Featured Timeline Entries
March 20, 2023 - New docs from National Archives directly link Joe Biden to Hunter’s profiteering in Ukraine

March 27, 2023 - Durham states Clinton, Inc. formed "joint venture" of "co-conspirators" to smear Trump

The Alfa Gang – Left to Right: Andrew Sullivan, Hillary Clinton, John Durham, Michael Sussmann, Mark Elias

Special Counsel John Durham stated in a Monday night filing that Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign and researchers trying to dig up dirt on the Trump campaign “should be considered as co-conspirators”in an effort to smear Donald Trump with the Russia collusion hoax, Just the News reports.

According to Durham, Clinton and her cronies formed a “joint venture or conspiracy” in order to harm Trump’s chances of being elected.

“Durham has just shown the whole world what major pieces of our Russiagate investigation revealed,” said former House Intelligence Committee GOP investigative counsel, Kash Patel. “Hard evidence, emails and text messages, showing the Clinton Campaign, Fusion GPS, Perkins Coie, Joffe, and the media were all synced in August of 2016 pushing the false Alfa BaClnk server story, while also all working on the Steele Dossier matter. Durham submits all this evidence as ‘joint venture conspiracy’ under the rules of evidence.”

Durham’s filing also highlights an unearthed text message from disgraced Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann in which he lies to the FBI about not working for Clinton when he hand-delivered now-discredited anti-Trump research prior to the election.

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

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

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

According to Durham, “The defendant lied in that meeting, falsely stating to the General Counsel that he was not providing the allegations to the FBI on behalf of any client,” adding “In fact, the defendant had assembled and conveyed the allegations to the FBI on behalf of at least two specific clients, including (i) a technology executive (“Tech Executive-1”) at a U.S.-based Internet company (“Internet Company-1″), and (ii) the Clinton Campaign.”

Sussmann eventually admitted he lied a year later during testimony in front of the House.

“We had a conversation, as lawyers do with their clients, about client 1 needs and objectives and the best course to take for a client,” Sussman told Patel in a sworn deposition. “And so it may have been a decision that we came to together. I mean, I don’t want to imply that I was sort of directed to do something against my better judgment, or that we were in any sort of conflict.”

Durham says he plans to present evidence that Sussmann worked with the Clinton campaign, ‘Tech Executive 1’ Rodney Joffe, and others in aforementioned “joint venture” to push the Russian collusion hoax, particularly the fabrication that Trump had a secret backchannel to the Kremlin via the Moscow-based Alfa bank. (Read more: Zero Hedge, 3/28/2023)  (Archive)

March 29, 2023 - Attorney from law firm suing Trump and Giuliani, is arrested for possession of child porn

“A 53-year-old West Palm Beach licensed attorney has been arrested with possession of child pornography. Michael T. Dolce will appear in a West Palm Beach federal court tomorrow for his initial appearance.

Michael Dolce (Credit: BocaNewsNow)

According to the filed criminal complaint affidavit, on March 15, FBI agents executed a search warrant at Dolce’s West Palm Beach apartment. They discovered Dolce actively downloading child pornography using peer-2-peer software. Nearly 2000 images and videos of child pornography were recovered from his devices.

U.S. Attorney Markenzy Lapointe for the Southern District of Florida and Special Agent in Charge Jeffrey B. Veltri of the FBI, Miami Field Office, announced the charges.

FBI Miami, West Palm Beach Resident Agency investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Gregory Schiller is prosecuting the case. (Read more: justice.gov, 3/29/2023)  (Archive)

“On the heels of the Senate’s acquittal of Donald Trump, the NAACP, Mississippi Rep. Bennie Thompson and civil rights law firm Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll filed a lawsuit against the former president, Rudy Giuliani and two white supremacist groups, citing their role in the Jan. 6 insurrection.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday morning in Federal District Court for the District of Columbia, alleges that Trump and Giuliani, in collaboration with the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, conspired to incite the riot to keep Congress from certifying the results of the 2020 presidential election. It claims they did so in violation of the Ku Klux Klan Act, a Reconstruction-era statute designed to protect both formerly enslaved African Americans and lawmakers in Congress from white supremacist violence.

Reps. Hank Johnson and Bonnie Watson Coleman will join the litigation as plaintiffs in the coming days, according to a press release shared with POLITICO.

The lawsuit recounts Trump’s actions leading up to the Jan. 6 riot, building a case against him in similar fashion to House impeachment managers. It cites Trump’s remarks during “Save America” rally as evidence that he mobilized and directed insurrectionists to storm the Capitol. After his supporters entered the halls of Congress, the lawsuit alleges, Giuliani called lawmakers individually, asking them to try to “slow down” the Electoral College vote count. (Read more: Politico, 2/16/2021) (Archive)

April 3, 2023 - Pelosi and Clinton discuss Putin’s interference in the 2016 election – A lie launched by Hillary’s campaign

Hillary Clinton is still whining about Vladimir Putin and her 2016 election loss.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and twice-failed presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton spoke at an event backed by Columbia University.

