Email/Dossier/Govt Corruption Investigations

February 1, 2023 – Hunter Biden admits infamous laptop belongs to him

Graphic by The Times, UK

A lawyer for President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter, urged state and federal agencies in a letter on Feb. 1 to probe what he said were attempts by close allies of former President Donald Trump and others to “weaponize” the contents of a laptop that an electronics repair shop owner says was dropped off at his Delaware store in 2019.

The letters from Hunter Biden’s attorneys mark the first time he and his legal team have publicly acknowledged that it was his personal data found on the laptop.

The letters were sent by Hunter Biden’s lawyer Abbe Lowell to the Delaware attorney general, the Department of Justice’s National Security Division, and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

They call for an investigation into former Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon, campaign lawyer and former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, as well as Giuliani’s own lawyer, Robert Costello, and the owner of the Wilmington computer repair shop, John Paul Mac Isaac, who said Hunter Biden dropped a laptop off at his store in April 2019 and failed to return to pick it up.

“We write on behalf of our client, Robert Hunter Biden, to request an investigation into the following individuals for whom there is considerable reason to believe violated various federal laws in accessing, copying, manipulating, and/or disseminating Mr. Biden’s personal computer data,” states the letter (pdf) to the DOJ’s top national security official, Matthew Olsen. (Read more: The Epoch Times, 2/23/2023)  (Archive)

February 1, 2023 – After 2005 DoD and Ukrainian agreement to secure pathogens, the Bidens contract to build biological weapons laboratories

February 2023 – FBI searches, retrieves materials from Biden document stashes at University of Delaware

The University of Delaware announces the creation of the Biden Institute in February 2017. (Credit: Josh Shannon/Newark Post)

“The FBI twice searched the University of Delaware in recent weeks for classified documents stashed by President Joe Biden and retrieved materials from two separate locations, according to a report Wednesday evening.

Though the material retrieved by the FBI reportedly did not have classified documents, the agency reportedly did take certain materials with them. “Investigators retrieved materials from two university locations on two different days. The material did not appear to have classified markings, according to the source, but they are now being reviewed by the FBI,” CNN reported.

That the FBI searched the University of Delaware is notable. According to a Government Accountability Institute analysis, the University of Delaware received more than $6.7 million from anonymous donors from China. The donors include direct funds from the Chinese government.

The university is the second academic institution where searches have occurred for stashes of Biden’s classified documents. Classified documents were found at the Penn Biden Center housed by the University of Pennsylvania, which has also received millions in anonymous donations from China. That trove was found on November 2. (Read more: (Breitbart, 2/15/2023)  (Archive)

February 6, 2023 – Elon Musk identifies the State Dept as the origin behind Twitter content control mechanisms

… He still hasn’t identified the source code, the proverbial ghost in the machine, buried deep in the algorithmic code; however, Twitter owner Elon Musk has finally identified the agency within the U.S. government who spearheaded the creation.  The “Global Engagement Center” (GEC) of the State Dept.

The GEC mission is described as, “To direct, lead, synchronize, integrate, and coordinate U.S. Federal Government efforts to recognize, understand, expose, and counter foreign state and non-state propaganda and disinformation efforts aimed at undermining or influencing the policies, security, or stability of the United States, its allies, and partner nations,” (link).

[Musk Tweet Link – GEC Center Link]

(…) To put it in brutally honest terms, the State Dept initially created the partnership between the U.S. government and Twitter (Arab Spring).  However, when the operations needed to become domestically centered (post Trump election), another agency stepped in…. The United States Dept of Homeland Security (DHS) is the operating system running in the background of Twitter.

You can debate whether Elon Musk honestly didn’t know all this before purchasing Twitter from his good friend Jack Dorsey, and/or what the scenario of owner/operator motive actually is.  Decide for yourself, but with public statements it genuinely looks like Musk didn’t know.

Regardless of foreknowledge, I feel confident the conflicting and odd data points only reconcile in one direction.  The State Dept started it, but now DHS, via CISA, controls Twitter.

Wittingly or unwittingly (you decide) Elon Musk is now the face of a quasi govt controlled enterprise.

If you concur with my researched assessment, then what you see being released by Elon Musk in the Twitter Files is actually a filtered outcome as a result of this new ownership dynamic.

Put simply, DHS stakeholders, to include the DOJ, FBI and Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), are mitigating any consequential public exposure of their domestic surveillance activity by controlling and feeding Mr. Musk selected information about their prior Twitter operations.  DHS is still the ghost in the machine.

TikTok is to Beijing as Twitter is to Washington DC.

The larger objective of U.S. involvement in social media has always been monitoring and surveillance of the public conversation, and then ultimately controlling and influencing public opinion.

Mr. Elon Musk and his team are combing through millions of lines of algorithmic code, trying to find that “fundamental part” that will deliver their own ‘ah-ha’ moment.  Until then, we keep watching and smiling… (Much more: Conservative Treehouse, 2/07/2023)  (Archive)

February 8, 2023 – Rep. Anna Paulina Luna discusses how government and Twitter officials communicated on private cloud to censor Americans

During the House Oversight Committee hearing, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna calls out the U.S. government and Twitter’s use of the private cloud server, Jira, to censor American citizens.

Luna: “Do you remember communicating on a private cloud server [with government entities] to remove a posting? Yes or no.

Roth: “I don’t believe I can give you a yes or no answer.”

Luna: “Well I’m gonna tell you right you you did it… It is highly illegal.”

Part 1: Anna Luna discusses the hearing with WarRoom’s Steve Bannon:

Part 2

February 8, 2023 – Marjorie Taylor Green questions former Twitter official Yoel Roth about banning her account before an election and also exposes the problem of child porn on Twitter

“Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene: “You permanently banned my personal Twitter account and it was my campaign account, too…You abused the power of a large corporation, big tech, to censor Americans…I’m so glad you’ve lost your jobs. Thank God @elonmusk bought Twitter.”

Child pornography on Twitter was also addressed:

 

February 8, 2023 – Rep. Jim Jordan grills Twitter official, Yoel Roth, about shadowbanning and security clearance

Jim Jordan Confronts Ex-Twitter Executive Yoel Roth Over Suppression Of Hunter Biden Story, security clearance

February 8, 2023 – FBI Richmond division creates report warning Virginians that Catholics who prefer Latin mass are white supremacists

(Credit: NBC News)

“The FBI’s Richmond Division would like to protect Virginians from the threat of “white supremacy,” which it believes has found a home within Catholics who prefer the Latin Mass. An intelligence analyst within the Richmond Field Office of the FBI released in a new finished intelligence product dated January 23, 2023, on Racially or Ethnically Motivated Violent Extremists (RMVE) and their interests in “Radical-Traditionalist Catholics” or RTCs. The document assesses with “high confidence” the FBI can mitigate the threat of Radical-Traditionalist Catholics by recruiting sources within the Catholic Church.

