Featured Timeline Entries
June 26, 2023 - House Weaponization Committee: Biden admin 'colluded' with Big Tech, 'facilitated the censorship of Americans'

The House Weaponization Subcommittee says the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) has “facilitated the censorship of Americans directly” and through third-party intermediaries during the Biden administration.

Fox News Digital first obtained a new committee report [Part 3] Monday, stemming from the panel’s ongoing investigation into government-induced censorship on social media. The report focuses on CISA’s alleged work ahead of the 2020 election and the 2022 midterm elections.

The committee, led by Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, obtained non-public documents that lawmakers say reveals CISA “expanded its mission to surveil Americans’s speech on social media, colluded with Big Tech and government-funded third parties to censor by proxy, and tried to hide its plainly unconstitutional activities from the public.”

The report states that CISA engaged in “surveillance,” by expanding its mission from cybersecurity to monitor foreign “disinformation” to eventually monitor “all ‘disinformation,’ including Americans’ speech.”

It also says CISA “exploited its connections with Big Tech and government-funded non-profits to censor, by proxy, in order to circumvent the First Amendment’s prohibition against government-induced censorship.” Specifically—the report says CISA-funded entities created reporting portals which “funneled ‘misinformation’ reports from the government directly to social media platforms.”

The report also alleges CISA engaged in “cover-ups” by trying to “cover their tracks ad cover up CISA’s censorship of domestic speech and surveillance of American citizens’ social media activity.

“This included scrubbing CISA’s website of references to domestic ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation,’” the report states.

CISA, which was founded in 2018, was intended to be an agency focused on protecting critical infrastructure and guarding against cybersecurity threats.

“In the years since its creation, however, CISA metastasized into the nerve center of the federal government’s domestic surveillance and censorship operations on social media,” the report states.

The subcommittee found that by 2020, CISA “routinely reported social media posts that allegedly spread ‘disinformation’ to social media platforms.”

By 2021, CISA had a formal “mis, dis, and malformation” (MDM) team. And by 2022 and 2023, the subcommittee alleged that CISA “attempted to camouflage its activities, duplicitously claiming it serves a purely ‘informational’ role.”

“Although CISA’s efforts to police speech are highly troubling overall, one particularly problematic aspect is CISA’s focus on ‘malformation,’” the report states. “According to CISA’s own definition, ‘malformation is based on fact, but used out of context to mislead, harm or manipulate.”

The report points out that malformation is “factual information that is objectionable not because it is false or untruthful, but because it is provided without adequate ‘context’—context as determined by the government.”

Vijaya Gadde (Credit: Wikipedia)

CISA’s adivsory MDM Subcommittee has since disbanded, according to the report, but “brought together government, Big Tech, and academic misinformation ‘experts.’” Those experts included a former chief legal officer of Twitter—Vijaya Gadde; a former assistant general counsel and legal advisor for the CIA; and a professor for the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public.

The report states that in January 2021, after President Biden took office, CISA “transitioned” to “promote more flexibility to focus on general MDM.”

“In doing so, CISA admitted that its focus was no longer exclusively on ‘countering foreign influence,’ but was also targeting MDM originating from domestic sources,” the report states.

According to the report, individuals on the MDM advisory team sought to “disguise the true nature” of its work.

One email obtained by the committee, written by a member of the MDM advisory team in May 2022, stated: “It’s only a matter of time before someone realizes we exist and starts asking about our work.”

That individual suggested finding time to speak with CISA communications and legislative officials to discuss “how we socialize what we’re doing.”

“It would be good to be proactive in telling our story rather than reacting to how someone else decides to portray it, right?” The email states. “I know neither of us has time for this, but I am telling myself that it might save us time in the long run!”

Days later, the MDM advisory team discussed its “commitment to transparency but expressed concern” for its efforts and “cautioned the group on how to communicate their ongoing work.”

Meanwhile, the report states that after the committee began issuing subpoenas to Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, and Meta in February 2023, CISA “scrubbed its website of references to domestic MDM.” The website had previously described the threats posed by both foreign and domestic MDM.

Now, it only references “Foreign Influence Operations and Disinformation.”