Pelosi said Vladimir Putin interfered in the 2016 election to derail Hillary Clinton because she was more feared than Donald Trump.

No serious person believes this. (Gateway Pundit, 4/03/2023)

April 5, 2023 - Kim Dotcom: Obama pulls the strings

February 23, 2018 – Rice attorney admits in letter to Grassley and Graham, Obama officials knew the substance of Trump team communications, before and after the election

Obama tag

April 5, 2023 - Judicial Watch sues Homeland Security for records on censorship meetings with Big Tech

Judicial Watch announced today it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. Department Homeland Security (DHS) for records showing cooperation between the Cybersecurity and Information Security Agency (CISA) and social media platforms to censor and suppress free speech (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security (No. 1:23-cv-00552)).

The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after the Cybersecurity and Information Security Agency (a component of DHS) failed to respond to a December 2022 request for:

Records and communications of Jen Easterly, Director, CISA; Christopher Krebs, Former Director, CISA; Matt Masterson, Former CISA Senior Cybersecurity Advisor; and Brian Scully, CISA Senior Cybersecurity Advisor, regarding:

  1. CISA facilitated or hosted USG-industry meetings with Meta (@meta.com); Facebook (@facebook.com); Twitter (@twitter.com); Wikimedia Foundation (@wikimedia.org); Pinterest (@pinterest.com); LinkedIn (@linkedin.com); concerning election security;
  2. Election Infrastructure Subsector Government Coordinating Council Meetings;
  3. Election Infrastructure Subsector Government Coordinating Council Joint MDM Working Group Meetings; and
  4. Preparatory meetings with any employees of the DHS Office of Intelligence and Analysis; Federal Bureau of Investigation; Office of the Director of National Intelligence; National Security Agency; U.S. Secret Service; concerning any of the aforementioned USG-industry meetings and/or Coordinating Council Meetings.

On December 2, 2022, journalist Matt Taibbi used the social media platform Twitter to expose the “Twitter Files,” which include multiple mentions of the Cybersecurity and Information Security Agency’s censorship activities.

A December 16 tweet thread includes:

37.Reports also came from different agencies. Here, an employee recommends “bouncing” content based on evidence from “DHS etc”

A supplemental tweet thread on December 18 reports:

2. In July of 2020, San Francisco FBI agent Elvis Chan tells Twitter executive Yoel Roth to expect written questions from the Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF), the inter-agency group that deals with cyber threats.

3. The questionnaire authors seem displeased with Twitter for implying, in a July 20th “DHS/ODNI/FBI/Industry briefing,” that “you indicated you had not observed much recent activity from official propaganda actors on your platform.”

9. He then sent another note internally, saying the premise of the questions was “flawed,” because “we’ve been clear that official state propaganda is definitely a thing on Twitter.” Note the italics for emphasis.

A March 9 tweet thread includes:

3. But Twitter was more like a partner to government. With other tech firms it held a regular “industry meeting” with FBI and DHS, and developed a formal system for receiving thousands of content reports from every corner of government: HHS, Treasury, NSA, even local police

4. Emails from the FBI, DHS and other agencies often came with spreadsheets of hundreds or thousands of account names for review. Often, these would be deleted soon after.

19. The same agencies (FBI, DHS/CISA, GEC) invite the same “experts” (Thomas Rid, Alex Stamos), funded by the same foundations (Newmark, Omidyar, Knight) trailed by the same reporters (Margaret Sullivan, Molly McKew, Brandy Zadrozny) seemingly to every conference, every panel.

Other “Twitter files” released by Elon Musk show that FBI pressure on “Russian disinformation” led to censorship:

San Francisco FBI agent Elvis Chan “[sent] 10 documents to Twitter’s then-Head of Site Integrity, Yoel Roth, through Teleporter, a one-way communications channel from the FBI to Twitter,” the evening before the release of the Post story.

The “Twitter files” show the FBI pushed Twitter to also censor countless Twitter users who tweeted concerns (and jokes) about election integrity just before the 2020 election.

In testimony before the “House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government” Taibbi reported extensive collusion between Big Tech and government, at all levels – including the Biden White House, the Democratic National Committee, and federal, state and local law enforcement – all meant to stifle free speech and withhold information from the American people.

In May 2022, the States of Missouri and Louisiana sued President Biden and several federal employees in their official capacities for violation of the First Amendment.

In one of the depositions in the case, Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the Cyber Branch for San Francisco Division of the FBI, Elvis Chan, testified he and fellow officials had weekly meetings with major social media companies to warn against Russian disinformation attempts ahead of the 2020 election. The lawsuit also produced Cybersecurity and Information Security Agency meeting minutes that discuss its attempts to manage information being posted by social media contributors.

The Twitter Files also mention a report titled The Long Fuse: Misinformation and the 2020 Election, which was prepared by the Election Integrity Partnership (EIP), a left-leaning collective of organizations that worked with the Cybersecurity and Information Security Agency on its censorship of online information during the 2020 election.

