There’s just something very sketchy about this public release of information from Judge Merchan in New York City. Merchan doesn’t have an integrity bone and the comment he is bringing attention toward is innocuous and random. However, Merchan could be trying to get Trump to violate the gag order aspect and talk about jurors; thereby making the sentencing worse.
According to information Merchan is providing the lawyers in the Trump case, a comment was made on the court’s FaceBook page indicating one of the jurors said the Trump guilty verdict was predetermined. [SOURCE] “My cousin is a juror and says Trump is getting convicted. Thank you folks for all your hard work!!!”
Why would Judge Merchan want to draw public attention to this?
Either something bigger is being diluted by this story, or perhaps Merchan is using it as a provocation to get Trump to talk about the jury and violate his gag order ahead of sentencing.
Or, perhaps Merchan is looking to create a mistrial to exit the case, or do it over again and extend the gag order. Also, why not include the entire quote from the Facebook Page:
In his letter to Trump’s lawyers and the DA’s office regarding the shady comment, Merchan did NOT mention any sort of investigation into the matter.
A lot of people are calling this one of President Trump’s greatest interviews; if not – perhaps the best ever.
Dr. Phil had a lengthy interview with President Trump, drilling down on how Trump deals with being the target of so much vitriol, hatred and weaponized targeting from every facet of the American system of government. I think the interview is being well received because the questions go beyond talking about the details of the targeting and focus on the emotional part of how President Trump and his family deal with it.
These are the types of questions that ordinary supporters of the MAGA effort would likely ask President Trump. WATCH:
As a former U.S. Ambassador for President Trump, I have witnessed more corruption than most people can imagine. President Trump was right when he said that the true threat to the Republican Party is the enemy from within.
During my tenure as ambassador, China was unleashing bioweapons, and I was criticized for fighting back. I was unanimously confirmed to my position and I have donated millions and volunteered countless hours to serve Republican leadership. I even contributed to Senate election chief Steve Daines, and he had no problem accepting my money.
For 17 years, I have sat on the board of the Republican Jewish Coalition. I have treated cancer patients, saving the lives of children, veterans, family, and friends. I know exactly what it’s like to fight outside enemies. But what this race has taught me is that the enemy fighting from within is more dangerous than any adversary.
I declared my candidacy in July of 2023, poised to start strong. Then, I received a call from my general consultant informing me that they received a threat from the NRSC, threatening to pull over $20 million of business from the group if they continued to support me. Consequently, they abandoned me. A similar call came from my friends at the RJC, who received similar threats. We lost vendors, donors, and belief in the system.
But we fought on and gained ground. The harder we fought, the more corruption we encountered. Republicans, heavily led by the NRSC RINO Swamp, spent more time and money fighting me than fighting Democrats. They insulted my patients and even suggested I needed professional help. They called me a crackpot and a weirdo.
I’ve always said that President Trump is the Deep State’s worst enemy. They know this, and so they work tirelessly to keep him down. And just like President Trump, I won’t be fazed by these efforts.
The level of corruption and betrayal I have seen from within the party is staggering. It’s not just about money or power; it’s about a complete disregard for the principles and values that we, as Republicans, are supposed to stand for. The NRSC and other party elites have shown that they are more interested in maintaining their control and influence than in supporting candidates who genuinely want to make a difference. They support a candidate who stole money from the people of Nevada to pay off his own debts through a “Scam” PAC. A ghost candidate who refuses to debate and is down 14 points in general election polls.
I have often wondered if this resistance is driven by antisemitism, as the NRSC hasn’t supported a Jewish candidate in decades, or if it’s simply because my record shows that I won’t be intimidated. They see my strength, my resilience, and my dedication to fighting for what is right, and they feel threatened. But Nevada, take note: I will never stop fighting.
When I become the next United States Senator from this great Silver State, the corruption ends on day one. I will work tirelessly to ensure that the voices of the people are heard and that the true values of our party are upheld.
The Republican Party is at a crossroads. It’s time to take a stand. It’s time to say enough is enough. We must hold our leaders accountable and demand that they put the interests of the people above their own. We must root out the corruption and ensure that our party is one that we can all be proud of.
I will continue to stand strong, to fight for what is right, and to represent the people of Nevada with honor and integrity. Together, we can bring about the change that we so desperately need. Together, we can restore the Republican Party to its true greatness. Thank you for your support, and God bless America.
Dr. Jeffrey Gunter, MD, is an American healthcare executive, philanthropist, diplomat, and former U.S. Ambassador serving as the 24th United States Ambassador to Iceland. He is currently a candidate for U.S. Senate in Nevada.
Russell Brand: “In a straight choice between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, if you care about democracy, if you care about freedom, I don’t know how you could do anything other than vote for Donald Trump.” pic.twitter.com/mBbkTXH8Wp
It looks like the Soviet show trial is blowing up in the faces of the Democrat party as Donald Trump gets a massive wind in his sails following the guilty verdict.
Trump’s approval rating has gone up following his sham guilty verdict in New York, according to a new poll.
It just goes to show that the vast majority of Americans know what the trial was all about and disapprove of the Democrats’ fascist tactics.
More backfire is coming, but this is a good start.
Townhall reports: “If the Democratic Party thought convicting former President Donald Trump was going to make his millions of supporters abandon him, they better think twice.
In fact, he got a six-point jump in approval after being found guilty of 34 counts for falsifying business records.”
Donald Trump also raised over $50m in just 24 hours following the conviction. The American people can see through this Soviet style show trial.
Despite the apparent beliefs of the Democrat party, Americans are not stupid. No one believes that Trump was given due process or a fair trial. This, like every other attempt to beat Trump into submission, has spectacularly blown up in the faces of the bewildered Democrats.
“Wrong! You Don’t Know What You’re Talking About!” – Megyn Kelly Schools a Triggered Dan Abrams on His Own Show During Explosive Debate Over Trump Guilty Verdict (VIDEO)
Liberal Newsnation anchor Dan Abrams got completely owned by former Fox News host Megyn Kelly while debating her on the disgraceful Trump guilty verdict Thursday night.
As the Gateway Pundit reported, the rigged New York City jury convicted President Trump on ALL 34 COUNTS in Alvin Bragg and corrupt Judge Juan Merchan’s lawfare case Thursday afternoon.
A giddy Merchan saluted the jury members for their “dedication and hard work” after one of American history’s greatest travesties of justice. The next step is the sentencing phase on July 11, where Merchan will have a chance to throw Trump behind bars.
Merchan to jurors: I really admire your dedication and hard work. You worked very hard and gave this matter the attention it deserves.
Abrams invited Kelly onto his eponymous show, Dan Abrams Live,to allow her to weigh in on this despicable assault on America. The conversation soon blew up Abrams’s face when he decided to assert Trump was guilty of “wrongdoing” for paying $130,000 to Stormy Daniels to protect his 2016 Presidential campaign even if what Trump supposedly did was not technically illegal.
Pathological liar Michael Cohen was the person who paid off Daniels. Moreover, there is no evidence Trump actually ordered him to do so or even had an affair with her to begin with.
Kelly fired back by saying she did not know what kind of marriage Donald and Melania Trump have while citing Bill and Hillary’s open marriage in comparison. They continued sparring over whether paying off Daniels was an example of wrongdoing and immorality.
However, things went off the rails for Abrams when he asked Kelly whether Trump falsified business records. Kelly replied, “There’s nothing wrong” with paying hush money to protect an NDA.
Abrams argued that this would be different if campaign finance laws were involved, and he became enraged when Kelly pointed out that he was wrong and had no clue what he was talking about. She explained paying hush money “does not amount to a campaign contribution if it is the kind of payment that could ever be made outside of the campaign context.”
An ignorant Abrams, unaware he had just been schooled, closed by claiming the standard is sustainability (which it’s not).
WATCH (exchange begins at roughly the 2:50 mark):
ABRAMS: Okay, let me back up. You don’t think he falsified business records either?
KELLY: I don’t know that he did.
ABRAMS: What does that mean?! We just had a whole trial! We heard every detail of this! How can you not know?
KELLY: I don’t think he wrote down hush money payments to Stormy Daniels… I think someone at the Trump Organization wrote down legal expenses, and that made as much sense as anything else because hush money wasn’t an option.
He (Trump) was paying his lawyer who made the payment to Stormy Daniels and was I believe reimbursing him (Cohen) though he (Cohen) denied that on the stand. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. You paid your lawyer because they outlay money for you…You can easily classify that as a legal expense.
ABRAMS (scoffing): No matter what it’s for? Even if it’s illegal conduct?
KELLY: This wasn’t illegal. There’s nothing illegal about paying hush money for an NDA.
ABRAMS: There’s not, but when you’re doing it to protect your campaign, it is. That’s the difference.
KELLY: Wrong! You don’t know what you’re talking about! You’re wrong!
ABRAMS: Explain to me then. Tell me what I’m getting wrong.
KELLY: It does not amount to a campaign contribution if it is the kind of payment that could ever be made outside of the campaign context.
ABRAMS: That’s not the standard. The standard is substantiality!
KELLY: It’s not.
ABRAMS: It is!
Kelly is right. As Gateway Pundit readers know, the prosecution completely failed to clearly define the so-called “criminal” act or any wrongdoing committed by Trump.
But the court convicted him anyway out of pure hatred.
When people talk about normalizing things that were previously extreme and radical, they sometimes use the metaphor of the Overton Window. Within this conversation between Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump Jr, the Overton Window doesn’t shift, it jumps. The potential killing of President Trump is mentioned casually against the backdrop of a weaponized justice system.
More frequently than any other political pundit or political voice, Tucker Carlson mentions the likely killing of President Donald John Trump. I’m not sure why he does it, but I have heard the assassination theme from him in more than a dozen public statements.
Don Trump Jr notes the most recent occurrence of Tucker talking about “them” killing Trump after the NYC guilty verdict. Don Jr agrees with the possibility, then talks about his new perspective on the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The very disconcerting issue that circles the killing of Donald Trump is raised by Tucker Carlson at four separate points within this interview. WATCH:
Judicial Watch: Biden Justice Department Admits Special Counsel Transcript of Biden Interviews Is Inaccurate
Judicial Watch Filed New FOIA Request Today on Disturbing Development
(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced that the White House admitted in a federal court that the transcript of President Joe Biden’s testimony to Special Counsel Robert Hur is not accurate and is missing “filler words (such as ‘um’ or ‘uh’)” and words that “may have been repeated when spoken (such as ‘I, I’ or ‘and, and’)” which were sometimes “only listed a single time in the transcripts.” In its new filing the Biden Justice Department makes the extraordinary assertions of executive privilege and privacy to hide the Biden audio. The agency makes the unprecedented assertion that because “AI” could be used to alter Biden’s words the material should be kept secret.
The Justice Department filing, filed around 11:00 p.m. last night (Friday), reads in part:
13. After the interview, SCO [Special Counsel Office] created written transcripts of the audio recording with the assistance of a trained professional court reporter – one transcript for each day of the interview. I have read the entirety of the written transcripts of the interview. As I listened to the audio recording, I compared it to the transcripts of the audio recording and specifically listened for differences between the transcripts and audio recording. In a few instances, the transcripts indicate that some words from the audio recording are indiscernible. In listening to the audio recording and reviewing the transcripts, I agree that in those instances the words are indiscernible.
14. The interview transcripts are accurate transcriptions of the words of the interview contained in the audio recording, except for minor instances such as the use of filler words (such as “um” or “uh”) when speaking that are not always reflected on the transcripts, or when words may have been repeated when spoken (such as “I, I” or “and, and”) but sometimes was only listed a single time in the transcripts. Besides these exceedingly minor differences, based on my simultaneous review of the transcripts while listening to the audio recording, the transcripts accurately capture the words spoken during the interview on the audio recording with no material differences between the audio recording and transcripts. None of the minor differences include any audible substantive exchanges – that is, based on my review, there is no material omission of words be tween the audio recording and transcripts. Special Counsel Hur and FBI personnel who attended the interview and compared the audio recording to the transcripts also informed me of their determination that the transcripts accurately reflect the words spoken on the audio recording aside from the minor instances I described above. Special Counsel Hur emphasized to me that it was important for purposes of his investigation that the interview transcripts be accurate.
“Wow. Judicial Watch’s FOIA lawsuit forced the Biden team to admit what everyone suspected – that the transcript is not accurate and was changed in a way to help Biden,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “There is nothing ordinary about this, and the transcript inaccuracy issues seem to help Biden’s political campaign needs. We today initiated a new FOIA request on this Biden’s Nixonian tape scandal.”
On March 11, 2024, Judicial Watch filed its FOIA lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Justice in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after the Department of Justice failed to respond to a February 2024 FOIA request for records of all Special Counsel interviews of President Biden (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Department of Justice (No. 1:24-cv-00700)). A redacted transcript of the Biden interview was released on April 15.
In April, the Justice Department told the court that it would not disclose the audio recordings of special counsel interviews with President Joe Biden in order to protect Biden’s “privacy” interests.
On February 5, 2024, Hur issued the “Report of the Special Counsel on the Investigation Into Unauthorized Removal, Retention, and Disclosure of Classified Documents Discovered at Locations Including the Penn Biden Center and the Delaware Private Residence of President Joseph R. Biden, Jr.”
In the report, Hur called Biden a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory” and declined to charge Biden with a “serious felony:”
We have also considered that, at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory. Based on our direct interactions with and observations of him, he is someone for whom many jurors will want to identify reasonable doubt. It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him-by then a former president well into his eighties-of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness.
Prior to the finalization of the report, the White House issued a letter to the Special Counsel’s office attacking the report’s “treatment of President Biden’s memory,” and added “there is ample evidence from your interview that the President did well in answering your questions …”
The Heritage Foundation and a CNN-led media coalition have recently been joined with Judicial Watch’s lawsuit.