The acronym, new to many in the Domestic Counterterrorism field, comes with a footnote by the writer explaining RTCs are “typically characterized by the rejection of the Second Vatican Council.” The writer makes an unsubstantiated leap that a preference for the Catholic Mass in Latin instead of the vernacular and a number of more traditional views on other world religions can amount to an “adherence to anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant, anti-LGBTQ and white supremacist ideology.” This writer draws the important distinction between “traditional Catholics,” who simply prefer the Traditional Latin Mass and pre-Vatican II teachings, and RTCs, who espouse “more extremist ideological beliefs and violent rhetoric.”

A discerning reader may wonder why the writer believes such divisions exist and if there is evidence of the extremist and violent rhetoric within the Catholic church. The analyst’s note doesn’t provide specifics. When the FBI generates an intelligence product, it is important to note the analyzed sources. Typically, strict source vetting removes partisanship and bias, so a product is both consistent with federal law and can add value to the FBI’s overall mission. Of note, this document was reviewed and approved for release by the FBI Richmond Chief Division Counsel, who is the office’s top lawyer.

The attached appendices refer to a number of articles and the out-of-FBI-policy Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) at the end of the document. For example, Appendix D is a direct copy of the SPLC list of “Radical Traditional Catholicism Hate Groups,” including the web address accessed. The SPLC appears to be a source for the intelligence analyst’s beliefs that RTCs exist and that they are anti-Semitic. The SPLC description for this “hate group” states RTCs “may make up the largest single group of serious anti-semites in America.” Often in the intelligence world, this type of statement without any established evidence is often followed by the acronym “NFI” or “No Further Information” to indicate it is an unsubstantiated opinion. Additionally, SPLC states RTCs “embrace extremely conservative social ideals with respect to women.” Nothing reported by the SPLC indicates the number of adherents to this alleged ideology nor any instances of violence. This lack of evidence and blatant partisan blindness is one of many reasons the FBI has distanced itself from the SPLC as a source in the past 10 years. The intelligence product includes endnote citations from two other sources: the far-Left online magazine Salon and the equally left-leaning The Atlantic. The Salon articles cited are typical of partisan click-bait writing: “Traditional Catholics and White Nationalist Groypers Forge a new Far-Right Youth Movement” and “White Nationalists Get Religion: On the Far-Right Fringe, Catholics and Racists Forge a movement.” These articles were released a day apart as a series but include substantially the same information. The articles offer only circumstantial suggestions of affiliations between inflammatory figures like Milo Yiannopoulos and Nick Fuentes and a man pictured standing on the steps of a Catholic church in New York after the Dobbs decision. The Salon writer makes the wild leap that using a photo of someone at a church indicates the pictured individual or his beliefs are relevant within a religious institution with 70 million adherents in the United States alone and over 2000 years of tradition and history. (Read more: UncoverDC, 2/8/2023)  (Archive)

February 8, 2023 – James Baker denies colluding with government while at Twitter

Fired Twitter executives James Baker, Vijaya Gadde, Yoel Roth and Anika Collier Navaroli testified at a hearing on social media bias. (Credit: Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times)

Jim Baker, the controversial former FBI counsel who served as deputy general counsel for Twitter between 2020 and 2022, testified at a hearing of the House Oversight Committee today alongside former Twitter executives, to answer for the platform’s politically partisan censorship in the runup to the 2020 election.

FULL EVENT: “Protecting Speech from Government Interference and Social Media Bias” 2/8/23

Baker, a prominent defender of the USA Patriot Act, has been described as “Mr. FISA” for his defense of the controversial secret courts system.

In his comments before the House Oversight Committee, Baker denied any improper conduct with regards to the platform’s suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story, which was broken by Breitbart News Emma-jo Morris in the New York Post shortly before the 2020 election.

“I was not aware of, and certainly did not engage in, any conspiracy or other effort to do anything unethical, improper, or unlawful while i was at Twitter, period,” Baker told the assembled lawmakers.

“I did not act unlawfully or otherwise inappropriately in any manner with respect to the Hunter Biden laptop,” said Baker. “I urged caution with respect to the matter and noted that we needed more information to fully assess what was going on.”

What’s more, the former FBI lawyer said that Twitter took no direction from the government or political campaigns in its decision to suppress the story, which had a major impact on the 2020 election.

“I am aware of no unlawful collusion with or direction from any government agency or political campaign on how Twitter should have handled the Hunter Biden laptop situation,” said Baker.

“At no time was I an agent or operative of the government or any political actor when I worked at Twitter,” said the former FBI counsel.

But documents released via the Twitter Files, the disclosure of which triggered Baker’s departure from the company, show an intense effort by the FBI, aimed at Twitter executives, to discredit the Hunter Biden laptop story. (Read more: Brreitbart, 2/08/2023)  (Archive)

February 9, 2023 – Matt Gaetz presses Dem witness on ‘Revolving Door’ between FBI ‘senior officials and lobbying’

“Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz pressed a Democrat witness on his position as a partner at a lobbying firm that reportedly represents Pfizer and Google during a hearing on the Weaponization of the Federal Government on Thursday.

The line of questioning was directed at Elliot Williams during a House Judiciary Committee hearing investigating “the politicization of the FBI and DOJ and attacks on American civil liberties.”

“Mr Williams, wouldn’t the American people feel like this government wasn’t so weaponized against them if there wasn’t such a revolving door between Department of Justice senior officials and lobbying?” Gaetz asked Williams.

Williams is a principal at the Raben Group, a lobbying firm that represents Pfizer, Microsoft, Google and other companies, according to the hearing.” (Read more: Daily Caller, 2/09/2023)  (Archive)

February 9, 2023 – The State Department bankrolls a group secretly blacklisting conservative media

 

(Credit: Washington Examiner graphic)

This is the second part of a Washington Examiner investigative series about self-styled ‘disinformation’ tracking groups that are cracking down on conservative media and part of a lucrative operation that aims to defund disfavored speech. To read part one, click here.

The Department of State has funded a deep-pocketed “disinformation” tracking group that is secretly blacklisting and trying to defund conservative media, likely costing the news organizations vital advertising dollars, the Washington Examiner can confirm.

The Global Disinformation Index, a British organization with two affiliated U.S. nonprofit groups, is feeding blacklists to ad companies with the intent of defunding and shutting down websites peddling alleged “disinformation,” the Washington Examiner reported . This same “disinformation” group has received $330,000 from two State Department-backed entities linked to the highest levels of government, raising concerns from First Amendment lawyers and members of Congress.

“Any outfit like that engaged in censorship shouldn’t have any contact with the government because they’re tainted by association with a group that is doing something fundamentally against American values,” Jeffrey Clark, ex-acting head of the Justice Department’s Civil Division, told the Washington Examiner. “The government or any private entity shouldn’t be involved with this entity that’s engaged in conduct that is either legally questionable or at least morally questionable.”

GDI compiles a “dynamic exclusion list”  that it feeds to corporate entities, such as the Microsoft -owned advertising company Xandr, emails show. Xandr and other companies are, in turn, declining to place ads on websites that GDI flags as peddling disinformation.

The Washington Examiner revealed on Thursday that it is on this exclusion list. The list includes at least 2,000 websites and has “had a significant impact on the advertising revenue that has gone to those sites,” said GDI’s CEO Clare Melford on a March 2022 podcast.