The report goes on to state that CISA was working with federal partners to “mature” a whole-of-government approach to curbing alleged misinformation and disinformation. The report also states CISA considered creating an anti-misinformation “rapid response team” capable of physically deploying across the U.S.

The subcommittee also found that CISA moved its “censorship operation” to a CISA-funded non-profit, after the agency and the Biden administration were sued in federal court.

The report also states CISA wanted to use that CISA-funded nonprofit— The Center for Internet Security (CIS)—as a “mouthpiece” to “avoid the appearance of government propaganda.”

The report states that CISA funds CIS—including spending $27 million in FY 2024 for CIS’ Elections Infrastructure Information Sharing & Analysis Center.

“CISA still has not adequately complied with a subpoena for relevant documents, and much more factfinding is necessary,” the report states. “In order to better inform the Committee’s legislative efforts, the Committee and Select Subcommittee will continue to investigate CISA’s and other Executive Branch agencies’ entanglement with social media platforms.”

Brandon Wales (Credit: public domain)

But CISA Executive Director Brandon Wales, in a statement to Fox News Digital, said the agency “does not and has never censored speech or facilitated censorship; any such claims are patently false.”

“Every day, the men and women of CISA execute the agency’s mission of reducing risk to U.S. critical infrastructure in a way that protects Americans’ freedom of speech, civil rights, civil liberties, and privacy,” Wales said. “In response to concerns from election officials of all parties regarding foreign influence operations and disinformation that may impact the security of election infrastructure, CISA mitigates the risk of disinformation by sharing information on election literacy and election security with the public and by amplifying the trusted voices of election officials across the nation.”

CISA also said that CIS “never funded CIS to perform any disinformation-related work,” and instead, said EI-ISAC “reported potential disinformation to social media platforms in relation to the 2022 election cycle,” but stressed that CISA was “not involved.”

Jordan and Republicans’ investigation comes after Republicans have sounded the alarm for years on Big Tech censorship and bias against conservatives.

Jordan’s committee has vowed to continue investigating the matter. (Fox News, 8/26/2023)  (Archive)

June 27, 2023 - Prosecutor who signs Hunter Biden plea deal worked for Hunter Biden business partner, Louis Freeh

By now everyone is aware how the corruption in Washington DC is fraught with internecine relationships; however, this one takes the proverbial cake.  The prosecutor who organized and signed the plea deal for Hunter Biden worked for Hunter Biden’s business partner.

Senator Ron Johnson is calling attention to Title 28, Section 45.2 of the Code of Federal Regulations, which says: ‘no employee shall participate in a criminal investigation if he has a personal or political relationship with […] any person or organization substantially involved in the conduct that is the subject of the investigation.’

As if this entire episode wasn’t sketchy enough, Assistant United States Attorney Derek Hines (top left) was one of the prosecutors to sign off on Hunter Biden’s charges and plea deal. Hines previously worked under ex-FBI director Louis Freeh (bottom left), who was a business partner of Hunter Biden.  Hines worked for Freeh Group International Solutions which was specifically involved in the foreign company influence issue at the heart of the Hunter Biden case, and Freeh is a close friend of the entire Biden family.

This is nuts.

(Via Daily Mail) – A prosecutor who signed off on the documents charging Hunter Biden with tax and gun crimes previously worked with one of the First Son’s business partners, DailyMail.com can reveal.

Delaware US Attorney David Weiss officially filed charges against the president’s son last Tuesday after a near five-year probe into his alleged tax crimes and foreign financial dealings.

Weiss’s deputy, Assistant United States Attorney Derek Hines, signed off on the charging documents alongside his boss and two other assistant US attorneys – indicating he has a central role in Hunter’s criminal prosecution.

Freeh worked with Hunter on a $3million job consulting for a Romanian criminal, a deal that is allegedly now part of his federal criminal investigation and is being investigated by Congress.

Republican Senator Ron Johnson told DailyMail.com the link between the prosecutor and Hunter’s business associate ‘calls into question the integrity of their entire investigation’ – after GOP lawmakers slammed the relatively minor charges filed by the Delaware prosecutor this week as a mere ‘slap on the wrist’.

