New York governor Kathy Hochul has directed state to investigate pro-life pregnancy centers
Gov. Kathy Hochul (D., N.Y.) has for weeks remained silent about pro-abortion activists firebombing a pro-life pregnancy center in her state. But when pro-life activists allegedly disrupted services at a Brooklyn Planned Parenthood, the Democrat condemned the “intimidation” from “anti-abortion extremists.”
“This is a shameful attempt to prevent New Yorkers from exercising their fundamental right to access reproductive care,” Hochul tweeted Thursday after New York attorney general Letitia James (D.) announced that pro-life activists harassed employees at a city Planned Parenthood clinic. “They won’t win.”
That reaction was a stark contrast with her muted response to a June incident in which pro-abortion activists firebombed a Buffalo, N.Y., pregnancy center that does not offer abortion services. The pregnancy center was also vandalized with graffiti that read “Jane was here,” a tagline for the extremist pro-abortion group Jane’s Revenge, which has vowed to attack similar pregnancy centers across the country. The Democrat has yet to comment on the attack. The governor’s office, meanwhile, told a local news outlet that Hochul “condemns violence of any kind.”
Hochul’s statement comes as Democrats look to crack down on the pregnancy centers following the overturn of Roe v. Wade. Just weeks after the Buffalo attack, Hochul signed a bill into law that directs state authorities to investigate pregnancy centers that do not perform abortions. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) has accused the facilities of “torturing” women and said the government should “shut them down all around the country.”
Hochul’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
New York Democrats have increased efforts to target pro-life activists in recent years. As attorney general, James filed a lawsuit against a Brooklyn pastor, as well as his followers, who protested outside of an abortion clinic in the city. Her office deployed private investigators and hidden cameras to spy on these pro-life activists but later dropped the lawsuit in November. James has a pending lawsuit against pro-life activists who protested at another Planned Parenthood in the state.
The pregnancy center bill Hochul signed directs the state’s commissioner of health to investigate pro-life pregnancy centers because they do not provide abortions, including a probe into whether these pregnancy centers provide a “comprehensive range of reproductive and sexual health care services.”
Hochul has received $9,750 from Planned Parenthood and its associated PACs between her 2014 campaign for lieutenant governor and her current gubernatorial reelection campaign.
The attack on CompassCare, the pregnancy center in Buffalo, is part of a larger trend of violence against pro-life institutions following the overturn of Roe v. Wade. There have been 93 attacks on pro-life groups since May, according to the Catholic News Agency. A majority of these attacks were against pregnancy centers.
Jim Harden, CEO of CompassCare, said he has received no assistance from his state’s government after the attack on his clinic.
“It appears Governor Hochul and the N.Y. Legislature are only interested in protecting those who agree with them and bullying those who don’t,” Harden said.
Gov. Kathy Hochul (D., N.Y.) has for weeks remained silent about pro-abortion activists firebombing a pro-life pregnancy center in her state. But when pro-life activists allegedly disrupted services at a Brooklyn Planned Parenthood, the Democrat condemned the “intimidation” from “anti-abortion extremists.”
“This is a shameful attempt to prevent New Yorkers from exercising their fundamental right to access reproductive care,” Hochul tweeted Thursday after New York attorney general Letitia James (D.) announced that pro-life activists harassed employees at a city Planned Parenthood clinic. “They won’t win.”
That reaction was a stark contrast with her muted response to a June incident in which pro-abortion activists firebombed a Buffalo, N.Y., pregnancy center that does not offer abortion services. The pregnancy center was also vandalized with graffiti that read “Jane was here,” a tagline for the extremist pro-abortion group Jane’s Revenge, which has vowed to attack similar pregnancy centers across the country. The Democrat has yet to comment on the attack. The governor’s office, meanwhile, told a local news outlet that Hochul “condemns violence of any kind.”
Hochul’s statement comes as Democrats look to crack down on the pregnancy centers following the overturn of Roe v. Wade. Just weeks after the Buffalo attack, Hochul signed a bill into law that directs state authorities to investigate pregnancy centers that do not perform abortions. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) has accused the facilities of “torturing” women and said the government should “shut them down all around the country.”
Hochul’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
New York Democrats have increased efforts to target pro-life activists in recent years. As attorney general, James filed a lawsuit against a Brooklyn pastor, as well as his followers, who protested outside of an abortion clinic in the city. Her office deployed private investigators and hidden cameras to spy on these pro-life activists but later dropped the lawsuit in November. James has a pending lawsuit against pro-life activists who protested at another Planned Parenthood in the state.
The pregnancy center bill Hochul signed directs the state’s commissioner of health to investigate pro-life pregnancy centers because they do not provide abortions, including a probe into whether these pregnancy centers provide a “comprehensive range of reproductive and sexual health care services.”
Hochul has received $9,750 from Planned Parenthood and its associated PACs between her 2014 campaign for lieutenant governor and her current gubernatorial reelection campaign.
The attack on CompassCare, the pregnancy center in Buffalo, is part of a larger trend of violence against pro-life institutions following the overturn of Roe v. Wade. There have been 93 attacks on pro-life groups since May, according to the Catholic News Agency. A majority of these attacks were against pregnancy centers.
Jim Harden, CEO of CompassCare, said he has received no assistance from his state’s government after the attack on his clinic.
“It appears Governor Hochul and the N.Y. Legislature are only interested in protecting those who agree with them and bullying those who don’t,” Harden said.
Austin Independent School District course says gender is ‘innermost concept of self as male, female, neither or both’
Instead of ruining life for everyone, just send these kids to a special needs facility. We do this for rowdy kids and ones with handicaps like autism. Enough of the attack on children and parents by Marxist enemies of the state (AKA Teachers’ Unions, teachers). They are guilty of child abuse and treason. [US Patriot]
A Texas school district encouraged K-12 teachers to take paid time off, at taxpayer expense, to take a course on “how to create supportive learning environments for LGBTQIA+” students as young as five years old.
The Austin Independent School District’s course material, obtained through a public information request, defined gender identity as the “innermost concept of self as male, female, neither or both,” calling it “one’s authentic identity.” The course also provided an example of a girl who questions her gender identity and asked how teachers should properly respond.
“A 14-year-old youth, who recently asked to be called Ronnie not Veronica, discloses to you a desire to go by ‘they’ pronouns,” one PowerPoint slide read. “Ronnie wants to cut their hair short but isn’t sure how their parents will react, making them feel anxious. Ronnie is also stressed because while they have been dating Julie and ‘came out as a lesbian’ in 7th grade, they have started to have feelings for Ted, who identifies as male, and this is confusing for them.”
The Austin public school district did not respond to a request for comment on the substance of the training course.
The district pushed the teacher training amid a series of fights nationwide over whether students should be taught about gender identity and transgenderism. The Free Beaconreported last year that these debates over sex education at the local level are fueled by liberal advocacy groups that push public schools to promote gender ideology to elementary students. One district spiked a sex education plan in Nebraska after parents discovered it was secretly advised by a Planned Parenthood activist, the Free Beaconreported.
The Austin public school district sparked controversy in June when it defied orders from Texas attorney general Ken Paxton (R.), who labeled its pride parade as “human sexuality instruction,” which requires parents to approve their children’s participation. The district rejected Paxton’s claim and followed through with the parade without parental approval.
The “Be a Beacon” gender course is run by Out Youth, which in a February Facebook post claimed that so-called gender-affirming care for transgender children “saves lives.” The training course cited resources from two prominentLGBT groups that also support children receiving puberty blockers and hormone treatment. The presentation cited a book titled, The Transgender Child: A Handbook for Families and Professionals.
“Are you, or parts of you, both? How do you know?” the course asked teachers. “If your anatomy changed overnight to the opposite sex, would it change who you feel yourself to be?”
Multi-agency investigation uncovers international smuggling operation
WINTER HAVEN, Fla.–A multi-agency investigation resulted in the breakup of an international drug ring, with the arrest of 85 suspects and the seizure of firearms and $12.8 million worth of drugs, Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd announced on Aug. 19.
Judd said the drugs—including enough fentanyl to kill 96,000 people—were “smuggled in suitcases” using domestic flights out of Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). They would book a flight from California to Orlando, then check the luggage, but “never get on the flight.” The receiver picked up the luggage filled with drugs that were then distributed onto the “streets of Polk County.”
The sheriff picked up a large bag of methamphetamine for all to see.
“On one occasion, on one airline, six suitcases with this drug were smuggled into Orlando,” Judd said.
The investigation began in September 2020 when the sheriff’s office received information about the “Jefferson family” and that one of the family members was smuggling “large amounts of drugs into Florida from Mexico.”
The wiretap investigation began in February 2022, “during which a court-ordered intercept of communications between suspects within the criminal drug trafficking organization was initiated and monitored,” the sheriff told reporters.
Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd shows the media pictures of suspects after busting an international drug ring on Aug. 19, 2022 (Jann Falkenstern, The Epoch Times)
“We brought and made predicate cases for the wiretap throughout the two ensuing years, but we couldn’t get to the top and link the organization together. This was a very different kind of operation. If you look at our chart there, you’ll notice … three distinct groups of people,” he said, pointing to a wall of mug shots.
He said 85 of the suspects had been arrested and three were “still at large.”
“There was a total of 355 felonies and 93 misdemeanors,” Judd said. “However, the suspects’ previous criminal histories included 690 previous felonies, 712 misdemeanors and 194 felony convictions.”
The investigation yielded 268 pounds of methamphetamine and 6.8 ounces of fentanyl.
“Now that doesn’t sound like a lot—just 6.8 ounces. But according to our DEA partners, 2 milligrams of fentanyl can be a deadly overdose,” Judd said.
“So what does all that mean? It means that 6.8 ounces of fentanyl could have killed up to 96,000 people.”
Forty-nine firearms were seized plus “all kinds of other assorted drugs and pills” plus $235,000 in cash. Judd said the entire bust was worth about $12.8 million.
The sheriff said that the investigation is ongoing and that LAX baggage handlers as well as other airline employees are being scrutinized.
“You think LAX just got a drug smuggling problem at the airport?” Judd said. “I believe that they do and they need to address it.”
Working together to make the arrests were several Florida law enforcement agencies, including the Orlando Police Department, Osceola County Sheriff’s Office, Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE), as well as Fresno County, California Sheriff’s Office and the U.S. Border Patrol.
Illegal drugs, firearms, and currency seized:
· 268 pounds of Methamphetamine / 112,563 grams ($9,725,040 street value) · 31 pounds of Cocaine / 14,055.17 grams ($1,405,337 street value) · 180 pounds of Cannabis / 81,417.89 grams ($1,628,357 street value) · 3.4 pounds of MDMA (Ecstasy) / 1,692.02 grams ($84,601 street value) · 6.8 ounces of Fentanyl / 192.77 grams ($26,880 street value) · 68 Alprazolam (Xanax) pills · 173 Oxycodone pills · 49 firearms · 3 non-active grenades · 2 bulletproof vests · 1 stolen motorcycle · $235,000 cash
Once again, Woke clearly does not equate to Awake. [US Patriot]
The flood of illegal immigrants and drugs coming over the U.S.–Mexico border constitutes an “invasion,” a majority of respondents to a new poll say.
Respondents were asked to label the statement, “The U.S. is experiencing an invasion at the southern border” as completely or somewhat true, completely false, or don’t know.
More than half, or 54 percent, said it’s true. Republicans were much more likely to say the statement is true, with 76 percent agreeing compared to 40 percent of Democrats and 46 percent of respondents.
Democrats were most likely to say the statement was completely false, and independents were most likely to say they don’t know.
Under Joe Biden, the United States has recorded unprecedented numbers of illegal immigrants crossing the southern border. Due to relaxed immigration enforcement policies, many illegal aliens have been released into the U.S. interior, while deportations have plunged.
Amid the immigration crisis, a number of Texas counties have declared the situation an “invasion,” including Parker County. Officials also cited drugs being brought across the border.
Seven out of 10 Republicans in the new poll said the drugs being brought over the border are responsible for the increase in drug overdoses in America, along with 35 percent of Democrats and 45 percent of independents.
‘Open Border Policy’
A majority of Republicans also agreed with the statement the United States is implementing “an open border policy” along the border.
A person’s main source of news impacted their choices, pollsters found. Republicans who watched Fox News, for instance, were more likely to describe the border crisis as an invasion than those who have a different primary source.
Fox regularly reports from the border, including showing footage of migrants crossing the border between ports of entries, which makes them illegal immigrants.
The most cited source of news for Democrats and independents was ABC/NBC/CBS, while Republicans were most likely to source from Fox.
Respondents were also divided by political affiliation when answering whether there are enough immigrants in America already.
Six out of 10 Republicans agreed, versus 30 percent of Democrats and 37 percent of independents.
Democrats were the most likely to say immigrants are an important part of the American identity. Seventy-four percent agreed, compared to 49 percent of Republicans and 44 percent of independents.
Most Republicans, meanwhile, agreed with the statement that there is a “deep state,” or embedded political class, working to open the borders to more immigrants. Compared to 19 percent of Democrats and 30 percent of independents, 58 percent of Republicans agreed.
The NPR-Ipsos poll (pdf) was conducted online on July 28 and July 29. The sample of 1,116 adults included 516 Democrats, 317 Republicans, and 141 independents. (Now we know the reasons the poll only came up with 54% [US Patriot])
The margin of error was plus/minus 5.1 percentage points.
Since receiving Moderna COVID-19 vaccines, Bonnie Eisenberg experienced relapse of her breast cancer 8 years after being in remission.
The 73-year-old was diagnosed with stage 2 breast cancer in 2012. After successful treatment, she had been in remission since 2014.
Ever since then, her doctor has measured tumor marker levels in her body to monitor for relapse.
Tumor markers are usually proteins that indicate possible tumor or cancer growth. High levels of tumor markers may indicate cancer but it is not definitive.
There are many markers that can be tested, but the one that her doctor particularly focused on was the carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), a tumor marker common to cancers of the breast, colon and rectum, prostate, ovary, lung, thyroid, and liver.
Since 2014, Eisenberg dutifully took monthly CEA tests along with others. The tests continuously returned with numbers in the normal range, which her doctor said was from 0 to 4.0 ng/mL.
Eisenberg’s average CEA results had been at 0.4 ng/mL, indicating her cancer was under control.
“Everything’s been going fine,” Eisenberg told The Epoch Times, “I was one of his best patients. He never worried about me.”
However, that changed after she got vaccinated. She received her first Moderna shot in January 2021 and experienced various common adverse effects including fever, shakes, “you name it, I had it,” she said.
Bonnie Eisenberg and her husband. (Courtesy of Eisenberg)
That month, her CEA test rose to 3.7 ng/mL.
However, since it was still within the normal range, both Eisenberg and her doctor were not concerned.
After all, tumor cells are not limited to cancer patients. It is a known fact that everyone can have cancerous cells; what matters is whether the immune system can keep the cancer in check.
Eisenberg took her second shot in February 2021 and again suffered the same adverse effects.
Her CEA numbers jumped to 5.2 ng/mL that month.
This took her out of the normal range. Yet because Eisenberg has been such a stable patient, and because her result was so close to the normal range, both she and her doctor dismissed the results.
“Maybe I should have been a little more on the doctor. Since I was so good. We weren’t really that concerned about it.”
Boosters became available in October 2021. Eisenberg was not happy to take it given her previous adverse reactions, but she and her husband took it anyway. She experienced the same terrible adverse reactions.
In October 2021 and December 2021, she had CEA tests taken.
On Dec. 13, 2021 at 8 o’clock in morning, she received a call from her doctor. He was very concerned.
“When you’re getting a phone call that early in the morning, something’s wrong. He says to me: ‘Bonnie, we have to scan you.’ What’s the matter? [I asked]. My mark was up to 17.6 [ng/mL]—I was in trouble.”
Eisenberg was immediately sent for a CAT scan, as well as MRI and PET scans.
On the PET scans, it showed that her previously dormant breast cancer has “metastasized,” meaning that it has spread to locations outside the breast.
“When he hit me with this, even now … it’s just a very hard thing to accept. It’s just something that should have never taken place.”
“[The cancer] went to all my bones … it didn’t go to any of my body organs, but it was over every bone you could think of. On the PET scan I lit up like a Christmas tree.”
A metastasizing breast cancer would automatically put her in stage 4, the worst stage for cancers.
Eisenberg is convinced that the vaccine is responsible for her cancer recurrence. The increase in CEA levels correlated well with her vaccine timeline, and she is adamant that she will not get any more vaccinations, fearing that she will really die from it.
In the same month (December 2021), Eisenberg started targeted therapy. The main medication she takes for her cancer costs about $14,000 a month “but I just have a little copayment coverage for it.”
She also has a hormone blocker as well as a monthly injection of denosumab ($3,000 each) to prevent bone fractures. Luckily, her insurance covers the cost of denosumab.
Eisenberg has responded very well to her drugs, and her cancer is back in remission now.
Since she started treatment again, her CEA numbers dropped from 4.7 in January 2022 to below 1 ng/mL in June 2022. Her numbers are just like how she was before vaccination.
The bright spots representing cancer cells are also gone on her new PET scans.
Nonetheless, things have not returned to normal; the drug side effects Eisenberg complains of are likely to accompany her for the rest of her life.
“I have to be on [medication] for the rest of my life. I can’t stop it … he [the doctor] can lower the milligrams and stuff like that … but you always have to be watched. What I have is not going away.”
Her breast cancer medication reduces white blood cell counts, significantly weakening her immune system and puts her at risk of infections. This new worry hangs on Eisenberg’s mind, and in crowded places, she feels compelled to put on a face mask.
The drug also causes her hair to thin, and as a “hair girl,” Eisenberg is bothered by the reality that she can no longer straighten her hair.
The denosumab injections can also cause loss of bone mass leading to eventual breakdown. Eisenberg is glad to have greater intervals introduced between each injection and possible reduced dosages for her medications.
Given her stage 4 relapse, Eisenberg is considered fortunate to be back in remission.
Eisenberg shared her experience with other women also in remission who have not been recommended to do monthly tests, or women who responded very poorly to potent breast cancer treatments.
She hopes that her story will be able to help others so that the same does not happen to them.
“Whatever erupted inside me from the shot, something happened because they don’t even know what it does to the immune system … [the doctors, people at Moderna] don’t even know; there’s no answers. Nobody has any answers. I don’t care who you talk to. You’re not gonna get an answer. They don’t know.”
“There’s possibly other girls like me now. They don’t even know what’s happening inside them because if they’re not tested properly, they’re not going to know.”
In the history of the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), a total of 93 breast cancer cases have been reported as an adverse effect of a vaccine, of which 77 of the cases are reported after COVID-19 vaccines.
What Current Research Shows Us
The current research suggests the COVID shots altered the innate immune system, which is likely to alter the adaptive immune system.
Within the body, we have the innate immune cells that are quick-acting, inflammatory, and target all foreign molecules the same way.
Some of these innate immune cells will eventually activate adaptive immune cells, called the T and B cells. These cells begin to work a few days after infection and require activation from innate immune cells to function properly. These T and B cells target infections and cancers through specific and varied pathways. They create an immune memory afterwards so that the immune system will be able to act faster the next time.
Innate Immune System Alterations: Interferons
Interferons (IFN) are antiviral proteins. There are three major types: type I, II, and III, categorized based on the receptors each IFN binds to.
One of the most important IFN is type 1 IFN; it acts globally, targeting many tissues and organs to protect from infections, autoimmune diseases, as well as cancers.
Studies show that they are particularly important in the early response to infection and cancer.
“Impaired type I IFN signaling is linked to many disease risks, most notably cancer, as type 1 IFN signaling suppresses proliferation of both viruses and cancer cells by arresting the cell cycle,” the authors, led by Dr. Stephanie Seneff from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology wrote.
Dr. Stephanie Seneff. (Courtesy of Stephanie Seneff)
IFN-alpha and IFN-beta are type 1 IFNs; these molecules alert other cells of a virus or cancer, and also stop infected and cancerous cells from proliferating, causing diseased cells to die.
However, research on spike protein and mRNA vaccines suggests that IFN-alpha action may be impaired when exposed to spike protein.
A study that exposed human cells to spike protein DNA to induce the cell to produce spike protein found that the cell shipped out the spike protein with two forms of microRNAs (miRNAs) that inhibited molecules that activated IFN-alpha/beta.
miRNA are short strands of RNA molecules that bind to the DNA in cells and can therefore regulate cell activity. These two miRNA inhibited an essential protein that activates the IFN-alpha/beta pathway. This implies that vaccinated individuals will have a reduced IFN-alpha/beta response and poorer immune clearance.
Seneff said that the reduced symptoms in the vaccinated are likely because of this reduced pathway, since the initial symptoms of COVID-19 are caused by actions of the interferon action. This is why many vaccinated individuals are getting infected with rebound symptoms.
“[The vaccinated] don’t get the symptoms … don’t feel as sick, but actually, you’re spreading the disease like crazy because you’re not fighting it off.”
This also means that the virus will stick around in vaccinated individuals for longer, and if the disease is not cleared after a long period of time, it can cause severe disease down the line.
This hypothesis also concordant with hospitalization and mortality rates in New South Wales, an Australian state where over 95 percent of the population has been fully vaccinated, with many people receiving one or two boosters.
Hospitalitization rates and mortality rates are significantly higher in the boosted and fully vaccinated cohort, with lower rates in the unvaccinated and patients that have only received one dose.
Reduced T-Cell Response
T-cells and B-cells are adaptive immune cells, meaning that they engage in specific and targeted attacks rather than attacking all foreign invaders the same way, which is what innate immune cells do.
Both cell types are very powerful, but both need to be activated first through innate immune system pathways to develop strong, specified attacks.
Killer T-cells engage in close combat with diseased and cancerous cells by punching holes into them whereas B plasma cells work long-range, releasing antibodies into fluids in the body to surround and neutralize toxins, bacteria, and viruses. B-cells also play a role in cancer, though their function and importance are not well understood.
T-cells have been extensively studied for the important role they play in cancer by killing cancer cells directly. The activity of T-cells have often been used to predict disease outcomes in cancer patients.
However, recent studies have shown that innate immune function has been altered in those injected with the COVID shots. A preprint study found receptors that activate T-cell action, including TLR7/8 (toll like receptors 7 and 8), are reduced in vaccinated individuals.
Further, a Chinese study of people who have been vaccinated with the spike protein-inducing COVID-19 shots found that gene activity for what proteins and pathways are turned on and off have changed across most immune cells.
This raises questions about our traditional understanding of the innate immune cell to T-cell activation pathway and whether vaccinated individuals will have an immune system that responds similarly to how it was before vaccination.
The study found T-cell activity was reduced as well as an increased inflammatory response in the immediate weeks following vaccination, which, in the long-term, puts people at risk for cancer.
“These data suggested that after vaccination, at least by day 28, other than generation of neutralizing antibodies, people’s immune systems, including those of lymphocytes (T-cells, B-cells, natural killer cells) and monocytes (innate immune cells), were perhaps in a more vulnerable state,” the authors wrote.
These findings overlap with pathologist Dr. Ryan Cole’s observations at his medical laboratory, Cole Diagnostics.
Cole told Jan Jekielek on American Thought Leaders that after vaccinations started rolling out in the older population, he noticed the reappearance of Molluscum contagiosum, a parapoxvirus that most people get in childhood and is kept in check by the immune system from the teenage years onward.
Though the uptick is unusual, as Cole saw more cases he grew concerned that the vaccines may be driving a form of “immune dysregulation,” meaning a possible breakdown to established immune controls. Since these viruses are normally kept in check by T-cells, which also keep cancers in check, a loss of immune memory against viruses could be a sign of loss of control in cancers.
“About a month or two later, all of a sudden there are certain types of cancers that I commonly see in the laboratory, after 500,000 patients … I started seeing endometrial cancers go up and there’s certain type … Melanomas, I started seeing thicker and earlier as well.”
Since then he has shared his findings in other lectures and found that other doctors and nurses around the world have made similar observations of increased rates of cancer cases.
An analysis by The Expose on VAERS data also indicated an uptick of cancer after COVID-19 vaccines by 143,233 percent.
An undated photograph of Cheryl Rolf and her late husband John Rolf (Courtesy of Cheryl Rolf).
Developing Cancer After Vaccination
In addition to cancers relapsing, there are also cases of sudden cancer development in previously cancer-free people after vaccination.
Cheryl Rolf shared her late husband John Rolf’s experience with a sudden onset of esophageal cancer within a month or two after vaccination.
“He was vaccinated with the first vaccine March 1st of 2021, and then the second vaccine on March 29th,” Cheryl Rolf, his wife told The Epoch Times during a phone call.
A few days after his second vaccination, John, who had always been healthy, started to cough, and soon he would sporadically choke on his food, and “that gradually increased in frequency over time.”
In August, John’s doctor sent him for a scan, showing suspicious growth at the base of the esophagus, and by late August, John was diagnosed with stage 3 esophageal cancer.
“The oncologist said he marked [John] curative,” Rolf said. “He planned for him [John] to fully recover from this.”
Esophageal cancer is a rarer form of cancer that predominantly affects men aged 45 to 70. Smoking, long-term heavy consumption of alcohol, bile reflux, nerve problems in the esophagus, and obesity are all risks of esophageal cancer.
Considering John’s age of 68 years at the time, he was at risk. However, he had no medical or family history of cancer. He also did not have stomach reflux, nor did he smoke, and only drank alcohol occasionally. He was not obese.
In early September, John started his chemo and radiotherapy and it was a particularly tortuous experience for him.
John’s trouble with swallowing soon worsened, coupled with nausea and an altered sense of taste from chemo, he soon “seemed to have given up trying to eat or drink.”
“[John] was supposed to be taking more food and fluids in—he was getting some in—but he was also spitting up an awful lot of yellow phlegm … he couldn’t just drink things like you and I do. He gets to take a sip and try to get it down.”
Dehydration and weight loss meant that he also needed hydration once every three days.
John finished his treatment regimen in mid-October 2021 and doctors planned for him to make a physical recovery from the therapy, gain his strength back, and then remove his tumor through surgery.
However, on Oct. 25, three days after he received his last hydrofusion, John passed away in his sleep.
“I got up and he said ‘I want to sleep some more’ and he didn’t get up. I went and looked [later] and he had passed away.”
Rolf called 911 and moved John onto his back and gave compressions until the paramedics came, but John was gone.
“It was a horrific experience.”
Fourteen cases of esophageal cancers have been reported to VAERS in total for all vaccines, of which one included metastatic cancer (stage 4). Eleven esophageal cancer cases were reported as an adverse event of COVID-19 vaccine, including the single stage 4 cancer case.
Multiple Myeloma After mRNA Vaccination
Stanley Pruszynski also shared his wife’s sudden development of multiple myeloma after two doses of the COVID-19 Moderna vaccine.
Multiple myeloma is a “cancer in the blood … there’s no cure for it because you can’t cure blood cancer,” Pruszynski said.
It affects immune cells, making patients particularly at risk of dying from infections.
The majority of multiple myeloma patients in remission relapses in a few years, and most will later succumb to complications of the disease, particularly infections.
Pruszynski’s wife, Bonnie, then 69 years old, has been very healthy throughout her life. She was adopted into her family, therefore it is unknown if her family has a medical history of cancers, but she had no medical history of previous cancers.
Pruszynski said that Bonnie was very fit. The two would go on walks of five miles a day, and usually it would be him who would want to take a break.
However, two weeks after her second Moderna dose in February, Bonnie developed flu symptoms with constant coughing and night sweats and would get little sleep.
These symptoms persisted and medication did little to improve her condition. She began to feel weak and would ask for breaks on walks before Pruszynski did. She was often scared, she would fall and need to hold onto the walls when navigating their apartment.
In April, Bonnie fell and was taken to the emergency room.
On admission, her hemoglobin level was so low that she was given a blood transfusion.
“They [doctors] tried running some blood tests; the blood wasn’t separating properly to do the testing … well, it turns out that it was because of her hemoglobin levels,” Pruszynski said.
In June, Bonnie was diagnosed with multiple myeloma and started chemotherapy. She started stem cell therapy in December 2021 and spent Christmas in the hospital.
Stem cell therapy is a dangerous yet ambitious therapy to reset the immune system.
First, stem cells will be harvested from the body and stored. The other white blood cells in the body will then be wiped out, often using chemo and radiotherapy. Once the immune system is obliterated, the stem cells will be transferred back into the body to restart the immune system anew.