GDI has identified that the 10 “riskiest” news outlets for disinformation are the American Spectator, Newsmax, the Federalist, the American Conservative, One America News, the Blaze, the Daily Wire, RealClearPolitics, Reason, and the New York Post. (Read more: The Washington Examiner, 2/09/2023) (Archive)

February 9, 2023 – Nancy Mace grills Twitter official Vijaya Gadde about censoring Covid information; mentions her personal health problems after receiving vaccine

Rep. Nancy Mace Admits to Serious Long-Term Injuries From the Covid “Vaccine”

 

 

February 09, 2023- Prof. Jonathan Turley hits back at Debbie Wasserman-Schultz attempt to discredit him at House hearing

Professor Jonathan Turley of George Washington University testified before the House Committee on Weaponization this week. Turley was there to offer analysis as a legal expert on Twitter and the revelations of the Twitter Files. (Credit: Still-shot from YouTube)

“Professor Jonathan Turley of George Washington University testified before the House Committee on Weaponization this week. Turley was there to offer analysis as a legal expert on Twitter and the revelations of the TwitterFiles.

His testimony was calm and reasoned, as usual, but when Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz had a chance to question him, all she did was try to discredit him.

Turley recently wrote at The Hill:

Congress is set to expose what may be the largest censorship system in U.S. history

(…) In his opening remarks, which you should watch below, Turley points out the fairly recent public distrust of the FBI, which he says is dangerous.

He also comments on what the Twitter files have exposed, saying “This may be the largest censorship system in the history of our country.”

After all of that eloquent and reasoned commentary, enter Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

Mike Miller writes at RedState:

Here’s how Wasserman-Schultz kicked off her line of questions of the legal expert:

“So essentially your answers to questions yesterday were your own opinion and pure conjecture.”

As is his style, Turley politely responded, “No, I wouldn’t say that, I try to base them on what we know from the Twitter Files—” before DSW interrupted with the same nonsensical premise: “But this is only just your opinion, would you say, as a Twitter account user?” Is it possible Debbie’s unaware of the role of legal expert, or any expert witness?

Turley tried again: “No, I’ve come to give legal advice based on facts that are in the public domain and I would really refer to—” but Wasserman Schultz again butted in, telling Turley he was using up her time. So, that’s how that went. Wasserman Schultz was simply in way over her head, and Turley refused to agree with her silly premise, so she continued to interrupt him.

Turley addressed her line of questioning on FOX News:

JONATHAN TURLEY: The congresswoman was asking if I’ve ever worked at Twitter as a condition for my talking about what the Twitter Files say. It’s like saying you have to work at the Pentagon if you want to testify about the implications of the Pentagon Papers. The point of witnesses before committees is often to give legal analysis based on what is known and what could be found in this investigation. The exchange she was referring to was a member who expressly asked me about the Twitter Files and what this suggests about what I’ve called censorship by surrogate. And then she went into this issue of, ‘Well, you’ve never worked at Twitter.

How do you know what goes on at Twitter?,’ which is completely absurd. The whole premise of my testimony was that Twitter has now authenticated and confirmed these facts. These facts are coming from Twitter. These are Twitter files. And the facts indicate that they had weekly meetings with the government. They indicate that the government would send long lists of citizens and others to be targeted, censored, to be in some cases, banned. Those are very serious allegations that raise constitutional questions, which is why I was there to discuss it.

(Read more: Legal Insurrection, 2/11/2023) (Archive)

February 10, 2023 – Judicial Watch: Secret Service releases new docs related to Hunter Biden’s gun purchase

Still shots from a video on Hunter Biden’s laptop. (Credit: Hunter Biden laptop)

“Judicial Watch announced today that it received 487 pages of records from the United States Secret Service (USSS) related to the investigation of Hunter Biden’s gun, reportedly disposed of in a dumpster in Delaware in October 2018. The records show agency officials discussing media reports of its alleged involvement with one finding it “odd” that the Secret Service was involved in the investigation when Joe and Hunter Biden were not receiving Secret Service protection at the time. Another official responds: “Maybe we were asked for a favor?”

The records show the agency alerted the Biden White House and crafted a public statement insisting it had “no involvement in this alleged incident” and refusing to provide any additional clarification to media inquiries.

Judicial Watch is investigating whether and how the Secret Service intervened for Hunter Biden in an incident involving a gun allegedly owned by him. In September 2022, Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit for records or communications about the reported purchase, possession, and disposal of a firearm owned by Hunter Biden found in a Delaware dumpster in October 2018 (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Department of Homeland Security (No. 1:22-cv-02841)).

Judicial Watch reported in December 2022 that the Secret Service repeatedly changed its position about whether it is in possession of records related to the investigation of Hunter Biden’s gun.

On October 29, 2020, a person whose name is redacted emails a Secret Service official in the “PID” (Protective Intelligence and Assessment Division) with a link to a Blaze article published earlier that day, reporting that Hallie Biden had taken a handgun owned by Hunter Biden in October 2018 and thrown it into a supermarket trash bin. The official then forwards the article to another official in the PID.

An official whose name is redacted later comments in this chain: “Oh dear…”

After being forwarded the same Blaze article, an unidentified Protective Intelligence Research Specialist responds to his colleagues: “It’s kind of odd that we were involved in the missing gun investigation when neither Hunter or Joe were even receiving USSS [Secret Service] protection at the time? Hmmm.” Another official replies: “Maybe we were asked for a favor?” (Read more: Judicial Watch, 2/10/2023)  (Archive)

February 14, 2023 – Details on those to be identified in the Epstein scandal – The Doe List

(Credit: KnowYourMeme.com)

“We have word from the FBI.

They will provide us with their interview(s) of Jeffery Epstein in the next couple months.

Here’s the FBI’s representation:

“FBI has completed its search for documents responsive to Plaintiff’s FOIA request and anticipates beginning to produce any non-exempt documents responsive to Plaintiff’s request as early as April 2023. FBI anticipates only one production of documents instead of rolling productions due to the relatively limited number of responsive documents.”

There’s a ton of unanswered questions about Epstein’s involvement with the FBI, and we hope that these records provide some answers. The FBI has fought the disclosure of these records, necessitating the filing of our lawsuit (a lawsuit which was possible through your support – thank you for that).

(…) The Epstein/Ghislaine Maxwell “John Does”

There’s more on the Epstein front. A federal judge in New York’s Southern District is currently considering whether to disclose the names of the “John Does” arising out of Virginia Giuffre v. Ghislaine Maxwell. Here’s the list she’s reviewing.

Sadly, reporting from the media has created a lot of false hope about whose names might be unsealed. I have to break the unfortunate news: this isn’t “Epstein’s list.”

