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May 1, 2024 - 10 examples of Facebook, YouTube & Amazon explicitly saying they only passed censorship policies because they were threatened by the Biden government

May 1, 2024 - O'Keefe Media exposes CIA contractor who claims the intel community kept information from Trump...names Haspel and Pompeo

Full Text:

BREAKING – EXPOSING THE CIA: “So the agencies kind of, like, all got together and said, we’re not gonna tell Trump…Director of the CIA would keep [information from Trump]…” A project manager working in Cyber Operations for the @CIA and an @NSAGov contractor with top-secret clearance working for @Deloitte, Amjad Fseisi, is caught on undercover cameras implicating the highest levels of the intelligence agencies, including “The executive staff. We’re talking about the director and his subordinates,” former CIA Directors “Gina Haspel….And I believe Mike Pompeo did the same thing too,” “kept information from him [Trump] because we knew he’d fucking disclose it.” Amjad reasons “There are certain people that would…give him a high-level overview but never give him any details. You know why? Because he’ll leak those details…He’s a Russian asset. He’s owned by the fucking Russians.” @mikepompeo

Amjad reveals to OMG’s Undercover American Swiper that intel agencies not only kept intelligence information from a sitting United States President and Commander-In-Chief, they also used FISA to spy on @realDonaldTrump and his team and are still monitoring President Trump according to Amjad who says, “We monitor everything.” Amjad adds “we also have people that monitor his ex-wife. He likes to use burner phones” – information only an insider with access to highly sensitive information would state.

“We steal it [information]” and “We hack other countries just like that,” Amjad, who states he currently works on the CIA’s China Mission Center, explains how intel agencies obtain information. He also describes a broken intelligence system where “We don’t share information across agencies” because the CIA is “very reluctant” to share information with the “careless” NSA.

O’Keefe Media Group’s bombshell undercover footage supports earlier reports by investigative journalists Michael Shellenberger, Matt Taibbi, and Alex Gutentag that revealed how the American intelligence community illegally ran a spy operation against then-candidate Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016 and illegally acquired intelligence that was later used to justify the Federal Bureau of Investigation (@FBI) official probe, “Crossfire Hurricane,” which in turn led to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation that ultimately did not find evidence of Russia collusion by the 2016 Trump campaign. @shellenberger @mtaibbi @galexybrane

Contractors like Fseisi hold the duty to withhold sharing confidential or national security information. In denying his statements, Fseisi may have realized he could be held liable for violating internal agency provisions and federal laws like the Executive Agency ethics provisions, which restrict what he may share with others outside of his contracted-to agency. Additionally, any government worker or agency head who withheld information from a superior (i.e. President Trump) may violate: (a) obstruction of justice by deception (18 USC 1512); (b) conspiracy to obstruct (18 USC 371); and false statements (18 USC 1001). Agency regulations may also provide offenses related to insubordination, reflecting poorly on the agency in public, or misrepresentation or dishonesty.

When James O’Keefe caught up with Amjad Fseisi on the streets of Washington, D.C., Fseisi could not tell O’Keefe whether he had top secret clearance, denied making statements clearly caught on camera, and would not even confirm it was him on the video saying only “It looks like me.” When asked directly if he works at the CIA, Fseisi said, “I can’t tell you that.”

Full Text:

CIA COMMENT: The official appears to have been terminated as a result of our reporting today. When the CIA was asked for comment, O’Keefe Media received an exclusive statement on the record from a CIA spokesperson today:

“These claims about CIA are absolutely false and ridiculous. CIA is a resolutely apolitical institution that provides intelligence support to policymakers including the President of the United States, irrespective of who occupies the office. We are a foreign intelligence focused Agency and do not monitor the former President. The individual making these allegations is a former contractor who does not represent CIA.”
In the video which was taken last week, the CIA official waves his intelligence community green badge. Green Badges are specifically hired for those contracted by the agency. Kash Patel, former Deputy Director of National Intelligence, said “An individual possessing a contractor Green badge is only allowed to lawfully possess it while official employed as a contractor to the intelligence community. Upon any termination, credentials are returned to the home agency and destroyed immediately.”

Comments:

May 1, 2024 - 49 Republican Senators sign letter to Biden asking he withdraw support for a treaty that would expand WHO's pandemic authority and compromise U.S. sovereignty

All Republican senators (49), led by Senator Ron Johnson, have formally urged Biden to withdraw his support for a treaty that would expand the WHO’s pandemic authority and compromise U.S. sovereignty.

Full Text:

Dear Mr. President:

Next month, during the Seventy-seventh World Health Assembly (WHA), your administration is expected to commit the United States to two international agreements that would strengthen the World Health Organization’s (WHO) authority to declare public health emergencies of international concern and expand the WHO’s authority over member states during such emergencies. This is unacceptable.

The WHO’s failure during the COVID-19 pandemic was as total as it was predictable and did lasting harm to our country. The United States cannot afford to ignore this latest WHO inability to perform its most basic function and must insist on comprehensive WHO reforms before even considering amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR) or any new pandemic-related treaty that would increase WHO authority. We are deeply concerned that your administration continues to support these initiatives and strongly urge you to change course.

