Featured Timeline Entries
January 11, 2024 - House Judiciary Committee subpoenas DNI Haines in censorship investigation

Avril Haines appears on MSNBC with Andrea Mitchell to complain about President Trump’s abuse of power after removing Brennan’s security clearance. (Credit: MSNBC screenshot)

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan on Thursday subpoenaed Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines as part of the panel’s probe into the federal government’s alleged collusion with Big Tech firms to censor disfavored viewpoints online.

“The investigative work performed by the Committee and its Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, along with other publicly available information, have revealed how the federal government has pressured and colluded with Big Tech and other intermediaries to censor certain viewpoints on social media in ways that undermine First Amendment principles,” Jordan wrote. “The First Amendment prohibits government officials from imposing viewpoint-based restrictions on speech. State action doctrine prohibits government officials from circumventing constitutional strictures by using private actors—whether through coercion, encouragement, entwinement, or joint participation—to accomplish what the government cannot directly.”

Jordan subpoena of Haines

Jordan, in notifying Haines, observed that the committee previously sought voluntary cooperation from his office, but that the ODNI did not “produce a single document” and deemed the office’s limited responses “woefully inadequate.”

He specifically demanded that Haines provide documents and communications between ODNI employees, private companies, and other relevant parties related to online content moderation. (Read more: Just the News, 1/11/2024)  (Archive)

January 12, 2024 - Judge to hold hearing on allegations of DA Fani Willis’s ‘improper’ use of funds, affair

Fulton County special prosecutor Nathan Wade, (l) and executive district attorney Daysha Young confer during a hearing in the 2020 Georgia election interference case on Dec. 1, 2023. (Credit: John David Mercer/Getty Images)

During a Jan. 12 motions hearing, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee indicated a hearing on what one attorney termed “scandalous” allegations surrounding the district attorney’s relationship with a prosecutor would be held mid-February.

Judge Scott McAfee (Credit: public domain)

Judge McAfee is holding motions hearings every Friday for the next few weeks in the case Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is prosecuting against former President Donald Trump for his actions to challenge the 2020 election results. President Trump and 14 codefendants have been charged with violating the state’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act and have been accused of operating a criminal conspiracy in their election challenge efforts.

Earlier this week, defendant Michael Roman, a former GOP strategist, made huge accusations of the “improper” use of funds in the district attorney’s office.

(…) Prosecutors have not yet filed a response to the motion but said they would do so. Judge McAfee said a hearing on this motion would not be scheduled until after the court has received the response, and the earliest would likely be mid-February.

During the court hearing, Steve Sadow, attorney for President Trump, asked for the option to adopt the motion at a later date. He said he presently had no foundation for the “scandalous and salacious” allegations, the first of which was made public through the court filing, and would certainly wait to see the district attorney’s response filing before making a decision to adopt Mr. Roman’s filing. The judge had no issue with him doing so. (Read more: The Epoch Times, 1/12/2024)  (Archive)

January 14, 2024 - Mary McCord and other Dem activist groups are plotting ways to take away civilian control of the military should Trump regain presidency

“We’re already starting to put together a team to think through the most damaging types of things that he [Trump] might do so that we’re ready to bring lawsuits if we have to,” said Mary McCord, executive director of the Institution for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown Law.

Part of the aim is to identify like-minded organizations and create a coalition to challenge Trump from day one, those taking part in the discussions said. Some participants are combing through policy papers being crafted for a future conservative administration. They’re also watching the interviews that Trump allies are giving to the press for clues to how a Trump sequel would look.

Other participants include Democracy Forward, an organization that took the Trump administration to court more than 100 times during his administration, and Protect Democracy, an anti-authoritarian group.

“We are preparing for litigation and preparing to use every tool in the toolbox that our democracy provides to provide the American people an ability to fight back,” said Skye Perryman, president of Democracy Forward. “We believe this is an existential moment for American democracy and it’s incumbent on everybody to do their part.” (NBC News, 1/14/2024)

January 15, 2024 - Pelosi security chief, David Lazarus, commits perjury in the Oath Keepers sedition trial

It is clear that Lazarus did not arrive at the bottom of the staircase until three and a half minutes after the last of the Oath Keepers had left the area…’

Blaze Media dropped a bombshell report last October that accused a Capitol Police Special Agent of giving false testimony at the Oath Keepers’ sedition trial in 2022.

At the time, the House Speakership was in flux, and Blaze said it didn’t have permission to release the surveillance footage that underpinned its report. On Monday, Blaze finally released the footage—and it indeed looks like Capitol Police Special Agent David Lazarus committed perjury in one of the biggest cases to stem from the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol Hill uprising.

Capitol Police Special Agent and Pelosi security chief, David Lazarus (Credit: The Blaze)

During that trial, the Oath Keepers claimed that they prevented rambunctious pro-Trump protestors from getting into a conflict with Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn.

However, Dunn claimed that the Oath Keepers didn’t try to help him. To the contrary, the Oath Keepers were antagonistic towards Dunn, he said.

Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn (Credit: public domain)

Special Agent Lazarus corroborated Dunn’s account of the interaction, telling a jury that he witnessed an “antagonistic” standoff between several Oath Keepers and Dunn. Lazarus and Dunn’s testimony helped convict the Oath Keepers of sedition, with leader Stewart Rhodes receiving 18 years imprisonment, member Kelly Meggs receiving 12 years, Jessica Watkins receiving nearly nine years, and Kenneth Harrelson receiving four years imprisonment.

But the footage released by Blaze shows that Lazarus and Dunn have both lied about their interactions—or lack thereof—with those defendants.

