholas and Jonathan Allen and Marc Caputo September 4, 2022, 2:00 AM A central question surrounding the records former President Donald Trump took from the White House and stored at his Mar-a-Lago home is why was he keeping reams of government documents and classified material. The criminal investigation now underway has elicited few answers so far. A lawyer for Trump “offered no explanation as to why boxes of government records” were being kept at the former president’s estate, the Justice Department wrote in a court filing last week. But Trump himself invoked something that advisers say has rarely come up: his library. At the tail end of an Aug. 22 statement, Trump suggested the records seized from Mar-a-Lago were bound for inclusion in a future “Donald J. Trump Presidential Library and Museum.” The Justice Department’s more detailed inventory of the documents, unsealed Friday, showed that Trump had held on to more than 10,000 government records, apart from those with classification markings. That he was keeping any at all confounds former National Archives and Records Administration officials who said that the material belonged to the U.S. government, no matter what Trump believed, and should have been turned over the moment he left office. For Trumpworld, a library has been little more than an afterthought, six past and present advisers say. As an ex-president bent on being a future president, Trump hasn’t wanted to leave an impression that his focus has shifted to his legacy. Erecting a library at this point would be the political equivalent of building a mausoleum: a sign that his career in elective politics was dead, some close to him said. Advisers describe discussions about a Trump presidential library over the years as off and on. One ex-adviser recalled looking at Florida property maps during meetings in the small White House dining room near the Oval Office. A longtime Trump adviser said that Trump allies were “scouting locations” in the Palm Beach area, home to Mar-a-Lago. (A joke among those involved in the planning was that they would put the library in Greenland, the island that Trump entertained buying midway through his term, one person close to him said.) Another person close to Trump who spoke briefly to him about a library earlier this year said, “He didn’t seem terribly interested. He wasn’t like, ‘I gotta get my library going.’ He’s more interested in being president again.” One Trump confidant, who, as was the case with others, spoke on condition of anonymity to speak more freely, added: “Presidential libraries are for ex-presidents. He’s a next president. He’s coming back.” A Trump spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment about plans for a library. In a court appearance last week, Trump attorney Chris Kise said there was nothing nefarious about a former president holding records from his tenure. Rather, he said, the mix of material found at Mar-a-Lago “is what you would expect if you looked through a bunch of boxes that were moved in a hurry from a residence or an office. It contains all sorts of things.” If Trump’s plan was to route the records to a future library, he went about it the wrong way, former National Archives officials say. All he needed to do is what he was supposed to have done in the first place: Give every presidential record back to the U.S. government upon leaving office, as the Presidential Records Act of 1978 requires. Once his library was up and running, he could then have gone to the National Archives and asked for a loan of documents he wanted to exhibit, as past presidents have done. Former President Barack Obama’s presidential library, for example, expects to display his speeches and the gifts he received over his two terms — all loaned by the National Archives. Robert Clark, a former National Archives official at the Franklin D. Roosevelt library in Hyde Park, New York, said every president was entitled to build a library. “But there is a process. He can’t just store the stuff in his garage until the library gets built. That’s not how it works,” Clark said. One of Trump’s worries was that a library would end up showing material that painted him in an unflattering light, said a former senior White House official. He wanted some control over what the library would contain, the source added. Modern presidential libraries have two main components: a trove of presidential records overseen by the National Archives, and a museum open to the public. Ex-presidents aren’t supposed to control the records that the library collects. Museums are a different case. Privately funded, they’ve often evolved into shrines to the ex-president. One former Trump representative recalled speaking to a Madame Tussauds museum official about donating a wax figure of Trump to a future library. Another idea that Trump advisers have considered is seeing if they can acquire and display Air Force One once the aircraft is replaced by a new model later in the decade, one of the people close to him said. “I am tempted to observe that given Trump’s limited interest in much else than himself, I am not sure what a Trump library would contain,” said Tom Rath, a former senior adviser to five Republican presidential campaigns. “You can only have so many copies of ‘The Art of the Deal.’” Trump wouldn’t be unique in wanting to control his image. “One of the great knocks on the presidential library system has been that it is, in fact, very difficult to get critical materials into the museum,” said Paul Musgrave, a political science professor at the University of Massachusetts who worked at Richard Nixon’s presidential library. What makes Trump an outlier is that most of his predecessors in the modern era willingly parted with their records, even when they had a choice to withhold them in their entirety. The records act shifted ownership and control of papers from an ex-president to the U.S. government beginning with Ronald Reagan’s inauguration in 1981. Yet Franklin D. Roosevelt had voluntarily turned over his records to the National Archives, as did his successors Harry Truman and Dwight Eisenhower. When he resigned, Nixon wanted to destroy the secret tape recordings that he’d made in office, but Congress passed a law in 1974 that kept them in the government’s possession. Nixon showed “he wasn’t interested in following precedent,” Clark said. “And we’re in one of those crossroads moments now.” There’s no guarantee that Trump could raise the gargantuan sums needed to build a library, in any case. The Obama Presidential Center in Chicago is expected to clock in at more than $830 million, and Obama began fundraising before he left office. Raising funds for a library is especially difficult for former presidents, who have little to offer prospective donors. Out of power, they can’t reward donors with the ambassadorships and state dinner invitations that are often enticements to give money. As president, Trump’s fundraising focus was his re-election bid. During Trump’s tenure, advisers mused on occasion about whether the price tag had risen so high that Obama’s might be the last library that’s ever built. But one person close to Trump suggested he could reduce the cost if he were to forge a partnership with a university. If Trump follows through at some point and raises the money, the end product would inevitably be a celebration of his record, two impeachments notwithstanding. Self-veneration isn’t what worries some historians, though. If records in Trump’s care were to go missing or get thrown out, that material is potentially lost to history. The National Archives was plainly worried about the condition in which Trump kept the documents. In the 15 boxes that Trump handed over in January, archivists found “a lot of classified records” jumbled with newspapers, photos and correspondence, the redacted FBI affidavit used to support the search of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home showed. FBI agents who seized records from the property last month found classified material in a desk drawer along with Trump’s passports. At issue is whether the United States will risk leaving omissions in the historical record that warp the public’s understanding of Trump’s presidency. “President Trump’s decision to withhold or take material with him struck directly at the public’s ability to know the truth about his administration,” said Tim Naftali, head of the undergraduate public policy program at NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, and the former director of the Nixon presidential library. “Our republic depends on transparency,” he added. “It’s not perfect by any stretch. But it’s a goal we try to achieve.” | |
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| 09-05-22 07:36am - 745 days | #368 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Senator Lindsey Graham is waffling on Dangle Trump. Linsey says Dangle, with his big swinging dick, will jump on women's pussies too much to pay much attention to the Whitest House. So maybe Sleepy Joe Biden, if he wakes up in time, will run for a second term in the Whitest House. ----- ----- Lindsey Graham said Trump will lose in 2024 to Biden if he doesn't curb his personality: 'If it's a personality contest, he'll be in trouble' Business Insider Yelena Dzhanova September 4, 2022, 6:19 AM Sen. Lindsey Graham said Trump beats out Biden in terms of policy but not personality. "If it's a personality contest, he'll be in trouble," Graham told CNBC. Trump has teased a 2024 presidential run since losing the election in 2020, but he has not yet announced a bid. Sen. Lindsey Graham said former President Donald Trump would be a strong contender in the 2024 presidential election if he could only curb his personality. Speaking in an interview with CNBC, Graham said he believes Trump "could be" the best person to represent the Republican Party in 2024. "Whether you like Trump or not he was a consequential president," Graham said. "I think a strong American president — unpredictable — is a good thing as long as you keep it within the boundaries." "His problem is personal, his policies have stood the test of time but has he worn the American people out in terms of his personality? Time will tell," Graham continued. "But I'll say this, after the Biden presidency, if there's a policy debate in 2024, I like his chances. If it's a personality contest, he'll be in trouble." Trump has yet to announce a 2024 run. But since losing the 2020 election to President Biden, Trump has said at various times that he expects to win in 2024 should he run in the next presidential election. Sen. Lindsey Graham said former President Donald Trump would be a strong contender in the 2024 presidential election if only he could curb his personality. (Reuters) Sen. Lindsey Graham said former President Donald Trump would be a strong contender in the 2024 presidential election if only he could curb his personality. (Reuters) After losing, the former president began hosting a series of rallies that have served as a barometer of his popularity among conservatives and could help him maintain momentum for a potential campaign bid. During these rallies, he vowed that he'd be the president again. During an American Freedom Tour in March, for example, Trump promised to return to the White House in 2024. "With the support of everyone in this room, we will take back the House, we will take back the Senate and we will take back our country, and then most importantly in 2024, we are going to take back our beautiful White House," he said, addressing a crowd of rallygoers in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. In July, sources close to the former president said he's eager to announce a 2024 presidential bid. He "wants to clear the field and dare other people to run against him," one source said, per CNN. Biden's aides said the president will think about 2024 re-election strategy after the midterm elections, as Insider's John Dorman reported. "The president has said he's planning on running again," White House senior advisor Anita Dunn told Bloomberg. "People should take him at his word." Read the original article on Business Insider | |
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| 09-05-22 07:43am - 745 days | #369 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
China is taking a lesson from Dangle Trump's playbook: it's now accusing the Untied States of Trumperland of spying on a Chinese university. China is famous for spying and stealing trade and state secrets from other countries, including the Untied States of Trumperland. But now it's saying the Untied States are cheating, by spying on China. ----- ----- China accuses Washington of cyberspying on university Associated Press JOE McDONALD September 5, 2022, 6:51 AM In this image taken from video footage run by China's CCTV, Northwestern Polytechnical University is seen in Xi'an, in northwestern China's Shaanxi Province on Monday, Sept. 5, 2022. China on Monday accused Washington of breaking into computers at a university that U.S. officials say does military research, adding to complaints by both governments of rampant online spying against each other. (CCTV via AP) (ASSOCIATED PRESS) BEIJING (AP) — China on Monday accused Washington of breaking into computers at a university that U.S. officials say does military research, adding to complaints by both governments of rampant online spying against each other. Northwestern Polytechnical University reported computer break-ins in June, the National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center announced. It said the center, working with a commercial security provider, Qihoo 360 Technology Co., traced the attacks to the National Security Agency but didn't say how that was done. China and the United States are, along with Russia, regarded as global leaders in cyberwarfare research. China accuses the United States of spying on universities, energy and internet companies and other targets. Washington accuses Beijing of stealing commercial secrets and has announced criminal charges against Chinese military officers. The U.S. actions “seriously endanger China’s national security,” said Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning. She also accused Washington of eavesdropping on Chinese mobile phones and stealing text messages. “China strongly condemns it,” Mao said. “The United States should immediately stop using its advantages to steal secrets and attack other countries.” The American Embassy in Beijing didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. Security experts say the ruling Communist Party’s military wing, the People’s Liberation Army, and the Ministry of State Security also sponsor hackers outside the government. Northwestern Polytechnical University, in the western city of Xi’an, is on a U.S. government “entity list” that limits its access to American technology. Washington says the university helps the PLA develop aerial and underwater drones and missile technology. Monday’s announcement accused the United States of taking information about the university’s network management and other “core technologies.” It said Chinese analysts found 41 “network attack” tools that it said were traced to the NSA. Last year, a Chinese man, Shuren Qin, was sentenced to two years in prison by a federal court in Boston after he pleaded guilty to exporting underwater and marine technology to Northwestern Polytechnical University without required licenses. The NSA, part of the Department of Defense, is responsible for “signals intelligence,” or obtaining communications and other data. The Computer Virus Emergency Response Center, set up in 1996 by the police department of the eastern city of Tianjin, describes itself as the Chinese agency responsible for inspection and testing of anti-computer virus products. A report by Qihoo 360 in 2020 said hacking tools used in attacks on Chinese companies and government agencies in 2008-19 were traced to the Central Intelligence Agency by comparing them with code in CIA tools disclosed by the Wikileaks group. The virus center accused the NSA of carrying out other “malicious network attacks” in China but gave no details. It said 13 people involved in the attacks had been identified. The hackers targeted a “zero day,” or previously unreported, vulnerability in the school’s security, the statement said. It said the break-ins were conducted from servers in 17 countries including Japan, South Korea, Sweden, Poland, Ukraine and Colombia. The statement described what it said were NSA software tools with names such as “Second Date” and “Drinking Tea” but didn't say which might have been used at the university. | |
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| 09-05-22 06:39pm - 745 days | #370 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Dangle Trump reveals the Truth: Fox News is now pushing the agenda of Democrats. Fox News has been infiltrated by subversive elements that are aligned with Democrats from Hell. But CNN is now swinging to support Dangle in his efforts to make America great again. And Dangle says he willing to help CNN transform their wicked ways. ----- ----- Trump accused Fox News of 'pushing' Democrats' agenda and said if CNN 'went conservative,' it'd be an 'absolute gold mine' and he'd help Business Insider Kelsey Vlamis September 4, 2022, 6:37 PM Donald Trump lashed out at Fox News and Karl Rove after Rove critiqued his handling of documents. Trump also said he would support CNN if the network decided to take a conservative approach. Recent exits at CNN suggest the network is trying to appeal to a wider audience. Former President Donald Trump tore into Fox News on Sunday, accusing the network of amplifying a Democratic agenda and going harder on Republicans than Democrats. "Wow! Fox News is really pushing the Democrats and the Democrat agenda. Gets worse every single day," Trump wrote on his social-media platform, Truth Social. "So many Dems interviewed with only softball questions, then Republican counterparts get creamed." It's unclear what interviews Trump was referring to, but he also specifically called out Karl Rove, a former GOP White House official who is now a Fox News contributor. "RINO Karl Rove is unwatchable, very negative, and on all the time - Has a big record of losing!" Trump said. "Not an easy place to be as a Republican, especially with all of the 'pervert' purchased ads." It's unclear which ads he was referring to. Rove served as a senior advisor and deputy chief of staff during the Bush administration in the 2000s. He has appeared on Fox News several times to discuss the Justice Department's investigation into Trump's handling of government records and the FBI's early-August search of Mar-a-Lago. "None of these documents are his to have taken," Rove said last week, citing the Presidential Records Act. While criticizing Fox News on Sunday, Trump also said that if the network's cable-news competitor CNN adopted a conservative approach, he would support it. "If 'low ratings' CNN ever went Conservative, they would be an absolute gold mine, and I would help them to do so!" Trump said. Trump's comments about CNN — a popular target of his since the early days of his presidency — come as the network appears to be shifting its strategy to try to attract a wider range of viewers. On Friday, the longtime CNN White House correspondent John Harwood abruptly parted ways with the network shortly after calling Trump a "dishonest demagogue" and saying that President Joe Biden's characterization Thursday of Trump's MAGA movement as a threat to democracy was "true." Brian Stelter also had a sudden exit from CNN last month. Stelter, whose show and newsletter "Reliable Sources" covered media, was openly critical of Fox News and other right-wing outlets. The shake-ups come after Chris Licht took over as CEO of CNN earlier this year following the departure of Jeff Zucker. Several unnamed CNN employees and former staffers told The Washington Post they viewed the recent string of exits as evidence of plans by Licht to reposition CNN as an ideologically neutral network by limiting voices critical of Trump. Representatives for Fox News and CNN didn't immediately respond to requests for comment from Insider. Read the original article on Business Insider | |