Judicial Watch has several ongoing FOIA lawsuits about Biden’s document scandals and the related unprecedented partisan prosecutorial and judicial abuses of former President Donald J. Trump.
Weren’t we just writing about perjury? Why yes, we were, in connection with Michael Cohen’s apparent lie under oath in his anti-Trump testimony last week. Lying is what he does, of course. But on a separate matter, whistleblower-provided documents are now fueling new accusations that Hunter Biden — the president’s son — lied at least three times during sworn Congressional testimony back in February. The Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee lays out the evidence, which he says proves that the younger Biden “repeatedly lied to Congress in his February deposition to distance his involvement in what should be considered a clear scheme to enrich the Biden family.”
Watch Rep. Jason Smith lay out the facts, piece by piece:
🧵Hunter Biden lied to Congress.
New evidence from IRS whistleblowers released by @WaysandMeansGOP reveal multiple instances where Hunter Biden lied during his congressional deposition in February.
First, Hunter Biden lied about the recipient of a WhatsApp message sent with the apparent intention to threaten a business associate and demand payment. In the message, Hunter Biden twice mentioned he was with his father. In the deposition, Hunter Biden sought to dismiss the message, claiming that he was either quote “high or drunk” when he sent it, and in that state, had sent it to the wrong Zhao, and not actually the one affiliated with the Chinese energy company, CEFC. Hunter claimed under oath that the recipient, quote “had no understanding or even remotely knew what…I was even…talking about.” However, phone records in front of the Committee today show Hunter Biden sent the message to the correct Chinese businessman by the name of Raymond Zhao who not only was affiliated with CEFC, but knew exactly what Hunter Biden was talking about. For several months, the pair messaged back and forth on the same phone numbers, and ultimately an affiliate of CEFC, Raymond Zhao’s company, sent $5 million to Hunter Biden and his associates just days after Hunter’s threatening message. These documents make clear that Hunter Biden was using his father’s name to shake down a Chinese businessman – and it worked. And when confronted by Congressional investigators about it, he lied.
Second, Hunter Biden lied when he claimed he was not the corporate secretary of Rosemont Seneca Bohai and that the shell company he established with Devon Archer and its associated bank accounts were not under his control nor affiliated with him. The truth is in his own handwriting, and it is in front of our Committee today. On an official Rosemont Seneca Bohai document accepting yet another foreign payment, Hunter Biden wrote, ‘I, Robert Hunter Biden, hereby certify that I am the duly elected, qualified and acting Secretary of Rosemont Seneca Bohai, LLC.’ The Committee has also obtained evidence that shows Hunter Biden was, in fact, the beneficial owner of a bank account in the name of Rosemont Seneca Bohai.
Third, Hunter Biden lied during his deposition when he said he never helped individuals obtain U.S. visas. The whistleblowers have provided an email to the Committee between Devon Archer, Hunter Biden, and Ukrainian associates in which Archer stated, ‘Hunter is checking with Miguel Aleman to see if he can provide cover to Kola on the visa.’ Kola, being the CEO of Burisma, Nikolay Zlochevsky and whose, the email also indicates, U.S. visa was revoked as there was concern about his foreign travel. These documents also confirm, again, that the IRS Whistleblowers have been telling the truth all along and include another example of the Department of Justice putting up roadblocks in this investigation.
All of these alleged lies are damaging. The first piece of evidence casts serious doubt on Hunter Biden’s claims trying to distance himself from a (successful) multimillion-dollar shakedown of a Chinese energy company — the same company involved in the infamous ‘ten percent for the Big Guy‘ email involving Joe Biden. The third piece of evidence also lends significant credence to the accusation that Hunter Biden used his family’s name and influence (for which he was lavishly compensated) to seek US visa-related favors on behalf of a Burisma executive. Biden said under oath that he wouldn’t have done such a thing, but here’s a message from a close business associate spelling out that the First Son was doing precisely that. It’s possible that on the first alleged lie, Hunter might try to claim he was confused about exactly whom he was texting at time, though the additional context seems to make that highly unlikely.
On the third alleged lie, perhaps Hunter could contend that his business associate had misrepresented what Hunter was, or was not doing. Again, that’s dubious, but it might be something of a shield against perjury. But the second lie looks like it’s pretty cut-and-dried. Hunter Biden claimed that he was not the corporate secretary of an incriminating shell corporation, and that he didn’t even know that such a position existed. But the committee, courtesy of the whistleblowers, has produced a document filled out by Biden, by hand, in which he attested to be “the duly elected, qualified and acting Secretary of Rosemont Seneca Bohai, LLC.” I’m hardly a legal expert, but this looks like a smoking gun:
Hunter Biden’s own handwriting proved it was a lie.
He signed a corporate document in 2014 affirming that he was the acting Secretary of Rosemont Seneca Bohai. pic.twitter.com/QPmExfZjrz
This delay was reportedly sought by the First Son’s attorneys, but I’m not sure the timing can be overly thrilling to his father’s campaign. Recall that there are tax charges against Hunter Biden (though the most serious alleged crimes were allowed to lapse by federal prosecutors), gun charges against Hunter Biden — and based on the information above, one wonders if any perjury charges may follow.
Posting to Truth Social account, President Trump shared a video with the background narration of Victor Davis Hanson last night.
The outline as spoken eloquently by VDH, walks through the fear of the entire apparatus of the political left; a fear created by their inability to destroy everything that Donald J Trump represents. {Direct Rumble Link}
REMEMBER: The need for control is a reaction to fear. Often people write the professional political leftists within the IC, Deep State and DOJ/FBI apparatus do not look fearful, act with fear, nor do they operate from an appearance of fearfulness. However, that counterpoint is wrong. It is exactly fear that creates the severe need for control. The more fearful they are, the more vitriolic and dangerous their triggered need for control becomes.
The way to destroy the professional political left is to laugh at them. Laugh and ignore the communists. Ridicule evil. Belittle them. Force them to exhibit their insufferable need for control. This natural ability to be their toxic kryptonite is the gift that Donald J Trump represents, and the best part is he doesn’t create it.
Donald John Trump is authentic to himself. Even when he is in the middle of battle, President Trump lives, breathes and engages in the mechanisms of life the same way he would if the battle was not happening around him. President Trump is oblivious to how difficult the terrain around him is. Trump lives as Trump would live, absorbing the attacks upon him as fuel for his own sense of purpose.
Every attack against Trump only makes the purpose of him seem bigger, stronger and bolder, which makes Donald Trump a uniquely natural destroyer of leftism. President Trump walks at the center of the hurricane wind that surrounds him, and close allies who veer away from a very tight orbit quickly get destroyed by the intensity of the attack winds.
I am openly a person of faith. I also accept things as they are. After watching closely, I believe the only aspect of the man that reconciles with the visible outcome is that Donald John Trump is surrounded by protection. Prayer works.
It’s been 100 years since a Republican candidate has won the Bronx, but this evening Donald J. Trump will host his South Bronx rally in one of the bluest areas in the entire state of New York.
The rally is set to take place at 6pm before a massive crowd in Crotona Park – just weeks after another massive gathering of 100,000 supporters in New Jersey. Crotona Park , a 127 acre public park, is just blocks away from the boundary line of Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s district.
Democrats (and assorted Marxist crazies) plan to hold a counter-rally at the other end of the same park.
“One of the other things I’m going to do — and I may be foolish in doing it — is I’m going to make a heavy play for New York, heavy play for New Jersey, heavy play for Virginia, heavy play for New Mexico, and a heavy play for a state that hasn’t been won in years, Minnesota.”
Rappers Trump Latinos and Forgiato Blow perform ahead of a campaign rally of former US President Donald Trump at Crotona Park in the South Bronx, New York City on May 23, 2024.Rapper Forgiato Blow shows his tattoo ahead of a campaign rally of former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.Trump supporters line up at Crotona Park to spot the ex-president
UPDATE, PART ONE: Merrick Garland Approved Use of Deadly Force at Mar-a-Lago Raid — Made Plans for Casualties — Brought Medic — And Handed Out Directions to Local Trauma Center (VIDEO)
Armed FBI agents storm President Trump’s home at Mar-a-Lago in August 2022 looking for incriminating documents – reportedly about them. The Biden DOJ authorized deadly force for the raid.
Part One– Judge Aileen Cannon on Tuesday unsealed numerous motions related to Jack Smith’s classified documents case against Trump. The documents included evidence that Joe Biden was ready to have his main political rival Donald Trump and his family killed for a publicity stunt!
Of course, if ANY OTHER SH*THOLE COUNTRY did this to a political rival the Biden regime would be lecturing that country about human rights. Joe Biden has single-handedly destroyed all civilized norms for this great nation.
FBI agents scattered Trump’s personal papers around the floor for their photos.
This is an absolutely shocking development.
Cristina Laila reported earlier that one filing revealed Biden’s FBI authorized the use of deadly force during their raid on Mar-a-Lago authorized by US Attorney General Merrick Garland in August 2022.
Tons of new unsealed filings on classified docs case–I will try to post as much as I can (there goes the workout) but this is mind-blowing.
But there is even more shocking information included in the released report.
The Biden regime not only approved deadly force at President Trump’s home where Secret Service members are stationed every day but they also made plans for casualties.
The Biden DOJ and Chris Wray’s FBI also set up a triage unit and notified a local trauma unit to prepare for casualties.
The FBI also authorized agents to raid the guest rooms at Mar-a-Lago and terrorize the guests there.
It now looks like our government is now the American people’s number one enemy.
Investigative reporter Julie Kelly joined Steve Bannon on The War Room on Tuesday afternoon to discuss this shocking development.
Julie Kelly: Part of this disclosure today, as I’m reading through this, Steve, and I really had to read it a few times to believe it, is that in the FBI operations plan, they give guidance on the use of W-4 at Mar-a-Lago. This is part of this 20-page whatever plan that the FBI and enforcement put together. In addition to that, they discussed how these agents, they had about 30 agents, 25 from Miami, four from Washington Field Office, who were armed. They had weapons, they had ammo, They had handcuffs, and they talked about what would happen if Donald Trump showed up at Mar-a-Lago during this raid.
Steve Bannon: I want to go back for a second to number one, the use of deadly force. Didn’t I also see in your Twitter stream that they also had a plan for triaging people if they had casualties and they actually had notified or they had a place to take people if they had casualties? Did I read that incorrectly?
Julie Kelly: No, you read it correctly. With the FBI team, Embedded was a medic, and they talked about in another form how to treat anyone who is injured during the raid. They identified a trauma center about 18 miles from Mar-a-Lago, and they inserted a map of how to get from Mar-a-Lago to this trauma center if anyone was injured or hurt during the raid.
Steve Bannon: Okay, don’t bury the lead. There’s one lead, and this is it. They actually got authority for use of deadly force, and they had plans for casualties. They brought a medic. They had plans for casualties. They had a trauma center set up, and they had a map to the trauma center. That’s all part of a component of one thing, I take it, Julie Kelly?
Julie Kelly: Correct. This is part of the plan to conduct the nine-hour raid, armed raid of Mar-a-Lago. I know some other people are extrapolating that this was a plan to harm the former president or someone at Mar-a-Lago. Staff, the God forbid, his family. I’m not so sure that that is where this leads, but it’s not hard to come…
Steve Bannon: Hang on, why use a deadly force against a former President of the United States who just had an election stolen from him? Yes, a year before. Hang on for one second… Times of Turbulence. Julie Kelly walks through these documents, these are the documents that have been hidden from view. This is why Judge Canon is so furious… We keep going down this route. It’s going to be the End of the American Republic.
UPDATE PART TWO, BIDEN’S ARMED & DANGEROUS MAR-A-LAGO RAID: FBI Took DOZENS of Photos in Melania Trump’s Room – Were Focused On Her “Binders” – And They Were Ready to Kill (VIDEO)
Armed FBI agents storm President Trump’s home at Mar-a-Lago in August 2022 looking for incriminating documents – reportedly about them. The Biden DOJ authorized deadly force for the raid.
Part Two:
Judge Aileen Cannon on Tuesday unsealed numerous motions related to Jack Smith’s classified documents case against Trump. The documents included evidence that Joe Biden was ready to have his main political rival, Donald Trump, and his family killed for a publicity stunt!
Of course, if ANY OTHER THIRD WORLD COUNTRY did this to a political rival, the Biden regime would be lecturing that country about human rights. Joe Biden has single-handedly destroyed this nation’s cultural norms and historic precedent in less than four years.
Cristina Laila reported earlier that one filing revealed Biden’s FBI authorized the use of deadly force during their raid on Mar-a-Lago authorized by US Attorney General Merrick Garland in August 2022.
But there is even more shocking information included in the released report that we reported earlier. The Biden regime not only approved deadly force at President Trump’s home, where Secret Service members are stationed every day but they also made plans for casualties. The Biden DOJ and Chris Wray’s FBI also notified a local trauma unit to prepare for casualties.
The FBI also authorized agents to raid the guest rooms at Mar-a-Lago and terrorize the guests there.
Julie Kelly reported more details from the reports that were released on Tuesday.
The Biden regime took several photos in Melania Trump and Barron Trump’s bedrooms – and they were interested in the binders in Melania’s room.
Steve Bannon: What hat they did to Melania’s suite, Melania’s Room, and Baron’s Room.
Julie Kelly: There’s another filing disclosed by Trump’s team, and this is an FBI document categorizing all the photos that were taken.