As Blaze has explained, Lazarus never witnessed the supposed confrontation between Dunn and the Oath Keepers.

“By analyzing the footage from multiple CCTV cameras and comparing the timelines associated with Officer Dunn’s actual interaction on camera with the Oath Keepers, it is clear that Lazarus did not arrive at the bottom of the staircase until three and a half minutes after the last of the Oath Keepers had left the area and were exiting the Capitol Building,” the media outlet said in October.

“Lazarus emerged from the top of the stairwell just after 3:05 p.m., after tactical units from the ATF and D.C. Metro Police had completely cleared the top of that staircase, the Speaker’s Lobby, and the speaker’s offices of all protesters.”

Blaze further noted that Lazarus’s testimony also contradicts Dunn’s forthcoming book, in which he wrote that he observed Lazarus in a conflict with Oath Keepers—and not the other way around.

Meanwhile, Dunn is now running for Congress. (Read more: HeadlineUSA, 1/15/2024) (Archive)

January 16, 2024 - DC Appeals Court condemns Special Counsel Jack Smith and Democratic judges for breaking the rules to secretly obtain Trump's Twitter data

Jack Smith, special prosecutor. (Credit: Kosovo Specialist Chambers and Specialist Prosecutor’s Office)

(…) In August 2023, a three-judge panel of Democratic judges on the court of appeals in Washington upheld all of Howell’s decisions. Writing for the 3-0 majority, Biden appointee Florence Pan, last heard presenting the outlandish “Seal Team Six” hypothetical during oral arguments on Trump’s immunity appeal, gave short shrift to any executive privilege considerations at play. The panel schizophrenically treated Trump like any other Twitter user, immune from special treatment by the government and the courts, while simultaneously referring to him as the “former president.”

For example, in one passage defending Howell’s decision not to allow Twitter to notify Trump about even a portion of the warrant, Pan said, “such action would not have safeguarded the security and integrity of the investigation, as the whole point of the nondisclosure order was to avoid tipping off the former President about the warrant’s existence.”

Not giving up, Twitter then asked the full circuit court for an “en banc,” meaning full court, review of the panel’s decision.

While denying Twitter’s request for reconsideration on January 16, four Republican judges took the unusual step of writing a statement attached to the order. The 12-page missive blasted Smith, Howell, and Pan for violating the Constitution and other “balance of power” protections.

The Special Counsel’s approach obscured and bypassed any assertion of executive privilege and dodged the careful balance Congress struck in the Presidential Records Act. The district court and this court permitted this arrangement without any consideration of the consequential executive privilege issues raised by this unprecedented search. We should not have endorsed this gambit. Rather than follow established precedent, for the first time in American history, a court allowed access to presidential communications before any scrutiny of executive privilege.

Judge Neomi Rao joined by Judges Gregory Katsas, Justin Walker, and Karen Henderson.

From left to right: Judge Justin Walker, Judge Neomi Rao, Judge Karen Henderson, and Judge Gregory Katsas (Credit: public domain)

Rao condemned Smith for seeking to obtain the records via court order rather than ask the National Archives for the data, which would have automatically triggered notice to the former president, something Smith purposely wanted to avoid. “I can find no precedent for what occurred here, namely the court-ordered disclosure of presidential communications without notice to the President and without any adjudication of executive privilege.” She called the approach an “end-run around executive privilege.”

She continued to excoriate her colleagues in the D.C. courthouse. “The district court (Howell) afforded no opportunity for the former President to invoke executive privilege before disclosure, and this court (Pan) made no mention of the privilege concerns entangled in a third-party search of a President’s social media account. This approach directly contravenes the principles and procedures long used to adjudicate claims of executive privilege.”

Rao said Howell should have considered the records sought by Smith as “presumptively privileged” and allowed Trump to assert privilege, a longstanding practice that was “flipped” by Howell and Smith.

She also contemplated the future consequences of their decisions—something the Department of Justice and federal judges in Washington routinely fail to consider; as long as historical practices, the rule of law, and the Constitution can be turned on their collective head to destroy Trump, the permanent fall-out does not matter.

Rao explained how the approach could apply to a sitting president, too. “What if, in the course of a criminal investigation, a special counsel sought a warrant for the incumbent President’s communications from a private email or phone provider? Under this court’s decision, executive privilege isn’t even on the table, so long as the special counsel makes a showing that a warrant and nondisclosure order are necessary to the prosecution. And following the Special Counsel’s roadmap, what would prevent a state prosecutor from using a search warrant and nondisclosure order to obtain presidential communications from a third-party messaging application?”

It is unclear whether Twitter will ask the Supreme Court to review the matter. Unfortunately, since the data was produced and the nondisclosure order executed, the issue could be considered “moot” at this point.

But given Rao’s (legitimate) hypothetical at the end, perhaps Smith, Howell, and Pan should hope for a reversal. Otherwise, the dangerous new ground set by their reckless, partisan decisions could come back to bite the hand that now feeds them. (Read more: Julie Kelley/Substack, 1/10/2024)  (Archive)

January 17, 2024 - Newly released January 6 video of the DNC pipe bomb discovery, shows an unconcerned, casual reaction by VP-elect Kamala Harris's Secret Service/D.C. Metro Police detail

(…) Curiously enough, the Capitol did quietly release a damning short piece of footage that had gotten virtually no public attention, though it could very well be the breakthrough we need to definitively expose the phony January 6 “pipe bomb” story once and for all.