DailyMail.com has previously revealed that Freeh and his firm worked closely with Hunter Biden trying to get the US State Department to help limit the prosecution of Romanian real estate tycoon Gabriel Popoviciu, who was on the brink of a bribery conviction in 2015. (read more)

The same DOJ who cut this Hunter Biden deal, are going after Donald Trump in part simply because of letters exchanged with Kim Jong-Un.

This entire corrupt DC system is beyond repair. (Conservative Treehouse, 7/03/2023)  (Archive)

June 29, 2023 - Tony Bobulinsk was open to testifying to Delaware grand jury; Delaware U.S. Atty David Weiss never asked for his testimony

David Weiss (l) and Tony Bobulinski (Credit: public domain)

A former business partner of Hunter and James Biden, who worked directly with them on a 2017 China energy deal, was never asked to testify to a Delaware grand jury investigating Hunter Biden, two sources familiar with the discussions tell CBS News.

Tony Bobulinski, the former business partner, was open to testifying, and his attorney reached out to the office of Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss. Weiss did not return their calls, the sources said. Weiss’ decision not to bring Bobulinski is the latest indication that prosecutors investigating Hunter Biden may have avoided investigating allegations about his father, President Joe Biden.

In October 2020, Bobulinski was invited by the Trump campaign to attend a presidential debate after he released business records about his dealings with Hunter and James Biden. At a press conference before the debate, he claimed to have met with Joe Biden in May 2017, as part of discussions over a potential business deal with a Chinese energy firm, CEFC.

“I’ve heard Joe Biden say that he’s never discussed business with Hunter. That is false. I have firsthand knowledge about this because I directly dealt with the Biden family, including Joe Biden,” Bobulinski said at the press conference. Contacted this week by CBS News, Bobulinski said he stands behind those statements.

Bobulinski’s claims have garnered new interest among GOP congressional investigators after IRS whistleblowers gave closed-door testimony to the House Ways and Means Committee. In those transcripts, released last week, the whistleblower alleges the president’s son received preferential treatment that allegedly stymied federal investigators. The whistleblower, Gary Shapley, testified that investigative leads that might have led to Joe Biden were not pursued in the late summer and fall of 2020. At the time, Donald Trump was president and the attorney general was Bill Barr. (Read more: CBS News, 6/29/2023)  (Archive)

August 3, 2017 - Hunter Biden to CEFC official: "The Biden's are the best I know at doing exactly what the Chairman wants from this partnership"

(Credit: House Oversight Committee)

July 3, 2023 - Taibbi, Brand, & Shellenberger expose the censors as malign disinformation superspreaders

“How long can we allow convenience, safety, and security to enable centralized authoritarian systems to shut down communication and free speech?

“What is the nature of this new centralizing authoritarian system?”

“What is the misanthropy that lies at the heart of a discourse that believes our speech needs to be controlled?”

“Where is the moral authority that is entitled to make those decisions on our behalf?”

That is what Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger have been brave enough to dare to ask and even braver, to answer, in the following videos of the pair joining Russell Brand in London for a live discussion of The Censorship-Industrial-Complex (joined by Tim Robbins and Stella Assange).

Shellenberger began by laying out the many governments enacting previously unthinkable laws encroaching on your free speech rights (and more) driven by ‘The Elites’ desire “to censor the authentic voice of the people.”

As he ended his initial thoughts, emotions began to well up as Shellenberger explained:

“The most painful thing – and there’s a lot of painful things that one goes through – is losing almost all of your friends as a consequence of using your speech.”

Something many on the right can empathize with.

But there is hope, as he noted: “The only positive thing to come out of this is to make new friends. It is not the most obvious thing you expect to lose all of your friends in your late 40s, but the ones you keep are so dear.”

Shellenberger turned to his ‘new’ friend Matt Taibbi, they embraced, and the legendary investigative reporter began… by noting that he had written 1000s of words for his opening statement but would instead cherry pick the most notable (since his friend Michael had done such a good job) – you can read Taibbii’s full note here.

Several points stood out from Taibbi’s summary including the day – during their Twitter Files discovery – that:

it became “clear that the idea behind the sweeping system of digital surveillance combined with thousands or even millions of subtle rewards and punishments built into the online experience, is to condition people to censor themselves…

…What Michael and I were looking at was something new, an Internet-age approach to political control that uses brute digital force to alter reality itself.”