Article 55 of the IHR requires the text of any IHR amendment to be communicated to member states at least four months before the WHA at which they are to be considered. As the WHO has still not provided final amendments text to member states, we submit that IHR amendments may not be considered at next month’s WHA. Some of the over 300 proposals for amendments made by member states would substantially increase the WHO’s health emergency powers and constitute intolerable infringements upon U.S. sovereignty. As such, it was essential that the WHO abide by the four-month notice period to allow member states time to ensure that no traces of such proposals were included in a final amendment package for consideration by the WHA. Having failed to do so, amendments are not in order.

The WHO’s most recent publicly available draft of its new pandemic response treaty is dead on arrival. Instead of addressing the WHO’s well-documented shortcomings, the treaty focuses on mandated resource and technology transfers, shredding intellectual property rights, infringing free speech, and supercharging the WHO. Moving forward with a new pandemic preparedness and response treaty ignores the fact that we are still unsure of COVID-19’s origins because Beijing continues to block a legitimate independent investigation. We strongly urge you not to join any pandemic related treaty, covenant, or agreement being considered at the Seventy-seventh WHA. Should you ignore this advice, we state in the strongest possible terms that we consider any such agreement to be a treaty requiring the concurrence of two-thirds of the Senate under Article II Section 2 of the Constitution.

In light of the high stakes for our country and our constitutional duty, we call upon you to (1) withdraw your administration’s support for the current IHR amendments and pandemic treaty negotiations, (2) shift your administration’s focus to comprehensive WHO reforms that address its persistent failures without expanding its authority, and (3) should you ignore these calls, submit any pandemic related agreement to the Senate for its advice and consent.

Sincerely,

Ron Johnson, United States Senator

Rick Scott, United States Senator

Plus, the signature of 47 other US Senators.

Original letter can be found here.

May 2, 2024 - MSNBC panel says Stormy Daniels' former lawyer is a challenging witness for the prosecution and benefits Trump

Keith Davidson testifies May 2, 2024. (Credit: Jane Rosenberg/Reuters)

Members of an MSNBC panel on Thursday said porn star Stormy Daniels’ former lawyer Keith Davidson was a challenging witness for the prosecution and benefited former President Donald Trump’s defense.

Davidson, who also previously represented Karen McDougal, testified Thursday in the trial where Trump faces 34 felony counts of allegedly falsifying business records about reimbursing his former attorney Michael Cohen for $130,000 paid to Daniels in the lead-up to the 2016 election. Former assistant New York State Attorney General Adam Pollock said his testimony was “difficult” for the prosecution while MSNBC legal analyst Catherine Christian said he was “helpful” to the defense because Trump’s attorneys will have more ammunition to allege that Daniels’ attorney exploited the then-presidential candidate.

“I think Davidson is one in a line of difficult witnesses that already come before and are going to be coming in this trial,” Pollock said in response to host Katy Tur asking about how his testimony impacted the prosecution’s case. “This is a messy trial, and sort of gives us all an insight, a crack into what this sordid world is about between the National Enquirer and selling stories. It’s not pretty to watch.”

“He was helpful in that he established that there was a payoff and he negotiated with Michael Cohen, but he was helpful to the defense because he has, particularly since the prosecution didn’t bring out some of his bad acts on their direct examination, he appears to be in the defense view, just a lawyer who shakes down people, whether it was Hulk Hogan or other people,” Christian said in response to the same question. “That’s what he did and maybe that’s what happened here. That’s what the defense will say. This was a shake down of Donald Trump. This wasn’t about paying someone as an illegal campaign contribution. This was a shake down, and Michael Cohen, it’s an understatement to say how difficult of a witness he is for the prosecution. (Read more: The Daily Caller, 5/02/2024) (Archive)

May 3, 2024 - Prosecutors admit key evidence in the Mar-a-Lago documents case has been tampered with

In a stunning admission, Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team is admitting that key evidence in former President Donald Trump’s classified documents criminal case was altered or manipulated since it was seized by the FBI, and that prosecutors misled the court about it for a period of time.

Legal experts told Just the News the revelation could prove to be a serious problem for prosecutors and a violation of court rules to preserve evidence in the state it was seized.

In a new filing Friday, Smith’s team said that the order of documents in some of the boxes of memos that were seized by the FBI from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate was altered or jumbled, leaving two different chronologies: one that was digitally scanned and another the physical order in the boxes.

“Since the boxes were seized and stored, appropriate personnel have had access to the boxes for several reasons, including to comply with orders issued by this Court in the civil proceedings noted above, for investigative purposes, and to facilitate the defendants’ review of the boxes,” Smith’s team wrote in a new court filing to U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon.

“There are some boxes where the order of items within that box is not the same as in the associated scans,” the prosecutors wrote.

Smith’s team in a footnote also conceded it had misled the court about the problem by previously declaring that the evidence had remained in the exact state it had been seized.

“The Government acknowledges that this is inconsistent with what Government counsel previously understood and represented to the Court,” the footnote said.

You can read the filing here:

gov.uscourts.flsd_.648653.522.0.pdf

The organization of the documents in storage boxes at Mar-a-Lago is likely to be an important part of Trump‘s defense. His team is expected to argue the documents were stored in the White House in chronological order on the days that Trump received them, and that staff simply boxed them up and sent them to his home without him accessing them or knowing they contained classified information.

Smith’s team tried to downplay the problem and argued it’s not a reason for a delay in Trump’s case.

But several legal experts told Just the News the court filing essentially is an admission of evidence tampering, and could be problematic.