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| 09-05-22 08:35pm - 745 days | #371 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Judge cites "reputational harm" to Trump in ordering a Mar-a-Lago special master and pause in probe. Dangle Trump, the most corrupt President of the Untied States of Trumperland, has no reputation. Almost everyone knows he is a liar, a bully, a man with no honor. But a federal judge thinks that Dangle has honor. Can a federal judge be impeached for insanity? ------- USA TODAY Judge cites 'reputational harm' to Trump in ordering a Mar-a-Lago special master and pause in probe Kevin Johnson and Bart Jansen, USA TODAY Mon, September 5, 2022 at 1:29 PM A federal judge who ordered the appointment of a special master to review documents seized in last month's search of Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago beach club, repeatedly expressed concerns about the unprecedented nature of the law enforcement action, indicating that the ruling was necessary to promote a perception of fairness. U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon ruled that Trump's position as a former president meant the seizure of documents carried a stigma "in a league of its own" and that any future indictment "would result in reputational harm." Cannon, who also called for a temporary halt to the federal inquiry until a document review is completed, asked Trump's team and the government to submit potential candidates for the special master role by Sept. 9. The decision raised several issues for the investigation into potential violations of the Espionage Act or obstruction of justice: Although Cannon's decision came nearly a month after the Aug. 8 search, she voiced concern about maintaining a "perception of fairness." Cannon ruled that Trump's position as a former president meant the seizure of documents carried a stigma and that any indictment "would result in reputational harm of a decidedly different order of magnitude." Cannon's concern echoed Russia special counsel Robert Mueller's reasoning in refusing to decide whether to charge Trump with obstruction of justice in that investigation because he wouldn't have had a forum to defend himself. National security lawyers said defense lawyers would be "salivating" over the decision because it favored defendants. Will the Justice Department appeal? A department spokesman said the government is reviewing the decision. Federal judge cites need to promote 'fairness' in DOJ investigation Throughout her ruling Cannon acknowledged the high profile nature of the investigation and the intense "public interest" as factors in her decision. “Plaintiff ultimately may not be entitled to return of much of the seized property or to prevail on his anticipated claims of privilege,” the judge wrote. “That inquiry remains for another day. For now, the circumstances surrounding the seizure in this case and the associated need for adequate procedural safeguards are sufficiently compelling to at least get Plaintiff past the courthouse doors. “A commitment to the appearance of fairness is critical, now more than ever,” she said. For the same reasons, Cannon determined that the government’s own team of screeners, which sorted the documents that may represent privileged attorney communications, was not adequate in a case of this magnitude. The judge said Trump’s team had established the possibility of “irreparable injury,” saying there was a risk that the government’s team “will not adequately safeguard Plaintiff’s privileged and personal materials in terms of exposure to either the Investigative Team or the media.” "As a function of Plaintiff’s former position as President of the United States, the stigma associated with the subject seizure is in a league of its own," Cannon wrote. "A future indictment, based to any degree on property that ought to be returned, would result in reputational harm of a decidedly different order of magnitude." “Plaintiff has shown, all in all, that the public and private interests at stake support a temporary enjoinment on the use of the seized materials for investigative purposes, without impacting the Government’s ongoing national security review,” Cannon wrote. “As Plaintiff articulated at the hearing, the investigation and treatment of a former president is of unique interest to the general public, and the country is served best by an orderly process that promotes the interest and perception of fairness.” Special counsel Robert Mueller, a former FBI director who investigated Russian interference in the 2016 election, found several instances of potential obstruction of justice by Trump. In his report, he cited incidents such as Trump firing FBI Director James Comey and urging Attorney General Jeff Sessions and White House counsel Don McGahn to curb Mueller's probe. Sessions and McGahn each refused. More: DOJ mapped out strong obstruction evidence against Trump, aides in filing, experts say But Mueller said charging Trump was "not an option" because Justice Department policy prevented charging a sitting president. "Many of the president's acts directed at witnesses, including discouragement of cooperation with the government and suggestions of possible future pardons, took place in public view," Mueller's report said. "The president's efforts to influence the investigation were mostly unsuccessful, but that is largely because the persons who surrounded the president declined to carry out orders or accede to his requests." Legal experts said the decision seemed "very sympathetic" to Trump. Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond, said he expects the Justice Department to appeal the ruling, but that the litigation will "greatly delay" the investigation. "I think that the judge seems very sympathetic to Trump in nearly all of her rulings and much more so than for other defendants similarly situated," Tobias said. "She also seems to overstate the unprecedented nature of the case and understate the unprecedented nature of Trump’s behavior with national security and national defense documents. Bradley Moss, a national-security lawyer, said the ruling seems written for Trump alone. "This is Cannon making a special exception to the case law just for Trump," Moss said in a tweet. "Criminal defense lawyers will be salivating over this analysis but every other judge will reject using it because this is meant for Trump and Trump alone." Renato Mariotti, a former federal prosecutor, agreed that defense lawyers would cite Cannon’s decision because it represented a “significant” shift to defendants. “Every defendant suffers massive reputational damage from an indictment," Mariotti said in a tweet. "I agree that we will cite this case law in other criminal cases, because if you take it at face value, it is a significant shift to the defense." David Weinstein, a former federal prosecutor, said the judge appeared to be moved by an intent to “ensure a level playing field and the appearance of integrity within the ongoing investigation.” “This is a temporary win for the former President and one that, after the review by the special master, could turn into an overall loss.,” Weinstein said. “While this also puts a pause on the use of this information in DOJ’s ongoing criminal investigation, it does not stop the evaluation of other evidence by the DOJ or their presentation to the grand jury,” he said. “Realistically, given the upcoming elections in November and DOJ’s internal policy on announcing indictments within 60 days of an election, it was unlikely that any significant charges related to this search would have been released before the end of November.” The Justice Department did not immediately signal whether it would appeal the ruling. "The United States is examining the opinion and will consider appropriate next steps in the ongoing litigation.” Justice spokesman Anthony Coley said. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Judge sides with Trump for 'fairness' in review of Mar-a-Lago records | |
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| 09-05-22 10:48pm - 745 days | #372 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Federal judge says Dangle Trump is protected by the US Constitution for public speeches. Says Dangle can call the FBI "vicious monsters" all day long, and Dangle is protected. Says if any law enforcement members or the FBI is hurt by any riots, that's what the cops and FBI signed up for, and that Dongle is blameless. ----- ----- INSIDER Jan. 6 committee members say Trump's calling the FBI 'vicious monsters' at a rally may constitute incitement Tom Porter Mon, September 5, 2022 at 5:26 AM Trump called the FBI "vicious monsters" controlled by left-wing radicalists at a Saturday rally. Two Jan. 6 panel members warned that Trump may be inciting attacks on the FBI with that speech. The attack came after the FBI searched Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate and found secret government documents. Members of the House January 6 committee said that former President Donald Trump's criticisms of the FBI at Saturday rally may be a way of inciting his supporters to violence. At the rally in Pennsylvania for GOP midterm candidates, Trump claimed the August 8 FBI raid at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida was part of a plot by his political foes. "The FBI and the Justice Department have become vicious monsters, controlled by radical left scoundrels lawyers and the media who tell them what to do ... and when to do it," Trump said. Rep. Liz Cheney, one of two Republicans sitting on the committee, said his shows Trump was deliberately seeking to stir violence. "Trump is attacking law enforcement and yet again using language he knows will provoke violence. Only one group of Americans has a chance to diminish this danger — Republicans," tweeted Cheney, who was recently ousted from her Wyoming congressional seat following a campaign by Trump. "If my fellow Republicans fail to step up to stop this, they will share the blame for all that follows." Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat on the January 6 committee, gave similar remarks in a Sunday interview with CNN. When host Jim Acosta asked Lofgren if Trump's comments constituted incitement, she said: "Well, potentially yes." "In the lead-up to January 6th, there were extravagant claims made meant to inflame public opinion, and that is what is happening here." "I think it's meant to turn people against law-enforcement officers," she continued. "And we've seen that sometimes that rhetoric reaches people who are prepared to act on it." Lofgren cited the recent case of a Trump supporter who attacked an FBI office in Cincinnati after posting messages about the Mar-a-Lago raid online. The supporter was later killed by law-enforcement officers. The Justice Department has warned of a sharp increase in threats faced by FBI officials in the wake of the raid, and has arrested several other people it alleges to have made threats against the agency. Trump and his allies have unleashed a furious series of attacks on the agency following the raid. Sen. Lindsey Graham warned last week that Trump supporters would riot if the former president were indicted, prompting critics to say he was making a veiled threat. The FBI believes Trump may have violated several laws in taking highly classified documents and other government records to Mar-a-Lago after leaving office, and that his aides tried to obstruct their investigation. At the same time the former president is facing multiple investigations into his bid to overturn his 2020 election defeat, with the January 6 committee saying that Trump deliberately sought to stir his supporters to attack the Capitol in an incendiary speech ahead of the riot. Trump has denied any wrongdoing in relation to the riot. On Friday, he also said he could offer pardons to all of those convicted in relation to the attack if reelected. Read the original article on Business Insider | |
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| 09-06-22 03:50am - 745 days | #373 | |
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Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Dangle Trump reveals further details on the "suicide" of the Bed Bath & Beyond CFO. "Not only was the guy losing me money, but I had him dumped off the building because he was under investigation for insider stock trading. I can handle investigations, because I've got teflon skin. But you can't depend on everyone holding steady under a federal spotlight. So, to be safe, I ordered the hit. But like I said, I'm covered by a Presidential pardon for any and all crimes I might do, from the time I was born to 1,000 years after I'm dead. So take that, Sleepy Joe Biden". ------ ------ Business Insider Bed Bath & Beyond CFO who died after falling from NYC high rise was subject of insider trading and fraud lawsuit just before death, documents show Bethany Biron Sun, September 4, 2022 at 10:38 AM Bed Bath & Beyond Chief Financial Officer Gustavo Arnal was found dead on Friday after falling from a NYC building. His death came less that two weeks after he was named in a federal class-action lawsuit for insider trading. The lawsuit claims Arnal and activist investor Ryan Cohen collaborated in a "pump and dump" scheme to artificially inflate the company's stock. The Bed Bath & Beyond Chief Financial Officer Gustavo Arnal, who was found dead on Friday after falling from the 18th floor of a New York City apartment building, recently was named in a lawsuit accusing him of fraud. The incident occurred less than two weeks after the executive, 52, was named in a federal class-action lawsuit on allegations of federal securities fraud, insider trading, and breach of fiduciary duty, according to court documents. His death also comes just days after Bed Bath & Beyond announced it is shuttering 150 stores and slashing 20% of its corporate staff. Arnal is cited in the suit along with activist investor and GameStop chairman Ryan Cohen, who the lawsuit claims collaborated with the CFO in a "fraudulent scheme to artificially inflate the price of Bed Bath & Beyond's publicly traded stock." The suit, filed in United States District Court for the District of Columbia on August 23, claims that Cohen and Arnal provided "materially false statements regarding the financial condition and holding situation" of Bed Bath & Beyond for their financial benefit. The lead plaintiff is investor Pengcheng Si. "The defendants, knowing that the information they disclosed was false, took advantage of the inflated stock price and used fraudulent and misleading SEC filings to sell all their [Bed Bath & Beyond] shares and options at artificially inflated prices to unsuspecting and innocent public investors and then retained control of the profits," the suit states. On August 18, both Arnal and Cohen sold shares of the company, with Arnal selling more than 42,000 shares for an estimated $1 million, and Cohen selling the entirety of his 9.8% stake through his firm, RC Ventures, causing shares to plummet. The lawsuit claims Cohen — who is also the co-founder of Chewy and chairman of GameStop — approached the CFO about his "pump and dump" scheme in March 2022, and "convinced Gustavo that their plan would be a mutually beneficial one." "Under this arrangement, defendants would profit handsomely from the rise in price and could coordinate their selling of shares to optimize their returns," the lawsuit states. Arnal allegedly worked with JPMorgan, which is listed as a defendant in the suit on claims the bank "aided and abetted" the plan by "enabling Cohen to use JPM's accounts to effectuate such transactions and otherwise launder the proceeds of their criminal conduct." The lawsuit further notes Cohen's involvement in similar plans, such as elevating GameStop to "meme stock" status. "Cohen has historically employed pump and dump schemes to raise much needed capital and has ignited several meme stocks to jaw-dropping heights," the lawsuit states. Spokespeople for Bed Bath & Beyond and RC Ventures did not immediately respond to Insider's request to comment. Read the original article on Business Insider | |
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| 09-06-22 03:52am - 745 days | #374 | |
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Legal scholars criticize judge's 'laughably bad' ruling in favor of Trump 'special master' request Peter Weber, Senior editor Mon, September 5, 2022 at 9:42 PM U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon on Monday granted former President Donald Trump's request for a third-party "special master" to review the more than 11,000 documents federal agents took from his Mar-a-Lago residence under a search warrant on Aug. 8, separating out any that may violate attorney-client privilege or executive privilege. Cannon, nominated by Trump in 2020 and confirmed after his electoral defeat, also ordered the Justice Department to stop using the documents for investigative purposes in its criminal probe of Trump's handling of highly classified government documents. She allowed a parallel intelligence community review of potential national security harm from the storage of top secret documents in a non-secure private club. Legal scholars called Cannon's ruling unprecedented, in the sense that it goes against decades of court precedent — especially expanding the special master role to include executive privilege potentially claimed by a former president over the executive branch, for government-owned documents the Justice Department argues Trump had no right to take or keep. This was "an unprecedented intervention by a federal district judge into the middle of an ongoing federal criminal and national security investigation," University of Texas law professor Steve Vladeck tells The New York Times. "Enjoining the ongoing criminal investigation is simply untenable," agreed Paul Rosenzweig, a George W. Bush administration official. "To any lawyer with serious federal criminal court experience who is being honest, this ruling is laughably bad, and the written justification is even flimsier," Duke University law professor Samuel Buell tells the Times. "Donald Trump is getting something no one else ever gets in federal court, he's getting it for no good reason, and it will not in the slightest reduce the ongoing howls that he is being persecuted, when he is being privileged." Former Attorney General William Barr was more blunt. "I think it's a crock of sh-t," he told the Times on Friday. "I don't think a special master is called for." He made similar comments to Fox News, arguing that a special master is a "waste of time" and the FBI appears totally justified in seizing the documents. | |
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| 09-06-22 04:00am - 745 days | #375 | |