Let me lay out the facts of what we do know about these individuals. Here’s the breakdown:

  • There are approximately 165 “John Does”. These are not all perpetrators. The vast majority are witnesses of varying degrees (meaning material or immaterial), employees of Epstein, or affiliates of Epstein or the victims. The term “affiliate” ranges from those in Epstein’s address book to the doctors or acquaintances of the victims.
  • The majority of the John Does – nearly 100 of them – have already been identified, whether through the media or court proceedings.
  • Many of the unidentified John Does are immaterial to the allegations against Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell. The roles of some are unknown. Some are only referenced in passing, such as a deposition question where the deponent denies knowing the individual. For many others the nature of the information relating to them is “not salacious.”
  • There are approximately 67 John Does that remain unidentified. Of that number, around 11 are listed as potential victims.
  • By my count, there are two alleged perpetrators who have yet to be identified: John Doe 058 and John Doe 094. More on them below.
  • There are two other John Does of interest. John Doe 086 is an alleged “Epstein Affiliate”; some material related to them is “salacious.” John Doe 113 is an alleged “Alleged Epstein Affiliate; Alleged Witness”. This individual “is alleged to have engaged in serious wrongdoing.” Counsel for Maxwell maintains John Doe 113 is referenced in a “hearsay statement that the name appears in Epstein’s address book.”

Here are the alleged perpetrators who are yet to be identified:

John Doe 058 (identified as “Alleged Witness Affiliate; Alleged Perpetrator”)

John Doe 058 is referenced in a letter submitted by counsel for Professor Alan Dershowitz. We suspect his identity may be disclosed in these quotes from the e-mails of Sarah Ransome:

John Doe 094 (identified as Alleged Victim Affiliate; Alleged Perpetrator)

John Doe 094 is discussed in the deposition of victim Virginia Giuffre. The excerpts from her deposition (docket entry 235-4) filed with the court are nearly 90 pages.

There’s a significant amount of redactions and a number of alleged perpetrators – both relating to Epstein/Maxwell and not having anything to do with Epstein/Maxwell – within Giuffre’s deposition. This makes it difficult to pinpoint the exact claims against John Doe 094. In fact, it’s entirely possible that John Doe 094 doesn’t have to do with Epstein or Maxwell. However, if we were to focus on the Epstein/Maxwell connection, here are two different allegations – either of which might relate to John Doe 094:

 

Giuffre describing a foreign president she met in New Mexico.
Giuffre’s allegations from France

This isn’t to say that we won’t learn anything about those whose names have already been publicized. We anticipate that there may be new and important information, or information that provides additional context, about some of the alleged “perpetrators” – of which the John Doe log lists approximately 17. This includes Sarah Kellen, who is alleged to have to have taken part in Epstein’s abuse scheme. (Read more: Techno Fog/Substack, 2/14/2023)  (Archive)  (Doe List-Archived)

February 2023 – DHS and HHS whistleblowers expose the U.S. government of enabling child trafficking

Whistleblowers Kyle Seraphin (l) Aaron Stevenson (c) and Tara Rodas (r) (Credit: Kyle Seraphin/Rumble)

Kyle interviews two Federal Whistleblower who helped uncover different angles of the same problem: The US federal government assisting in settling “unaccompanied children” with known members of organized crime for sex and labor trafficking.

Aaron Stevenson (@Called_Out_DHS) is a prior USMC and spent a decade within the Department of Homeland Security. Tara Rodas (@TaraLeeRodas) is a Spanish speaker with over 20 years in federal service who volunteered to help out HHS. They combined and shared their stories with @Project_Veritas in order to expose the intel and the actions of our government that wants to ignore the problem. The details will shake you.

See their Project Veritas Expos:
https://t.co/aYrhMUJK0d
https://t.co/AcjFv9gZSj

February 17, 2023 – Fox vs Dominion discovery docs show their employees, including Eric Coomer, expressed concern about the security of their voting machines

“Dominion Voting Systems sued Fox News, and naturally all the coverage shrieks, “OMG FOX KNEW IT WASN’T TRUE BUT LIED!”

Actually, I think we all remember Tucker Carlson grilling Sidney Powell and the fact that the news network scarcely dipped a toe into any investigative work in the area. As their lawyers argued in response to Dominion, Fox’s role was limited to reporting to its viewers the claims and counterclaims surrounding the election.

(…) More galling, however, is the refusal to cover the admissions found by Fox, that Dominion employees themselves were not sure about the security of their own systems.

Page 15 of Fox’s filing reveals fascinating discovery material.

Some of the most critical examples include (with emphasis added):

Discovery in this case has revealed that Dominion’s own employees expressed serious concerns about the security of its machines. Mark Beckstrand, a Dominion Sales Manager, confirmed that other parties “have gotten ahold of [Dominion’s] equipment illicitly” in the past.

Beckstrand identified specific instances in Georgia and North Carolina and testified that a Dominion machine was “hacked” in Michigan.

Beckstrand confirmed that these security failures were “reported about in the news.”

And just weeks before the 2020 presidential election, Dominion’s Director of Product Strategy and Security, Eric Coomer, acknowledged in private that “our shit is just riddled with bugs.” Indeed, Coomer had been castigating Dominion’s failures for years. In 2019, Coomer noted that “our products suck.”

A photo from Eric Coomer’s Facebook page is included in his Deposition Exhibits, page 56

He lamented that “[a]lmost all” of Dominion’s technological failings were “due to our complete f— up in installation.” And in another instance, he identified a “*critical* bug leading to INCORRECT results.” He went on to note: “It does not get much worse than that.”

And while many companies might have resolved their errors, Coomer lamented that “we don’t address our weaknesses effectively!”

These were recent (2019) messages, which don’t just provide justification for a news network covering potential exploitation of voting machines, but are enough to warrant a wider investigation of Dominion, State Street Capital, and their products and services. (Read more: Raheem Kassam/Substack, 2/17/2023)  (Archive)

February 20, 2023 – Twitter Files – Matt Taibbi is sniffing around the Senate Intel Cmte connection to manipulation of social media; what else could he discover?

“Matt Taibbi [@mtaibbi] is a smart guy, he’ll get there.  I’m not sure why my gut says to trust him, but it does – and I do. Recently he’s been getting hit by the leftists who are asking why Taibbi is not looking at the Trump administration pressure on social media to control and manipulate public information [Twitter Here].

Taibbi has been hitting back against his detractors by saying, there’s no evidence of Trump doing that; yet there is massive evidence of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) contacting Twitter to do exactly that.

This is interesting to me and CTH readers because we outlined in real time what the SSCI and HPSCI were doing in order to promote the Trump-Russia conspiracy before and after the 2016 election.

What’s fascinating about this… is that the same people who are attacking Taibbi right now, are the same people who received and promoted the propaganda from the SSCI (Burr and Warner) in addition to the HPSCI (Schiff and Swalwell).

In essence, the ancillary media attack hounds are attacking Taibbi because at the end of the research trail Taibbi is following he will find the same names of the ancillary media who are attacking him.

[SEE SHORT THREAD HERE]

In my opinion, Taibbi is on the right trail in following the SSCI and HPSCI manipulation of the social media platforms, specifically Twitter.  In addition to the SSCI creating the structure that supports the intelligence weaponization by DHS and FBI, Senate Intel Chair Richard Burr and then Senate Intel Vice-Chair Mark Warner are at the epicenter of it.

I know I sound like a broken record on this, but it’s been true since the outset of my own research discoveries of the issue four years ago.  The entire Trump-Russia collusion narrative couldn’t exist without the SSCI participating in it.   This is why I have talked and written so much about it.