“There is an unholy conspiracy in the Biden administration to censor Americans in collusion with Big Tech,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “This new Judicial Watch lawsuit shows the censorship abuse is furthered by unlawful secrecy and cover-ups.

Judicial Watch is heavily involved in countering government and Big Tech censorship. Buried within the Twitter Files are references and descriptions of meetings and communications Judicial Watch has been investigating through FOIA requests and lawsuits. (Read more: Judicial Watch, 4/05/2023)  (Archive)

April 7, 2023 - More on Kathy Chung appearances in the Biden laptop report

The surname of a petite woman of Korean extraction is found 31 times in our dossier: Chung. She was Ted Kaufman’s aide in the U.S. Senate (Kaufman, by the way, was practically hand-picked by Joey when Joey left the “upper chamber” for the vice presidency). Chung was then installed by Joey’s son, Hunter, to be Joey’s personal aide at the White House. After Joey’s stint as the V.P., she followed the crew to Joey’s “transition” office & then to his smattering of “centers,” “foundations,” & other slush funds. All of these movements by Chung & Joey’s broader entourage—including the two federal crimes that Chung participated in—are explained in our nonprofit’s Report on the Biden Laptop.

Earlier this week, Chung—who you, as a federal taxpayer, still subsidize as Chung is currently the deputy Director of Protocol at the Department of Defense—appeared before the U.S. House Oversight Committee & (to her credit) answered some of their questions about Joey’s document fiasco & (hopefully) other matters. Accordingly, we felt it our duty to provide the public with more granularity on this figure who had/has such close access to the man with the nuke codes. We’ll copy directly from the Report:

—

Page 106 in the dossier: Organized a Biden family luncheon for ChiComs

Page 488: Hand-picked for a White House gig by the “smartest man” Joe knows

Pages 188-190: Facilitated FARA violations with Mexican foreign principals & shared non-public information with Hunter

Page 53: The federal statutes & the federal regulation violated:

Lastly, we felt the need to include some photos of the woman. After all, many outlets (Fox News, the Daily Mail, CNN, the New York Post, Axios, & many others) released stories about Chung, but did not include photos. Here are a few:

Rep. Jamie Comer, chairman of the U.S. House Oversight Committee, was smart to bring her in. What our tour through the Biden Laptop has shown us is that rank is oftentimes untethered to value creation and proximity. In other words, the younger or lower-ranking people (e.g. executive assistants) typically know much more about the operations of an enterprise (in this case, a political mafia) than many people might suspect. Marco Polo recognizes this fact and does not get distracted by mere titles—and we take pride in turning over every rock, no matter how small.

–Garrett Ziegler, Founder

If you want to support Marco Polo (EIN: 61-199994), you can do so here.

(More pics: Garrett Ziegler/Substack, 4/07/2023)  (Archive)

April 11, 2023 - DCCC, Marc Elias firm accused of 'apparent civil violations' of federal election law

Attorney Marc Elias preps on Aug. 3, 2016, before the hearing for his lawsuit against Arizona over voting rights. (Credit: David Jolkovski/Getty Images)

An anti-Biden political action committee (PAC) filed a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) alleging “apparent civil violations” of election law between the House Democrats’ campaign arm and top liberal lawyer and former Hillary Clinton attorney Marc Elias’ law firm.

Dan Backer (Credit: LinkedIn)

Counsel for the Committee to Defeat the President Dan Backer, who sent the letter to the DOJ, told Fox News Digital for “years, the infamous Marc Elias and the corrupt Democrats in his orbit have violated federal campaign finance laws, and it’s high time to hold them accountable.”

(…) “Americans deserve to know the truth about the Democratic Party’s shady money laundering schemes, especially when campaign funds are supposed to be spent in one way and they get spent in another,” Backer said.

“Based on the Committee’s robust research, and Elias’ own shady past, it seems pretty clear that Elias and other Democrats have engaged in false reporting, and that cannot go unchecked,” he continued.

A letter from the FEC obtained by Fox News Digital acknowledged the receipt of the complaint.

In the letter, Backer wrote to Heberle about “possible criminal violations of both the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA) and the federal Criminal Code” allegedly committed by the DCCC and Elias Law Group.

“I hope that you will not allow the Biden Administration’s political appointees within the Department of Justice to allow President Biden’s close political allies to gain an unfair advantage in the electoral process by violating federal criminal law with impunity,” Backer wrote.

Backer pointed out the “FECA requires each political committee to report to the FEC the purpose of each of its operating expenditures over $200” and that in “a series of FEC filings over the course of 2021 and 2022, the DCCC reported making a total of $5,177,460.62 in payments between October 19, 2021, and July 15, 2022, to Elias Law Group for ‘RECOUNT LEGAL [SERVICES].’

(…) ”Backer also alleged that Elias, “the name partner of Elias Law Group, has a history of allowing Democratic political committees to misrepresent the nature of his firm’s legal services to shield their activities from public scrutiny,” pointing to his former firm, Perkins Coie’s work on the debunked Steele dossier.