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Dangle Trump has found his next trophy wife: "I haven't met this woman, but she appears to have the brass balls that I need in a woman. And if she's as pretty as she says she is, I'm starting divorce proceedings on my current wife, and will soon announce my engagement to this new woman. But first, I have to check her out, to make sure she's really as attractive as she says. And then, maybe after the wedding, I can introduce her to my daughters and sons, and we'll be the First Family of America". ------ ------ A woman arrested at Las Vegas airport told officers it must be because she's 'so good looking' Alan Dawson Mon, September 5, 2022 at 3:47 PM Las Vegas skyline. A 28-year-old woman was arrested at Las Vegas airport last week, 8 News Now reported. She reportedly told officers it was all because she was so "good looking." The woman faces a charge of airport misconduct after she was accused of skipping her restaurant bill. A 28-year-old woman was arrested last week after she was accused of skipping a restaurant tab, a police report obtained by local media said. Hend Bustami reportedly said officers arrested her because they had "never seen anyone as good looking" as her and accused them of harassing her, according to 8 News Now. The news outlet reported that police records show Bustami faces a charge of violating airport conduct after she was accused of leaving a Chili's restaurant inside Harry Reid International Airport without paying for the bill. Police worked with TSA officials who said a woman matching the description was seen "sleeping near the security checkpoint," according to the report. She was then found in baggage claim but was "belligerent with officers, saying she was being harassed because cops [had] never seen anyone as pretty as her," law enforcement said, per the 8 News Now report. KTNV added that reports indicated that the woman threatened to spit at police, claiming "officers were perverts" while they were arresting her. She was booked into Clark County Detention Center, according to KTNV. The woman is held on $1,000 bail and is due to appear in court October 27. Read the original article on Insider | |
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| 09-06-22 05:33pm - 744 days | #376 | |
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Dangle Trump screams: "The RINOs are spreading out in America and are ready to take us down. But we must arm ourselves with AK47s and .44 Magnums and shoot to kill, to make the streets run red with blood. Only than can we bring back Democracy and White Power from the Blacks and Latinos and other illegal immigrants that are flooding our beloved nation." Send your donations to the Make America Great Again PAC funded by The Son Of God, Dangle Trump. ------- ------- Barr: Judge's ruling on special master in Trump documents case is 'deeply flawed' Yahoo News David Knowles September 6, 2022, 3:14 PM Former Attorney General William Barr decried the decision by a federal judge to appoint a special master to review government documents discovered in an FBI raid of former President Donald Trump's Florida home and country club, calling it "wrong" and "deeply flawed." On Monday, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who was appointed to her position by Trump in 2020, sided with the former president, granting his legal team's request that an independent arbiter be appointed to review the documents, many of them highly classified, that were found during an August search of Mar-a-Lago. "The opinion, I think, was wrong, and I think the government should appeal it," Barr said during a Tuesday interview on Fox News. "It's deeply flawed in a number of ways." Numerous legal experts have taken issue with Cannon's ruling, calling it "unprecedented," especially in that it prohibits federal prosecutors from further examining seized documents for an ongoing Department of Justice investigation of Trump until the yet-to-be-chosen special master finishes a full review. Barr, who has been a vocal Trump critic since his decision to step down in the face of the former president's pressure campaign to overturn the results of the 2020 election, said Tuesday that the appointment of a special master would not save Trump from the possibility of facing criminal charges in the case. "I don't think the appointment of a special master is going to hold up, but even if it does, I don't see it fundamentally changing the trajectory," Barr said. "In other words, I don't think it changes the ball game so much as maybe we'll have a rain delay for a couple of innings." He added, "But I think the fundamental dynamics of the case are set, which is the government has very strong evidence of what it needs to determine whether charges [are] appropriate, which is government documents were taken, classified information was taken and not handled appropriately, and they are looking into, and there's some evidence to suggest, that they were deceived. And none of that really relates to the content of documents; it relates to the fact that there were documents there and the fact that they were classified, and the fact that they were subpoenaed and were never delivered." Asked if he believed that the special master decision would be overturned on appeal, Barr offered a qualified response. "I think if DOJ appeals, eventually it will be overturned," he said, noting that the process "could take several months" to play out. Pages of redacted information in the released version of the Mar-a-lago search affidavit have numerous lines of text blacked out. Pages of redacted information in the released version of the Mar-a-Lago search warrant affidavit. (Jim Bourg/Reuters) In an interview with the New York Times published three days before Cannon issued her opinion, Barr did not mince words on his view of the argument put forth by the former president's lawyers. "I think it's a crock of shit," he said, adding, "I don't think a special master is called for." In response to Barr's remarks, Trump lashed out at his former attorney general on his Truth Social platform. "Bill Barr had 'no guts,' and got 'no glory.' He was a weak and pathetic RINO [Republican in name only], who was so afraid of being Impeached that he became a captive to the Radical Left Democrats - 'Please, please, please don't impeach me,' he supposedly said," Trump wrote. "Barr never fought the way he should have for Election Integrity, and so much else. He started off OK as A.G., but faded fast - Didn't have courage or stamina. People like that will never Make America Great Again!" Asked if he cared about Trump labeling him a RINO, Barr laughed. "A RINO for him is anybody who disagrees with him that the election was stolen, right? That's a RINO. Now, as someone who handed out Barry Goldwater literature when I was 14 on the Upper West Side, it's a little silly," Barr said. | |
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| 09-06-22 09:31pm - 744 days | #377 | |
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The GOP loves to twist the truth. Hilary Clinton had no classified emails on her private server. But Republicans are shouting that Clinton's emails were filled with classified emails. And they scream that because Clinton was not prosecuted, Dangle Trump should not be prosecuted. Two entirely different events. But Republicans love to lie and twist the facts, to prove their arguments. ---- ---- Hillary Clinton hits back against comparisons to Trump’s handling of classified docs The Hill Julia Mueller September 6, 2022, 12:25 PM Hillary Clinton on Tuesday hit back at comparisons between her use of a private email server while secretary of State and former President Trump’s handling of classified documents found when the FBI searched his Mar-a-Lago residence last month. “I can’t believe we’re still talking about this, but my emails…” Clinton said in a Twitter thread, referring to scrutiny she has faced since her 2016 presidential bid, when then-candidate Trump and other Republicans made it a focus of their campaign against her. “[Former FBI Director James] Comey admitted he was wrong after he claimed I had classified emails. Trump’s own State Department, under two different Secretaries, found I had no classified emails. That’s right: ZERO,” Clinton wrote. “By contrast, Trump has hundreds of documents clearly marked classified, and the investigation just started,” Clinton wrote. Newly unsealed records show FBI agents found more than 100 classified documents at the Palm Beach, Fla., resort during the early August search, as well as dozens of empty folders marked as classified. Trump’s possession of the documents at his Mar-a-Lago home after leaving office has raised questions about potential violations of the Presidential Records Act, which requires such records be preserved and turned over to the National Archives. “As Trump’s problems continue to mount, the right is trying to make this about me again,” Clinton wrote on Tuesday. She knocked the GOP’s references to the “Clinton Standard,” the argument now touted by a number of Republicans that because Clinton didn’t face prosecution for her handling of documents, Trump shouldn’t either. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) wrote on Twitter last week, “Democrats and the FBI created the Hillary Clinton standard for non-prosecution of mishandling classified information. Will Donald Trump be held to a different standard?” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) warned in a Fox News appearance that “if there’s a prosecution of Donald Trump for mishandling classified information, after the Clinton debacle … there’ll be riots in the streets.” After news of the FBI’s search, Clinton touted “But Her Emails” merchandise, poking fun at the former president. | |
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| 09-07-22 05:42am - 743 days | #378 | |
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A document describing a foreign government's military defenses, including its nuclear capabilities, was found in the FBI's search last month of former President Donald Trump's Florida home, the Washington Post reported on Tuesday. The Post report, which cited people familiar with the matter, did not identify the foreign government discussed in the document, nor did it indicate whether the foreign government was friendly or hostile to the United States. According to the Post report, some of the seized documents detail top-secret U.S. operations that require special clearances, not just top-secret clearance. Some of the documents are so restricted that even some of the Biden administration's senior-most national security officials were not authorized to review them, the Post said. So how can a federal judge restrict these papers, since she doesn't have the authority to read the papers to understand what they mean? And what kind of special master to review the records is needed, since the security level of the papers is so extraordinary? But unless the federal government is as incompetent as Dangle Trump, the federal government will object to the appointment of a special master. ------- ------- Document seized from Trump home described foreign govt's nuclear capabilities - Washington Post Reuters September 7, 2022, 3:50 AM WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A document describing a foreign government's military defenses, including its nuclear capabilities, was found in the FBI's search last month of former President Donald Trump's Florida home, the Washington Post reported on Tuesday. The Post report, which cited people familiar with the matter, did not identify the foreign government discussed in the document, nor did it indicate whether the foreign government was friendly or hostile to the United States. An FBI spokesperson declined to comment on the report. Trump representatives did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The FBI recovered more than 11,000 government documents and photographs during its Aug. 8 search at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate, according to court records. According to the Post report, some of the seized documents detail top-secret U.S. operations that require special clearances, not just top-secret clearance. Some of the documents are so restricted that even some of the Biden administration's senior-most national security officials were not authorized to review them, the Post said. The U.S. Justice Department is investigating Trump for removing government records from the White House after he departed in January 2021 and storing them at Mar-a-Lago. On Monday, a federal judge agreed to Trump's request to appoint a special master to review records seized in the FBI search, a move that is likely to delay the Justice Department's criminal investigation. | |
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| 09-09-22 07:57am - 741 days | #379 | |
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The new rules: Dangle Trump praises cops for shooting first, then making sure the suspect died. The cops say the suspect was armed. Multiple witnesses say the suspect was not armed. Cops say they that first aid was performed right away. But witnesses say the cops never touched the victim to give him any aid. Dongle Trump says: "believe the cops, because I respect the law. However, there are corrupt cops out there, like the ones who raided by home and took my secret documents I was keeping as momentos of my time in the Whitest House". -------- -------- Family wants answers after pallbearer killed by officers Associated Press JOHN RABY September 9, 2022, 6:35 AM Family wants answers after pallbearer killed by officers CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — Jason Arnie Owens helped carry his father’s casket to the hearse, then turned to embrace a relative. He never made it to the cemetery. As mourners gathered outside a northern West Virginia funeral home on Aug. 24, two plainclothes officers with a fugitive warrant swooped in from separate vehicles, called Owens' name and shot him dead, spattering his 18-year-old son's shirt with blood as horrified loved ones looked. "There was no warning whatsoever,” family friend Cassandra Whitecotton said. In the blink of an eye, stunned friends and family already mourning one member lost another. Now, they want answers — not just why Owens was shot but why the encounter happened the way it did. Law enforcement officials aren't explaining much right now, citing an ongoing investigation. Owens, 37, was wanted on a fugitive warrant, but the U.S. Marshals Service hasn't said what it was for. The agency also said in a statement that he had a gun when members of a fugitive task force approached. Multiple witnesses contend that's not true. Whitecotton and others who stood just feet away said Owens was unarmed, had been hugging his aunt, Evelyn O’Dell, and was fired on immediately after his name was called. Witnesses also dispute the U.S. Marshals' assertion that first aid was performed right away, before emergency medical services arrived. "They yelled Jason’s name. They just said ‘Jason’ and then started firing,” Whitecotton said. “There was no identifications they were U.S. Marshals — anything. They did not render this man any aid at all. Never once they touched him to render any aid whatsoever.” As relatives prepared for services Friday for Owens, a state police investigation of the shooting was underway. But patience in the community is wearing thin. Relatives and supporters protested outside the Harrison County Courthouse last week, accusing law enforcement authorities of overreach in the death of Owens, who was white. A Facebook page called Justice for Jason Owens has swelled to about 800 members — more than half of the population of Nutter Fort, where Owens was killed. Underlying the unanswered questions is whether some boundary of decency had been crossed in arresting a man in the midst of burying his father. “If they’ve been searching for someone and they finally figure out where they are, they’re going to get them,” said Tracy L. Hahn, a Columbus, Ohio-based security consultant who retired after 32 years in law enforcement, including as deputy police chief at Ohio State University. Hahn said she knows agencies that have gone to funerals but have waited until afterward to approach the person. “There must be some extenuating circumstance that they felt the urgency to arrest him then instead of waiting, if there was some risk factor, an escape risk or something like that,” Hahn said. Family members aren’t so sure. They say it only adds to their sense of disrespect that the agencies involved feel no obligation to address their questions. “We want to know why you would do this in front of his family,” said Owens’ cousin, Mandy Swiger. “And what gives you the right to do that to an unarmed man?” Acting U.S. Marshal Terry Moore said he couldn’t answer questions during the investigation and messages left with state police weren’t returned. It’s not clear whether video exists from police bodycams, a police vehicle dashboard or the funeral home itself. Unlike major cities where detailed incident reports and video footage are released after fatal police shootings — sometimes within hours — that rarely happens in West Virginia. West Virginia law exempts police from having to release video footage during an investigation. And the U.S. Marshals Service office said it did not write a detailed incident report about the shooting, referring to the news release that withheld Owens’ name and other details. Owens had been in trouble with the law before. He was sentenced in 2018 to three to 13 years in prison for fleeing a Harrison County sheriff’s deputy and trying to strangle him during a scuffle. He was released on parole in April 2021. But Swiger said he committed a parole violation “for not checking in just once. And that’s why he promised his mom after the funeral he would turn himself in.” Whitecotton said she was smoking a cigarette after the service when an SUV came flying down the side street where the hearse would pull out. "It about hit me, so I jumped back up on the curb and kind of looked at him like, ‘What’s your problem?’” she said. A man in shorts and a T-shirt jumped out, leaving his door open. Swiger said a white truck with another plainclothes officer inside almost hit her mother’s vehicle as the truck sped into the parking lot. Swiger said Owens was shot from different directions and estimated as many as 40 people were in the area. She, too, said she didn't see a gun in Owens' hands. Some mourners instinctively rushed toward Owens after he fell to the ground, Swiger said, but were told by one of the officers, “You step back or I’ll shoot you.” Whitecotton said she has lived in much larger cities such as Houston, Dallas and Fort Worth. “Never in my life have I dealt with anything like this,” she said. "I would expect it there, honestly. But not here.” | |
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| 09-09-22 08:37am - 741 days | #380 | |