James Wolfe (Credit: public domain)

Factually, and I say this with no compunction for attribution, if you want to tell the public the story of the larger issue, the absolute best starting point is how SSCI Vice-Chair Mark Warner told SSCI Security Director James Wolfe to leak the Carter Page FISA application to then Politico journalist Ali Watkins.   It’s an easy story to outline because there is ample evidence to highlight it, including open admissions by the DOJ and FBI (in documented court records) that the leak event on March 17, 2017, took place.

That week in mid-March, 2017, when Mark Warner leaked the Page FISA application followed two days later by James Comey testifying to congress (March 20th), was/is the most openly documented evidence-based story that leads to everything that follows.

On March 17, 2017, Senator Mark Warner leaked the FISA in order to stimulate the media to support the demand for a Trump-Russia special counsel.  On March 20, 2017, holding the exact same motive, FBI Director James Comey first made the public admission that President Donald Trump was under FBI investigation for the Trump-Russia collusion conspiracy.   Senator Warner and Director Comey held the exact same motive.

Everything done by the SSCI before and after that mid-March event, touches everything before and after the special counsel was appointed.  It’s like a fulcrum point that creates massive tentacles into the entire apparatus of the effort by the legislative branch, the executive branch, the intelligence community and the Weissmann/Mueller special counsel to cover it up.

Expose that moment on March 17, 2017, and the entire house of cards built by Weissmann/Mueller and the DC media apparatus collapses.

There is not another single moment during the entire arc of the Trump-Russia madness, that creates the inflection point as well as the March 17, 2017, leak.  EXAMPLE:

(Source)

Keep cheering on Matt Taibbi.  Keep supporting him as he follows this trail.  Yes, you know where it ends, but you are a select rare few who have followed this story.  Taibbi can blow it wide open if he continues.

Additionally, remember and understand that the entirety of the media apparatus was in on this scheme.

Every single outlet promoted the narrative that was collectively pushed by Senator Mark Warner, Director James Comey, the corrupt intelligence apparatus and the Robert Mueller special counsel.  They are all opposed to Taibbi following this trail.

(Conservative Treehouse, 2/20/2023)  (Archive)

February 22, 2023 – Fighting Lawfare: Commission for Lawyer Discipline vs Sidney Powell – Final Summary Judgment

Sidney Powell (Credit: The Epoch Times)

“On March 1, 2022, the Texas Bar filed suit against Sidney Powell in Texas state court, alleging six ethical violations arising from the election fraud suits she filed on behalf of electors following the 2020 presidential election.

Full discovery ensued with multiple depositions, Powell’s production of more than 55,000 pages of documents and a massive privilege log.

Yesterday the Texas Judge applied settled law and held that the Bar had no evidence as a matter of law that Powell violated any rule in her four election fraud cases.(Defending the Republic, 2/23/2023)  (Archive)   (Sidney Powell Final Summary Judgment)

February 22, 2023 – Georgia’s ‘get Trump’ grand jury forewoman accidentally confirms the recommended charges against Trump are bunk

Emily Kohrs

The grand jury’s conclusions flowed from what the DA presented to the Fulton County jurors — a case built on lies about a telephone call.

Jury in Georgia Trump Inquiry Recommended Multiple Indictments, Forewoman Says,” The New York Times blared with its midday breaking news headline on Tuesday. But it is what followed that revealed the real story: that the grand jury recommended bogus charges based on the Fulton County district attorney’s misrepresentation of evidence.

“We definitely started with the first phone call, the call to Secretary Raffensperger that was so publicized,” Emily Kohrs, the forewoman of the special purpose grand jury said, noting that prosecutors played the recording for jurors the first day. “I will tell you that if the judge releases the recommendations, it is not going to be some giant plot twist,” Kohrs continued. “You probably have a fair idea of what may be in there.”

Yes. Yes, we do: bunk.

Since Fulton County’s Democrat District Attorney Fani Willis first sought to impanel a “special purpose grand jury” — “special purpose” because it can only make recommendations and cannot indict — to assist in her investigation “into any coordinated attempts to unlawfully alter the outcome of the 2020 elections in this state,” she has misrepresented the substance of Donald Trump’s Jan. 2, 2021, telephone conversation with Georgia’s Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

Just as the Times did in its article yesterday, Willis falsely stated that during Trump’s conversation with Raffensperger, the then-president requested that “the Secretary ‘find 11,780 votes’ in the former President’s favor.”

But as I’ve been forced to detail time and again because the corrupt media continue to lie about the conversation, the transcript of the call established that Trump “did not request that Raffensperger ‘find 11,780 votes.’ Period. It never happened.” Rather, during that “telephone conversation between Trump’s legal team and the Secretary of State’s office, Trump’s lawyer explained to Raffensperger that ‘the court is not acting on our petition. They haven’t even assigned a judge.’”

And it was because the Fulton County judge responsible for assigning a judge to hear Trump’s election lawsuit — ironically, the same Judge Chris Brasher who authorized Willis’ special purpose grand jury — held up his legal challenge that Trump’s legal team reached out to Raffensperger, requesting the secretary of state’s office investigate the evidence of widespread violations of election law.

The transcript of Trump’s call with Raffensberger confirms this fact, with lawyers for the then-president ticking “off the numerous categories of illegal votes of which they had concrete evidence — some 25 categories.” Here, the DA appears to have pushed a second falsehood, with Willis reportedly asserting in a subpoena that during that call, Trump’s lawyer, Cleta Mitchell, “parroted claims of voter fraud.’”

Mitchell did no such thing. She was not pushing claims of voter fraud but instead wanted the secretary of state’s office to investigate violations of Georgia election law.

The grand jury, however, only knew the facts Willis decided to share with the group. The jurors, who came from all walks of life — including the 30-year-old unemployed forewoman — also needed to rely on the DA’s office to decipher the meaning of any criminal statutes.

And from Kohrs’ statements to the press, we know that the prosecutor’s office focused the grand jury’s attention on Trump’s telephone conversation with Raffensberger, opening the proceedings by playing a recording of the call. But the transcript of that call has been released and confirms both that Trump never asked Raffensberger to “find” him the votes and that his legal team asked the secretary of state’s office to investigate the evidence of illegal voting.

Yet the DA framed the case as one about fraud, with the grand jury writing in its report that it “heard extensive testimony on the subject of alleged election fraud from poll workers, investigators, technical experts, and State of Georgia employees and officials, as well as from persons still claiming that such fraud took place,” and concluding, “by a unanimous vote that no widespread fraud took place in the Georgia 2020 presidential election that could result in overturning that election.”

So the grand jury’s view “that perjury may have been committed by one or more witnesses testifying before it,” is meaningless. And that Kohrs said the special purpose grand jury recommended more charges, and that the list is not a short one, means nothing. Those conclusions flowed from the case Willis presented to the Fulton County jurors — a case built on deceptions about a telephone call.

(The Federalist, 8/14/2023)  (Archive)

February 22, 2023 – Biden “moneyman” to flip and provide House Oversight Cmte with documents proving money laundering and wire fraud

Eric Schwerin (l) and Hunter Biden (Credit: public domain)

“Hunter Biden’s top financial lieutenant Eric Schwerin is expected to “soon” provide documents to the House Oversight Committee’s investigation of the Biden family for nine violations, including money laundering and wire fraud, a spokesperson for the committee told Breitbart News.