Bonnie’s fatigue improved and her cancer went into remission, but she still feels weak. The two now walk a quarter of a mile a day, compared to the five miles they used to.
Bonnie now works remotely with reduced hours. Pruszynski estimates that her salary is likely halved.
Pruszynski said that Bonnie has had high blood protein levels for many years. This condition can be a precursor to diseases and often comes with symptoms, though Bonnie was not affected.
Pruszynski therefore suspects that the vaccine, particularly the spike protein it generates, which is known to be toxic, may have triggered something in Bonnie’s immune system leading to blood cancer.
“They give her an estimate of maybe five to 10 years, maybe less. They don’t really know. They don’t have a clue but eventually it will kill her.”
There are a total of 89 multiple myeloma cases reported to VAERS, including plasma multiple myeloma, recurrent myeloma, and recurrent plasma multiple myeloma for all vaccines, and 65 of the cases were reported for COVID-19 vaccines.
The FBI division overseeing the investigation of former President Trump’s handling of classified material at his Mar-a-Lago residence is also a focus of Special Counsel John Durham’s investigation of the bureau’s alleged abuses of power and political bias during its years-long Russiagate probe of Trump.
The FBI’s nine-hour, 30-agent raid of the former president’s Florida estate is part of a counterintelligence case run out of Washington—not Miami, as has been widely reported—according to FBI case documents and sources with knowledge of the matter. The bureau’s counterintelligence division led the 2016–2017 Russia “collusion” investigation of Trump, codenamed “Crossfire Hurricane.”
Although the former head of Crossfire Hurricane, Peter Strzok, was fired after the disclosure of his vitriolic anti-Trump tweets, several members of his team remain working in the counterintelligence unit, the sources say, even though they are under active investigation by both Durham and the bureau’s disciplinary arm, the Office of Professional Responsibility. The FBI declined to respond to questions about any role they may be taking in the Mar-a-Lago case.
In addition, a key member of the Crossfire team—Supervisory Intelligence Analyst Brian Auten—has continued to be involved in politically sensitive investigations, including the ongoing federal probe of potentially incriminating content found on the abandoned laptop of Biden’s son Hunter Biden, according to recent correspondence between the Senate Judiciary Committee and FBI Director Christopher Wray. FBI whistleblowers have alleged that Auten tried to falsely discredit derogatory evidence against Hunter Biden during the 2020 campaign by labeling it Russian “disinformation,” an assessment that caused investigative activity to cease.
Auten has been allowed to work on sensitive cases even though he has been under internal investigation since 2019, when Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz referred him for disciplinary review for his role in vetting a Hillary Clinton campaign-funded dossier used by the FBI to obtain a series of wiretap warrants to spy on former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page. Horowitz singled out Auten for cutting a number of corners in the verification process and even allowing information he knew to be incorrect slip into warrant affidavits and mislead the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court.
In congressional testimony this month, Wray confirmed that “a number of” former Crossfire Hurricane team members are still employed at the bureau while undergoing disciplinary review. In the meantime, Wray has walled off the former Russiagate investigators only from participating in FISA wiretap applications, according to the sources.
Sen. Chuck Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, has asked Wray for copies of recent case files and reports generated by Auten and whether he is included among the team the FBI has assembled to determine which of the seized Trump records fall within the scope of its counterespionage investigation and which fall outside of it.
Some former FBI officials worry that Auten, a top bureau expert on Russia and nuclear warfare, will have a hand in analyzing the boxes of documents agents seized from Trump’s home on Aug. 8 to help determine if any of the alleged Top Secret material he kept there might have been compromised, potentially putting national security at risk.
“It is a disgrace that Auten is still even employed by the bureau,” said 27-year FBI veteran Michael Biasello. “I would substitute other analysts and agents.”
An examination of the bureau agents involved in the Mar-a-Lago raid reveals other connections between them and FBI officials who played key roles in advancing the Russiagate hoax.
Sources told RealClearInvestigations that Jay Bratt, the top counterintelligence official in Justice’s national security division, who happens to be a Democratic National Committee donor, has been coordinating the Mar-a-Lago investigation with Alan Kohler, who heads the FBI’s counterintelligence division.
Kohler replaced Bill Priestap in that post after Priestap stepped down from the bureau amid criticism of his role in the Russiagate probe. Kohler had worked at FBI headquarters under Priestap, specializing in countering Russian intelligence threats.
Before that, he worked in London as the FBI’s liaison with British intelligence and law enforcement. The sources say Kohler was close to Stefan Halper, an academic and longtime FBI contractor whom the bureau ran as an informant in a failed effort to suborn Trump campaign officials. He also worked closely with Stephen Somma, a lead case agent in the Crossfire Hurricane probe whom Horowitz said was “primarily responsible” for some of the worst misconduct in the FISA warrant abuse scandal. Somma is a counterintelligence investigator in the FBI’s New York field office, where he has been reassigned to the China desk.
In 2019, Kohler was promoted to special agent in charge of the counterintelligence division at the FBI’s Washington field Office, where he worked alongside then-assistant agent-in-charge Timothy Thibault, who was reassigned by Wray just days prior to the Mar-a-Lago raid, after whistleblowers raised questions about political bias. They asserted that Thibault, who has taken aim at Trump and Republicans on social media, worked with Auten to falsely discredit evidence of alleged money laundering and other activities against Hunter Biden and prevent agents from investigating them.
The Washington field office’s counterintelligence division is now run by Anthony Riedlinger, who previously worked at FBI headquarters as a section chief under Priestap. Some of the agents involved in the raid on Trump’s home came from that Washington field office, according to the sources and FBI case documents.
Bratt, the top counterintelligence official at Justice, traveled to Mar-a-Lago in early June and personally inspected the storage facility while interacting with both Trump and one of his lawyers. Trump allowed the three FBI agents Bratt brought with him to open boxes in the storage room and look through them. They left with some documents. After leaving, Bratt made a request to Trump’s lawyer for increased security at the facility and asked to see surveillance footage from the security cameras. The lawyer complied with the requests. Months went by before the Justice Department took the politically explosive step of sending FBI agents unannounced to Trump’s home, seizing documents, photos, and other items not just from the storage facility but from multiple rooms on the property, including the former president’s office.
Former assistant FBI director Chris Swecker said the search warrant that agents obtained is quite wide-ranging. He pointed out that it authorized the seizure of any information in any form related to “national defense information,” which he said “does not necessarily include classified material.”
“This is a huge, broad search warrant and a huge, broad investigation leveled against the former president,” Swecker said.
What’s more, he said the physical search of the former president’s residence was far more sweeping than first reported and included unsupervised snooping in several dozen bedrooms, as well as numerous storage rooms and closets, including those of the former first lady. FBI agents took numerous boxes and containers of documents and other material, including several binders of photos and even three passports held by the former president.
Although Attorney General Merrick Garland has said that the DOJ seeks to “narrowly scope any search that is undertaken,” details of the warrant reveal agents had the authority to seize entire boxes of records—including those potentially covered by attorney-client privilege and executive privilege—if just a single document inside the container were marked with a classified marking.
Agents were allowed to also seize any containers or boxes “found together with” ones containing classified papers, according to ATTACHMENT B (“Property to be seized”) of the warrant. In addition, the FBI agents were given the authority to confiscate “any government and/or presidential records created between Jan. 20, 2017, and Jan. 20, 2021,” which covers Trump’s full term in office. That meant they were able to take any item related to the Trump administration.
All told, dozens of boxes and containers were removed from Trump’s residence, very few of which actually contained classified information, the sources said.
According to Federal Election Commission records, Bratt has given exclusively to Democrats, including at least $800 to the Democratic National Committee. The sources said he is close to David Laufman, whom he replaced as the top counterintelligence official at Justice. An Obama donor, Laufman helped oversee the Russiagate probe, as well as the Clinton email case, which also involved classified information.
A Senate investigator told RCI that Laufman was the “mastermind” behind the strategy to dust off and “weaponize” the rarely enforced statutory relic—the Foreign Agents Registration Act—against Trump campaign officials, a novel legal move that the investigator noted is similar to the department’s current attempts to enforce the Presidential Records Act against Trump—which is a civil, not a criminal, statute—by invoking the Espionage Act of 1917.
Laufman signed off on the wiretapping of Trump campaign adviser Carter Page, which the Department of Justice inspector general determined was conducted under false pretenses involving doctored email, suppression of exculpatory evidence, and other malfeasance.
Suddenly resurfacing as a media surrogate for the Justice Department defending the Mar-a-Lago raid, Laufman has been a key source for stories by the Washington Post, CNN, and other outlets.
On CNN, for instance, he claimed the documents seized from Trump’s storage were “particularly stunning and particularly egregious,” and their discovery ”completely validates the government’s investigation” into the former president—though he quickly added, ”Whether this investigation transforms into an outright criminal prosecution remains to be seen.”
Swecker said that there is strong reason to fear that the FBI’s counterintelligence division might politicize this case.
“For sure, the FBI has dug themselves into a huge hole because of how they handled the Clinton (email) case and then Crossfire Hurricane and Hunter Biden,” Swecker said. “Myself and many of my colleagues think they are treading on very thin ice here.”
“Unfortunately,” he added, “you can’t recuse an entire FBI division.”
Patel: ‘It’s Just Insane’
Former federal prosecutor and Trump administration official Kash Patel said the FBI may have a personal interest—and a potential conflict—in seizing the records stored by Trump.
He noted that Trump in October 2020 authorized the declassification of all the investigative records generated from the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane as well as the Clinton email investigation, codenamed “Midyear Exam,” and he said that the FBI may have confiscated some of those records in its raid, ensuring they won’t be made public. In addition, he said, the agency may be digging for other documents to try to justify, retroactively, their questionable, politically-tinged 2016 opening of the Trump-Russia “collusion” case, which came up embarrassingly short on evidence.
“Tragically, the same FBI characters that were involved in Russiagate are the same counterintel guys running this ‘national security investigation’ against Trump,” said Patel, who deposed Crossfire Hurricane team members as a former House Intelligence Committee investigator.
Patel noted that the Horowitz report indicated FBI analyst Auten hid exculpatory information about Trump’s adviser Page from other investigators and the FISA court, which should be more than enough to keep him at arm’s length from other investigations involving Trump.
“And to top it all off, this guy admits [to Horowitz’s investigators] he’s unrepentant about his role in making up the biggest hoax in election history, and Wray still lets him be a supervisor at the FBI,” he said. “It’s just insane.”
The Justice Department’s national security division has ultimate authority over the grand-jury probe of Trump for possible violations of the Espionage Act, including alleged mishandling of classified material—the same statutes invoked in the Clinton email investigation. (In that case, in contrast, the FBI never searched the former secretary of state’s Chappaqua, N.Y., mansion, where she set up an unsecured basement server to send and receive at least 110 classified emails and where she also received government documents by fax.)
Former FBI counterintelligence official and lawyer Mark Wauck said he is troubled by signs that the same cast of characters from the Russiagate scandal appears to be involved in the Mar-a-Lago investigation.
“If these people, who were part of a major hoax that involved criminal activity and displays of bias and seriously flawed judgment, are still involved, then that’s a major scandal,” he said in an interview.
Cases of the polio virus are re-emerging across the world, including in the U.S., and appear to be attributed to strains of the virus resulting from vaccination.
In July, A 20-year-old man residing in New York was diagnosed with polio, resulting in paralysis in his legs. While mainstream media outlets covered the story, journalists and commentators exploited the incident, blaming it on an individual’s decision to not receive a polio vaccine.
As Dr. Leana Wen, a notorious advocate for face masks and placing restrictions on people who opted out of receiving a COVID-19 jab, wrote in The Washington Post:
“Because of low vaccination rates, polio is back and appears to be spreading in at least one part of the country. Other vaccine-preventable diseases will also reemerge unless we take urgent steps to reverse this tragic trend. In July, an unvaccinated 20-year-old man residing in Rockland County, N.Y., was diagnosed with polio, which resulted in paralysis in his legs.”
Similarly, NBC News ran a story alleging the case was directly linked to low vaccination rates titled: “Polio Vaccination Rate For 2-year-olds is as Low as 37% in Parts of N.Y. County Where Paralysis Case Was Found.”
“Polio has been circulating for months in New York City area and poses an ongoing risk to the unvaccinated, CDC says,” reads the headline of another CNBC story.
The New York man, however, was actually infected with a type 2 vaccine-derived poliovirus, a result of an oral polio vaccine, according to the New York State Department of Health.
The vaccine responsible for crippling the individual is what’s known as a “live-attenuated vaccine,” which in contrast to inactivated vaccines, retains the ability to become more deadly and infectious if mutates while replicating. The virus can then be shed into the environment, enabling it to infect vulnerable individuals.
Despite the re-emergence of polio being triggered by a vaccine, health officials and mainstream media outlets have continued to push vaccination as the solution to a potential outbreak.
“‘Silent’ spread of polio in New York drives CDC to consider additional vaccinations for some people,” claimed CNN.
In other words, the re-emergent case of polio being used by journalists and public health agencies to push vaccination is actually a direct result of an individual receiving a polio vaccine.
Former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne, a key figure in a December 2020 White House meeting seeking to encourage then President Donald Trump to investigate allegations of election fraud, has filed a motion in the Department of Justice’s investigation of Trump, calling for the release of the key document justifying the FBI raid on Mar-a-Lago.
Agents on Aug. 8 seized more than two dozen boxes of records from Trump’s Florida resort, which contained 11 sets of documents with classified markings, according to an FBI property receipt made public on Aug. 12.
Trump has said that he had declassified all the confiscated records before leaving office and demanded the immediate release of unredacted affidavit behind the FBI warrant.
Byrne, who recently testified before the House Jan. 6 Committee, argued in his Aug. 18 motion that Trump had such powers to declassify as president, citing a meeting in the Oval Office in December 2020 where he said the former president twice exercised the same presidential authority.
The affidavit should be unsealed along with other records shedding light on the raid to promote transparency and accountability in government, Byrne argued in the court filing.
“Trump’s position was that … if this was not just some police state raid but there was a good reason for this raid, then, let’s see it,” Byrne told The Epoch Times.
“If Trump was telling the truth” and he in fact declassified all the documents, and the FBI submitted an affidavit accusing Trump of mishandling classified documents, “that means they were lying to the court,” he said.
“Trump was only mishandling classified documents if those documents were in fact, classified, but if he declassified then he was not mishandling classified documents.”
Byrne during the closed door meeting at the White House on Dec. 18, 2020, urged the former president to launch a probe into the election fraud allegations.
Frustrated with the suggestion of having former Trump attorney Sidney Powell appointed special counsel to spearhead a limited investigation into alleged fraud, then White House Counsel Pat Cipollone allegedly told Trump: “Hey if you want to do this you don’t need my permission. You don’t even need a pen or a piece of paper. You can just say, ‘I hire Sidney Powell as White House Special Counsel,’ and it’s done,” Byrne wrote in the filing.
Former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne is surrounded by private security as he arrives at the Thomas P. O’Neill Jr. House Office Building to be interviewed by the House select committee investigating the events on January 6, on July 15, 2022. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Later, responding to questions about Powell’s lack of a security clearance, General Michael Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser who was present at the meeting, allegedly told Trump that he could “ do the same thing with a clearance.”
“You can grant any clearance you want, on the spot, verbally,” according to a sworn affidavit by Byrne filed with the court.
According to him, Trump acted on the suggestions, verbally appointing Powell a White House special counsel and granting her top secret security clearance. He says after that the White House attorneys angrily left the room but didn’t dispute Trump’s actions.
Trump ultimately rescinded the decision upon the persuasion of his then-personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, according to Byrne.
“He doesn’t have to sign anything, if he gives an order, that makes it legally effective,” Byrne told the court, describing it as “the Trump White House standard operating procedure.”
Backing Trump’s Claims
Mike Davis, a former clerk for Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, has also backed Trump’s claims.
Trump “has the constitutional authority to declassify anything he wants,” he told NTD, a sister media of The Epoch Times, in a recent interview. “And so, when he sent boxes out of the White House, he declassified them.”
Davis said the Justice Department should have released the affidavit but would likely try to “hide it as much as they can.”
A federal judge on Friday signaled a willingness to release a redacted version of the affidavit despite opposition from the government lawyers, who argued that doing so could undermine ongoing investigations and imperil the safety of witnesses involved.
Secret Service personnel in front of the home of former President Donald Trump at Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, on Aug. 8, 2022. (Eva Marie Uzcategui/Getty Images)
Byrne saw the judge’s move as a “judicious decision.”
“The FBI should not have to reveal whoever was their sources, they should protect their sources,” he said. “But beyond that, they shouldn’t be able to keep this affidavit a secret.
“I think the country needs to know what the FBI is saying that caused the attorney general to sign off on this extraordinary application. Unprecedented.”
Because of the raid and activities of the kind, the FBI has become “so delegitimized now in the eyes of so much of the public,” Byrne said. “It’s creating a terrible fear and oppression in the minds of the American public.”
“I talked to a lot of non-Republicans and they’re all starting to sound like Republicans. They see this as police state tactics.”
FBI Director Christopher Wray has come out in defense of his agency, saying agents have received “deplorable and dangerous” online threats in the wake of the raid.
“I like Christopher Wray,” said Byrne. “But I think he’s got a very narrow window to save his organization. And I hope he does.”
Dr. Robert Malone on Aug. 19 sued the Washington Post, alleging statements in an article about him were defamatory.
The Jan. 24 article says Malone offered “misinformation” when he said during a speech that the COVID-19 vaccines “are not working” against the Omicron virus variant.
As proof, the paper linked to studies by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from January that found a booster shot on top of a primary series was protecting well against severe disease. The studies were published in the agency’s quasi-journal, which has a stated goal of being aligned with the agency’s messaging. The centers have repeatedly promoted COVID-19 vaccination during the pandemic.
Later in the speech, Malone said that the vaccines “do not prevent Omicron infection, viral replication, or spread to others.” That quote was not included in the Post’s article.
“I said nothing about disease and death at that point in time,” Malone told The Epoch Times, accusing the Post of taking a “selective misquote” and using the CDC study to contest an assertion he never made.
The Post did not respond to a request for comment while an automatic message from the article’s author, Timothy Bella, said he’s on parental leave until December. Bella provided no evidence in the article that the vaccines were protecting against Omicron infection.
An interview request from Bella to Malone before the article was written, reviewed by The Epoch Times, shows Bella telling Malone that “I have respect for you and your body of work” and that he hoped to “shadow you” during Malone’s time in Washington, where the doctor delivered the speech at a protest against COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
Ten Statements
Ten of the statements in the article were defamatory, including the statement that Malone’s claims have been “discredited;” that Malone during the speech “repeated the falsehoods that have garnered him legions of followers;” and that Malone’s claims are “not only wrong, but also dangerous,” according to the 19-page suit, filed in federal court in Charlottesville, Virginia.
“The qualities WaPo disparaged—Dr. Malone’s honesty, veracity, integrity, competence, judgment, morals and ethics as a licensed medical doctor and scientist—are peculiarly valuable to Dr. Malone and are absolutely necessary in the practice and profession of any medical doctor and scientist. WaPo ascribes to Dr. Malone conduct, characteristics and conditions, including fraud, disinformation, misinformation, deception and dishonesty, that would adversely affect his fitness to be a medical professional and to conduct the business of a medical doctor,” the suit states.
“Dr. Malone’s statements concerning COVID-19 and the purported ‘vaccines’ were 100% factually accurate. He has never committed fraud on [sic] engaged in any medical disinformation or misinformation. Further, the so-called ‘vaccines’ do not work, as is abundantly clear from both the scientific and anecdotal evidence to date,” it also says.
Malone previously served the Post with a written notice threatening legal action if it did not retract and/or correct the allegedly defamatory statements, but it refused to make any retractions or corrections, according to the filing.
Malone has also threatened to sue other media outlets, including the New York Times, but decided to start with the Post because the case “is really straightforward,” he said.
A document made public on Aug. 18 for the first time shows that an FBI agent authored the request for a search warrant for former President Donald Trump’s resort in Florida.
The document, an application for a warrant (pdf), was made by an FBI special agent.
The document also shows that an agent, possibly the same one, authored the affidavit, or a sworn statement that outlined to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida why it should grant the application.
The identity of the agent who signed the application and the name of the agent who signed the affidavit are redacted.
The application was made on Aug. 5, and approved the same day by U.S. District Judge Bruce Reinhart, who approved the unsealing of the application on Aug. 18.
Agents executed the warrant on Aug. 8, taking boxes of items and documents from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.
While opposing the release of the affidavit, government lawyers said in a recent filing that they did not object to making public other documents related to the raid, including the application, as long as minor redactions could be made “to protect government personnel.”
Releasing the affidavit, on the other hand, would harm an ongoing investigation into potential criminal conduct by Trump, the lawyers argued.
Reinhart on Friday ordered them to produce a redacted version of the affidavit to him by Aug. 25 at noon. He said he was leaning towards releasing a redacted copy, though a lawyer for media outlets calling for its release said the process will take weeks.
“I find that on the present record the Government has not met its burden of showing that the entire affidavit should remain sealed,” Reinhart said in a written order after a hearing.
A slew of documents have been filed under seal in the case. Some, including the warrant itself, were unsealed by Reinhart with light redactions on Aug. 12.
Neither federal lawyers nor Trump’s counsel opposed the release of those documents, which indicated that the FBI’s Washington Field Office was running point on the raid. The warrant was predicated on the belief that Trump has likely violated laws governing the transmittal of defense information, concealment of records, and destruction of records. Trump has said he is innocent and being politically targeted.
U.S. lawyers filed the application with the court on Aug. 15. Until Friday, none of its details could be viewed by the public.
Other documents were also unsealed: a criminal cover sheet showing U.S. Attorney Juan Gonzalez or the Southern District of Florida stating the case did not originate from several pending matters, a motion to seal the warrant and related documents, and the approval of the motion to seal.
Correction: This article has been updated to clarify the government did not object to the release of some warrant materials, and to show the judge approved the unsealing of the application on Aug. 18. The Epoch Times regrets the errors.
For a damning picture of the modern left, it doesn’t get much clearer than this.
The Democratic Party, which spent the 2020 presidential election year trashing the police and cheering on rioting mobs wreaking havoc on American cities is now desperately trying to rebrand itself for the midterm election year as the party of loyalty to federal law enforcement agencies hellbent on pursuing former President Donald Trump and his supporters.
But as a Twitter post published Wednesday by a member of the previous Democratic administration shows, all it’s really proving is basic ignorance, or utter contempt, for the foundations the country was built on.
The post was published by Tommy Vietor, now a co-host of the blasphemously liberal podcast “Pod Save America,” but a man who rose to public attention as one of the more abrasively juvenile members of the Obama administration.
The tweet included a link to a CNN report (of course) about the surveillance footage that was taken of last week’s FBI raid on Trump’s home in South Florida’s Mar-a-Lago Club, and a comment from Vietor that probably said more about the mindset of the modern left than Tommy ever intended.
The staff at the Trump household had refused an FBI request to turn off surveillance cameras in the home, which would have left the agents free to do anything they chose without fear of exposure.
“Very confused about how you can refuse a direct order from the FBI while they are in the process of executing a search warrant, especially given the context here when the concern is about unauthorized release of highly classified information,” Vietor wrote.
Very confused about how you can refuse a direct order from the FBI while they are in the process of executing a search warrant, especially given the context here when the concern is about unauthorized release of highly classified information. https://t.co/J6l1gtMpMc
He’s “very confused” about an American household disobeying an order from the FBI? And a “direct order” at that?
It’s a good bet he wasn’t at all confused by the George Floyd rioters failing to follow the orders of local police as they set about looting and torching businesses in the name of “social justice” in the summer of 2020.
For many Democrats, anarchy in the streets, theft and destruction of property, even outright murder are completely acceptable (just ask the gangsters who benefited from the bail organization Vice President Kamala Harris supported).
But failing to fall into lockstep obedience with the feds when they show up armed with a search warrant and plenty of weaponry? That passes Vietor’s comprehension.
Naturally, being a blue-checked liberal, Vietor has plenty of simpering sympathizers in the social media world (even the Twitter bots Elon Musk talks about have more brains than that herd), but fortunately for the future of the republic, there were more than a few responses to set Vietor straight:
You say, “No thank you, I prefer to film my home during your official duties.” The official duties of the officer are not private, and first amendment permits filming officers.
Now, it’s easy to dislike Vietor and the rest of the coterie of sophomoric arrogance that surrounded the Obama White House. (The State Department’s Marie Harf was another, along with Harf’s old boss Jen Psaki.)
With Obama administration posts that included membership in the National Security Council and special assistant to the president, Vietor helped saddle the country with the bogus Iran nuclear deal that even Ben Rhodes, deputy national security advisor to the Obama White House, admitted had been sold in an “echo chamber” of mainstream media ignorance. (And to New York Times Magazine, no less.)
But he’s worth paying attention to, if only to see where the leftists of the Obama years are leading their party and — regrettably — the country today.
His podcast is an influential voice in leftist politics — the DigitalTrends website ranked it as the third-best political podcast for 2022. (No. 1 was NPR’s “The NPR Politics Podcast,” which says everything that needs to be said about DigitalTrends’ political preferences.)
To his marginal credit, Vietor appeared to learn something from his Twitter post, as one respondent explained a search warrant does not give law enforcement — even the big, bad FBI — powers to do more than search the premises involved.
“A search warrant authorizes…a search, per 4th Amd. It does not create other powers or cancel out civil liberties,” the user wrote.
“I remember when people used to be skeptical of the police, *especially* when they were dealing with someone we thought was a criminal.”
Vietor seemed to get the message — or maybe he’d just finally realized how cringingly submissive his initial tweet came off and remembered that he’s supposed to be a man.
“Interesting — thank you. Wonder if they made this ‘order’ because of the risk of exposing the information, but that does seem a little ridiculous,” he wrote.
Interesting — thank you. Wonder if they made this “order” because of the risk of exposing the information, but that does seem a little ridiculous.
“A little ridiculous” should have been a first reaction to the blatantly political operation. “Outrageous!” “Infuriating!” “Totalitarian BS!” would have been even better.
But for the leftist mindset of 2022, steeped in the openly anti-American tradition birthed by the disastrous Obama years, the initial reaction is not to defend American freedoms but to question why Americans can refuse a “direct order.”
This is a man who served in the Obama White House, remember, where the abuse of power at federal agencies — such as the IRS, with the likes of Lois Lerner; the FBI with the “leadership” of James Comey; and the Justice Department under political grifters like Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch — had to have been considered almost commonplace.
It’s a basic distortion of the country’s foundation of law and order, pervasive among leftists in the mainstream media, in popular culture and in the Democratic Party from local governments through the House, the Senate and the White House:
They have nothing but contempt for the law; they worship orders.
There are many sorry countries, with many sorry histories, where that attitude is the norm. The United States isn’t one of them.
The media has been hiding economic reports over the last few weeks. As we get closer to the midterms, they will be doing what they can to protect Democrats.
But Americans continue to suffer from inflation, high gas prices, and other stains on their wallets. And now, another sign has come out that the recession is already on us.
From Washington Examiner:
Housing starts measure the annualized change in the number of new residential buildings that began construction. Last month, they declined by a hefty 9.6% to a 1.45 million annualized rate after posting slight gains in June, according to a Tuesday report from the Commerce Department.
If the rising price of ground beef or unleaded regular didn’t tip you off that the economy isn’t great, this will.
The number of housing starts in July fell a steep 9.6%. This number measures how many new residential buildings begin construction.
Even a slight drop suggests a weakening economy. The housing market is always the first industry to suffer in a recession (or a depression).
When things are bad, people cut back on spending. The bigger expenses, like houses and cars, are cut first.
Then everything else quickly follows. These cutbacks force companies to make cuts themselves. In some cases, they lay off as many workers as possible.
So, this number is much more important than you might realize. New housing products dropped last month.
That’s consistent with other numbers that have come out recently. Inflation is hitting construction, as everything is costing more.
The housing bubble from 2020 long burst. Americans don’t want to risk moving or buying a new home, because it’s just too expensive.
The rest will come shortly, whether Biden believes it or not.
UPDATE: And just in, now housing sales just smashed through the floor. From CNBC:
Sales of previously owned homes fell nearly 6% in July compared with June, according to a monthly report from the National Association of Realtors.