There are dozens of photos taken out of Melania’s Room, and several taken out of Baron’s Room. I don’t know exactly what they were. It just refers to the location. But what? And there’s actually, and I’m going to be posting this in Mike Davis, your ears are going to be burning as soon as I say this, there are probably 15 citations of pictures of binders in Melania Trump’s suite. ‘Binder,’ that’s the word that they use. Now, I know what Mike Davis is going to say, which is what he’s been saying from the beginning, that this whole thing was based on trying to retrieve Trump’s copy of the Crossfire Hurricane’s document. So what were they doing in Melania’s suite? And why were they taking pictures of binders that she had in her bedroom? So that again.
But whoever said that the FBI was spoiling for a fight, that is Absolutely what this looks like. And we are lucky that no one was hurt during that raid because they were prepared for a fight.
Here is the video from the War Room
This is exactly what The Gateway Pundit has been reporting since the week of the Mar-a-Lago raid in August 2022.
In February, sources close to the high-profile investigation revealed that the FBI’s raid on Mar-a-Lago was specifically aimed at recovering a “missing top-secret binder.”
This document is rumored to contain damning evidence of former President Barack Obama’s CIA’s involvement in initiating the Russia collusion narrative against President Trump.
Fox News host Jesse Watters discussed these details on his show, citing reporting by investigative journalists Michael Schellenberger and Matt Taibbi.
President Trump declassified a binder on January 19th, 2021 that contains hundreds of pages about the Crossfire Hurricane scandal. It contains damaging information about the corrupt actors involved with our government. Two different DOJ Attorney General’s have defied President Trump’s direct lawful order to publish the binder in the Federal Register. It’s been 19 months as the DOJ defies the order, and every FOIA request to make it public.
The DOJ had already made redactions to protect sources and methods and returned the binder back to the White House. But the corrupt FBI also wanted to hide names. So at the last minute, the DOJ demanded the binder comply with the 1974 Privacy Act. The Act requires any “agency” that releases records to also hide personal or identifiable name information. The DOJ knew this Act doesn’t apply to the White House, it was a stall tactic. The courts decided this 22 years ago that the Privacy Act was based around FOIA requests, and the White House is not an agency.
Hours before Trump left office on January 20th, Chief of Staff Mark Meadows gave the binder back to the DOJ, along with this memo. He asked the DOJ to make any Privacy Act redactions “out of an abundance of caution.” In the memo, he asks them to expeditiously release the binder when finished. Meadows foolishly expected this would take 3-4 days. It’s over three years now and it’s still not released. Just the News recently obtained the Meadows memo from the National Archives, who also denied having a copy of the declassified binder.
Meadows admitted in interviews that various agencies often stalled or defied Trump’s orders. Meadows knew better than to rely on the DOJ to release this damaging binder after they left the White House. He should have released the binder to the public himself. But in doing so, there was a chance he would become a target of the DOJ and FBI. The memorandum below is what Mr. Meadows sent to the DOJ Attorney General on January 20th, 2021.
Details from the Mar-a-Lago raid offered an explanation on what the FBI was looking for and why the FBI has not released the Spygate documents as they were ordered to when President Trump left office.
Investigative reporter Paul Sperry had his Twitter account taken down for the second time after he tweeted about the Mar-a-Lago raid and what the FBI was looking for.
According to Paul Sperry, the FBI agents spent 9 hours looking for details President Trump took with him on the Crossfire Hurricane FBI spying scandal.
The FBI and DOJ cannot let the American public know the truth of their criminal acts and attempted coup against President Trump. So they raided his home, looking for the documents that may indict the organization.
Twitter has suspended journalist Paul Sperry after he made several tweets about this week’s FBI raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence, where they spent up to 9 hours rifling through the former president’s private office, Melania Trump’s wardrobe, and eventually took 12 boxes of material…
Sperry: “DEVELOPING: Investigators reportedly met back in June w Trump & his lawyers in Mar-a-Lago storage rm to survey docs & things seemed copasetic but then FBI raids weeks later. Speculation on Hill FBI had PERSONAL stake & searching for classified docs related to its #Spygate scandal.”
Sperry also tweeted a list of “conflicted” DOJ officials who were “briefed on the Mar-a-Lago raid”, and noted that “CNN is admonishing reporters not to call the FBI raid of Trump’s home a “raid,” but instead to term it as a “judge-approved search.”
— ULTRA MAGA ENRIC0 SUAVE (@anaelena12345) August 9, 2022
He also tweeted: “Funny, don’t remember the FBI raiding Chappaqua or Whitehaven to find the 33,000 potentially classified documents Hillary Clinton deleted,” adding “And she was just a former secretary of state, not a former president.”
Some People Surprised – The FBI Was Prepared to Use Deadly Force Against Trump Security Detail During Mar-a-Lago Raid to Regain Deep State FBI/DOJ Secrets
Some people are expressing shock that the FBI was prepared to use deadly force against President Trump and his Secret Service security detail during the DOJ raid on Mar-a-Lago. Julie Kelly has the DETAILS HERE.
I am not surprised in the least. Remember, the objective of the FBI raid was to resecure the physical evidence that President Trump had showing how the DOJ and FBI action in 2016 was targeting him using the power of their law enforcement and intelligence agencies. The origination of all the DOJ/FBI/IC issues goes back to the ’15/’16 FBI exploitation of the NSA database; this is not a contested discussion issue – it’s just continually forgotten.
The FBI was using their access to the NSA metadata of all Americans, to conduct surveillance on political candidates that might be a threat to the power structures that exploited the secrets within the electronic records of all Americans. The FBI was/is conducting domestic surveillance and tracking just like the German Stasi or Soviet KGB. It’s still happening, but we are not supposed to remember or something.
The raid on Mar-a-Lago, just like the Robert Mueller investigation, was part of the long standing coverup operation. The FBI was looking for what Trump took with him as evidence of the weaponized system that targeted him. The FBI wanted that back. The FBI was willing to use deadly force to get it back if that’s what it took.
The raid involved 25 Miami FBI agents, four Washington FBI agents, one unidentified individual from FBI Headquarters, one DOJ attorney, and the assistant U.S. Attorney from the Southern District of Florida. (MORE)
Yes, apparently the FBI was prepared to engage in a gun battle or kill people in Mar-a-Lago in order to retake the evidence against them. I know it sounds scarey, but that’s the reality of our modern FBI. These are not good people. Remember also that AG Merrick Garland said he authorized every facet of the raid.
I keep trying to drive the point home, these are not good people…. yet, many refuse to accept, pretend it just can’t be that bad, or keep forgetting the real examples that prove how bad the FBI is.
The modern FBI is the police agency of a weaponized U.S government, with a direct and purposeful mandate to keep the American people under control through strict surveillance and a violent police state.
Understand and accept this with great seriousness, there are no honorable “rank and file” inside this organization.
Every member of the FBI is a participant in the weaponization of power and government. The members are jackboots recruited from ideological college campuses for exactly the purpose of supporting a Stasi-like police state.
Through the past several years, we have discovered how the FBI worked inside Twitter, Facebook and social media to control information, remove content and manipulate opinion on behalf of the U.S. government – all activity political.
We have also learned the FBI took active measures to suppress information about the Hunter Biden laptop and control any negative consequences for the Biden regime – again, political. These are not disputed realities.
The U.S. Dept of Justice and FBI are now political institutions that have abandoned their originating mission in order to become the domestic equivalent of the Soviet-era FSB. Their joint targeting mechanisms have been redesigned to support the interests of corrupt DC politicians, specifically the interests of Democrats.
It was in June 2022, when Senator Chuck Grassley sent a letter [pdf HERE] to Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Chris Wray, notifying them of whistleblower allegations from within the FBI that senior leadership in both Main Justice and FBI are involved in a coordinated effort to cover up criminal activity related to Hunter Biden.
The whistleblower allegations, in combination with the documented history of DOJ and FBI misconduct, culminate in Senator Grassley stating:
“If these allegations are true and accurate, the Justice Department and FBI are – and have been – institutionally corrupted to their very core to the point in which the United States Congress and the American people will have no confidence in the equal application of the law. Attorney General Garland and Director Wray, simply put, based on the allegations that I’ve received from numerous whistleblowers, you have systemic and existential problems within your agencies.” (LINK)
Grassley was admitting what has been visible for years.
Senator Grassley is telling the corrupt DOJ-FBI leadership that people in the organizations are outlining the detailed behavior of their corrupt leadership. However, with zero oversight involved, and with Democrats in charge of all committees that would be responsible for such oversight, and with institutional media in alignment and agreement with the corrupt institutional intents of the DOJ/FBI, the frustrating question becomes, “and“?
I mean, who are we kidding? If Republicans were in charge of the Senate Judiciary, Reform/Oversight, or Intelligence committees, do we really believe that anything would be different? Before responding to that cynicism, remind yourself, they were for four years, January 2015 through January 2019, Republicans in charge of oversight.
It was exactly when Republicans were in charge of Main Justice and FBI oversight that Main Justice and FBI were targeting political candidate Donald Trump.
In July 2021, the DOJ OIG produced an absolutely damning Inspector General investigation of FBI conduct in the rape and sexual assault of U.S. Gymnasts, revealing how FBI agents facilitated Nassar’s sex crimes by taking no action despite numerous witness statements to them.
Worse yet, the FBI never reported the sexual assaults to local law enforcement… and to top it off, the rank and vile FBI agents lied during the investigation of their conduct, and the DOJ under AG Bill Barr, and now under AG Merrick Garland, refused to prosecute the FBI liars.
The entire IG report [Must Read pdf Here] reveals layer-upon-layer of FBI wrongdoing, misconduct and false statements in an effort to cover up their activity when the internal investigation of their conduct began. This report is a total condemnation of the FBI rank and file. It really is quite stunning.
BACKGROUND on FBI – As we discovered in January of 2023, the FBI was fully aware of the terrorist who was planning to shoot the synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, and yet they did nothing.
The FBI knowledge of the shooter, Malik Faisal Akram, who was known as Faisal Akram, was confirmed by The Daily Mail. Akram ranted, prior to his travel to the U.S, that he wished he had died in the 9/11 terror attacks. He was a regular visitor to Pakistan, and reportedly a member of the Tablighi Jamaat group set up to ‘purify’ Islam. To say the U.S. intelligence system knew Faisal Akram would be an understatement.
The FBI was also fully aware of the Boston Marathon bombers, the Tsarnaev brothers, before they executed their plot. The FBI took no action. The Russian police twice warned the FBI that the Tsarnaev brothers were going to carry out a domestic terrorist attack on the USA, the FBI did nothing.
The FBI knew in advance of the Pulse Nightclub shooter (Omar Mateen) and were tipped off by the local sheriff. The FBI knew in advance of the San Bernardino Terrorists (Tashfeen Malik). The FBI knew in advance of the Boston Marathon Bombers (the Tsarnaev brothers) tipped off by Russians. The FBI knew in advance of the Parkland High School shooter (Nikolas Cruz). The FBI knew in advance of the Fort Hood shooter (Nidal Hasan), and the FBI knew in advance of Colorado grocery store shooter Ahmad al-Aliwi Alissa. The FBI took no action.
The case of the first recorded ISIS attack on U.S. soil was in Garland, Texas in 2015.
The FBI not only knew the shooters (Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi) in advance, BUT the FBI ALSO took the shooters to the venue and were standing only a few yards away when Simpson and Soofi opened fire. Yes, you read that correctly – the FBI took the terrorists to the event and then watched it unfold. “An FBI trainer suggested in an interview with “60 Minutes” that, had the attack been bigger, the agency’s numerous ties to the shooter would have led to a congressional investigation.”
Remember, shortly before the 2018 mid-term election, when Ceasar Syoc – a man living in his van – was caught sending “energetic material that can become combustible when subjected to heat or friction”, or what FBI Director Christopher Wray called “not hoax devices”?
Remember how sketchy everything about that was, including the child-like perpetrator telling a judge later that he was trying to walk back his guilty plea, because he was tricked into signing a confession for a crime he did not create.
Or more recently, the goofball plot to kidnap Gretchen Whitmer that involved 18 suspects, twelve of them actually working for the FBI as the plot was hatched? And we cannot forget the January 6th. DC protest turned insurrection effort, which is clearly looking like an FBI inspired and coordinated effort; and unlike Syoc, despite the numerous CCTV cameras and resources in the area, they cannot find who placed the pipe-bombs?
Have we forgotten the Atlanta “Olympic Park Bombing”, and the FBI intentionally setting up transparently innocent, Richard Jewel?
What about the FBI failing to investigate the assassination of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens in Benghazi. Did we forget when Robert Mueller’s FBI waited 19 days after the Benghazi attack before showing up at the compound?…. Journalists from the USA were walking around the compound after 48 hours, but it took the FBI another two weeks before the first investigator arrived…. All evidence long destroyed.
Then, there’s the entirety of the FBI conduct in “Spygate”, the demonstrably evident FBI operation to conduct political surveillance against Donald Trump using their investigative authorities; and the downstream consequences of a massive institutional effort to cover up one of the biggest justice department scandals in the history of our nation. The original effort against Donald Trump used massive resources from the DOJ and FBI. Heck, the coverup operation using the Mueller/Weissmann special counsel used more than 50 investigative FBI agents alone.
And of course, the FBI still had 13 extra agents available to rush to a NASCAR racetrack to investigate a garage door pull-down rope that might have been perceived as a noose; but the serial rape of hundreds of teenage girls, eh, not-so-much effort – even when they are standing in front of the FBI begging for help.
[At this point, I am increasingly convinced by evidence there are elements within the FBI that are enablers involved in sex trafficking, human smuggling, abduction, counterfeiting and money laundering as part of their operational mission.]
The FBI didn’t make a mistake or drop the proverbial ball in the Olympic gymnast case, they intentionally and specifically maintained the sexual exploitation of teenage girls by doing absolutely nothing with the complaints they received. This is not misconduct, this is purposeful.