In fact, he went on to warn ominously:

“…after enough time online, users will lose both the knowledge and the vocabulary they would need to even have politically dangerous thoughts.

What Michael calls the Censorship-Industrial Complex is really just the institutionalization of orthodoxy, a vast, organized effort to narrow our intellectual horizons.”

Citing a company called Graphika, Taibbi explains the causation:

“This continual process of seeding doubt and uncertainty in authoritative voices leads to a society that finds it too challenging to identify what’s true or false.”

The point he makes is if there is no ‘middle’ – you are either defined as ‘approved’ or ‘unapproved, or as Orwell put it ‘good’ or ‘ungood’ – individuals will naturally self-sort and self-homogenize, “and this is happening all across society.”

What happens to a society that doesn’t square its mental books when it comes to facts, truth, errors, propaganda and so on?

There are only a few options.

Some people will do what some of us in this room have done: grow frustrated and angry, mostly in private.

Others have tried to protest by frantically cataloging the past.

Most however do what’s easiest for mental survival. They learn to forget.

This means living in the present only. Whatever we’re freaking out about today, let’s all do it together. Then when things change tomorrow, let’s not pause to think about the change, let’s just freak out about that new thing. The facts are dead! Long live the new facts!

We’re building a global mass culture that sees everything in black and white, fears difference, and abhors memory.

Sadly, Brand notes that the framing of ‘free speech’ as only being an enabler of hate speech continues to dominate the narratives, and both Shellenberger and Taibbi reflected on the disappointing realization that despite all the ‘truths’ exposed by The Twitter Files, it has done little to shift the mainstream (in fact, it has done the opposite with the MSM directly targeting the reporters, and downplaying/normalizing the censorship (self-defined or imposed) we all live with every day. (Read more: Zero Hedge, 7/07/2023)  (Archive)

 

July 4, 2023 - Federal Judge rules Biden can't coordinate with social media to suppress free speech

Judge Terry Doughty (Credit: public domain)

A federal judge issued an injunction Tuesday ruling that the Biden administration likely violated the First Amendment when it worked with social media companies to censor opposing views.

Calling the censorship “Orwellian,” Judge Terry A. Doughty of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, stated that Republican attorneys general of Louisiana and Missouri “have produced evidence of a massive effort by Defendants, from the White House to federal agencies, to suppress speech based on its content,” the Washington Post reported.

Doughty barred members of the Biden administration — including officials with the Department of Health and Human Services and the Federal Bureau of Investigation — from communicating with social media companies for “the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech,” The New York Times reported.

While this preliminary injunction does not allow officials to communicate with social media agencies for the purpose of censoring opposing viewpoints, government agencies are still allowed to notify platforms regarding crime, foreign propaganda or threats to national security, the outlet noted. (Read more: The Daily Caller, 7/04/2023)  (Archive) (Louisiana Ruling, 7/04/2023)

Update:

Judge’s Injunction On Biden Censorship Operation Is More Far-Reaching Than Initially Reported

Conservatives celebrated Tuesday after a federal judge issued an injunction against government agencies collaborating with tech companies to censor online speech, but the order is even more far-reaching than first reported.

Western District of Louisiana Judge Terry A. Doughty granted the broad injunction barring President Joe Biden’s administration from collusion with pro-censorship nonprofit organizations, in addition to social media companies, in the free speech lawsuit Missouri v. Biden. The injunction found that government officials likely violated the First Amendment by suppressing protected speech and the order states that government actors are barred from “collaborating, coordinating, partnering, switchboarding, and/or jointly working with” research groups and projects that advocate for censorship.

Specifically, the order calls out the Election Integrity Partnership, the Virality Project and the Stanford Internet Observatory and it prevents the government from engaging with them and other groups and projects “for the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content posted with social-media companies containing protected free speech.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 7/06/2023)  (Archive)

Updated update:

July 10, 2023 – Judge Doughty Denies Biden Administration’s Attempt to Halt Preliminary Injunction in Historic First Amendment Case

Judge Terry Doughty denied the Biden Administration’s attempt to halt preliminary injunction pending the outcome of appeal in the historic First Amendment case that was reported on Independence Day.