“Elias has also been sanctioned by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit for lack of candor,” Backer wrote. “Another federal court accused him of attempting to ‘impinge[]’ upon ‘free, open, rational elections.’”

“It is reasonably possible Elias Law Group facilitated the DCCC’s false reporting by providing fraudulent billing statements misrepresenting the purpose of the firm’s charges, to assist in shielding the true nature of their activities from public scrutiny,” Backer alleged.

Backer alleged Elias Law Group and the DCCC “may have violated four federal statutes:” “FECA criminal provisions,” the “Sarbanes-Oxley Act,” statutes regarding “false statements,” and “conspiracy” statutes. (Read more: Fox News, 4/17/2023)  (Archive)

April 12, 2023 - DNC parts ways with Marc Elias, the Clinton lawyer behind the Clinton/DNC/Steele dossier

“The Democratic National Committee is cutting ties with lawyer Marc Elias, who heavily pushed the discredited Steele dossier that sought to link the former president to Russia falsely.

Elias, who has represented the DNC since 2009, has had several disagreements with the committee, according to sources who spoke with PunchBowl News. Elias Law Group, his firm founded in 2021, works on behalf of many Democratic lawmakers and entities, such as the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, records show.

Elias was general counsel for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and commissioned the Trump-Russia dossier. The lawyer hired the opposition research firm Fusion GPS, which, in turn, brought on British ex-spy Christopher Steele in 2016. Steele was offered “up to $1 million” in the run-up to the 2016 election by the FBI to prove the dossier’s allegations against Trump but did not get the money due to lack of evidence, FBI supervisory analyst Brian Auten testified in October 2022.

The following month, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) sent several written questions to the FBI in the wake of “bogus information” being received from informants, including Steele, the Washington Examiner first reported. Then-prosecutor Andrew DeFilippis for John Durham, who was appointed as special counsel to investigate the FBI’s 2016 Russia election interference inquiry, grilled Elias in May 2022 over his role in pushing the collusion narrative. (Read more: Washington Examiner, 4/12/2023)  (Archive)

April 17, 2023 - House Oversight: Six additional Biden family members may have benefited from the family business schemes

Vice President Joe Biden, flanked by his wife Jill Biden and family members, acknowledges the audience at the Time Warner Cable Arena in Charlotte, North Carolina, Sept. 6, 2012, on the final day of the Democratic National Convention (DNC). (Credit: Stan Honda/AFP/Getty Images)

House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) issued the following statement after he and several lawmakers went to the U.S. Department of the Treasury to view financial records related to the Biden family and their associates’ business transactions:

“Thousands of pages of financial records related to the Biden family, their companies, and associates’ business schemes were made available to members of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, which confirm the importance of this investigation. The Biden family enterprise is centered on Joe Biden’s political career and connections, and it has generated an exorbitant amount of money for the Biden family. We’ve identified six additional members of Joe Biden’s family who may have benefited from the Biden family’s businesses that we are investigating, bringing the total number of those involved or benefiting to nine.

“The Oversight Committee will continue to pursue additional bank records to follow the Bidens’ tangled web of financial transactions to determine if the Biden family has been targeted by foreign actors and if there is a national security threat. We will soon provide the public with more information about what we’ve uncovered to date. The American people need transparency and accountability, and the Oversight Committee will deliver much needed answers.”  (oversight.house.gov, 4/17/2023)  (Archive)

April 18, 2023 - Hillary’s 2016 campaign CFO and current SEC Chairman, Gary Gensler, claims he wasn’t aware of payment for Steele Dossier

(…) It was also clear at this time that Gensler was running Hillary’s campaign finances.  Gensler also worked with Hillary’s attorney Marc Elias in creating the Hillary Victory Fund, according to Bloomberg in a piece in June 2016:

Gensler’s portfolio stretches into other areas as well. He, along with campaign lawyer Marc Elias and national finance director Dennis Cheng, led the process last year to create the Hillary Victory Fund, which jointly raises money for the campaign, the DNC, and state Democratic parties.

Elias was Hillary’s general counsel at the time Gensler was CFO.

It was during this time when Gensler oversaw the Hillary campaign’s finances that Hillary’s campaign paid millions to law firm Perkins Coie.  This was also the time that the Steele dossier was paid for.

We know that Gensler has hidden meetings he had with  Hillary, Soros, Pelosi and others from his calendar.

Today Gensler was asked whether he facilitated the payment for the Steele dossier for the Hillary campaign.  He claimed after much hesitation that he wasn’t aware of the payment for the Steele campaign.