Then, as if to apply salt to the open wound of severe FBI politicization, what did the FBI do with the Hunter Biden laptop?
More recently, the FBI executed a search warrant on the home and office of Project Veritas and the founder James O’Keefe. While the raid was taking place, a New York Times reporter called O’Keefe to ask him about his thoughts on getting raided. The same New York Times journalist, a few days later, then begins writing about the confidential attorney-client privileged information illegally retrieved then leaked by the FBI during their raid.
♦My point is this…
What the Federal Security Service (FSB) is to the internal security of the Russian state, so too is the FBI in performing the same function for the U.S. federal government.
The FBI is a U.S. version of the Russian “State Police”; and the FBI is deployed -almost exclusively- to attack domestic enemies of those who control government, while they protect the interests of the U.S. Fourth Branch of Government. That is the clear and accurate domestic prism to contextualize their perceived mission: “domestic violent extremists pose the greatest threat” to their objective.
Put another way, “We The People”, who fight against government abuse and usurpation, are the FBI’s actual and literal enemy.
Let me be very clear with another brutally obvious example. Antifa could not exist as an organization, capable to organize and carry out violent attacks against their targets, without the full support of the FBI. If the FBI wanted to arrest members of Antifa, who are actually conducting violence, they could do it easily – with little effort.
It is the absence of any action, by the FBI toward Antifa, that tells us the FBI is enabling that violent extremist behavior to continue. Once you accept that transparent point of truth, then you realize the FBI definition of domestic violent extremism is something else entirely.
The FBI is not a law enforcement or investigative division of the U.S. Department of Justice. The FBI is a political weapon of a larger institution that is now focused almost entirely toward supporting a radical communist agenda to destroy civil society in the United States.
The FBI set up the operation in Michigan to give the illusion that domestic threats were attempting to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer, everything about the events were an FBI construct. The same thing with the January 6th events in Washington DC and the pipe bombs. These are domestic FBI operations. Think about the precarious nature of what this type of activity indicates.
The current mission of the FBI appears to be preserving and protecting institutional power by protecting the administration of Joe Biden.
Anyone who continues to push this insufferable and fraudulent “honorable FBI rank and file talking point”, is, at this point in history, willfully and purposefully operating to deceive the American people on behalf of government interests who are intent on destroying us.
It is not a difference of opinion any longer. Personally, I have lost the ability to sit comfortably or intellectually with anyone who pushes or accepts the ‘mistakes are made’ nonsense. The FBI is not making mistakes, they are doing well what is important to them.
To me, it comes down to a simple matter of accepting what is continually staring us in the face.
Additionally, as we watched the outcome of the Michael Sussmann trial, we should never lose sight of the fact that 40 FBI agents were involved in the Mueller-Weissmann probe to investigate the fraudulent construct created by Hillary Clinton and crew. 40 agents? And, according to the outcome of the Sussmann trial, the FBI knew it was all a ruse.
This is why and how the Fourth Branch of U.S. Government is now the superseding apparatus above all other branches. {GO DEEP} This is why and how Barack Obama, John Brennan and Eric Holder created it, cemented it, and made it impervious to any effort to remove it.
Remember when Henry Cuellar was critical of the Biden administration open border policies that were hurting his Texas district? Less than a month after going public with his criticisms, the FBI raids on his home and office began. The same FBI that raided the home of James O’Keefe while coordinating their search with the New York Times.
The Fourth Branch of Government is corrupt; heck, the J6 committee was defending the corrupt FBI, participating with the corrupt FBI, selling a joint J6 operation that involved the FBI. The corrupt media have aligned with the corrupt FBI, and the justice institutions in/around this legal framework are self-aware and fully autonomous.
As the Twitter files show, the DOJ and FBI, through the authority of DHS, now have the ability to monitor every single aspect of every life that might seek to challenge or destroy the corrupt system.
In essence, Skynet -the ultimate end game of political surveillance and targeting outlined by Edward Snowden- has been activated. We the People are the enemy of the state.
Jackboots are very real, and they are wearing FBI logos on their shirts.
ANOTHER US HUMILIATION, SURRENDERS AGAIN!: Joe Biden Agrees to Remove Remaining US Troops from Niger in Sept – Abandon $100 Million Airbase – As Russian Forces Move in to Same Base
The Biden administration agreed this week to remove the remaining US troops from Niger by September. The approximately 1,000 troops will leave the two US military bases in the country to the new regime. Russian forces are already in country and actually share the same base now as US troops.
This is one of Joe Biden’s greatest foreign policy failures among many and is of course being ignored by the US fake news conglomerate.
The BBC reported on the latest deal in Niger. It appears the Biden regime paid off the regime to save face as they were forced out of the country. You can bet that money was exchanged for this communication.
The US and Niger have agreed that American troops will leave the country “no later” than 15 September, they announced in a joint statement on Sunday.
They said the two countries had “reached a disengagement agreement to effect the withdrawal of U.S. forces, which has already begun”.
…
The military junta which seized power last year has already ordered French troops to leave, while moving closer to Russia.
The statement commended the “joint sacrifices of Nigerien and U.S. forces in the fight against terrorism”, adding that the withdrawal would not affect the continuation of US-Niger relations.
“The United States and Niger are committed to ongoing diplomatic dialogue to define the future of their bilateral relations,” it read.
That is complete lie. The US was forced out. Russians are already on the US base.
The Gateway Pundit has reported on this American humiliation since April. In case you missed our previous reporting here is a recap.
Molly Phee, Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, did a bang up job in Niger. Now US forces are being told to leave the country pivotal to US national defense.
Another Biden disaster: US State Department’s top official for African affairs, Molly Phee, lecturing in Niger in December 2023 and Niger protesters calling on the US to leave their country in April.
Nigerien Prime Minister Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine recently spoke to reporters and blamed US State Department official Molly Phee of threatening the current leaders while negotiating US military presence in the country.
The Nigerian leader blamed Phee for the complete breakdown in relations. Zeine described his reaction to Molly Phee when she came to lecture the Nigerien leaders in March, “You have come here to threaten us in our country. That is unacceptable. And you have come here to tell us with whom we can have relationships, which is also unacceptable. And you have done it all with a condescending tone and a lack of respect.
In April we learned about Joe Biden’s most recent foreign policy disaster in Niger, Africa. US troops are trapped in the country allegedly without water and medicine at the time. The Army was likely hiding this to protect itself from the embarrassment. Deployed Americans were in limbo and unable to do their jobs and the Biden State Department was completely outmaneuvered once again.
Thanks to brilliant negotiating skills by Biden appointed diplomats US military will leave Niger and leave behind a $100 million airbase to the current anti-American rulers.
The USA confirms it will pull out of Niger.
1000 soldiers will leave after having been told to get out by the new Russian-friendly military junta
They will leave the $110 mln airbase built a few years ago from which the US has been running its drone operations against AQ & ISIS pic.twitter.com/UwCLn79acW
This is another humiliation of US troops by Joe Biden.
Now we find out it was US diplomat working for Joe Biden who destroyed this important relationship with Niger. Via Stars and Stripes.
A crucial military relationship between the United States and its closest West African ally, the country of Niger, ruptured this spring after a visiting U.S. official made threats during last-ditch negotiations over whether American troops based there would be allowed to remain, according to the country’s prime minister.
In an exclusive interview, Prime Minister Ali Mahaman Lamine Zeine put the blame for the breakdown squarely on the United States, accusing American officials of trying to dictate which countries Niger could partner with and failing to justify the U.S. troop presence, now scheduled to end in the coming months. Niger has been central to efforts to contain a growing Islamist insurgency in West Africa.
The rift between the former allies has created an opportunity for Russia, which has moved quickly to deepen its relationship with Niger, dispatching troops to the capital, Niamey, last month to train the Nigerien military and supplying a new air defense system. Russian and U.S. troops now occupy opposite ends of an air base.
After a military coup d’état ousted Niger’s democratically elected president last year, the United States froze security support as required by U.S. law and paused counterterrorism activities, which had involved intelligence gathering on regional militant activities from a massive drone base in the country’s north. The United States has kept more than 1,000 military personnel in place while negotiating with Niger over their status and urging the junta to begin restoring democracy…
Stars and Stripes then reveals the genius in the Biden State Department who destroyed US relations with Niger and how she did it.
He said the Nigerien leaders took particular umbrage at remarks by Molly Phee, the State Department’s top official for African affairs, who he said had urged the government during a March visit to Niamey to refrain from engaging with Iran and Russia in ways objectionable to Washington if Niger wanted to continue its security relationship with the United States. He also said Phee had further threatened sanctions if Niger pursued a deal to sell uranium to Iran.
“When she finished, I said, ‘Madame, I am going to summarize in two points what you have said,’” recounted Zeine, who has led negotiations with the United States. “First, you have come here to threaten us in our country. That is unacceptable. And you have come here to tell us with whom we can have relationships, which is also unacceptable. And you have done it all with a condescending tone and a lack of respect.”
Florida Senator Rick Scott was seated in the front row of the courtroom gallery today as he showed support for President Trump in New York City.
Many of President Trump’s supporters in politics understand he is under a gag order and unable to speak in his own defense. It is good to see those who understand the dynamic show up in New York to say the things President Trump cannot.
In his media remarks the former Florida Governor and current Senator Rick Scott, outlined the background of the key participants who are targeting Trump via these ridiculous political Lawfare tactics. Strong and truthful remarks by Senator Scott. WATCH:
Judge Arthur Engoron is now under investigation after claims surfaced that he received unsolicited advice from a prominent New York City real estate attorney, Adam Leitman Bailey, weeks before ordering former President Donald Trump to pay a hefty $454 million judgment.
This investigation by the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct seeks to determine whether Engoron violated judicial conduct rules, NBC New York reported.
In March, Engoron ordered Trump to pay more than a $355 million fine and barred Trump “from serving as an officer or director of any New York corporation or other legal entity in New York for a period of three years.” Trump was also required to pay interest on the penalties, bringing the total amount to $454 million.
Engoron claimed Trump and each of the defendants “participated in aiding and abetting the conspiracy to commit insurance fraud by their individual acts in falsifying business records and valuations, causing materially fraudulent SFCs to be intentionally submitted to insurance companies.”
Eric Trump and Don Jr. were also ordered to pay $4,013,024 each.
Letitia James sought $370 million in ‘damages’ when there was no victim in this fraud case, and she also sought to ban Trump and his sons from operating any businesses in New York. She accused Trump of inflating his assets and defrauding lenders and insurance companies, despite having no evidence or rationality.
Bailey stated publicly that he spoke with Judge Engoron three weeks before the decision, advising him to “get it right.” Although Engoron has denied any influence from Bailey, the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct is reportedly investigating whether Engoron violated judicial conduct rules, according to NBC New York.
“I actually had the ability to speak to him three weeks ago,” Bailey told NBC New York on Feb. 16. “I saw him in the corner [at the courthouse] and I told my client, ‘I need to go.’ And I walked over and we started talking … I wanted him to know what I think and why…I really want him to get it right.”
Bailey maintains he has no personal connection to any lawsuits involving Trump and is not a fan of the former president. He claims to have advised Engoron that a ruling imposing such a substantial fine could damage New York’s economy. Bailey also mentioned that Engoron “had a lot of questions, you know, about certain cases” during their conversation.
In response, Judge Engoron’s spokesperson Al Baker vehemently denied any impropriety, stating that “No ex parte conversation concerning this matter occurred between Justice Engoron and Mr. Bailey or any other person. The decision Justice Engoron issued on February 16 was his alone, deeply considered, and wholly uninfluenced by this individual.”
The Latin term ex parte means “from one party”. In legal terms, it refers to a legal proceeding that is conducted without the presence or notice of the other party. It can also refer to improper contact between a judge or party and a lawyer.
New York State Rules of Judicial Conduct explicitly prohibit judges from engaging in ex parte communications, except when seeking advice from a disinterested expert.
According to New York law, “If a judge inadvertently receives an unauthorized ex parte communication bearing upon the substance of a matter, the judge shall make provision promptly to notify the parties of the substance of the communication and provide the parties with an opportunity to respond.”
The New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct will now consider whether the rules of judicial conduct were violated in this instance, according to sources familiar with the matter.
The commission’s administrator, Robert Tembeckjian, declined to comment, citing a statute on confidentiality.
Christopher Kise, a member of the Trump defense team which has repeatedly criticized Engoron’s handling of the case, said if Bailey’s claims are true, it casts doubt on the integrity of the process.
“The code doesn’t provide an exception for ‘well, this was a small conversation’ or ‘well, it didn’t really impact me’ or ‘well, this wasn’t something that I, the judge, found significant,” Kise said. “No. The code is very clear.”
Several experts consulted by NBC New York said the rules are meant not only to prevent outside influence, but also any appearance of outside influence.
A true courtroom stunner came just days ago when Jack Smith, prosecuting President Trump for having government documents from his presidency in his home, admitted his team lied to the public and the court in the case.
Regarding the evidence.
Trump turned blunt, calling for Smith to be arrested over his admission, in a court filing, that he lied to the court about the documents seized from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home.
“ARREST DERANGED JACK SMITH. HE IS A CRIMINAL!” Trump said in a Truth Social post this weekend.
The issue is that in a court filing, prosecutors admitted thee lied to the court, confessing that the FBI messed with the boxes containing those materials, and now not even Smith can be sure of the order or placement of the documents, which could be a critical factor in the case.
Now a Declassified report from famed investigative journalist Julie Kelly notes that the situation is “potentially case-killing.”
FBI photo of documents seized in the raid of former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
She explained, “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.”
She noted Jay Bratt, who is assigned to Smith’s team, earlier claimed: “[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.”
The FBI staged a photograph of documents, and released it to the public to create public interest in the case.