[Editor’s Note: This piece was published in password-protected form days ago, though originally embargoed, pending the publication this evening at 6:00 p.m. of an accompanying interview with Tucker Carlson on the pipe bomb. A piece published early yesterday afternoon by Steve Baker at the Blaze, however, addressed the video in question along with confirming an important detail, which we will address below.]

The Capitol authorities were counting on no one knowing that this footage even exists, let alone understanding its significance, and put up tremendous resistance when Congressman Massie tried to make the footage public. Ultimately, it took a direct call from Kevin McCarthy to break the stonewall (and one can only imagine how much pressure McCarthy must have been under to make that call!). Courtesy of Congressman Massie’s efforts, the footage is available below. For a first viewing, we encourage the reader to skim the video to get a general idea. Make note of the man in the backpack going up to the police and secret service cars. It will likely turn out that identifying this man in the backpack will lead to the unraveling of one of the darkest and most scandalous government coverups in recent history.

Let’s explain and digest the most important details depicted in the video above.

At 1:05:27, a man with a backpack walks into view in the bottom right corner of the screen and proceeds to chat with officers on the driver’s side of a Metro PD SUV. The black SUV is a Secret Service vehicle protecting then-Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris, who was in the DNC building at the time (more on that later). The Metro PD vehicle was present as part of the Secret Service protection detail, as related to us by a high-level source. After some time, it appears that the backpack man is walking away from the driver’s seat window of the Metro PD vehicle, only to walk around to the passenger seat window and continue speaking with the Metro officers.

Then, at 1:06:10, the man with the backpack walks over to the black Secret Service SUV. He chats for about 20 seconds and then walks back up the sidewalk, back past the benches where the pipe bomb was placed, and out of view. Then, at 1:07:29, a metro officer gets out of the Metro PD car. This is over a minute after the backpack gentleman left the frame and over two minutes after the backpack gentleman first approached the metro PD car.

What is more remarkable than the fact that it took the Metro and Secret Service over two minutes to even bother getting out of their cars after being informed of a pipe bomb in the neighborhood is the astonishingly casual approach taken by these authorities in the minutes after the man with a backpack walks out of view of the camera. Reader, take a look if you would at the video from 1:07:27 to around 1:09:05 and note how casual and unperturbed both the Metro officers and Secret Service officers are, and ask yourself whether this is how you’d imagine the Secret Service would normally respond to a discovery of a bomb right outside the building housing their protectee, in this case vice president-elect Kamala Harris. Even if we assume that somehow the Secret Service and Metropolitan Police Department are wholly uninterested in the safety of their protectee, you would think they would at least get out of the vicinity for reasons of self-preservation. Quite the opposite—all of these officers are supremely comfortable standing and walking within spitting distance of the pipe bomb.

Then, at around 1:09:12, the security camera in question turns to the park benches and zooms into the location where the pipe bomb is present. This means that by this time, the man with a backpack’s information had reached whoever was manning the Capitol Police security camera at the time. Below is a screenshot depicting that timestamp.

The scene that begins at 1:09:35 ought to be sufficient to cause a national scandal in its own right. Here we see several more secret service officers coming out, again casually standing and walking within spitting distance of the pipe bomb. At 1:09:41, we see a group of children cross the street and walk directly in front of the benches where the bomb is still sitting. The secret service agents don’t think to warn these children at all, but instead themselves walk right by the bench as well, without a care in the world! You have to see it to believe it.

A group of children and a secret service agent were just casually walking right by the pipe bomb. Mysteriously, the agent doesn’t seem concerned and doesn’t warn the children.

(…) A number of deeply puzzling and disturbing questions arise from the video above. The most obvious question is what could possibly account for the casual, lackadaisical, utterly unperturbed demeanor and behavior of the Secret Service and Metro PD officers in question upon being informed of an explosive device right outside the building in which their protectee is housed, and, for that matter, within feet of the agents themselves. To emphasize the seriousness with which the government takes pipe bombs as potential terror devices, it is worth noting that the government officially considers pipe bombs “weapons of mass destruction.”

It is hard to imagine what conditions could account for such a casual, unconcerned reaction on the part of the Secret Service. As pointed out above, even if they are the worst protection detail in the world, willing to completely abandon protocol when apprised of a weapon of mass destruction dangerously close to their protectee, you’d think they’d at least be concerned for their own personal safety. This complete lack of concern indicates that these agents somehow knew or were utterly confident that the bomb was inert and posed no threat, but how could they possibly know that? How could the secret service and metro PD officers be so confident that the pipe bomb wouldn’t pose a danger to themselves, to their protectee, VP elect Kamala Harris, and to the children they cavalierly allowed to walk within feet of the explosive device, and yet somehow the bomb was considered dangerous enough to require a bomb-safe robot to “defuse” only minutes later? Troubling and damning questions indeed. (Read more: Revolver News, 1/18/2024)  (Archive)

It seems likely that government officials were involved in planting pipe bombs in Washington, DC three years ago, as part of an effort to keep Donald Trump from running for president again. Darren Beattie has details.

 

January 18, 2024 - Watchdog files complaint with DOJ asking to review politically biased official's involvement in Mar-a-Lago raid

America First Legal (AFL) on Thursday filed a complaint with the Department of Justice seeking a review of one agency official’s involvement in the 2022 Mar-a-Lago raid that led to special counsel Jack Smith’s ongoing prosecution of former President Donald Trump.