(Read more: Gateway Pundit, 4/18/2023)  (Archive)

April 18, 2023 - American black leftist groups and activists are being charged with felonies for posting memes and other political content against the war in Ukraine

A federal grand jury in Tampa, Florida, returned a superseding indictment charging four U.S. citizens and three Russian nationals with working on behalf of the Russian government and in conjunction with the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) to conduct a multi-year foreign malign influence campaign in the United States. Among other conduct, the superseding indictment alleges that the Russian defendants recruited, funded and directed U.S. political groups to act as unregistered illegal agents of the Russian government and sow discord and spread pro-Russian propaganda; the indicted intelligence officers, in particular, participated in covertly funding and directing candidates for local office within the United States.

Additionally, in a separate case out of the District of Columbia, a criminal complaint was unsealed charging Russian national Natalia Burlinova with conspiring with an FSB officer to act as an illegal agent of Russia in the United States.

“Russia’s foreign intelligence service allegedly weaponized our First Amendment rights – freedoms Russia denies its own citizens – to divide Americans and interfere in elections in the United States,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division. “The department will not hesitate to expose and prosecute those who sow discord and corrupt U.S. elections in service of hostile foreign interests, regardless of whether the culprits are U.S. citizens or foreign individuals abroad.”

“Efforts by the Russian government to secretly influence U.S. elections will not be tolerated,” said Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite, Jr. of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “As today’s announcement demonstrates, the Criminal Division is committed to eradicating foreign malign influence from the U.S. political system and helping ensure the integrity of our elections.”

“Today’s announcement paints a harrowing picture of Russian government actions and the lengths to which the FSB will go to interfere with our elections, sow discord in our nation and ultimately recruit U.S citizens to their efforts,” said Acting Assistant Director Kurt Ronnow of the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division. “All Americans should be deeply concerned by the tactics employed by the FSB and remain vigilant to any attempt to undermine our democracy. The FBI remains committed to confronting this egregious behavior and ultimately disrupting our adversaries and those who act on their behalf.”

United States v. Ionov, et al.

According to the superseding indictment returned in the Middle District of Florida, Aleksandr Viktorovich Ionov, a resident of Moscow, was the founder and president of the Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia (AGMR), an organization headquartered in Moscow, Russia, and funded by the Russian government. Ionov allegedly utilized AGMR to carry out Russia’s malign influence campaign. Ionov’s influence efforts were allegedly directed and supervised by Moscow-based FSB officers, including indicted defendants Aleksey Borisovich Sukhodolov and Yegor Sergeyevich Popov.

“The prosecution of this criminal conduct is essential to protecting the American public when foreign governments seek to inject themselves into the American political process,” said U.S. Attorney Roger B. Handberg for the Middle District of Florida. “We thank our partners at the FBI for their tireless investigation of these events and their commitment to ensure justice is done.”

Among other illegal activities, the superseding indictment alleges that Ionov, Sukhodolov and Popov conspired to directly and substantially influence democratic elections in the United States by clandestinely funding and directing the political campaign of a particular candidate for local office in St. Petersburg, Florida, in 2019. For instance, the superseding indictment alleges that Popov expressly referred to this effort on behalf of the FSB as “our election campaign,” and Ionov referring to the candidate as the “candidate whom we supervise.” Ionov and Popov allegedly intended that this election interference plot would extend beyond the 2019 local election cycle in St. Petersburg, and subsequently discussed that the “USA Presidential election” was the FSB’s “main topic of the year.”

Moreover, from at least November 2014 until July 2022, Ionov allegedly engaged in a years-long foreign malign influence campaign targeting the United States. As a part of the campaign, Ionov allegedly recruited members of political groups within the United States, including the African People’s Socialist Party and the Uhuru Movement (collectively, the APSP) in Florida, Black Hammer in Georgia and a political group in California (referred to in the superseding indictment as U.S. Political Group 3), to participate in the influence campaign and act as agents of Russia in the United States, including the following indicted defendants:

  • Omali Yeshitela, a U.S. citizen residing in St. Petersburg, Florida, and St. Louis, Missouri, who served as the chairman and founder of the APSP;
  • Penny Joanne Hess, a U.S. citizen residing in St. Petersburg, Florida, and St. Louis, Missouri, who served as the leader of a component of the APSP;
  • Jesse Nevel, a U.S. citizen residing in St. Petersburg, Florida, and St. Louis, Missouri, who served as a member of a component of the APSP; and
  • Augustus C. Romain Jr., aka Gazi Kodzo, a U.S. citizen residing in St. Petersburg, Florida, and Atlanta, who served as a leader of the APSP and a founder of Black Hammer in Georgia.

APSP Chairman Omali Yeshitela (Credit: African Peoples Socialist Party)

One focus of Ionov’s alleged influence operation was to create the appearance of American popular support for Russia’s annexation of territories in Ukraine. For example, in May 2020, Ionov allegedly sent a request he stated was from “Russia, the Donetsk People’s Republic” – an apparent reference to a Russian-occupied region in eastern Ukraine – to Yeshitela and members of other U.S. political groups to make statements in support of the independence of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic, a Russian-backed breakaway state in eastern Ukraine. Ionov later allegedly touted to the FSB that Yeshitela’s video-recorded statement of support was the first time that “American nonprofit organizations congratulated citizens” of the occupied region.