But Kelly continued, “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.”
She explained, “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.”
She said his latest explanation is: “[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.”
Kelly noted that the FBI’s use of those “cover sheets” just before they were used as placeholders.
“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,” she noted.
The immediate result was that Judge Aileen M. Cannon has further delayed the next steps in the case, meaning it might not even come to trial until after the November election, which polls show Trump is likely to win.
Kelly called the FBI’s staged photograph the “the picture that launched a thousand pearl-clutching articles.”
She suggested that the behavior of the investigators raises “many troubling questions … 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?”
And she noted that defense lawyers have pointed out Smith’s office handed out inaccurate information about the evidence.
And Bratt conceded that was correct, confessing the FBI has not been able to determine which document “with classification markings” goes with which placeholder.
“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,” Kelly charged.
Bratt also had confirmed to the judge that the boxes of documents are “in their original, intact form as seized,” citing only that classified docs were replaced with placeholders.
Guest post by Joe Hoft at JoeHoft.com – republished with permission
Andrew Weissmann led the Mueller sham investigation against President Trump. Now he’s a top Deep State player behind DA Bragg’s bogus Manhattan case against President Trump.
Andrew Weissmann is the face of DOJ corruption. He has been overturned by the Supreme Court and he’s been behind most all the efforts to attack President Trump through lawfare.
DA Bragg’s case against President Trump is a mess. There is no crime and yet the DA charged President Trump for 34 felonies that were all made up. The crimes aren’t even clear. It’s a total disaster which is why it is likely a plot by leftist mastermind Andrew Weissmann.
In a tweet this pst weekend, Weissmann shares that he believes that a defendant in the US must prove their innocence. This is third world communist stuff.
He was quickly outed as a moron for his ignorance of the law.
Shipwreckedcrew tweeted: You are a moron. Trump doesn’t have to prove anything tor the jury to acquit. You repeatedly mis-state fundamental premises of the criminal justice system.
You are a moron.
Trump doesn't need to prove anything for the jury to acquit.
You repeatedly mis-state fundamental premises of the criminal justice system. https://t.co/zsJkUuu2fS
Attorney Jeff Clark points out that “enough to acquit” is not a legal principal in the US.
Can we make sure “enough to acquit” is a phrase forever associated with Andrew Weissmann? It’s right from the lips of a government statist whose baseline is not liberty and thus the presumption of innocence but instead subjection to raw government power and a presumption that prosecutors are always right. He’s a walking-talking evil inversion.
Can we make sure “enough to acquit” is a phrase forever associated with Andrew Weissmann?
It’s right from the lips of a government statist whose baseline is not liberty and thus the presumption of innocence but instead subjection to raw government power and a presumption that… https://t.co/nMcQmz2EVW
House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan Launches Investigation into Special Counsel Jack Smith’s Admission of FBI Evidence Tampering in Trump Mar-a-Lago Case
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) has launched an investigation into Special Counsel Jack Smith following recent admission that some of the evidence in President Trump’s ‘classified’ documents case was altered or manipulated after being seized by the FBI during its raid on Mar-a-Lago.
The Gateway Pundit reported that Jack Smith’s admission came in response to Trump’s co-defendant, Walt Nauta’s, legal team’s concerns about discrepancies in the evidence’s organization.
Walt Nauta, a former White House valet and Navy veteran who later served as a personal staffer at Mar-a-Lago and was indicted alongside Trump last year, claimed through his attorney that the order of items in the seized boxes did not match their scans provided during discovery.
In a late Friday filing, Smith conceded that the FBI had indeed moved documents around within the boxes that contained ‘classified’ information. This directly contradicts earlier Department of Justice (DOJ) assurances to the court that the contents’ arrangement had been preserved intact.
According to a footnote in the motion reviewed by The Gateway Pundit, the FBI messed with the boxes containing the ‘classified’ documents they seized from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
Footnote 3: The Government acknowledges that this is inconsistent with what Government counsel previously understood and represented to the Court. See, e.g., 4/12/24 Hearing Tr. at 65 (Government responding to the Court’s question of whether the boxes were “in their original, intact form as seized” by stating “[t]hey are, with one exception; and that is that the classified documents have been removed and placeholders have been put in the documents.”
In August 2022, the DOJ lied to the Court by asserting that the red, blue, and yellow sheets displayed in the widely circulated photo of the ‘classified’ documents indicated their classification status. It turns out they were “slip sheets” the FBI used to replace the so-called classified documents.
The DOJ lied, claiming, “Evidence, thirteen boxes or containers contained documents with classification markings, and in all, over one hundred unique documents with classification markings-that is, more than twice the amount produced on June 3, 2022, in response to the grand jury subpoena were seized. Certain of the documents had colored cover sheets indicating their classification status. See, e.g., Attachment F (redacted FBI photograph of certain documents and classified cover sheets recovered from a container in the “45 office”). The classification levels ranged from CONFIDENTIAL to TOP SECRET information, and certain documents included additional sensitive compartments that signify very limited distribution.”
The FBI admitted they messed with Trump’s documents! The FBI used cover sheets as placeholders for the classified documents.
“After the boxes were brought to WFO, the FBI created an index to correlate the documents with classification markings to codes (e.g., document “bb”) and labeled the classified cover sheets in the boxes with the codes for the seized documents. The FBI also generally replaced the handwritten sheets with classified cover sheets annotated with the index code, but regardless, any handwritten sheets that currently remain in the boxes do not represent additional classified documents—they were just not removed when the classified cover sheets with the index code were added. In many but not all instances, the FBI was able to determine which document with classification markings corresponded to a particular placeholder sheet.”
Jack Smith also claimed the FBI found so many classified documents that they ran out of ‘slip sheets.’
“The investigative team used classified cover sheets for that purpose, until the FBI ran out because there were so many classified documents, at which point the team began using blank sheets with handwritten notes indicating the classification level of the document(s) seized,” Jack Smith laughably claimed.
In response to these revelations, President Trump took to Truth Social, calling for the arrest of Jack Smith, labeling the prosecution a “sham.”
“ARREST DERANGED JACK SMITH. HE IS A CRIMINAL!” Trump said in a Truth Social post this weekend.
Chairman Jim Jordan expressed grave concern about the justice system’s impartiality and adherence to professional standards within the DOJ.
In a letter addressed to Jeffrey Ragsdale, Counsel of the Department of Justice’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), Jordan stated, “This acknowledgment presents grave concerns about the Department’s commitment to impartial justice, whether the Special Counsel’s Office misled a federal court, and whether the Special Counsel’s Office strenuously upheld the highest professional standards of the Department of Justice.”
Jordan demanded that the OPR investigate Jack Smith, Jay Bratt (a senior member of Smith’s office), and other attorneys involved, citing serious ethical lapses in the prosecution.
The House Judiciary Committee has demanded to produce the following documents and information:
All documents and communications referring or relating to any allegation of ethical impropriety or any OPR investigation concerning the conduct of Jack Smith, Jay Bratt, or any other attorney assigned to work with the Office of Special Counsel Jack Smith;
All documents and communications referring or relating to the manipulation of documents seized from President Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago; and
All documents and communications referring or relating to Jay Bratt interactions with Walt Nauta’s defense counsel, including allegations that Bratt attempted to coerce Mr. Nauta’s cooperation with the government by leveraging the prosect of a judgeship for his counsel.
The deadline set for the DOJ to respond to the Committee’s demands for information and a briefing is 5:00 p.m. on May 20, 2024.
#NEWS: @Jim_Jordan investigates Jack Smith’s acknowledgment that some of the evidence in President Trump’s classified documents case was altered or manipulated after it was seized by the FBI in its raid on Mar-a-Lago. pic.twitter.com/9Qn6h9D3h5
Judge Aileen Cannon on Tuesday afternoon indefinitely postponed Jack Smith’s classified documents trial against Trump.
As previously reported, Judge Cannon on Monday night postponed a key deadline in the classified documents case after Special Counsel Jack Smith admitted to tampering with evidence.
Cannon on Monday evening temporarily stayed a May 9 deadline for President Trump and his co-defendants Walt Nauta and Carlos de Oliveira related to CIPA.
On Tuesday afternoon, Judge Cannon set a second set of pre-trial deadlines to manage pending discovery and disclosure matters.
The Judge vacated the May 20, 2024 trial date. It may be several months until Judge Cannon sets a new trial date.
“The Court also determines that finalization of a trial date at this juncture—before resolution of the myriad and interconnected pre-trial and CIPA issues remaining and forthcoming—would be imprudent and inconsistent with the Court’s duty to fully and fairly consider the various pending pre-trial motions before the Court, critical CIPA issues, and additional pretrial and trial preparations necessary to present this case to a jury. The Court therefore vacates the current May 20, 2024, trial date (and associated calendar call), to be reset by separate order following resolution of the matters before the Court, consistent with Defendants’ right to due process and the public’s interest in the fair and efficient administration of justice,” Cannon wrote in an order reviewed by The Gateway Pundit.
In a motion filed late Friday, Jack Smith admitted the FBI messed with the boxes containing “classified” documents they seized from Trump and can’t be sure the order or the placement of the documents.
Jack Smith in his Friday night response admitted the FBI moved the classified documents around.
According to a footnote in the motion reviewed by The Gateway Pundit, the FBI messed with the boxes containing the ‘classified’ documents they seized from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
The DOJ previously assured the Court that the placement of classified documents as originally found had been maintained – THEY LIED!
Footnote 3: The Government acknowledges that this is inconsistent with what Government counsel previously understood and represented to the Court. See, e.g., 4/12/24 Hearing Tr. at 65 (Government responding to the Court’s question of whether the boxes were “in their original, intact form as seized” by stating “[t]hey are, with one exception; and that is that the classified documents have been removed and placeholders have been put in the documents”
The DOJ in August 2022 lied to the Court when they claimed the red, blue and yellow sheets shown in the viral photo of the classified documents indicated their classification status.
The FBI admitted they messed with Trump’s documents! The FBI used cover sheets as placeholders for the classified documents.
“After the boxes were brought to WFO, the FBI created an index to correlate the documents with classification markings to codes (e.g., document “bb”) and labeled the classified cover sheets in the boxes with the codes for the seized documents. The FBI also generally replaced the handwritten sheets with classified cover sheets annotated with the index code, but regardless, any handwritten sheets that currently remain in the boxes do not represent additional classified documents—they were just not removed when the classified cover sheets with the index code were added. In many but not all instances, the FBI was able to determine which document with classification markings corresponded to a particular placeholder sheet.”
Judge Aileen Cannon has issued an order [SEE HERE] canceling the original trial date and suspending the trial proceedings pending resolution of multiple pre-trial issues. Lawfare is big mad.
(Via Politico) – […] The date had been widely expected to move amid a tangle of pretrial conflicts between special counsel Jack Smith and Trump’s attorneys. Smith had urged Judge Aileen Cannon to reschedule the trial to begin on July 8, but an order from the judge on Tuesday afternoon suggested that she is unlikely to even decide on a new trial date before late July.
[…] “[F]inalization of a trial date at this juncture — before resolution of the myriad and interconnected pre-trial and [classified evidence] issues … would be imprudent and inconsistent with the Court’s duty to fully and fairly consider the various pending pre-trial motions,” Cannon wrote in the five-page order.
That reshuffling further clouds the picture for Smith, who is also awaiting a Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity that could determine whether his other case against Trump — charges in Washington D.C. for attempting to subvert the 2020 election — can move forward this year. (read more)
Elise Stefanik Takes Action Against Special Counsel Jack Smith’s Election Interference – ‘Fight The Democrats Unjust Lawfare And Expose This Corruption’
On Tuesday, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) filed an official ethics complaint with the Department of Justice’s Office of Professional Responsibility against special counsel Jack Smith, claiming that Smith is interfering in the 2024 presidential election with the indictments he brought against presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump last year.
In her complaint to Office of Professional Responsibility counsel Jeffrey Ragsdale, Rep. Stefanik, who is rumored to be a potential vice presidential pick for Trump, pointed out a serious violation. She stated that Smith’s attempt to expedite his case to trial before the election is a clear breach of the Department of Justice’s long-standing policy. This policy strictly prohibits timing investigations to aid a certain political candidate. “Biden special counsel Jack Smith is attempting to expedite the trial in order to influence the general election in November,” she wrote.
Rep. Stefanik further detailed the alleged misconduct of Smith and his team. She asserted that they have repeatedly violated the court-ordered stay by serving 4,000 pages of discovery to Trump’s legal team and making a pretrial motion in district court. This, she argued, is a clear indication of Smith’s conduct bringing disrepute to the Department of Justice and the entire federal government. “The DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility should impose the discipline that such conduct warrants,” the lawmaker added.
The New York representative demanded that Ragsdale open an investigation into Smith immediately for his actions that attempted to “politicize his criminal prosecution” and interfere in the general election against Trump. During a press conference after Stefanik issued the complaint, she reconfirmed her resolve to fight back against the various prosecutors going after the former president.
“Democrats’ corrupt and desperate witch hunts against President Trump must come to an end. This is lawfare and blatant election interference, and the American people know it. That is why today I filed an official complaint with the Department of Justice Office of Professional Responsibility on Joe Biden’s special counsel, Jack Smith, for his clear and illegal efforts of election interference,” she said. “We will fight the Democrats unjust lawfare and expose this corruption whether it is in New York, Atlanta, or right here in Washington, DC.”
President Trump is currently facing four criminal indictments against him. The first, which is currently underway in New York City, was brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D) in which the DA’s office charged Trump with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records by writing down in business ledgers that hush money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels were legal payments to Trump’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen. The other case brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis (D) alleges that Trump and 18 other co-defendants attempted to illegally overturn the 2020 election. Special counsel Jack Smith brought the last two indictments, with one being focused on the 2020 election and the other focused on classified documents Trump allegedly took with him post-presidency to Mar-a-Lago.