Austin Evers (Credit: public domain)

“We write because it appears that a Department of Justice political appointee named Austin Evers was improperly involved in matters relating to the investigation and subsequent prosecution of former President Donald Trump,” the watchdog wrote to the DOJ Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR). “Documents disclosed by the Department to America First Legal demonstrate that Mr. Evers was involved in discussions, briefings, and litigation concerning the Mar-a-Lago raid and may have been involved in discussions directly relevant to the eventual issuance of an indictment.”

AFL Austin Evers OPR complaint

“Mr. Evers should never have been involved in these matters,” AFL insisted. “Even a cursory review of Mr. Evers’ pre-appointment public statements and activities demonstrates substantial bias against Mr. Trump. Accordingly, America First Legal requests that the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) investigate Mr. Evers for intentional violations and/or reckless disregard for clear and unambiguous legal obligations or professional standards, professional misconduct, and abuse of the Department’s authority.”

The group pointed to Evers’s past public statements and work targeting Republicans as evidence that he “is fatally tainted by bias against former President Trump, rendering his participation in matters related to Mr. Trump generally, and the Mar-a-Lago raid, pre-indictment discussions, and any post-indictment activities in particular, a violation of clear and unambiguous legal obligations and professional standards.”

AFL concluded with the request that the OPR open an investigation into Evers’s professional conduct. (JustTheNews, 1/18/2024)  (Archive)

January 19, 2024 - Divorce attorneys representing the wife of Trump prosecutor, Nathan Wade, provides credit card statements that prove the Willis/Wade vacations

(…) And so attorneys for Joycelyn Wade dropped today’s bomb, which included her husband’s credit card statements where trips were purchased for Willis. You can read it here.

Special Prosecutor Nathan Wade has, according to his credit card statements, taken trips to San Francisco and Napa Valley, Florida, gone on a Caribbean cruise, Australia, Panama, and Belize. These trips all took place after he filed for divorce. And Willis – the boss of Nathan Wade, the woman who enriched him by appointing him as Special Prosecutor – joined Wade some of (if not all) of these trips.

Here’s the rundown.

April 25, 2023: Nathan Wade purchases Delta Airlines tickets for himself and Fani Willis. As part of this trip, they apparently traveled to Napa Valley and stayed at the Doubletree hotel.

October/November 2022: Reservations for a Norwegian Cruise and for the Aruba Hyatt Regency.

October 2022: Two reservations for Royal Caribbean Cruises and three American Airlines tickets to Miami for Nathan Wade, Fani Willis, and Clara Bowman (identified as Wade’s mother).

Let’s be clear – this is just the start of the documentation of the affair between Wade and Willis. Not only will more of Wade’s credit card statements be released, but there is a real possibility (we estimate at 70-30) that Fani Willis will be deposed as a witness in the divorce proceeding. She’ll be under oath, and her answers could very well force the recusal of herself and Wade from the Trump case. (Read more: Techno Fog/Substack, 1/19/2024)  (Archive)

January 19, 2024 - Michigan professor, J. Alex Halderman, breaks into Dominion voting machine with a pen and changes vote totals during his Georgia testimony

January 22, 2024 - CISA knew the risks of mail-in voting in 2020 but censored these criticisms as “disinformation”

January 22, 2024 - Bennie Thompson's January 6 committee deleted and encrypted files; House Oversight hires digital forensics team and recovers files

Nancy Pelosi joins Bennie Thompson, at a news conference about Russian meddling in the U.S. election, June 29, 2017.(Credit: Associated Press)

“Fox News Digital has learned the forensics team has recovered all 117 deleted and encrypted files. Now, Loudermilk is demanding answers and passwords to access the data.”

“One recovered file disclosed the identity of an individual whose testimony was not archived by the Select Committee.”

“Loudermilk’s committee hired a digital forensics team to scrape hard drives to determine what information they were not given.

The forensics team, according to sources familiar with their search, determined that 117 files were both deleted and encrypted. Sources said those files were deleted on Jan. 1, 2023 – just days before Thompson’s team was required to transfer the data to the new committee.” (Read more: NYPost, 1/21/2024) (Archive)

Source:

January 22, 2024 - Cabalist Mary McCord hosts retired DC district judge at Georgetown to vent about J6 and Trump

Full Text:

Judge Tom Hogan, Reagan appointee on the DC district court, went on inactive status late last year.

After that, he reached out to none other than Mary McCord to vent about J6 and Trump. McCord hosted Hogan at Georgetown a few months ago.

What he said is stunning–and representative of the mindset of nearly all of his colleagues on the DC bench:

Full Text:

Hogan lied about police fatalities tied to Jan 6 and what happened to Ofc Brian Sicknick.

Keep in mind–Hogan was reversed by the appellate court for locking up under pretrial detention one of two men accused of spraying Sicknick with pepper spray. George Tanios spent 5+ months in the DC gulag before he was released on appeal.

After holding the other man, Julian Khater, behind bars for 18 months until Khater was tormented into taking a plea for assaulting officers.

Hogan allowed Sicknick’s ex girlfriend to enter a “victim impact” statement then sentenced Khater to 80 month in federal prison.

Full Text:

Hogan is upset political prisoners are communicating from jail and have political support. “The whole atmosphere has changed.”

He also doesn’t appreciate privately-paid lawyers who go to the mat for their clients against government overreach and are “true believers.”

Hogan has handled at least 24 J6 cases. He sent 10 J6ers convicted of misdemeanors to jail and another 5 convicted of felonies to prison.

He might be on “inactive status” but his cases still linger on including 2 1512c2 obstruction convictions. (I will separate out those comments in a different post.)

Full Text:

Trump, Hogan claims, is the biggest offender of attacking judges and threatening an “independent” judiciary LOLOL.