The plaintiffs in the case consist of the State of Missouri, the State of Louisiana, Dr. Aaron Kheriaty (“Kheriaty”), Dr. Martin Kulldorff (“Kulldorff”), Jim Hoft (“Hoft”), Dr. Jayanta Bhattacharya (“Bhattacharya”), and Jill Hines (“Hines”).  (Read more: The Gateway Pundit, 7/10/2023)  (Archive)

July 5, 2023 - ‘Missing’ Biden corruption case witness Dr. Gal Luft details allegations against the Biden family (video)

The “missing witness” from the Biden corruption investigation, Israeli professor Dr. Gal Luft, has laid out his bribery allegations against the president’s family in an extraordinary video filmed in an undisclosed location while he’s on the run.

In the 14-minute recording, obtained exclusively by The Post, the fugitive former Israeli army officer claims he was arrested in Cyprus to stop him from testifying to the House Oversight Committee that the Biden family received payments from individuals with alleged ties to Chinese military intelligence and that they had an FBI mole who shared classified information with their benefactors from the China-controlled energy company CEFC.

The self-proclaimed fall guy says he provided the incriminating evidence to six officials from the FBI and the Department of Justice in a secret meeting in Brussels in March 2019 — but alleges that it was covered up.

“I, who volunteered to inform the US government about a potential security breach and about compromising information about a man vying to be the next president, am now being hunted by the very same people who I informed — and may have to live on the run for the rest of my life on the run …”

“I’m not a Republican. I’m not a Democrat. I have no political motive or agenda … I did it out of deep concern that if the Bidens were to come to power, the country would be facing the same traumatic Russia collusion scandal — only this time with China. Sadly, because of the DOJ’s cover-up, this is exactly what happened …” (Read more: The New York Post, 7/05/2023)  (Archive)

July 5, 2023 - Biden admin appeals injunction preventing it from coordinating with social media to suppress speech

Joe Biden (Credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

The Biden administration appealed a preliminary injunction Wednesday issued to prevent federal officials from communicating with social media platforms to censor content containing protected speech.

Western District of Louisiana Judge Terry A. Doughty issued the injunction Tuesday after finding plaintiffs in the free speech lawsuit Missouri v. Biden, Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry and Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey, had produced “evidence of a massive effort by Defendants, from the White House to federal agencies, to suppress speech based on its content.” The Biden administration appealed the injunction to the Fifth Circuit on Wednesday.

The injunction prevented federal officials, including those in the Department of Health and Human Services and the FBI, from communicating with social media platforms for “the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech.” (Read more: The Daily Caller, 7/05/2023)  (Archive)

July 7, 2023 - GOP Sen. Schmitt: Our lawsuit shows Biden used legal threats to get censorship and judge agrees

On Thursday’s broadcast of the Fox Business Network’s “Kudlow,” Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) discussed the lawsuit against social media censorship efforts by the Biden administration that he filed as Missouri’s Attorney General at the time and noted that the ruling in the case agreed with Missouri’s assertion that the Biden administration used the threat of regulation to coerce censorship from tech platforms.

Schmitt said,

“In that lawsuit, when we filed against the Biden administration, we were alleging and now have shown that they engaged in a vast censorship enterprise, and much broader than anybody ever had any idea [of]. And if it wasn’t for our lawsuit, it wasn’t for Elon Musk buying Twitter and the Twitter Files, all of this stuff would still be hidden, Larry, people would be dubbed conspiracy theorists for questioning, but what they did was and what’s been shown and what the judge agreed is this is perhaps the most chilling example of censorship in our country’s history…the government coerced these social media giants to take posts down, to de-platform people, they threatened regulatory action, they threatened investigations, they threatened legal action to get them to do their bidding.”

Schmitt added,

“Jen Psaki was standing at the podium saying that they were demanding accountability and were flagging posts for our partners, very kind of Orwellian stuff. … They were very out in the open about this, Larry.”