Ionov’s use of the APSP to promote Russian propaganda relating to Ukraine allegedly continued after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. On the day Russia invaded Ukraine, Feb. 24, 2022, Ionov allegedly emailed Nevel an “URGENT MESSAGE” which contained pro-Russian talking points in support of the invasion. Thereafter, throughout March 2022, the APSP repeatedly hosted Ionov via video conference to discuss the war, during which Ionov falsely stated that anyone who supported Ukraine also supported Naziism and white supremacy, and Yeshitela and another APSP member allegedly made statements of solidarity with the Russian government.

Ionov, Sukhodolov, Popov, Yeshitela, Hess, Nevel and Romain are charged with conspiring to have U.S. citizens act as illegal agents of the Russian government within the United States without providing prior notification to the Attorney General, as required by law. If convicted, they each face a maximum penalty of five years in prison. Yeshitela, Hess and Nevel are also charged with acting as agents of Russia within the United States without such prior notification. If convicted, they each face a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. If convicted, a federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

Assistant U.S. Attorneys Daniel J. Marcet and Risha Asokan for the Middle District of Florida, Trial Attorney Menno Goedman of the Justice Department’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section, and Trial Attorney Demetrius Sumner of the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section are prosecuting the case.

United States v. Burlinova

According to the affidavit in support of the criminal complaint unsealed in the District of Columbia, Russian national Natalia Burlinova, a resident of Moscow, conspired with an FSB officer to recruit U.S. citizens from academic and research institutions to travel to Russia to participate in a public diplomacy program called Meeting Russia. The program was operated by PICREADI, a Russian organization led by Burlinova, funded by the Russian government and devoted to promoting Russian national interests.

“The defendant is accused of subverting our foreign agent notification laws to promote Russian national interests here in the United States, concealing from the public that her recruitment efforts were funded by a Russian security service,” said U.S. Attorney Matthew M. Graves for the District of Columbia. “We will continue to expose these serious crimes and hold all who perpetrate them accountable.”

The affidavit alleges that the FSB officer provided funding and other support for Burlinova’s foreign recruitment and her efforts to advance Russian interests in the United States. In return, Burlinova provided the FSB officer with extensive information about U.S. citizens who were recruited to attend her programs, including their résumés, passport information, photographs and analyses of their views toward Russia. Burlinova further identified for the FSB officer particular U.S. citizens who, in Burlinova’s view, had expressed positive attitudes towards Russia and were prepared to continue to collaborate. During a recruitment trip to the United States in fall 2018, Burlinova met with U.S. citizens at various universities and research institutions and provided to photographs of her meetings to the FSB officer. The FSB officer used the information Burlinova provided prepare FSB intelligence reports. Burlinova never notified the Attorney General of these efforts or otherwise disclosed to the public that her recruitment efforts were supported and funded by a Russian security service.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael J. Friedman for the District of Columbia and Trial Attorney Emma D. Ellenrieder of the National Security Division’s Counterintelligence and Export Control Section are prosecuting the case. (justice.gov, 4/18/2023)  (Archive)

Glenn Greenwald adds an important perspective to this story in this Twitter thread:

April 20, 2023 - Fake news reckoning...Buzzfeed shuts down their news service

BuzzFeed News Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith talks with colleagues BuzzFeed headquarters, December 11, 2018 in New York City. (Credit: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti’s memo announcing the mercy killing Thursday morning and the memo was tweeted out by a media reporter* for the far-left New York Times.

In part, the memo read:

Additionally, I made the decision to overinvest[**] in BuzzFeed News[***] because I love their work and mission so much. This made me slow to accept that the big platforms wouldn’t provide the distribution or financial support required to support premium, free journalism[****] for social media.

…

Just as we reduced our footprint in NYC last year, we will be reducing our real estate in Los Angeles from four buildings to one[.]

…

HuffPost and BuzzFeed Dot Com have signaled that they will open a number of select roles for members of BuzzFeed News

…

As part of today’s changes, both our CRO Edgar Hernandez and COO Christian Bressler have made the decision to exit the company.

Overall, BuzzFeed will cut 15 percent of its 1200-person staff.

(…) In its early days, BuzzFeed News made a cottage industry out of attacking Breitbart News with lies and gossip. You see, they were angry about us telling the truth about them. But the whole thing was biased and dull and doomed from the start. Then, eight or nine years ago, BuzzFeed News fell off the radar entirely until Christian Bressler violated every journalistic protocol ever written to publish the Deep State’s phony Russia dossier on Donald Trump.

Then everyone forgot about BuzzFeed News again. Then Ben Smith left to do business with the Nazis in China, and now it’s finally over. (Read more: Breitbart, 4/20/2023)  (Archive)

April 21, 2023 - Trump tells Gen Flynn, “it’s only a year and a half, just stay healthy”...why Flynn is still dangerous to establishment neocon and neoliberal globalists

April 21, 2023 - The ‘senior’ official accused of political interference in Hunter Biden case is Merrick Garland

Merrick Garland (Credit: Andrew Harnik/Associated Press)

Attorney General Merrick Garland is under fire for allegedly obstructing the criminal investigation into Hunter Biden, the son of current President Joe Biden, after a whistleblower came forward in sworn testimony to name a “senior” official who is supervising the case.

