Featured Timeline Entries
July 25, 2023 - Longtime Biden ally was prosecutor in US Attorney Weiss' office during Hunter probe, called him 'a brother'

Chief Deputy Attorney General Alexander Snyder Mackler (Credit: WMDT screenshot)

A longtime friend and ally of Hunter Biden and the Biden family served as a prosecutor in the Delaware U.S. Attorney’s office when that office led the federal investigation into Hunter Biden and has visited the White House at least five times during the Biden administration, a Fox News Digital investigation has found.

Alexander Snyder-Mackler, a former legal counsel to Joe Biden when he was vice president and a press secretary for then-Sen. Biden between 2007 and 2008, served as an assistant United States attorney in the Delaware U.S. Attorney’s office under David Weiss from August 2016 to May 2019. During that time, Weiss was leading the federal investigation into Hunter Biden for tax fraud and illegal foreign business dealings.

According to emails from Hunter’s abandoned laptop, which were reviewed and verified by Fox News Digital, Mackler and Hunter Biden remained in close contact, with Mackler once signing off an email saying, “Love you brother.”

(…) Mackler has been the Deputy Attorney General of Delaware since May 2019, according to his LinkedIn profile.

According to visitor logs reviewed by Fox News Digital, he visited the White House five times last year, including a one-on-one meeting with President Biden.

On March 28, 2022, Mackler met with White House counsel Steve Ricchetti for a one-on-one meeting. On April 11, he met with President Biden in a one-on-one meeting. On Aug. 28, he met with Biden’s 2024 campaign manager, Julie Rodriguez, who was also serving as Biden’s senior adviser, for a one-on-one meeting. And on Sept. 21, he met one on one with Claudia Marconi, senior adviser for congressional engagement. Mackler also attended a White House event in December.

Fox News Digital reviewed emails and text messages that reveal Mackler has maintained relatively frequent contact with the younger Biden for many years.

In a text message dated March 10, 2019, well after the federal investigation was underway, Mackler texted Hunter Biden, saying he was “in the car for a long drive” and “just wanted to say hi.”

Biden responded the next day, calling him “buddy.” (Read more: Fox News, 7/25/2023)  (Archive)

July 25, 2023 - Grassley: The Justice Department and FBI must tell the American people what was done with Biden FD-1023

Transcript:

Today, I’d like to address the unclassified FBI-generated 1023 form that I made public last week.

This is the 1023 that Director Wray refused to admit existed until I and Chairman Comer told him that we had read the document.

The FBI provided a highly redacted version to the House Committee on Oversight, and in the process ignored the Senate access to that document.

That version redacted references to the alleged audio recordings between then-Vice President Biden, Hunter Biden and the foreign national. It also redacted references to text messages and financial records that allegedly exist to prove the criminal act was done.

Those redactions are obstructive conduct by the [FBI].

Why? Because this was an unclassified document. It’s not even marked “Law Enforcement Sensitive.” And, by the way, Justice Department and FBI leaks exposed the source well before the 1023 became public.

Now, there’s been allegations in the media that this 1023 consists of unverified information. That didn’t stop the media’s breathless reporting for years about the unverified and very famous Steele Dossier. But, the Justice Department and the FBI haven’t told us what they did to investigate the 1023 document. So since the FBI hasn’t told us anything about their investigation of the 1023, how does the media know it’s unverified?

From what I’ve seen, much of the media reporting has missed the essential question: did the Justice Department and the FBI follow normal investigative process and procedure to run the information down or did they sweep this information under the rug?

Several media outlets have interviewed law enforcement sources with knowledge of the 1023 who start to answer that question.

One law enforcement source reportedly said, “This was a confidential human source that had a long relationship with the FBI, had given information that was used in multiple other investigations unrelated to Burisma or the Bidens.”

That law enforcement source said there was a “fight for a month” to get the FBI handler to re-interview the FBI source.

That re-interview was necessary because a separate 1023 mentioned Hunter Biden. And that re-interview ultimately produced the 1023 that I made public last week. When seeing that, my first question was – why the fight to re-interview the FBI source?

Then, the law enforcement source said, “we got that report back and we’re like, holy smokes, this is something.”

News reports also show that Justice Department and FBI personnel were able to validate some claims in the 1023 report without compulsory process.

For example, a news report quotes a law enforcement source, “There were multiple meetings alleged overseas. Some of the confidential human source’s claims were corroborated against the confidential human source travel records, and contemporary knowledge from the handler about him attending meetings with Zlochevsky and other people present.” The news report also notes that public records also validate some of the 1023 claims, including Zlochevsky’s efforts to buy into the American energy market.

A separate news report based on a law enforcement source with knowledge says that Weiss’s team was briefed on the validations. This begs the question, what did the investigators do to investigate?

Well, it’s been reported that a law enforcement source believed U.S. Attorney Weiss was reluctant to pursue leads because of political sensitivities. More precisely, the Weiss team was concerned about investigating because it would involve then-presidential candidate Biden. Well, that didn’t stop the Justice Department when Trump was a candidate the first or second time.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention a July 25, 2022, letter I wrote to the Justice Department and FBI. That letter talked about the FBI shutting down verified and verifiable investigative avenues into Hunter Biden separate from the ongoing U.S. Attorney Weiss investigation and the 1023. It’s clear that even if information is verified, the FBI has shut it down in the past if it relates to the Biden family.

Now, former Attorney General Bill Barr has said that the 1023 was credible enough to be passed on to Delaware for “further investigation.” He’s also said that a review was done to ensure the 1023 wasn’t disinformation before passing it on.

Director Wray likewise informed me and Chairman Comer of its credibility, noting that it’s relevant to an ongoing investigative matter. This all took place in the phone call that Comer and I had with Wray. He also didn’t say that it’s part of Giuliani’s information and he didn’t tell me and Comer that it’s the product of any disinformation.

Accordingly, I want to make clear what my oversight focus is and will be: holding the Biden Justice Department and FBI accountable to explain to the American people what they did to investigate and what they found. To do that, congressional oversight must focus on the Justice Department and FBI investigative process and whether U.S. Attorney Weiss’s scope includes bribery.