Schwerin, who shared bank accounts with President Joe Biden and dubbed the family’s “moneyman,” also maintained guest lists for White House functions and negotiated the settlement with Hunter’s first wife, Kathleen. Emails from Hunter’s laptop show Schwerin was deeply embedded in Hunter’s personal life and the Biden family networks for nearly two decades and is even pictured at campaign events with Joe Biden.

Schwerin was also the president of Rosemont Seneca Partners, a fund created by Hunter Biden and several​ associates that spawned business deals in Russia, Ukraine, China, and Romania. Many of those deals yielded the Biden family business millions over decades while Joe Biden was an elected official.

Joe Biden and his team have claimed at least seven times the president is not involved in the family’s international business deals, but more than 17 instances show that Joe Biden was involved in the business. In one example, Schwerin visited the White House and other official locations 27 times when Joe Biden was vice president.

A committee spokesperson told Breitbart News it has been in contact with “Schwerin’s attorney and expect him to start producing documents to the Oversight Committee soon.”

Wednesday was the deadline set by the committee for Schwerin, James, and Hunter to comply with demands to disclose a host of both classified and unclassified documents, records, and communications between business associates and family members, including Joe Biden.

While Hunter has refused to comply with the request, the committee told Breitbart News that James has received correspondence from his attorneys. It is unknown if James is complying with the requests.

“Oversight Committee staff will be in communication with them about Chairman Comer’s request,” the spokesperson said.

House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-KY) has stated in February the “next step” to compel the relevant information from Hunter and James is to issue subpoenas to Hunter and James if they do not comply.

The revelations about Schwerin’s willingness to turn over documents to the committee comes as Republicans have been stonewalled by Hunter, the Treasury Department, and former FBI “point man” Timothy Thibault, who allegedly “improperly” “shut down” a probe into Hunter’s laptop that is likely unrelated to the ongoing criminal probe concerning reported tax fraud by the president’s son.

In January, the Treasury denied the Committee’s request to disclose 150 suspicious reports flagged by U.S. banks concerning Biden family business transactions, causing Comer to threaten a subpoena. (Read more: Breitbart, 2/22/2023) (Archive)

February 22, 2023 – Arkansas cops rule suicide in death of Clinton aide linked to Jeffrey Epstein

Mark Middleton (Credit: Middleton Heating & Air)

“The grisly scene where a top Bill Clinton adviser was found hanged from a tree with a gunshot wound to his chest has finally been revealed nine months after he died.

But the sheriff’s report into Mark Middleton’s mysterious death raises more questions than answers as it rules he died by suicide – despite no sign of the weapon that killed him.

Middleton, 59, was found dead last May at the Heifer Ranch in Perryville, Arkansas, an hour west of Little Rock.

Release of the report was held up after members of his family petitioned a judge. They were worried that pictures from the gory scene would be made public.

The judge eventually ruled that details could be released but photographs could not.

The report, written by Perry County Sheriff’s Deputy Jeremy Lawson, says he was called to the ranch by worker Samantha McElroy who had found Middleton’s abandoned black BMW SUV.

(…) ‘I could see that he had a gunshot wound to the chest and that he had a knot tied in an extension cord that was around his neck and it was attached to the limb directly above him.

(…) Middleton was a special advisor to Bill Clinton in the 1990s and signed Jeffrey Epstein into the White House on seven of the 17 times the late pedophile visited.

Middleton also flew on Epstein’s jet, nicknamed the ‘Lolita Express’. More recently he had been working for his family’s HVAC business in Little Rock.

The police report was released to DailyMail.com by the Perry County sheriff’s office.

According to the Arkansas Times, Middleton’s family said he was suffering from depression.

Middleton’s life in recent years was a world away from the power he enjoyed in the 1990s.

White House visitor logs previously reported by DailyMail.com showed that he appears as the authorizing signatory on seven of Epstein’s White House visits, most of which were to the West Wing.

In addition to being a special assistant to the President, Middleton was also assistant to the chief of staff, Thomas ‘Mack’ McLarty.  (Read more: Daily Mail, 2/22/2023)  (Archive)

February 23, 2023 – Victoria Nuland: The Woman Behind the Wars

February 23, 2023 – Internal FBI memos chronicle years of drunk driving, lost weapons and other misconduct

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) officers take a knee with demonstrators, as they march on Pennsylvania Av. Thursday, June 4, 2020, in Washington, during a protest over the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man, who died after a police officer kneeled on his neck for several minutes. (Credit: Jose Luis Magana/AP)

“Scores of FBI employees have been caught over the last five years engaging in unethical and illegal conduct such as driving drunk, stealing property, assaulting a child, mishandling classified documents, and losing their service weapons — but they often escaped being fired, according to internal disciplinary files provided to Just The News.

One agent left a highly lethal M4 carbine unsecured in his government car during a Starbucks run and had the weapon stolen, but even he received only a two-week suspension despite violating the bureau’s protocols for weapons storage, the records show.

“Although there was a lockbox in the trunk for storage of weapons and sensitive items,” the agent chose to store the rifle bag behind the car’s front passenger seat, one report shows. “While Employee was in the Starbucks, the Bucar was burglarized. The rear passenger, rear driver, and tailgate windows were broken, and the rifle bag containing the M4 was stolen.”

Sexual misconduct was also rampant in the reports dating to 2017, including inappropriate affairs with felons in prison, confidential sources and subordinate employees. The sexual transgressions, however, often resulted in firings, unlike the drunk driving and lost weapons offenses.

Typically emailed to all Bureau employees each calendar quarter, the FBI Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) reports provided to Just the News by a whistleblower afford an unprecedented look into the breadth of misconduct among the FBI’s workforce of 35,000, including agents, intel analysts, lab scientists and crime scene technicians.

You can read all of the reports here.

The reports emerge at a sensitive time for the FBI as it deals with a sprawling congressional probe into allegations by two dozen whistleblowers of political bias, misconduct and weaponization of law enforcement powers.

The extensive reports were in fact so impactful that the FBI suspended distributing them for seven months in 2021-2022, due to complaints that the “employees harmed by misconduct” might feel shamed. But in the end, the bureau resumed publishing them because of the belief it might sensitize workers in the future to avoid committing crimes or violations of conduct policies,

“OPR suspended sending our quarterly email that details employee misconduct and its consequences,” the April 2022 email noted, explaining: “We wanted to weigh the value of publishing this information with the discomfort employees harmed by misconduct may feel at its having been published.”

The bureau concluded most agents wanted the memo to continue as a reminder of the professional and ethical standards they are sworn to uphold. (Read more: Just the News, 2/23/2023)  (Archive)

February 23, 2023 – Judge Amy Berman Jackson orders depositions of Trump, Wray in Strzok/Page lawsuit

“A federal judge has agreed to permit former FBI officials Peter Strzok and Lisa Page to take sworn testimony from former President Donald Trump for two hours as part of their long-running lawsuits related to Strzok’s firing in 2018 after Trump repeatedly and publicly pilloried the pair.