🚨🚨🚨 I just filed an official ethics complaint against Jack Smith with the Department of Justice's Office of Professional Responsibility for his illegal election interference.
It’s obvious to any reasonable observer that Jack Smith is trying to interfere with the 2024 election… pic.twitter.com/lNW4MUz5Oi
Democrats’ corrupt and desperate witch hunts against President Trump must come to an end. This is lawfare and blatant election interference and the American people know it. That is why today I filed an official complaint with the Department of Justice Office of Professional… pic.twitter.com/yo61lAbnnD
Fani Willis, the district attorney for Fulton County, is currently dealing with yet another legal issue—this time, a lawsuit brought by a state legislator in Georgia.
In her suit, Rep. Mesha Mainor, a Republican elected to the Georgia House in 2020, “alleges that Willis, Commissioner Marvin Arrington, the Fulton County Ethics Board, and the county itself were derelict in its duties to properly litigate a criminal case in which Mainor was repeatedly stalked by a former friend and political associate,” Newsweek reported.
A spokesperson for the state lawmaker said she would provide additional details regarding the lawsuit during a press conference scheduled for Tuesday.
Mainor, who secured a substantial victory in the 2020 election from the constituents of House District 56 in the Democratic stronghold of Atlanta, grabbed headlines last July by switching parties and formally affiliating herself with the Republican Party. At the time, she said she was no longer morally comfortable complying with Democrats’ “left-wing radicalism, lawlessness, and putting the interests of illegal aliens over the interests of Americans.”
Mainor’s lawsuit, which was filed on April 2 in Fulton County Superior Court, alleges that she enlisted Corwin Monson as a campaign volunteer in January 2019. The lawsuit describes them as associates for several years with numerous mutual friends.
He “assured” Mainor he could help her get elected, though one month later, she was “forced to terminate” him after she witnessed “his unruly, belligerent behavior,” the suit said, according to Newsweek.
It reportedly resulted in multiple instances of stalking in various forms, including Monson showing up uninvited to campaign or church events, lingering outside her residence, making calls from different numbers and leaving voicemails, and even proposing to her in front of her minor children at her home, the suit says.
It also claimed that Monson was “in love” with Mainor, though the two of them had never had a romantic relationship.
A judge granted Mainor’s request for a Temporary Protective Order (TPO) against Monson in August 2019. He was subsequently arrested in both September 2019 and September 2020 for violating the TPO.
Following the second incident, Fulton County indicted Monson for aggravated stalking. The second aggravated assault charge in January 2021 could lead to up to 20 years of imprisonment for Monson.
However, the lawsuit alleges that Arrington, who defended Monson in a legal capacity, “used his influence to circumvent the office policies of the District Attorney’s office,” which allegedly included copying the DA on emails, negotiating plea bargains directly, and demanding meetings.
Newsweek added:
Arrington is also alleged to have told Willis “that b**** is crazy”, in reference to Mainor—claimed within the suit to have peddled his influence to in turn influence Willis.
After Willis was sworn in January 2021, she became responsible for the Monson case.
She reportedly dismissed one of his aggravated stalking cases. On the other charge, she offered a plea of three years with one year served in prison and the rest probation. Mainor said she was never informed of the plea deal, [which she] claimed to be a violation of the Georgia Crime Victims Bill of Rights.
“Furthermore, due to DA Willis’ bias towards Mr. Arrington, Plaintiff Mainor has experienced disparate treatment under the law as a victim,” the suit says. “Plaintiff Mainor has been forced to advocate for herself and her safety, although that is the District Attorney’s role.”
Trouble for Willis has been mounting over the past few months which has affected her election-related RICO case against former President Donald Trump. Last month, Judge Scott McAfee, who is presiding over the case, ordered her to either fire an attorney she hired, Nathan Wade, after discovering the two were involved in a romantic relationship or take herself and her entire office off of the case.
A federal judge on Monday adjourned a civil lawsuit brought against former President Donald Trump over the Jan. 6, 2021, riot under a 19th-century law, handing him a delay in the case that he and his legal team sought.
The suit’s lead plaintiff, Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), was joined by several other Democrats “who said they were impeded in their duties by the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol,” Newsweek reported.
The case was pursued under an 1871 act designed to prevent the Ku Klux Klan from intimidating members of Congress in the execution of their duties. On Monday, Mehta ruled that “immunity-related discovery” will persist until September 11, 2024.
Following the conclusion of discovery in September, both parties will present their arguments regarding whether Trump is entitled to presidential immunity from the civil lawsuit—a separate matter from the Supreme Court’s examination of presidential immunity from criminal lawsuits. The proceedings for the former could extend over several months.
Newsweek noted that should Trump be given immunity, then the case is over. If presidential immunity is not granted, further discovery on the case’s facts is anticipated, and a trial is unlikely to commence until after the inauguration in January 2025. Trump, who has consistently sought trial delays, could subsequently seek recourse in federal court to postpone the case until after his term in office has concluded.
Newsweek noted further:
On December 4, 2023, Lee had released a statement in which she said “justice is owed to the Congressional staff, Capitol support staff, law enforcement, and members of Congress who feared for their lives on January 6, 2021. I look forward to seeing Mr. Trump in court.”
MSNBC legal correspondent Lisa Rubin, wrote on X, formerly Twitter, on Monday that a higher court, the Washington D.C. Circuit, had handed the case back to Mehta after reaffirming that “former presidents are entitled to civil immunity for acts even on the ‘outer perimeter’ of their official duties.
“But they [the D.C. Circuit] held Trump had not yet shown his entitlement to such immunity and would instead have a chance to prove in the lower court that ‘his alleged actions in the run-up to and on January 6 were taken in his official capacity as President,’” she wrote.
“That opinion was handed down on December 1, 2023. And now, in the last days of April, Judge Amit Mehta, the district court judge to whom the case has been assigned, has allowed the parties to conduct ‘immunity-related discovery’ through September 11, 2024,” Rubin added, further claiming that Mehta’s ruling doesn’t bode well for Trump in his D.C. criminal case where he’s been charged by special counsel Jack Smith of election interference following Joe Biden’s victory in 2020.
The election fraud proceedings, overseen by Tanya Chutkan, another D.C. district judge, have been put on hold as the Supreme Court deliberates presidential immunity.
“Now think about the criminal case before Judge Chutkan: In a world where the Supreme Court similarly decides there must be further lower court proceedings to determine whether Trump can mount an immunity defense, can that case be tried before 2025? Increasingly, I think not—and that might be the only win Trump wants or needs,” Rubin wrote.
During oral arguments regarding the question last week, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch said that former presidents ought to enjoy some immunity from subsequent attacks if they leave office.
“It didn’t matter what the president’s motives were; that’s something courts shouldn’t get engaged in … I am concerned about future uses of criminal law to target political opponents based on accusations about their motives,” the Supreme Court justice, who was Trump’s first of three appointees to the nation’s highest court, said on April 25.
This is a good overall encapsulation by Julie Kelly and to a lesser extent Steve Bannon about what Judge Aileen Cannon is doing with the Jack Smith “documents” case in Florida.
Kelly notes accurately {See Background} that Judge Aileen Cannon is somewhat limited on what she can do about the federal government case due to the DOJ using the false pretense of “national security” to control how the judicial branch can interact with the lawfare construct of the executive branch. The Lawfare crew intentionally created the “national security” angle to control all sides of the case and limit the release of information to the public.
Judge Cannon has recently been releasing and un-redacting documents and motions filed in the case to allow disinfecting sunlight and transparency to enter. This approach undercuts the prosecution manipulation, the DOJ does not like it. Julie Kelly outlines some of the details that Cannon’s releases have highlighted. {Direct Rumble Link}
At the 12:00 minute mark, Steve Bannon highlights his anger as he rails against congress and the staff of multiple committees who participate in the willful blindness and pretending game.
After noticing how congress is mute about the revelations that Cannon is providing, Bannon notes the republicans are essentially anti-Trump and controlled opposition, which is essentially accurate…. However, he’s just now noticing this?
It is a little annoying to see Mr. Bannon discuss outrage as a manipulative tactic {Chaffe and Countermeasures}, considering the years of outrage traps laid by the republicans in the Deep State against President Trump. The latest effort by congress pretending not to notice, and then staying quiet, is not exactly a surprise.
Think about two sets of documents as evidence against two teams working in synergy. Team one (Clinton) was outside government. Team two (DOJ/FBI) was inside government. The documents the DOJ/FBI were urgently searching to retrieve pertained to both groups but were also divided. That helps to explain the wording of the memo below and the motive behind the DOJ/FBI using the General Services Administration (GSA) and the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) as tools to conduct post-Trump-term physical surveillance and searches.
Here’s the Occam’s Razor…. and I will only say this once. A lawsuit against Hillary Clinton and the Spygate manipulators was filed in 2022. [LINK HERE]
The lawsuit was filed against specific persons, and most of those persons were interviewed by the FBI as part of the originating investigation. Within the subjects of the lawsuit, we find names and groups including:
Hillary Clinton, Hillary for America Campaign Committee, DNC, DNC Services Corp, Perkins Coie, Michael Sussmann, Marc Elias, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Charles Dolan, Jake Sullivan, John Podesta, Robby Mook, Phillipe Reines as well as Fusion GPS, Glenn Simpson, Peter Fritsch, Nellie Ohr, Bruce Ohr, Orbis Business Intelligence, Christopher Steele, Igor Danchenko, Neustar Inc., Rodney Joffe, James Comey Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Kevin Clinesmith and Andrew McCabe.
Once the lawsuit against CLINTON/FBI was filed, the background physical paper evidence no longer needed to be in the possession of the person(s) who wrote the lawsuit (physical possession). [LINK HERE] Simple thumb-drives would suffice.
An undercover video by O’Keefe Media shows a special advisor for The United States Small Business Administration providing insights into the intricate dynamics of President Joe Biden’s inner circle.
The advisor, Tyler Robinson, engaged in conversation with an undercover reporter, and he pulled back the curtain on the significant clout wielded by Jeff Zeints, the current White House chief of staff and former Facebook board member.
BREAKING: O’Keefe Media Uncovers who is really running the White House. Undercover cameras catch Special Advisor @SBAgov call former @facebook Board Member @WHCOS@ZientsJeff27574 “the second most powerful person in Washington” where “whatever this guy says, it’s what the… pic.twitter.com/vLeollXEFX
Robinson asserted that Zeints commands immense influence, going as far as labeling him the “second most powerful person in Washington.” He also shared some of the strategies employed to sway his decision-making.
“By getting Jeff to sign off, you’re getting the president to sign off… whatever this guy says, it’s what the President says,” Robinson asserted.
Robinson was also pressed on whether Zeints holds more power than Vice President Kamala Harris, to which he affirmed, “Yeah,” and that he is more powerful “in some ways” but “not legally.”
The White House insider also openly acknowledged the enduringly close relationships former President Barack Obama and former Vice President Hillary Clinton have with the current Biden administration.
Robinson later delved into the strategies employed by the establishment to marginalize GOP politicians, effectively excluding them from crucial negotiations and policy-making processes
He disclosed the activities of his boss, Isabel Casillas Guzman, alleging that she is dispatched by the Biden administration under the pretext of visiting small businesses while covertly aiding Democratic election campaigns.
“Pretty much every week, she goes somewhere in the country… We can tell their accomplishments; she can’t like go on a stage and be like, ‘Hey, vote for Joe Biden.’ Like that’s illegal,” said Robinson.
“Any time we go [to a state], we try to visit with a Member of Congress, if they’re a Democrat… because then we can help them get reelected as well,” the insider added “So we’re going to Montana because Senator Tester, he’s the Democratic Senator from Montana, like he’s in a tough reelection race, and that’s like a seat we need in the Senate to maintain a majority.”
“We all, like as an office, were going, and the White House was like, ‘yes, go. Invite Senator Tester. Don’t invite the other Senator because he’s a Republican, and don’t invite the two members of Congress because they’re Republicans,’” he continued.
Resist The Mainstream reported last month on another undercover video from O’Keefe Media that showed a Department of Defense employee advocating for the repeal of the Second Amendment and endorsing government-exclusive firearm ownership.
BREAKING INSIDE THE PENTAGON: Associate Director in the Office of the Secretary of Defense says, “Why not just have an open border?” “Tear down the wall.”
“I think we should repeal the Second Amendment and take the guns all away!” says Jason Beck, who has a classified security… pic.twitter.com/QSuXmgQAPz
Jason Beck, identified as a member of Total Force Requirements & Sourcing Policy within Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s office, boldly stated to a disguised O’Keefe, “I think we should repeal the Second Amendment and take the guns all away.”
Beck also challenged immigration policies suggesting an open border approach and condemning recent legislation as “almost unbelievable” and “really racist.”
He criticized border security measures as ineffective, dismissing them as futile efforts to address a non-existent problem.
Beck asserted, expressing skepticism about the security threat posed by undocumented immigrants, “There’s no Taliban coming in through Mexico like that’s, they just make that stuff out of whole cloth. Like when has a terrorist ever come in?”
Sometimes I wonder if I’m strong enough to endure this.
The attacks come from all directions with unrelenting force. You don’t even know the half of it.
The “hush money” case in New York City is perhaps the stupidest of the Lawfare cases launched against President Trump. The premise is that President Trump tried to “influence the 2016 election” by paying people not to besmirch his reputation with negative stories about him. This is the basis of the “hush money” claim by state prosecutors.