Sales dropped about 20% from the same month a year ago.
“In terms of economic impact we are surely in a housing recession because builders are not building,” said Lawrence Yun, chief economist for the Realtors.
The fallout from Biden’s leadership just keeps piling up, folks.
A new report connects a case involving tapes made by former President Bill Clinton with the FBI’s raid on former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
“Judge’s ruling over audio tapes hidden in Bill Clinton’s sock drawer could significantly impact Donald Trump’s effort to contest FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago,” journalist John Solomon tweeted Thursday.
Judge’s ruling over audio tapes hidden in Bill Clinton’s sock drawer could significantly impact Donald Trump’s effort to contest FBI raid of Mar-a-Lago | Just The News https://t.co/MBCisbJ1rg
The ruling involved audio tapes Clinton stashed in a sock drawer that he used for his autobiography and that were also mined by writer Taylor Branch in Branch’s book, “Wrestling History: The Bill Clinton Tapes,” about Clinton, according to CBS.
The tapes became controversial when the watchdog group Judicial Watch went to court to demand the tapes be given to the National Archives and Records Administration, so the American people could hear them.
U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson rejected the suit in March 2012.
In a report for Just the News, Solomon pointed to a few paragraphs of the 27-page ruling as significant because they indicated a president had wide latitude concerning documents under the Presidential Records Act.
“Under the statutory scheme established by the PRA, the decision to segregate personal materials from Presidential records is made by the President, during the President’s term and in his sole discretion,” Jackson wrote.
“Since the President is completely entrusted with the management and even the disposal of Presidential records during his time in office, it would be difficult for this Court to conclude that Congress intended that he would have less authority to do what he pleases with what he considers to be his personal records,” the judge wrote.
“Because the audiotapes are not physically in the government’s possession, defendant submits that it would be required to seize them directly from President Clinton in order to assume custody and control over them,” Jackson noted. “Defendant considers this to be an ‘extraordinary request’ that is ‘unfounded, contrary to the PRA’s express terms, and contrary to traditional principles of administrative law.’ The Court agrees.”
So how does that connect to Trump? As Solomon noted, the former president has said records that were seized were both declassified and personal.
Tom Fitton, the president of Judicial Watch, said the connection between the cases is profound.
“The government, the lawyer for the Archives, said, ‘You know what? If documents are in the former President’s hands, where they’re presumptively personal, we just, you know, we presume they’re personal,’” Fitton said, Just the News reported.
“The Justice Department previously had told us in response to a question about Bill Clinton: ‘Tough luck, it’s his.’ But they changed their mind for Donald Trump?” he said. “The law and court decision suggests that Trump is right. And frankly, based on this analysis, Trump should get every single document they took from him back. It’s all personal records.”
As noted by Politico, Fitton felt differently at the time.
“We respectfully disagree with the Court,” he said then. “The idea that a president could spirit official recordings and documents out of the White House and that there is nothing that can be legally done about it is a misreading of the Presidential Records Act. It is ironic that a law passed in response to the Nixon tapes controversy would allow Bill Clinton to keep tapes of his official actions secret and unavailable to the American people.”
Kevin Brock, former assistant FBI director for intelligence, said the search warrant used by the FBI was faulty and over broad, according to Just the News.
“Specificity is important in order to protect Fourth Amendment rights from exuberant government overreach designed to find whatever they can,” he said.
The warrant “apparently makes a novel legal assertion that any presidential record kept by a former president is against the law,” Brock said.
“You have to wonder what the other living former presidents think about that. They have the right and, apparently, clear desire to remain silent.”
In a master-level stroke of inversion, former President Donald Trump has found a new use for his ability to all but ensure the success of Republican candidates.
On Wednesday via Truth Social, Trump unleashed his “endorsements” against three Democrats: Daniel Goldman, a former federal prosecutor who is campaigning for New York’s 10th Congressional District, Carolyn Maloney of New York and Rep. Jerrold Nadler. Both Maloney and Nadler are competing for a redrawn 12th Congressional District.
Based upon context, these “endorsements” from Trump can be considered to be either darkly disingenuous or delivered sarcastically with a proverbial wink to his supporters. Judge for yourself.
On Truth Social, Trump wrote first about Goldman, “Lawyer Dan Goldman is running for Congress, NY-10, and it is my great honor to Strongly Endorse him. I do this not because of the fact that he headed up the Impeachment Committee and lost, but because he was honorable, fair, and highly intelligent. While it was my honor to beat him, and beat him badly, Dan Goldman has a wonderful future ahead….”
“….He will be very compassionate and compromising to those within the Republican Party, and will do everything possible to make sure they have a fair chance at winning against the Radical Left Democrats, who he knows are destroying our Country. I would like to thank Dan for fighting so hard for America, and for working so tirelessly to stop “Trump.” He was not easy to beat, but winning against him made me realize just how very talented I am!” he continued.
Trump suggested that Goldman will be a moderate “very compassionate and compromising to those within the Republican Party” a damning descriptor in the uber-radicalized far-left of the 2022 Democrat party.
Minutes later, a similar “endorsement” for Maloney, with some kind words for her opponent Nadler appeared on Trump’s account.
“A vote for Carolyn Maloney in NY-12 is a vote for the future! She is a kind and wonderful person, who has always said terrific things about me, and will support me no matter what I do, just as I supported her very early on. She begged for a check with no quid pro quo, and I gave it to her. In fact, I gave her many….”
According to the Federal Elections Commission, Trump did in fact donate to Maloney’s campaign in 1993, 1994, 1998, 2006 and again in 2009 for a total of $4,000.
He continued and even took aim at Jerry Nadler. “….On the other hand, Jerry Nadler is likewise a hard driving man of the people, whose energy and attention to detail is unlike anyone else in Congress. He is high energy, sharp, quick-witted, and bright. You can’t go wrong with either, but Carolyn Maloney is the better man. She will lead our Country into a very GREEN and prosperous future. Carolyn has my Complete and Total Endorsement, she will never let our Conservative Movement down!”
The highlight of the snarky message is definitely the combined swipe at both Maloney and Nadler, “You can’t go wrong with either, but Carolyn Maloney is the better man.”
Naturally, Goldman and Maloney both vehemently rejected the “endorsement” from the 45th President. Goldman’s campaign attempted to turn the joke around on Trump in a statement reported by The Blaze.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Thursday that 20 serious felons will face arrest for allegedly illegally voting in the state’s elections.
“The state of Florida has charged and is in the process of arresting 20 individuals across the state for voter fraud,” DeSantis said at a news conference.
DeSantis and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement are identifying those charged as convicted murderers and sex offenders who voted without receiving restoration of voting rights from the governor.
A 2018 ballot amendment restored the voting rights of Florida felons who serve their sentences.
However, this amendment made an exception for those convicted of murder and felony sexual assault.
Criminals in those categories don’t automatically get their voting rights back.
“They are disqualified from voting because they’ve been convicted of either murder or sexual assault, and they do not have the right to vote. They’ve been disenfranchised under Florida law.”
A majority of the alleged illegal voters cast ballots in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties, according to the governor.
DeSantis did not specify whether the charges stem exclusively from the 2020 election or subsequent state or local contests.
They’re facing a charge of voter fraud — a third-degree felony punishable by five years in prison in the state.
DeSantis alluded to the possibility of more charges for election crimes.
The governor referenced ongoing investigations into illegal aliens voting in elections, as well as voters who cast more than one ballot in multiple jurisdictions.
Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigated the cases of alleged fraud.
DeSantis is touting his state’s commitment to election integrity and pointing to the charges as a warning to those who would exploit the system.
The governor signed a bill to strengthen voter ID requirements in April, as well as creating an entity to investigate and prosecute violations of the state’s election laws.
“Today’s actions send a clear signal to those who are thinking about ballot harvesting or fraudulently voting. If you commit an elections crime, you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
House Judiciary Committee chairman Jerrold Nadler may have violated basic ethics rules for United States representatives, a government watchdog group said.
Americans for Public Trust told Fox News it believes a senior staffer for Naddler may be providing legal services for him, which would violate House rules.
“The outside employment restrictions define certain activities for which senior staff (as well as House Members and officers) may not receive any compensation whatsoever,” the House Committee on Ethics states on its website.
“The restrictions prohibit senior staff from, among other things, (1) receiving compensation for practicing any profession that involves a fiduciary relationship, including, for example, law or accounting, and (2) serving for compensation as an officer or director of any entity.”
This could be a problem for Nadler because district director, Robert Gottheim, received money from Nadler while he was a senior staffer between 2019 and 2021.
According to Federal Elections Commission data, Gottheim was paid a total of $81,345.00 between 2019 and 2021 for what was categorized as “legal and political consulting.”
It sounds dangerously similar to “fiduciary services,” for which Nadler is expressly prohibited from compensating Gottheim, according to House ethics rules.
Speaking to Fox News, a representative for Nadler’s campaign denied wrongdoing and said Gottheim “doesn’t practice law in any capacity, including the campaign.”
“He’s a campaign advisor, which doesn’t have any fiduciary responsibility. When the campaign files the quarterly reports the treasurer must choose a category to list his expenditures, so they chose ‘legal & strategic advising.’ He’s a strategic advisor, not a lawyer.”
Gottheim is listed on the New York City West Side Democrat’s website as the organization’s treasurer, and his bio says he has been working as a Counsel for Nadler for Congress since 1997.
Specifically, it said Gottheim has been “handling all campaign finances & compliance issues with the FEC.” Again, this would be prohibited for a senior staffer.
While Nadler’s campaign paid Gottheim for services from 2003 to 2018, he did not meet the senior staff threshold until 2019, Fox News reported.
APT executive director Caitlin Sutherland slammed Nadler for what she said was a violation of the law.
“Jerry Nadler brags about being the ‘conscience of the House,’ yet he can’t even ensure that his top staffer is in compliance with simple House ethics rules,” Sutherland told Fox News.
“It is absolutely against the law to be compensated for campaign work that involves fiduciary duties, and accordingly, we will look into filing a complaint with the Office of Congressional Ethics.”
If the allegations against Nadler are true, they would be especially disturbing given his position. As the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Nadler is supposed to uphold justice and fairness for all, especially himself.
In addition, Democratic leaders have frequently praised Nadler for having outstanding character. When she was serving as House Minority Leader, Nancy Pelosi even called Nadler “the conscience of the House,” Fox News reported.
A full investigation should be launched into Nadler’s finances because Americans deserve to know our political leaders are being held accountable. If he is determined to have broken ethics rules, it would be a massive blow to the Democrats and any remaining credibility they have.
Several establishment media giants have asked a court to unseal all of the documents related to the FBI’s search of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home last week.
The move came after the Justice Department filed its own request for some of the materials to be released, CNN reported.
Lawyers representing major media outlets like CNN, The Washington Post and NBC News appeared on Thursday before Judge Bruce Reinhart, who approved the warrant for the Mar-a-Lago raid, according to The Epoch Times.
Reinhart said he was “inclined” to release some of the affidavit from the raid and instructed the DOJ to redact any parts of the document that would undermine its investigation, The Washington Post reported. The judge said he would make a decision after the department submits its proposed redactions next Thursday.
Trump himself has said that he wants the affidavit unsealed.
“In the interest of TRANSPARENCY, I call for the immediate release of the completely Unredacted Affidavit pertaining to this horrible and shocking BREAK-IN,” Trump posted on Truth Social on Tuesday.
The news outlets cited “the public’s clear and powerful interest in understanding what occurred in these circumstances” in their filing with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
The DOJ itself set things in motion last week when Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the department’s request for documents to be released. Garland said the DOJ wants the search warrant and property receipt from the FBI’s raid of Mar-a-Lago.
However, unlike the media companies, which asked for all the documents to be unsealed, the DOJ did not seek the release of the affidavit filed in support of the search warrant.
In fact, federal prosecutors investigating Trump asked a judge on Monday not to release the affidavit for national security reasons, The Hill reported.
“There remain compelling reasons, including to protect the integrity of an ongoing law enforcement investigation that implicates national security, that support keeping the affidavit sealed,” a filing from the prosecutors reads.
But the media companies argued in their request that “the tremendous public interest in these records in particular outweighs any purported interest in keeping them secret.”
For once, these outlets may be correct.
Though they wave the flag of “public interest” in requesting the unsealing of the documents, make no mistake — the media would simply make more money and be able to drag this story out longer if all the documents were revealed.
But though the media’s motivation may be selfish, it actually would benefit the American people to have access to the documents.
The raid is a very public issue, and since it concerns a former president, the citizenry should (at least in principle) have the information, particularly surrounding what led to the search warrant.
Some have suggested that federal prosecutors’ attempt to keep the affidavit sealed is actually just an attempt to cover up some sort of corruption in the process of the search.
The media outlets are even being reasonable in their request for the documents. If national security is at risk, the government has the right to redact parts of the documents. But that doesn’t mean they should be sealed altogether.
“Even when the government can demonstrate compelling interests, the court must examine ‘whether there are alternative means available’ to address them, such as redaction of a document rather than sealing it in its entirety,” the filing reads.
It doesn’t make sense any longer to keep all the documents sealed. The details of the raid, how it was conducted, the nature of the documents searched for and more have already been made very public. Trying to hide anything else at this point smells of corruption.
The media outlets are right. It’s time to unseal the documents.
“Transparency serves the public interest in understanding and accepting the results. That’s good for the government and for the court,” Charles Tobin, a lawyer representing the outlets, said in court on Thursday, according to The Washington Post.
University ‘fully aware of the situation,’ did nothing to protect students from harassment
Two Jewish students at the State University of New York (SUNY) at New Paltz say they were booted from a support group for sexual assault victims and harassed by members of the group due to their Jewish identity, according to a complaint filed with the Education Department.
One of the victims, student Cassandra Blotner, says members of the support group threatened to spit on her in public for proudly being Jewish, while others called her a “dumb bitch” who supports “mass genocide” due to her support for Israel. The complaint alleges the university was “fully aware of the situation,” yet did nothing to protect the students from the anti-Semitic hate campaign.
“These students have been thrice victimized: first, by sexual predators; second, by the anti-Zionist leaders of a support group who expelled the students, including one of its founders, from the organization; and third, by the University which failed to hold accountable those who had discriminated against the students and failed to satisfactorily address the hostile climate on campus for Jewish survivors of sexual assault,” the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under the Law, an advocacy group that helped file the complaint, said in a statement issued on Thursday.
The complaint is another sign that anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist forces on U.S. college campuses are fueling an unsafe environment for Jewish and pro-Israel students. The Education Department is already investigating the University of Southern California for fomenting “a hostile environment of anti-Semitism” and many other schools have experienced a significant rise in anti-Semitic hate crimes. Jewish and pro-Israel students say they are routinely targeted based solely on their support for the Jewish state.
At SUNY, the trouble first began in December of last year. Blotner posted a message on her personal Instagram account: “Jews are an ethnic group who come from Israel. This is proven by genealogical, historical and archeological evidence. Israel is not a ‘colonial’ state and Israelis aren’t ‘settlers.’ You cannot colonize the land your ancestors are from.”
The message allegedly angered fellow members of the New Paltz Accountability group (NPA), which Blotner and another student founded to help combat sexual assault. Members of the group allegedly “denounced the post and demanded Blotner defend her views, arguing her personal post ‘concerns the organization as a whole,’” according to the complaint and other information provided by the Brandeis Center.
While Blotner offered to meet with the group and explain her views, “NPA leaders refused the offer to meet and told her that Zionists were not welcome in NPA,” according to the complaint.
As “the only Jew of the group … it seems that I am being held accountable for the actions of a foreign government (which is something that I am not and is anti-Semitic),” Blotner said in comments to the Brandeis Center. “I am worried for the future of the group and other survivors who come seeking support. Will they too be made to feel this way due to misperceptions of shared posts, lack of cultural/religious understandings, or general difference of opinions?”
Blotner’s original post was also shared by another support group member, Ofek Preis, who is a Jewish-Israeli student. Soon after, Preis was allegedly banned from the group’s lists and barred access to its online portal. The support group also made clear to Preis that it “was only open to those who reject Zionism,” according to the Brandeis Center’s complaint.
Both Preis and Blotner were then subjected to anti-Semitic harassment and bullying online by the group’s members.
The support group “went on to publish numerous statements doubling down on its stance that Zionists are not welcome,” according to the complaint. The group extended “its exclusionary and discriminatory stance to all Jewish Zionist and Israeli sexual assault survivors at SUNY New Paltz,” and promoted “the anti-Semitic narrative that Zionism is a form of racism and white-supremacy.”
Some members posted threatening messages online, saying they would spit on Blotner. Another allegedly called Blotner a “dumb bitch” who supports “mass genocide.”
Blotner and Preis both contacted SUNY with fears about their safety, but the schools did not take any action, according to the complaint.
“The university declined Blotner’s request for a security escort to accompany her to class and advised her not to attend,” according to the Brandeis Center. “Unable to attend class safely, Blotner left campus to be with her family. The hostile anti-Semitic atmosphere for Jewish Zionist sexual assault survivors brewing on campus after [the support group’s] posts caused Preis … to feel so anxious about her safety she was also unable to attend class.”
Denise Katz-Prober, Brandeis Center’s director of legal initiatives, said in a statement that the situation parallels those on other college campuses, where Jewish and pro-Israel students are increasingly concerned about their safety.
“Students are being marginalized and excluded from campus activities on the basis of their Jewish identity, which in some cases is deeply connected to Israel,” she said. “At the same time, Israeli students are being targeted by anti-Zionist hatred that invokes classic anti-Semitic tropes about Jewish power and control.”
“When Jewish students, like Ms. Blotner and Ms. Preis, are cast out of social justice spaces and campus activities because they express pride in their ethnic or national identity, that is a form of unlawful discrimination, not political speech,” Katz-Prober said. “This case is not about the awful things that were said to these women. Rather, it is about the awful things that were done to them.”
Employees at Google’s parent company are urging the search engine to suppress results for pro-life crisis pregnancy centers, according to a petition sent Monday by the company union to Alphabet Inc. CEO Sundar Pichai.
In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, more than 650 employees at Alphabet Inc. signed the petition, which demands that Google remove “results for fake abortion providers” and what the union considers “misleading information” about reproductive health care services. The petition also demands that Google stop collecting users’ data on abortion-related searches, saying that users’ data would be “used against them” in states that have banned or restricted abortion.
Abortion providers often vilify pro-life crisis pregnancy centers, which provide counseling, resources, and often medical services to pregnant women. Planned Parenthood calls such centers “fake clinics” that have the “shady, harmful agenda” of talking women out of getting abortions.
The petition, circulated by the Alphabet Workers Union, urges Google to institute data privacy controls for “health-related activity,” such as searches for “reproductive justice, gender-affirming care, and abortion access information.” These data, according to the petition, “must never be saved, handed over to law enforcement, or treated as a crime.”
Big Tech companies such as Facebook and Google have faced political challenges on data disclosure since a draft opinion of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health was leaked in May. Twenty-one congressional Democrats in June urged Google in a letter to “limit the appearance” or add “user-friendly disclaimers” to search results for pro-life pregnancy centers.
Google states in its Privacy Policy that it must respond to a government subpoena, court order, or search warrant but pushes back on requests for information it deems too broad.
A Nebraska police department this month used legally acquired information from Facebook to prosecute 17-year-old Celeste Burgess for violating Nebraska’s ban on abortions after 20 weeks, the Nebraska Examinerreported.
Google stated in July it will automatically erase visits to abortion facilities from a user’s location history, the Wall Street Journalreported.
Alphabet executives have not yet responded to the petition.
A student claimed that the Ivy League school obtained her therapy notes without her consent and shared them with a professor who’d assaulted her. That’s not what happened.
On February 8, Lilia Kilburn, a graduate student at Harvard University, made an explosive claim: In the course of a Title IX investigation, the university had obtained notes from her private therapy sessions without her consent—then shared them with a professor who she alleged had sexually assaulted her. The professor, John Comaroff, in turn used the notes to “gaslight” Kilburn and undermine her credibility, she said in a lawsuit against the Ivy League school. Harvard, the lawsuit alleged, “opted to protect its star professor over vulnerable students.”
Six months later, it appears Kilburn’s allegation was bunk.
Between May and July, Harvard filed dozens of documents in court telling its side of the story, including several email exchanges between Kilburn and university investigators. They show that Kilburn urged Harvard to get in touch with her therapist, gave the therapist permission to release the notes, and received repeated warnings that anything disclosed would be shared with Comaroff, per Harvard’s Title IX procedures.
None of the national media outlets that amplified Kilburn’s explosive claims have reported on these revelations. Though her story has quietly collapsed in court, it remains the official narrative in the press.
“This is an important case that we continue to follow closely,” the Chronicle of Higher Education told the Washington Free Beacon. “However, we don’t comment on our future coverage plans.” The Daily Beast said that its original story was “accurate and fair” and that it planned to “follow up when there is a significant judicial decision in the case.” Gawker—which all but assumed Harvard’s guilt—did not respond to a request for comment.
Harvard is now asking a Massachusetts district court to dismiss Kilburn’s allegation without a trial. Such a request, known as a motion for summary judgment, is “very unusual this early in a case,” said Ruth O’Meara-Costello, one of Comaroff’s attorneys, who is not a party to the lawsuit. “Harvard is plainly very confident about the facts here and its ability to document them.” Kilburn’s lawyers did not respond to a request for comment.
The lack of media follow-up means that students will be hesitant to report misconduct, Harvard argued in its filings, out of a mistaken belief that the university will raid their medical records. It also means the original narrative—that Comaroff is a sexual predator protected by powerful men—still hangs in the air.
In fact, the university found no evidence that the 77-year-old anthropologist had committed sexual assault. His critics have nonetheless painted Harvard as a hotbed of misogyny, one hell-bent on silencing women by any means necessary.
Such portrayals pervade stories about campus sexual misconduct, even when the allegations underlying them are weak. The New York Times in 2018 published a 2,600-word article about another Harvard professor, Roland Fryer, whom the university was investigating for sexual harassment. The report—”Star Economist at Harvard Faces Sexual Harassment Complaints”—omitted numerous findings from the investigation that cast doubt on the allegations, including that the complainant “broadly mischaracterized” Fryer’s conduct.
Comaroff is an example of the damage that this sort of reporting can inflict. In May 2020, Kilburn and two other graduate students, Amulya Mandava and Margaret Czerwienski, filed Title IX complaints against the elderly anthropologist, which the Harvard Crimson framed as referenda on “decades-old power structures.” At every turn, coverage of the case has raced ahead of the facts, maligning a professor whom Harvard’s own Title IX process cleared of sexual assault.
That coverage didn’t just besmirch Comaroff but also put tremendous pressure on Harvard to figure out a way to punish him. The school’s initial investigation, completed in August 2021, found only a minor violation of Title IX—an allegedly off-color comment Comaroff made during office hours. But amid continued coverage of the case, Harvard began investigating some of Comaroff’s other comments—which the school determined did not violate Title IX—as potential breaches of its “professional conduct” policy.
“I think it’s clear that Harvard didn’t like the results of the first investigation, which mostly exonerated Professor Comaroff, and was determined to punish him as harshly as possible,” O’Meara-Costello said. The university placed Comaroff on a semester of unpaid leave in January for allegedly violating both its sexual harassment and professional conduct policies and barred him from teaching required courses for at least a year. Harvard did not respond to a request for comment.
The sanctions are part of a broader pattern, O’Meara-Costello told the Free Beacon, of universities punishing professors who are exonerated in Title IX investigations but crucified by the media—or by their own students and colleagues. “Once a faculty member is accused of sexual misconduct, even a finding of non-responsibility in the Title IX process is no guarantee that a university will not impose career-ending consequences,” O’Meara-Costello said, adding that she was aware of “multiple cases” like Comaroff’s.
Such cases reflect an ongoing clash between Title IX regulations and the schools that are subject to them. In 2020, the Trump administration put in place rules that strengthened due process protections in campus sexual assault proceedings. Though the Biden administration is trying to claw back those rules—with the support of many universities, including Harvard—there are still limits on how Kafkaesque Title IX offices can be. That’s created an incentive for schools to refer harassment allegations to other bureaucracies, where there is often more wiggle room to mete out punishment.
In May, for example, Princeton University fired a tenured classics professor, Joshua Katz, whom the university’s Title IX office had cleared of sexual misconduct. Rather than accept the results of that investigation, Princeton punted the case to another office—one with fewer due process protections for the accused—which found that Katz had violated a vague “honesty and cooperation” policy. Like Comaroff, Katz had been portrayed in his university’s student newspaper as a serial predator protected by powerful faculty.
These sorts of portrayals were a recurring headache for Harvard. The university made several unflattering appearances in the 2015 documentary Hunting Ground, which claimed to unmask coverups of sexual assault on college campuses. In February 2018, the Chronicle of Higher Educationreported that Harvard had turned a blind eye to decades of harassment by a prominent government professor, Jorge Domínguez. Later that year, the New York Times came out with its exposé about Roland Fryer, who has since been barred from supervising graduate students.
Then in May 2020, the Harvard Crimsonreported that three anthropology professors, not just Comaroff, had weathered sexual misconduct allegations over the past decade. Comaroff, the Crimson suggested, was but one node in an “old boys’ network” that preyed on vulnerable women. Though the article noted that three students were “in communication with Harvard’s Title IX office,” it did not name Comaroff’s accusers or detail the allegations against him, which only became public in an August 2020 article in the Chronicle of Higher Education.
That story, like the Crimson‘s, framed Harvard as a bastion of regressive power structures that protect “powerful men.” With the bad press mounting, Harvard placed Comaroff on paid leave in August 2020 pending a “full review” of the “allegations that have been reported.”
The most serious allegations came from Kilburn, who claimed that Comaroff had fantasized aloud about her being raped and touched her without her consent. Notes from her therapist, she told university investigators, could corroborate those allegations.
“I think [the therapist] should have a bunch of notes or memories for you,” Kilburn said in an August 2020 interview with the university’s Office of Dispute Resolution, a transcript of which Harvard filed in court.
Though media reports have suggested that Kilburn was blindsided by the university’s decision to get in touch with her therapist, the court filings show that she explicitly listed the therapist as a witness Harvard should contact. In a September 2020 email to investigators, she provided the therapist’s contact information, writing that it would “make sense” for “you to speak to” her.
By this point, the court filings suggest, Harvard had warned Kilburn seven times that any material shared with investigators would also be shared with Comaroff, a disclaimer Kilburn acknowledged in writing.
“Both parties have the right to review and respond to all information” that the university “may rely on in the investigation,” one email from investigators said, including “any written information provided by a witness.” On July 6, 2020, Kilburn replied: “Thank you for this information—it is helpful.”
Later in July, Kilburn had two Zoom meetings with the Office of Dispute Resolution, which reiterated that each party would have access to everything the other submitted. Those meetings are recounted in an affidavit from a senior Title IX investigator and in transcripts of the meetings taken by a second Title IX official.
In October, per Kilburn’s written request, the university contacted her therapist, who turned over two sets of notes from her sessions with Kilburn, the court filings show. As the investigation progressed, Harvard continued to remind Kilburn that it was sharing all of the evidence it gathered, including the therapy notes, with Comaroff. There is no record of any objections to those disclosures until after the investigation concluded—and after it became clear that the university hadn’t bought her most lurid claims.
Harvard determined in August 2021 that Comaroff, a scholar of African society, had violated Title IX by warning Kilburn not to travel with her same-sex partner to Cameroon, where lesbians are frequently the target of rape. He conveyed that warning in an inappropriate tone, the investigation found, but not with a sexual intention.
The school dismissed all of Kilburn’s other allegations, including the allegation of sexual assault. It also dismissed the allegations of the other two graduate students, Amulya Mandava and Margaret Czerwienski, who claimed that Comaroff had retaliated against them when they sought to expose his harassment of Kilburn.
But the pressure on Harvard was mounting. All three students were active in Harvard’s Graduate Student Union, which for years had waged a highly publicized campaign for stronger sexual harassment protections. That campaign escalated in fall 2021, energized by the allegations against Comaroff, and received glowing coverage in both the Harvard Crimson and the Boston Globe.
Amid the firestorm, Harvard notified Comaroff in October 2021 that it was hiring an outside lawyer, Alexandra Thaler, to determine whether some of his comments to Mandava had violated the school’s “professional conduct policy,” according to a detailed statement O’Meara-Costello provided to the Free Beacon.