He suggests judges are the only thing standing between Trump and the end of democracy.

Hogan again expresses alarm that J6ers and 40 million Americans still believe the 2020 election was stolen.

This now makes at least 3 DC judges–Hogan, Reggie Walton, and Beryl Howell–who have made public statements directly aimed at Donald Trump.

Another reason among many why the DC federal court system should be shut down.

Full Interview:

h/t @seacaptim

January 23, 2024 - Grassley alerts DHS, FBI to evidence of child trafficking; Calls for immediate action to locate & rescue migrant children

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is flagging new evidence of suspected trafficking of migrant children for federal law enforcement agents, and calling for immediate action to find and rescue children placed in dangerous situations by federal officials. Grassley’s referral for law enforcement action is based on a review of legally protected whistleblower disclosures, including Health and Human Services records tracking interactions with unaccompanied alien children who entered at the Southern border and who were eventually placed with often-poorly vetted sponsors.

“My office is working diligently with whistleblowers to identify as many missing children as possible, in hopes they can be found and saved. I expect the cooperation of DHS, as well as the full cooperation of HSI, FBI, HHS, and any NGOs involved, in this critical mission. It is our moral duty to do all we can to rescue children who may have endured sexual abuse or forced labor,” Grassley said in a letter this week to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and FBI Director Christopher Wray.

Grassley’s letter summarizes several cases of potential human trafficking and vetting failures. It is accompanied by a detailed packet to law enforcement containing specific and sensitive information to further substantiate Grassley’s concerns and assist law enforcement in locating and recovering children placed in dangerous situations.

In response to Grassley’s questions at a recent Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the safety of unaccompanied migrant children, the director of the Department of Homeland Security’s Center for Countering Human Trafficking testified that “HSI responds to every instance of human trafficking that [it is] made aware of as soon as [it is] made aware of it.” Therefore, Grassley’s referral should trigger immediate law enforcement action. Despite the witness’ pledge to provide Grassley with a detailed plan of action to recover the missing children, DHS has failed to do so in the three months following the hearing.

Grassley’s cover letter to DHS and FBI follows:

(Read more: Grassley.Senate, 1/24/2024)  (Archive)

January 23, 2024 - Internal emails and experts reveal CDC labeled accurate, verifiable information as misinformation

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) headquarters in Atlanta, Ga., on Aug. 25, 2023. (Credit: Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)

The top U.S. public health agency labeled multiple news articles as misinformation even though the articles were accurate, according to internal emails and experts.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) added the misinformation labels to articles from The Epoch Times in widely-circulated internal messages, according to copies obtained by The Epoch Times.

One of the articles reported on a peer-reviewed paper that found heart inflammation, or myocarditis, was more common after COVID-19 vaccination than after COVID-19 infection.

Nordic researchers reviewed electronic health records and counted 109 cases of myocarditis following COVID-19 infection compared to 530 after vaccination. Their study was published by the British Medical Journal.

An internal CDC email said that the study “has been picked up by anti-vax proponents as evidence that vax was more likely to cause myocarditis than COVID-19 infection,” and provided a hyperlink to The Epoch Times article.

The Feb. 7, 2023, email listed the article under “points of confusion/potential rumors/misinformation.”

(…) Another CDC email claimed a story reporting on how the U.S. government was receiving royalty payments from Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine was inaccurate or misleading.

The Epoch Times article reported on how Moderna officials disclosed in an earnings call that the company entered a patent agreement with the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), sent a payment of $400 million, and would be paying additional royalties in the future.

“Anti-vax proponents question Moderna’s new patent agreement with NIAID, citing catch up payments and royalties as a ‘conflict of interest,” the CDC email, dated March 1, 2023, stated.

The Epoch Times article quoted Dr. Lawrence Tabak, the director at the time of the NIAID’s parent agency, as admitting royalty payments in general present “an appearance of a conflict of interest.”

The CDC defines employees taking part in matters in which they have a financial interest as a conflict of interest, while the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), the parent agency of the CDC, says that financial conflicts of interest can compromise honesty “especially if the financial interests are significant.”

“It is certainly interesting that, confronted with possible ethics concerns, the CDC doesn’t address them but dismisses them as ‘misinformation,’” Michael Chamberlain, director of the nonprofit Protect the Public’s Trust, told The Epoch Times via email.

The CDC also labeled an Epoch Times video featuring a doctor describing data on COVID-19 vaccines negatively impacting gut health as misinformation, the emails show, even though the video was based on published research.

“The information contained in these documents illustrates how federal health officials so rapidly squandered the trust of the American public, and it shows the danger of government setting itself up as an arbiter of truth,” Mr. Chamberlain said. “The agency is quick to slap a derogatory label on any statements that don’t fit its preferred narrative, and just as quick to impugn the motives of anyone who dares make those statements. This is not government working for the people, it is government as adversary to the people.” (Read more: The Epoch Times, 1/23/2024)  (Archive)  (CDC Emails)

January 24, 2024 - PA State lawmakers sue to take down Biden’s election-meddling Executive Order

President Biden’s executive order aimed at increasing voter turnout is now being challenged in what one government watchdog called “arguably the most important election integrity lawsuit in the country.”

The lawsuit filed in federal court seeks to halt the implementation of President Biden’s executive order on the election immediately.

The plaintiff in the action is Republican state Rep. Dawn Keefer, leader of the Pennsylvania Freedom Caucus. Keefer and other state legislators claim that Biden’s executive order, as well as steps taken by Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, a Democrat, usurp the lawmakers’ jurisdiction.