The Federal Election Commission reviewed the details and found no merit to the claims of illegality, but the state of New York twisted the legal interpretation of “honest services” to make a claim that President Trump paid his attorney Michael Cohen and labeled the payments “legal services.” The state case is dependent on a logical fallacy that paying your attorney and designating the payment as ‘legal services’ is a fraudulent business practice. It really is nonsense Lawfare.
President Trump delivered remarks to the media after the first day of trial where his defense team said to the jury, “use your common sense. We’re New Yorkers, It’s why we’re all here.” WATCH:
Stormy Daniels’ former attorney, Michael Avenatti, has said that he is willing to testify on behalf of former President Donald Trump in the New York hush money trial.
Speaking to the New York Post from jail, Avenatti said he is in contact with Trump’s legal team and is willing to speak out against his former client.
“The defense has contacted me,” Avenatti told The Post.
Avenatti is currently being held at Terminal Island, a minimum-security federal prison in Los Angeles, serving a 19-year sentence for a slate of federal crimes that include extortion, tax evasion, fraud, and embezzlement.
“I’d be more than happy to testify, I don’t know that I will be called to testify, but I have been in touch with Trump’s defense for the better part of year,” Avenatti said.
The Post reports that Avenatti would not provide any additional details about the discussion, but an unnamed source “close to Trump” confirmed that the discussions are taking place.
Avenatti used to be one of Trump’s loudest critics, but he has seemingly dramatically changed his position.
“There’s no question [the trial] is politically motivated because they’re concerned that he may be reelected,” Avenatti told the newspaper. “If the defendant was anyone other than Donald Trump, this case would not have been brought at this time, and for the government to attempt to bring this case and convict him in an effort to prevent tens of millions of people from voting for him, I think it’s just flat out wrong, and atrocious.”
“I’m really bothered by the fact that Trump, in my view, has been targeted. Four cases is just over the top and I think there’s a significant chance that this is going to all backfire and is going to propel him to the White House,” Avenatti added.
The former lawyer continued, “Depending on what happens, this could constitute pouring jet fuel on his campaign.”
Trump is on trial in NYC over an alleged $130,000 payment to Daniels to keep her quiet during the 2016 election. She has alleged that she had a tryst with the former president many years ago.
“Stormy Daniels is going to say whatever she believes is going to assist Stormy Daniels and putting more money in her pocket,” Avenatti said. “If Stormy Daniels lips are moving, she’s lying for money.”
Avenatti explained that he feels like he and Trump have both been targeted by politically motivated prosecutions.
“I think that we were both targeted by the justice system,” Avenatti said. “There’s a lot of people on the left that were very concerned about my potential rise within the Democratic Party and my potential rise in Democratic politics. And the fact that I was not someone that was easily controlled.”
The imprisoned former lawyer also claimed that he is not fishing for a pardon in case Trump wins a second term.
“I’m not saying any of this because I’m seeking a pardon,” Avenatti told The Post. “I wish I would have never met Stormy Daniels. I should have left her where I found her.”
You know when Ken Griffin is doing sketchy anti-Trump stuff by the response from Ken Griffin.
Remember, this is the vulture capitalist and Citadel hedge fund operator of horrible Robin Hood infamy who was going to lose billions because the Reddit community fought back against Griffin’s short position on GameStop.
In essence, what Griffin is doing now is shorting the Trump stock he doesn’t control or borrow against. He’s naked shorting the Trump media stock, which is illegal and seriously unethical. Devin Nunes, CEO of Truth Social, has tracked the available stock and notes; there is no way for Citadel and others to sell short positions, because there is no stock available for borrowing. Nunes knows the scheme Ken Griffin is attempting.
“Data made available to us indicate that just four market participants have been responsible for over 60% of the extraordinary volume of DJT shares traded: Citadel Securities, VIRTU Americas, G1 Execution Services, and Jane Street Capital,” Nunes wrote.
Griffin and his Sea Island vulture capitalists are just repeating their previous moves. Naked shorting was partially blamed for the GameStop “meme stock” phenomenon of 2021. During the two previous years, GameStop had posted big losses leading to a large drop in its share prices. This problem was noticed by hedge funds, which took out major short positions in the stock. In 2020, at least half of GameStop’s stock was borrowed for short positions. By 2021, 140% of GameStop shares were shorted, meaning 40% of the shares shorted weren’t really out there to trade on; that is, they were likely involved in naked short sales.
Online retail investors soon noticed this giant hedge, setting up the Reddit forum “r/WallStreetBets”, to implement a short squeeze and bid up the stock to counter the shorting of the hedge funds. As the share price increased, it wasn’t just the hedge funds that lost; short sellers who hadn’t borrowed the shares couldn’t deliver. Ken Griffin went bananas and used his power with the Robin Hood trading platform to stop the buyers.
You can tell Ken Griffin is yet again behind this short stock effort by his triggered reaction:
“Devin Nunes is the proverbial loser who tries to blame ‘naked short selling’ for his falling stock price. Nunes is exactly the type of person Donald Trump would have fired on ‘The Apprentice.’ If he worked for Citadel Securities, we would fire him, as ability and integrity are at the center of everything we do.” (link)
Now read that statement and tell me that expression doesn’t scream identical to the Ron DeSantis supporters. Is it any surprise Ken Griffin was Ron DeSantis’ biggest individual donor.
President Donald J. Trump and First Lady Melania Trump (Official White House photo by Andrea Hanks)
[Editor’s note: This story originally was published by Real Clear Wire.]
By Matt Whitaker Real Clear Wire
One of America’s foundational principles is “equal justice under the law,” or the principle that no matter who you are or what you stand for, you are entitled to a fair chance to make your case in a court of law. That’s why the Lady Justice statue outside the Supreme Court wears a blindfold and holds a scale – the blindfold to symbolize her impartiality and immunity from outside influences, and the scale to signify her objective weighing of the evidence in front of her.
Unfortunately, this bedrock principle of American self-government has been put in jeopardy by the upcoming trial President Donald Trump is scheduled to face in New York later this month. While most Americans expect our judges to be neutral arbiters of the law, Judge Juan Merchan, the judge overseeing this trial against President Trump, is anything but.
As it turns out, two major Democratic clients of Judge Merchan’s daughter have raised over $93 million in campaign donations through her firm, several times using the very case Judge Merchan is overseeing in their fundraising pitches. Ms. Merchan, who previously worked for Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign, currently works as the president of Authentic Campaigns, a left-wing political consulting firm based out of Chicago. Two of Authentic Campaigns’ top clients include Senate candidate and congressman Adam Schiff, the radical California Democrat who became famous for his outright lies in pushing the Russian collusion hoax, and the Senate Majority PAC, a major fundraiser for Democratic Senate campaigns.
According to campaign finance records, Schiff’s campaign has raised over $20 million since he began fundraising off President Trump’s indictment last April, and the Senate Majority PAC has raised a whopping $73 million. A deeper dive into the campaign finance reports shows that Authentic Campaigns received more than $10 million from the Schiff campaign over the past year and over $15 million from the Senate Majority PAC since 2019.
The fact that Democratic campaigns and their affiliated consultants are profiting handsomely from the political persecution of President Trump should come as no surprise to anyone who follows money in politics, but the fact that an immediate family member of the judge overseeing this case is also profiting presents an atrocious conflict of interest. When one considers the additional fact that Judge Merchan went out of his way to personally contribute to President Biden’s campaign in 2020, any reasonable observer of this matter will conclude that allowing Judge Merchan to continue to participate in this case is untenable and will be a glaring outrage to all Americans who believe in equal justice under the law, while greatly undermining the credibility of the case.
In an order refusing to recuse himself last summer, Judge Merchan said that he “examined his conscience” and was confident in his ability to rule fairly and impartially. But who could believe him?
If Judge Merchan’s own daughter is profiting from the case he is presiding over – substantially – how can he be trusted to be fair and impartial in his rulings? If tens of millions of dollars is not enough to spur a recusal based on a conflict of interest – or, at least, the appearance of a conflict of interest – what is?
Of course, this isn’t the only case pending against President Trump that is mired by conflicts of interest and ethical violations. Recent proceedings in Georgia demonstrate that prosecutor Fani Willis hired her lover, Nathan Wade, to manage the Trump prosecution even though he had little prosecutorial experience. Over the last few years, Fani Willis has paid him over half a million dollars of taxpayer money through the Fulton County District Attorney’s office – money that Wade then used to take her on luxurious vacations around the globe.
In the federal cases brought by Department of Justice (DOJ) Special Prosecutor Jack Smith, President Biden’s Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed and empowered Smith to use the full force and resources of the federal government to investigate and charge his top political opponent, with an emphasis on forcing trial dates to directly conflict with the general election.
These political witch hunts are the sort of thing that we expect to see in corrupt foreign authoritarian regimes – not here at home in our constitutional republic. As Americans continue to watch the consequences of these sham indictments unfold, our public officials are doing incalculable damage to the integrity of our justice system and the concept of the rule of law.
As John Adams once said, our constitutional system constructs a “government of laws and not of men.” When political operatives and radical partisans weaponize the justice system to crush their political opponents to maintain power, our entire system of democratic republicanism is thrown into jeopardy.
The sham charges President Trump faces should be dropped immediately – but at the very least, politically biased, activist judges whose families personally benefit from the case have no place overseeing a trial of this magnitude. Judge Merchan should step back from this case so we can put the blindfold back on Lady Justice.
This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.
The ‘whistleblower’ who sparked Donald Trump’s first impeachment was deeply involved in the political maneuverings behind Biden-family business schemes in Ukraine that Trump wanted probed, newly obtained emails from former Vice President Joe Biden’s office reveal.
In 2019, then-National Intelligence Council analyst Eric Ciaramella touched off a political firestorm when he anonymously accused Trump of linking military aid for Ukraine to a demand for an investigation into alleged Biden corruption in that country.
But four years earlier, while working as a national security analyst attached to then-Vice President Joe Biden’s office, Ciaramella was a close adviser when Biden threatened to cut off U.S. aid to Ukraine unless it fired its top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, who was investigating Ukraine-based Burisma Holdings. At the time, the corruption-riddled energy giant was paying Biden’s son Hunter millions of dollars.
Those payments – along with other evidence tying Joe Biden to his family’s business dealings – received little attention in 2019 as Ciaramella accused Trump of a corrupt quid pro quo. Neither did subsequent evidence indicating that Hunter Biden’s associates had identified Shokin as a “key target.” These matters are now part of the House impeachment inquiry into President Biden.
“It now seems there was material evidence that would have been used at the impeachment trial [to exonerate Trump],” said George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, who has testified as an expert witness in the ongoing Biden impeachment inquiry. “Trump was alleging there was a conflict of interest with the Bidens, and the evidence could have challenged Biden’s account and established his son’s interest in the Shokin firing.”
Ciaramella’s role – including high-level discussions with top Biden aides and Ukrainian prosecutors – is only now coming to light thanks to the recent release of White House emails and photos from the National Archives.
The emails show Ciaramella expressed shock – “Yikes” is what he wrote – at Biden’s move to withhold the $1 billion in aid from Kyiv, which represented a sudden shift in U.S. policy. They also show he was drawn into White House communications over how to control adverse publicity from Hunter taking a lucrative seat on Burisma’s board.
Yet there is no evidence Ciaramella raised alarms about the questionable Biden business activities he witnessed firsthand, which is in sharp contrast to 2019. In that instance, he was galvanized into action after being told by White House colleague Alexander Vindman of an “improper” phone call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. During the call, Trump solicited Zelensky’s help in investigating Burisma and Hunter Biden’s role in the company.
Some former congressional investigators say Ciaramella effectively helped cover up a scandal far worse than what Trump was impeached over. What’s more, he failed to disclose that he had a potential conflict of interest stemming from his connection to the matter Trump asked Zelensky to probe when he lodged his complaint against Trump. RealClearInvestigations was the first to identify the then-33-year-old Ciaramella as the anonymous impeachment “whistleblower,” something major media continue to keep under tight wraps.
Ciaramella worked under CIA Director John Brennan when President Obama made Biden his point man on Ukraine in 2014, the same year Burisma hired Hunter. The next year, the CIA detailed Ciaramella, a longtime advocate for aid to Ukraine, to the White House, where he worked closely with Biden and his staff as a top adviser on key Ukrainian policies. After Biden left office, he stayed on at the GOP White House until mid-2017 even though he’s a Democrat, working as a Ukrainian and Russian analyst on Trump’s National Security Council. Co-workers there accused him of trying to sabotage Trump, including allegedly leaking sensitive information to the press.
RealClearInvestigations has reviewed more than 2,000 pages of newly disclosed archived emails from the former vice president’s office related to Ukraine, of which more than 160 contained references to Ciaramella. They reveal that his role advising Biden’s office potentially intersects with the current impeachment inquiry in several areas. Chiefly, Ciaramella focused on aid to Ukraine and anti-corruption reforms in the country. In that capacity, he:
Hosted, cleared into the White House, and met face-to-face there with senior Ukrainian prosecutors.
Gave a “readout” of the meeting to his superiors, who in turn pushed for Shokin’s firing.
Traveled with Biden to Kyiv during the 2015 trip during which Biden demanded Shokin’s firing.
Wrote media “talking points” for Ukrainian officials.
Huddled with the top Biden officials involved in discussions concerning the $1 billion aid package and Shokin, including: Amos Hochstein; Victoria Nuland; Geoffrey Pyatt; Bridget Brink; and Michael Carpenter.
Corresponded with Biden officials coordinating responses to negative media reports about Hunter’s cushy and controversial Burisma job.
Former Obama-Biden administration officials have confirmed in recent closed-door congressional testimony that Ciaramella was a key part of Biden’s process for making policy in Ukraine. In 2016, for instance, a White House photo shows him taking notes at a White House meeting Biden held with then-Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk to discuss Ukraine’s anti-corruption reforms and other issues.