Like at Princeton in the case of Joshua Katz, the second investigation had fewer due process protections than the first one. Harvard did not let Thaler interview any witnesses or consider additional evidence from either party, O’Meara-Costello’s statement said; the university required that she make her determinations based on a truncated excerpt of the evidence that Title IX investigators had gathered, which did not include several findings favorable to Comaroff.
Having reviewed this curated set of findings, Thaler concluded that Comaroff had violated the professional conduct policy by making remarks that Mandava perceived as threatening. The perception was what mattered: Thaler’s report said that Comaroff’s intent was irrelevant to whether he’d violated the policy, according to O’Meara-Costello’s statement.
Thaler did not respond to a request for comment. On January 20, Comaroff was placed on unpaid leave for the spring semester.
The sanctions—and the procedural hijinks that produced them—shocked 38 professors at the Ivy League school who on February 4 issued an open letter defending Comaroff. The signatories questioned how Comaroff could have violated Title IX by “informing students of the risks of gender-based violence.” And they attacked the university for subjecting their “excellent colleague” to double jeopardy, saying it set an ominous precedent for faculty.
Then came the lawsuit.
The complaint against Harvard, filed on February 8 by Kilburn, Mandava, and Czerwienski, didn’t just accuse the school of mishandling Kilburn’s therapy records. It also attacked Harvard’s “deliberate indifference” to Comaroff’s “decades-long pattern of harassment,” and lodged a number of allegations—many of them based on secondhand information—that were not included in the original Title IX complaints.
Those allegations were everywhere in a matter of hours. The New York Timespublished a piece on the lawsuit the same day it was filed—one of the few that acknowledged Harvard had cleared Comaroff of the worst charges against him. Other outlets were more one-sided. Some, like Gawker and the Daily Beast, seemed to take everything the plaintiffs said at face value.
Within 36 hours, 35 of the 38 professors who’d defended Comaroff withdrew their support, writing in a retraction letter that “we were lacking full information about the case.”
The only ones who did not sign the retraction letter were law professors, who argued that the new allegations—none of which had been investigated—didn’t negate the due process concerns.
But the damage was done. On February 20, more than three-quarters of Harvard’s tenured anthropology professors called on Comaroff to resign. And on July 26, over 250 students and professors signed a petition demanding that Comaroff be barred from teaching, even after his semester-long suspension was up. The petition repeated the allegations that Harvard’s Title IX investigators had dismissed, as well as the others that were breathlessly reported in the press.
It wasn’t just Comaroff’s reputation that was in tatters. It was the Title IX bureaucrats’. Throughout February, students inundated the university with concerns about their own medical records, which Harvard’s Title IX coordinator, Nicole Merhill, tried in vain to quell. On February 10, Merhill issued a statement disputing the media coverage and assuring students of her office’s commitment to confidentiality. A week later, she issued an apology, saying that her initial statement had “contributed to further concerns around trust.”
Those concerns, she added, “included some indicating their hesitancy to seek out resources, including counseling resources,” from the university.
The about-face reflected the lesson of the Comaroff saga: Once a media narrative sets in, it can be very difficult to dispel.
“When Harvard filed its motion for summary judgment, I thought—naïvely, in retrospect—that we would see reporting about whether Ms. Kilburn’s story was actually true,” O’Meara-Costello said. “That completely did not happen.”
Why? Because one of the above headlines is unlike the others. The first two stories reveal the nature of the Iranian regime—a gang of criminal theocrats that since 1979 has spread chaos and murder throughout the world. The third headline reveals the gullibility of Western politicians and diplomats who, despite never-ending reminders of the Islamic Republic’s aims and capacities, persist in trying to appease it.
Negotiations to revive the Iran nuclear deal have been taking place in Vienna since April 2021. They have gone nowhere. Yet the Biden administration insists on playing a starring role in this diplomatic farce. Nothing that happens in the outside world penetrates the bubble where the diplomats reside.
Some history:
• Iran refused to speak to the United States directly. We obliged. The talks are indirect—a sign of American weakness.
• Ali Khamenei ensured that his potential successor, Ebrahim Raisi, a hardline cleric sanctioned by the United States, was “elected” president last summer. Not only did we continue negotiations. We are also now debating whether to provide Raisi an entry visa so he can spout regime propaganda at the U.N. General Assembly next month.
• America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, one year old this week, seriously undermined our credibility and our security. It weakened our influence in the Greater Middle East. Yet Biden didn’t change his foreign policy. He doubled down on his Iran gambit.
• Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last February was a hinge of history—a moment when, we have been told, “everything” changed. Everything but the Iran negotiations. Russia, despite its outlaw status on the international stage, continues to serve as Iran’s intermediary. Maybe we should take the hint?
All this happened in the months before the Bolton assassination plot and the attack on Rushdie. And those violations of U.S. sovereignty and rule of law are related to Iranian malfeasance. The Justice Department charged a member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) for attempting to hire a hit man who would target the former U.S. national security adviser. Rushdie’s assailant may have been in contact with the IRGC, as well, and was unquestionably inspired by the Islamic Republic of Iran’s first Supreme Ruler, Ayatollah Khomenei, who called for the British-American novelist’s death in 1989.
And what, you ask, does Iran continue to demand of the United States as a condition for reentry into the nuclear deal? In a piece for CNBC headlined, “A renewed Iran nuclear deal appears closer than ever. Here are the final sticking points,” Natasha Turak writes, “Iran wants the Biden administration to remove its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps from its [i.e., America’s] designated terrorist list, which so far Washington seems unwilling to do.”
Imagine that.
Biden would be committing political seppuku if he removes the IRGC from the terror list. Even he can see the danger there. He’d be handing the beleaguered Republicans an issue in the final months before the midterms. It has the potential to taint media coverage of his supposed diplomatic triumph.
The IRGC “sticking point” is politically troubling. Another sticking point is impossible. Iran wants the United States to guarantee that future presidents will abide by the deal. However, the only constitutional way to do this would be to submit the nuclear agreement to the Senate for treaty confirmation. Of course, Biden can’t do that, because the treaty would fail. Leaving Biden at an impasse.
One he refuses to acknowledge. Perhaps the Biden team is now so full of themselves after a string of legislative victories at home that they are ready to make additional concessions to get what they mistakenly believe will be a victory abroad. The press will love this narrative, of Biden going from strength to strength and win to win, no matter the costs to U.S. security and stability in the Persian Gulf and Shiite Crescent.
Another scenario is that, while neither Iran nor America agrees to this latest proposal, the talks continue intermittently because they serve each party’s goals. Iran is using this time to build its nuclear infrastructure. America doesn’t want to face the hard choices that follow from a recognition that diplomacy has failed.
That is why all peace processes or arms control negotiations continue despite the evidence that they achieve nothing. The process itself becomes an end for the West. Meanwhile, the process serves as cover for the West’s enemies.
“We have a miserable, bipartisan track record of not responding to Iranian aggression and terrorism,” Reuel Marc Gerecht of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies observed the other day. Biden has an opportunity to correct the record by demonstrating American strength in response to Iranian outrages. It’s an opportunity he won’t take.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk is reacting to the recording-breaking number of illegal immigrants walking through the southern border.
The world’s richest person was replying to reporting from Fox News’s Bill Melugin, who posted on Twitter drone footage of a group of hundreds of illegal immigrants crossing the southern border at Eagle Pass, Texas, into the United States.
In his post, Melugin cited Customs and Border Protection (CBP) statistics showing border agents to have encountered 400,000 illegal immigrants so far in the Del Rio sector in fiscal year 2022 (since October 2021), a number that’s already more than double the total number of encounters in fiscal year 2021. This number doesn’t include “gotaways”—illegal crossers who evaded apprehension.
Strange that this receives very little attention in the media
“Strange that this receives very little attention in the media,” Musk wrote in response to Melugin on Aug. 14.
Musk, a self-portrayed political moderate and a design engineer by trade, has shared his perspective with his 100 million-plus followers on a wide range of issues beyond cars and rockets.
The billionaire’s comments on the border crisis, for example, were the latest in his series of criticism of the current administration and the Democratic Party in general; others include his comments on the influence of labor unions on the Democratic party, the Spygate collusion scandal involving Clinton-affiliated Democrats, and the Biden White House’s alleged sidelining of Tesla’s role in the electric vehicle market.
The Bigger Picture
The backstory to the exchange between Musk and Melugin features an ever-increasing surge in illegal immigration, overextended Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) resources, and an administration that actively strives to undo Trump-era “America First” immigration policies.
Eagle Pass is only one of the regions along the southwest border where hundreds of illegal immigrants pour into the United States. From the beginning of fiscal year 2022 on Oct. 1, 2021, to early August this year, border patrol agents apprehended 1.8 million illegal crossers. That’s more than the population of Phoenix, Arizona, the fifth-most populous city in the country, and about 40 percent higher than the total number of apprehensions in the previous fiscal year.
BORDER: Border Patrol agents organize hundreds of illegal immigrants who have streamed across the border from Mexico near Eagle Pass, Texas, on May 20. pic.twitter.com/ftZyyhfTc0
— Charlotte Cuthbertson (@charlottecuthbo) May 21, 2022
The head of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), meanwhile, insists that the border is secure, while the Biden administration is kept busy by legal disputes with border states about key Trump migration policies.
One of the policies that the Biden administration began pulling back—following a Supreme Court decision that ruled in its favor—was the “Remain in Mexico” policy, which required non-Mexican migrants seeking asylum in the United States to wait in Mexico for processing.
Meanwhile, the Biden administration will continue to enforce the Trump-era immigration and public health policy known as Title 42, a policy instated as a COVID-19 countermeasure that allowed the United States to quickly expel migrants who unlawfully entered the United States and bypassed health screening in the process. A judge blocked the Biden administration’s attempt to lift Title 42 in May.
A Border Patrol agent organizes a large group of illegal immigrants near Eagle Pass, Texas, on May 20, 2022. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)
Another legal battle that will be consequential to border security will play out in the Supreme Court in the fourth quarter of this year, when the highest court will hear a case on whether Biden’s immigration enforcement guidelines constitute executive agency overreach. In July, the Supreme Court allowed a federal judge in Texas to block the Biden administration’s immigration guidelines that, according to the border states’ prosecutors, limit the ability of border agents to detain and deport illegal aliens.
“The Biden Admin’s border record is an absolute failure,” Chad Wolf, former acting DHS secretary in the Trump administration, wrote on Twitter on Aug. 17, following reports of anonymous CBP sources saying that a record-setting 2 million illegal crossers were apprehended since the beginning of fiscal year 2022.
“I encourage Republicans next year to enact strong oversight in this area – specifically how DHS leadership executed an intentional plan to endanger migrants and American communities by refusing to enforce the law,” Wolf wrote.
State CFO proposes 4-pillar protection plan to fight back
The IRS has already been tracking annual sales of $600 or more on eBay and other selling platforms. eBay sent me a letter regarding this change (AKA a warning notice). What person making over $400,000 is going to bother selling items on eBay? [US Patriot]
PUNTA GORDA, Fla.–On Aug. 16, small business owners and independent contractors across Florida became fearful of their futures as Gov. Ron DeSantis questioned the sanity of Washington.
On that day, Joe Biden signed into law the “Inflation Reduction Act,” giving the IRS nearly $80 billion, with $45.6 billion going towards “enforcement,” which requires hiring more agents.
But what stood out the most among Florida’s small business owners was who the expanded agency would target for auditing.
At a press event on Aug. 17, DeSantis expressed frustration.
“What have they done? … 87,000 new IRS agents and they are going after you.”
They will be unleashed on American taxpayers, he said. ” … they are gonna go after independent contractors.”
Uber drivers, handymen “and others” are identified as independent contractors and all are “contenders” for audits, DeSantis said. “They’re going to crush a lot of people by doing that.”
Not only will small businesses be targeted, but also “people that the government doesn’t like,” the governor said.
“Let’s just be honest,” he said. “We’ve seen how this operates–you have these enforcement agencies that basically represent one faction of the country and they are going after the other.”
Even though IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig said in an Aug. 4 letter to Congress that the billions in funding won’t increase “audit scrutiny on small businesses or middle-income Americans,” others beg to differ.
Bobby Gross Jr. is part owner of his family’s 50-year-old paving company located in Port Charlotte and believes that the IRS is coming after small businesses like his.
“They’re (IRS) there to hunt, and we’re the prey,” Gross told The Epoch Times on Aug. 17. “The government is going to pay for the Inflation Reduction Act on the backs of small businesses.”
Gross believes small businesses are the key to raising the $750 billion price tag for the new law because “there aren’t that many billionaires in the country,” that can “generate enough money to pay for it.”
Florida’s Chief Financial Officer, Jimmy Patronis in April 2022. (Courtesy, CFO Jimmy Patronis)
Florida’s Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis agreed and will propose in the upcoming legislative session what he calls the “Four Pillars of IRS Protection.” He is doing this to “get in front of” whatever the IRS has planned. But make no mistake, he says, “Florida is a target,” especially conservatives.
“Even though the Free State of Florida cannot control the insanity of Washington we must do what we can to protect our small businesses,” Patronis told The Epoch Times on Aug. 18. “This massive super expansion of the IRS is concerning to me. I think Washington is totally disconnected from what real Americans and Main Street is feeling.”
The four pillars of protection Patronis is suggesting involve requiring state-chartered banks to generate a regular report on IRS engagement in order to identify if patterns of “targeting the middle class and small businesses are ongoing. Second, establishing a Civil Liability Trust Fund to help small businesses defend themselves–or sue the IRS–in cases of politically motivated audits or any federal overreach. Third, requiring new IRS agents coming into the state to have a Florida license. And last, establishing criminal penalties by enforcing laws based on viewpoint or political discrimination.
Political discrimination, as Patronis called it, is a concern for Carl Mottler, who owns a land-clearing company in Southwest Florida.
“I think every conservative, every conservative business, every conservative-run state and city will be targeted because that’s exactly what we have seen in the past,” Mottler told The Epoch Times on Aug. 17. “We saw it with the IRS targeting the Tea Party when Obama was president.”
In 2013 Lois Lerner “retired” from her position as the director of Exempt Organizations of the IRS. She was found guilty of “neglect of duties” after she testified in a Congressional oversight committee hearing that the IRS had “wrongly scrutinized conservative groups” and that it “had been going on for years.”
According to the Congressional Budget Office, the IRS projects to bring in almost $204 billion in revenue from 2022 to 2031. In the fiscal years 2015 and 2019 IRS audits declined by 44 percent, according to a 2021 Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration report.
Mottler said the process in any IRS audit is “unfair” and that the IRS has an “unfair advantage.”
“The problem with the IRS is that they are judge, jury, and executioner of all things financial,” he said. “There’s no due process, they can take and seize everything you have, and you have to try and show that you’re in the right; and you have to because they’re the ones who judge whether you’re right or wrong, and then they’re the ones who impose the sentence.”
Mottler said the IRS needs an “overhaul” not hiring more agents–especially ones that carry firearms.
Nurse practitioner Lisa Ransom said she has the same fears and doesn’t understand why IRS agents would carry a firearm and be asked to possess the “fortitude to pull the trigger.”
“These political people who held office … being arrested and strip-searched. Well, look at Trump—if they can do that to him and other people what will they do to us? “she asked. “This is still America. Are they really going to force their way onto your private property?”
Ransom who began her private medical practice three months ago said she is bothered and upset at the prospect of losing everything she has worked for because of the new law.
“Without any notice, they can just seize your assets and bank accounts before you have had a chance to defend yourself,’ she said. “They can put you out of business.”
Above all, Ransom said she worries about what IRS scrutiny could do to the economy.
“People will just stop using their bank accounts and go straight to operating on a cash basis,” she predicted. “I guarantee that’s what’s going to happen because you can’t track cash.”
Patronis said Ransom’s concerns are justified.
“Lisa is right, it’s gonna have a chilling effect on commerce,” Patronis said. “You will have people hoarding cash, out of just a simple fear.”
Gross said he wonders if cash apps like PayPal will be affected by the new legislation.
“What if you want to sell your couch on Craigslist to pay bills,” he said. “Will the IRS track that and wonder what you did with the money?”
“What strikes me as odd is the way the government is going about this … like World War II stuff where they are tracking our every move and we will be labeled and targeted based on our political views and affiliations,” he said. “What happens after the audit—financial concentration camps?”
Thanks to the Inflamatory Reinforcement Act, the poor and conservative will be attacked by the weaponized IRS. This regime sucks so much Chinese wienerschnitzel their eyes are fully white. [US Patriot]
The IRS audited 197 low-income families for every high-wealth family in 2019, according to the Government Accountability Office (GAO)—a number that some experts expected to climb under an IRS turbocharged with more money and manpower.
Over the next decade, the Democrat’s new “Inflation Reduction Act” will provide the IRS with 87,000 new agents and $80 billion in funding, with nearly $46 billion earmarked for enforcement.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, the tax and spend bill is projected to bring in $203.7 billion in revenue from 2022 to 2031.
Joe Biden’s administration has promised no new taxes or audits on households making less than $400,000 per year.
But experts say that promise may be hard to keep.
A previous CBO analysis using a similar funding plan featured in the Inflation Reduction Act found audit rates would be restored to levels around 10 years ago. The analysis showed the audit rates would rise for all taxpayers, but the ones with higher incomes would face the biggest increase.
The oldest data available in the 2022 GAO report released this year were from 2010. That’s when the IRS was better funded and staffed with some 95,000 full-time employees.
From 2010–2019, the IRS audited 0.9 percent across all income groups compared to 0.25 percent now.
Rachel Greszler, a budget and entitlements senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, told The Epoch Times that even returning to the 2010 audit levels for those making more than $400,000 per year, would still fall short of the IRS’s revenue goal.
“My rough estimate shows that returning to the 2010 audit levels for all income groups would only generate a little over 20 percent of the bills’ estimated enforcement revenues in 2031,” she said.
In her commentary on the Heritage Foundation’s website Aug. 12, Greszler wrote the numbers don’t add up using 2019 data either without the lower- and middle-class.
Even increasing recent audit rates 30-fold for taxpayers making over $400,000—including 100 percent audit rates on taxpayers with incomes over $10 million—still would fall more than 20 percent short of raising the estimated $35.3 billion in new revenues by 2031, she wrote.
So it stands to reason that taxpayers can expect audit rates more like those about a decade ago.
GAO statistics show a larger number of audits in 2010 for taxpayers in the $0–$24,999 tax bracket than the high wealth households. About 579,000 audits were performed on the lowest tax bracket in 2010, compared to 197,000 in 2019.
Yet for the wealthy, high wealth audits of $10 million or more stood at 2,800 in 2010, dipping to 1,000 in 2019.
While a higher percentage of high wealthy households is audited more than poor ones, the lower class sees more audits overall.
A better-funded IRS in 2010 audited the poor much more aggressively than the super wealthy—at a rate of 207 to 1.
In recent years, the IRS audited taxpayers with incomes below $25,000 and those with incomes of $500,000 or more at higher-than-average rates. But, audit rates have dropped for all income levels—with audit rates falling the most for taxpayers with incomes of $200,000 or more, according to the GAO report.
The Inflation Reduction Act, which is a scaled-down version of Build Back Better negotiated by Democrats Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), took Republicans by surprise. The measure passed the Democratic-controlled Senate and Congress last week through a reconciliation process.
Joe Biden (C) signs the Inflation Reduction Act with (L-R) Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.), Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.) and Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.) in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington on Aug. 16, 2022. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Alarm bells sounded for Republicans after Democrats shot down an amendment to the bill proposed by Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) to protect the working class from more audits. Crapo’s amendment stipulated that none of the funds from the Inflation Reduction Act could be used to audit taxpayers making under $400,000 a year. Still, all 50 Democrats in the Senate voted against it.
Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee said CBO calculated the monetary impact of Crapo’s amendment. Calculations confirmed that had lower- and middle-income taxpayers been protected by the amendment, revenue in the Democrats’ bill would have been reduced by at least $20 billion.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen attempted to clear up “misinformation” about the bill in a letter to IRS Commissioner Charles P. Rettig. She wrote new resources allocated to the IRS “shall not be used to increase the share of small business or households below the $400,000 threshold that are audited relative to historical levels.”
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen testifies before the Senate Finance Committee in Washington, on June 7, 2022. (Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images)
However, her directive isn’t included in the bill, meaning it won’t have the power of law. Tax experts and analysis from the nonpartisan scorekeeper at the CBO indicate Yellen’s promise will likely be broken if the IRS sticks to its income expectations.
“Again, this has no teeth behind it,” said Preston Brashers, a senior tax policy analyst with the Heritage Foundation.
Brashers said it would take time for the audits to start rolling, increasing as the tax agency adds tens of thousands of new agents. Proponents of the bill say a large number of those 87,000 employees will fill jobs lost through attrition, but Brashers said it appears that the agency will almost double in size.
In a press release, Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas) estimated that the Democrats’ bill would amount to 1.2 million new audits of taxpayers per year. Over 710,000 of these audits would fall on Americans who earn $75,000 a year or less.
House Ways and Means Minority Leader Kevin Brady (R-Texas) speaks during a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, on May 13, 2021. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
“If you’re an American worker making $75,000 a year, you are 4x more likely to see a tax hike from this bill than any tax relief at all. You’re hitting middle class families directly and through higher energy prices as well,” Brady wrote on the Ways and Means GOP Twitter feed.
Audits of Least Resistance
Another taxpayer category likely to be audited more is rural, low-income households claiming an Earned Income Tax Credit, according to the IRS.
Those who claim the EITC credits often make mistakes or don’t understand the rules, which makes auditing these returns low-hanging fruit for the IRS because they don’t require many man hours. The opposite is true of audits of wealthy families who can afford accountants and lawyers.
A much larger number of returns claiming EITC credits are audited compared to the wealthiest households. In 2019, the number of audits of low-income families claiming the EITC credit compared to high wealth audits of $10 million or more was 205 to 1.
In 2010, that ratio was somewhat lower at 177 to 1. However, the number of EITC audits was much greater at 496,000 in 2010 compared to 205,000 audits in 2019.
These refundable credits can provide a sizable refund if the taxpayers are qualified.
Families with three or more children can receive a maximum of $6,242, and households making under $21,000 without children can receive a maximum of $503, according to a 2016 GAO report on refundable tax credits.
James R. McTigue, a director in the GAO’s strategic issues team, told The Epoch Times the IRS and members of Congress are concerned about fraud when it comes to EITC credits because of their value. Tax prep businesses may also give low-income taxpayers bad advice, triggering more audits.
“So the IRS does audit those claiming the EITC credit at a slightly higher rate than they do for people in those lower income categories,” he said.
The GAO report noted that audits of the lowest-income taxpayers, particularly those claiming the EITC, resulted in higher amounts of recommended additional tax per audit hour, compared to all income groups except for the highest-income taxpayers.
But the premise that the IRS isn’t performing well due to lack of funding seems false based on recent revenue numbers, Brashers said, adding that new technology should make the agency more efficient even with lower full time positions.
Tax revenue is on track to reach a whopping 19.6 percent of the Gross Domestic Product in 2022, he said.
“The truth of the matter is we are on pace for the second highest year as a percentage of GDP for taxes,” Brashers added.
Voters are more worried about Bidenflation than about abortion rights, polls show
Abortion advocacy group Planned Parenthood will pour a record-breaking $50 million into November’s midterm election in an attempt to galvanize voters after the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the Associated Press reported Wednesday.
The group’s massive spending will go to Senate, House, and gubernatorial races in nine swing states, with the AP reporting that Planned Parenthood wants to “drive turnout by Democratic and independent voters” who support abortion rights.
Democratic strategists have said, however, that abortion is unlikely to drive people to the polls, the Washington Free Beacon has reported, with pollster Josh Ulibarri asking, “Is that more powerful than when a voter looks at their receipt when they check out at Target?”
A majority of mostly pro-choice suburban Phoenix women told Reuters in June that they are more worried about sky-high inflation under Joe Biden than about abortion rights. And multiple polls have shown that Americans still rank inflation as the most important issue facing the country.
Planned Parenthood officials nevertheless say that abortion will energize voters this cycle, with super PAC executive director Jenny Lawson insisting that “abortion access is absolutely one of the defining issues this November.”
Former secretary of state joins advocates, Republican lawmakers in pressure campaign to block Raisi visit
Former secretary of state Mike Pompeo is calling on the Biden administration to deny Iran’s president a visa to enter the United States and attend U.N. ceremonies next month, citing Tehran’s active plots to assassinate him and other top U.S. officials.
Pompeo, one of the main targets of Iran’s assassination campaign, told the Washington Free Beacon in his first public comments on the matter that the Biden administration is setting a dangerous precedent by permitting Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi into America just weeks after the hardline regime threatened to “turn New York into ruins and hell” with an intercontinental ballistic missile strike.
“We worked for four years to deny Iranian terrorists the freedom to put Americans at risk,” Pompeo told the Washington Free Beacon. “This administration is allowing them to come to New York City while actively engaged in efforts to kill Americans on U.S. soil. The Iranians just recently sponsored an attack that was almost successful in killing an American in that very city. We can do better.”
Nikki Haley, the former ambassador to the United Nations during the Trump administration, told the Free Beacon the U.N. is providing a megaphone to the leader’s of the world’s top sponsor of terror
“This shows just how corrupt and broken the U.N. is,” said Haley, who has publicly called for Raisi to be denied a visa. “Even when Iranian terrorists try to assassinate our officials, on our soil, the U.N. welcomes them with open arms and lets them give a speech.”
“Under no circumstances should the Biden administration allow Raisi to set foot in our country,” Haley said. “He should not be allowed to stain American soil.”
The Biden administration is poised to grant Raisi entrance to America even as his hardline regime actively plots to kill Pompeo and other top U.S. officials, including former national security adviser John Bolton, who was recently the target of a murder-for-hire plot orchestrated by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). An IRGC member was arrested by federal authorities and charged in the plot, according to documents unsealed last week by the Justice Department. Iran is also suspected to have played a role in the brutal attack on author Salman Rushdie, who was nearly killed last week when he was stabbed 10 times during a public appearance. Each of these plots has increased calls for the Biden administration to deny Raisi’s visa and end all negotiations with Iran aimed at securing a revamped version of the 2015 nuclear accord.
Pompeo and Haley joined a growing list of advocacy groups and Republican lawmakers who are pressuring the Biden administration to block Raisi from attending U.N. ceremonies in September. On Tuesday, a coalition of human-rights, Jewish advocacy, and Iranian-American groups wrote to the White House demanding that Joe Biden deny Raisi a visa due to “the risks posed by Iran’s efforts to murder or kidnap American officials and others,” according to a copy of that letter provided to the Free Beacon.
“Iranian diplomats have repeatedly abused their diplomatic status to mastermind or further terror plots,” the organizations wrote, adding that Raisi and his delegation of Iranian officials could help advance domestic plots to kill U.S. officials like Pompeo and Bolton.
“The risk of furthering Iranian assassination plots against U.S. leaders, citizens, and guests is unacceptable, and warrants denying visas to Raisi and his delegation,” according to the letter, which is backed by the Zionist Organization of America, Iranian Americans for Liberty, StopAntisemitism.org, and the Republican Jewish Coalition, among others. “In addition, granting visas to Ayatollah Raisi and his entourage would endanger national security by undermining your administration’s stated commitment to prioritize human rights, and would send a message that a mass murderer may be tolerated.”
The State Department maintains it is bound by its agreements with the United Nations to grant visas to Raisi and his Iranian delegation.
The United States is “generally obligated under the United Nations Headquarters Agreement to facilitate travel,” a State Department spokesman told Jewish News Service. “We take our obligations under the U.N. Headquarters Agreement seriously. At the same time, the Biden administration has not and will not waver in protecting and defending all Americans against threats of violence and terrorism.”
The United States is permitted under its agreement with the United Nations, however, to deny visas based on a “security reservation,” the advocacy groups note in their letter.
“Nothing in the [U.N. Headquarters] agreement shall be construed as in any way diminishing, abridging, or weakening the right of the United States to safeguard its own security and completely to control the entrance of aliens into any territory of the United States other than the headquarters district and its immediate vicinity,” states the agreement between the United States and the United Nations.
The State Department would not respond to additional questions from the Free Beacon about the assassination plots and precautions it may be taking with regards to the Iranian diplomatic delegation.
Republican senators have also pressed the Biden administration to deny Raisi a visa due to the threat posed to U.S. officials like Pompeo and Bolton.