Lawyers for the Biden and Shapiro administrations on Wednesday filed to dismiss the lawsuit, known as Keefer, et al., v. Biden, et al., claiming that the lawmakers lack standing and that executive actions on state elections have previously been permitted by the Pennsylvania legislature.

“State legislators have rights granted to them in the Constitution, so we do have standing in federal court. The irreparable harm is that they are changing the way elections are being facilitated,” Keefer told The Daily Signal. “Now, we may have authorized them to take action. We never authorized them to break the law.”

The plaintiff’s complaint seeks a preliminary injunction to prevent the executive order’s execution immediately. There are plaintiffs joining the lawsuit who are not Freedom Caucus members.

The lawsuit filed in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania claims that Biden’s executive order directing federal agencies to collaborate with private, nonprofit groups on get-out-the-vote efforts violates Act 88, a state law that prohibits private money from funding election administration.

The Pennsylvania General Assembly enacted the bill in reaction to subsidies to local and state election offices in 2020, which were indirectly funded by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg through his Center for Tech and Civil Life that analysis shows increased turnout predominately in Democratic-dominated districts.  (Read more: TrendingPoliticsNews, 3/25/2024)  (Archive)

January 25, 2024 - Glenn Greenwald: Massive media layoffs expose collapse in public trust; Darren Beattie discusses J6 pipe bomb video

Tonight: it is not an exaggeration to say that major parts of the liberal corporate media are now in complete freefall. Just in the past few weeks, some of the most recognizable media brands have suffered massive layoffs or even been brought to the brink of extinction, including the Los Angeles Times, Time Magazine, NBC News, Sports Illustrated, National Geographic, and Business Insider. BuzzFeed, months ago, completely abolished its news division. Just this week, the L.A. Times laid off 25% of its already decimated newsroom in just one day, just months after it laid off 13% of its workforce. It is hard to put into words just how extreme and complete is the implosion of Brooklyn-based liberal digital media over the last several years. Given that difficulty, I am forced to rely upon one of the giants of American journalism, a prophet of digital media, and a true pioneer in how to report on teenager influencer TikTok houses, The Washington Post Taylor Lorenz, who, in a video this week about all these events, said: “Pretty much the entire digital media ecosystem that myself and a lot of other millennial journalists came up in has been completely hollowed out.”

Indeed it has. There is no doubting the truth of that statement. But what is missing so conspicuously and revealingly from all of these discussions by these failing journalists, not just the dean of digital media, Taylor Lorenz, about the collapse of the industry around them is what role they themselves have played in generating this massive failure. They love to whine and cry in public when their jobs disappear. They’re very adept at blaming others for why nobody cares about what they write and say anymore. They’re very passionate in condemning and heaping scorn on the sectors of the media that are actually growing and thriving, namely independent media, where free discourse and political heterodoxy are permitted rather than crushed. But the one thing they will never, ever, do is look in the mirror and ask what they did to contribute to the destruction of the large sector of media to which they belong.

It is hard to blame them for refusing to look at that. If your face were covered with unsightly boils and open wounds and oozing infections and unidentified unsightly growths, you two would be reluctant to gaze upon your visage in the mirror. You’d do anything to avoid that. But the irrefutable truth is that except for a few media giants—such as The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal—most of the liberal corporate media is in full-scale collapse. The public hates them to the extent that they care about them at all. Every poll shows that the American mainstream media is held in lower esteem than just about any other group in America, with the possible exception of pedophiles and telephone marketers—and even there, they’re just barely ahead of those groups.

I really do try hard not to take pleasure in other people’s misery and suffering. It is, in my view, unhealthy for one soul to do that often. However, I do take pleasure in the destruction of industries and companies that I regarded as deeply harmful and toxic to society and that absolutely includes the vast majority of these failing media outlets, which have become little more than servants of establishment power and deliberate dissemination of disinformation and propaganda for Partisan ends. The collapse of trust and faith in mainstream journalism is an important development in American life and one that is really worthy of examination and yet it so rarely receives that examination because the guardians of our discourse are the ones who most want to avoid it. And so today is what we will do. To help us engage in that analysis, we will be joined by the media analyst and commentator Hannah Cox, whose response to Terry Lorenz’s State of the Media address was bold, scathingly hilarious, but also deeply illuminating.

Then: the journalist who has done among the most important work in exposing many of the lies and deceit surrounding the mythology and official narrative of January 6 has been Darren Beattie, the political scientist from Duke, the former Trump speechwriter and the founder of the news site “Revolver News.” From the beginning, Darren has exposed all sorts of inconsistencies and unproven claims in the state’s narrative about January 6, from the FBI’s role to the mysterious involvement of people like Ray Epps and especially the still unsolved case of the alleged domestic terrorist who was said to have planted pipe bombs near both the DNC and RNC headquarters, including one near Kamala Harris, one of the central allegations that made January 6 seem far scarier and more menacing.

Newly discovered video evidence has enabled Beattie to break down much of what we were told about these pipe bombs and has raised serious questions about who it is, who planted those, and why. We would talk to Beattie about this and about the latest in the January 6 investigations.

For now, welcome to a new episode of System Update, starting right now. (Glenn Greenwald/Locals, 1/25/2024)  (Archive)

January 25, 2024 - Former CEFC associate Mervyn Yan testifies about Hunter and James Biden's Hudson West III and their joint venture with CEFC

Chinese energy firm CEFC paid millions to Hunter and James Biden for attempting to secure U.S. energy ventures that failed to materialize, a former business associate told lawmakers.