The whistleblower, represented by a lawyer who sent a bombshell letter to Congress, has claimed that a “high-profile, controversial” case managed by the Department of Justice (DOJ), believed to be the investigation into Hunter Biden’s alleged failure to pay taxes, faced “clear conflicts of interest.”

The whistleblower claimed to have information that contradicted the sworn testimony of a “senior” Biden administration official, who has been identified as Merrick Garland. The identification was first made by the New York Post, and later by the Washington Examiner and Daily Mail, all citing anonymous sources.

Thus, the Attorney General would be guilty of committing perjury in statements given to Congress under oath, if the accusations are shown to be accurate.

Garland’s testimony to Republican Senator Bill Hagerty of Tennessee in April 2022, where he assured that there would be no political interference in the investigation into Hunter Biden, has been called into question.

Garland had also stated that U.S. Attorney David Weiss of Delaware, a Trump appointee, was the supervisor of the investigation and had full authority to bring charges. Garland reiterated this promise in March 2023 during testimony to Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa. However, it remains unclear which specific testimony the whistleblower was referring to. (Read more: Becker News, 4/21/2023) (Archive)

April 21, 2023 - Blinken was on Facebook and Google's payroll three weeks before 2020 election

Source: (Fast Company, 10/29/2017)

April 21, 2023 - Ex-CIA official: Biden campaign behind letter framing Hunter Biden laptop story as Russian disinformation

A former deputy director of the CIA was prompted by the Biden campaign to frame the Hunter Biden laptop story as Russian disinformation in a letter signed by dozens of former senior intelligence officials ahead of the 2020 presidential election, according to testimony revealed by Congressional lawmakers.

Former CIA deputy director Michael Morell was among the 51 signatories of an open letter (pdf) that said the New York Post’s October 2020 report dismissing the explosive contents of a laptop purportedly belonging to Hunter Biden, son of President Joe Biden.

The letter said that the “arrival on the U.S. political scene of emails purportedly belonging to Vice President Biden’s son Hunter, much of it related to his time serving of the Board of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma, has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”

Subsequent reporting has confirmed that the laptop wasn’t part of a Russian disinformation campaign but had been abandoned at a computer repair shop. Some of the contents found on the laptop included embarrassing photos of Hunter Biden, including one apparently showing him passed out with a crack pipe.

At the time, Biden’s presidential campaign cited the letter in framing the Hunter Biden laptop story as Russian disinformation. Polling suggests that if voters had been aware of the laptop’s contents, some would have voted differently, with a potentially different outcome of the 2020 presidential election.

Morrell said in Congressional testimony cited by Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) that Morrell had organized the letter at the urging of Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who at the time was serving as an adviser to Biden’s presidential campaign.

Jordan, who heads both the House Judiciary Committee and the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, has demanded that Blinken answer a series of questions about Morrell’s testimony and provide records of related communication. (Read more: The Epoch Times, 4/21/2023)  (Archive)

UPDATE:

(…) The decision to drop the appeal came on Friday night after Bragg’s office said they had come to an agreement with the committee.

“Our successful stay of this subpoena blocked the immediate deposition and afforded us the time necessary to coordinate with the House Judiciary Committee on an agreement that protects the District Attorney’s privileges and interests. We are pleased with this resolution, which ensures any questioning of our former employee will take place in the presence of our General Counsel on a reasonable, agreed upon timeframe,” a spokesperson for his office said.

A spokesman for Rep. Jordan’s office also confirmed that the parties had reached an agreement.

“This evening, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office withdrew its appeal in Bragg v. Jordan. Mr. Pomerantz’s deposition will go forward on May 12, and we look forward to his appearance,”  spokesman Russell Dye said.

This week a federal judge rejected Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s request to block a former prosecutor in his office from testifying before the House Judiciary Committee about the criminal case against former President Donald Trump.

“The committee and its chairman, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), had subpoenaed ex-assistant district attorney Mark Pomerantz to give testimony about the DA’s investigation into Trump, 76, that culminated in the former president’s indictment in March. Bragg filed suit against Jordan and the Judiciary Committee, claiming the subpoena was an overreach by the GOP-led House and an attempt to influence a state criminal proceeding,” the New York Post reported. “But Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil found the subpoena was issued with a valid legislative purpose and that it was not the role of the federal judiciary to dictate how Congress operates.”