“Allowing Raisi to travel to the United States—while his agents actively work to assassinate senior American officials on U.S. soil—would gravely endanger our national security, given the likely presence of IRGC agents in the Iranian delegation,” Sen. Tom Cotton (R. Ark.), wrote in a letter also signed by Sens. Ted Cruz (R., Texas), Marsha Blackburn (R., Tenn.), and Marco Rubio (R., Fla.), among others.
Raisi’s involvement in mass human-rights abuses also constitutes grounds to deny Raisi’s visa, the senators wrote.
“Raisi’s involvement in mass murder and the Iranian regime’s campaign to assassinate U.S. officials on American soil make allowing Raisi and his henchmen to enter our country an inexcusable threat to national security,” the letter states.
Update 5:14 p.m.: This post has been updated with comment from Nikki Haley.
Emails reveal how Hunter got Obama to officially recognize partnership
The Biden administration last month warned of a Chinese Communist Party front group that seeks to “co-opt” state leaders as part of Beijing’s sprawling foreign influence operation. Emails from Hunter Biden’s laptop show the first son and his business partners helped the organization gain a foothold in the United States while his father was vice president.
In 2015, Biden’s partners lobbied the State Department to publicly approve a partnership between the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries and State Legislative Leaders Foundation, a nonprofit group that hosts forums for state legislators and corporate leaders. Hunter’s team portrayed the initiative as a boon for U.S.-Chinese relations.
But emails show they hoped the U.S. government’s recognition of the partnership would help the foundation establish an office in Beijing. It is not clear why the partnership—or the Obama administration’s blessing of it—would have helped Hunter Biden’s business prospects. What is clear is that he and his colleagues believed it would: Biden associate James Bulger wrote in a July 17, 2015, email that the Beijing office would be “a great business driver” for a joint venture they sought with Harvest Fund Management, a Chinese investment firm led by Henry Zhao, a businessman and reported member of the Chinese Communist Party.
The lobbying campaign proved wildly successful on all fronts. After a September 2015 meeting with Chinese president Xi Jinping, President Barack Obama endorsed the partnership between State Legislative Leaders Foundation and the Chinese group. Months later, Hunter Biden’s company finalized its multimillion-dollar deal with Harvest Management.
Biden’s emails, which have not been previously reported, show how the younger Biden helped a Chinese Communist Party influence outfit that his father’s administration now views as a national security threat. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence said last month that the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries seeks “to directly and malignly influence state and local leaders to promote the PRC’s global agenda.”
On April 28, 2015, Bulger told Hunter Biden that State Legislative Leaders Foundation president Stephen Lakis wanted to meet to discuss a path forward to setting up a SLLF office in China and creating a partnership between his organization and the Chinese organization.
“Whatever you need on this just let me know and I’ll make it work,” Biden replied.
Between April and July 2015, Biden’s longtime friend and business partner Eric Schwerin arranged meetings between the State Legislative Leaders Foundation and State Department officials to help advance the partnership with the Chinese group. Schwerin, who had dozens of White House meetings with members of then-vice president Joe Biden’s office, was “instrumental” in arranging the State Department sessions, according to an email from Bulger.
The Biden group’s primary goal was to have Obama reference the collaboration between the State Legislative Leaders Foundation and the Chinese group in his upcoming meeting with Xi Jinping. On May 11, 2015, a foundation adviser wrote Evan Ryan, who then served as assistant secretary of state for educational and cultural affairs, that a reference by Obama would help them gain “top level approval” from Chinese officials to set up a foundation office in Beijing.
Ryan, who now serves as White House cabinet secretary and is married to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, appears to have played a major role in midwifing the partnership. Schwerin noted in an email to Biden that Ryan had “helped with” the effort to officially acknowledge the foundation’s work with the Chinese group. Other emails show Biden and Schwerin in frequent correspondence with Ryan on other matters.
The U.S. intelligence community has increasingly warned that Beijing uses American businessmen and nonprofit groups—often through “deceptive and coercive” means—to promote China’s political agenda in the West. Republicans have said Hunter Biden would have been a prime target for such an influence operation, given his extensive dealings in China and his access to policymakers in Washington. Biden, who is under federal investigation over his taxes and foreign business dealings, earned millions of dollars from a deal with CEFC China Energy, whose chairman was suspected of having ties to Chinese military intelligence. Biden also provided legal services to a CEFC executive whom he referred to as “the fucking spy chief of China” and who was convicted for trying to bribe African officials for oil rights.
The Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries and State Legislative Leaders Foundation have hosted five “Cooperation Forums” in Honolulu, Las Vegas, Wuhan, and Shijiazhuang since 2015, providing the Chinese influence group access to dozens of state legislative leaders and American business executives. While the U.S. government has not publicly scrutinized the forums, the State Department in 2020 pulled out of a forum between the Chinese group and the National Governors Association due to the former’s efforts to “spread Beijing’s malign influence in the United States.”
Biden’s associates began lobbying the U.S. government as a ploy to land a lucrative investment from Harvest Fund Management, one of China’s largest asset managers. Biden allegedly touted his family’s political connections in seeking a $5 million investment from Harvest founder Henry Zhao, the Washington Free Beaconreported. Zhao is believed to be a Chinese Communist Party official, according to the New York Post.
The Biden team had worked with the State Legislative Leaders Foundation before. The foundation helped Biden and his associates at the private equity firm BHR Partners in 2015, when Hunter’s team helped the Aviation Industry Corporation of China purchase Michigan auto parts maker Henniges Automotive, the Free Beaconreported earlier this year.
The Biden emails provide a detailed roadmap of how the State Legislative Leaders Foundation, the Biden team, and Zhao sought to use an official blessing from the U.S. government to advance their business interests. In a September 2014 email, Lakis, the foundation president, told Zhao he was a “shareholder” in Bulger’s company. He urged Zhao to consider an investment in the Biden joint venture, saying he had “every confidence that such a partnership will be beneficial to all parties.”
Back in China, Zhao was “working with the Chinese Governments [sic] counterparts in Beijing” to have the foundation’s efforts mentioned during the Obama-Xi summit in September 2015, Bulger told Biden in a July 17, 2015, email. Having the initiative mentioned in an official document for the summit “would be a huge boost to [Zhao’s] effort in China.” That in turn “would be a great business driver for Burnham/Harvest,” referring to their joint venture, said Bulger. Bulger, a relative of mobster Whitey Bulger, also wrote that Zhao wanted Biden’s “help with this matter.”
The emails do not detail what steps Biden took to help the initiative, but he cheered the partnership between the foundation and the Chinese group in a November 2015 email to Zhao. Biden wrote he was “very happy to hear that the State Legislative Leaders Foundation matter was worked out and was highlighted during President Xi’s State Visit in September.”
Burnham and Harvest finalized the joint venture in March 2016, according to emails Biden sent to Zhao.
“This is an exciting milestone and I look forward to helping building [sic] a cross border institution that helps investors in our respective countries across the globe,” Biden wrote Zhao on March 18, 2016.
While Biden had high hopes for the partnership with Zhao—he said his company had “no greater partner” than the Chinese businessman—the joint venture went south in May 2016 after another Biden partner, Devon Archer, was indicted on fraud charges.
It is unclear whether Biden was aware of his son’s activities, though Hunter has kept his father in the loop on several of his other business ventures. Joe Biden met in 2017 with Michael Lin, a longtime Hunter business partner who advised the State Legislative Leaders Foundation on its first foray into China, the Free Beaconreported in May 2021.
None of Biden’s associates—Schwerin, Lakis, or Bulger—have registered with Congress as lobbyists, despite their outreach to the State Department. None returned requests for comment. Biden’s attorney and the White House also did not respond to requests for comment.
Since we learned of the unprecedented raid on Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago compound last week, millions of Americans have questioned the political neutrality of the Department of Justice. Federal law enforcement is facing a legitimacy crisis—at least in the eyes of half the country—thanks to the fake and overhyped scandals it drummed up during the Trump years.
So MSNBC’s Morning Joe invited the former FBI official Peter Strzok to assure viewers the bureau was on the level. “Absolutely the American public should trust what the FBI is doing,” he said Monday.
You may remember Strzok from such FBI scandals as Russiagate, the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server, or his affair with FBI lawyer Lisa Page. As the man in charge of investigations into the two candidates in the 2016 presidential election, he was constantly texting Page about his hatred for Trump. Asking this man to vouch for the integrity of the FBI is like putting Bernie Madoff in charge of the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Strzok’s commentary is a microcosm of the mainstream media’s approach to coverage of the Mar-a-Lago raid, about which we still know precious little— except, we are told, that the integrity of our law enforcement officials shall not be questioned!
“The FBI is not the enemy,” was the headline of the Washington Post’s lead editorial. The New York Times over the weekend labored to link a nutjob who shot up an FBI office in Ohio with, you know, the “bellicose, dehumanizing, and apocalyptic” language of people like us. It’s extraordinary to hear that sort of tut-tutting from the same crowd that insisted for most of Trump’s presidency that he was a fascist and a Kremlin agent.
Strzok would know something about that—in fact, he’s free to run his mouth on television because the FBI canned him after the Justice Department’s inspector general concluded his anti-Trump texts cast a cloud over the bureau’s investigation into Trump. Strzok personally interfered with the agent overseeing the investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn to stop him from closing the file after the evidence against him didn’t pan out.
And his team pushed to include opposition research paid for by the Clinton campaign in an application for a secret surveillance warrant on former Trump adviser Carter Page. That debacle led to the nullification of two of the four warrants and a scathing inspector general’s report that “identified multiple instances” in which the factual assertions the bureau made in the application for the Page warrants “were inaccurate, incomplete, or unsupported by appropriate documentation, based upon information the FBI had in its possession at the time the application was filed.”
Perhaps, when we know all the facts, we will find that the FBI raid on Trump’s Florida home was justified. Until then, we reserve our right to question the integrity of the federal law enforcement officials who have demonstrated their willingness to behave like political hacks and abuse the power with which they are entrusted to punish their political opponents.
CRT is treason, and teacher’s unions are enemies of the state because they are pushing it and should be tried for treason. It only serves to weaken our country. [US Patriot]
To allow schools to be free of Critical Race Theory (CRT) parents must break the unions, parental rights activists say.
This school year, Moms for Liberty leaders Tiffany Justice and Tina Descovich have mounted a nationwide campaign to end union control of schools.
“Let’s start the new school year right—by ending the reign of the powerful teachers’ unions who care more about pushing woke ideology and rewriting forms to say ‘birthing parent’ instead of ‘mom’ or ‘dad,’ than they do about improving reading scores or closing the growing learning gaps in our country,” the group’s press release reads.
Teachers have pushed CRT into the classroom at a time when many students are failing to learn how to read, said Justice.
Tina Descovich, cofounder of Moms for Liberty, a pro-parental rights organization. (Courtesy of Moms for Liberty)
According to nationwide surveys, only about a third of 4th Grade students read proficiently at a 4th Grade reading level in 2019.
At the same time, reports of teachers giving children political instruction in CRT, transgenderism, and other left-wing ideologies have increased greatly.
This push comes from teachers’ unions, said Descovich.
Teachers’ unions like the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) have long been bastions of Democratic political power, she said.
Rather than ensuring teachers get good pay while giving children a good education, they have focused on making education ideological, said Justice.
“What we’ve seen over the past 40 years in education in America is a real shift away from giving children practicable skills to making them into social justice warriors,” she said.
Moms for Liberty encourages teachers to leave these unions to stop their promotion of left-wing education, Descovich said.
“It’s vital that teachers understand there [are] options out there, they do not have to be a member of the union,” she said.
For many parents, COVID-19 led to new discoveries about schools, Descovich said. During the pandemic, parents got to see the lessons their kids received. Often, they didn’t like what they saw.
“I think they’ve been shocked to see gender ideology being pushed in the classrooms, the division between race, the Critical Race Theory,” she said.
While the pandemic was a time for parents to learn, now is a time for them to act, Moms for Liberty leaders said.
“The start of the 2022-2023 school year is a perfect time to end the woke union bosses’ death grip on innovation, excellence, and freedom in public education,” the Moms for Liberty press release reads.
Union Busting
Moms for Liberty has a two-part strategy to break union power, according to its press release.
It will encourage teachers to leave unions in states where they can do so, and it will inform parents about school performance.
As unions like the NEA have spread across America, they have allied with school system administrators to protect a bloated bureaucracy, said Justice.
“We see more and more money being spent on public schools,” she said. “And yet, the teachers aren’t being compensated better.”
Although the Supreme Court has ruled that it’s illegal to force teachers to pay union dues if they don’t want to, sometimes unions do so anyway.
In many states, even non-union members have to pay unions for their role in collective bargaining. In other states, social pressure to remain in a union plays a major role, said Descovich.
“The unions will say, ‘If you get in trouble, if somebody accuses you of something, the only person that’s going to be there for you with us,” she said.
Money from union dues gives unions immense political power. The National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers gave $29 million combined to Democrats and other liberal groups.
The unions also play a major role in encouraging a left-wing curriculum, Justice said.
Tiffany Justice, cofounder of Moms for Liberty, a pro-parental rights organization. (Courtesy of Moms for Liberty)
“The unions have become the foot soldiers for the Left in America, the very most progressive fringe Left,” she said.
Justice said she strongly believes American teachers are already breaking from the unions.
“I think that the education curtain has been pulled back, and all of America now recognizes that the union bargains for the people at the table, not for the teachers on the ground,” she said.
Parents can also pressure schools to change their curriculum, said Descovich. But often, schools have pushed back against parents.
In union strongholds, some Moms for Liberty supporters have lost their jobs due to union member harassment of their employers, she said.
One mother got the FBI called on her. It has been a struggle to get school boards to listen to parents.
“It’s been about as nasty as you can imagine where there are union strongholds,” said Descovich.
Moms for Liberty has more than 200 nationwide chapters, Descovich said. Despite these setbacks, many chapters have met with success in placing parental rights advocates on school boards.
“The unions need to understand that teachers in schools, their primary duty is to educate children,” said Justice.
So drag queens are OK but when you refuse a vaccine that does not work you get cut. [US Patriot]
Lance Corporal Catherine Arnett is on the brink of court martial for decisions made in opposition to what she considers an “unlawful order” to take a COVID-19 vaccination shot.
Immediately following the secretary of defense’s order to vaccinate against COVID-19 on Aug. 24, 2021, Arnett sought religious exemption—which was denied the following month. Having submitted her appeal against the decision in November, it was denied in January 2022. This began an administrative separation process from the Marine Corps, prompting Arnett to declare she “cannot consent to it.”
The 24-year-old Lance Corporal held firm in her beliefs, telling The Epoch Times that “if your mandate is illegal, then your separation orders are illegal.” In April 2022, Arnett received a letter from her command, giving her 30 days to leave Japan and report to California’s Camp Pendleton to be processed for separation. The Marine Corps does not separate individuals from duty stations overseas or outside the continental United States.
Thus, Arnett continues to refuse to board a plane, explaining that “[the order] to get on the plane [is] inextricably linked to the vaccine mandate.” If the “unlawful order” of the vaccine mandate were not in place, she would have chosen to serve longer, aspiring to become a drill instructor. Instead, her decision to seek religious accommodation and subsequent refusal to leave Japan for separation from the Marine Corps has had consequences that may lead to a court martial.
Arnett was charged under Article 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice for disobeying a direct order. She was also charged under Article 87 for deliberately failing to board an aircraft to the United States.
Because Arnett has less than six years of service, under military regulations, the Marine Corps does not have to give her an administrative separation board to decide whether to retain or separate her from service. After her religious accommodation appeal was denied, she was accused of misconduct and commission of a serious offense for not getting the COVID-19 vaccination shot, Arnett said. She was told that she would be administratively separated within 30 days.
Arnett’s court martial trial is set to begin on Aug. 23, only one month shy of the expiration of her current enlistment and her ability to leave the Marine Corps under normal terms. It is her intention to remain in Japan until Sept. 18, which would fulfill the four-year contract she made with the Marine Corps.
Arnett is hopeful the vaccine mandates will be defeated in the courts sooner than later, saying, “God willing, I would like to remain in the Marine Corps.” She recognizes that she has chosen a difficult path, admitting that her decisions have left her feeling alienated. “I’ve basically been exiled from my squadron,” she said, adding that there seems to be an “unspoken rule” that she does not interact with other service members. She described the experience as “very isolating.”
Leadership Lacking
The Epoch Times also spoke to Lt. Col. Madison Whitaker (a pseudonym) who has served nearly 18 years in the Marine Corps. Whitaker spoke to The Epoch Times on the condition of anonymity, fearing reprisals. His orders to battalion command were recently canceled for refusing to get the jab. With equal disappointment, he is aggrieved by the lack of approval for religious accommodation as well as the military’s refusal to recognize service members’ natural immunity to the coronavirus.
“What’s missing from the entire equation,” Whitaker said, “is that leadership is not willing to sit down and have a kneecap-to-kneecap adult conversation with the Marines in their units.” Before “sidelining” nearly all exemption requests for religious accommodation or otherwise. He believes Marine Corps leadership should be meeting with those under their command.
He explained that no one in his chain of command sat him down to hear his side of the story. “There has never been an effort to do anything like that,” he said.
Whitaker said that there are no Food and Drug Administration-approved (FDA) vaccines available to service members, so he doesn’t understand the rush to force vaccinations on personnel.
The marine, along with a group of service members, argues that the Pentagon’s vaccine mandate cannot compel service members to receive vaccines issued under Emergency Use Authorized (EUA), but only vaccines that have full FDA approval and are labeled as such. Currently, only EUA vaccines are available for service members to take, according to a whistleblower report sent to Congressmembers on Aug. 15.
The Pentagon, however, has issued a policy (pdf) saying the FDA-approved Comirnaty and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines are interchangeable, citing FDA guidance. The legality of this policy is contested by service members resisting the vaccine mandate.
Many of the officers tasked with enforcing the vaccine mandate “don’t want to be seen as bucking the system,” Whitaker said. “They don’t want to risk their reputation, their retirement, or the things that they have worked toward over the course of their careers.” What’s more, he is convinced that “the highest levels of the DoD” have been instructed to not give any religious waivers except to service members who were already exiting the service.
As of Aug. 3, the Marine Corps has approved (pdf) 11 religious exemptions, 545 administrative or medical exemptions, and has separated 3,299 people.
Punishing Marines for their decision to object to the vaccine for religious reasons, or because there are only EUA drugs available, is “contrary to how we’re brought up as Marines and what is expected of us whenever we get an order that is suspect.” Thousands contend that forcing service members to take an experimental vaccine is unlawful, Whitaker noted.
“In the case of Lance Corporal Arnett, this is her first tour and she’s being sidelined,” Whitaker pointed out. “For those like Arnett who have probably wanted to join for a long time,” he said, “this has just completely diminished the trust between the leadership and those that are going through this or would have to go through this.”
Defending Their Rights
Regardless of the outcome, Arnett hopes her experience “empowers other service members to challenge unlawful orders.” Every citizen, in general, she said “should have the gall to challenge unlawful orders.”
Whitaker agreed, stating, “There’s this misconception out there that whenever you join the military, you take an oath that relinquishes your rights.” But this is not true. “We don’t lose any of the rights espoused in the Bill of Rights or anywhere in the Constitution,” he explained.
“While it may sound idealistic, I’m fighting for my First Amendment rights, and my free exercise of religion,” Whitaker said, “it’s really that simple.” According to the Marine Corps officer, “service members are not wards of the state just because they raise their right hand. They still retain their rights.”
Whitaker finds it “even more egregious” that what he has sworn to do for the country—”support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic—is the very thing thousands are being punished for.”
Truth be told, he said, “we have significant religious persecution of service members going on within the DoD for a pharmaceutical product that no one needs, many of these service members don’t want, and that is not safe, nor is it effective.”
“If we don’t defend our First Amendment rights, then we won’t have any rights in this country,” Whitaker said.
Both Arnett and Whitaker emphasized that their views do not reflect those of the Department of Defense (DoD), the Department of the Navy, or the U.S. Marine Corps.
Neither the DoD nor the Marine Corps replied to a request for comment from The Epoch Times.
Former President Donald Trump will likely not be arrested on charges stemming from the FBI’s raid last week, according to a former Harvard Law School professor.
“Yes, it’s possible [but] I don’t think it’s going to happen,” Alan Dershowitztold Newsmax on Tuesday about whether Trump would be arrested. People who believe that prosecution and an indictment would keep Trump away from the 2024 campaign are “dead wrong,” he remarked.
“He can run for president even if he’s indicted, convicted, and wearing striped shirts, prison garb,” he added to the channel. “The Constitution provides only four bases for disqualification for president, and being convicted of a crime is not one of them. Congress can’t change the criteria that are in the Constitution for the election of the president.”
Echoing statements made by Trump and some Republicans, Dershowitz said the affidavit used to justify the FBI raid at Mar-a-Lago should be released.
“You can redact the names of agents, you can redact sources and methods, but what we want to know is what the basis of probable cause that they have,” he said.
A U.S. magistrate judge in the case, Bruce Reinhart, ordered the unsealing of a warrant and property receipt. The warrant shows Trump is under federal investigation for possibly several U.S. Code violations, while the receipt shows agents found allegedly classified and top secret material at Trump’s home.
Affidavit
Reinhart scheduled a Thursday hearing on whether the affidavit and other materials related to the case should be released.
Lawyers for the Department of Justice on Monday argued that releasing the affidavit would damage the agency’s investigation and argued that unsealing a version with redactions “would not serve any public interest.” Several media outlets, watchdogs, and other entities have filed motions to release the affidavit.
“Disclosure of the government’s affidavit at this stage would also likely chill future cooperation by witnesses whose assistance may be sought as this investigation progresses, as well as in other high-profile investigations,” the Justice Department wrote. “The fact that this investigation implicates highly classified materials further underscores the need to protect the integrity of the investigation and exacerbates the potential harm if information is disclosed to the public prematurely or improperly.”
The former president on Monday said that FBI agents took three passports from him before a spokesperson confirmed that a Department of Justice official said they were returned. Hours later, he called for the Justice Department to release the affidavit, which would provide insight into why the Department of Justice believes it is justified in trying to obtain the search warrant.
“There is no way to justify the unannounced RAID of Mar-a-Lago, the home of the 45th President of the United States … in the interest of TRANSPARENCY, I call for the immediate release of the completely Unredacted Affidavit pertaining to this horrible and shocking BREAK-IN. Also, the Judge on this case should recuse!” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
The Internal Revenue Service has spent tens of millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars purchasing guns, ammunition, and military-style equipment.
Reports of the agency’s massive spend on weapons and combat equipment appear to be at odds with its stated purpose of “providing America’s taxpayers top quality service by helping them understand and meet their tax responsibilities.” It also resurfaces as Joe Biden deploying 87,000 new Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agents to audit Americans.
Prior to the minting of Biden’s nearly 100,000 new IRS agents, the agency already had a sizable budget, of which tens of millions of dollars had been spent on purchasing military-oriented gear.
Between the fiscal years 2006 and 2019, the agency spent $21.3 million on guns, ammunition and military-style equipment, using the funds to stockpile 4,500 guns and five million rounds of ammunition.
The government watchdog group Open The Books conducted a case study itemizing the items purchased by the IRS between fiscal years 2015 and 2019.
Of a total of $8.7 million spent, $4.5 million was directed towards guns and ammunition while $4.2 million was designated for combat equipment.
SOURCE: OPEN THE BOOKS.
“As of January 1, 2019, the IRS owned 4,600 guns and stockpiled 5 million rounds of ammunition. This included 621 shotguns, 539 long-barrel rifles, [and] 15 submachine guns,” explains Open The Books in its report, “The Militarization of The U.S. Executive Agencies.”
The weapons and ammunition are believed to be used by the agency’s roughly 2,200 Special Agents, who are “investigative forensic accountants utilizing specialized technology to uncover sophisticated schemes to defraud the government, as well as assist in counterterrorism and anti-narcotics efforts,” noted Open The Books.
In addition to handguns, items such as long guns, shotgun ammunition, night vision scopes, ballistic shields, and several forms of body armor were also purchased by the IRS with its taxpayer-provided millions.
It remains unclear whether or not Biden’s boost to the IRS budget mole results in the agency gaining more military style equipment or weapons.
Former Vice President Mike Pence broke with former President Donald Trump and other Republicans and said Wednesday they should stop criticizing the FBI following the bureau’s raid targeting the former president’s home.
“I also want to remind my fellow Republicans, we can hold the attorney general accountable for the decision he made without attacking the rank-and-file law enforcement personnel at the FBI,” said Pence during an event at St. Anselm College.
“The Republican Party is the party of law and order,” Pence stated, according to The Associated Press. “Our party stands with the men and women who stand on the thin blue line at the federal and state and local level, and these attacks on the FBI must stop. Calls to defund the FBI are just as wrong as calls to defund the police.”
Pence also told a crowd he would give “due consideration” if he is asked to testify before the House Jan. 6 committee.
Trump and some Republicans say the FBI has unfairly targeted conservatives and has not done enough to curb left-wing extremists, including those who threatened pro-life groups and pregnancy centers this summer after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
Some have also pointed to how some Jan. 6 detainees have been treated while under federal custody.
Two-Tiered System?
Former Trump administration official Kash Patel told The Epoch Times last week, that after the raid, the United States is descending toward the third world and that Americans are suffering under a two-tier system that treats Republicans and Trump less favorably than Democrats.
Examples he gave include the FBI’s apparent hesitance to investigate Hunter Biden’s laptop and overseas business deals as well as the bureau illegally spying on Trump’s former aide, Carter Page.
With his comment on Wednesday, Pence appears to be strategically distancing himself from his former boss. Observers say Pence, with recent speeches and events, is trying to gear up for a 2024 presidential run.
Last month, Pence and Trump appeared at separate rallies in Arizona, with Pence backing GOP gubernatorial candidate Karrin Taylor Robson, who was ultimately defeated by Trump-backed Kari Lake.
Their paths diverged on Jan. 6, 2021, as Trump criticized the former vice president for not objecting to or delaying the certification of the election. Earlier this year, in February, Pence again claimed that he had no power during the Jan. 6 certification process.
“If the Vice President [Mike Pence] had ‘absolutely no right’ to change the Presidential Election results in the Senate, despite fraud and many other irregularities, how come the Democrats and RINO Republicans … are desperately trying to pass legislation that will not allow the Vice President to change the results of the election?” Trump said in a statement in February after Pence’s comment.
White HouseCOVID-19 czar Ashish Jha on Tuesday admitted that the six-foot social distancing rule that was implemented in early 2020 isn’t actually effective.
Over the past several years, “a lot of time” was spent “talking about six feet of distance, 15 minutes of being together. We realize that’s actually not the right way to think about this,” he said during a White House briefing on COVID-19.
“That’s not the most accurate way to think about this,” Jha said, adding that it is about “the quality of air you’re breathing around you.”
In a crowded indoor area with poor ventilation, people can “get infected” with COVID-19 “in minutes,” Jha said, adding that being outdoors you can be “outside for long periods of time” and not get infected.
Jha made those comments in regards to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) having relaxed guidelines around COVID-19. That included dropping the six-foot social distancing rule.
The agency last week rescinded a number of rules and made key updates to its recommendations, now stating that unvaccinated and vaccinated individuals should essentially be treated the same, while explicitly saying that those with a prior infection have protection against severe illness.
Starting in early 2020, federal health agencies issued a recommendation that people keep at least six feet of distance away from one another. Health departments, businesses, corporations, and schools across the United States then adopted the rule, leading to restrictions such as capacity limits and lockdowns.
‘Nobody Knows’
A former administration for the Food and Drug Administration, Scott Gottlieb, revealed in late 2021 that the six-foot rule was made up.
“Nobody knows where it came from,” Gottlieb, a Pfizer board member, told CBS News. “Most people assume that the six feet of distance, the recommendation for keeping six feet apart, comes out of some old studies related to flu, where droplets don’t travel more than six feet.”
Rectangles are painted on the ground to encourage homeless people to keep social distancing at a city-sanctioned homeless encampment across from City Hall in San Francisco, California, on May 22, 2020, amid the COVID pandemic. (Josh Edelson/AFP via Getty Images)
The CDC, he said, initially recommended a 10-foot rule, and the six-foot rule was a compromise between the federal health agency and Trump administration officials.