Mervyn Yan (Credit: You Tube)

Former CEFC associate Mervyn Yan testified in January before the Oversight and Judiciary Committee and discussed Hunter and James Biden’s involvement with Hudson West III, a joint venture CEFC and the Bidens started in August 2017 after months of negotiations, according to a transcript reviewed by the Daily Caller.

He described how Hunter Biden and James Biden initially received $100,000 and $65,000 per month, respectively, in accordance with the terms of Hudson West III’s initial operating agreement. Yan said the monthly payments were “a draw” from the venture’s initial $5 million operating budget and claimed he did not know why Hunter Biden received more money than his uncle.

“Hudson West III,” a staffer began asking Yan.

“Yes,” he replied.

“In 2017 appears to have tried to land five different energy deals. Is that — do I have that correct?”

“That’s right. Five of them actually on paper,” Yan replied.

“But none of them materialized, meaning none of the deals actually happened, correct?”

“That’s correct,” Yan reiterated.

“And despite the fact that none of the deals actually materialized and no money was ever produced from it, Hunter Biden and James Biden still were paid, correct?”

“That’s correct,” he said.

Yan clarified that Hunter and James Biden attempted to negotiate U.S. deals for Hudson West III in 2017. Both Bidens continued to be paid the following year, according to bank records and Hunter Biden’s federal tax indictment in California.

On Aug. 2, 2017, Hunter Biden signed a formal consulting deal with Ye Jianming, boss of the Chinese energy company CEFC. (Credit: NYP)

Hunter Biden received $1.4 million from Hudson West III in 2017 and transferred roughly $550,000 to James Biden. The next year, Hudson West III transferred $2.1 million to Hunter Biden, who sent $843,999 to James Biden, the indictment says.

The indictment does not name James Biden but he appears to be the business associate in question, given the terms of the initial Hudson West III operating agreement, Yan’s testimony, the bank records and James Biden’s interview with federal investigators.

Yan appeared to recall conversations about proposed U.S. business transactions that took place in 2018 despite a lack of responsiveness from CEFC, whose chairman Ye Jianming was arrested by Chinese authorities on suspicion of bribery in early 2018.

A few months before, CEFC executive Patrick Ho was arrested by U.S. authorities and later received a three-year prison sentence for participating in an international bribery scheme. Ho wired Hunter Biden $1 million in March 2018 for legal services Biden does not seem to have performed.

Patrick Ho (Credit: public domain)

Hudson West III revised its business agreement in 2018 to add Yan’s LLC to the company and remove a company controlled by CEFC associate Gongwen “Kevin” Dong. Yan was to receive $20,000 per month and Hunter Biden’s compensation would be $165,000, the new agreement indicates.

James Biden’s name was removed from the amended business agreement, yet his firm Lion Hall Group continued to receive payments from Hudson West III, Yan said.

Hunter Biden took out $400,000 from the Hudson West III account at the time the business launched, bank records show. He wired $150,000 of the withdrawal to Lion Hall Group and then James Biden wired $50,000 of the funds to his personal account with his wife, Sara Biden.

In September 2017, Sara Biden wrote a $40,000 check to Joe Biden for a “loan repayment” after the string of transactions. Yan testified that Sara Biden had a Hudson West III credit card despite lacking a formal role in the venture.

A payment of $100,000 from CEFC prior to the $400,000 transfer was part of Hunter Biden’s $500,000 retainer agreed to in the first Hudson West III business agreement, Yan clarified. The Oversight Committee previously disclosed the $100,000 payment.

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer said in a Jan. 25 readout Yan was not really sure what Hunter Biden actually brought to the table. Yan indicated he was unsure what industry knowledge the younger Biden possessed and thought he was brought into the business for the U.S. transactions.

“He is going to show us the infrastructure investment projects in the United States. That’s to the extent of the framework of what’s going to happen as Hudson West III transactions,” Yan testified after multiple questions about his first time meeting Hunter Biden.

Kevin Dong, Yan’s business partner at CEFC, introduced him to Hunter Biden in May 2017. Dong has not been permitted to return to the U.S. since Patrick Ho’s arrest, Yan testified.

CEFC’s relationship with the Bidens began before Yan was brought into the Hudson West III negotiations, he recalled. He started off as an independent contractor making $10,000 per month.

In March 2017, State Energy HK, an account tied to CEFC, wired approximately $3 million to Biden associate Rob Walker, who proceeded to distribute roughly $1 million of the funds to various Biden family accounts, according to bank records and the tax indictment. Hunter Biden pleaded not guilty to the federal tax charges on Jan. 11.

Walker testified the State Energy HK payment was a “thank you” for work conducted during Joe Biden’s vice presidency, according to Comer.

James Biden is set to testify on Feb. 21 to continue the impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden based primarily on his family’s foreign business dealings. Hunter Biden’s testimony is scheduled to take place the following week. (Daily Caller, 2/07/2024) (Archive)

January 26, 2024 - Chinese firm sent Bidens $3 Million as ‘thank you’ for work when Joe Biden held office

Today, we held a transcribed interview with Rob Walker, a Biden family associate who was involved in the Bidens’ dealings with Chinese and Romanian entities.

Here were the key takeaways:

– We learned that Joe Biden met with the now-missing Chairman of CEFC, Ye Jianming, as Hunter Biden and his associates received $3 million from a Chinese entity CEFC controlled.

– Today’s interview confirmed Hunter Biden and his associates’ work with the Chinese government-linked energy company began over a year before Joe Biden left the vice presidency, but the Bidens and their associates held off being paid by the Chinese while Joe Biden was in office.