Congress and the public must get answers to these questions: What did the Justice Department and FBI do to investigate the information contained in the 1023? Did the Justice Department and FBI follow normal investigative process and procedure or try to sweep it all under the rug because of political bias? More precisely, did the FBI and DOJ seek to obtain the evidence referenced in the document? Did DOJ and FBI seek to interview individuals relating to the 1023? If not, why not? If so, one way or the other, what did they find?

We’re in July 2023 and we’re talking about a June 2020 document. The FBI can easily answer those questions. The fact that they haven’t indicates to me that the Justice Department and FBI haven’t followed normal investigative protocol.

Congress must also find out the true extent to which the August 2020 assessment created by Brian Auten was used to shut down Biden family investigative leads. For example, we know that the FBI had at one time over a dozen sources who provided potentially criminal information relating to Hunter Biden. Did the August 2020 assessment shut any of them down?

In conclusion, as we prepare to celebrate National Whistleblower Day, let’s not forget the only reason why Congress has been able to make this information public is because of brave and very patriotic whistleblowers who’ve approached my office.

Remember this: to-date, the Justice Department and FBI have not disputed any of their allegations. Further, remember this: that includes information relating to this 1023 that I’ve made public, and some of this information goes back to October of last year. And in that period of time, the Department of Justice and the FBI haven’t disputed any of that information. And a perfect chance for Christopher Wray, Director of the FBI, to do that would have been with that telephone conversation that he had with Chairman Comer and me.

Giving you all this information, that ought to tell you something about what the FBI’s up to [and] what the DOJ’s up to. (Ad lib ending to floor speech): And the information I’ve given you today ought to tell you that there’s plenty out there in the media and the media should not be questioning whether or not this information in the 1023 has any validity. I yield the floor./blockquote>

(Senator Chuck Grassley, 7/25/2023)  (Archive)

July 26, 2023 - Devon Archer loses on all appeals in $60 million securities fraud

Devon Archer is reportedly in talks to speak about Joe and Hunter Biden’s alleged $10 million bribes. (Credit: Alec Tabak/New York Post)

Yesterday, former business partner Devon Archer lost on all issues brought in his appeal to the United States Court of Appeals Second Circuit.  Archer had previously been released while awaiting judgment regarding the securities fraud case he was convicted in with co-defendant John Galanis.

Last month, and again earlier this week, it was announced that he would be testifying in front of the House Oversight Committee.  Many have predicted that he would testify about at least 24 instances of Joe Biden’s engagement with Hunter’s foreign business partners over the phone.

Archer’s year-long prison sentence was upheld, but it is not clear when he will turn himself in and whether or not he will still testify. (Read more: The Gateway Pundit, 7/27/2023)  (Archive)

July 26, 2023 - Hunter Biden sweetheart plea deal is shelved; Judge orders new "Conditions of Release" that he must comply with

HUNTER IS REQUIRED TO:

1) NOT possess a firearm
2) NOT use or possess any controlled substances (including marijuana) unless prescribed
3) Submit to full federal supervision
4) NO use of alcohol AT ALL
5) Seek active employment
6) Submit to testing for prohibited substances
7) Participate in substance abuse therapy

PENALTIES FOR VIOLATING COULD INCLUDE:

1) Immediate issuance of an arrest warrant
2) Revocation of release
3) Forfeiture of bond
4) Prosecution for contempt of court

Transcript Link

July 27, 2023 - The Facebook Files - Part One

July 28, 2023 - Facebook Files - Part Two

July 28, 2023 - Comer: 6 major banks filed 170 Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) on Bidens for money laundering, human trafficking, fraud

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) has dropped a bombshell by revealing that six major American banks have filed over 170 suspicious activity reports (SARs) against Democrat President Joe Biden’s family.

According to Comer, the banks, including JPMorgan, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo, filed the SARs with the Treasury Department regarding alleged serious criminal activity involving the Bidens.

Comer, who served as a bank director for a decade, revealed that the reports were related to activity involving money laundering, human trafficking, and tax fraud.

Speaking during an appearance on Sen Ted Cruz’s (R-TX) podcast show, Comer explained that a SAR is essentially a red flag raised by a bank when it suspects that a client may be involved in illegal activities.

Despite misconceptions to the contrary, Comer clarified that SARs are very rare and not issued lightly by banks.

For a comparison, Comer revealed that the bank he directed only issued two SARs over the ten years he worked there.

For multiple banks to issue over 170 SARs against one family is incredibly unusual, Comer explained.

“In the banking industry, if you had two SARs against you, it would be hard for you to open an account somewhere,” Comer said.

“There wouldn’t be any bank that would want to have you as a customer, because it’s not worth the paperwork.”

The Oversight Committee chair then stated that the Biden family had been subjected to a staggering number of SARs.

These reports raised suspicion of money laundering, human trafficking, and tax fraud, all connected to different members of the Biden crime family.

Comer illustrated the nature of these suspicions by using the example of a $3 million wire transaction from China to an associate of the Biden family.

The payment was subsequently funneled through various shell companies within 24 hours. (Read more: Slay News, 7/28/2023)  (Archive)

July 31, 2023 - Devon Archer provides more details on Joe and Hunter Biden’s dinner in D.C. with wife of Russian oligarch and former Kazakhstan PM

(…) On Monday Hunter Biden’s best friend and business associate, Devon Archer, testified that Joe Biden met with Russia’s Yelena Baturina who later invested $40 million into Hunter Biden’s real estate ventures. Baturina also paid Hunter Biden $3.5 million in “consulting fees.”

Here is a copy of the Rosemont deal with Yelena Baturina.

Yelena Baturina, the billionaire widow of a corrupt Moscow mayor, was left off of Biden’s Sanctions list.

The Daily Mail reported on the relationship back in October 2022:

Hunter Biden’s real estate company received a $40 million investment from a Russian oligarch, new emails reveal.

The relationship between the president’s son and Yelena Baturina, the billionaire widow of a corrupt Moscow mayor, has already been flagged as alarming by a Senate report after she mysteriously wired $3.5million to a company linked to Hunter.

Baturina’s brother Viktor Baturin told DailyMail.com the money was ‘a payment to enter the American market.’

But DailyMail.com can now reveal that Hunter’s financial relationship with Baturina was far more extensive, with her firm investing $40million in a real estate venture by Hunter’s company Rosemont Realty.