In the opinion, Judge Terry Doughty noted that in May of 2021, then-White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki stated, “[M]ajor platforms have a responsibility related to the health and safety of all Americans to stop amplifying untrustworthy content, disinformation, and misinformation, especially related to COVID-19, vaccinations, and elections.” And Biden “also supports better privacy protections and a robust anti-trust program. So his view is that there’s more that needs to be done to ensure that this type of misinformation; disinformation; damaging, sometimes life-threatening information is not going out to the American public.” The opinion also notes that, two months later, Psaki said that “We’re flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread disinformation.” And that shortly after Psaki’s July comments, accounts that the administration had sought to suppress were taken down. (Read more: Breitbart, 7/07/2023)  (Archive)

July 8, 2023 - DOJ prosecutor/DNC donor blacked out all references to Trump cooperating with DOJ re Mar-a-Lago documents

July 10, 2023 - House Judiciary Report: FBI colluded with Ukrainian intelligence to censor Americans on social media

“Such an array of crimes against the foundations of the state’s national security,
and the links recorded between Ukrainian security forces and Russian special services
raise very serious questions about their respective leaders.”
– Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, July 17, 2022.

     The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States is the bedrock of our
political system and guarantees every American the right to speak his or her mind freely and
without interference from the government. It is predicated on the understanding that no
government official has a monopoly on the truth and that every American is capable of
evaluating competing claims and deciding what to believe.

     On February 15, 2023, as part of its investigation into the federal government’s role in
censoring lawful speech on social media platforms, the Committee on the Judiciary issued a
subpoena to Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, and Alphabet, the parent
company of Google and YouTube. Documents obtained in response to those subpoenas revealed
that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), on behalf of a compromised Ukrainian
intelligence entity, requested—and, in some cases, directed—the world’s largest social media
platforms to censor Americans engaging in constitutionally protected speech online.

The Committee’s investigation has revealed that the FBI, the federal law enforcement
agency responsible for disrupting foreign malign influence, facilitated censorship requests to
American social media companies on behalf of a Ukrainian intelligence agency infiltrated by
Russian-aligned actors. In so doing, the FBI violated the First Amendment rights of Americans
and potentially undermined our national security. In light of well-documented instances of the FBI’s civil liberties abuses, this new information raises grave concerns about the FBI’scredibility as the nation’s premier law enforcement organization.

Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) sought to identify and impair suspected Russian influence operations on social media. The SBU enlisted the FBI in support of this effort, transmitting to the FBI lists of social media accounts that allegedly “spread Russian disinformation.”

The FBI, in turn, routinely relayed these lists to the relevant social media platforms, which distributed the information internally to their employees in charge of content moderation and enforcement. The graphic above illustrates the FBI’s intermediary role in the SBU’s censorship operation; the graphic below illustrates the remarkable frequency with which requests were sent by the FBI and SBU to American social media platforms.

(Read more: House Judiciary Committee Report, 7/10/2023)  (Archive)

July 13, 2023 - Former Kiev diplomat, Andrii Telizhenko: Biden’s corruption led to Ukraine’s destruction

Former Ukrainian government official and diplomat Andrii Telizhenko joins Aaron Maté to discuss how, in his view, powerful US figures including Joe Biden have used Ukraine for personal corruption and the geopolitical aim of bleeding Russia — all to the detriment of Ukrainians.

Telizhenko worked for the Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office in Kyiv before moving to Ukraine’s US Embassy in 2015. He went on to work for Blue Star Strategies, a Democrat-run lobbying firm that represented Burisma, the Ukrainian gas company that appointed Biden’s son Hunter to a lucrative board seat.

Telizhenko, who cooperated with Rudy Giuliani’s effort to dig up information about the Bidens’ alleged corruption in Ukraine, has been sanctioned by the US Treasury Department for “having directly or indirectly engaged in, sponsored, concealed, or otherwise been complicit in foreign influence in a United States election.”

Guest: Andrii Telizhenko. A political consultant who was previously a Ukrainian government official and diplomat. (The Grayzone, 7/16/2023)  (Archive)

July 13, 2023 - Jordan letter to Wray demands documents related to FBI spying on two Nunes staffers in 2017 who were investigating the FBI's Russia collusion hoax

 

July 14, 2023 - Fixing FISA: House Judiciary holds hearing on the expansion of warrantless surveillance of Americans

The House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Federal Government Surveillance will hold a hearing on Friday, July 14, 2023, at 9:15 a.m. ET. The hearing, “Fixing FISA, Part II,”  examines the concerning expansion of warrantless surveillance of Americans, the FBI’s continued abuses of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), and its failure to implement meaningful reforms.