“Prosecutors and investigators should never tamper with or alter evidence in their possession, including the order of documents in a box because one never knows what may become relevant or crucial to a court or jury later in a case,” Harvard Law Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz said. (Read more: JustTheNews, 5/03/2024)  (Archive)

Former President Donald Trump argued that special counsel Jack Smith’s classified documents case against him should be tossed after prosecutors wrote that they misled a judge about the order of items in an evidence box.
In a post on Truth Social over the weekend, President Trump called for the arrest of Jack Smith and argued that the case should be thrown out based on the new court filing.

It came after Mr. Smith’s team wrote that that the order of items within a box was “not the same” as they appear in digital photographs of materials after the FBI obtained those boxes from President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in August 2022. (Read more: The Epoch Times, 4/05/2024)  (Archive)

May 3, 2024 - Col. Earl Matthews says Army leaders stripped Trump of authority on January 6

Col. Earl Matthews was the Staff Judge Advocate on January 6, 2021. He came forward as a whistleblower before the subcommittee reviewing the investigation by the Select Committee on January 6. (Credit: CSpan/DailyMail)

Donald Trump’s authority as commander-in-chief was ignored by senior military leadership on January 6, 2021, claims the chief legal advisor for D.C. National Guard on that day.

Colonel Earl Matthews came forward as a whistleblower to the House subcommittee reviewing the January 6 Select Committee’s investigation.

He sat down with DailyMail.com two weeks after the public hearing to explain what he saw happen that day.

He claims that Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time, and then-Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy, were plotting to disobey any orders handed down by Trump because they ‘unreasonably’ assumed the then-president was going to break the law and try to use the D.C. National Guard (DCNG) to stop certification of the 2020 presidential election results.

A lot has been made about the breakdown in military and administration communication when it came to the timeline of deploying DCNG to the Capitol.

But Matthews claims senior military leadership was solely focused on getting the heat off of them and putting it back onto Trump.

The Select Committee on the January 6 Attack, Matthews claims, was more than happy to lean into this narrative and blame the entire ordeal on the then-president.

But Matthews says that senior military leadership essentially stripped the president of his authority as commander-in-chief by preemptively planning to go against orders because they didn’t like the optics of uniformed soldiers at the Capitol.

‘I think a very plausible argument can be made that through no fault of his own, President Trump’s command authority over both the D.C. National Guard and the U.S. Army itself had been surreptitiously curtailed by the senior leadership of the Army on January 6, 2021,’ Matthews told DailyMail.com.

He continued: ‘Army leadership had unreasonably anticipated an ‘unlawful order’ from the President, an order that the President had no plans to issue, and were preemptively seeking to curtail his discretion to issue such an order.’ (Read more: The Daily Mail, 5/03/2024) (Archive)

May 6, 2024 - New court filings reveal the DOJ's crime scene photo of the Mar-a-Lago raid was doctored

The picture that launched a thousand pearl-clutching articles.

(…) New court filings in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s espionage and obstruction case against Trump and two co-defendants conclusively demonstrate that the government used the cover sheets to deceive the public as well as the court. The photo was a stunt, and one that adds more fuel to this dumpster-fire case.

Jay Bratt (Credit: cyber security
summit)

Jay Bratt, who was the lead DOJ prosecutor on the investigation at the time and now is assigned to Smith’s team, described the photo this way in his August 30, 2022 response to Trump’s special master lawsuit:

“[Thirteen] boxes or containers contained documents with classification markings, and in all, over one hundred unique documents with classification markings…were seized. Certain of the documents had colored cover sheets indicating their classification status. (Emphasis added.) See, e.g., Attachment F (redacted FBI photograph of certain documents and classified cover sheets recovered from a container in the ‘45 office’).”

The DOJ’s clever wordsmithing, however, did not accurately describe the origin of the cover sheets. In what must be considered not only an act of doctoring evidence but willfully misleading the American people into believing the former president is a criminal and threat to national security, agents involved in the raid attached the cover sheets to at least seven files to stage the photo.

Classified cover sheets were not “recovered” in the container, contrary to Bratt’s declaration to the court. In fact, after being busted recently by defense attorneys for mishandling evidence in the case, Bratt had to fess up about how the cover sheets actually ended up on the documents.

Here is Bratt’s new version of the story, where he finally admits a critical detail that he failed to disclose in his August 2022 filing:

“[If] the investigative team found a document with classification markings, it removed the document, segregated it, and replaced it with a placeholder sheet. The investigative team used classified cover sheets for that purpose.”

But before the official cover sheets were used as placeholder, agents apparently used them as props. FBI agents took it upon themselves to paperclip the sheets to documents—something evident given the uniform nature of how each cover sheet is clipped to each file in the photo—laid them on the floor, and snapped a picture for political posterity.

That raises many troubling questions, to say the least, about the FBI’s handling of the alleged incriminating documents.

For example, who made the on-site determination as to the classification level appropriate for each document? Did agents have security clearance and expertise related to classification? Did the agents know whether the document had been declassified by Trump while still in office?

The hasty assessment also appears to contradict Bratt’s statements in court about the classification status of the seized documents. Bratt told Judge Aileen Cannon during a hearing last year that the records were undergoing a classification review, presumably conducted by the intelligence community, to determine the correct level of secrecy.

Did the final analysis confirm or dispute the assessments by the field FBI agents who conducted the raid?

But Jack Smith might have bigger problems. During the raid, agents took a box in its entirety if it contained papers with classified markings; the box usually contained other items, which is how the FBI ended up with so many of Trump’s personal belongings.