Ciaramella also worked directly with top Obama and Biden administration diplomats on Ukraine, including senior State Department official Victoria Nuland. “Eric was regularly the clearing authority to get me into the White House for interagency meetings on Ukraine,” Nuland revealed in a 2020 Senate deposition. Asked if she ever discussed Ukraine policy and Shokin with Ciaramella, Nuland testified: “Of course, I did. He was part of the interagency process. He was also on my negotiating team for the six, seven rounds of negotiations I did with the Russians on [the disputed Ukraine region] Donbas.”
Ciaramella was directly involved in talks concerning the massive U.S. aid package to Ukraine that Biden conditioned on the removal of Shokin, who at the time had seized the assets of the corrupt Burisma oligarch employing Hunter Biden. He also arranged and participated in White House talks with Ukrainian prosecutors visiting from Shokin’s office.
White House visitor logs confirm Ciaramella escorted Shokin’s deputy prosecutor, David Sakvarelidze, into the White House for a January 2016 meeting. A White House agenda for the meeting lists Ciaramella as “point of contact” for the Ukrainian delegation. He also checked in Andriy Telizhenko, the Ukrainian Embassy official who says they discussed Burisma and Hunter Biden during the meeting and struggled to understand why his U.S. counterparts were suddenly hostile to Shokin after praising him in earlier talks.
Emails from the time show Ciaramella appeared surprised to hear about the linkage between the $1 billion loan to Ukraine and the dismissal of Shokin. Though Biden maintains he insisted Kyiv oust Shokin because he was too soft on weeding out fraud in entities that included Burisma, Ciaramella suggested he didn’t share the view that Shokin was corrupt. “We were super impressed with the group,” Ciaramella added, “and we had a two-hour discussion of their priorities and the obstacles they face.”
On Jan. 21, U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt emailed Ciaramella and other White House aides an article from the Ukrainian press – “U.S. loan guarantee conditional on Shokin’s dismissal.”
“Yikes. I don’t recall this coming up in our meeting with them,” Ciaramella replied, referring to the White House meeting he hosted with top Ukrainian prosecutors.
But in a closed-door 2020 deposition before the Senate, Pyatt sounded skeptical that Ciaramella was in the dark about the decision. “I think you have to ask Eric what he meant by ‘Yikes,’” Pyatt told Senate investigators. He said that he believed conditioning the loan guarantee on Shokin’s removal “obviously came up in those meetings” hosted by Ciaramella, suggesting that Biden’s aide knew of the quid pro quo before Pyatt circulated the article about it from the Ukrainian press.
The day before he hosted the Ukraine prosecutors, Ciaramella received an agenda from a State Department official that asked him to “note the importance of appointing a new PG [Prosecutor General], reiterating that Shokin is an obstacle to reform,” according to emails. The agenda also called on Ciaramella to “ask the del [Ukrainian delegation] what high-level cases are on the docket for prosecution,” which raises suspicions in some quarters that Biden’s advisers were fishing for information about Shokin’s plans for prosecuting Burisma oligarchs, something Hunter Biden had been asked to find out.
In a Jan. 21 email, Pyatt told Ciaramella to “buckle in” because, as he later explained to Senate investigators, the deal was a “difficult issue” and “there was going to be political controversy around this [news].”
The former ambassador demurred when asked if conditioning the $1 billion on Shokin’s firing was Biden’s idea or came from his office. “It was the – our interagency policy,” he testified, adding, “I don’t remember when the vice president would have weighed in on this.”
However, Pyatt allowed that it was a sudden change in policy. “At the beginning,” he said, “it was not our expectation that Shokin’s removal would be necessary.” Indeed, an Oct. 1, 2015, memo summarizing the recommendation of the Interagency Policy Committee on Ukraine stated, “Ukraine has made sufficient progress on its [anti-corruption] reform agenda to justify a third [loan] guarantee.” Ciaramella was a member of the IPC task force, which monitored Shokin’s office. The next month, moreover, the task force drafted a loan guarantee agreement that did not call for Shokin’s removal. Then, in December, Joe Biden flew to Kyiv to demand his ouster.
If what Ciaramella expressed in his email (which he knew would be part of archived White House records) was a genuine reaction, it appears that Vice President Biden went against the recommendation of one of his top NSC advisers on Ukraine. If Ciaramella were genuinely alarmed, he might have blown the whistle on his boss like he did on Trump, but he stayed mum. If, on the other hand, Ciaramella were a party to the quid-pro-quo discussions, as Pyatt suggests, then he had “a direct conflict,” noted Derek Harvey, the former congressional investigator involved in the first impeachment. Either way, Ciaramella clearly found himself in the middle of a major controversy.
Just weeks prior, White House photos indicate that Ciaramella traveled with Biden on the same December 2015 Air Force Two flight the vice president took to Kyiv to threaten Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to ax Shokin. Republicans have accused Biden of pushing Shokin’s ouster to block scrutiny of his son’s actions.
“Biden called an audible and changed U.S. policy toward Ukraine to benefit his son on the plane ride to Ukraine,” House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer said, and “later bragged about withholding a U.S. loan guarantee if Ukraine did not fire the prosecutor [Shokin].” Biden and his supporters have repeatedly claimed Shokin had to go because he wasn’t cracking down on corruption and that everyone else in the administration, as well as Europe, agreed Shokin should be fired. This remains the prevailing narrative in major U.S. media. But around that time, Shokin had conducted a raid of Burisma oligarch Mykola Zlochevsky’s home, seizing his house, cars, and other assets.
IRS Special Agent Joseph Ziegler, who examined Hunter’s emails as part of his investigation of Hunter for tax evasion, said Shokin was identified as a “key target” in emails exchanged between Hunter and Burisma officials in November 2015 – the month before Biden traveled to Ukraine to demand Shokin’s removal. Just days before Biden arrived in Kyiv in early December 2015 to demand Shokin’s ouster, Hunter allegedly called his father from Dubai following a meeting there with Burisma official Vadym Pozharskyi, who asked him to pressure his father to shut down Shokin’s investigation. Vice President Biden was familiar with Pozharskyi, having met with him in April 2015 during a dinner at the Cafe Milano in D.C. arranged by Hunter.
“The unstated goal was to have the Ukrainian prosecutor removed in an effort to close the criminal case against [Burisma founder] Zlochevsky,” Ziegler said in recent testimony before the House impeachment inquiry. After Shokin was pushed out of office, the Burisma investigation dried up.
Ciaramella tried to marshal a defense for Biden in the whistleblower complaint he sent to Rep. Adam Schiff in August 2019. He listed among Trump’s concerns at the time of the fateful July phone call “that former Vice President Biden had pressured Poroshenko in 2016 to fire Shokin in order to quash a purported criminal probe into Burisma Holdings.” But Ciaramella attempted to pour cold water on the notion by referencing a Bloomberg News article that quoted a “former senior Ukrainian prosecutor” who falsely claimed “that Mr. Shokin in fact was not investigating Burisma at the time of his removal in 2016.”
White House emails reveal that Ciaramella was looped into messages sent by Biden’s communications team, who were concerned that Hunter Biden taking a position on corrupt Burisma’s board created unseemly optics and undercut their boss’ mission to clean up corruption in Ukraine.
In a Dec. 8, 2015, email, for example, Biden’s communications director Kate Bedingfield copied Ciaramella on a link to a New York Times article headlined, “The Knotty Ties Between Joe Biden, His Son and Ukraine.” Bedingfield is quoted in the story, authored by James Risen, denying Hunter had traveled with his father to Ukraine in an attempt to downplay his influence. She also said Ukrainian officials never raised his position on the Burisma board with Biden as an issue of concern. Risen got spun, however, on the issue of compensation for Hunter, reporting that it was “not out of the ordinary.”
At the time, Burisma was paying Hunter, who had no energy sector experience, $1 million a year just for lending his name to its board. It turns out that Hunter never traveled to Ukraine for a single meeting in the five years he sat on Burisma’s board. Republicans suspect Biden got the prosecutor ousted to keep the money flowing from Burisma to the Biden family.
Career State Department officials led by George Kent, who was stationed in Ukraine at the time, tried to get Biden’s aides to raise the issue of potential family conflicts with the vice president. Despite their concerns, Biden never asked his son to step down from the Burisma board, which would have made all questions go away. And despite Kent and other officials identifying Burisma founder Zlochevsky by name as a corrupt actor in Ukraine, Biden himself never publicly called Zlochevsky out as corrupt while Hunter served on his board and pocketed millions in payments from him. For all his talk of fighting corruption in Ukraine, Biden failed to distance himself from one of the most corrupt oligarchs in the country.
Harvey, who served as the staff investigator for the Republican side of the House Intelligence Committee during the 2019 Trump impeachment hearings, said: “The [Biden] impeachment inquiry should compel Ciaramella to testify since we now know he was involved in communications about Biden using the $1 billion in aid to extort Ukraine into firing Shokin.”
Harvey said Ciaramella would make a valuable material witness against Biden in the probe, which centers on whether Biden used his White House clout or political influence on behalf of his son’s foreign paymasters. White House photos indicate Ciaramella took notes during his meetings with Biden, his staff, and Ukrainian officials – materials that lawmakers could subpoena along with his testimony.
Another former staff investigator noted that Ciaramella is no longer protected by federal whistleblower laws. He has left the government and now works as a senior fellow focusing on Ukraine and Russia for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, where he is consulting with White House officials and pushing for billions more in U.S. aid for Ukraine – including “a Marshall Plan for the Ukrainian military.” Through a spokesperson, Ciaramella declined to comment.
“None of the whistleblower protections apply to this particular situation,” said Jason Foster, former chief investigative counsel for the Senate Judiciary Committee and a whistleblower expert. He also noted that the Whistleblower Protection Act doesn’t shield whistleblowers from any other conduct they might have been involved in, including their own conduct. Nor does it give them a legal right to anonymity.
A spokeswoman for the House Oversight Committee, which is leading the Biden impeachment inquiry, declined to say whether Ciaramella is on the witness list. “I don’t have anything for you on this at this time,” said House Oversight Communications Director Jessica Collins. However, Comer has publicly described the “whistleblower” impeachment of Trump as a “cover-up” operation for the alleged Biden blackmail scheme in Ukraine involving U.S. aid and the Burisma corruption probe.
What Ciaramella witnessed and what he documented in notes he took during high-level Biden-Ukraine meetings could now be relevant to the active impeachment inquiry of President Biden. The House may have little choice but to hold the kind of hearings the Democrats blocked during the earlier impeachment by keeping Ciaramella’s identity – and his own potential conflict – secret.
As the catalyst for Trump’s impeachment, Ciaramella could now be a reluctant witness for Biden’s.
BREAKING: VP Biden Emails Reveal Eric Ciaramella Had Serious Conflict of Interest Blowing Whistle on Trumphttps://t.co/g02aj0UmcY
This RealClearInvestigations article was republished by The Gateway Pundit with permission.
Paul Sperry is the former D.C. bureau chief for Investor’s Business Daily, Hoover Institution media fellow, author of several books, including bestseller INFILTRATION
Now that everyone realizes that the COVID-19 vaccine doesn’t actually prevent people from getting infected or passing the disease on to others, many people may be wondering why governments around the world were so insistent that people get jabbed.
Renowned molecular geneticist Dr. Michael Nehls has one theory. He has studied the effects of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines on the brain extensively and believes it is the way these jabs affect our minds that made governments so eager to push them on their populations.
He recently sat down with Tucker Carlson to discuss his book, The Indoctrinated Brain, and how these vaccines are affecting people’s minds. He explained how both the vaccines and the virus itself – which was engineered in a lab, funded by the Chinese government and partly paid for by American government – are vital components of a widespread assault on the human brain that seeks to squash the individuality associated with clear and healthy minds.
Dr. Nehls said that thanks to the brain alterations this causes, “we can be conquered, and we would even accept it.” He also believes “it’s not about health, it’s not about even money – it’s about conquering the human mind.”
He added that there were other ways that the vaccines could have been designed that would have avoided affecting the brain in this way, but vaccine developers actually chose to use this mechanism – and that doesn’t seem to be an accident.
Investigative journalist John Leake explained why this theory is so compelling. He described his own experience with COVID-19 in June of 2022. He followed the protocol of Dr. Peter McCullough and quickly returned to normal after three days of feeling extreme fatigue and symptoms that were not unlike those of a bad hangover. However, he reported that he felt very depressed for about two weeks afterward and was inundated with gloomy thoughts. Even as his body returned to normal and he started to resume typical activities like long walks on the third day, his mind didn’t bounce back as quickly.
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Dr. McCullough told him that this was caused by neuroinflammation from the spike protein, which means that both the virus and the vaccine will have this effect.
“The spike protein causes an inflammatory immune response that affects the brain, and autopsy studies have even found the spike in the brain,” Dr. McCullough explained.
People who can’t think for themselves are easier to control
In fact, the effects on the brain may be worse among the vaccinated because they induce the body to produce uncontrolled amounts of the spike protein for an unpredictable duration. When you also factor in how the vaccine is not a sterilizing one, which means those who get it still often contract the virus – some of them multiple times – it is easy to see how so many people’s brains could be declining in a major way and one that those in power could seek to capitalize on to control our behavior so we remain dependent on them.
Leake said that he has noticed many people around him experiencing some type of mental lethargy. For example, he feels that the quality of deep conversations among people has declined recently. While many people can keep up with trivial conversations, those that require more cognitive energy seem to be challenging these days.
He also pointed out that the virus emerged right around the time that the World Economic Forum announced its scary Great Reset agenda. In fact, WEF founder Klaus Schwab himself said: “The pandemic represents a rare but narrow window of opportunity to reflect, reimagine and reset our world.”
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