WITNESSES:
Jonathan Turley, J.B. and Maurice C. Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law, George Washington University Law School – testimony
Phil Kiko, Principal, Williams & Jensen; former Chief of Staff and General Counsel, House Judiciary Committee; former Chief Administrative Officer, House of Representatives – testimony
Gene Schaerr, General Counsel, Project for Privacy and Surveillance Accountability – testimony
Elizabeth Goitein, Senior Director, Liberty and National Security Program, Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law – testimony

 

July 13, 2023 - Hunter Biden worked to secure US visa for Ukrainian oligarch involved in suspected bribery scheme

Mykola Zlochevsky (Credit: Energy Security For the Future)

Hunter Biden and his business associates attempted to get Burisma founder Mykola Zlochevsky a U.S. visa shortly after the president’s son became a board member of the Ukrainian energy firm, according to emails reviewed by the Daily Caller.

The emails in Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop archive show a coordinated attempt to obtain a visa for Zlochevsky while he was being investigated by Ukrainian authorities for corruption.

Biden and some of his associates were potentially “engaging in registrable lobbying activity,” and one email indicates that Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) violations could have been occurring outside of the exchanges, a FARA expert who reviewed the emails told the Caller.

From 2014-16, Hunter Biden worked with former Burisma board member Devon Archer, Rosemont Seneca adviser Eric Schwerin, former Boies Schiller & Flexner LLP Partner Heather King and other business associates to assist Mykola Zlochevsky with his visa reapplication process after the State Department revoked his visa in 2014.

Zlochevsky is the “foreign national” involved in an alleged bribery scheme with President Joe Biden and Hunter Biden, Republican Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene confirmed to the Daily Caller.

Greene, alongside other House Oversight Committee members, viewed a redacted version of an FBI FD-1023 form, where an informant allegedly detailed how Zlochevsky spoke to him about making a $10 million bribe to the Bidens, Greene said. FBI Director Christopher Wray redacted the foreign national’s name, according to Greene, but “within the same sentence, it says ‘him/ Burisma.’”

“If you’re anyone who is familiar with the whole Burisma story and the information on the laptop, it’s easy to make the connection of who it is. It’s like a no-brainer … No one has refuted that it’s not him,” she added. (Read more: The Daily Caller, 7/13/2023)  (Archive)

July 19, 2023 - Joe Rogan discusses the intent behind Epstein’s painting of Bill Clinton in blue dress: “I got you bitch” (video)

A photo captured from the hallway outside of the room Clinton’s blue dress photo was hanging in Epstein’s home. (Credit: public domain)

Joe Rogan shared his wild theory on late child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and former President Bill Clinton’s relationship during an episode of his podcast shared Tuesday.

Rogan was deep in conversation with comedian Duncan Trussel when he asked, “why do you think Epstein had that giant painting of Bill Clinton in a dress in his foyer?” The painting in question apparently featured the former President posing in a blue dress and red heels while pointing toward the viewer quite provocatively.

“Epstein’s taste in art was not great,” Trussel responded, making a joke but missing the point Rogan was trying to make. “That painting is like, ‘I got you b*tch,” Rogan explained. “That’s what that is. You got a president who was on [Jeffrey Epstein’s private jet] flight logs 26 times with Epstein, and you got that guy in a f*cking dress in your house.”
(Read more: The Daily Caller, 7/20/2023) (Archive)

This photo was also found in Epstein’s NY home after his death:

July 20, 2023 - House Democrats attempt to censor Democratic presidential candidate, Robert Kennedy Jr., in committee hearing on government censorship

House Democrats tried and failed to censor Robert Kennedy Jr., a Democratic Party candidate for president, at a hearing on censorship.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) moved to shift the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government hearing on Thursday to executive session “because Mr. Kennedy has repeatedly made despicable anti-Semitic and anti-Asian comments as recently as last week.”

The congresswoman cited a House rule against testimony that may tend to “defame, degrade, or incriminate” any person, which would allow the committee an aside to determine whether to allow the testimony at issue during the open hearing. In making her case, Wasserman Schultz cited, “among many other things,” comments Kennedy recently made about COVID-19, which the candidate says has been misconstrued.