“So the compromise was around six feet. Now imagine if that detail had leaked out. Everyone would have said, ‘This is the White House politically interfering with the CDC’s judgment.’ The CDC said 10 feet, it should be 10 feet, but 10 feet was no more right than six feet and ultimately became three feet,” Gottlieb remarked.
The CDC also said in its update that it’s no longer recommending unvaccinated people to quarantine after exposure. Unvaccinated people who have been in close contact with an infected person aren’t advised to go through a five-day quarantine period if they haven’t tested positive or shown symptoms, according to the revised guidelines.
Regardless of vaccination status, according to the CDC, “you should isolate from others when you have COVID-19” or are “sick and suspect that you have COVID-19 but do not yet have test results.” Previously, the CDC said fully vaccinated people who were exposed could skip the quarantine period.
Former President Donald Trump suggested that the Jan. 6 committee should be dissolved, following the defeat of Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) in a GOP primary on Aug. 16, calling the vote a “referendum” and that “the people have spoken.”
“Congratulations to Harriet Hageman on her great and very decisive WIN in Wyoming. This is a wonderful result for America, and a complete rebuke of the Unselect Committee of political Hacks and Thugs,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Aug. 16.
“Liz Cheney should be ashamed of herself, the way she acted, and her spiteful, sanctimonious words and actions towards others,” Trump continued. “Now she can finally disappear into the depths of political oblivion where, I am sure, she will be much happier than she is right now.”
“Thank you WYOMING!” Trump added.
Wyoming Republican congressional candidate Harriet Hageman waves as she takes a picture with children during a primary election night party in Cheyenne, Wyoming, on Aug. 16, 2022. (Michael Smith/Getty Images)
Cheney was defeated by Trump-endorsed Harriet Hageman, a natural resources attorney from Fort Laramie. As of early Wednesday morning, the Wyoming Secretary of State’s Office reported (pdf) that Hageman garnered 113,025 votes, compared to Cheney’s 49,316.
The result was not unexpected, considering that nearly 70 percent of Wyoming residents voted for Trump in the 2020 presidential election.
Cheney is one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump and serves as the co-chair of the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol breach.
“I assume that with the very big Liz Cheney loss, far bigger than had ever been anticipated, the January 6th Committee of political Hacks and Thugs will quickly begin the beautiful process of DISSOLUTION?” Trump wrote in another Truth Social post on Tuesday.
“This was a referendum on the never ending Witch Hunt. The people have spoken!” Trump added.
During her concession speech on Tuesday, Cheney called out Trump directly.
“I will do whatever it takes to ensure that Donald Trump is never anywhere near the Oval Office and I mean it. I love my country more,” she said. “This primary election is over. But now the real work begins.”
Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) speaks to supporters at a primary night event in Jackson, Wyoming, on Aug. 16, 2022. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Writing on Truth Social, Trump said Cheney’s speech was “uninspiring.”
“Liz Cheney’s uninspiring concession speech, in front of a ‘tiny’ crowd in the Great State of Wyoming, focused on her belief that the 2020 Presidential Election was not, despite massive and conclusive evidence to the contrary, Rigged & Stolen,” Trump wrote. “It was, and that’s not even counting the fact that many election changes, in numerous States, were not approved by State Legislatures, an absolute must.”
Hageman will now face Democratic nominee Lynnette Grey Bull in the Nov. 8 general election, in the fight for Wyoming’s lone seat in the House of Representatives.
Several GOP lawmakers have welcomed Hageman’s victory on Tuesday.
“Congratulations to Harriet Hageman on her massive Republican primary victory in Wyoming over Nancy Pelosi’s puppet Liz Cheney. I was proud to join President Trump and Leader Kevin McCarthy in endorsing Harriet,” House GOP Conference Chairwoman Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) said in a statement.
“Harriet is a true America First patriot who will restore the people of Wyoming’s voice, which Liz Cheney had long forgotten,” Stefanik continued. “I cannot wait for Harriet to join Republicans in Congress so that we can stay laser-focused on our work to save America. ”
Rep. Mary Miller (R-Ill.), a member of the House Freedom Caucus, echoed Trump’s comment about the Jan. 6 committee.
“Tonight was not just a defeat for Liz Cheney, but a massive rejection of the sham ‘Jan 6’ witch hunt Committee and the authoritarian politics of the DC establishment,” Miller wrote on Twitter. “Congrats to my friend Harriet Hageman, President Trump & the MAGA movement!”
central pillar of the just-passed Inflation Reduction Act is $80 billion going to the IRS to hire some 87,000 new agents, doubling the current force, to chase down U.S. taxpayers who allegedly are not meeting their tax obligations.
The rationale is we have a large national budget deficit — that is, government is bringing in less money than it spends — so a larger army of IRS agents chasing down tax deadbeats will help solve our nation’s fiscal problems.
But part of this same new law in which U.S. taxpayers are asked to spend $80 billion to hire more IRS agents to shake down their neighbors who are supposedly not paying their fair share, there is $430 billion in new government spending, a large portion of which is earmarked for green energy projects of various shapes and forms.
At the same time that we’re expanding our army of tax collectors, we continue to expand government and spending at an even faster pace.
The Congressional Budget Office has just released its latest Long-Term Budget Outlook, and here we get a broader picture of the problem.
According to the report, “From 1972 to 2021, total federal outlays averaged 21% of GDP; over 2022-2052 period, such outlays are projected to average 26% of GDP.”
The Congressional Budget Office projects that government will take on average 5% more from our national economy in the next 30 years than it did on average over the last 50 years.
Looking at our GDP in 2022, roughly $25 trillion, at 26% of GDP, government spending will be over a trillion dollars more than it would have been at 21%.
A trillion dollars more in spending on average per year, with another 87,000 IRS agents running after taxpayers to make sure they pay up.
So, the bigger army of tax collectors is about helping raise money to finance ongoing expansion of government and increasing control of government over the lives of private Americans.
Why, as someone whose business is trying to improve the lives of low-income Americans, do I care about this?
Turning pages forward in the CBO report, we get to the really shocking information.
From 1992 to 2021, per CBO, the average growth of the U.S. economy was 2.4% per year. CBO projects that from 2022 to 2052 the average growth of the U.S. economy will be 1.7% per year.
This should shock every American, and it’s getting hardly any attention.
The more our national economy is controlled by government and politicians, the more sluggish will be growth of our economy.
It stands to reason. Growth comes from entrepreneurs, work, creativity. More government means less of all these things and slower growth.
Slower growth means lower income and less opportunity.
Anyone who cares about helping those who want to get ahead in America should be cheering for faster growth and less government rather than more government and slower growth.
Hoover Institution economist John Cochrane has pointed out that from 1950 to 2000, the U.S. economy grew at 3.5% per year. Real income per person went from $16,000 in 1950 to $50,000 in 2000. If the economy grew from 1950 to 2000 at 2% instead of 3.5%, notes Cochrane, income in 2000 would have risen to just $23,000 rather than $50,000.
It’s why, as someone who cares about helping low-income Americans get ahead and improve their lot, I care about a growing dynamic economy, not a bloated, sclerotic economy controlled by politicians and Washington special interests.
The so-called Inflation Reduction Act takes matters in the exact opposite direction in which we should be going. Pretending to care about the nation’s fiscal imbalances while adding $430 billion in new spending, all of it driven and defined by Washington special interests, is the problem, not the solution.
Border security group supports Republican over Dem challenger Mandela Barnes
A leading border security advocacy group is throwing its support behind Sen. Ron Johnson (R., Wis.) in his reelection bid, citing the lawmaker’s “unique insight into the root cause of the out-of-control flood of illegal immigrants and deadly drugs into our country.”
The National Border Patrol Council, an advocacy group comprised of some 18,000 Border Patrol agents, said Johnson—a member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee—”has devoted more time and attention to securing our border than virtually any other member of Congress,” according to a statement by the group provided to the Washington Free Beacon.
Johnson is facing a tough reelection battle in Wisconsin as Democrats try to flip the seat for challenger Mandela Barnes, the state’s far-left lieutenant governor, who is being bankrolled by anti-police groups. In an election cycle where the porous southern border is likely to galvanize voters, Johnson’s endorsement by the National Border Patrol Council could help tip the scales in his favor.
“The National Border Patrol Council has personally witnessed Senator Johnson’s dedication to and care for all Wisconsinites,” the group said in its statement. “Wisconsin and America need Senator Johnson’s strong voice, caring spirit, and leadership in the U.S. Senate, which is why we are proud to endorse Senator Johnson to continue to be your advocate.”
Johnson, the group said, was instrumental in Operation Safe Return, a bipartisan federal program initiated in 2019 that humanely deported illegals back to their countries of origin. The program was used as a model by the Department of Homeland Security when it developed its own programs to reduce the flow of undocumented children and families into America.
“By reducing the number of illegal border crossers, Senator Johnson was instrumental in allowing law enforcement to target criminal cartels and their profit,” the group said.
Johnson is one of the most vocal proponents for increased border security and policies that will help stem the flow of undocumented migrants into the United States. Apprehensions at the border have crossed 4,000 per day on Biden’s watch, according to figures published by Customs and Border Protection. The crisis has spiraled as drug cartels exploit children and families seeking to illegally enter America, leading to an increase in rape, crime, and other instances of abuse. Nearly 8,000 illegals are believed to be crossing the border each day, according to Johnson.
Experts expect two million illegal immigrant encounters in this fiscal year, according to research published Tuesday by the Republican National Committee.
“President Biden completely dismantled the very policies that had ended the surge. The border is now in a crisis that far exceeds anything during the previous administrations and the media is silent,” Johnson’s office said in an analysis published on his website.
Johnson has organized congressional trips to the border, most recently in July. The senator met with law enforcement officials to discuss the challenges they face, and he also spent time with local landowners to discuss the fallout they are facing due to the rising number of illegals.
“Open borders, a flood of illegal immigrants, a flood of deadly drugs, 40-year high inflation, record gasoline prices—these things didn’t just happen,” Johnson said during a press conference at the time. “These are the direct result of [Biden’s] policies. But if you look very closely at this chart, we pretty well had the border solved. That’s just another tragedy here. We had this problem fixed until Democrat presidential candidates started talking about the fact they would not deport and they would offer illegal immigrants free health care.”
Gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams was ‘honored’ to co-chair an organization that gave tens of thousands of dollars to anti-police activists
Democratic Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, who says she opposes defunding the police, co-chaired a left-wing group that gave tens of thousands of dollars to defund-the-police activists, Fox News reported Tuesday.
Abrams in April 2021 became the co-chairwoman of the Black Voices for Black Justice Fund, saying in a press release that she was “honored” to join the fund, which works with “Black activists on the ground who understand how racism plays out.” The fund, which is bankrolled in part by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s foundation, has awarded thousands of dollars to activists who support abolishing the police.
Abrams is best known for losing the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election to incumbent Republican Brian Kemp, whom she is again facing in this year’s election, and then falsely claiming that Kemp stole the election from her. Her fellow Democrats, many of whom have called former president Donald Trump’s claims of election fraud an existential threat to democracy, have not criticized her claims.
The Black Voices for Black Justice Fund awarded $20,000 to Education Leaders of Color CEO Sharhonda Bossier, who tweeted in May 2020 that “it means nothing that these elected officials are expressing support for ‘peaceful protests'” and that politicians should instead support efforts to “defund the police.” Bossier repeated the call in April 2021, tweeting, “We spend SO MUCH money on officer training, etc. If we cannot expect that police can respond to incidents without killing people we should… DEFUND & ABOLISH THE POLICE.”
The fund this year gave out awards to Black Lives Matter Global Network founding member Kei Williams, who has repeatedly expressed support for police defunding, and activist William Jackson, who has tweeted, “I’m for abolishing the police.”
Black Voices for Black Justice’s website listed Abrams as its co-chairwoman as recently as November, Fox News found. The site now showcases a picture of Abrams and lists her as one of the group’s two “co-chairs emeriti.”
Abrams’s campaign told Fox that the candidate “does not and never has supported defunding the police.” The campaign did not respond to Fox’s request for comment on whether Abrams disavows the group.
In addition to the Black Voices for Black Justice Fund, Abrams remains a board member of the Marguerite Casey Foundation, which this year expressed support for defunding the police.
House candidate scrubs radical views from campaign site after bitter primary fight
South Texas Democrat Michelle Vallejo won a bitter primary fight by embracing a slew of far-left policies. Now, the congressional hopeful is abandoning those progressive positions as she approaches a difficult general election campaign.
Vallejo emerged from a tight primary runoff in Texas’s 15th Congressional District in May, defeating fellow Democrat Ruben Ramirez by just 30 votes. At the time, the self-described “progressive small business owner” was openly touting her support for Medicare for All, a federal jobs guarantee, and student debt cancellation—policy positions that landed her endorsements from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) and Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D., Wash.). Vallejo’s campaign site also expressed resentment for America’s “racist criminal legal system” and called to protect “trans and queer South Texans.”
But now, as Vallejo faces an uphill general election battle against Republican Monica De La Cruz, she’s running away from the same policies that helped her attract liberal primary voters just a few months ago. Between late July and mid August, internet archives show, the Democrat updated her campaign site to remove all mentions of “Medicare For All,” a “federal jobs guarantee program,” and the need to “forgive all student loan debt.” Vallejo’s “LGBTQ+ Justice” section, meanwhile, no longer includes the word “trans,” and the Democrat’s border policy blurb now calls to invest in the same immigration enforcement system she used to call “racist.”
Vallejo’s campaign site overhaul is an obvious attempt from the progressive Democrat to rebrand herself as a moderate as she runs in a newly drawn district that President Donald Trump won by nearly 3 points. It’s also an implicit admission that the Democratic Party’s liberal wing has become too “woke” for many South Texas Hispanics—a development that Republicans say has helped them make inroads in the Rio Grande Valley, a historic Democratic stronghold.
Still, Vallejo’s decision to abandon the progressive positions that defined her primary campaign could divide the district’s Democratic voters with November fast approaching. In addition to Warren and Jayapal, Vallejo earned a primary election endorsement from Lupe Votes, a liberal South Texas group that supports Medicare for All, a federal jobs guarantee, student loan cancellation, and other progressive policies. Texas College Democrats also backed Vallejo ahead of the May primary, citing the Democrat’s “unapologetically progressive campaign.” Neither of those groups returned requests for comment. Vallejo’s campaign also did not return a request for comment.
As a whole, almost none of Vallejo’s pre-primary policy “priorities” made it to her general election campaign site.
The Democrat’s health care section used to be titled “Health Care for All” and included explicit support for a “single-payer universal healthcare system.” That section is now labeled “Affordable High Quality Health Care” and replaces the call for Medicare for All with a watered-down pledge to “expand Medicare.”
Similarly, Vallejo removed the word “climate” from her energy policy header. She also replaced her support for a Green New Deal-esque “federal jobs guarantee”—which would cost up to $44.6 trillion—with a line touting the “bipartisan infrastructure law that will bring billions of dollars to South Texas.”
Vallejo also touts her newfound bipartisan bonafides in her updated policy sections on the southern border and Second Amendment.
Her “Immigration” policy blurb—which used to be titled “Embracing the Border + Immigration Justice”—no longer attacks America’s “racist criminal legal system” and calls to “pass a pathway to Citizenship for all 11 million undocumented Americans.” Instead, it states the need to make “an investment in border infrastructure” and only naturalize illegal immigrants “who have worked hard, followed the law and contributed to their communities.” Vallejo added a line to her “End Gun Violence” section, meanwhile, that ensures voters that the Democrat “grew up shooting at gun ranges and hunting on family ranches” and “strongly supports the bipartisan gun safety bill written by Texas Sen. John Cornyn.”
Beyond the border and gun rights, Vallejo’s “LGBTQ+ Justice” policy portion once said “lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer South Texans deserve equal protection and justice.” It now reads, “Every South Texan deserves equal protection and justice.” Furthermore, Vallejo’s new segment on “Affordable Education” was once titled “Free Public College and Trade School + Eliminating Student Debt.” The Democrat’s updated version no longer calls to “forgive all student debt,” but it does note that Vallejo is “still paying off her student loans,” which she acquired as an Ivy League student at Columbia University in New York City.
There is one policy position, however, that Vallejo is standing by after her primary win. Both her old and new issue pages stress the need to “end mandatory minimum sentencing, cash bail, solitary confinement, private prisons, qualified immunity, and prioritizing investing in mental health resources and services for our community.”
Vallejo’s decision to abandon her public support for various left-wing policies comes after the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee added the South Texas congressional hopeful to its “Red to Blue” program, which “arms top-tier candidates with organizational and fundraising support to help them continue to develop strong campaigns and win in November.” It’s unclear if the group had a hand in Vallejo’s flip-flopping, as the DCCC did not return a request for comment.
Vallejo will face De La Cruz in November. The Republican in 2020 narrowly lost to incumbent Democrat Vicente Gonzalez in a closer-than-expected race—Gonzalez subsequently opted to run in a nearby district that is more solidly blue. De La Cruz, who describes herself as a “proud small business owner” and “woman of strong faith,” has raised $2.9 million to Vallejo’s $700,000.
John Bridgeland worked on Obama White House council, cheered Biden victory
On the campaign trail, Rep. Tim Ryan (D., Ohio) touts the endorsement of a man named John Bridgeland as evidence of his cross-party appeal.
There are just a few details the congressman leaves out, at least when he’s trying to win over voters in his increasingly red state: Bridgeland worked in the Obama administration, celebrated Joe Biden’s election, and cofounded a nonprofit dedicated to remaking policing.
The founder of “Republicans for Tim Ryan,” Bridgeland has worked on left-wing policy initiatives for years. Former president Barack Obama in 2010 appointed Bridgeland to the White House Council for Community Solutions. Bridgeland also cofounded a firm, COVID Collaborative, that works with the Biden administration on vaccine messaging. In December 2020, Bridgeland wrote an op-ed for the website of Maria Shriver, a Democratic activist and member of the Kennedy family, about how he was “so encouraged” by Biden’s win.
Democrats touting endorsements from nominal Republicans who routinely attack the Republican Party is a familiar strategy. Lawmakers who have been rubber stamps for Biden’s agenda, such as Ryan, are hoping that voters forget their records. Sen. Mark Kelly (D., Ariz.), who is running in a competitive race this cycle, recently released a list of endorsements from Republicans, several of whom work for the the Lincoln Project, an activist group dedicated to electing Democrats but helmed by individuals who once considered themselves Republicans.
Bridgeland’s endorsement comes as Ryan seeks to separate himself from the president. Biden’s approval rating is 23 points underwater in Ohio—a state that former president Donald Trump won twice. When Biden traveled to Ohio for a speech last month, Ryan scheduled campaign stops hundreds of miles away.
Ryan shared Bridgeland’s endorsement on Twitter and wrote he was “proud” to have Bridgeland on his “team.”
“Republicans for Ryan is a platform for Republicans to sign up to help Tim Ryan. I am a registered Republican and vote in Republican primaries and in general elections,” Bridgeland told the Free Beacon. “I believe in limited, effective government, … civil society and the nonprofit and private sectors, and respecting both individual rights and responsibilities.”
Bridgeland worked from the mid-1990s to 2003 as a senior official in then-representative Rob Portman’s (R., Ohio) office and in former president George W. Bush’s administration. In an op-ed for a local Ohio newspaper, Bridgeland wrote that he supports Ryan’s “love of our democracy” and “many of his policies.”
Bridgeland attacked Ryan’s Republican Senate challenger, J.D. Vance, as “lacking the energy of the U.S. senator he is trying to replace—Rob Portman.” Portman endorsed Vance immediately after Vance in May won the Republican nomination.
Bridgeland’s endorsement of Ryan was leaked to Politico days prior as part of a story about the Ryan campaign’s strategy of appealing to Republican voters. That story also featured Bridgeland speaking favorably about Ryan and how Ryan could make inroads with Republican voters in Ohio. Missing from Politico‘s story was any mention of Bridgeland’s work since he left the Bush administration in 2003.
Ryan did not respond to a request for comment.
Other than Bridgeland, no appointees with experience in Republican politics were appointed to Obama’s White House community solutions council. There, Bridgeland worked alongside the likes of Laurene Powell Jobs and Jon Bon Jovi to provide advice to the president on “innovative community solutions and civic participation by all Americans.”
Bridgeland later cofounded ACT NOW, a nonprofit that works “to reimagine ‘public safety’ … and eliminate the root causes of systemic racism.” ACT NOW’s staff includes Ray C. Kelly, who in 2018 received an award from George Soros’s Open Society Institute-Baltimore.
According to internal voter data obtained by the Free Beacon, Bridgeland voted in the 2020 Democratic presidential primary. A June column he wrote for the Cincinnati Enquirer called for new gun control measures. The column also touted his work with a group called the People’s Filibuster for Gun Safety. That group, according to its website, partners with left-wing nonprofits such as the Anti-Defamation League and March for Our Lives to pass gun-control legislation.
Bridgeland’s cheerleading for Biden appears out of step with Republican voters. Following Biden’s State of the Union address in March, Bridgeland celebrated the speech as passionate and “articulating values and ideas that transcend our divisions.” A Reuters poll released Aug. 9 found 86 percent of self-identified Republicans disapprove of Biden.
Ryan will face Vance in November. There is little high-quality polling of the race available, although most political analysts believe Vance is the favorite. Portman’s seat has been held by a Republican since 1999.
The Oregon Democrat warned that wealthy business owners could abuse the loan program. Financial disclosures suggest his wife did just that.
Oregon Democratic senator Ron Wyden warned early in the pandemic that wealthy business owners could abuse the Paycheck Protection Program. Financial disclosures suggest his wife did just that.
Nancy Bass Wyden, the multimillionaire owner of New York’s Strand bookstore, received $2.7 million in Paycheck Protection Program loans between 2020 and 2021 and nonetheless went on to lay off 180 employees. Small businesses were eligible for the federally forgiven loans on the condition that they used a majority of the funds to keep employees on the payroll. In October 2020, Bass Wyden told CBS News that the Strand would not rehire many of those employees and that the store would “have to give back part of the loan due to the forgiveness rules.”
But as of September of last year, the federal government had forgiven both loans, ProPublicareported. The Small Business Administration declined to comment and the Strand did not respond to the Washington Free Beacon’s requests for comments on the loans.
The Paycheck Protection Program came under fire in 2020 for shelling out millions to billionaire real estate investors. Other family members of Democrats also got in line for handouts, including the multimillionaire father of then-Senate candidate Jon Ossoff (D.) who scored as much as $1 million from the program. Businesses like the Strand were able to line their pockets and lay off dozens of workers without rehiring them as long as 60 percent of the money went to payroll expenses.
Wyden and a group of senators pushed then-Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and Small Business Administrator Jovita Carranza in April 2020 “to develop strong supervisory mechanisms to identify instances of unjust enrichment” for the program.
“Every loan that provides a windfall for an applicant who does not truly need it results in one fewer loan made to a struggling small business owner whose employees could be truly helped by this funding,” the senators wrote in a letter.
Wyden’s wife refused to rehire many of the employees she fired even after the Strand received its PPP loans, leaving the bookstore “woefully understaffed,” according to the union that represents the workers. She pleaded with the public to purchase more books in late 2020, saying the store’s revenue had plummeted 70 percent and that loans and cash reserves were “depleted.” The Strand said it was “impossible” to rehire all staff even with the paycheck loan boost.
“The limited sales we make now plus the PPP loan are the only things keeping our staff paid,” a Strand spokesman toldVulture in March 2021. “So until in-store sales bounce back, this is the best we can do.”
Bass Wyden earned as much as $3 million in book sales during the layoffs, according to her husband’s annual financial disclosures. The Oregonianreported in 2011 the couple’s net worth is between $12 million and $56 million.
The couple purchased millions of dollars’ worth of stock in 2020 that appreciated substantially following lockdowns, including as much as $600,000 in shares of Amazon, a prime competitor with independent bookstores.
An inspector general’s report in May found many Americans took advantage of the PPP loans as the Small Business Administration had no plan to counter fraud. One former U.S. attorney dubbed the program “the biggest fraud in a generation.”
Bass Wyden inherited the Strand from her father Ben Bass. Her children are next in line to take control of the 90-year-old bookstore next, according to the Strand’s website.
Sarah Muscroft condemned Palestinian rocket attacks on Israeli citizens
The United Nations disciplined and removed a top official from her post after she publicly admonished Palestinian terror groups for a spate of rocket attacks on Israeli citizens, a U.N. official confirmed to the Washington Free Beacon on Tuesday.
Sarah Muscroft, who served as the head of the United Nations’ Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), was forced to apologize after an Aug. 8 tweet in which she condemned the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terror organization for its “indiscriminate rocket fire” into Israel. Following pushback from pro-Palestinian activists who accused her of being overly deferential to Israel, Muscroft called her original missive “ill informed” and then deleted her Twitter account altogether. A U.N. official confirmed that Muscroft was removed from her post as a result of the tweets and will be reassigned elsewhere in the agency.
Israeli officials and U.N. watchdog groups say the situation is proof of the international organization’s systemic bias against Israel, revealing how the United Nations silences critics of Palestinian terrorism. While U.N. officials routinely criticize Israel and characterize it as an “apartheid state,” they have done little to hold the Palestinians accountable for deadly terror attacks, including one earlier this week in Jerusalem that injured eight people, including Americans.
Muscroft originally took to Twitter last week to praise a ceasefire between Israel and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad following days of violent terror strikes that injured Israelis and Americans. “Such indiscriminate rocket fire of Islamic jihad provoking Israeli retaliation is condemned,” Muscroft wrote, according to archived copies of her original tweets.
Her message prompted a flurry of angry responses from pro-Palestinian advocates and even U.N. officials who said that Muscroft wrongly blamed Palestinian Islamic Jihad for initiating the violent conflict. Following this pressure, Muscroft apologized and deleted her Twitter account. A U.N. spokesman confirmed to the Free Beacon that Muscroft will “be assigned a new role” as punishment.
“The staff member in question will be assigned to a new role,” OCHA spokesman in Geneva Jens Laerke told the Free Beacon. “OCHA has been present in the occupied Palestinian territory for the past 20 years, working to help meet humanitarian needs, guided by the humanitarian principles of neutrality, impartiality, and humanity. Over two million people in the occupied Palestinian territory need assistance—they remain our only focus and priority.”
Gilad Erdan, Israel’s permanent representative to the United Nations, in an Aug. 14 letter to Secretary-General António Guterres lodged a formal complaint over the matter, according to a copy of that letter obtained by the Free Beacon.
“Israel is disturbed to see that Palestinian outrage over tweets would so quickly devolve into ending the ability of a senior U.N. staffer to keep her job, and to express herself,” Erdan wrote, noting that Israel has not always agreed with Muscroft’s views about the conflict. “This represents a clear surrender of the U.N. to threats and intimidation, and poses a very problematic norm.”
By punishing Muscroft, the United Nations is giving the Palestinians an “unwritten veto” over the international organization’s statements, which “stands in clear contradiction with the basic principles of objectivity and neutrality that the U.N. claims to hold,” Erdan wrote. “In the best case, this is a recipe for misguided self-censorship by U.N. officials. In the worst case, it is a prescription for U.N. officials to exclusively emphasize the Palestinian narrative, even if this falls in contradiction with facts on the ground.”
A similar situation unfolded last year when U.N. official Matthew Schmale said in an interview that Israel undertook serious efforts to avoid civilian casualties during its May 2021 operation in the Gaza Strip that targeted Hamas. Palestinian activists attacked Schmale for his comments, and the United Nations recalled him from his post.
“Somehow,” Erdan wrote in his letter, “it’s always open season to criticize Israel, with no repercussions; but if a U.N. staffer dares to speak against Palestinian terrorism, there is immediate backlash in fear of reprisal.”
The situation with Muscroft comes just weeks after a U.N. official who leads what critics say is a one-sided probe into alleged Israeli war crimes said that social media platforms are controlled by a “Jewish lobby”—comments that were widely condemned as anti-Semitic. That official, Miloon Kothari, did not face disciplinary repercussions for the comment and was defended by his superiors, who said pro-Israel forces were trying to discredit the investigation into Israel.
Arsen Ostrovsky, a human rights attorney and the CEO of the International Legal Forum, said the episode with Muscroft is “a shameful act of cowardice and hypocrisy from the U.N.”