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Dangle Trump reveals the truth: The corrupt FBI planted fake documents in my home. They are trying to frame me. I'm innocent. Please donate to my legal fund, and to my pussy fund, and to my vacation fund. These monies are important to my health, my happiness, and my illegitimate children. ----- ----- INSIDER Donald Trump revives claims the FBI planted evidence in Mar-a-Lago raid, a claim his lawyers have not pursued Tom Porter Fri, September 9, 2022 at 4:54 AM Trump Former president Donald Trump speaks to supporters at a rally to support local candidates at the Mohegan Sun Arena on September 03, 2022 in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.Spencer Platt/Getty Images Donald Trump has again claimed the FBI planted evidence at Mar-a-Lago. It's a claim his lawyers have not made in court appearances. Trump has offered shifting defences in response to the August 8 raid. Donald Trump has made fresh claims that the FBI planted evidence in the August 8 search of his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida – an argument notably absent in legal filings by his attorneys. The former US president repeated the claim in a posting on his Truth Social network Thursday, after the Justice Department demanded that a federal judge reinstate access to hundreds on classified documents the FBI retrieved in its recent search of his Palm Beach residence. The judge, Aileen Cannon, had on Monday suspended access to the documents until an independent official had reviewed them. "They leak, lie, plant fake evidence, allow the spying on my campaign, deceive the FISA Court, RAID and Break-Into my home, lose documents, and then they ask me, as the 45th President of the United States, to trust them," wrote Trump. He also referenced his longstanding, and unfounded, claim that hostile FBI officials had conspired to smear him over his ties to Russia during his presidency. In an earlier message he praised Cannon, whom he appointed, as "brilliant and courageous." Trump has previously claimed the FBI planted evidence in the immediate aftermath of the raid, though has not specified what they planted or offered evidence to back his claim. He has repeatedly suggested the FBI is part of a political plot against him, describing the agency as "monsters" at a rally last Saturday. But in response to a recent picture released by the DOJ taken during the raid, showing piles of folders with classified markings in Mar-a-Lago, Trump did not deny the folders were in his possession but said the photo had been set up to make him look bad. The 45th president's defences are different to those his attorneys are offering in court, where false claims of law enforcement misconduct can attract penalties. His lawyers have focussed on claims that many of the documents taken by the FBI are protected under privilege rules, and were successful in arguing for an independent official to review them on this basis. They have also argued that many of the documents were declassified by Trump before leaving office, but no evidence has emerged to substantiate that claim. The DOJ has requested that Abbott grant it access to the classified documents by September 15, or it will file an appeal. Read the original article on Business Insider | |
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| 09-10-22 01:08am - 741 days | #381 | |
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Judge dismisses Trump lawsuit against Clinton over 2016 Russia allegations Reuters Judge throws out Dangle Trump's lawsuit against Hilary Clinton. Dangle screams "Bias. Unfair. I want my day in court." Hilary also screams: "I too want my day in court. To prove my innocence. Where can we go to finish this? Can we start a legal fight in Canada, or Mexico, to prove our case in court?" ----- ----- September 9, 2022, 9:09 AM Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, U.S., September 3, 2022. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly (Andrew Kelly / reuters) WASHINGTON, Sept 9 (Reuters) - A U.S. judge has dismissed Donald Trump's lawsuit against his 2016 rival Hillary Clinton, saying the former Republican president's allegations that Democrats tried to rig that election by linking his campaign to Russia was an attempt to "flaunt" political grievances that did not belong in court. In throwing out Trump's lawsuit Thursday night, Judge Donald Middlebrooks of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida said the lawsuit was not seeking "redress for any legal harm" and that the court was "not the appropriate forum" for the former president's complaints. "He is seeking to flaunt a two-hundred-page political manifesto outlining his grievances against those that have opposed him," Middlebrooks said in his ruling. Trump in March had sued Clinton, who was the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee, and several other Democrats alleging "racketeering," a "conspiracy to commit injurious falsehood" and other claims in a 108-page lawsuit that echoed the long list of grievances he repeatedly aired during his four years in the White House after beating Clinton. He had sought compensatory and punitive damages, saying he had incurred more than $24 million in "defense costs, legal fees, and related expenses." In his ruling, Middlebrooks said Trump had waited too long to file his complaint by exceeding the legal statute of limitations for his claims and that he failed to make his case that he was harmed by any falsehoods, noting that many of the statements made by the defendants were "plainly protected by the First Amendment" of the U.S. Constitution. Representatives for Clinton and Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the ruling. Other defendants included Democratic Representative Adam Schiff, who led one of the U.S. House of Representatives' impeachments against Trump, and Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence officer who wrote a dossier circulated to the FBI and media outlets before the 2016 election. U.S. intelligence officials and others in the U.S. government have accused Russia of meddling in that election. Moscow has denied that it interfered in the campaign. (Reporting by Susan Heavey; Editing by Paul Simao) | |
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| 09-10-22 10:05am - 740 days | #382 | |
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Sleepy Joe Biden screams: "I take full responsibility for the worthless security arrangements that allowed a corrupt Dangle Trump to steal Top Secret Documents from the Whitest House. It's my fault. I should never have allowed it to happen. I will fall upon the Sword of Shame, and resign my office. The Secrets of the Nation have been exposed to the public, which should never have happened. Let someone with more honor and strength occupy the Whitest House. ----- ----- 'Astounding': Trump documents reveal casual disregard for long-standing security protocols Kevin Johnson Sat, September 10, 2022 at 2:01 AM WASHINGTON – In service to two presidents, Leon Panetta’s appreciation for the risk posed by mishandling classified documents remains palpable nearly a decade removed from the top echelons of government. “I would have been scared to death to see a (news) story detailing how the White House was careless with classified information,” said Panetta, whose other assignments included terms as CIA director, defense secretary and White House chief of staff. “I lived in fear, knowing what goes into gathering that information.” It is why Panetta expresses shock at the catalog of sensitive records – some designated as the most sensitive in the government’s arsenal – seized last month from former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago beach club. “It’s astounding,” Panetta said. Yet, while Trump remains the central focus of public scrutiny, Panetta and other former officials said the security breach that has prompted a criminal investigation and a new assessment of the related, potential intelligence threat underscore a broader breakdown of national security guardrails that first allowed caches of highly sensitive documents to land in an unsecured storage room and desk drawers at the former president's Florida resort. This image contained in a court filing by the Department of Justice on Aug. 30, 2022, and redacted by in part by the FBI, shows a photo of documents seized during the Aug. 8 search by the FBI of former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. The Justice Department says it has uncovered efforts to obstruct its investigation into the discovery of classified records at former President Donald Trump's Florida estate. This image contained in a court filing by the Department of Justice on Aug. 30, 2022, and redacted by in part by the FBI, shows a photo of documents seized during the Aug. 8 search by the FBI of former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. The Justice Department says it has uncovered efforts to obstruct its investigation into the discovery of classified records at former President Donald Trump's Florida estate. Andrew Card, who served three presidents and more than five years as chief of staff in the George W. Bush administration, said the volume and sensitivity of the records found at Mar-a-Lago bear no resemblance to the document security practiced during his time at the White House. "I would have hoped somebody was saying very early on that there are documents not accounted for," Card said. "Where are they?" President George W. Bush is informed by chief of staff Andy Card of the World Trade Center attacks during a school reading event in Sarasota, Fla. President George W. Bush is informed by chief of staff Andy Card of the World Trade Center attacks during a school reading event in Sarasota, Fla. Experts say Trump's handling of documents defied protocols Any administration's national security strategy weighs heavily on the quality and quantity of its intelligence. That's why, analysts say, there are necessary and long-established protocols for ensuring the protection of the nation's most sensitive information. Related video: Special master, and what it means for Trump's Mar-a-Lago probe Scroll back up to restore default view. Much of it can be viewed only in secure rooms, known in the dense vernacular of government as Sensitive Compartmented Information Facilities (SCIFS). And in those facilities, information gathered by networks of spies, electronic intercepts and other methods, are locked away in vaults, accessible only to designated officials. More: Classified documents were mingled with magazines and clothes at Trump's Mar-a-Lago club Tracking systems are supposed to ensure that the material always returns. Yet, in the waning days of the Trump administration those strict protocols appeared to have been inexplicably cast aside, leaving hundreds of classified records at risk. Ultimately, it was the National Archives and Records Administration's long pursuit of records that forced the issue into the public spotlight and helped prompt the Justice Department's criminal investigation. "This appears to be totally undisciplined," Panetta said. "I suspect there wasn't anyone (in the administration) who felt they could call attention to this...There should have been people from the intelligence community to make sure a process was followed." During Panetta's tenure as chief of staff in the Clinton administration, the document security process included a tracking system maintained in part by National Security Council staffers. Panetta said the log accounted for classified and other sensitive documents that flowed into the White House, from distribution to collection. Former Secretary of Defense and CIA Director Leon Panetta stands in the audience as President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden host former President Barack Obama and former first Lady Michelle Obama for the unveiling of their official White House portraits in the East Room of the White House in Washington on Sept. 7, 2022. Former Secretary of Defense and CIA Director Leon Panetta stands in the audience as President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden host former President Barack Obama and former first Lady Michelle Obama for the unveiling of their official White House portraits in the East Room of the White House in Washington on Sept. 7, 2022. When classified material was distributed for review, including the President's Daily Brief – a summary of national security threats and sensitive analyses – it was retrieved immediately after. More: The FBI found dozens of empty classified folders at Trump's Mar-a-Lago. What was in them? Card described a similar system during the George W. Bush administration in which information security was overseen by both the National Security Council staff and White House staff secretary. The former official could not recall an instance when the White House was notified that classified documents had not been accounted for. "Never," Card said. Meanwhile, the trove of records found at Mar-a-Lago, including documents designated as "HCS" – a reference to clandestine human sources and some of the government's most guarded information – is continuing to sound alarms throughout the U.S. intelligence community. This week, The Washington Post reported yet another startling discovery among the roughly 100 classified records seized during the Aug. 8 search of Trump's property: a document outlining the nuclear capabilities of an unidentified foreign government. "I regard this is as failure by the individuals who should have taken steps to secure that material" before it left Washington, Panetta said. As troubling disclosures continued to emerge from Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort, his successor maintained that strict protocols were once again governing information security in the Biden White House. President Joe Biden told reporters last month that while he occasionally takes documents to the White House residence, including the daily brief, its access is closely controlled. The president said a military official delivers the document, which he reads in a secure room before returning it. “I read it; I lock it back up and give it to the military,” Biden said. More: Trump claims Mar-a-Lago documents were 'declassified.' Why experts reject that argument. Security measures depend on what information is at stake. “It depends on the document and it depends on how secure the room is,” Biden said. Beyond the White House, information security has traditionally required equal rigor, said David Laufman, a former CIA analyst now at law firm Wiggin and Dana LLP. When Laufman headed the counter-intelligence section at the Justice Department the whole suite of offices was designated as a SCIF. “Even there, we had to have safes within a SCIF in which code-word material or more sensitive information was locked up," Laufman said. More: What is a special master? Court appointee to review documents Trump stored at Mar-a-Lago. When copies of documents were delivered to his office, they had to be logged in and accounted for, he said. “You get constant reinforcement training about how to handle classified information," Laufman said. "It’s a culture of compliance with the rules governing the handling of classified information that is drilled into you if you are a government official in a job that involves access to classified information." Laufman said there probably wasn't much staffers could do to prevent a president from bringing highly sensitive documents home with him. But at the end of an administration, the White House Counsel's Office traditionally works with intelligence agencies to return or destroy sensitive documents and with the National Archives to store non-classified records. | |
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| 09-10-22 10:07am - 740 days | #383 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Article continues: “In an ordinary transition, there is careful effort by counsel and other White House officials to make sure that no classified information winds up in places it’s not supposed to be," Laufman said. Vice President Mike Pence meets with members of the White House Coronavirus Task Force Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2020, in the White House Situation Room. Vice President Mike Pence meets with members of the White House Coronavirus Task Force Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2020, in the White House Situation Room. Larry Pfeiffer, a 32-year U.S. intelligence official who was the senior director of the White House Situation Room and chief of staff to then-CIA Director Michael Hayden, said he was “horrified” by the FBI photo of classified documents recovered from Trump's office in Mar-a-Lago because it showed that some of the documents were among the very most classified in the entire U.S. government. So “above top secret” were some of the documents, Pfeiffer said, that they required being kept not only in a SCIF, but in a heavy-duty safe within a SCIF where only people specifically authorized to look at them could have access. “That stuff is restricted to just a handful of people. We're talking low double digits probably,” said Pfeiffer, who left government in 2013 and now directs the Michael V. Hayden Center for Intelligence, Policy, and International Security at George Mason University. “If that was me, I wouldn't have the luxury of sitting at a golf resort somewhere talking to lawyers, having lawyers file motions. I'd be doing all that from a jail cell somewhere,” Pfeiffer said. “And it wouldn't have been two years after I left office or retired; it would have been almost from the moment they discovered that maybe I still had some documents sitting around in my basement." Apart from the potential legal jeopardy, Pfeiffer said the possible damage to the intelligence community is profound. “I worry greatly about the harm that could have come to intelligence sources and methods, to the lives and well-being of our intelligence officers, to all the hard work that people have put in over years to cultivate sources and having that be just so capriciously disregarded,” Pfeiffer said. “And to have that all done by the president of the United States just makes it even worse.” Attorney General William Barr left the Trump administration before Christmas. Attorney General William Barr left the Trump administration before Christmas. Bill Barr: 'No justification' for Trump to hold onto classified documents Trump has never explained why the documents remained in his possession and were later transported to Florida, other than to suggest that he had declassified them before leaving office. The claim has drawn increasing skepticism, including from his own former attorney general, Bill Barr, who said there was "no justification" for Trump to have retained the material. Rather than address the potential risk now being assessed by U.S. intelligence officials, Trump has questioned the authenticity of a photograph included in court documents showing how the highly sensitive documents had been mingled with the former president's personal effects. One former Trump press secretary, Stephanie Grisham, told USA TODAY it was Trump who was acting unprofessional in his handling of classified documents – whether in the White House, on overseas travel or anywhere else. “I saw him mishandle presidential records” a lot, she said, including ripping some up and putting others in his jacket pocket in the presence of staffers without the security clearance to see them. Either he had no clue, she said, or didn’t care, even though she said it posed a potential national security threat. President Donald Trump gestures as he steps off Air Force One upon arrival at Valley International Airport, Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2021, in Harlingen, Texas. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon) President Donald Trump gestures as he steps off Air Force One upon arrival at Valley International Airport, Tuesday, Jan. 12, 2021, in Harlingen, Texas. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon) Bradley Moss, a national-security lawyer, said there was no reason for the material to be "taken out of the briefings where they were first presented to him." “It was an insult to the rules with which every other authorized holder of classified information has to comply," he said. Sharon Squassoni, who specialized in nuclear arms control and security policy while working at the State Department and is now a research professor at George Washington University, said some of the strictest rules for handling sensitive information extended to officials traveling overseas. In those cases, classified documents were carried in a canvass briefcase with a zipper lock. With a diplomatic passport, officials could prevent scanning the bag through imaging machinery, she said. Upon arrival in the foreign country, the official would go directly to the embassy to secure the records, she said. “There is a chain of custody because you don’t want them falling into the wrong hands,” Squassoni said. “The idea that you could take all this stuff and put it in boxes and take it to Mar-a-Lago goes against probably every security regulation that we have.” This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump classified documents: Breach reveals disregard for protocols | |