In 2012 Hunter’s firm had a $69.7million plan to invest in 2.15million sq ft of office space in seven US cities.

Documents outlining the plan said the money came from a mix of investors, including $40million from Inteco Management AG, a Swiss company owned by Baturina.

The Inteco group is a plastics and construction behemoth that made Baturina the richest woman in Russia at the time. She has a current net worth of $1.4billion according to Forbes.

Last year Biden would not tell reporters why he left Baturina off the Russian sanction list:

The dinner also included Kazakhstani businessman Kenes Rakishev — who wired $142,300 used on a luxury car business for Hunter Biden — and former Kazakhstani Prime Minister Karim Massimov,

Rakishev provided $142,300 in funding to Hunter Biden to purchase a Fisker Karma automobile in 2014.

(Read more: Gateway Pundit, 8/03/2023)  (Archive)

July 31, 2023 - Devon Archer testimony exposes a few key untruths in Hunter Biden memoir, “Beautiful Things”

(…) The account seems to comport with now-President Biden’s repeated denials that he discussed business with his son or had any substantive involvement with his partners. 

However, Archer told a different story to U.S. lawmakers during a deposition earlier this year. “Jonathan Li and [Vice] President Biden had coffee,” Archer said, according to a recently released transcript of his interview with the House Oversight Committee. “They had coffee in Beijing,” he recalled, suggesting there may have been talk about their business relationship.

Li would later offer Hunter a 10% stake worth potentially millions in a Chinese investment fund controlled by the state Bank of China. The fund, BHR Partners, is based in Beijing. 

Jonathan Li: Archer said Hunter put his Dad on the phone with Li. Hunter’s memoir didn’t mention this. (Credit: BHR Partners)

Archer’s testimony included other details ignored or distorted in the memoir. He said the vice president called Hunter while he was meeting with Li in Paris, and Hunter put his father on speakerphone so he could join their conversation. And in early January 2017, while Biden was still in the White House, Hunter arranged for his father to write letters of recommendation for Li’s son and daughter to Ivy League colleges. 

Before committee lawyers began questioning Archer during the July 31 closed-door hearing, they warned him that providing false testimony could subject him to criminal prosecution for perjury. Hunter, in contrast, was under no such legal peril while writing his manuscript.

The same Oversight panel that quizzed Archer will now lead a formal impeachment inquiry, announced this month by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, to investigate whether Biden used his office to enrich his family. Investigators are weighing subpoenaing Hunter Biden, which makes examining his claims in his memoir highly instructive as to his and his father’s credibility. They’re also tracing millions of dollars wired from China into a maze of accounts that ended up in the hands of Hunter and several other Biden family members, belying claims by the president that Hunter received no money from China. 

Hunter also raked in millions from Ukraine while his father was “point man” for Ukraine policy as vice president. 

Mykola Zlochevsky: Hunter and Archer disagree on important details. (Credit: Svetlana Pashko/Wikimedia)

Hunter addresses the controversy in the sixth chapter of “Beautiful Things,” describing the allegation that he traded on his father’s influence in Ukraine to land an unusually lucrative five-year stint on the board of the corrupt Ukraine energy giant Burisma Holdings as “the decade’s biggest political fable.” 

He insisted neither he nor his father, who as vice president husbanded Ukraine’s new regime, did anything criminal or corrupt. “There is, in short, no there here,” Biden wrote. 

Hunter then explained how he came to serve on the Burisma board, raking in $83,000 a month despite having no experience in the energy sector. Biden claimed that Archer, his international consultancy partner, brought Burisma into their business orbit after first meeting Burisma’s founder in Kyiv. 

“During one such trip to Kyiv, he met Mykola Zlochevsky, the owner and president of Burisma,” Biden said. “After returning from Kyiv, Devon told me about his talk with Zlochevsky.” 

Devon Archer: His disclosure that the relationship with Burisma was hatched in Moscow is at odds with the political narrative President Biden has carefully crafted by demonizing Russia. (Credit: AP)

But Archer, who served on the Burisma board alongside Biden, relayed a different account to Congress, testifying he first met the Russian-tied Ukrainian oligarch in Moscow, not Kyiv. 

In fact, Archer said he sat down with Zlochevsky in the Russian capital on the same day that Russia invaded Crimea in 2014. “It was just me meeting [with him],” Archer added. Within days, Burisma asked him to join the board. And Hunter Biden came aboard shortly thereafter. 

Archer’s disclosure that their relationship with Burisma was hatched in Moscow is at odds with the political narrative President Biden has carefully crafted, demonizing Russia as Enemy No. 1 of America and NATO. Hunter’s telling of the genesis, with the initial meeting with Zlochevsky taking place in Ukraine’s capital, is far more palatable. 

Hunter wrote that he only agreed to accept Zlochevsky’s offer in order to enable Ukraine to strengthen its energy independence from Russia. He said the prospect of helping build a “bulwark” against Russian oil and gas imports assuaged “whatever dissonance I might have felt between idealism and generous compensation.” He said he was more interested in “fighting” for the Ukrainian people against an aggressive neighbor, which aligns his employment with Burisma with his father’s pro-Ukraine, anti-Russia stance. 

“Having a Biden on Burisma’s board was a loud and unmistakable fuck-you to Putin,” Hunter maintained. 

But according to Archer’s testimony, Burisma hired them in part to help expand its energy operations outside of Ukraine – particularly in the U.S., where the energy industry is heavily regulated by the federal government, and having such politically connected Americans on the board was valuable to the oil and gas conglomerate. Plus, he and Hunter were motivated by the windfall Burisma was paying them: “It was a million dollars per year [apiece] on the board contracts,” Archer confirmed. 

Hunter further contends in his memoir that his father didn’t know about his joining the Burisma board until he read about it in the Wall Street Journal on May 13, 2014. But White House emails show the vice president’s staff was coordinating damage control weeks earlier when the news first broke in the foreign press.  

And Archer testified that a month earlier, he had met with Vice President Biden in his White House office with Hunter, who had arranged the meeting. Their high-level pow-wow took place on April 16, the day after records show Archer received his first payment from Burisma. 