“Instead of supporting Muscroft, the U.N. effectively threw her under the bus, by capitulating to the terrorists and the anti-Israel activists, by forcing her to make an apology and then reassigning her to a new role,” Ostrovsky told the Free Beacon. “The U.N., who are supposed to be impartial, never call out or reprimand their people when they criticize and attack Israel, yet they only do so when an official has the basic courage and decency to speak the truth and challenge the lies of Islamic Jihad and Hamas.”
A former Internal Revenue Service (IRS) whistleblower has said that the Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) will see the government target middle-income Americans with increased scrutiny and audits.
William Henck previously worked as a lawyer for the IRS for 20 years until 2017, when he was terminated for allegedly revealing sensitive information to the media about how the IRS had reportedly failed to identify a multi-billion-dollar corporate tax credit scheme involving a source of energy known as burning pulp byproducts, or black liquor.
Speaking to Fox Business, Henck disputed claims by the IRS and other officials who have said that increased funding for the agency under the IRA, which is set to be signed into law by Joe Biden this week, would only lead to more audits for wealthy millionaires and billionaires and large corporations.
“The idea that they’re going to open things up and go after these big billionaires and large corporations is quite frankly [expletive],” Henck said in the interview on Aug. 15. “It’s not going to happen. They’re going to give themselves bonuses and promotions and really nice conferences.”
“The big corporations and the billionaires are probably sitting back laughing right now,” he said, adding that it was “insane” to double the IRS budget.
Henck also said he believes that the agency will go after businesses that don’t have enough money to hire Washington lobbyists.
(L-R) Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) leave the Senate Chamber after final passage of the Inflation Reduction Act at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Aug. 7, 2022. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
‘Absolutely Not’ Being Used to Target Middle-Income Americans
The Democrat-controlled House passed the IRA in a strictly party-line vote on Aug. 12. It includes nearly $80 billion in IRS funding, including $45.6 billion for “enforcement.”
A Treasury Department report from May 2021 (pdf) estimated that such an investment would enable the agency to hire roughly 87,000 employees by 2031.
Amid mounting fears, the IRS has said it will “absolutely not” be using the extra money to increase audit scrutiny on small businesses or middle-income Americans.
IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig stated in a letter to members of the Senate on Aug. 4 that the extra resources will instead serve to help the agency in “challenging” areas such as audits of large corporate and global high-net-worth taxpayers.
“These resources are absolutely not about increasing audit scrutiny on small businesses or middle-income Americans,” Rettig wrote in the letter. “As we’ve been planning, our investment of these enforcement resources is designed around the Department of the Treasury’s directive that audit rates will not rise relative to recent years for households making under $400,000.”
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre have also doubled down on their rhetoric regarding reports about the extra funding being utilized to target middle-income Americans, stating that there would be no new audits for individuals earning less than $400,000 per year.
Henck disagrees.
‘Unlimited Resources And No Accountability’
“There will be considerable incentive to basically to shake down taxpayers, and the advantage the IRS has is they have basically unlimited resources and no accountability, whereas a taxpayer has to weigh the cost of accountants, tax lawyers—fighting something in tax court,” he told Fox Business.
“If you own a roofing company, you better count on getting audited because that’s what they’re going to be doing,” he continued. “They’re going to be going after your car dealerships, roofing companies.”
Henck’s comments come after the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found that working-class Americans will end up paying billions of dollars in new taxes thanks to the IRA.
Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee said on Aug. 12 that they had received the information from the CBO confirming that under the new legislation, lower- and middle-income Americans will pay an estimated $20 billion more in taxes over the next decade.
This confirms that “at least $20 billion of the $124 billion in new revenue expected by a supercharged IRS will be coming from higher audits on low- and middle-income Americans” and that this would be “in addition to existing audits on these income levels,” GOP lawmakers said in a statement.
The Epoch Times has not received a response for comment from the CBO.
Gone are the days when most illegal border crossers are easy-to-return single, male Mexicans looking for work.
Almost three-quarters of the nearly 200,000 people apprehended along the southern border in July were foreign nationals from countries other than Mexico, according to Customs and Border Protection (CBP) data.
Of the 200,000 illegal aliens encountered, 99,000 were from countries other than Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, or El Salvador.
CBP only provides data on some nationalities, so it’s not clear how many countries are represented in the numbers, but officials have previously noted it’s more than 160.
In the first 10 months of this fiscal year, Border Patrol agents along the U.S.–Mexico border have arrested more than 1.8 million people after they crossed illegally between ports of entry. A further 800,000 are known to have evaded Border Patrol after entry. It’s impossible to estimate how many more weren’t detected or apprehended.
Border Patrol agents apprehended 66 individuals on the terrorist screening database between ports of entry on the southern border in the past 10 months.
In 10 months, more than 1 million illegal aliens have been released into the United States while they await their immigration court proceedings, according to CBP data.
“While the encounter numbers remain high, this is a positive trend and the first two-month drop since October 2021,” said CBP Commissioner Chris Magnus in an Aug. 15 statement.
“DHS [Department of Homeland Security] has been executing a comprehensive and deliberate strategy to secure our borders and build a safe, orderly, and humane immigration system,” the statement reads.
The agency also said it anticipates illegal immigration to increase further.
Illegal immigrants gather by the border fence after crossing from Mexico into the United States in Yuma, Arizona, on Dec. 9, 2021. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)
Other Nationalities Surging
Cuban nationals have flooded across the southern border since the beginning of the 2022 fiscal year, which began on Oct. 1, 2021 and ends on Sept. 30.
Border Patrol agents have arrested more than 175,000 Cubans during the past 10 months. It’s equal to about 580 Cubans entering illegally every day and a 359 percent increase on the 2021 fiscal year when just more than 38,000 Cubans were apprehended.
Nicaraguans are also crossing in droves, with 133,702 apprehended so far this fiscal year—a 168 percent increase on the prior year and a 6,000 percent increase on fiscal 2020.
Venezuelans are the next largest group to cross the border, with border agents apprehending 128,376 in the past 10 months. The increase over fiscal year 2020, when just 1,262 Venezuelans were apprehended, is a remarkable 10,000 percent.
Significant numbers of illegal aliens from other nations have also crossed the U.S.–Mexico border in the past 10 months, including Haitians (28,634), Turks (12,559, compared to 1,373 in fiscal 2021), Indians (14,636, compared to 2,958 in fiscal 2021), and Russians (3,975, compared to 511 in fiscal 2011).
There has been an increase in the number of Ukrainians without legal entry papers presenting themselves at ports of entry, rather than crossing in between. In the past 10 months, 64,348 Ukrainians have sought entry, compared to fewer than 10,000 in the previous two years.
Chinese nationals are the same—preferring to enter at ports of entry without legal entry papers.
The DHS says its border strategy is “based on six pillars: surge resources; increase efficiency to reduce strain on the border; employ an aggressive consequence regime; bolster the capacity of NGOs and partner with state and local partners; go after cartels and smugglers; and work with our regional partners.
“This comprehensive plan leverages a whole-of-government approach to prepare for and manage the current and anticipated increases in encounters of noncitizens at our Southwest Border.”
A NEW STUDY REVEALS JUST HOW DAMAGING THE POLICY WAS.
COVID-19 lockdowns could be responsible for claiming 20 times more lives than they were advertised to save, according to a new analysis published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.
The paper, which bases its conclusions on a comprehensive review of other relevant, lockdown-focused literature, was authored by researchers at the Jerusalem College of Technology.
“In this work, we performed a narrative review of the works studying the above effectiveness, as well as the historic experience of previous pandemics and risk-benefit analysis based on the connection of health and wealth,” summarized the article, titled “Are Lockdowns Effective in Managing Pandemics?”
“The comparative analysis of different countries showed that the assumption of lockdowns’ effectiveness cannot be supported by evidence—neither regarding the present COVID-19 pandemic, nor regarding the 1918–1920 Spanish Flu and other less-severe pandemics in the past,” argue the researchers.
The team proceeds to quantify the estimated number of lives lost due to the COVID-19 mitigation measure, which drew strong support from Democrats and public health officials including Anthony Fauci, Deborah Birx, and Mike Pence:
The price tag of lockdowns in terms of public health is high: by using the known connection between health and wealth, we estimate that lockdowns may claim 20 times more life years than they save.
The paper also exposes how governments and international health organizations’ embrace of lockdowns was at odds with their stance on the public health policy prior to COVID-19.
“It should be mentioned that the same conclusions—no clear benefit of lockdowns in case of pandemic—were made by national and international bodies before COVID-19 emerged. Namely, several governments prepared detailed plans of response to influenza- like pandemics years ago—see the programs of the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (2007) and the Israeli Ministry of Health (2007),”
Researchers singled out the World Health Organization (WHO), which published a comprehensive 91-page preparedness plan in October of 2019 that explicitly mentioned that:
• social distancing measures “can be highly disruptive” and should be carefully weighted; • travel-related measures are “unlikely to be successful”; “border closures may be considered only by small island nations in severe pandemics”; • and contact tracing and quarantine of exposed individuals are not recommended in any circumstances.
The paper doesn’t argue that lockdowns were merely ineffective; however, adding that they actually claimed the lives of the people public health officials claimed to be protecting.
“The lockdown policies had a direct side effect of increasing mortality. Hospitals in Europe and USA were prepared to manage pretty small groups of highly contagious patients, while unprepared for a much more probable challenge—large-scale contagion. As a result, public health care facilities and nursing homes often became vehicles of contamination themselves—to a large extent because of the lockdown-based emergency policy implementation,” explained the paper, citing New York as an example.
“While our understanding of viral transmission mechanisms leads to the assumption that lockdowns may be an effective pandemic management tool, this assumption cannot be supported by the evidence-based analysis of the present COVID-19 pandemic, as well as of the 1918–1920 H1N1 influenza type-A pandemic (the Spanish Flu) and numerous less-severe pandemics in the past,” concludes the paper.
The findings follow the publication of other studies finding sizable drawbacks to lockdowns and other popular COVID-19 mitigation measures such as mask mandates.
State files appeal against decision as midterms approach
Some 5,000 Texans who used a P.O. box as a voter registration address will likely be able to cast a ballot in the state’s midterm elections after a federal judge blocked a 2021 state election law.
Senate Bill 1111 attempted to tighten residency guidelines for Texas voters, but was struck down this month by U.S. District Court Judge Lee Yeakel, an appointee under former president George W. Bush.
Yeakel, who presides over the Austin Division for the Western District of Texas, found in a summary judgement that the state used vague language in the election law and parts of it failed constitutional scrutiny.
Texas’ Attorney General Ken Paxton appealed the decision last week to the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, according to State Sen. Paul Bettencourt (R-Houston), who authored the election bill.
Texas’ Attorney General Ken Paxton speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas at the Hilton Anatole Aug. 5, 2022. (Bobby Sanchez/The Epoch Times)
“There is no one that can live inside a P.O. box,” Bettencourt pointed out in a statement earlier this month.
Bettencourt told The Epoch Times he was disappointed in the decision against a “common-sense voter integrity bill.”
The bill required people registering to vote with a P.O. box to show proof of address such as a driver’s license or utility bill.
Some 5,000 people were registered to vote in Harris County alone using a P.O. box in 2020, Bettencourt said.
As of this month, the number is around 4,800 because some of the records were processed before the law was blocked.
The actual number using P.O. boxes to register statewide would make the total higher, he added, saying he expects the number could climb before voter registration ends in October without the law.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (3R) signs Senate Bill 1, also known as the election integrity bill into law with others clapping and looking on in Tyler, Texas, on Sept. 7, 2021. (Marina Fatina/NTD)
The Republican-led Texas Legislature passed the bill along with others in an attempt to guard against election fraud after the 2020 election.
The lawsuit filed by the Texas chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens and Voto Latino, a nonprofit that seeks to mobilize voters, called those requirements in SB 1111 an unnecessary burden on voters.
The Latino groups claimed voter suppression against six large counties controlled by Democrats: Travis, Bexas, Harris, Hidalgo, Dallas, and El Paso.
“This measure imposes vague, onerous restrictions on the voter registration process, chilling political participation and further burdening the abilities of lawful voters to cast their ballots and make their voices heard.” Texas LULAC state director Rodolfo Rosales said in a statement after filing the suit.
Maria Teresa Kumar, president and CEO of Voto Latino, celebrated the decision.
“The true intent of this discriminatory measure has always been about suppressing voter turnout—especially among young people, communities of color, low-income voters, and other historically marginalized groups,” she said in an August statement.
The State of Texas was not a party to the lawsuit at first and had to intervene in order to appeal the decision. Had that not happened, it would have been up to the Democratic controlled counties to appeal.
Bettencourt said suits filed against Democratic-controlled local governments by friendly liberal organizations is a new tactic to get around Texas’ voter integrity laws because the entity being sued will “agree with the suit.”
Hans von Spakousky, an election law reform manger for the Heritage Foundation, said every state has residency requirements.
For a judge to rule against a state law requiring verification of residency would appear political, he said.
Friendly groups suing each other is a tactic to get a favorable outcome, he said. “They’re hoping for a collusive settlement.”
Only a few days after the FBI’s raid on Mar-a-Lago, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky publicly demanded the repeal of the Espionage Act.
The Department of Justice is presumably weighing whether or not to indict former President Donald Trump for allegedly violating the act by taking classified documents with him upon leaving office (although, whether the documents in question were actually “classified” is up for dispute).
According to the official search warrant, the FBI raided the Trump resort on Aug. 8 to look for said documents as well as any evidence that the documents had been knowingly altered, destroyed or hidden.
Without mentioning the president or the Mar-a-Lago raid, Senator Paul took to Twitter Saturday to demand the act be repealed.
The espionage act was abused from the beginning to jail dissenters of WWI. It is long past time to repeal this egregious affront to the 1st Amendment.
“The espionage act was abused from the beginning to jail dissenters of WWI. It is long past time to repeal this egregious affront to the 1st Amendment,” Paul tweeted.
In the 2019 article, Jacob G. Hornberger, the foundation’s founder and president, argues that the Espionage Act is “a tyrannical law” which can be, and has been, used to punish government whistleblowers.
The most obvious example of this comes in the form of Julian Assange, the head of Wikileaks who was indicted for violating the act.
“Some news media commentators are finally coming to the realization that if the Espionage Act can be enforced against Assange for what he did, it can be enforced against anyone in the press for revealing damaging inside information about the national-security establishment — i.e., the Pentagon, the CIA and the NSA,” Hornberger wrote.
“Therefore, they are calling on the Justice Department to cease and desist from its prosecution of Assange.”
Hornberger alleges that the Espionage Act, enacted in 1917, was created for this very purpose — to punish American citizens for criticizing the government’s decision to intervene in World War I.
“The law converted anyone who publicly criticized the draft or attempted to persuade American men to resist the draft into felons. And make no mistake about it: U.S. officials went after such people with a vengeance, doing their best to punish Americans for doing nothing more than speaking.”
At least one source close to Trump maintains he, much like Assange, took the documents because “he thought the American public should have the right to read” them.
“Trump declassified whole sets of materials in anticipation of leaving government that he thought the American public should have the right to read themselves,” Kash Patel, a former Department of Defense official under Trump, told Breitbart News.
“The White House counsel failed to generate the paperwork to change the classification markings, but that doesn’t mean the information wasn’t declassified,” he continued. “I was there with President Trump when he said ‘We are declassifying this information.’”
“This story is just another disinformation campaign designed to break the public trust in a president that lived on transparency. It’s yet another way to attack Trump and say he took classified information when he did not.”
In a stunning move, Joe Biden disbanded a federal employee labor union, but only after it endorsed his opponent in the 2020 election and criticized his policies.
The Federal Labor Relations Authority ruled last week to disband the “National ICE Council,” which represents 7,600 employees of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
It was one of the few labor unions to endorse President Donald Trump and has been critical of Biden’s policies. It has also been critical of alleged corruption by union bosses supporting Biden.
Chris Crane, president of the council, said the government colluded with AFGE to silence the organization and its members.
“There is no doubt that ICE and DHS leadership worked in unison with corrupt union bosses to make this happen,” he said. “DHS and AFGE leadership both wanted desperately to silence ICE Council whistleblowers. Without a union, it’s doubtful those whistleblowers will have jobs much longer.”
He also called the FLRA’s decision “the largest single act of whistleblower retaliation in United States history” by depriving union members of their representation.
“We did what we were supposed to do. We reported to the Department of Labor that union bosses at AFGE were allegedly spending dues money on prostitutes and strippers, sexually assaulting their own employees, engaging in payoffs and coverups, and other unlawful and egregious acts. It was supposed to be investigated. We were supposed to be protected,” he said.
He added: “Federal employees must be alerted immediately that they have no protection from corrupt unions when reporting allegations to the Department of Labor. This can’t happen again.”
It’s not the first time Biden is alleged to have officially retaliated against critics of his border policies.
In January FBI agents raided the home of Congressman Henry Cuellar, a Democrat representing a district on the Texas/Mexico border.
Cuellar has been openly critical of Biden’s border enforcement policies, and the raid came just days before ballots were to be mailed out in a Democrat primary between Cuellar and a nationally-supported-and-funded liberal challenger.
Despite the raid Cuellar narrowly won his primary. The FBI has not announced any charges or allegations against Cuellar.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
John Fetterman linked to creepy anime demon best known for enslaving a child
Republicans and other anti-grooming activists are seething after a photo resurfaced of Democratic Senate candidate John Fetterman’s family posing with a controversial anime character best known for enslaving a child.
The photo, which Fetterman posted on Twitter in April 2019, shows the candidate’s wife and three children posing with an exceedingly large man in a creepy demon mask and long black cloak. Experts familiar with the anime genre tell the Washington Free Beacon the masked individual was portraying the character Elias Ainsworth from the Japanese manga series The Ancient Magus’ Bride.
tbc this is NOT me in the mask. I swear, I was in Blair County. You can be sure because, quite frankly, the head isn’t cut off. 🙄🙄 pic.twitter.com/nVHJk1YlMr
Fetterman claims to have been in Blair County, Pa., at the time the photo was taken at the Tekko anime convention in Pittsburgh. Nevertheless, the fact that he would even allow his children to be exposed to a character as creepy and problematic as Elias Ainsworth raised serious questions about his parenting.
Blog posts reviewed by the Free Beacon suggest the series is incredibly problematic due to how it depicts the relationship between Ainsworth, “a seven-foot-tall humanoid with an animal skull for a head,” and Chise Hatori, the 15-year-old orphan he buys at a slave action in London for five million pounds. According to a listicle published on the Comic Book Resources website, this is one of five reasons why “Chise and Eilas are [not] the perfect couple.”
A scathing review posted on tumblr.com awarded the show a score of 3/10 despite acknowledging there was “so much to love” about the anime series. “Chise and Elias could have been terrific characters in their own right but their relationship is marred by their creepy creators’ bad writing,” wrote tumblr user juneboba. “So many things Elias says reeked of things predators actually say to their victims and romanticizing it is gross. He even admits outright that he’s grooming Chise and ‘raising’ her to be perfect for his use.”
The reviewer was especially put off by the fact that Elias kept “invading [Chise’s] privacy and trying to touch and bathe her without her permission,” noting that Elias’s character “understood that what he was doing to a child was morally reprehensible” yet was portrayed as having “saved” Chise by purchasing her at auction and making her his child bride. “That’s not how human trafficking works and glorifying it is despicable,” juneboba wrote.
Fetterman’s decision to glorify the despicable character, months after taking office as lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania, is the latest in a series of scandals plaguing the state’s Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate. He was widely criticized, for example, for holding an innocent black jogger at gunpoint in 2013. Fetterman has refused to apologize for his racially charged vigilantism. The candidate suffered a nearly fatal stroke in May after repeatedly ignoring his doctor’s advice and has rarely ventured out on the campaign trail since then. Video evidence suggests Fetterman is nearly as incapable as Joe Biden when it comes to speaking in coherent sentences.
As Democrats take a victory lap after passing a bill that spends nearly $400 billion on green energy initiatives, Americans say they are less concerned about climate change than they were three years ago.
Only 35 percent of adults are “extremely or very concerned” about the effects of climate change on them personally, according to a poll from the Associated Press. In 2019, 44 percent of respondents said the same.
Fewer than half of respondents, 45 percent, said individual people have a large responsibility to fight climate change. Thirty-two percent of respondents said they were not concerned about the impact of climate change, and 33 percent said they were only “moderately concerned.”
The results come as Democrats celebrate Joe Biden’s upcoming signing of the Inflation Reduction Act. Although severalstudies show the bill will do nothing to lower inflation, which is at a 40-year high, the bill does provide the largest ever single investment in green energy and climate change mitigation. Because reports show the bill will do little to curb inflation, mediaoutlets have begun referring to the Inflation Reduction Act as a climate and health bill. Yet that framing may not help Democrats sell its provisions to voters. Fewer Americans believe they have a direct impact on climate change than three years ago, the AP poll found. Roughly half said their actions have an effect on climate change, compared with the two-thirds who said the same in 2019.
The Inflation Reduction Act earlier this month passed both chambers of Congress, with every Democrat voting in favor. Biden is expected to sign the bill on Tuesday.
Many Democrats running in competitive races this November touted the bill’s provisions as evidence that the party is addressing voters’ concerns. But the AP poll found that Americans are far more concerned about rising consumer costs and economic issues than the environment. Fewer Americans cite the environment as a pressing issue than they did three years ago, the AP found.
In total, the Inflation Reduction Act earmarks $386 billion for green energy and climate change-related initiatives. One-hundred-sixty-one billion dollars of that money goes to clean electricity tax credits, while $36 billion goes to tax credits for electric cars.
Just 10 percent of respondents said they live in a household with solar panels or drive an electric car. Although nearly 75 percent of respondents said they are using energy-efficient appliances or reducing driving and air-conditioning use, the main reason was saving money rather than stopping climate change.
“I ran for president promising to make government work for working families again, and that is what this bill does—period,” Biden said this month.
Other than climate-change-related spending, the Inflation Reduction Act allocates $80 billion to double the size of the IRS’s workforce. Should the IRS find enough staffers to join the agency, it will employ more bureaucrats than the Pentagon, the State Department, the FBI, and the Border Patrol combined.
Rep. Danny K. Davis rents his Chicago office from a convicted drug pusher
Rep. Danny K. Davis (D., Ill.) rents his district office from a convicted cocaine dealer who was once affiliated with a Chicago drug ring, according to documents obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.
Since January 2017, Davis’s campaign account has cut regular $600 checks for “office rent” to Mario’s Butcher Shop, FEC records show. The shop, which is registered as a corporation with the state, lists Mariano “Mario” Lettieri and his wife as the sole members of its board of directors and was at the center of Lettieri’s 1990 conviction for drug trafficking.
Lettieri, whom the Chicago Tribune described as “reputedly tied” to a “crime syndicate,” was sentenced to nearly 16 years in prison after authorities identified him as the primary supplier of cocaine to a major Chicago drug ring led by an ex-cop. The Drug Enforcement Administration reported that Lettieri trafficked as much as 80 pounds of cocaine over a six-month period. Lettieri also allowed heroin to be packaged in his butcher shop’s boiler room and used “rib-eye steaks” as a code word when discussing drug prices.
Lettieri is an odd landlord for Davis, who has long championed efforts to fight drug abuse. Davis in 2006 called for $4 million in emergency aid funds to be allocated to Cook County to address the growing heroin problem in the area. Last year, Davis announced that he had formed a coalition of drug prevention organizations in Chicago to help address the growing opioid crisis. He told the local press that “there is no part of Chicago that is worse hit than the West Side.” The West Side of Chicago is where Lettieri ran his drug operation in the 1980s.
Tumia Romero, Davis’s chief of staff, would not directly address the congressman’s payments to Lettieri but told the Free Beacon that Davis believes in giving people “second chances.”
Davis is no stranger to controversy. In 2005, he took a trip to Sri Lanka funded by the Tamil Tigers, an ethnic terrorist group from that country. He is a close ally of noted anti-Semite and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan and once participated in a religious ceremony with Sun Myung Moon, the leader of the controversial Unification Church. Moon, who died in 2012, was a convicted felon who said Jews deserved the Holocaust.
The congressman also attended the 2012 dedication of the Church of Scientology’s Washington, D.C., lobbying office.
Davis, who faced a tough primary challenge this cycle, was boosted by an endorsement from Joe Biden. The longtime congressman won his primary by single digits and is now expected to coast to reelection in November.
Reached for comment, a Mario’s Butcher Shop employee said he would relay the Free Beacon‘s inquiry to the establishment’s owner.
Joe Biden’s administration on Aug. 15 urged a federal court to keep the affidavit that led to the approval of a search warrant on former President Donald Trump’s resort shielded from the public.
U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) lawyers said unsealing the affidavit would “irreparably harm the government’s ongoing criminal investigation.”
“Even when the public is already aware of the general nature of the investigation, revealing the specific contents of a search warrant affidavit could alter the investigation’s trajectory, reveal ongoing and future investigative efforts, and undermine agents’ ability to collect evidence or obtain truthful testimony,” they wrote in a 13-page filing to U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart, who is overseeing the case.
“In addition to the implications for the investigation, the release of this type of investigative material could have ‘devastating consequences’ for the reputations and rights of individuals whose actions and statements are described,” they added, citing a previous decision in a different case.
A slew of parties, including Judicial Watch, media outlets, and the Florida Center for Governmental Accountability, have lodged motions after the Aug. 8 raid of Mar-a-Lago, arguing it is in the public interest to unseal the affidavit and other related documents.
The government and Trump’s lawyers agreed on some of the documents, and Reinhart unsealed the search warrant and several attachments on Aug. 12, revealing that the government believes Trump violated multiple laws.
‘Different Set of Considerations’
“The department filed the motion to make public the warrant and receipt in light of the former president’s public confirmation of the search, the surrounding circumstances, and the substantial public interest in this matter,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in prepared remarks three days after the raid.
Those documents were made public with few redactions.
“The affidavit supporting the search warrant presents a very different set of considerations. There remain compelling reasons, including to protect the integrity of an ongoing law enforcement investigation that implicates national security, that support keeping the affidavit sealed,” DOJ lawyers said in the new filing.
Affidavits are documents filed in court that outline why certain actions are needed. In this case, a law enforcement official filed an affidavit attempting to convince Reinhart to approve the warrant. The affidavit was successful.
The government has considered whether the affidavit could be released with redactions but “the redactions necessary to mitigate harms to the integrity of the investigation would be so extensive as to render the remaining unsealed text devoid of meaningful content, and the release of such a redacted version would not serve any public interest,” government lawyers said in a footnote in an Aug. 15 brief.
“Nevertheless, should the Court order partial unsealing of the affidavit, the government respectfully requests an opportunity to provide the Court with proposed redactions,” they said.
The filing was part of a flurry of activity in the case on Aug. 15, which included several other entries being sealed until further notice.
Epps admitted to trespassing, directing protesters to go into the Capitol. ‘I wish I could take that back,’ he told agents.
When James Ray Epps Sr. first called the FBI regarding his January 2021 activities in Washington D.C., he didn’t mention how he implored protesters in several locations to go inside the Capitol, but he later told an agent that he expected a bomb would detonate on a side street near the Capitol.
Those are just two of the revelations in a collection of Epps-related material obtained by The Epoch Times, including FBI interview summaries, FBI audio recordings, transcripts, videos, and photographs.
In two interviews with the FBI in 2021, Epps explained his actions on Jan. 5 and Jan. 6. He admitted he was guilty of trespassing on restricted Capitol grounds and confessed to urging protesters to go to—and into—the Capitol on Jan. 6.
Despite the admissions, the FBI never arrested Epps and he was not charged by the U.S. Department of Justice with any Jan. 6 crimes. The non-action has fueled a crop of theories that he might have been working for the FBI or another agency.
Epps, 61, has repeatedly denied those suggestions through his attorney.
Epps recently sold his house and land in Queen Creek, Arizona, because of threats and harassment and moved to Colorado, he told the New York Times in July. According to online records, the Arizona property sold for $2.2 million on April 28, 2022.
Epps at one time was No. 16 on the FBI’s Jan. 6 most-wanted page. His entry was later scrubbed from the list without explanation. He is among a handful of persons of interest to have their photos deleted from the FBI site.
‘Like a Terrorist Act’
In an interview with FBI agents on March 3, 2021, Epps said he brought a first-aid kit in his backpack to Washington because he expected a terror attack.