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| 09-11-22 04:07am - 740 days | #384 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
I knew that Aretha Franklin was a threat to US democracy. But now the FBI has unleashed facts to sustain my ideas. Here's the real scoop on how the FBI (defender of US democracy) tracked Aretha Franklin to keep us safe from threats: ----- ----- Aretha Franklin's unsealed FBI file reveals singer's civil rights actions were being tracked People Tommy McArdle September 9, 2022, 11:32 AM Aretha Franklin's unsealed FBI file reveals singer's civil rights actions were being tracked The FBI was keeping tabs on late singer Aretha Franklin's civil rights activism in the 1960s and '70s, according to documents recently declassified by a journalist using the Freedom of Information Act. Files obtained by journalist Jen Dize and published in the Substack newsletter Courage News on Thursday indicate that the FBI showed "repeated and disgusting suspicion" of Franklin, as described by Dize. She wrote on Twitter Thursday that she first requested the documents in 2018, when the "Respect" singer died at age 76. The documents denote Franklin's 1967 appearance at a convention hosted by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference under Dr. Martin Luther King, as well as Franklin's father Clarence "C.L." Franklin's public discussion of China as a growing power in the '60s. The documents reportedly claim that "SCLC leadership has taken a 'hate America' and 'pro-Communist' line." The FBI tracked Franklin ardently in the late '60s and '70s, and even once used a "suitable pretext telephone call" to Los Angeles' Ambassador Hotel in November 1972 to determine that the Black Panther Party had contacted Franklin via phone, the documents show. Another document from 1968, described as a "summary of racial situation in Atlanta, GA," shows an FBI source thought performances by Franklin, Sammy Davis Jr., Marlon Brando and The Supremes at a Martin Luther King memorial "would provide emotional spark which could ignite racial disturbance [in] this area," as the documents note that some of that group "have supported militant black power concept." In 1979, the FBI documented a death threat Franklin and her family received over the phone from a man who claimed he had married the singer in 1958. The death threat came four months after Franklin's father was shot twice during an attempted robbery at his Detroit home, according to the document and the Detroit Historical Society. Franklin received a similar threat via mail in 1974, according to the documents. A majority of Franklin's now-released 270-page long FBI file involves Franklin's attorneys reaching out to the FBI in 2005 regarding "the sale of bootleg Aretha Franklin DVDs and CDs" by a moderator of a Yahoo! message board group dedicated to the singer. Franklin and her attorneys pursued a copyright infringement case against the moderator, and documents show the moderator in 2006 "probably sold $3,500 to $4,000 worth of CD's and DVD's over the past two years." The files show the FBI documented instructions for joining the fan group, which contained 115 members and had as few as 25 "members who are active posters." "Due to the relatively low amount of economic damage sustained by Ms. Franklin, [REDACTED] was recommended for and accepted into the pre-trial diversion program," a document dated May 23, 2007 reads. "At this time, all investigative leads have been exhausted and the case brought to its logical conclusion. As a result, it is requested that this case be closed," the document adds. Franklin died in August 2018 at age 76 of pancreatic cancer. She was a longtime civil rights activist, and wrote in her memoir that "Respect," one of her biggest hits, was an anthem for the movement. "It [reflected] the need of a nation, the need of the average man and woman in the street, the businessman, the mother, the fireman, the teacher—everyone wanted respect," Franklin wrote. "It was also one of the battle cries of the civil rights movement. The song took on monumental significance." | |
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| 09-12-22 11:05am - 738 days | #385 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Russian state media grapples with Russian losses. Vlad Putin vows to hire best bud Dangle Trump to cover the news: "Dangle is the mostest TV commentator and twitter genius I've ever known", Vlad Putin gushes. "He's the man to tell our comrades how we've been winning in the Ukraine. And how wonderfully we treat the women. We grab them by the pussy, and they squeal with joy!!!" Dangle is a master at making women squeal with joy!!!" ---- ---- Russian state media grapples with Kharkiv defeats Reuters September 12, 2022, 12:09 PM LONDON (Reuters) - Commentators on Russian state television have been forced to go off script by Ukrainian forces' swift advance in the country's Kharkiv region and Moscow's rapid retreat. Since the beginning of what Russia calls its “special military operation”, belligerent guests on state television talk shows typically have tried to outdo each other in backing President Vladimir Putin and denouncing Ukraine and its allies. But in the wake of Kyiv’s lightning counteroffensive, the mood was more subdued and the narrative turned to how allegedly Ukrainian forces overwhelmingly outnumbered the Russians in the northeast. The Rossiya-24 news channel on Monday interviewed Vitaly Ganchev, a Russian-appointed official in the Kharkiv region, who said that Russian troops in the province had been outnumbered “eight times over.” He also said, without providing evidence, that Ukrainian forces had been bolstered by “Western mercenaries”. "A most difficult week on the front," presenter Dmitry Kiselyov said at the opening of his prime time Sunday night program. Under a studio backdrop reading “Regrouping”, Kiselyov said that Russian forces had abandoned “previously liberated settlements" under pressure from "superior enemy forces”. Related video: Russian forces retreat as Ukraine makes surprise gains in Kharkiv In a rare show of dissent, Boris Nadezhdin, a former liberal politician and regular talk show guest said on the Gazprom-owned NTV channel, that Putin had been misled by advisers into thinking that Ukraine would quickly surrender, and urged immediate peace talks to end the conflict. Other hosts went for a positive spin. On the daily 60 Minutes talk show, host Olga Skabeyeva opened Monday morning’s broadcast by describing Sunday's Russian bombing of Ukrainian power stations and resulting power outages across eastern Ukraine as “a turning point in the special military operation.” Several guests also brought up Putin’s remarks from July that Russia “had not yet started anything in earnest”, saying Moscow would now intensify military action. Newspaper coverage of the Russian withdrawal was framed by the defence ministry’s talk of a "tactical redeployment" of its troops, though some papers cited military experts suggesting that not everything had gone to plan. The Izvestia paper, in its weekend roundup said Russia had killed 4,000 Ukrainian soldiers and the military had “redeployed forces to focus on the Donbas.” Nezavisimaya Gazeta was more critical, saying that Russia’s defence ministry did not comment on “extremely disturbing reports from Ukraine ... for several days.” The paper noted that as Ukrainian forces were advancing on Russia’s western border, Moscow's military leadership was thousands of miles away in the far east of the country, for annual war game exercises that involved 50,000 troops. (Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Tomasz Janowski) | |
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| 09-12-22 11:13am - 738 days | #386 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Dangle Trump's legal team wants the FBI to bend over and present their asses for a team fuck. Says the FBI tried to fuck Dangle Trump, and Dangle is fighting mad. Never before has a past president of the US ever had his home invaded by the FBI. "I almost ordered my Secret Service Protection to open fire on these cowardly FBI agents", Dangle Trump screams. "Do I want blood shed in my sacred house of God? To protect the sacred papers I took from the Whitest House? Sleepy Joe Biden better back off, or there will be blood in streets! Give me liberty, or give me death. I will lead my White Boys on a march to Washington, to hold Sleepy Joe accountable!!!!!" ----- ----- Trump team takes aim at records probe; calls it 'misguided' Associated Press ERIC TUCKER September 12, 2022, 8:04 AM WASHINGTON (AP) — A criminal investigation into the presence of top-secret information at former President Donald Trump's Florida home has “spiraled out of control," his lawyers said Monday in urging a judge to leave in place a directive that temporarily halted core aspects of the Justice Department's probe. The Trump team also referred to the documents that were seized as “purported” classified records, suggesting his lawyers do not concede the Justice Department's contention that highly sensitive, top-secret documents were found by the FBI in its Aug. 8 search of Mar-a-Lago. The lawyers also asserted that there is no evidence any of the records were ever disclosed to anyone, and that at least some of the documents belong to him and not to the Justice Department. The 21-page filing underscores the significant factual and legal disagreements between lawyers for Trump and the U.S. government as the Justice Department looks to move forward with its criminal investigation into the illegal retention of national defense information at Mar-a-Lago and into the potential obstruction of that probe. The investigation hit a roadblock last week when U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon granted the Trump team's request for the appointment of an independent arbiter, also known as a special master, to review the seized records and prohibited for now the department from examining the documents for investigative purposes. The Justice Department has asked the judge to lift that hold and said it would appeal her ruling to a federal appeals court. The department said its investigation risked being harmed beyond repair if that order was not lifted, noting that confusion about its scope and meaning had already led the intelligence community to pause a separate risk assessment it was doing. But Trump's lawyers said in their own motion Monday that the order was a “sensible preliminary step towards restoring order from chaos.” They asked Cannon to leave it in place. “This investigation of the 45th President of the United States is both unprecedented and misguided,” they wrote. “In what at its core is a document storage dispute that has spiraled out of control, the Government wrongfully seeks to criminalize the possession by the 45th President of his own Presidential and personal records.” In the meantime, both sides on Friday night each proposed different names of candidates who could serve in the role of a special master, though they disagreed on the exact scope of duties the person should have. ____ Follow Eric Tucker at http://www.twitter.com/etuckerAP | |
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| 09-12-22 05:41pm - 738 days | #387 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Justice Department pressured former US attorney to bring cases against Trump enemies, Geoffrey Berman says. This is why Dangle Trump is now accusing the Justice Department of being weaponized. Because Dangle Trump himself used the Justice Department as a weapon to harm his enemies. The Justice Department is corrupt. And Dangle Trump made it corrupt. Dangle Trump, the source of the corruption. "Lock him up", chants the Democrats for cleaning the swamp in Washington. ---- ---- ABC News Justice Department pressured former US attorney to bring cases against Trump enemies, Geoffrey Berman says GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS and AARON KATERSKY Mon, September 12, 2022 at 7:20 AM Geoffrey Berman, who served 2 1/2 years as United States attorney for the Southern District of New York from 2018 to 2020, said the Justice Department pressured him and his office to pursue criminal cases against perceived enemies of former President Donald Trump, including former Secretary of State John Kerry. "I had never seen anything like that before," Berman told ABC News' George Stephanopoulos in his first interview about his new book, "Holding the Line: Inside the Nation's Preeminent US Attorney's Office and its Battle with the Trump Justice Department." "People who had been in the office for 40 years never saw anything like that. It was unprecedented and scary." MORE: Fired US attorney Geoffrey Berman appears before Congress Berman described a tenure under Attorney Generals Jeff Sessions and Bill Barr and acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker rife with politics and constant interference, pressuring him to remove references to Individual-1, aka Donald Trump, in the case against Michael Cohen, the president's former lawyer. "On the eve of Cohen's guilty plea, main Justice tried to get our office to remove any reference to Individual-1, who was President Trump. They were unsuccessful in that venture. And they were unsuccessful in every attempt to politically interfere with our office. We held the line in every instance," Berman told ABC's "Good Morning America." PHOTO: Geoffrey S. Berman, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, speaks during a news conference, April 23, 2019, in New York. (Mary Altaffer/AP, FILE) PHOTO: Geoffrey S. Berman, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, speaks during a news conference, April 23, 2019, in New York. (Mary Altaffer/AP, FILE) Berman said his office was urged to bring charges against Kerry for violations of the Logan Act -- which makes it illegal for U.S. citizens to take part in unauthorized foreign diplomacy -- over Kerry's discussions about the Iran nuclear agreement. "That was truly outrageous," Berman said. No charges were ever brought against Kerry. "President Trump attacks John Kerry in two tweets saying that Kerry engaged in possible illegal conversations with Iranian officials regarding the Iran nuclear deal. The very next day, the Trump Justice Department refers the John Kerry criminal case to the Southern District of New York. Two tweets by the president and the John Kerry criminal case becomes a priority," Berman said. MORE: Berman relents, leaves post as US attorney after taking stand against firing Berman wrote that the Justice Department asked him to "even things out" by prosecuting a Democrat after his office successfully prosecuted former Republican Congressman Chris Collins. "The Justice Department told us, 'Hey, you have just indicted two allies of the president, Chris Collins, who is a Republican congressman from upstate New York, and Michael Cohen, who was the president's lawyer and fixer, and it's time for you guys to even things out and indict a Democrat before the midterm election,'" Berman said. "It was something we never heard or seen before." Berman was asked repeatedly to resign by Barr, he said, with the then-attorney general announcing Berman had resigned on June 19, 2020. He denied he had resigned but ended a brief standoff with the administration by announcing he would leave his role at U.S. attorney a day later. Berman's book comes out Tuesday. ABC's Aaron Katersky reports: Justice Department pressured former US attorney to bring cases against Trump enemies, Geoffrey Berman says originally appeared on abcnews.go.com | |
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| 09-13-22 05:58am - 737 days | #388 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
The US filed charges against a woman who threatened a federal judge. I don't see why the woman doesn't have the same right as Dangle Trump and many Republicans who threaten violence against other people. Why does the US government let Dangle Trump threaten to incite violence against people? Is that protected by free speech? Then why doesn't an ordinary citizen or ordinary woman have the right to threaten violence? Is there a double standard here? ----- ----- U.S. charges woman over threats against judge in Trump documents case Reuters Sarah N. Lynch September 12, 2022, 3:09 PM By Sarah N. Lynch WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Justice Department has charged a Texas woman accused of making threats by phone against the federal judge in Florida who is presiding over the appointment of an independent arbiter to review documents that the FBI seized from former President Donald Trump's Florida home. In a criminal complaint filed on Sept. 6, an FBI agent said that Tiffani Shea Gish, who lives in the Houston area, left a series of threatening voicemails for U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who is based in Fort Pierce, Florida. Gish faces two criminal charges - influencing a federal official by threat and interstate communications with a threat to kidnap or injure. Cannon, who was appointed to the bench in 2020 by Trump, ruled last week that she was granting the former president's request over the Justice Department's objections to install a "special master" to review the seized records to weed out possibly privileged materials. The complaint said that on Sept. 3, Cannon forwarded three separate voicemails from Gish, who referred to herself in some of them as "Evelyn Salt," to the U.S. Marshals Service. "Donald Trump has been disqualified long ago, and he's marked for assassination. You're helping him, ma'am," one of the voicemails said, according to the complaint. "He's marked for assassination and so are you," the caller also said, while including an expletive. After FBI agents identified a cellphone number associated with the voicemails, they interviewed Gish at her home, the complaint stated. The FBI said she admitted to leaving the voicemails and confirmed that the number belonged to her and no one else had access to the cellphone. (Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Will Dunham) | |