It’s not clear what the trio discussed in Biden’s office, but Hunter had emailed Archer a Burisma strategy memo just three days earlier. Also on April 13, Hunter had emailed Joe Biden’s best friend Ted Kaufman and the vice president’s then-deputy counsel Alex Mackler to discuss Ukrainian politics. On April 21, Biden visited Ukraine to offer energy and economic aid. 

But that’s not the biggest whopper Hunter apparently told about Burisma in his book. On page 127, he claimed: “No one at Burisma had even hinted at wanting me to influence the [Obama-Biden] administration.” 

Several Burisma emails to Hunter, along with Archer’s congressional testimony, put the lie to this claim.

(Read more: RealClearInvestigations, 9/19/2023)  (Archive)

August 3, 2023 - DOJ never prosecuted Hillary Clinton for ‘Conspiracy to Defraud U.S.’ with Russia hoax

Special Counsel Jack Smith charged former President Donald Trump on Tuesday with four counts relating to his challenges to the 2020 presidential election, including “conspiracy to defraud the United States.” The supposed act of “fraud” was that Trump said the election had been stolen, despite knowing, or at least being told, otherwise. But if pushing a false claim of stolen elections is a federal crime, then Hillary Clinton, the Democratic Party, the media, and the Department of Justice itself should be charged.

To recap: Hillary Clinton falsely claimed in 2016 that Russia was colluding with Trump. With help from election lawyer Marc Elias, Hillary’s campaign, and the Democratic National Committee, hired the Fusion GPS opposition research firm to create the phony “dossier” on Trump’s Russia ties. They shopped it, successfully, to the FBI, which began spying on a Trump campaign aide. Aides like Jake Sullivan (now the National Security Advisor) continued to spread the “Russia collusion” claim within the media.

After Trump won, the hoax took on new life. Despite conceding to Trump the morning after Election Day in 2016, Hillary kept claiming that the election had, in fact, been stolen. The Department of Justice renewed surveillance warrants even after it knew the “dossier” was false. Outgoing FBI director James Comey triggered the appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller to investigate, though he had reason to know there was no evidence of “Russia collusion” — and, indeed, none was ever found.

The hoax undermined the legitimacy of the incoming Trump administration and interfered with its ability to conduct foreign policy. Even after Mueller came up empty, the hoax took on new life in the form of the 2019 impeachment investigation, which focused on Trump’s conversation with the Ukrainian president but implied that the president was secretly trying to help Russia. In the 2020 election, the perpetrators of the old hoax claimed, falsely, that Hunter Biden’s laptop was “Russian disinformation.”

In short, there has never been a greater or more consequential hoax in modern American history than the “Russia collusion” hoax. And yet no one has ever been prosecuted for it — least of all Hillary Clinton, who was ultimately responsible for it. The Department of Justice, through Special Counsel John H. Durham, pursued a few low-level prosecutions, but no one was ever targeted for the overall “fraud” — even though the story of how the “Russia collusion” hoax was concocted eventually emerged. (Read more: Breitbart, 8/02/2023)  (Archive)

August 3, 2023 - Former Capitol Police Chief calls Jan 6 events ‘a cover up’ in Tucker Carlson interview hidden by Fox News

Former Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund told then–Fox News host Tucker Carlson that events surrounding the January 6th riots at the U.S. Capitol appear to have been a “cover up,” in never-seen-before footage published exclusively by The National Pulse.

In the hour-long interview, Sund laments the behaviors of then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as well as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, who he says had intelligence to suggest problems on Capitol Hill, which they failed to communicate with Sund and his cops on the ground.

“If I was allowed to do my job as the chief we wouldn’t be here, this didn’t have to happen,” Sund begins, around 19 minutes into the conversation, during which he describes himself as “pissed off” about being “lambasted in public” over the events. Sund has written a book, Courage Under Fire, about his experiences.

Having served as a police officer for over 30 years, including taking over as Chief of the United States Capitol Police in 2019, Sund explains the events leading up to January 6th, including prior to the incident at the Capitol itself, and the aftermath, appeared to be a “cover up.”

“Everything appears to be a cover up,” says the decorated police chief, explaining that most things to do with his department were political, specifically because he reported to politicians including then Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

“Like I said, I’m not a conspiracy theorist,” Sund explains, “…but when you look at the information and intelligence they had, the military had, it’s all watered down. I’m not getting intelligence, I’m denied any support from National Guard in advance. I’m denied National Guard while we’re under attack, for 71 minutes…” (Read more: National Pulse, 8/03/2023)  (Archive)

 

August 5, 2023 - DOJ lawyers handling Trump J6 case declined to prosecute disgraced FBI Chief Andrew McCabe for lying under oath

Andrew McCabe arrives for a meeting with members of the Oversight and Government Reform and Judiciary committees December 21, 2017. (Credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

When Special Counsel Jack Smith entered a D.C. courtroom on Thursday afternoon to witness the arraignment of Donald Trump on four criminal counts related to the former president’s alleged attempt to “overturn” the 2020 election, one longtime Department of Justice official accompanied Smith: Molly Gaston, an assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia now tasked to Smith’s team.

A federal grand jury on August 1 indicted Trump on conspiracy and obstruction charges following a year-long investigation by DOJ into Trump’s post-election efforts to uncover voting fraud and halt the certification of the electoral college results on January 6, 2021. “[For] for more than two months following election day on November 3, 2020, the Defendant spread lies that there had been outcome-determinative fraud in the election and that he had actually won. These claims were false, and the Defendant knew that they were false,” Smith wrote in the 45-page indictment.

Gaston, according to reports, was the prosecutor awaiting the grand jury’s decision on Tuesday then filed the indictment with the D.C. District Court late that afternoon.

But just a few years ago, Gaston appeared unconcerned with “lies” told by another top government official. Gaston and fellow prosecutor J.P. Cooney, also currently assigned to Smith’s team, informed Andrew McCabe—the former acting FBI Director who was fired in 2018 for lying to federal investigators—that he would not be charged.

Department of Justice Inspector General Michael Horowitz had concluded McCabe lied to FBI and OIG agents on four occasions—including three times [under] oath—related to his involvement in authorizing a leak to the Wall Street Journal about an ongoing investigation into the Clinton Foundation “to advance his personal interests at the expense of Department leadership.”