“COVID-19, there is an argument that it is ethnically targeted. COVID-19 attacks certain races disproportionately,” Kennedy claimed, according to The New York Post. “COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.”  (Read more: Daily Wire, 7/20/2023)  (Archive)

July 21, 2023 - Former ABC News reporter who “debunked” Pizzagate pleads guilty to possessing child porn

James Gordon Meek (Credit: The Associated Press)

Former ABC News reporter, James Gordon Meek, who bragged about ‘debunking’ evidence of an elite pedophile ring dubbed ‘Pizzagate’ was arrested and pled guilty to child pornography charges.

Meek pled guilty to the transportation and possession of child sexual abuse material after the FBI conducted a raid on the journalist’s Arlington home in April 2022, finding a Dropbox account of ‘sickening child rape’ materials of minors stored on Meek’s account.

Court papers indicate the investigation began when Dropbox reached out to the FBI to discuss videos showing the sexual abuse of children. The Department of Justice reported some of the images and videos depicting “prepubescent minors and minors under the age of 12, including an infant being raped.” (Read more: Valuetainment, 7/28/2023)  (Archive)

July 21, 2023 - The ODNI releases FISC report that recommends all FISA search logs be erased after 10 years from query

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence [ODNI] has released a 117-page April 2023 order/opinion by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court [FISC] about the compliance audit conducted by internal review as the U.S. intelligence agencies seek reauthorization.   Everything FISC happens in secret, and the report is heavily redacted; however, some interesting information can be obtained if you read the report carefully.

Here’s an example.  The FISC is now agreeing with the NSA and FBI that all search logs and audit trails should be erased after 10 years from query.  That means every audit trail from the period up to August 2013 is about to be erased.  That means almost all of the Obama era search queries will disappear before the next administration takes office.

They are not erasing our data; they are erasing the logs of their search inquiries into our data.  FU!

Readers here know my position.  I do not believe the FISA court is needed; nor do I believe the NSA, FBI, NCTC or CIA should have any search access to the metadata [full-scope electronic records] of American Citizens without a court order.

The DOJ and FBI should go to the ordinary federal courts for search warrants.  The CIA and National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) both have foreign service missions, so they do not need access to American citizen metadata (702 acquired).  Why would the CIA and NCTC need to snoop into the private data of American citizens when their legislative authority forbids them from conducting domestic surveillance?    Additionally, the NSA should not contain a lifetime repository for all electronic records of American citizens.  That’s my opinion.

(Conservative Treehouse, 7/21/2023)  (Archive)

July 21, 2023 - FISC Report: FBI searched U.S. Senator’s name in foreign-spying database

CIA Director David Petraeus, whose agency reads Americans’ email and listens to their phone calls, loses his career because the FBI read his emails. (Credit: Ted Rall)

The Federal Bureau of Investigation wrongfully searched a foreign-intelligence database for information about a U.S. senator and two state officials last year, a federal surveillance court said, a disclosure that could fuel a bipartisan effort in Congress to overhaul the spying program.

In June 2022, an FBI analyst conducted four overly broad searches of the U.S. senator’s last name in a database of calls, texts, emails and other electronic information collected by the National Security Agency, the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court said. The analyst also searched the data using the last name of a state senator. The names of the senators haven’t been made public.

The analyst had information that an unnamed foreign intelligence service had been targeting the two legislators, but the analyst failed to meet standards required to conduct the search, the court said.

Additionally, an unidentified state judge’s social security number was wrongfully used in an October 2022 search of the foreign-intelligence trove after the judge complained to the FBI about alleged civil-rights violations perpetrated by a municipal chief of police, the court said.

Also Friday, U.S. intelligence agencies revealed that counterterrorism officials use the database to help them vet immigrants being processed to travel to the U.S.

The court opinion, written in April but partially declassified only Friday, overall applauded the FBI for what it described as dramatic improvements in adhering to rules for conducting searches of Americans’ data.

The National Security Agency collects the data under a law known as Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, which allows the secretive eavesdropping agency to siphon digital data from U.S. technology providers. The data can then be searched without a warrant by various spy agencies, including the FBI, which has a robust counterintelligence mission. (Read more: The Wall Street Journal, 7/32/2023 – Archive copy)