So, in order to flag the location of the alleged classified record in the box, agents, as Bratt noted, used the cover sheets as placeholders. (The classified records were then placed in a separate secure file.)

But now defense attorneys claim, and the special counsel concedes, that some placeholders do not match the relevant document. “Following defense counsel’s review of the physical boxes…and the documents produced in classified discovery, defense counsel has learned that the cross-reference provided by the Special Counsel’s Office does not contain accurate information,” attorneys representing Trump’s co-defendant Waltine Nauta wrote in a May 1 motion.

The motion forced the special counsel to admit the error. “In many but not all instances, the FBI was able to determine which document with classification markings corresponded to a particular placeholder sheet,” Bratt wrote.

In other words, in their zeal to stage a phony photo using official classified cover sheets, FBI agents might have failed to accurately match the placeholder sheet with the appropriate document. This is a potentially case-blowing mistake, particularly if the document in question is one of the 34 records that represents the basis of espionage charges against Trump. (Read more: Declassified/Julie Kelly/Substack, 5/06/2024)  (Archive)

May 6, 2024 - FBI confirms it’s restarting online censorship efforts ahead of 2024 election

On Monday, Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told reporters that federal agencies such as the FBI and Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) restarted discussions with Big Tech platforms. According to NextGov/FCW, this coordination will focus on “removing disinformation on their sites as the November presidential election nears.” Warner claimed these talks resumed in March, around the same time oral arguments in Murthy v. Missouri — which centers on the feds’ censorship efforts — were heard before the U.S. Supreme Court.

When pressed on the validity of Warner’s remarks, an FBI representative confirmed to The Federalist that the agency has resumed communications with social media companies ahead of the 2024 election.

“The FBI remains committed to combatting foreign malign influence operations, including in connection with our elections. That effort includes sharing specific foreign threat information with state and local election officials and private sector companies when appropriate and rigorously consistent with the law,” the representative claimed. “In coordination with the Department of Justice, the FBI recently implemented procedures to facilitate sharing information about foreign malign influence with social media companies in a way that reinforces that private companies are free to decide on their own whether and how to take action on that information.”

CISA Logo (Credit: public domain)

Jen Easterly (Credit: Wikipedia)

CISA External Affairs Specialist Tess Hyre declined The Federalist’s request for comment on whether the agency has resumed discussions with social media companies to combat what it claims to be “disinformation,” but she said that CISA Director Jen Easterly will be participating in an “Election Security” hearing in “the coming weeks.”

Neither the FBI nor CISA responded when pressed on when they restarted communications with social media companies on efforts to remove posts containing so-called “disinformation” from their platforms. The FBI and CISA did not identify the specific companies they’re working with on such efforts. Neither agency provided an answer when questioned on how they determine what constitutes “disinformation” or what other federal agencies they are collaborating with in these efforts to have “disinformation” removed from social media platforms.

The issue of government-compelled censorship is front and center in Murthy v. Missouri, a case before SCOTUS focused on allegations from Missouri and Louisiana that the federal government’s pressuring of social media companies to censor free speech online constitutes a violation of the First Amendment. U.S. District Court Judge Terry Doughty issued a preliminary injunction in July 2023 barring federal agencies from colluding with Big Tech to censor posts they don’t like. In his ruling, Doughty wrote, “If the allegations made by Plaintiffs are true, the present case arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history.” (Read more: The Federalist, 5/08/2024)  (Archive)

May 6, 2024 - A key player in Wisconsin's 2020 election steal has been fired

Full Text:

BREAKING: The most corrupt election clerk from the biggest city in Wisconsin has been FIRED. Claire Woodall-Vogg was a key player in stealing the 2020 election

“She printed 64,000 ballots in the back conference room of City Hall, Room 501. For the Nov 3rd 2020 election. She had city employees and others (CTCL) fill some of those out on the 4th, 6th and other floors of city hall. Then kicked out observers around 10-10:30pm on Nov 3rd. Then brought in large amounts of ballots at 1:15am on Nov 4th. All illegal, unconstitutional – number one way however the liberals stole the Presidential election in 2020.”

Full Text:

And here is,

why the swing states stopped counting on the night of Nov 3, 2020,

Wisconsin Election Commission Executive Director was printing 64,000 ballots on 4th, 6th floor of Milwaukee City Hall, all in favor of the Manchurian candidate Joe Biden.

Claire Woodall-Vogg
“I would just say as a reminder that is a felony, it is voter fraud to abuse the system.”

📝U.S. Congress certified the overthrown of your government. And they all know it.

May 7, 2024 - Judge Cannon vacates May 20 Trump trial date; set hearings with focus on Jack Smith

Case Documents

May 7, 2024 - Georgia Election Board member Janice Johnston states over 300,000 ballot images are missing from their 2020 election

Full Text:

“Does the investigation confirm that there are missing ballot images?”

“Yes.”

Case closed. No cover up operation can conceal the fact that Fulton County did not have the votes it claimed it had. The recount could not replicate the original results.

Oh, and it’s “news” to Fulton County that they are missing over 300,000 ballot images from Election Day.

May 8, 2024 - House Intelligence Committee holds a 'bipartisan' party dubbed 'FISA Fest' after renewing FISA 702 warrantless spying on Americans

Reps. Mike Turner and Jim Himes appear on Face the Nation, February, 2024. (Credit: CBS)

The lawmakers responsible for allowing the FBI to continue its warrantless spying on Americans threw an actual party to celebrate that fact, according to a report in Wired.