“[The] OIG found that then-Deputy Director Andrew McCabe lacked candor, including under oath, on multiple occasions in connection with describing his role in connection with a disclosure to the WSJ,” Horowitz wrote. He then forwarded the matter to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia; the referral ultimately ended up on Cooney’s desk.

Ironically, or not, Cooney and Gaston now have a leading role in prosecuting the former president for “creat[ing] an intense national atmosphere of mistrust and anger, and erod[ing] public faith in the administration of the election,”—something that DOJ employees including McCabe did successfully by attempting to run Trump out of office based on lies about Trump-Russian election collusion. (Read more: Julie Kelly, 8/05/2023)  (Archive)

August 7, 2023 - Memos show indicted FBI agent had ties to 2016 Trump-Russia probe and Clinton defensive briefing

Ex-FBI counterintelligence official, Charles F. McGonigal (left), was charged with receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars from sanctioned Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska (right). (Credit: Law and Crime)

Former FBI agent Charles McGonigal, who is charged with violating U.S. sanctions by working with a Russian oligarch, was tied to the Trump-Russia collusion investigation, as well as a separate defensive briefing given to Hillary Clinton during the 2016 election.

McGonigal, the former head of counterintelligence for the FBI New York field office, was indicted by federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York in January on five counts related to services he allegedly provided to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska. The five counts include violating and conspiring to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, and conspiring to commit money laundering. The former FBI agent had investigated Deripaska over the since-debunked allegations that the Trump 2016 campaign colluded with Russia.

A court filing submitted on Monday said that “McGonigal may wish to enter a change of plea.”

McGonigal previously pleaded not guilty to the five charges as well as the federal charges brought against him by the U.S. Attorney for D.C. for allegedly concealing $225,000 in cash from a person who worked for the Albanian intelligence service.

The Republican-led House Judiciary Committee opened an investigation into McGonigal in February.

McGonigal had some involvement in the Trump-Russia collusion investigation and the FBI’s interactions with the Clinton campaign.

According to an FBI document dated Oct. 22, 2015, McGonigal was copied on a defensive briefing for Clinton.

 ClintonDefensiveBriefing.pdf

The document details a defensive briefing that Clinton’s attorneys, David E. Kendall and Katherine Turner, received a week earlier regarding an attempt to influence the then-Democratic presidential candidate’s campaign.

The FBI told the attorneys that there were attempts to influence Clinton’s campaign “through lobbying efforts and campaign contributions,” according to the document.

The attorneys “were advised the FBI was providing them with this briefing for awareness and so Ms. Clinton could take appropriate action to protect herself,” the document later added. The lawyers were also “asked to advise the FBI … if Ms. Clinton is approached by anyone connected to or acting at the direction of the [redacted].”

In Special Counsel John Durham’s report, he noted, “FBI Headquarters and Department [of Justice] officials required defensive briefings to be provided to Clinton and other officials or candidates who appeared to be the targets of foreign interference.”

(…) “No defensive briefing was provided to Trump or anyone in the campaign concerning the information received from Australia that suggested there might be some type of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians either prior to or after these investigations were opened” the special counsel added. “Instead,” said Durham, “the FBI began working on requests for the use of FISA authorities against Page and Papadopoulos.” (Read more: Just the News, 8/09/2023)  (Archive)

August 8, 2023 - Homeland Security publishes guidance for using Artificial Intelligence as tool for surveillance, monitoring and tracking of American citizens

(Credit: Center for Public Policy Innovation (CCPI)  -Government , Industry, and Congressional Leaders Discuss the Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Homeland and National Security – AI Symposium, February 2021)

You might ask, why is the Dept of Homeland Security (DHS) in the business of conducting widescale surveillance, monitoring and tracking of American citizens.

Unfortunately, if you are asking that question, then you likely don’t know the first, fourth and fifth amendment to the U.S. constitution were usurped by the 2001 Patriot Act.

George W Bush and Dick Cheney created the domestic surveillance system under the auspices of DHS and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.  Barack Obama and Joe Biden then took that DHS surveillance system and modified the dials (Justice Dept., FBI) so the surveillance only applied to their ideological enemies.

If you have followed my outlines on this issue [Category Here], you will note exactly where this latest development falls on the continuum.   The 2024 election is right around the corner. Previously I stated the artificial intelligence (AI) component to the internet surveilllance system was going to launch toward the end of this year.  Well, DHS has just announced exactly that [SEE HERE].

I find it very interesting the DHS memo was issued on August 8th, but only published for the general public yesterday.  July and August were when I first identified AI spider crawls were already underway.  Pay very, very close attention to the two underlined words in the following paragraph:

Take out the word “improper” and the admission is, DHS uses AI to profile, target and discriminate.  In the second sentence, DHS currently participates in systemic, indiscriminate and/or large-scale monitoring, surveillance, or tracking of individuals.  The only thing those sentences in the paragraph say, is that DHS will not allow AI to create improper outcomes within a system they outline that already exists.

Stop and reread that last sentence as much as needed.  Inasmuch as this DHS guidance is telling us the rules for Homeland Security (DHS) and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) as they use AI, they are also outlining what current processes of surveillance would be enhanced by it.

DHS’ AI task force is coordinating with the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency on how the department can partner with critical infrastructure organizations “on safeguarding their uses of AI and strengthening their cybersecurity practices writ large to defend against evolving threats.”

What are those critical infrastructure organizations?  They include voting systems.  Who or what are those evolving threats?  You!

Federal News Network – […] The report also recommends DHS encourage pursing off-the-shelf commercial solutions instead of “building everything in-house.”

Mayorkas emphasized the need for DHS to adopt AI quickly, regardless of whether it’s commercially acquired or internally developed technology.

“We have got to change the procurement capabilities of a government agency to actually move quickly and nimbly, so that when we’re dealing in a very dynamic environment, we can actually move with dynamism,” Mayorkas said. “I’m not suggesting moving to a sole source model, but we just have to be quick.”

He also stressed the need for DHS to prioritize where it will use AI, rather than attempting to adopt it across every mission and use case. The report points to combatting both fentanyl and human trafficking as use cases that could be “accelerated and championed” across DHS. But it also suggests DHS “integrate AI/ML into as many areas of the DHS mission as possible.”