– The Chinese company paid Hunter Biden and his associates $3 million shortly after Joe Biden left office as a ‘thank you’ for the work they did while Joe Biden was in office. Members of the Biden family received payments from the Chinese deal even though they did not work on it. This is the type of swampy influence peddling the American people want us to end.

– Additionally, as Joe Biden was leading anti-corruption efforts in Romania, Hunter Biden and Rob Walker began an ill-defined business relationship with Romanian businessman Gabriel Popoviciu. Mr. Walker also confirmed that he and Hunter Biden received payments from Popoviciu beginning in 2015 that continued throughout the rest of Joe Biden’s vice presidency. In exchange for lucrative payments, Hunter Biden traveled to Romania and engaged with the U.S. Ambassador to Romania to discuss Mr. Popoviciu’s foreign legal case.

January 30, 2024 - Nancy Pelosi's son Paul Pelosi Jr. dodges federal charges for the seventh time after being linked to money laundering and mail fraud scheme

Paul Pelosi Jr., son of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has yet again managed to avoid potential criminal charges, marking the seventh instance of his legal escapades, a bombshell report from the Daily Mail revealed on Tuesday.

The latest episode stems from a federal investigation into “fraudsters” Bill Garlock and Gina Rodriguez, both implicated in criminal activities related to a San Francisco property Pelosi Jr. allegedly claimed ownership of, the newspaper reported.

According to the Mail, Garlock and Rodriguez deceived investors into contributing over $1 million for real estate, diverting the funds for personal expenses — including rent, loan repayments and credit card bills, as outlined by federal prosecutors in San Francisco.

That’s when Pelosi Jr. comes into play.  

One of the homes presented to investors had partial ownership attributed to Pelosi Jr. Documents reviewed by the Mail purportedly indicate that Pelosi Jr. claimed ownership of at least 20% of the residence located on 24th Street. 

An email from Pelosi Jr. shows he was ‘the real estate agent for the transaction’ and had a ’20 percent ownership’ of the Feng RE (Credit: Daily Mail)

“Nancy’s son was listed as the selling realtor on transaction documents when it was bought in 2017 by Feng 24th LLC, a company controlled by Garlock and Rodriguez,” the Mail reported.

“And according to the property manager and permit applications, Pelosi Jr. continued to be intimately involved with the flop house after its sale to the two fraudsters,” the newspaper added. 

Pelosi Jr. was listed as the selling realtor on transaction documents of this mixed-use building in the Mission District of San Francisco when it (pictured) was bought in 2017 by Feng 24th LLC, a company controlled by Garlock and Rodriguez (Credit: Daily Mail)

Despite these connections, only Garlock and Rodriguez faced charges.

The 24th Street home was partially owned by Karena Feng, who was in a relationship with Pelosi Jr.

DailyMail.com previously revealed that Pelosi Jr. had a romantic relationship with Karena Feng (pictured) – the former owner of a mixed-use building in the Mission District of San Francisco – with a troubled past of code violations (Credit: Daily Mail)

In 2019, Feng filed a lawsuit against Pelosi Jr., alleging conspiracy with the fraudsters to defraud her of the property. The Mail reported that the lawsuit was ultimately dismissed on technical grounds.

The lengthy list of Pelosi Jr.’s associations with dubious businesses includes, as reported by Mail:

“The 52-year-old joined the board of a biofuel company after it defrauded investors according to an SEC ruling, and whose CEO was convicted after bribing Georgia officials”

“Pelosi Jr. was president of an environmental investment firm that turned out to be a front for two convicted fraudsters”

“He joined a lithium mining company and received millions of shares, allegedly issued as part of a massive $164million fraud”

“He was vice president of a company previously embroiled in an investigation of scam calls that targeted senior citizens”

“He has close business ties with a man accused by the Department of Justice of running a fake UN charity that stole investors’ money”

“A medical company Pelosi Jr. worked for tested drugs on people without FDA authorization, according to an FDA investigation”

“A permit expeditor and a city official were imprisoned over a bribery scheme of cash for permits, with Pelosi Jr. as one of their clients”

(HeadlineUSA, 1/30/2024)  (Archive)

January 31, 2024 - Biden admin refuses to turn over 2015 draft Ukraine speech calling for the firing of Viktor Shokin

Viktor Shokin (l) and Joe Biden (Credit: public domain)

The White House is REFUSING to hand over early drafts of President Biden’s 2015 Ukraine speech where he called for the firing of the Ukrainian prosecutor, Viktor Shokin.

These drafts are important as it is believed, based on public reporting, that the then-VP “called an audible” and changed U.S. policy toward Ukraine to benefit his son on the plane ride to Ukraine.

Joe Biden later bragged about withholding a U.S. loan guarantee if Ukraine did not fire the prosecutor.

If the White House does not permit the production of these documents, our committee will consider the use of compulsory process.

Read our letter to the White House Counsel

Members of the Committee, clearly you know at that time there was a working group formed around what to do about Ukraine, and this group included Ambassador Geoffry Pyatt and CIA/NSC Eric Ciaramella. Both seemed shocked when hearing that witholding aid to Ukraine hinged on the firing of Shokin. In fact, Pyatt responds with “Buckle in”, and Ciaramella says, “Yikes. I don’t recall this coming up in our meeting with them on Tuesday.” Interesting to note, last time aid was withheld to Ukraine by an Executive Officer, Mr. Ciaramella “blew the whistle” which triggered an impeachment hearing…but not in this case with Mr. Biden.