The tech publication reported Wednesday that the House Intelligence Committee had a party scheduled for that night, to celebrate last month’s renewal of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allows for the warrantless collection of Americans’ communications.

“The US House Intelligence Committee is throwing a party Wednesday night to celebrate the recent extension of the 702 surveillance program, multiple sources tell WIRED,” the publication reported.

“House Intelligence Committee chair Mike Turner and ranking member Jim Himes blasted out invitations announcing a ‘bipartisan celebration’ of the 702 program’s continuation last week. The event, which the lawmakers have dubbed FISA Fest, is being held in a reception room in the US Capitol building Wednesday night.” (Read more: Headline USA, 5/09/2024)  (Archive)

May 8, 2024 - Missouri AG blasts Media Matters for trying to stop his investigation into their fraudulent solicitations of donations from Missourians

On Wednesday, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey announced that Media Matters is attempting to halt an investigation from the AG’s office into the organization for “allegedly fraudulent solicitation of donations from Missourians amidst its efforts to target X.”

Bailey posted about the motion from Media Matters online. “Media Matters is attempting to shut down Missouri courts. They filed a motion to HALT our investigation and lawsuit into their fraudulent practices,” Bailey wrote.

“DC courts have no say over Missouri courts. I have filed a motion to protect our ability to litigate in Missouri,” he added.

Baily filed a counter motion to Media Matters’ attempt to stop the investigation, which stated, “How shocking it would be if the Missouri Attorney General asked a state court to issue an order preventing this Court from hearing this case. Yet Media Matters seeks exactly that extreme remedy, just in reverse.”

The case filing from Bailey added, “Media Matters does not dispute that it can raise all its claims and defenses in the ongoing proceeding in Missouri state court. It has already begun doing so. It filed a motion to exercise legal rights guaranteed by Missouri law, which the state court granted. Nevertheless, Media Matters now asks a federal court in the District of Columbia to enter an order that would force the courts of the State of Missouri to stop adjudicating an ongoing case.”

Bailey also called the attempt to block the lawsuit an “attack on federalism” for the country.

Motion AG Bailey by Tommy

(The Post Millennial, 5/10/2024) (Archive)

May 9, 2024 - Turley skewers Hillary Clinton for attacking Trump over payments despite her labeling payment for Steele Dossier as legal expenses

George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley skewered former First Lady Hillary Clinton Thursday for attacking former President Donald Trump over the alleged payout to porn star Stormy Daniels.

Clinton appeared on Morning Joe, where she alleged that the $130,000 payout to Daniels in 2016 was a form of “election interference” by the Trump campaign while discussing Trump’s trial on a 34-count indictment secured by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. Clinton’s 2016 campaign and the Democratic National Committee agreed to pay a $113,000 fine after failing to report funding of the now-debunked Steele dossier through the Perkins Coie law firm.

“They are saying you rigged an election or a race that was already run, that’s what doesn’t make sense to us,” Turley said. “The hilarious aspect of that earlier clip with Hillary Clinton is that she actually makes the case for Trump, because when she ‘says how dare you keep information from the public,’ The Clinton campaign lied to the media about funding the Steele dossier. How did they hide it? They said it was legal expenses with Marc Elias. And when they were facing a fine, they litigated that and said no, it really is a legal expense. So her campaign did exactly what she is suggesting here, but they did it before the election.”

The Steele dossier was a key source behind the FBI’s investigation into allegations that the Trump campaign engaged in election interference with Russia in 2016. In October 2016, the FBI offered the dossier’s author, Christopher Steele, $1 million to corroborate allegations made in the document, according to testimony by FBI supervisory analyst Brian Auten.

Steele ultimately failed to “prove the allegations,” Auten testified.

“What Trump is being accused of is giving the wrong notation, which he may not have had anything to do with, after the election was over that somehow affected the election,” Turley said. “The fact that judge Juan Merchan has allowed this case to go forward on these conflicted elements of the theory is one of the biggest complaints I have against him, that most judges, I think, would have approached this case very differently and many would not have had this case go to trial.” (The Daily Caller, 5/10/2024)  (Archive)

May 10, 2024 - Stormy Daniels answers Trump defense team questions with disastrous results

(Credit: Thomson Reuters )

(…) Asked if she knew what the case was about, and well, she didn’t.

According to Victoria Taft, writing at PJMedia:

The Washington Post captured most of the dialogue between Necheles and Daniels.

Necheles asked Daniels if she had knowledge of Trump’s involvement in the payment made to her in 2016 to ensure she would not go public about their alleged sexual encounter.

“Not directly,” Daniels replied. “No.”

Necheles followed up, “You know nothing about what he does or does not know about the business records?

“I know nothing about his business records,” Daniels said. “No, why would I?”

Daniels drew some laughter when Necheles asked if she knew about what the criminal indictment against Trump entailed.

“There’s a lot of indictments,” Daniels responded.

Why would she know if Trump knew about the payments, indeed? She admitted she hadn’t spoken with him since 2007.

Taft then noted that the other thing that came out at trial was that she tried to extort him for cash, while the getting was good.

A recorded phone exchange revealed this:

“You better settle this God damn story. Because if he loses this election, and he is going to lose, if he loses this election we lose all fucking leverage this case is worth zero. And if that happens, I’m going to sue you because you lost this opportunity,” said Stormy’s lawyer Keith Davidson to Trump’s then-fixer Michael Cohen, who then badly advised Trump to pay the extortion money.