“We’re going to need to prioritize what aspect of our mission should we really double down on to harness AI because I worry about diluting our focus too much,” Mayorkas said. “And I really do want to demonstrate, as quickly as is responsible, how this could really be a game changer for us in advancing our mission . . . we have to pick our spots here, in my view, somewhat surgically.” (more)

Notice the emphasis on speed.  Get this AI system launched into DHS surveillance, tracking and monitoring systems as quickly as possible.

Now do you see my point about how radical and fast everything is going to change?  It’s the 2024 election targeting.

Remember, the Dept of Defense (DoD) will now conduct online monitoring operations, using enhanced AI to protect the U.S. internet from “disinformation” under the auspices of national security. {link}

I share this information with you so that you understand what is being constructed and what is about to be deployed on a large scale throughout the U.S. internet operating system.  The U.S. internet will be different.  The social media restrictions became more prevalent and noticeable in the past several years; now it is time for DHS to expand that process to the entire U.S. internet. (Read more: Conservative Treehouse, 9/15/2023)  (Archive)

August 8, 2023 - Background of DC judge Tanya Chutkan in cases against Trump – Recusal for her previous defense of Burisma and Fusion GPS?

Appearing with Sebastian Gorka, Kash Patel puts some excellent context on the issue of Dircuit Court Judge Chutkan presiding over the special counsel case against President Trump.  {Direct Rumble Link Here}

I was unaware of the detail where Judge Chutkan originally presided over the case when Fusion GPS tried to block Devin Nunes and Kash Patel from revealing the source of the payments for the Chris Steele dossier.  This is a big datapoint. WATCH:

TRANSCRIPT – Kash Patel:

“Judge Chutkan, for those who don’t know, represented Burisma, Hunter Biden’s fraudulent consulting firm, she was a lawyer at the same law firm with Hunter Biden. But Seb, let’s put that aside. What other matters are there for her recusal? In 2017 when Devin Nunes and I were running the Russiagate investigation, we figured out who paid for the Steele dossier. Fusion GPS, the DNC, and the Hillary Clinton campaign paid Christopher Steele millions of dollars and they laundered it through the FBI and the FISA court to unlawfully surveil Donald Trump. That’s big-time stuff.

On the eve of us winning that disclosure, before the world knew, Fusion GPS took us to federal court and that case landed in JUDGE CHUTKAN’S COURT ROOM. … After a month of heavy litigation where Judge Chutkan knew the ins and outs of Fusion GPS, our proceedings, all possible witnesses, etc., when she could not prevent us from prevailing, she recused -on her own- from that case. Why?”

“We found out her law firm, Boies Schiller, represented Fusion GPS. The very client that was in front of her in federal court was one of her former clients. That is rule #1 for disqualification.”

GORKA: “Boies Schiller Flexner is the same company where Chutkan and Hunter Biden worked!”

PATEL: “You gotta ask yourself, Seb, how come it took Chutkan a month [to recuse herself]? … She wanted to block the bank records.

Imagine if we never found out who paid for the dossier. … She set the precedent. She cannot neutrally and arbitrarily preside over Donald Trump’s criminal trial when she recused herself from the very representation of the Democratic entrenchment: the DNC, the Hillary Clinton campaign, Fusion GPS, because she was so biased because of her prior representation from Boies Schiller.

How could she possibly be allowed to stay on this case? And it wasn’t us, Seb. We got her off because of her own history. That precedent is what Donald Trump’s lawyers must apply this week.”

Perhaps this recusal issue is why four other district court judges including Boasberg sat in the back of the courtroom for President Trump’s appearance last week. Perhaps the judges were proactively contemplating who would meet the DC recusal threshold. (Conservative Treehouse, 8/12/2023)  (Archive)

August 9, 2023 - Trump legal team subpoena's January 6 Committee documents, finds they have been illegally destroyed

In a recent interview with Eric Bolling, former President Donald Trump blasted the sham January 6 “Unselect” Committee for a cover-up.

The Gateway Pundit previously reported that Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that the sham committee overseeing the investigation of the January 6th Capitol riot has destroyed their documents and records illegally.

“So now that I have full Subpoena Power because of the Freedom of Speech Sham Indictment by Crooked Joe Biden, Deranged Jack Smith, and the DOJ, it has just been reported that the Unselect January 6th Committee of Political Hacks and Thugs has illegally destroyed their Records and Documents. This is unthinkable, and the Fake Political Indictment against me must be immediately withdrawn. The system is Rigged & Corrupt, very much like the Presidential Election of 2020. We are a Nation in Decline!” Trump wrote.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) sent a letter to House January 6th Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-MS) on November 2022 demanding preservation of committee records for the incoming Republican-controlled Congress next January 2023. McCarthy also said Republicans would hold hearings on why the Capitol was “not secure” on January 6, 2021.video

“The American people chose Republicans to lead the 118th Congress. On January 3, 2023, your work as Chairman of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol will come to an end. For those reasons, I remind you and your staff on the Committee to preserve all records collected and transcripts of testimony taken during your investigation in accordance with House Rule VII. As the Chairman, regardless of who may be directing the work of the Committee, you are responsible for the work done by its members and staff,” the letter read.

On Wednesday, Trump told Bolling that the actions of the Democrats were criminal.

“Now that we have the subpoena power, because we now have subpoena power, all of a sudden, the J6 Committee, the “Unselect” I call them, everything was deleted and destroyed. The documents – everything was deleted and destroyed. That’s a criminal act,” Trump said during the interview.

“All of that stuff, all of that nonsense you watch for a year and a half, go on with all Democrats and two so-called Republicans, but they were worse than any of the Democrats – Kinzinger and Cheney – it’s all been deleted and gotten rid of. They deleted it because they didn’t want anybody to see it, because the real answers were there, but they didn’t want to report it,” Trump added.

WATCH:

According to Fox News, Democrat Bennie Thompson (D-MS) told House Republicans in a letter, stating, “Consistent with guidance from the Office of the Clerk and other authorities, the Select Committee did not archive temporary committee records that were not elevated by the Committee’s actions, such as use in hearings or official publications, or those that did not further its investigative activities.”