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| 09-13-22 06:13am - 737 days | #389 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Dangle Trump, the Russian mole who took over the Whitest House for his Russian master Vlad Putin, has said he will intercede with the US Justice Department on behalf of the 9/11 defendants. "These people might have helped killed thousands of innocent American lives, but they were only having a bit of fun", Dangle screams. And people always want to have some fun. That's why I took the Top Secret Documents from the Whitest House to my home in Florida. Because they represent memories of a better time. And maybe I could sell a few of them to make some money. A guy's gotta do what he's gotta do. So let's cut some slack for me, and the 9/11 defendants". Says the master of the deal. ----- ----- Some 9/11 families "outraged" over potential plea deals CBS News CBSNews September 12, 2022, 6:25 AM CBS News has confirmed military prosecutors and defense attorneys are negotiating potential plea deals that could take the death penalty off the table for five defendants charged in connection with the 9/11 attack – and some families of victims are upset by the news, reports CBS News senior investigative correspondent Catherine Herridge. The five defendants (including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-described architect of 9/11) are all held at the military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and were formally charged in 2008 with helping to plan the attack. But their cases have stalled over access to CIA evidence and, recently, over COVID delays. Sunday marked 21 years since the terror plot that killed nearly 3,000 people on U.S. soil. Among the victims was pilot Charles Burlingame. On 9/11, al Qaeda terrorists took over Burlingame's American Airlines Flight 77, slamming it into the Pentagon. "He was living his dream," Burlingame's sister, Debra, told Herridge. Burlingame was more than a war hero to his family, who affectionately called him Chic. "He was really our touchstone," said Debra. "He still is." Before this year's anniversary, Debra shared his story at New York's 9/11 Memorial. "We didn't have remains for weeks. We were constantly saying to each other, 'What would Chic want? What would Chic do?'" But her grief has turned to anger, after learning a potential plea deal is under discussion. "I was outraged," she said. Herridge asked, "You're in touch with other 9/11 families. Do they feel the same way?" "The families are outraged. They don't want closure; they want justice." But another group, September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, believes a plea deal could deliver "some measure of judicial finality." Lawyer James Connell, whose team represents 9/11 defendant Ammar al-Baluchi, said, "All five defendants and the government are all engaged in good faith negotiations with the idea of bringing this trial, which has become a forever trial, to an end. "[Al-Baluchi] is willing to plead guilty to a substantial sentence at Guantanamo in exchange for a guarantee of medical care and dropping the death penalty," Connell said. Before their transfer to Guantanamo Bay in 2006, the five 9/11 defendants were held by the CIA and interrogated. Critics call the extreme tactics torture. Alka Pradhan, a human rights attorney on the 9/11 defense team, described one interrogation tactic, referred to as "walling," which she said has had the most lasting physical impact: "He had told us that his head was bashed against a wall repeatedly until he saw sparks and fainted." "Nearly 3,000 people died on 9/11," said Herridge. "Is it right to take the death penalty off the table?" "The United States government failed all of us after September 11th in their decisions to use illegal techniques and illegal programs," Pradhan replied. "In doing so, [they] irrevocably corrupted any legal process that could have taken place." A spokesman for the military trials did not answer CBS News' questions, but confirmed "the parties are currently engaged in preliminary plea negotiations," citing recent court records. If a plea deal goes ahead, and the 9/11 defendants get lengthy sentences, there's a law in place that prevents their transfer to U.S. soil and federal custody. That means the Guantanamo prison could remain open indefinitely. Debra Burlingame, whose brother was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery, said, "I will not have closure as long as there is any possibility for some future president to commute their sentences or trade them away. "I do believe that forgiveness is more powerful than love," she said. "But it's earned. They never will have that." | |
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| 09-14-22 07:02am - 736 days | #390 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Dangle Trump screams: "I fooled the FBI. I obeyed the orders of my master, Vlad Putin, who told me to steal top secret documents from the Whitest House during my visits to the House, after I had finished playing golf. These documents are worth their weight in gold and platinum and diamonds. Chwina and North Korea are interest in bidding for these documents. Everyone loves to read secret papers. I love to sell secret papers. And I need extra cash to support my legitimate and illegitimate children. And to buy drinks for my friends. So there, FBI. The federal judge has stopped you from reading the top secret documents I left behind, that I was not yet ready to sell. I only share secrets with my friends, not the FBI, who are now supposed to be working for Sleepy Joe, the idiot who doesn't know how to order the Justice Department to go after his enemies. --------- --------- Judge unseals additional portions of Mar-a-Lago affidavit Associated Press ERIC TUCKER September 14, 2022, 7:19 AM Scroll back up to restore default view. WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge Tuesday unsealed additional portions of an FBI affidavit laying out the basis for a search of former President Donald Trump's Florida home, showing that agents earlier obtained a hard drive after issuing a subpoena for surveillance footage recorded inside Mar-a-Lago. A heavily redacted version of the affidavit was made public last month, but the Justice Department requested permission to show more of it after lawyers for Trump revealed the existence of a June grand jury subpoena that sought video footage from cameras in the vicinity of the Mar-a-Lago storage room. “Because those aspects of the grand jury’s investigation have now been publicly revealed, there is no longer any reason to keep them sealed (i.e. redacted) in the filings in this matter,” department lawyers wrote. The newly visible portions of the FBI agent’s affidavit show that the FBI on June 24 subpoenaed for the footage after a visit weeks earlier to Mar-a-Lago in which agents observed 50 to 55 boxes of records in the storage room at the property. The Trump Organization provided a hard drive on July 6 in response to the subpoena, the affidavit says. The footage could be an important piece of the investigation, including as agents evaluate whether anyone has sought to obstruct the probe. The Justice Department has said in a separate filing that it has “developed evidence that government records were likely concealed and removed from the Storage Room and that efforts were likely taken to obstruct the government’s investigation.” The Justice Department has been investigating the holding of top-secret information and other classified documents at Mar-a-Lago after Trump left the White House. FBI agents during their Aug. 8 search of the home and club said they recovered more than 11,000 documents and 1,800 other items, including roughly 100 with classification markings. Separately Tuesday, the Justice Department again urged U.S. District Aileen Cannon to lift her hold on core aspects of the investigation. Cannon last week granted the Trump team's request for an independent arbiter to review the seized documents and weed out from the investigation any records that may be covered by claims of executive or attorney-client privilege. She also ordered the department to halt its review of the records pending any further court order or the completion of a review by the yet-to-be-named special master. The department urged Cannon last week to put her order on hold and told the judge Tuesday that its investigation would be harmed by a continued delay of its ability to scrutinize the classified documents. “The government and the public unquestionably have an interest in the timely enforcement of criminal laws, particularly those involving the protection of highly sensitive information, and especially where, as here, there may have been efforts to obstruct its investigation,” the lawyers wrote. The Trump team on Monday urged the judge to leave her order in place. His lawyers raised questions about the documents' current classification status and noted that a president has absolute authority to declassify information, though they pointedly did not say that Trump had actually declassified anything. ____ Follow Eric Tucker on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/etuckerAP | |
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| 09-14-22 09:20am - 736 days | #391 | |
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Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Monica Lewinsky says she forgives Ken Starr for bullying her and threatening to put her in jail. But most important, she says she still has fond memories of sucking Bill Clinton's cock: he was the love of my life", she screams, just like Dangle Trump is now. ----- ----- Lewinsky says Starr's death painful 'for those who love him' Associated Press HILLEL ITALIE September 14, 2022, 7:49 AM NEW YORK (AP) — Monica Lewinsky had a tempered, compassionate response to the death of Ken Starr, the former independent counsel whose investigation of Bill Clinton helped reveal her affair with the president and, she once wrote, made her life a “living hell.” “As I'm sure many can understand, my thoughts about ken starr bring up complicated feelings,” she tweeted Tuesday after reports that Starr had died at age 76. “But of more importance, is that i imagine it’s a painful loss for those who love him.” Lewinsky was a White House intern in the mid-1990s, in her early 20s, when she began a relationship with Clinton, one that Starr would document in exhaustive, explicit detail. Starr had initially been retained to look into an Arkansas real estate deal Bill and Hillary Clinton were involved in, but his investigation shifted after he learned of allegations about the president's private behavior. Lewinsky denied their affair in a sworn affidavit, but did not know that her former colleague, Linda Tripp, had been taping their phone conversations about Bill Clinton and would turn them over to Starr. Lewinsky would recall with horror being interrogated for hours in 1998 by Starr's prosecutors — but not Starr himself — and threatened with prison if she didn't cooperate with their investigation, a demand she initially refused. Months later, she agreed to testify about the affair, and turned over to prosecutors a dress stained with the president's semen, in return for immunity. Lewinsky later wrote that she was diagnosed with “post-traumatic stress disorder, mainly from the ordeal of having been publicly outed and ostracized,” and was for years subjected to crude jokes. But starting with a Vanity Fair essay in 2014 and a TED talk she gave in 2015 on “The Price of Shame,” she has become a widely respected anti-bullying activist. David Letterman and John Oliver are among those who have apologized for once mocking her. Writing in Vanity Fair in 2018, Lewinsky remembered finally encountering Starr in person, at a Greenwich Village restaurant the previous Christmas Eve. Starr stepped forward with a “warm, incongruous smile,” and introduced himself to Lewinsky, who was dining with her family. “Ken Starr asked me several times if I was ‘doing O.K.’ A stranger might have surmised from his tone that he had actually worried about me over the years. His demeanor, almost pastoral, was somewhere between avuncular and creepy. He kept touching my arm and elbow, which made me uncomfortable,” she wrote. "I turned and introduced him to my family. Bizarre as it may sound, I felt determined, then and there, to remind him that, 20 years before, he and his team of prosecutors hadn’t hounded and terrorized just me but also my family — threatening to prosecute my mom (if she didn’t disclose the private confidences I had shared with her), hinting that they would investigate my dad’s medical practice, and even deposing my aunt, with whom I was eating dinner that night." Starr would write about Lewinsky in his 2018 memoir “Contempt,” describing how “Monica screamed, she cried, she pouted, and complained bitterly about her scheming, no-good, so-called friend (Tripp).” But their threats, and the urging of Lewinsky's mother to accept the prosecutors' terms, did not change her mind. “Monica overruled her mother. She would fall on her sword rather than implicate the president of the United States,” Starr wrote. “It was becoming increasingly clear: in thinking she was a naive, starstruck young woman in love who would quickly cooperate, we underestimated her. In her determination to protect the president, Monica kept a team of experienced FBI agents and career prosecutors twiddling their thumbs for much of the day.” | |
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| 09-16-22 04:31am - 735 days | #392 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
California governor wants Texas governor to be investigated for racketeering for sending illegal immigrants from Texas to California. "Lock them up", chants the Whitest House, home of Sleepy Joe Biden. "We're not going to take this abuse", screams Sleepy Joe Biden's wife. "No more laying down to dirty Republican criminals, who are wasting taxpayer funds with political stunts. Lock them up and throw away the key!!!!" ----- ----- White House denounces DeSantis, Abbott 'stunt' of sending migrants to Martha's Vineyard, Washington Yahoo News Alexander Nazaryan September 15, 2022, 3:18 PM WASHINGTON — The White House denounced transports of Latin and South American migrants to Martha’s Vineyard and Washington, D.C., by Republican Govs. Ron DeSantis of Florida and Greg Abbott of Texas, while DeSantis’s rival for the governorship called for him to be investigated by the Department of Justice. “Using migrants as political pawns is shameful,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at Thursday’s press briefing, as images circulated on social media of 50 migrants from Venezuela disembarking on Wednesday evening from two airplanes on Martha’s Vineyard, a remote island off the Massachusetts coast where presidents, movie stars and cultural and political elites are known to vacation. The flights originated in Texas but had been ordered by DeSantis, on the presumption that “states like Massachusetts, New York and California will better facilitate the care of these individuals who they have invited into our country by incentivizing illegal immigration,” as a DeSantis spokeswoman said in a statement. The Florida Legislature set aside $12 million for the program. A videographer reportedly accompanied the migrants. “It’s really just disrespectful to humanity,” Jean-Pierre said, describing the transports as a “cruel, premeditated political stunt.” On Thursday morning, two buses carrying about 100 migrants that had originated in Texas arrived at the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C. The gated complex is home to Vice President Kamala Harris, whose portfolio includes addressing the “root causes” of migration. “She’s the border czar, and we felt that if she won’t come down to see the border, if President Biden will not come down and see the border, we will make sure they see it firsthand,” Abbott explained in a radio interview. Throughout the last several months, Abbott has been sending migrants attempting to enter the U.S. without proper authorization to cities like Washington, D.C., and New York as a way to highlight what he sees as the hypocrisy of progressive cities and states that support undocumented immigrants but do not have to directly deal with the humanitarian crisis at the border, which has most severely impacted states like Texas and Arizona. DeSantis, who is widely expected to seek the presidency in 2024, indicated in late August that he was interested in following Abbott’s lead. According to NPR, migrants who had arrived in San Antonio were offered passage to Boston by a woman who identified herself as “Perla.” She “offered us help,” a 30-year-old migrant named Andres Duarte said, “help that never arrived. And now we’re here. We got on the plane with a vision of the future, making it.” Residents of Martha’s Vineyard had reportedly not been warned by DeSantis’s office that migrants were en route. “That’s not how you treat people,” Jean-Pierre said. “That’s inhumane.” A humanitarian effort was quickly launched, in what Massachusetts state legislator Dylan Fernandes, who represents Martha’s Vineyard, called “the best of America.” Activists sharply criticized DeSantis. “Venezuelans come to Florida because this is where they have their families and support networks,” Yaneth Galvis of the Florida Immigrant Coalition said in a statement. “We ask you to have humanity and not use us as political tokens. We came to work and contribute to this country.” Comparing DeSantis to the late Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, his Democratic challenger in the gubernatorial race, Charlie Crist, called for a Department of Justice investigation into the migrant transports. So did California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who sent U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland a letter in which he argued that because the migrants had been fooled into agreeing to the flights, prosecution could be justified under sweeping racketeering statutes. While the White House rarely shies away from a fight with Abbott or DeSantis, it has struggled to convince Americans that the Biden administration has adequately addressed the persistent crisis at the southern border. “We’re not going to flip a switch and get that done,” Jean-Pierre said on Thursday. But, she added, “we need to do it in a humane way. We need to do it in a safe way.” This story was updated to reflect that $12 million was allocated by the Florida Legislature for a migrant transport program, not specially for flights. | |