Judge Amy Berman Jackson (Credit: public domain)

U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson ruled on Thursday that Strzok and Page — whose text messages disparaging then-candidate Trump cast a pall over the FBI’s investigation of links between the Trump campaign and Russia — would also be allowed to depose FBI Director Christopher Wray for a similar two-hour period on a limited set of topics.

But there’s a twist: Their ability to ask Trump and Wray about these circumstances might come down to a decision from President Joe Biden. Jackson’s order gave the Justice Department a month to “inform the Court whether the current President will invoke … executive privilege” over any aspects of Trump’s testimony.

Jackson, an appointee of President Barack Obama, also stressed that she had not yet considered all potential objections to the demands for testimony from Trump and Wray. That could include arguments by Trump that he has the unilateral right as a former president to assert executive privilege.

Trump has spent years publicly assailing Strzok and Page for their disparaging private messages about him, claiming they proved that FBI bias fueled the Russia probe, despite independent reviews that failed to substantiate those claims. Strzok was fired amid the controversy, and Page resigned. Strzok is contesting his dismissal, and both are claiming invasion of their privacy over the manner in which the Justice Department released hundreds of their text messages.

In the suits, Strzok and Page contend that Trump and his Justice Department appointees were carrying out a political vendetta.” (Read more: Politico, 2/23/2023) (Archive)

February 23, 2023 – Billionaire Investor and friend of the Clintons, dies from self-inflicted gunshot wound

Thomas H. Lee (Credit: Getty Images)

“Billionaire financier and investor Thomas H. Lee was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound at his Manhattan office on Thursday morning, police sources said.

Cops responded to a 911 call at 767 Fifth Avenue — where Thomas H. Lee Capital, LLC is located on the sixth floor — at around 11:10 a.m., the sources said.

EMTs pronounced the 78-year-old businessman dead at the scene.

The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner will determine the official cause of death. (Read more: New York Post, 2/23/2023)  (Archive)

Lee is pictured golfing with then-President Bill Clinton on Martha’s Vineyard in 1999. (Credit: AFP/Getty Images)

(…) Lee was a good friend of Bill and Hillary Clinton and in June 2008, following Hillary’s unsuccessful presidential run, the couple reportedly stayed at his East Hampton home. (Read more: The Daily Mail, 2/23/2023)  (Archive)

February 25, 2023 – Biden officials address pro-war rally led by Ukrainian Nazi supporters

(Credit: The Grayzone)

USAID’s Samantha Power joined EU and US officials who rallied at the Lincoln Memorial at a pro-war demonstration organized by a clique of Ukrainian activists that have described themselves as “true Banderites” and “Right Sektor’s Washington DC branch.”

Karen Donfried (Credit: World Economic Forum)

High-ranking Biden foreign policy officials including USAID Administrator, Samantha Power, and Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, Karen Donfried, observed the first anniversary of Russia’s military operation in Ukraine at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC. There, on February 25, 2023, they rallied alongside a band of Beltway-based Ukrainian activists dedicated to honoring and fundraising for ultra-nationalists and war criminals. The demonstrators demanded that the US send F-16 fighter jets to Kiev and “punish Russia” by any means necessary.

Power’s USAID promoted the event with a media advisory that redirected visitors to the rally’s principal organizer, an NGO called US Ukrainian Activists. This was one of two Ukrainian diaspora groups that organized the rally, and both have openly supported far-right elements in Ukraine since the US-backed Maidan coup in 2014.

Nadiya Shaporynska and confessed war criminal and neo-Nazi, Mamuka Mamulashvili in 2017. (Credit: public domain)

US Ukrainian Activists was founded by Nadiya Shaporynska, an avowed supporter of neo-Nazi and ultra-nationalist militias like the Azov Battalion, whom she has described “heroic defenders of Ukraine.” Shaporynska’s fundraising efforts for extremists groups that were at one point blacklisted by the US Department of Defense have been prolific and very public.

In a video tweeted by Power the day before the rally, Ukraine’s ambassador to the US, Oksana Markarova, is seen giving the USAID Administrator a tour of a local Ukrainian government-funded cultural and business center in DC. Markarova points to a portrait of a woman on a wall and informs Power she is “Nadiya [Shaporynska], a tireless activist here in DC.”

Power and Sahporynska would become officially acquainted the following day, as pro-proxy war demonstrators descended on Washington DC’s National Mall.

The February 25 rally for Ukraine at the Lincoln Memorial featured prominent US officials on its speaker roster. Alongside Power was Karen Donfried, the Biden Administration’s Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs. Donfried spent close to 20 years working at the American and German government-funded German Marshall Fund think tank, leaving her role as its president to join the White House in 2021. Other notable speakers included Ukraine’s Ambassador to the United States, Oksana Markarova; District of Columbia Secretary of State Kimberly Bassett; Mark Ordan, chair of the Board of Directors at the US Chamber of Commerce; and the European Union’s Ambassador to the United States, Stavros Lambrinidis.

Paul Grod (Credit: World Economic Forum)

Also appearing on stage was Paul Grod, president of the Ukrainian World Congress. Grod has made a career out of defending the legacy of Nazi collaborators, and even once petitioned the Canadian government to officially recognize the genocidal Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, or OUN, as ‘designated resistance fighters.” This designation would have funneled Canadian tax dollars directly into the pension accounts of Nazi collaborators.

In 2010, Grod honored the legacy of the Waffen SS Galicia, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists as heroes who fought “for the freedom of their ancestral Ukrainian homeland.” These groups were driving forces behind the genocide in Eastern Europe during World War Two.

Grod’s Ukrainian World Congress hosted the February 25 pro-proxy war rally through its affiliate, the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America. His group has declared Stepan Bandera, the Nazi collaborator whose forces slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Jews, Poles, and Soviet prisoners of war, as “the undisputed symbol of Ukraine’s lengthy and tragic struggle for independence.”

(Read more: The Grayzone, 3/04/2023)  (Archive)

February 27, 2023 – A whistleblower claims he gave DOJ damning information on Biden family foreign business deals; is then arrested

“An Israeli think tank executive who served alongside Hunter Biden as an adviser to a Chinese energy conglomerate widely suspected of serving as a front for the Chinese Communist Party now says he provided the FBI with damning information about the Biden family’s foreign business dealings.

Author of the book “De-dollarization, ” Gal Luft, of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security says “there’s no reason why two countries that already have vast exposure to the U.S. dollar should maintain their trade in a third party currency” December 2022. (Credit: CNBC)

Gal Luft, the co-director of the Washington-based Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, says he provided information about Hunter Biden, his father, and his uncle, Jim Biden, to the Justice Department in March 2019. Luft served as an adviser to CEFC China Energy, a conglomerate that “aligned itself so closely with the Chinese government that it was often hard to distinguish between the two,” according to CNN. The group, which donated at least $350,000 to Luft’s think tank, paid Hunter Biden at least $6 million in 2017 to procure energy investment deals in the United States.

(…) Luft’s threat to “name names” comes after his arrest in Cyprus on Feb. 16 on charges that he illegally sold weapons to Libya and China. Luft asserts that the United States is seeking his extradition as part of a “politically motivated” payback for his exposure of the Bidens.