The letter continued, “Accordingly, and contrary to your letter’s implication, the Select Committee was not obligated to archive all video recordings of transcribed interviews or depositions. Based on guidance from House authorities, the Select Committee determined that the written transcripts provided by nonpartisan, professional official reporters, which the witnesses and Select Committee staff had the opportunity to review for errata, were the official, permanent records of transcribed interviews and depositions for the purposes of rule VII.”

Video compilation revealed the hypocrisy of the far-left lawmakers regarding destroying evidence during their made-for-TV show trial of President Trump.

(Read more: The Gateway Pundit, 8/09/2023) (Archive)

August 28, 2019 - August 9, 2023: Biden “lied” at least 16 times about his family’s elaborate business schemes

President Joe Biden “lied” at least 16 times about his family’s elaborate business schemes, the House Oversight Committee recounted Thursday.

The committee says Joe Biden lied in five different ways about his family’s foreign business endeavors: 1) That Joe Biden never spoke to his family about their business dealings; 2) His family did not receive $1 million through a third party; 3) Hunter Biden never made money in China; 4) Hunter Biden’s dealings were ethical; 5) and his son did nothing wrong.

Below are the 16 examples.

Joe Biden on not talking to his son about his business dealings:

1) August 28, 2019

Joe Biden: “First of all, I have never discussed with my son, or my brother, or anyone else, anything having to do with their businesses, period. What I will do is the same thing we did in our administration. There will be an absolute wall between the personal and private, and the government. There wasn’t any hint of scandal at all when we were there. And I will impose the same kind of strict, strict rules. That is why I have never talked with my son or my brother, or anyone else in the distant family about their business interests, period.”

2) September 21, 2019

Reporter: “Have you ever spoken to your son about his overseas business dealings?”

Joe Biden: “I’ve never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings.”

3) October 4, 2019

Reporter: “Excuse me. There was a photo of you golfing with your son Hunter and his business partner Devon Archer. Do you stand by your statement that you did not discuss any of your son’s overseas business dealings?”

Joe Biden: “Yes, I stand by that statement.”

4) October 9, 2019

Joe Biden: “I don’t discuss business with my son. I didn’t know that was the case when in fact I found out after the fact. And I don’t discuss things with my son or my family because I don’t want to have any knowledge of any, I don’t want to be accused of well you talk with your son, you talk with your whomever.”

5) October 15, 2019

Joe Biden: “I never discussed a single thing with my son about anything having do with Ukraine. No one has indicated I have. We’ve always kept everything separate.”

6) October 16, 2019

Joe Biden: “I never discussed with my son anything having to do with what was going on in Ukraine. That’s a fact.”

7) October 27, 2019

Joe Biden: “I’ve never discussed my business or their business, my sons and daughters. And I’ve never discussed them because they know where I have to do my job and that’s it.”

8) October 29, 2019

Joe Biden: “I’ve never discussed my son’s business with him.”

9) April 5, 2022

Reporter: “The President has said that he never spoke to his son about his overseas business dealings. Is that still the case?”

Jen Psaki: “Yes.”

10) June 26, 2023

Reporter: “Did you lie about never speaking to Hunter about his business dealings?”

President Biden: “No.”

11) August 9, 2023

Reporter: “There’s this testimony now where one of your son’s former business associates is claiming that you were on speakerphone a lot with them talking business. Is that what?”

President Biden: “I never talked business with anybody, and I knew you’d have a lousy question.”

(Read more: Breitbart, 8/24/2023)  (Archive)

August 9, 2023 - House Oversight releases Biden bank records memorandum; received $20 million from oligarchs in Russia, Kazakhstan & Ukraine

August 10, 2023 -Trump White House official confirms Michigan voter fraud report and claims Bill Barr shut down investigation

On Thursday, former Trump administration General Counsel Personnel Police Operations Andrew Kloster joined Steve Bannon on The War Room to discuss the Muskegon, Michigan 2020 voter fraud scandal.

Andrew Kloster said he notified Bill Barr’s DOJ – and Barr and his cronies smacked him down and killed the investigation.

(…) Below is the transcript:

Steve Bannon: Tell me your story related to this situation that’s come up the last couple of days, a Gateway Pundit breaking this story on the situation in Michigan about these applications, voter registration applications in  Michigan. Can you walk me through your knowledge of this?

Andrew Kloster: So it was kind of funny. I saw GBI Strategies on a Tweet, and I immediately went down the rabbit hole because it brought back a lot of memories of the waning days of the Trump administration. So this was right before the election, 2020. I was in the White House. I was also at the Office of Personnel Management. So I was like the main personnel attorney, government-wide and hatchet man and all of that. And I did a lot of spot projects and fixing just generally across the admin on behalf of the president and his agenda…  I’ve been in the movement for a long time. I was at Heritage. I’ve worked with lots of people at the state level. I did the Wisconsin investigation for Gableman. So I have a wide network. And I got a call basically saying, look, I’ve got a spooked law enforcement senior guy, been there like 20 years, unimpeachable record out in Muskegon, Michigan, and he’s got a story that we think is worth looking into. And that’s exactly what Gateway Pundit is talking about. So I can confirm a lot of the details and give you some more.

What ended up happening is my understanding, I reached out and spoke with some local law enforcement. What happened was there was a woman, my understanding is basically loitering outside of a dropbox all day, and she gets picked up by a junior guy and arrested because he’s like, what are you doing? You’re stuffing this box. What’s going on? So they arrest her, and she basically spills the beans. She’s a democratic operative. She’s got filled-out ballots, like 7000 is what I was hearing, and they arrested her. Now, the senior guy, my understanding was off at the time. So the junior guy who picked her up, got her statement and released her, and she went back to Detroit… She went back to Detroit. The senior guy comes back in the next day or later in the day and says, what the know? You had her dead to rights. Why did you release her? And starts trying to get an extradition order from Detroit, because this is before the election. We’re hearing there could be voter fraud. And here you’ve got someone basically copping to it and caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

Detroit doesn’t give an extradition order, and the next thing you know, everyone clams up and I’m hearing, well, Benson’s leaning on people threatening jobs. So when I hear this in the, you know, we’ve got our eyes out, at least the loyal ones, I try to raise a red flag. I do a little bit of light reaching out, not to disrupt anything, but just to kind of vet and make sure that I’m dealing with people who aren’t lying and people who are credible.