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| 09-16-22 05:08am - 734 days | #393 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Rioter who wore "Camp Auschwitz' sweatshirt gets jail term. A US citizen who follows his leader, Dangle Trump, the secret love child of Adolf Hitler, was sentenced to jail for the Jan 06, 2021 riot. But not to worry: if Dangle Trump reclaims the Whitest House, Dangle has promised to pardon any of the rioters in the name of political freedom. Dangle praises the rioters, saying they were good old boys who were only trying to have some fun. And if anybody got hurt, it was only high spirits. Dangle says he only wishes the coward Mike Pence, who Trump supported while he was president, had been lynched for being a traitor. There are too many traitors in Washington, Dangle Trump screams to his supporters. "Lock them up", he screams with joy. "And if they try to escape, shoot them down. America was founded in blood. There will be blood in the streets, when I return to the Whitest House!!!!!" -------- -------- Rioter who wore 'Camp Auschwitz' sweatshirt gets jail term Associated Press MICHAEL KUNZELMAN September 15, 2022, 12:32 PM A Virginia man who stormed the U.S. Capitol while wearing an antisemitic “Camp Auschwitz” sweatshirt over a Nazi-themed shirt was sentenced on Thursday to 75 days of imprisonment. Robert Keith Packer, 57, declined to address U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols before he sentenced him during hearing held by video conference. The judge noted the “incredibly offensive” message on Packer's sweatshirt before imposing the sentence. “It seems to me that he wore that sweatshirt for a reason. We don't know what the reason was because Mr. Packer hasn't told us,” Nichols said. Photographs of Packer wearing the sweatshirt went viral after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. When FBI agents asked him why he wore it, he “fatuously” replied, “Because I was cold,” a federal prosecutor said in a court filing. Packer’s sweatshirt depicted an image of a human skull above the words “Camp Auschwitz.” The word “Staff” was on the back. It also bore the phrase “Work Brings Freedom,” a rough translation of the German words above the entrance gate to Auschwitz, the concentration camp in occupied Poland where Nazis killed more than 1 million men, women and children. Assistant U.S. Attorney Mona Furst said she learned on Wednesday that Packer also wore an “SS" T-shirt — a reference to the Nazi Party paramilitary organization founded by Adolf Hitler — under his sweatshirt on Jan. 6. Packer “attacked the very government that gave him the freedom to express those beliefs, no matter how abhorrent or evil they may be" when he joined the mob supporting then-President Donald Trump, the prosecutor said Packer "wanted to support the subversion of our republic and keep a dictatorial ruler in place by force and violence,” Furst told the judge. Defense attorney Stephen Brennwald acknowledged that Packer's attire was “seriously offensive” but argued that it shouldn't be a sentencing factor because he has a free speech right to wear it. “It's just awful that he wore that shirt that day. I just don't think it's appropriate to give him extra time because of that because he's allowed to wear it,” he said. Brennwald added that Packer was offended and angry to be labeled a white supremacist “because he doesn't see himself that way at all.” The defense lawyer said Packer wanted him to sue House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for linking him to white supremacy during a press conference several days after the riot. Packer declined to speak during Thursday's hearing because he didn't want his words “splashed out there” on social media, his lawyer told the judge. Packer, a resident of Newport News, Virginia, pleaded guilty in January to a misdemeanor count of parading, demonstrating or picketing in a Capitol building, which carries a maximum sentence of six months of imprisonment. Packer told the FBI that he was about 10 to 12 feet away from a rioter, Ashli Babbitt, when a police officer fatally shot her as she tried to climb through the broken window of a barricaded door leading to the Speaker’s Lobby. “He told the agents he heard the shot and saw her fall back from the window she was trying to climb through,” Furst wrote in a court filing. Furst said Packer didn't express any remorse during his FBI interview. “He was more interested in relaying how he received hate mail and how he was 'hounded' by the media for interviews,” she added. Packer’s younger sister, Kimberly Rice, wrote a letter asking the judge for leniency. She said her brother’s sweatshirt “could be considered in poor taste” but added that “freedom of expression” isn’t a crime. Prosecutors had recommended a sentence of 75 days of incarceration followed by 36 months of probation. Brennwald sought a probationary sentence with no jail time. FBI agents arrested Packer a week after the riot. He has remained free while awaiting sentencing. Packer is a self-employed pipe fitter. Prosecutors say he has a lengthy criminal record, with approximately 21 convictions, mostly for drunken driving and other motor vehicle violations. More than 870 people have been charged with federal crimes for their conduct on Jan. 6. Approximately 400 of them have pleaded guilty, mostly to misdemeanor offenses. Over 250 riot defendants have been sentenced, with roughly half getting terms of imprisonment ranging from seven days to 10 years. | |
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| 09-16-22 05:29am - 734 days | #394 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Federal judge rules that you can't trust the federal government. Which makes sense. Why trust a bunch of scum who have fucked you over? So the judge says if Dangle Trump screams rape, maybe he's raped a few women in the past. But don't hold Dangle accountable: he was only obeying human nature. ---- ---- INSIDER Judge says she can't accept DOJ's claim that Trump 'could not possibly have a possessory interest' in some documents seized from Mar-a-Lago until 3rd party looks at them Lloyd Lee Thu, September 15, 2022 at 7:15 PM Donald Trump raising a fist. Former President Donald Trump gestures while playing golf at Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia, on September 13, 2022.Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP The DOJ's appeal to continue to review classified documents for its probe was rejected on Thursday. A federal judge was not convinced that Trump couldn't have "possessory interest" in the documents. The judge could not accept DOJ's claim until a special master review was completed. A federal judge said she could not accept the Justice Department's claim that Donald Trump does not "have a possessory interest" in some documents that were seized from Mar-a-Lago just because they're classified government records without further review by a third party. On Thursday, Judge Aileen M. Cannon of the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida appointed a special master to review more than 11,000 documents seized from Mar-a-Lago in August and rejected the DOJ's appeal that would have allowed the department to continue to use a set of classified records as part of its criminal investigation during that review. As part of her reasoning, Judge Cannon wrote in her decision that her court can't accept the department's claims that Trump should not have had the classified documents until the review by a special master is completed. "The Court does not find it appropriate to accept the Government's conclusions on these important and disputed issues without further review by a neutral third party in an expedited and orderly fashion," Cannon wrote. Raymond Dearie, a former Chief Judge of the US District Court for the Eastern District Court of New York, was appointed to be the third-party reviewer. Cannon has given a deadline of November 30 to complete the review. In her decision, Cannon, who was appointed by Trump, also wrote that she couldn't accept the Justice Department's argument that Trump doesn't have a "plausible claim of privilege" of the classified documents without a third-party review. Legal experts have previously raised doubts around Cannon's judgment that Trump may have executive privilege over the records since the government owns the documents and since the Biden administration has declined to assert privilege over them. Cannon's order does however allow for the government to continue to review the documents "for purposes of intelligence classification and national security assessments." Read the original article on Business Insider | |
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| 09-16-22 05:33am - 734 days | #395 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
CBS News Judge denies DOJ request to regain access to some documents seized in Trump search Melissa Quinn Thu, September 15, 2022 at 4:44 PM Washington — A federal judge on Thursday rejected a request from the Justice Department to allow its investigators to regain access to the roughly 100 documents marked classified that were seized by the FBI during its search at former President Donald Trump's Florida residence. U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon declined to put on hold any part of her Sept. 5 ruling that stopped the Justice Department from using any of the approximately 11,000 documents taken from Mar-a-Lago during the Aug. 8 search for investigative purposes, pending the review of the materials by an independent arbiter known as a special master. In her 10-page order, Cannon pushed back on two of the premises outlined by the Justice Department in its motion: that the roughly 100 documents at the center of the request are classified records and that Trump could not have a "possessory interest in any of them," and that Trump does not have a plausible claim of privilege as to any of these records. "The court does not find it appropriate to accept the government's conclusions on these important and disputed issues without further review by a neutral third party in an expedited and orderly fashion," she wrote. Cannon said in her order that while she agrees with the Justice Department that "the public is best served by evenhanded adherence to established principles of civil and criminal procedure," regardless of who is involved, "it is also true, of course, that evenhanded procedure does not demand unquestioning trust in the determinations of the Department of Justice." Federal prosecutors asked Cannon last week to allow the government to access a batch of just over 100 documents bearing classification markings for use in its ongoing criminal probe into Trump's handling of sensitive records, but the judge's order keeps those materials from being used by investigators for now. The Justice Department also asked Cannon to lift a second part of her Labor Day order that required the government to disclose the records with classification markings to a special master for review. Cannon authorized the appointment of a special master to sift through the materials seized by the FBI during the Aug. 8 search for any that may be subject to claims of attorney-client or executive privileges and named Judge Raymond Dearie, the former chief judge for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, to the role. Federal prosecutors argued in their motion for a stay that if Cannon's ruling shielding the documents was allowed to stand, the government and broader public would suffer "irreparable harm from the undue delay to the criminal investigation." The Justice Department lawyers, including its top national security officials, also said temporarily halting their investigation risked harming the nation's national security and intelligence interests. But Trump's legal team opposed the Justice Department's request, claiming in a filing Monday that some of the seized records with classification markings may not be classified anymore. They also characterized the controversy surrounding Trump's alleged improper removal and storage of classified information as a "document storage dispute that has spiraled out of control." Cannon's decision to decline the Justice Department's request for a stay paves the way for the government to file an appeal to the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, as prosecutors told the court it intended to do. The decision from Cannon not to restore the Justice Department's access to the seized records is the latest turn in the long-running effort by the National Archives and Records Administration to retrieve records taken by Trump to Mar-a-Lago at the end of his presidency in January 2021. When the FBI conducted its search at the South Florida property on Aug. 8, agents seized 33 items, boxes or containers from a storage room and from desks in Trump's office that contained 103 documents marked "confidential," "secret" or "top secret," according to a detailed property list made public this month. Federal investigators also took empty folders with classified banners, along with printed news articles, books, photographs and articles of clothing, government lawyers said. | |
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| 09-16-22 01:41pm - 734 days | #396 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Dangle Trump rallies the troops. Screams with joy: "We will rise up and take back the Whitest House. With blood in the streets. We will hang Mike Pence, the traitor. Along with Sleepy Joe Biden. And then we will put up statues of our founding fathers, including my secret father, Adolf Hitler, the greatest man in the world, until I came along. Also Joseph Stalin, my secret Uncle, who slept with my mother to give me his will of steel, is part of my heritage. That is why Vlad Putin (the dictator of Russia) and I are best buddies. ----- ----- Trump openly embraces, amplifies QAnon conspiracy theories Associated Press DAVID KLEPPER and ALI SWENSON September 16, 2022, 5:18 AM After winking at QAnon for years, Donald Trump is overtly embracing the baseless conspiracy theory, even as the number of frightening real-world events linked to it grows. On Tuesday, using his Truth Social platform, the Republican former president reposted an image of himself wearing a Q lapel pin overlaid with the words “The Storm is Coming." In QAnon lore, the “storm” refers to Trump's final victory, when supposedly he will regain power and his opponents will be tried, and potentially executed, on live television. As Trump contemplates another run for the presidency and has become increasingly assertive in the Republican primary process during the midterm elections, his actions show that far from distancing himself from the political fringe, he is welcoming it. He's published dozens of recent Q-related posts, in contrast to 2020, when he claimed that while he didn't know much about QAnon, he couldn't disprove its conspiracy theory. Pressed on QAnon theories that Trump allegedly is saving the nation from a satanic cult of child sex traffickers, he claimed ignorance but asked, “Is that supposed to be a bad thing?” “If I can help save the world from problems, I’m willing to do it,” Trump said. Trump's recent postings have included images referring to himself as a martyr fighting criminals, psychopaths and the so-called deep state. In one now-deleted post from late August, he reposted a “q drop,” one of the cryptic message board postings that QAnon supporters claim come from an anonymous government worker with top secret clearance. A Trump spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment. Even when his posts haven't referred to the conspiracy theory directly, Trump has amplified users who do. An Associated Press analysis found that of nearly 75 accounts Trump has reposted on his Truth Social profile in the past month, more than a third of them have promoted QAnon by sharing the movement's slogans, videos or imagery. About 1 in 10 include QAnon language or links in their profile bios. Earlier this month, Trump chose a QAnon song to close out a rally in Pennsylvania. The same song appears in one of his recent campaign videos and is titled “WWG1WGA,” an acronym used as a rallying cry for Q adherents that stands for “Where we go one, we go all.” Online, Q adherents basked in Trump's attention. “Yup, haters!” wrote one commenter on an anonymous QAnon message board. “Trump re-truthed Q memes. And he’ll do it again, more and more of them, over and OVER, until (asterisk)everyone(asterisk) finally gets it. Make fun of us all you want, whatever! Soon Q will be everywhere!” “Trump Sending a Clear Message Patriots,” a QAnon-linked account on Truth Social wrote. “He Re-Truthed This for a Reason.” The former president may be seeking solidarity with his most loyal supporters at a time when he faces escalating investigations and potential challengers within his own party, according to Mia Bloom, a professor at Georgia State University who has studied QAnon and recently wrote a book about the group. “These are people who have elevated Trump to messiah-like status, where only he can stop this cabal,” Bloom told the AP on Thursday. “That's why you see so many images (in online QAnon spaces) of Trump as Jesus.” On Truth Social, QAnon-affiliated accounts hail Trump as a hero and savior and vilify President Joe Biden by comparing him to Adolf Hitler or the devil. When Trump shares the content, they congratulate each other. Some accounts proudly display how many times Trump has “re-truthed” them in their bios. By using their own language to directly address QAnon supporters, Trump is telling them that they've been right all along and that he shares their secret mission, according to Janet McIntosh, an anthropologist at Brandeis University who has studied QAnon's use of language and symbols. It also allows Trump to endorse their beliefs and their hope for a violent uprising without expressly saying so, she said, citing his recent post about “the storm" as a particularly frightening example. “The ‘storm is coming' is shorthand for something really dark that he's not saying out loud," McIntosh said. “This is a way for him to point to violence without explicitly calling for it. He is the prince of plausible deniability." Bloom predicted that Trump may later attempt to market Q-related merchandise or perhaps ask QAnon followers to donate to his legal defense. Regardless of motive, Bloom said, it's a reckless move that feeds a dangerous movement. A growing list of criminal episodes has been linked to people who had expressed support for the conspiracy theory, which U.S. intelligence officials have warned could trigger more violence. QAnon supporters were among those who violently stormed the Capitol during the failed Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. In November 2020, two men drove to a vote-counting site in Philadelphia in a Hummer adorned with QAnon stickers and loaded with a rifle, 100 rounds of ammunition and other weapons. Prosecutors alleged they were trying to interfere with the election. Last year, a California man who told authorities he had been enlightened by QAnon was accused of killing his two children because he believed they had serpent DNA. Last month, a Colorado woman was found guilty of attempting to kidnap her son from foster care after her daughter said she began associating with QAnon supporters. Other adherents have been accused of environmental vandalism, firing paintballs at military reservists, abducting a child in France and even killing a New York City mob boss. On Sunday, police fatally shot a Michigan man who they say had killed his wife and severely injured his daughter. A surviving daughter told The Detroit News that she believes her father was motivated by QAnon. “I think that he was always prone to (mental issues), but it really brought him down when he was reading all those weird things on the internet,” she told the newspaper. The same weekend a Pennsylvania man who had reposted QAnon content on Facebook was arrested after he allegedly charged into a Dairy Queen with a gun, saying he wanted to kill all Democrats and restore Trump to power. Major social media platforms including YouTube, Facebook and Twitter have banned content associated with QAnon and have suspended or blocked accounts that seek to spread it. That's forced much of the group's activities onto platforms that have less moderation, including Telegram, Gab and Trump's struggling platform, Truth Social. | |