“DOJ is trying to bury me to protect Joe, Jim & Hunter Biden,” Luft said. An Israeli lawyer for Luft claims his client provided information about Hunter Biden to the FBI in 2019.

While Luft’s claims might otherwise be easily dismissed as a bluff, his connection to CEFC China Energy suggests he may know something about the Bidens. And an American lawyer for Luft has signaled he will provide information to Congress about Luft’s case.

“Dr. Luft is a whistleblower,” Luft attorney Robert Henoch told the Washington Free Beacon. He asserts that prosecutors decided against pursuing Luft’s information “and are instead targeting him with trumped-up and false charges.”

“This unfortunately appears to be part of an attempt to discredit a witness with critical information about an ongoing congressional and DOJ investigation.” (Read more: Washington Free Beacon, 2/27/2023)  (Archive)

February 28, 2023 – A month after her grand jury investigation of Trump ends, Fani Willis burns midnight oil attending an event hosted by Kamala Harris at the VP residence

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis reportedly had a five-hour meeting at the White House with Vice President Kamala Harris months before former President Donald Trump’s Georgia indictment, according to a record of the schedule.

Mike Howell, a member of the Heritage Foundation and its Oversight Project, announced on Tuesday that the group uncovered a record of Willis, showing her visiting the White House on February 28, 2023, months ahead of Trump’s Georgia indictment.

A screenshot of the apparent schedule shows the meeting with Harris spanning over five hours:

The event Fani Willis most likely attended:

The invitation-only celebration was held at the private residence of Harris and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff.

In honor of Black History Month and in keeping with the theme of celebrating Black excellence, Vice President Kamala Harris and Second Gentleman Douglas Emhoff hosted trailblazing Black leaders at their private residence last month.

In collaboration with BET, Harris and Emhoff opened the door to their home on the evening of February 28 to honor a group of emerging, young Black leaders who are making impactful changes in several industries throughout the country. Harris spoke to more than 400 guests at the event about the importance of Black History Month and the responsibility of each generation to carry forward the “baton.”

Vice President Kamala Harris and BET Honor Young Black Trailblazers During Black History Month

 

February 28, 2023 – Twitter Files: The partisans who wove the ‘Censorship Complex’…a vast and tangled web

“While the “Twitter Files” and the Washington Examiner’s coverage of the Global Disinformation Index have revealed an expansive Censorship Complex that seeks to silence Americans for money, politics, ideology, and power, much still needs to be unraveled.

A search of government contracts and grants for the eight fiscal years from 2016 through today for the keywords “misinformation” or “disinformation” reveals 538 federal government grants and 36 contracts were awarded to a wide range of academic institutions and non-governmental organizations.

(…) Of the think tanks identified in Twitter communications, Alliance Securing Democracy (ASD) might be the most notorious thanks to Matt Taibbi’s exposé on ASD’s Hamilton 68 dashboard.

(…) According to its website, ASD is a project of the German Marshall Fund, which “is heavily funded by the American, German, and Swedish governments.” The fund has also received grants from eBay founder Pierre Omidyar’s Democracy Fund, and George Soros’ Open Society Foundation. The ASD likewise receives financing from left-leaning foundations, such as the Craigslist founder’s Craig Newmark Philanthropies.

(…) Another prominent organization the “Twitter Files” revealed as pushing for censorship — including multiple censorship requests flowing through that group to the tech giant — is the Election Integrity Partnership, which is run out of Stanford’s Internet Observatory.

(…) Further research on the other members of the Election Integrity Partnership reveals the Atlantic Council receives donations and federal grants, including from Facebook, Google, and the U.S. Department of State. And as will be shown shortly, the Atlantic Council is also connected to the Global Disinformation Index.

(…) Another member of the Election Integrity Partnership, Graphika, describes itself as a “network analysis company that examines how ideas and influence spread online.” Graphika’s chief innovation officer, Camille Francois “leads the company’s work to detect and mitigate disinformation, media manipulation and harassment.” Francois was previously the principal researcher at Google’s Jigsaw unit.

(…) The “Twitter Files” also made mention of the Center for Internet Security. In 2018, that nonprofit launched the Elections Infrastructure Information Sharing and Analysis Center (EI-ISAC), which “it claims supports the cybersecurity needs of election offices.” As part of those efforts, the Center for Internet Security crafted a one-page document for election officials, with directions for reporting misinformation or disinformation to the EI-ISAC. The federal U.S. Elections Commission would link to the CIS flyer on its government webpage.

(…) Other emails released as part of the “Twitter Files” reveal Clemson University’s role in the push for censorship at Twitter. And as was the case with Hamilton 68’s dashboard, Twitter’s team had concerns about Clemson’s disinformation research.

(…) Clemson’s research was used by another group joining the “disinformation” trend, Defending Democracy Together (DDT). In 2018, DDT launched the RussiaTweets.com project to supposedly provide “the evidence of Russian interference in American politics.”

(…) While Stanford and Clemson were the two main universities identified in the “Twitter Files,” Clemson’s Media Forensics Hub webpage identifies members of its “Disinformation Working Group,” revealing academia’s involvement in the Censorship Complex spans much further. It includes: the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Lincoln Lab, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Duke University, Bowdoin College, the University of South Carolina, Vanderbilt University, Georgetown University, and Wilfrid Laurier, a Canadian University supported by a Facebook grant.

Jeffrey Lees is Clemson’s coordinator with The Disinformation Working Group, a global, multidisciplinary research virtual space where members meet regularly to present work in progress at the frontier of research on disinformation, broadly defined. (Credit: Clemson’s Media Forensics Hub webpage)

The University of Buffalo, Lehigh University, and Northeastern University are likewise involved in the disinformation project, with a Clemson News release revealing that faculty at those universities, along with researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, launched a project titled “Disinformation Range to Improve User Awareness and Resilience to Online Disinformation.” The government, through a $750,000 grant from the National Science Foundation, is supporting those efforts.

(…) The Aspen Institute is also entwined in the Censorship Complex, having hosted in the fall of 2020 “a series of off-the-record briefings to help prepare every major US newsroom and tech platform for potential hack-and-leak operations and a contested post-election environment.” One of the briefings involved a tabletop exercise facilitated by Aspen’s Garrett Graff that posed a hack-and-leak October surprise involving Hunter Biden.

(…) Another nonprofit, the Global Disinformation Index, has already begun pushing an “actionable response to the disinformation crisis,” by pressuring advertisers to dump news outlets based on GDI’s view of their “disinformation risk.” However, as the Washington Examiner revealed in Gabe Kaminsky’s investigative series, the GDI’s December 2022 report, prepared in partnership with the University of Texas-Austin’s Global Disinformation Lab, brands only conservative outlets as the top “riskiest.” Conversely, the “least risky” outlets all lean left, other than The Wall Street Journal, and are also the same outlets that got the most significant news stories of the last decade wrong.

(…) A strong connection also exists between GDI and the U.S. government through an arm of the State Department, the Global Engagement Center, which has also made several appearances in the “Twitter Files.”  (Much more: The Federalist, 2/28/2023)  (Archive)

(Timeline editor’s note: This timeline entry wins the most tags award!)