And then I try to reach out to different components within the Trump administration to this. There’s at least probable cause? Now, I’m an attorney, I’ve worked on some criminal stuff. There’s at least probable cause here. Someone should take a look, talk with the relevant law enforcement and figure out what happened here. Because just as what happened with you know, you’ve got someone basically copping to voter fraud and, you know, you get the whole story and then the next thing you know they’re out in Jamaica or whatever. The Dems have found the person, co opted them, told them to shut up and then plugged all the leaks.

There were basically, my understanding, was there were standing orders not to deal with election matters, both from the White House Council and from Barr. I happened to know Barr’s Chief of Staff, Will Levi, because I had worked at Heritage and ran into him at a lunch basically for Senate staffers. And he had been a Senate counsel when I was there. So I knew him. I called him up and tried to put the flag up into the voting rights section, CRD-DOJ and White House Counsel in a couple different places and got stiff-armed. And then later on hear from Johnny and others that basically then the White House counsel swoops in and starts screaming, what the hell are you guys doing? So that’s really the nuts and bolts of it.

The Gateway Pundit cannot confirm or deny Andrew’s statement on Steve Bannon’s appearance today.  We hope to get commentary from all of those involved.

(Read more: The Gateway Pundit, 8/11/2023) (Archive)

August 9, 2023 - Johnson/Grassley pressure Pentagon to reveal if DARPA investigated DNC email hack in 2016 that was falsely blamed on Russians colluding with Trump

The original DARPA logo.

Was the Pentagon‘s research agency involved in pushing false claims Russians working for Donald Trump hacked the Democratic National Committee email server in 2016?

It’s the question two Republican Senators are demanding answers to after unearthing a new email showing links between the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and computer scientists investigating who was behind the cyber attack that shook the presidential campaign.

The latest call for an investigation comes months after Special Counsel John Durham concluded there was no evidence Trump conspired with Moscow to help him defeat Hillary Clinton in a damning report.

Since then, the hunt for those responsible for pushing fabricated stories of Trump’s link to the Kremlin to politicians and the press have intensified.

The hack led to a leak of emails that were damning for Clinton and the DNC, and some say it contributed to her loss to Trump.

Hackers tied to Moscow were initially deemed the perpetrators, but Durham’s report sparked allegations DARPA were behind the false narrative.

The claims stemmed from DARPA’s highly-contested work with research partner Georgia Institute of Technology and one of their computer scientists Dr. Manos Antonakakis.

An email obtained by Durham revealed Antonakakis, who was investigating the DNC and Republican National Committee (RNC) databases, said ‘the only thing that drives us is that we just don’t like [Trump],’

DARPA have continuously denied they were behind the allegations Russia was involved in the hack.

But Republicans say a new email raises fresh questions about their claim and the origins of the now-debunked allegations.

Senators Ron Johnson, R-Wis., and Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa said the new evidence proves DARPA signed off on a project related to the Republican National Committee (RNC) and Democratic National Committee (DNC).

DailyMail.com has exclusively obtained a letter they wrote this week to Dr. Stefanie Tompkins, Director of DARPA, demanding answers about the agency’s work with the Georgia Institute of Technology on the Enhanced Attribution (EA) program related to the 2016 hack of DNC communications.

The EA program probes malicious cyber attacks.

The email from Antonakakis reads:  ‘Folks, last night as I was thinking what we can study, I also realized that we do not know much about the RNC and DNC networks out there. Wrote a job that run [sic] over night and I know [sic] have 292 *hand verified* at this point networks that are linked with RNC, DNC, and all local/state committee networks around the US.

‘An adversary would find those networks interesting for a number of reasons.

‘So, I think we should run a reverse Pythia and see what we can see.

If you approve this, [DARPA employee], I would like from you to think how we will break any bad news to these people? If you cannot think of a clear and clean way to inform them (is this DHS’s role or FBI’s or USCC’s?), perhaps we should let them remain infected. Thanks, Manos

The response from DARPA read: ‘Sensitive stuff but yes, I know who to talk to if we find anything. Worth doing.’

Antonakis wrote back: ‘OK, then. I will work with these networks and see what I can come up with.’\

Democratic cybersecurity lawyer Michael Sussman was indicted last year for allegedly concealing his clients, including 2015 Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, when he pushed since-debunked claims of a connection between the Trump Organization and Russia’s Alfa Bank to the FBI.

In April 2018 the DNC filed a lawsuit accusing the Russian government, the Trump campaign and Wikileaks alleging they colluded to influence the 2016 election with the hack.

It’s not yet clear what the source of the claims is for the allegation the Trump team and Russia coordinated the DNC hack.

In May of this year, Durham referred two matters to the Department of Defense Inspector General and the Defense Intelligence Agency, including ‘[o]ne matter involv[ing] the execution of a contract between DARPA and the Georgia Institute of Technology…’ and a ‘separate matter involv[ing] the irregular conduct in 2016 of two former employees of the Department of Defense.’

DARPA has denied any role in attributing the 2016 DNC hack to Russia after an email showed special counsel John Durham’s team asked Antonakis whether DARPA had had a role in the attribution of the hack.

Antonakis expressed dismay that the Durham team questioned whether DARPA should be poking around the origins of a hacker of a political entity.

The emails first published by The Federalist read:  ‘During one of my interviews with the Special Counsel prosecutor, I was asked point blank by Mr. DeFilippis, ‘Do you believe that DARPA should be instructing you to investigate the origins of a hacker (Guccifer 2.0) that hacked a political entity (DNC)?’ Let that sync [sic] for a moment, folks,’ Antonakakis wrote last summer. ‘Someone hacked a political party (DNC, in this case), in the middle of an election year (2016), and the lead investigator of DOJ’s special council [sic] would question whether U.S. researchers working for DARPA should conduct investigations in this matter is ‘acceptable’!’

Antonakakis added: ‘While I was tempted to say back to him, ‘What if this hacker hacked GOP? Would you want me to investigate him then?’, I kept my cool and told him this is a question for DARPA’s director, and not for me to answer.’ (Read more: The Daily Mail, 8/11/2023)  (Archive)