Sound like extortion? It does to anyone normal.

And that contradicted her claim on the stand that she wasn’t interested in money, only in telling her story.

Lying comes easy to her, because it’s what she does for a living. Her schtick, after all, is talking and acting dirty for cash.

That’s not just the view of us normal people watching the case far from New York City.

Even leftists at the scene are saying she shouldn’t have been allowed anywhere near the witness stand.

Fox News quoted a CNN legal analyst saying Daniels was a disaster for the prosecution:

CNN legal analyst Elie Honig said that the cross-examination of adult film actress and Trump trial witness Stormy Daniels after her testimony against former President Trump was a disaster.

While Honig said that Daniels’ testimony about a sexual encounter with Trump in a hotel room in 2006 was “plausible,” her responses under cross-examination by Trump’s team called her credibility into question.

“Her responses were disastrous,” Honig said, referring to the moment when Daniels admitted that she hates Trump.

“That’s a big deal,” Honig said.

…

“When the witness hates the person whose liberty is at stake, that’s a big d— deal!” Honig said. “And she’s putting out tweets, fantasizing about him being in jail. That really undermines the credibility.”

Well, yeah. Whether it persuades the all-Democrat Trump-hating jury is another matter but for sure it will be out there for the rest of us.

Another leftist who seemed to think Daniels was a disaster was the justice himself, Juan Merchan, who otherwise keeps threatening to throw Trump in jail any time he tries to defend himself.

According to CNN, he chided Trump’s lawyers for not objecting to Stormy Daniels’s disgusting graphic testimony, which had nothing to do with the bookkeeping case.

Judge Juan Merchan called out former President Donald Trump’s defense team during their motion for a mistrial Thursday afternoon, telling them there were many times they could have objected to Stormy Daniels’ testimony, but did not.

For the second time this week, Merchan expressed surprise that Trump’s lawyers had not objected more when Daniels was on the stand. And for the second time this week, Merchan rejected their motion for a mistrial.

Well, whose courtroom was it, Justice Merchan? The guy did object to some of the toilet talk himself in one instance but way too much got out, it was like Fani Willis babbling from the stand all over again.

The prosecution put Stormy on the stand to embarrass Trump and damage his presidential run, of course, but didn’t seem to understand that the audience in the courtroom and well beyond might just be onto him and his sleazy political game, which could render the legal case against him nil.

We all know what party the justice donates to, whose side he’s on, and what he would like to do to Trump.

So the fact that Merchan complained about the Trump side not objecting enough, for example, on the matter of whether Trump used a condom, a sacred point to the left and a matter of no interest to most others, pretty well tells us that he could see that Daniels’s recollections of porkings past was damaging to the prosecution, particularly as her contradictions and lies were exposed, one by one.

That’s at least two on the left who see the case starting to go down in flames, and there have been others. Many others. (Read more: American Thinker, 5/11/2024)  (Archive)

(…) [Bill] Maher, referencing his 2018 interview with Daniels, pointed out her previous statements where she denied being coerced into any sexual encounters with Trump.

“You say it’s not a Me Too case,” Maher asked Daniels in the 2018 footage.

“It is not a Me Too case,” Daniels responded. “I wasn’t assaulted. I wasn’t attacked, or raped, or coerced or blackmailed…. They tried to shove me in the Me Too box to further their own agenda. And first of all, I didn’t want to be part of that because it’s not the truth and I’m not a victim in that regard.”

Reacting to Daniels’ current testimony, Maher highlighted inconsistencies, “That’s not what she’s saying now.”

He continued to dismantle her credibility by pointing out her current use of “Me Too buzzwords” and expressed doubts about her claim of blacking out during the encounter with Trump.

“She said she blacked out. Blacked out? She’s a porn star. Do you really think she blacked out? I mean, a porn star is used to having sex with people she does not know. That’s the job… I just think she’s not a good witness,” Maher said.

(Read more: The Gateway Pundit, 5/12/2024) (Archive)

May 10, 2024 - Bragg’s paralegal testifies three pages of phone calls between Stormy Daniels’ lawyer and Michael Cohen were deleted

Court sketch of Jaden Jamel-Schneider (Credit: Jane Rosenberg/CNN)

(…) Defense attorney Emil Bove is challenging the evidence prosecutors are putting forward, asking paralegal Jaden Jarmel-Schneider about the deletion of some toll records between Keith Davidson and Michael Cohen after the defense submitted recordings between the two from 2018.

The paralegal has admitted that they’ve deleted some call records from the files. Bove also has Jarmel-Schneider confirm that some calls were removed from an exhibit of calls between Gina Rodriguez and Dylan Howard.

Bove said it was three-pages worth of records.

Jarmel-Schneider took issue with Bove characterizing it as a “significant” number but he did acknowledge some were removed.

“At this trial, you’re sort of the guardian of the toll records?” Bove asks.

“I don’t know if I’d say that, but if you say so,” Jarmel-Schneider responds.

(Read more: CNN, 5/10/2024) (Archive)

Full Text:

One of Alvin Bragg’s paralegals admitted on the stand today in the Trump trial that his office deleted three pages worth of phone calls between Stormy Daniels’ lawyer Keith Davidson and Michael Cohen.