“Mr. Pomerantz must appear for the congressional deposition. No one is above the law,” Judge Vyskocil wrote in an opinion issued after a Manhattan federal court hearing. (Read more: Conservative Brief, 4/21/2023)  (Archive)

April 25, 2023 - Former DNI Ratcliffe: Media ‘knew’ intel community concluded Hunter laptop wasn’t Russian misinformation

On Monday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Ingraham Angle,” former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe pointed out that the media knew that the intelligence community had already concluded that the Hunter Biden laptop story wasn’t Russian misinformation when they used “Mike Morell and Antony Blinken’s coordinated letter” on the laptop story as a reason to falsely declare the story Russian misinformation.

Ratcliffe said that not only have the media largely ignored the new developments on the letter, “It’s that the media [were] in on it. [14] hours before Mike Morell and Antony Blinken’s coordinated letter was published in POLITICO, I went on national TV and put out a statement refuting what Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) was saying that the Hunter Biden laptop was a Russian disinformation campaign. So, they all knew that the official position of the intelligence community was that this was not Russian disinformation. But they all went with it anyway. Laura, remember, this was just two weeks before the presidential election. They just had to mislead the American people and keep this false narrative alive for two weeks to pull off the election interference that they were clearly engaged in.” (Breitbart, 4/25/2023)  (Archive)

April 26, 2023 - Trump lawyers provide key insight on background of Mar-a-Lago raid via letter to Gang of Eight

If you are deep in the political research weeds about the weaponization of government, there is a letter from lawyers representing President Trump to the chair of the House Intel Committee that is very interesting [pdf available here].

The letter is written to HPSCI Chair Mike Turner and copied to the other seven members of the gang-of-eight in the Senate and House.  The letter outlines the details of the documents that became the contested issue between the DOJ-National Security Division (‘NSD’, important distinction), specifically a DOJ-NSD official named Jay Bratt, and the attorney for President Trump, Mr. Evan Corcoran.

(Credit: Conservative Treehouse)

The letter is fascinating because it outlines how the process of moving documents from the White House was weaponized by a politically motivated National Archives and Records Administration (“NARA”), and the letter also gives fulsome context to the types of “classified materials” that have been insanely over emphasized by media.

[…] “Tim Parlatore and Jim Trusty, two of the undersigned counsel for President Trump, reviewed all 15 boxes at NARA earlier this year and based on that review, it is clear to us what happened. The boxes contain all manner of documents from the White House, are loosely grouped by date, and include newspapers, magazines, notes, letters, and daily schedules. Following its review of the materials, NARA inserted placeholder pages where it had removed documents with classification markings. That allowed Messrs. Parlatore and Trusty to discern what the documents were, as well as what other materials in the boxes were in the proximity of the marked documents when the White House staff packed them. The vast majority of the placeholder inserts refer to briefings for phone calls with foreign leaders that were located near the schedule for those calls.”  (page 3, pdf link)

Additionally, get this part…  despite the standard process that has been in place for the prior four administrations, the NARA refused to participate in the collection of any documents from the White House during the transition phase following the November 2020 election.

The NARA refused to assist in the collection of the Trump records for national archive holding and review, and then the NARA triggered a sequence of events that led to the DOJ using a reference from the NARA, to weaponize a process they refused to engage in.  The NARA refused to do their specialized bureaucratic job, and then the NARA used what they defined as an incomplete job as a reason to refer the outcome to the DOJ.   The details are quite interesting.

The letter details how the DOJ-NSD then weaponized the process, fought with the FBI investigative and supervisory agents who were saying Trump was doing nothing wrong, and then culminating in a documented lie to the Florida magistrate, in order to get a politically motivated search warrant.

The DOJ will not release the documents they used to convince the judge to obtain the warrant.  Additionally, the DOJ will not release a list of the documents, or even describe the documents, they later claimed are classified.   To this date, the Trump defense team is being told President Trump held classified documents, yet the DOJ will not describe to the lawyers who represent President Trump, what those classified documents are.

I strongly urge anyone interested to read the 10-page letter.  It is a key part of the puzzle being explained and outlined.

(Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 4/27/2023)  (Archive)

April 27, 2023 - House Ways and Means protects IRS whistleblower claiming political interference in Hunter Biden tax probe

House Ways and Means Committee Chair, Jason Smith (Credit: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)

The House Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith (R-MO) has permitted an IRS agent to inform Congress about alleged political interference by the Justice Department in the Hunter Biden tax probe.

The Ways and Means Committee has authorized two lawyers for the IRS whistleblower to collect information about what their client witnessed at the IRS regarding Hunter’s tax probe.

Specifically, the IRS agent claims two Biden administration political appointees within the DOJ are working to block charges against Hunter for tax violations despite recommendations. In addition, the IRS agent believes Attorney General Merrick Garland refused to name a special counsel in the probe to provide a degree of separation between the probe and President Joe Biden.

“Last week, a whistleblower came forward with troubling claims about abuses of power,” Chairman Smith told IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel during a congressional hearing Thursday. “We are conducting a review of this matter and will go wherever the facts lead us. I expect full cooperation from the IRS, particularly with regard to ensuring this whistleblower is protected from retaliation.” (Read more: Breitbart, 5/1/2023)  (Archive)