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| 09-16-22 05:30pm - 734 days | #397 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Florida governor defends himself against rackateering charges. "I'm not a crook", DeSantis screams loudly. "I am a loyal follower of Adolf Hitler, errrr, I mean Dongle Trump, the fightenest man to live at the Whitest House in the 22nd century. It's been an honor to follow in Dongle Trump's footsteps. I've learned to much: how to lie, to steal, to trample on the rights of gay men and homeless women and children. There will be blood in the streets, as soon as I give my brown shirt followers the guns and ammo they are screaming for!!!!" ------- ------- Florida governor defends migrant flights to Martha's Vineyard, suggests more to come Reuters Jonathan Allen and Rich McKay September 16, 2022, 1:15 PM MARTHA'S VINEYARD, Mass. (Reuters) - Florida's Republican governor on Friday defended his decision to fly dozens of migrants to the wealthy vacation island of Martha's Vineyard from Texas, and said similar actions could follow as a political dispute over border security deepened in the run-up to U.S. elections in November. DeSantis claimed credit for a pair of chartered flights on Wednesday that carried around 50 migrants to Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, as part of a broader Republican effort to shift responsibility for border crossers to Democratic leaders. At a news conference in Daytona Beach, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis blamed Democratic President Joe Biden for what he portrayed as a failure to stop migrants from crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, as a record 1.8 million have been arrested this fiscal year. DeSantis said the Florida Legislature set aside $12 million to transport migrants out of the state and that his government would likely use the funds "to protect Florida." "There may be more flights, there may be buses," he said to cheers and applause from backers in the crowd. The state paid $615,000 to Vertol Systems Company Inc, an aviation business, on Sept. 8 as part of a "relocation program of unauthorized aliens," Florida state data showed. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The flights to Martha's Vineyard follow a busing effort by Texas Governor Greg Abbott, another Republican, that has sent more than 10,000 migrants to the Democrat-controlled cities of Washington, New York and Chicago since April. The Republican governor of Arizona also has sent more than 1,800 migrants to Washington. Unlike those major cities, the island south of Boston is home to around 20,000 year-round residents and is known as a vacation spot for affluent liberals like former Democratic Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. On Friday morning in Martha's Vineyard, the migrants, a group of mostly Venezuelans including half a dozen children, boarded buses en route to a ferry to Cape Cod in transportation organized by Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker, a Republican. He said they would be housed temporarily at a Cape Cod military base. The scene left some of the island residents who volunteered to shelter them in a church for two nights in tears. Locals had come together to donate money, toiletries and toys for the migrants. A local thrift shop donated clean clothes, restaurants took turns organizing meals and pro-bono lawyers flew in to help the migrants with paperwork and immigration cases. "I want them to have a good life," said Lisa Belcastro, who helped organize cots and supplies at St. Andrews Episcopal Church, which sits among expensive white-clapboard homes in Edgartown. "I want them to come to America and be embraced. They all want to work." 'LIKE CHATTEL' DeSantis, who is running for reelection in November and is often mentioned as a possible presidential candidate for 2024, said his administration flew the migrants from Texas, and not his own state, to the island getaway because many of the migrants arriving in Florida come from Texas. In addition to re-election bids by DeSantis and Abott, November's midterm elections will determine whether the Democrats retain control of Congress. Many migrants who cross into the United States via the Southwest border are immediately expelled to Mexico or other countries under a COVID-19 pandemic policy. But some nationalities, including Venezuelans, cannot be expelled because Mexico will not accept them and many seek to apply for U.S. asylum. The White House has decried the Republican governors' efforts, saying migrants were being used in a political stunt. "These were children. They were moms. They were fleeing communism. And what did Governor DeSantis and Governor Abbott do to them? They used them as political pawns, treated them like chattel," White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at a press briefing on Friday. The legal basis for the Florida government to round up migrants in a different state remained unclear. U.S. government attorneys are exploring possible litigation around the governors' efforts, a Biden administration official told Reuters. The migrants flown to Martha's Vineyard said they had recently been admitted into the United States on humanitarian parole after fleeing Venezuela, and had been staying at a shelter in San Antonio, Texas, when they were approached by a woman who identified herself as "Perla." The woman persuaded them to board the flights by misleading them into thinking they were heading to Boston and would be provided shelter and assistance finding work for three months, they said. Many said they told the people who organized the flights they had appointments with immigration authorities they needed to attend in other cities, said Ivan Espinoza-Madrigal, the director of Lawyers for Civil Rights, a group in Boston assisting the migrants. "The organizers of this scheme said 'Don't worry, that will be taken care of'" he said. (Reporting by Jonathan Allen in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, and Rich McKay in Atlanta; Additional reporting by Ted Hesson and Trevor Hunnicutt in Washington and Kristina Cooke in San Francisco; Editing by Mica Rosenberg and Jonathan Oatis) | |
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| 09-19-22 11:32pm - 731 days | #398 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Texas sheriff opens criminal investigation into Martha's Vineyard migrant trips NBC Universal Carmen Sesin and Tim Stelloh and Anthony Cusumano September 19, 2022, 7:04 PM A Texas sheriff said Monday that his office has opened a criminal investigation into Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ unprecedented move to send nearly 50 migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, last week. Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar said the inquiry was in its early stages, and he declined to name possible suspects. But in a news conference, he said: “Everybody on this call knows who those names are already.” Salazar said it was not clear whether any laws had been broken, but he said that 48 migrants appeared to have been “lured under false pretenses” into staying at a hotel for a couple of days before they were flown to Florida and Martha’s Vineyard. “They were promised work,” he said. “They were promised the solution to several of their problems.” He said a recruiter was paid a "bird dog fee" to gather roughly 50 people around a San Antonio migrant resource center. The asylum-seekers, most of them Venezuelan, were then taken to the posh Massachusetts island “for little more than a photo op or a video op, and they were unceremoniously stranded in Martha’s Vineyard,” Salazar said. Salazar said his office's organized crime investigators would handle the investigation. Immigration advocates and lawyers called for a criminal investigation into DeSantis' effort to move the migrants under a $12 million program aimed at relocating "unauthorized aliens" to what his administration has described as "sanctuary" jurisdictions. In a statement Monday, a spokesperson for DeSantis said that Florida had helped the migrants access "greener pastures" in a place with more resources after they'd been "abandoned" in Bexar County. DeSantis and his administration have previously denied breaking any laws with the program, and at a news conference Friday, the governor said he would "spend every penny" he could on it. The League of United Latin American Citizens, or LULAC, offered a reward of $5,000 for information that leads to the identification of the person who misled the migrants. “Wanted” posters have gone up around San Antonio. “It’s one of the most cruel political stunts I’ve seen in my lifetime,” LULAC President Domingo García said. García said LULAC has spoken to several asylum-seekers who said a woman named “Perla” told them they were going to Boston and promised three months of work and free housing. García, who spoke with about a dozen migrants on Martha’s Vineyard last week, said Monday that “Perla” gave them a map with an “X,” marking a refugee center, which ended up being an empty parking lot. Attorneys representing 30 of the 48 migrants have asked the Massachusetts attorney general and the federal government to open criminal investigations. They said their clients “were induced to board airplanes and cross state lines under false pretenses.” Immigration advocates, as well as Democrats and the Biden administration, say transporting migrants is dehumanizing, and they accuse Republicans of using people for political stunts as calls for a criminal investigation grow. Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, tweeted that “the Department of Justice needs to investigate Governor DeSantis for using fraud and deception to lure people out of state only to abandon them without fulfilling his false promises. Same for Greg Abbott. They’re engaging in human trafficking.” Since April, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, has bused migrants released from federal immigration custody to Washington, D.C., New York City and Chicago. He accuses President Joe Biden of being too lax on migration. A month later, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican, also began transporting migrants to Washington, D.C. DeSantis sent two planes carrying migrants to Martha's Vineyard on Wednesday. The Florida Immigrant Coalition, a statewide coalition for more than 65 organizations, is investigating whether federal funds were misused when DeSantis sent the migrants to Martha’s Vineyard and whether there is room for litigation. “We are disgusted,” co-Executive Director Tessa Petit said. “We’re doing everything we can to make sure this does not repeat again.” Many of the migrants are asylum-seekers who have fled socialist countries, like Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua, where daily life has become difficult under authoritarian regimes. Follow NBC Latino on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. | |
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| 09-19-22 11:55pm - 731 days | #399 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Dangle Trump says his Mar-a-Lago home was destroyed by the FBI. Says he wants the judge he put in office to award him damages, so he can buy a better home where he can live in peace, secure from any raid by the FBI. Says he can't sleep at night, for fear the FBI will raid his home again, and he wants compensation for the mental distress and harm the FBI did to his family. Says it's only right for the FBI and the un-patriotic Congress, who benefited from his rule as President of the Whitest House, to pay for any and all damages to his beloved Florida home. Many FBI agents did not take off their shoes, while searching Dangle's home. This was a violation of his right to a germ-free home, and Dangle had to hire expert cleaners to fumigate the entire home to remove the pollution the FBI agents caused. ----- ----- Donald Trump is back at Mar-a-Lago and raging about FBI agents not taking off their shoes while searching his bedroom Business Insider Cheryl Teh September 19, 2022, 3:47 AM Trump said on Truth Social that he's finally had a look around Mar-a-Lago. He complained that his Florida residence would "never be the same" after the FBI search. He said FBI agents did not take off their shoes in his bedroom. On Sunday night, former President Donald Trump took to Truth Social to fume about the FBI's raid of Mar-a-Lago, accusing agents of not taking off their shoes when searching his bedroom. Trump announced earlier on Sunday that he would "soon be heading" to Mar-a-Lago. He wrote that he wanted to see "the unnecessary ransacking of rooms and other areas of the house," adding that he felt "totally violated." Several hours later, Trump said he had arrived at his Florida residence and "had a long and detailed chance" to look around the property. He claimed in his post that the FBI's lawful search of his property was a violation of his Fourth Amendment rights while lamenting that his home would "never be the same." "It was 'ransacked,' and in far different condition than the way I left it," Trump wrote on Truth Social. "Many Agents - And they didn't even take off their shoes in my bedroom. Nice!!!" This is not the first time Trump has expressed anger at the FBI agents who searched through his personal items. In August, Trump accused investigators of leaving former first lady Melania Trump's closet in a "mess" after the search. He also claimed the investigators searched his son Barron's room. Earlier this month, Trump claimed the FBI made him look sloppy by purposely scattering documents on the ground to photograph them during Mar-a-Lago raid. This was after the Department of Justice shared a photo that showed classified documents strewn about on a carpet. "They took them out of cartons and spread them around on the carpet, making it look like a big 'find' for them," he wrote on Truth Social. "They dropped them, not me — Very deceiving…" he added. "Perhaps pretending it was me that did it!" Trump added in a separate post the same day. During the Mar-a-Lago search, the FBI seized 11 sets of classified documents, including some marked "top secret" and some that may have concerned nuclear weapons. The DOJ is looking into whether Trump broke any of three federal laws — including the Espionage Act — by keeping the documents at his Florida residence. Representatives for the DOJ and Trump's post-presidential press office did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment. Read the original article on Business Insider | |
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| 09-20-22 12:05am - 731 days | #400 | |
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LKLK (0)
Active User Posts: 1,583 Registered: Jun 26, '19 Location: CA |
Sleepy Joe Biden is asleep at the wheel. As President of the Untied States of Trumperland, Biden is supposed to be leading America. But he's afraid to lead, because he wants to be seen as fair. So he is standing back from the FBI raid at Mar-a-Lago about secret documents that Dangle Trump took from the Whitest House. The top secret documents are supposed to be important. But Sleepy Joe does not want to be informed about what the documents say or mean, or to know what is done to protect America's secrets. "Let the FBI handle it", cries Sleepy Joe. It's not my problem." If Dangle Trump was still President, he would be directing the Justice Department and the FBI exactly on how to handle the investigation. But not Sleepy Joe. He's asleep at the wheel. ----- ----- Biden: Classified documents at Mar-a-Lago raise concerns Associated Press COLLEEN LONG September 19, 2022, 8:47 AM WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden says the discovery of top-secret documents at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate raised concerns that sensitive data was compromised and called it “irresponsible.” Biden, who rarely does interviews, spoke to CBS’ “60 Minutes” in a segment that aired Sunday. He said that when he heard about classified documents taken from the White House, he wondered how “anyone could be that irresponsible.” Biden added: “And I thought, what data was in there that may compromise sources and methods?” The president said he did not get a heads-up before the Trump estate was searched, and he has not asked for any specifics “because I don’t want to get myself in the middle of whether or not the Justice Department should move or not move on certain actions they could take.” The FBI says it took about 11,000 documents, including roughly 100 with classification markings found in a storage room and an office, while serving a court-authorized search warrant at the home on Aug. 8. Weeks after the search, Trump lawyers asked a judge to appoint a special master to conduct an independent review of the records. The warrant says federal agents were investigating potential violations of three different federal laws, including one that governs gathering, transmitting or losing defense information under the Espionage Act. Biden told “60 Minutes” that when he heard about classified documents being taken from the White House, he wondered how “anyone could be that irresponsible." "And I thought what data was in there that may compromise sources and methods?” In the wide-ranging interview, the president wouldn’t commit to running for reelection in 2024, though he’s said in the past that he planned to. “My intention, as I said to begin with, is that I would run again," he said. "But it’s just an intention. But is it a firm decision that I run again? That remains to be seen.” Biden was asked about growing concerns that Russia's efforts to seize Ukraine could inspire China's leader Xi Jinping to attack Taiwan. The island has been recognized by the U.S. as part of China but has its own democratic government. Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin met last week. Biden again said the U.S. forces would respond “if in fact there was an unprecedented attack.” White House officials later said the official U.S. policy had not changed, and would not say whether American forces would be called to defend Taiwan. Biden has made the claim before, but the statements come at an increasingly tense time for U.S.-China relations, particularly after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's trip there last month. Beijing sees official American contact with Taiwan as encouragement to make the island’s decades-old de facto independence permanent, a step Biden and other U.S. leaders say they don’t support. The president said the U.S. commitment to Ukraine was “ironclad” and would remain so “as long as it takes.” Ukrainian troops are engaged in a counteroffensive that has reclaimed towns and cities from Russian troops. But the toll the war has taken is vast, and fresh atrocities are being revealed, including torture chambers and mass graves. Since January 2021, the U.S. has given more than $13.5 billion in security assistance to Ukraine. In the same hour, “60 Minutes” also aired an interview with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, who will be speaking to the U.N. General Assembly in New York this coming week. Raisi echoed standard Iranian lines about the status of currently stalled nuclear talks with world powers. He said the United States is not trustworthy and demanded guarantees that the U.S. would not withdraw from a deal as President Donald Trump did in 2018. Raisi said he had no plans to meet with Biden on the sidelines of the U.N. event as it would serve no purpose, although he reiterated that Iran is willing to discuss prisoner exchanges with the United States. He also defended his country’s anti-Israel stance and said Tehran was committed to pursuing “justice” for the Trump administration’s assassination of a top Iranian military commander. | |
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