Not only that but they submitted the call records into evidence but didn’t mention to Trump’s team that some of the files were deleted.

This trial becomes more insane by the day.

May 12, 2024 - Nonprofits are making billions off the border crisis

A group of migrants try to cross a barbed wire fence to reach the U.S., as seen from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on March 20, 2024. (Credit: Herika Martinez/AFP)

While the border crisis has become a major liability for President Biden, threatening his reelection chances, it’s become a huge boon to a group of nonprofits getting rich off government contracts.

Although the federally funded Unaccompanied Children Program is responsible for resettling unaccompanied migrant minors who enter the U.S., it delegates much of the task to nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that run shelters in the border states of Texas, Arizona, and California.

And with the recent massive influx of unaccompanied children—a record 130,000 in 2022, the last year for which there are official stats—the coffers of these NGOs are swelling, along with the salaries of their CEOs.

“The amount of taxpayer money they are getting is obscene,” Charles Marino, former adviser to Janet Napolitano, the secretary of the Department of Homeland Security under Obama, said of the NGOs. “We’re going to find that the waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer money will rival what we saw with the Covid federal money.”

The Free Press examined three of the most prominent NGOs that have benefited: Global Refuge, Southwest Key Programs, and Endeavors, Inc. These organizations have seen their combined revenue grow from $597 million in 2019 to an astonishing $2 billion by 2022, the last year for which federal disclosure documents are available. And the CEOs of all three nonprofits reap more than $500,000 each in annual compensation, with one of them—the chief executive of Southwest Key—making more than $1 million.

Some of the services NGOs provide are eyebrow-raising. For example, Endeavors uses taxpayer funds to offer migrant children “pet therapy,” “horticulture therapy,” and music therapy. In 2021 alone, Endeavors paid Christy Merrell, a music therapist, $533,000. An internal Endeavors PowerPoint obtained by America First Legal, an outfit founded by former Trump aide Stephen Miller, showed that the nonprofit conducted 1,656 “people-plant interactions” and 287 pet therapy sessions between April 2021 and March 2023.

Endeavors’ 2022 federal disclosure form also shows that it paid $5 million to a company to provide fill-in doctors and nurses, $4.6 million for “consulting services,” $1.4 million to attend conferences, and $700,000 on lobbyists. In 2021, the NGO shelled out $8 million to hotel management company Esperanto Developments to house migrants in their hotels. Endeavors, which gets 99.6 percent of its revenue from the government according to federal disclosure forms, declined to comment to The Free Press.

The Administration for Children and Families, a division of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, funds the nonprofits through its Office of Refugee Resettlement, and its budget has swelled over the years—from $1.8 billion in 2018 to $6.3 billion in 2023. The ORR is expected to spend at least $7.3 billion this year—almost all of which will be funneled to NGOs and other contractors.

When asked about the funding increase during a January media event, Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, the chief executive of Global Refuge said, “We’ve grown because the need has grown.” The nonprofit did not make Vignarajah available for an interview.

But while it’s true the number of migrants has exploded in recent years, critics say these enormous federal grants far exceed the current need. The facilities themselves are generally owned by private companies and are leased to the NGOs, which house the unaccompanied minors and attempt to unite them with family members or, if that’s not possible, people who will take care of them—their so-called sponsors. The ORR does not publicly list the specific number of shelters it funds in its efforts to house migrants, a business The New York Times once described as “lucrative” and “secretive.” (Read more: The Free Press, 5/12/2024)  (Archive)

May 14, 2024 - Rep. Goldman admits meeting with Michael Cohen “many times” to “prepare him” for testimony against Trump; Is also client of trial judge's daughter Loren Merchan

New York Congressman Dan Goldman, a staunch Democrat and ally of Joe Biden, has openly admitted to multiple preparatory meetings with Michael Cohen, the controversial former attorney for President Donald Trump, ahead of his testimony in the sham Biden/Bragg trial.

During an appearance on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Rep. Goldman made the candid admission that he met with Michael Cohen a number of times to prepare him.

“I have deposed Michael Cohen. I have met with him a number of times to prepare him,” Goldman said.

Goldman, an attorney, previously served as lead counsel in the first impeachment of former President Donald Trump and was an Assistant United States Attorney in the Southern District of New York before running for office.

(…) Spectrum News reported, “Loren Merchan is president of Authentic Campaigns, which has collected at least $70 million in payments from Democratic candidates and causes since she helped found the company in 2018, records show.”

Loomer added, “Rep. Dan Goldman is a client of Loren Merchan’s Democrat consulting firm, Authentic Campaigns. Why is a member of Congress meeting with a felon who committed perjury? This is a MAJOR CONFLICT OF INTEREST, and Judge Merchan needs to immediately RECUSE HIMSELF from overseeing the Trump trial!”

Full Text:

Democrat NY Congressman who helped prepare Michael Cohen for his anti -Trump testimony is a client of Judge Merchan’s daughter’s Democrat political consulting company @Authentic_HQ!

Today, New York Democrat Congressman Dan Goldman @RepDanGoldman went on @MSNBC and said he has “deposed @MichaelCohen212 and met with him a number of times to prepare him” for the trial which is being overseen by Judge Merchan in NYC.

Cohen is the prosecutors’ “star witness”.

Rep. Dan Goldman is a client of Loren Merchan’s Democrat consulting firm, Authentic Campaigns.

Why is a member of Congress meeting with a felon who committed perjury?

This is a MAJOR CONFLICT OF INTEREST, and Judge Merchan needs to immediately RECUSE HIMSELF from overseeing the Trump trial!

See RECEIPTS below!


(Read more: The Gateway Pundit, 5/14/2024) (Archive)

 

May 15, 2024 - HHS suspends funding and proposes formal debarment of EcoHealth Alliance, cites evidence from COVID Select Report

President of Ecohealth Alliance Dr. Peter Daszak

Today, Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic Chairman Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) issued the following statement after the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) accepted the Select Subcommittee’s recommendation to formally debar EcoHealth Alliance, Inc. (EcoHealth). HHS will immediately commence official debarment proceedings and implement a government-wide suspension of U.S. taxpayer funds to EcoHealth — including a hold on all active grants.

“EcoHealth Alliance and Dr. Peter Daszak should never again receive a single penny from the U.S. taxpayer. Only two weeks after the Select Subcommittee released an extensive report detailing EcoHealth’s wrongdoing and recommending the formal debarment of EcoHealth and its president, HHS has begun efforts to cut off all U.S. funding to this corrupt organization. EcoHealth facilitated gain-of-function research in Wuhan, China without proper oversight, willingly violated multiple requirements of its multimillion-dollar National Institutes of Health grant, and apparently made false statements to the NIH. These actions are wholly abhorrent, indefensible, and must be addressed with swift action. EcoHealth’s immediate funding suspension and future debarment is not only a victory for the U.S. taxpayer, but also for American national security and the safety of citizens worldwide.

“The Select Subcommittee’s investigation into EcoHealth and the origins of COVID-19 is far from over. Dr. Daszak and his team are still required to produce all outstanding documents and answer the Select Subcommittee’s questions, specifically related to Dr. Daszak’s potential dishonesty under oath. We will hold EcoHealth accountable for any waste, fraud, and abuse and are committed to uncovering any illegal activity, including lying to Congress, NIH, or the Inspector General,” said Chairman Wenstrup.

Read the Select Subcommittee’s report titled “An Evaluation of the Evidence Surrounding EcoHealth Alliance, Inc.’s Research Activities” here.

Read today’s letter from HHS to EcoHealth Alliance, Inc. here.

Read HHS’s action referral memorandum here.

(House Oversight Committee, 5/15/2024)  (Archive)

May 15, 2024 - Former Michael Cohen attorney Robert Costello testifies to Congress that Cohen didn’t believe Stormy Daniels’ story yet paid her without Trump knowing

Attorney Robert Costello testified before the House Weaponization of the Federal Government Subcommittee, May 15, 2024. (Credit: clipping from testimony)

Michael Cohen’s attorney Robert Costello just testified to Congress that Michael Cohen told him that he didn’t even believe Stormy Daniels story, and only paid her off to save Trump and his family embarrassment.

This completely blows up the entire case in Manhattan! Costello said that Cohen was becoming increasingly agitated at not being invited to work in Washington.

What will Cohen and the Manhattan DA do now? It’s clear now that Cohen and Daniels extorted the President of the United States with help from the US government!

Rep. Greg Steube (R-FL): He didn’t believe the allegation of the Stormy Daniels story, that he thought the story would be embarrassing for Trump and especially for Melania, so he decided he would take care of it himself.

Attorney Robert Costello: Absolutely. That is contrary to what this guy testified to in court in New York yesterday.

Rep. Greg Steube: Well, what’s not being talked about is your next paragraph, the reason and his motivation for that. So if you could just walk through that for the committee.

Robert Costello: Yeah, obviously, when we started to talk about the NDAs, and this is the very first meeting at the Regency Hotel, when, by the way, Rudy Giuliani was not involved in representing Donald Trump at that time. Cohn testified that it was a conspiracy between Giuliani and Costello as of this date. Totally false. In any event, he also said that he didn’t discuss the Stormy Daniels matter with us, and he certainly did. I specifically asked him because he kept on going back saying, I can’t believe they’re trying to put me in jail for these NDAs.

So I said, Michael, tell me about the NDA. Tell me about Stormy Daniels. What did you do? He said, I got a call from a lawyer representing Stormy Daniels who represented that she was going to testify that Donald Trump had sex with Stormy Daniels. Michael Cohen said, I didn’t believe the allegation, but I knew that such an allegation would be terribly embarrassing. He said, It would be embarrassing. He focused on Melania Trump. He said, I didn’t want to embarrass Melania Trump. He said, That’s I decided to take care of this on my own. I went back to that several times.

You did this on your own? “On my own.”

Did Donald Trump have anything to do with it? “No.”

Did you get the money from Donald Trump? “No.”

From any of his organizations? “No.”

From anybody connected to Donald Trump? “No”.

Where did you get the money? “I took out a HELOC loan against my property.”

I said, Why would you do that? He said, “I didn’t want anybody to know where I got this money.”

I didn’t want Melania to know. I didn’t want my own wife to know because she’s in charge, he said, of the Cohen family finances. He said, “If she saw money coming out of my account, she’d ask me 100 questions, and I didn’t want to answer any of them.”

It was clear after talking to him for several days after that, whenever we talked on the phone or in my office, that he kept on bringing up the subject that he felt he was betrayed.

Robert Costello also told the committee, “I read Michael Cohen’s testimony from yesterday’s trial in New York on the way down on the train, and virtually every statement he made about me is another lie.” (h/t The Gateway Pundit)