“Yeah, I thought there might be a problem. That’s why I was there,” Epps told an FBI agent and an FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force officer in a meeting at the Phoenix office of Epps’s attorney, John Blischak.
Blischak told The Epoch Times he would comment after reviewing the FBI interview summary, but had not done so by press time.
“I was afraid they were going to set off an explosion on one of the side streets,” Epps said, according to a recording of the interview obtained by The Epoch Times. “So we tried to stay in the middle, tried to get there early, tried to stay away from the sides. And if something like that happened, I had a first-aid kit. I could help out.”
Epps told the agents the possibility of violence weighed heavily on his mind and he originally did not plan to travel to Washington. It was only when learning that his son, James Epps Jr., was going to the Trump rally that the senior Epps decided to go and keep an eye on his son, he said.
Ray Epps is shown at the lower left on an early FBI “wanted” poster. His photo has since been scrubbed from the FBI website. (FBI.gov/Wayback Machine)
“As time went on, I started getting a bad feeling like something’s gonna happen,” said Epps, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and former Oath Keepers leader in Arizona. “There’s a lot of wackies out there. I thought something would happen in D.C. I thought there might be, what do they call them, EOD, something like that?”
Epps might have been referring to an improvised explosive device (IED), which is a homemade bomb that was a favorite weapon of insurgents in Afghanistan during the United States’ long war there. In military parlance, an EOD refers to an explosive ordnance disposal specialist—someone who defuses and destroys explosives.
An agent asked for clarification: “Oh, you mean like a terrorist act?”
“Right, like a terrorist act,” Epps said.
The agents did not press Epps on what led him to believe there would be an explosion, nor did they ask about the two alleged pipe bombs found outside the Republican and Democrat party headquarters, each just blocks from the Capitol. The RNC pipe bomb was placed near the corner of the Capitol Hill Club facing a side street, similar to the description Epps offered.
The devices did not detonate and the FBI has not arrested anyone in those cases.
Epps told the FBI he regretted the things he said in downtown Washington the night of Jan. 5, 2021. He spoke to internet personality Baked Alaska and video podcaster Villain Report, both of whom recorded their exchanges.
“In fact tomorrow, I don’t even like to say it because I’ll be arrested. …I’ll say it. We need to go into the Capitol,” Epps told Baked Alaska, whose legal name is Anthime Gionet.
Epps shouted a similar theme to the crowd at large: “Tomorrow, we need to go into the Capitol. Into the Capitol. Peacefully,” he said. The crowd then started chanting, “Fed! Fed! Fed! Fed!”
The FBI agents told Epps that his statements on Jan. 5 were problematic. They said they found him often on video and in photographs from Jan. 5 and 6.
Epps replied: “I’m the tallest guy in the crowd, and I stick out, man. They followed me.” Then he joked, “I could never be a bank robber.”
“We said that the same way,” one of the agents said. “We said, ‘It’s a big guy and every photo we find, he’s in it.’ The night before, that video didn’t help.
“…And the video the night before, what you said basically predicted what happened,” the agent said.
“I wish I could take that back,” Epps replied. He called the statements “really stupid.”
On Jan. 6, Epps was filmed near the Washington Monument imploring the crowd, “We are going to the Capitol, where our problems are. It’s that direction. Please spread the word.”
When speaking to a young man in a red and black mackinaw jacket, Epps said, “When we go in, leave this here [pointing to something]. You don’t need to get shot,” according to a video of the exchange.
First Call to FBI on Jan. 8
Epps first called the FBI on Jan. 8, 2021, after his brother-in-law notified Epps’s wife that a photograph of Epps was on the FBI website. That call to the National Threat Operations Center (NTOC) lasted about 27 minutes, according to an audio file of the call obtained by The Epoch Times.
In describing his activities, Epps never mentioned that he urged the crowds on Jan. 5 to go into the Capitol the next day. He said he went down to Black Lives Matter plaza to try to calm things down after people he suspected were Antifa activists were harassing police.
“I tried to calm them down,” Epps told the FBI operator. “I tried to let them know that, you know, that this is not what we’re here for. We’re here because of the Constitution, not the police. Police are on our side.”
Nor did Epps mention getting on a bullhorn on Jan. 6 and encouraging people to go to the Capitol as soon as President Donald Trump was finished speaking. He would comment on those topics nearly two months later when interviewed by FBI agents.
On the January call, Epps insisted his presence on Capitol grounds was to de-escalate when things got violent.
“I am guilty of being there and probably trespassing,” he said. “But I had a reason. I was trying to calm ’em down. I wanted to be there, but I’m trying to calm ’em down. Anything I can do to help. There’s no call for that kind of behavior. I will be your witness.”
Ray Epps at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, shortly before pepper gas is shot into the crowd. “Been a long time,” he said. “Aah, I love it!” (Screen Capture/Rumble)
Epps told the agents he came to Washington to express his concerns about the 2020 presidential election. He said he received five ballots at his Queen Creek address: one each for him and his wife, and three with names he did not recognize.
“We’ve owned the property for 11 years now. I’ve never heard of those three people that came there. I didn’t recognize the names,” he said. “And then when the election went the way it did, I was a little concerned. I mean, how many apartments are there in Arizona, 3 million? And if they’re sending all these ballots to these different apartments. I mean, you know, that’s a concern.”
Epps said he also went to support Trump, although he did not stay at the Ellipse for all of Trump’s speech. He said he followed crowds that left the speech early and walked toward the Capitol.
“People started leaving early after President Trump started speaking. So they were running and it was the same people that was, ‘F Antifa,’ and this and that and the other,” Epps said.
“I believe, just my belief, they were Antifa, the ones that were saying that stuff,” he said. “And they were like running that way and I’m like, ‘Maybe I can calm this down.’ So I went with them.”
Epps said it was his original intention to stay for all of the speeches at the Ellipse.
“I planned on being and word was being passed around that right after he gets done speaking, we’re gonna go to the Capitol. And it was a given,” Epps said. “So spread the word spread the word. So I started spreading the word and I said that to a lot of people there: ‘We’re going to the Capitol right after the president speaks.’”
Perhaps the scene that drew the most attention and speculation about Epps on January 6 was when he appeared at the first breach point of police lines. Some 20 minutes before Trump finished speaking at the Ellipse, an aggressive crowd gathered at a lightly defended barrier on a sidewalk not far from the Peace Monument.
As rioters began yanking at the bicycle-rack barriers, Epps pulled Ryan Samsel back from the front line and spoke in his ear. Seconds after that exchange, Samsel and others knocked down the barrier, causing one officer to fall back and hit her head on the concrete.
“I walked up to him, and I put my arm on him and said, ‘Hey, that’s not why we’re here. Don’t be doing that,’ you know.
“I don’t know who he was. No clue,” Epps said. “I just tried to talk him out of doing what he was doing. And then all of a sudden, it blew up.”
When interviewed by an FBI special agent and a detective on Jan. 30, 2021, Samsel corroborated Epps’s description of their brief verbal exchange, according to a transcript of the session obtained by The Epoch Times. Samsel faces nearly a dozen January 6-related charges in U.S. District Court in Washington.
“Now that guy I talked to,” Samsel said, pointing to a photograph of Epps. “He came up to me and he says, ‘Dude,’ his exact words were, ‘Relax,’ he says, ‘The cops are doing their job.’ That’s exactly what he says to me right there in that picture.”
Inconsistencies in Interviews
Epps’s two interviews with the FBI included some inconsistencies and changed details, according to the recordings and FBI summary documents.
Epps told the FBI on Jan. 8 that his brother-in-law called him to notify him his picture was on the FBI’s January 6 website. During his March 3 interview with FBI agents, Epps said, “Someone contacted me and said, ‘Hey, your picture’s up.’”
When asked about his brother-in-law later in the interview, Epps said, “He didn’t call me, he called my sister.” Then his wife interjected, “That was me. And I can tell you exactly because he sent me a text, actually.”
When asked about who was with him on Jan. 5 and 6, Epps replied, “My son.” A short while later he said, “I think he had a friend there. He did have a friend there. I don’t know his name.”
One of the agents said he recalled that on the Jan. 8 phone call with the FBI, Epps said he went sightseeing on Jan. 7. “No, we did that the day before,” he told the agent. A few minutes later, however, this detail changed. “Oh, you know what? The next day we did, no, we got up that morning and we went to the Vietnam Memorial.”
In both contacts with the FBI, Epps asked if his photo could be removed from the FBI’s Jan. 6 page. In the Jan. 8 call, the FBI operator said she had nothing to do with FBI web content. In the March 3 interview, he was given a more discouraging take.
“That picture is probably still out there, will probably be there forever now,” one of the agents told him.
Epps said the notoriety of being publicly listed as a person of interest had caused problems.
“Well, we’ve felt the repercussions. I mean, we’ve had people come on our business site and try to destroy us,” he said. “I’m an insurrectionist, I’m a traitor. I’ve been called everything in the book, but it’s dying down now—I hope.”
The agents asked Epps if his views had changed since Jan. 6.
“I still have concerns about the election. I do. I mean, I think everybody does,” Epps said. “I think our politicians, some of them need to be in jail. I think you guys need to investigate them. I don’t know. How much of what we get is the truth? I don’t know. Not even worth watching the news anymore. Because they just make it up as they go.”
Epps met twice with the House of Representatives’ Jan. 6 Select Committee, including a transcribed interview in January 2022. Committee members seemed satisfied with what Epps told them. No transcript of the session has been released.
“Mr. Epps informed us that he was not employed by, working with, or acting at the direction of any law enforcement agency on January 5th or 6th or at any other time, and that he has never been an informant for the FBI or any other law enforcement agency,” a spokesman said in January.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) grilled top FBI officials about Epps in a January hearing, but received a repeated refrain: “I can’t answer that.”
Fourteen FBI whistleblowers have come forward to provide information to Republican congressional investigations, Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) said on Aug. 14, about a week after the FBI raided former President Donald Trump’s Florida home.
“Fourteen FBI agents have come to our office as whistleblowers, and they are good people,” Jordan told Fox News. “There are lots of good people in the FBI. It’s the top that is the problem.”
“Some of these good agents are coming to us, telling us … what’s going on—the political nature now of the Justice Department … talking about the school board issue, about a whole host of issues,” he added.
Two months ago, Jordan said that six FBI whistleblowers approached the committee. Two came forward about a memo related to alleged violence and intimidation at school board meetings and four in connection to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol breach. In the Senate, meanwhile, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said in July that whistleblowers had come to his office to provide information, including disclosures relating to investigations into Hunter Biden’s overseas business dealings.
“It’s becoming a well-worn trail of agents who say this has got to stop, and thank goodness for them and that American people recognize it, and I believe they’re going to make a big change on Nov. 8,” Jordan said, referring to the midterm elections.
In June, Jordan sent a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray warning that several former FBI officials were coming forward, while alleging the agency is “purging” employees who have conservative views.
“In one such example, the FBI targeted and suspended the security clearance of a retired war servicemember who had disclosed personal views that the FBI was not being entirely forthcoming about the events of January 6,” Jordan wrote in a statement. “The FBI questioned the whistleblower’s allegiance to the United States despite the fact that the whistleblower honorably served in the United States military for several years—including deployments in Kuwait and Iraq—valiantly earning multiple military commendation medals.”
It comes as Republicans stepped up calls on Aug. 14 for the release of an FBI affidavit showing the justification for its seizure of documents at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home.
A search warrant released on Aug. 12 after the unprecedented raid on Aug. 8 showed that Trump allegedly had 11 sets of classified documents at his home. The Justice Department also claimed to have had probable cause to conduct the search based on possible Espionage Act and obstruction of justice violations.
Republicans are calling for the disclosure of more detailed information that persuaded a federal judge to issue the search warrant, which may show sources of information and details about the nature of the documents and other classified information.
Former President Trump said Monday morning that he “will do whatever” he can “to help the country” following the FBI’s unprecedented search of his Mar-a-Lago property last week.
“The country is in a very dangerous position. There is tremendous anger, like I’ve never seen before, over all of the scams, and this new one—years of scams and witch hunts, and now this,” Trump told Fox News in an interview on Monday. “If there is anything we can do to help, I, and my people, would certainly be willing to do that,” the former president added.
Trump said that with the raid, “there has never been a time like this where law enforcement has been used to break into the house of a former president of the United States.”
“I think they would want the same thing—I’ve never seen anything like this,” Trump continued. “It is a very dangerous time for our country … I will do whatever I can to help the country.”
Last week, Trump announced on social media that the FBI raided his Florida property. It wasn’t until several days later, on Thursday, that Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a public statement about the search, confirming that he signed off on the Justice Department’s attempt to seek a warrant in the case.
On Friday, Aug. 12, a U.S. magistrate judge in the case unsealed the warrant and property receipt, showing that the FBI is targeting Trump for alleged Espionage Act violations and obstruction of justice while agents recovered allegedly classified or top secret documents from Mar-a-Lago. But Trump said that he declassified the documents as president and said he was cooperating with the federal government.
The affidavit in the case that would possibly show the federal government’s justification for its raid and seizure of documents at Mar-a-Lago has not been unsealed.
More Details
“First, I personally approved the decision to seek a search warrant in this matter,” Garland said during the press conference last week. “Second, the Department does not take such a decision lightly. Where possible, it is standard practice to seek less intrusive means as an alternative to a search, and to narrowly scope any search that is undertaken.”
On Sunday, the former president said that privileged materials were taken by FBI agents, including documents that could fall under attorney-client privilege.
“Oh great! It has just been learned that the FBI, in its now famous raid of Mar-a-Lago, took boxes of privileged ‘attorney-client’ material, and also ‘executive’ privileged material, which they knowingly should not have taken,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Attorney-client privilege is a legal privilege that allows communications between a client and their attorney confidential.
“By copy of this TRUTH (post), I respectfully request that these documents be immediately returned to the location from which they were taken. Thank you!” Trump also wrote Sunday morning.
Republicans say the raid suggests that the FBI and Department of Justice have been politicized and demanded oversight investigations.
However, Trump told Fox News on Monday that Americans are “so angry at what is taking place” and that “the temperature has to be brought down in the country.” Because, he added, “if it isn’t, terrible things are going to happen.”
Heritage Foundation Oversight Project Director Mike Howell is demanding copies of all communications between the White House, Department of Justice (DOJ), the FBI, and former President Donald Trump’s staff about the Aug. 8 FBI raid on the Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla.
To that end, Howell—who is a veteran of major congressional oversight projects and a former senior official at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)—has filed Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests with the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), which is the federal government’s central custodian of official documents, and each of the relevant agencies.
“The Biden Department of Justice has crossed the Rubicon. This raid showed that the administration is unafraid to weaponize the power of the deep state against its political enemies—even a former sitting president,” Howell said in a statement issued shortly after Attorney General Merrick Garland declined to answer any questions about the raid during a brief appearance in the DOJ media conference room on Aug. 11.
“We are filing this request because the American people deserve the answers Joe Biden and Merrick Garland will not give them. There is no reason NARA cannot fulfill our request for these documents, as they should have nothing to do with any ongoing investigation,” Howell continued.
Mike Howell, Senior Adviser for Government Relations at The Heritage Foundation. (Courtesy of Mike Howell)
“Ultimately, it looks like the Biden administration raided President Trump’s home over a document dispute—let’s see if they comply with our legal document demand, or if they’re complete hypocrites. Rest assured, we will fight to get the truth about this unprecedented act,” he added.
The Heritage Oversight Project requested that federal officials process the FOIAs on an expedited basis, which would allow 10 days before the agencies must either affirm or deny the requests, or face litigation.
The request to NARA was signed by Heritage’s Senior Investigative Counsel, Roman Jankowski, who is also a contributing writer for the conservative nonprofit’s Daily Signal.
“This raid, and what transpired before and after it, has affected American public confidence. As per the Trafalgar Group poll conducted after the Trump raid, 53.9 percent of likely general election voters believe Trump’s political enemies are behind the FBI raid on President Trump’s private home, and only 35.3 percent of likely general election voters believe it is due to an impartial justice system,” Jankowski said in the request.
Howell signed the lengthy, eight-page request to DOJ, which seeks all of the communications mentioning Trump since Jan. 20, 2021, between and among DOJ’s Office of the Attorney General, Office of the Deputy Attorney General, Office of the Associate Attorney General, Office of the Solicitor General, Office of Legal Counsel, Office of Legal Policy, Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and U.S. Marshals Service.
Heritage President Kevin Roberts issued a separate statement regarding the Mar-a-Lago raid in which he observed that it “represents yet another example of the federal government weaponizing law enforcement to punish political enemies, silence critics, and send a message to those whom it views as enemies. The Biden administration and the D.C. swamp are making it very clear that they will use all the power of the state to intimidate anyone who stands in their way.”
Roberts added that “the timing is suspect at best, given the upcoming elections and the Senate’s passage of a bill that would authorize the hiring of 87,000 new IRS agents, who will be unleashed to target working and middle-class Americans in order to fund the left’s radical agenda.”
Roberts’ comment may have been a product of the fact the Heritage Foundation and other conservative think tanks were subjected to multiple time-consuming and costly IRS audits during the Clinton administration, none of which ever turned up any wrongdoing.
In a related development, Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), the top Republican on the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, similarly demanded in an Aug. 10 letter that NARA turn over all communications and documents concerning the raid. Comer was joined on the letter by the panel’s other 19 Republican members.
“Law enforcement raiding a former president’s residence is unprecedented. Committee Republicans are concerned that NARA would utilize the FBI to gather documents that the president, by the very nature of his constitutional role, could declassify himself, if this was indeed the case as media has reported. The Biden administration is continuing to weaponize the FBI against political rivals,” the Comer letter told NARA.
Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s campaign has raked in donations from billionaires and Hollywood celebrities despite the fundraising off her Trump-endorsed opponent’s ties to “special interests,” according to state records reviewed by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The Michigan Democrat’s campaign has received over $1 million from billionaires and almost $48,000 from Hollywood celebrities since 2021, state campaign finance disclosures show. At the same time, the governor’s re-election campaign has criticized Republican gubernatorial candidate Tudor Dixon for her ties to “special interests” and former Education Secretary and billionaire Betsy DeVos.
“Special interests are continuing to line up behind Tudor Dixon, including former Gov. John Engler and billionaire Betsy DeVos,” Whitmer’s campaign wrote in a July 8 email to voters. “Party insiders and special interests are going full steam ahead with Tudor Dixon, their newly handpicked candidate who has proposed a radical agenda that would take Michigan backwards.”
Billionaires who shelled out $250,000 for Whitmer’s campaign in 2021 include Democratic Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, oil company heiress Stacy H. Schusterman and siblings Patricia Stryker and Ronda Stryker — the grandchildren of inventor Homer Stryker. Some other billionaires who have donated to Whitmer’s campaign include former Enron executive John Arnold, who gave $7,150 in April 2022, and Open Society Foundations Founder George Soros, who gave $25,000 in 2021.
Jonathan Soros, the investment banker and son of George Soros, has donated $12,150 to Whitmer’s campaign since 2018. His wife Jennifer Allan Soros has donated $14,300 since 2018.
“Jaws” Director Stephen Spielberg donated $7,150 in March to Whitmer’s campaign, and “Princess Bride” Director Rob Reiner donated $2,500 that month. Actress Kate Capshaw, known for her role in “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,” donated $7,150 in March.
Tom Ford, the fashion designer and filmmaker, donated $7,500 to Whitmer’s campaign in February 2022. Tom Rothman, the CEO of entertainment conglomerate Sony Pictures, gave the governor’s campaign $5,000 back in 2021.
“I kind of think hypocrisy is a misdemeanor these days in politics,” Fred Wszolek, a Republican strategist in Michigan, told the DCNF. “This is the opening act of Whitmer for president. That’s what all this demagoguery is about. To build a fundraising list for president.”
Whitmer, who assumed office in 2019 and ran unopposed in 2022, has faced notable backlash from Republicans for her state’s strict COVID-19 restrictions, which she repeatedly failed to abide by. Dixon, who worked for Michigan steel companies and was a radio host, won the Republican primary in August after receiving former President Donald Trump’s endorsement.
“With over $15 million in attack ads out against us, we have to be ready to fight back against whatever Tudor Dixon and her special interest backers throw at us,” Whitmer’s campaign also wrote to voters in a Tuesday email. “That’s why we’re coming to you today.”
By “special interests,” Whitmer’s campaign is alluding to Dixon’s campaign contributions from DeVos and her family, Home Depot Co-Founder and billionaire Bernard Marcus, ULINE Corporation CEO and billionaire Richard Uihlein — as well as two pro-Dixon super PACs called Michigan Families United and Michigan Strong — according to a Republican operative familiar with the situation.
The DeVos family has donated $71,500 to Dixon’s campaign since May 2022. The DeVos family also gave $875,000 since June to Michigan Families United, which Uihlein gave $250,000 to in July. In May 2022, Marcus gave $100,000 to Michigan Strong, which along with Michigan Families United has spent $2.24 million supporting Dixon through ad buys, video production and media consulting, Bridge Michigan reported in July.
Whitmer has faced scrutiny from Republicans for her campaign taking individual contributions from wealthy left-wing donors allegedly above the $7,150 limit. Michigan Freedom Fund, a conservative nonprofit, filed a campaign finance complaint in September 2021 against ten of Whitmer’s campaign donors, including Pritzker, the Strykers and Schusterman.
Whitmer’s campaign sent $3.5 million to the Michigan Democratic Party in January after raising $2.5 million more than allowed under the legal limit, the Detroit News reported.
“Gretchen Whitmer literally took millions in illegal contributions over the campaign finance limits in Michigan and she is literally funded by anti-American, pro-communism Billionaires like George Soros,” Dixon told the DCNF. “Gretchen Whitmer a dishonest career politician who is always guilty of everything she accuses other people of.”
Michigan’s gubernatorial election will take place in November.
Whitmer’s campaign did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
Content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of the DCNF’s original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
Former New England Patriots tight end Benjamin Watson gave Democratic Georgia governor candidate Stacey Abrams a lesson on faith and abortion.
Watson played for New England at both the start and end of his NFL career, playing for the Cleveland Browns, New Orleans Saints and Baltimore Ravens as well.
Watson is also zealous about his faith and pushed back after an August tweet from Abrams that said support for abortion was a manifestation of her faith.
“In college, a friend who shared my faith challenged me to think and changed my perspective on abortion. Abortion care is health care. As a person of faith and as the next governor, it’s my responsibility to protect a woman’s right to choose,” Abrams tweeted.
“Respectfully if you identify as a Christian your authority is the Word of God not the opinion of a friend who shares your faith,” Watson tweeted in response.
Respectfully if you identify as a Christian your authority is the Word of God not the opinion of a friend who shares your faith. This ad conveys empathy but it also conveys baseless compromise. If your holy scripture sanctions abortion as it does love/justice/charity explain how https://t.co/B6kw1BjFh5
“This ad conveys empathy but it also conveys baseless compromise. If your holy scripture sanctions abortion as it does love/justice/charity explain how.”
Abrams has been at pains in her campaign to say that support for abortion is not a contradiction to her faith.
“While your faith tradition may tell you that you personally do not want to make that choice, it is not my right as a Christian to impose that value system on someone else,” she said, according to Yahoo.
“Because the value that should overhang everything is the right to make our own decisions, the free will that the God I believe in gave us,” she said.
Watson sees life differently.
Watson spoke about life in a 2021 interview with Baptist Press printed by Kentucky Today.
“We know that human life is different … and that it should be honored and respected. There is something very special about life, and it is a lie from Satan that we can discard our children without consequence,” he said.
“And not just the outward consequence. I’m talking about the inward, just dealing with that life,” he said.
Watson said abortion is not a political issue as much as one about faith.
“I look at this issue as one of justice, and the Bible speaks very clearly about justice and our righteousness over and over and over again throughout Scripture,” he said. “You see God’s heart for justice for the oppressed, for the fatherless, for the widow. And so justice is simply about protecting the vulnerable, giving people their just due.
“There are plenty of verses in Scripture that talk about speaking up for the vulnerable and acting justly. When I think about the preborn child in the womb, there is no other human being that is as vulnerable as a person is in the state. I’m advocating for the preborn child, but I’m also advocating for mothers that are bearing these children,” he said.
A former Democratic senator who made headlines in a 2017 sexual harassment scandal that forced his resignation has sparked ridicule after endorsing Republican Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming in her upcoming Republican primary.
Wyoming Republicans go to the polls Tuesday to decide between Cheney, who has been an outspoken critic of former President Donald Trump, and challenger Harriet Hageman, who has Trump’s support.
Former U.S. Sen. Al Franken, who stepped down from the Senate in early 2018, tweeted his endorsement on Saturday.
“I’ve decided to endorse @RepLizCheney for the Republican nomination for the House seat In Wyoming it’s my first time endorsing in a GOP primary. But I think Al Franken’s support will carry a lot of weight with WY Republicans,” he wrote, with obvious sarcasm.
Sarcastic or not, in a Republican primary in a state as conservative as Wyoming, where Trump won almost 70 percent of the votes in 2020, the endorsement could be an anchor dragging Cheney even further down.
Twitter came alive with negative responses, with one noting the endorsement would be a “weight around Liz’s neck.”
Maybe she can hit the road with you on your comedy tour when she gets voted out, because she sure as hell isn’t getting re-elected.
Cheney was among the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol incursion and has continued to attack Trump as a member of the House select committee investigating the event.
Wyoming Republican Darin Smith said Cheney’s hatred of Trump is “a vendetta,” according to the U.K. Guardian.
Trump publicly criticizes the foreign policy of former President George W. Bush’s administration, in which Cheney’s father, Dick Cheney, served as vice president.
“She’s mad at Trump because Trump pointed out the truth of the Cheney foreign policy. Her dad is responsible for millions of deaths worldwide and trillions of dollars in spending from the US government,” said Smith, who was outside the Capitol on the day of the incursion, according to The Guardian.
“She’s pissed about it and she’s a narcissist and she saw her opportunity to go for Trump’s throat and she did,” he said.
“But it’s bigger than that. She wants to be the first woman president. We all know that. We’re not stupid. She’s going to ‘educate’ us in the Constitution and how ‘we’re wrong and she’s right.’ Well, she’s got news and she’s got something coming for her on Tuesday of next week. She’s gonna find out if she educated us or not,” he said.
Laura Harnish, 53, a Wyoming resident interviewed by The Guardian, was blunt: “I wouldn’t vote for Liz Cheney if she was the last person on the ballot.”
“The Jan. 6 committee was very badly done. She wasn’t representing Wyoming at that point. I vote for you. That’s who you represent: Wyoming. If you’re not going to do that then you don’t need to be in office. You need to find something else to do,” she said.
“I do think it’s debatable whether she should have gone out and blown herself up this way, because it’s obviously going to cost her her seat and her platform, but she chose a different path. And I think everybody’s got to make their own decisions in life,” said Scott Jennings, a GOP strategist and ex-special assistant to former President George W. Bush, said, according to The Hill.
The Hill article was headlined: “Cheney looks to cling on in Wyoming despite polls.”
John Fetterman is often the sole Pennsylvania Board of Pardons member to vote for freeing murderers
Wayne Covington was sentenced to life in prison after he shot and killed an 18-year-old for money to buy heroin. Pennsylvania Democratic Senate nominee John Fetterman wants him to walk free.
In June 2021, Fetterman was the only member of the state’s Board of Pardons—which he chairs as lieutenant governor—to vote to commute Covington’s sentence, according to records reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon. In 1970, Covington admitted to shooting 18-year-old George Rudnycky to death while high, as Covington and an accomplice were robbing Rudnycky for drug money. Covington pleaded guilty to first-degree murder to avoid the death penalty and was sentenced to life imprisonment. Fetterman cast his vote over the pleas of Rudnycky’s family members, who opposed Covington’s release at the killer’s commutation hearing.
One year after the controversial vote, Fetterman is placing his Board of Pardons record at the center of his campaign against Republican Mehmet Oz. His campaign site boasts that he “transformed” the lieutenant governor position “into a bully pulpit for criminal justice reform” and “led the fight to free the wrongfully convicted and give second chances to deserving longtime inmates.” Fetterman, who has said he ran for lieutenant governor solely to lead the Board of Pardons, has specifically called to end life sentences for second-degree murderers who participated in a killing but did not “pull the trigger.”
But in Covington’s case, Fetterman took no issue with voting to release a triggerman who admitted to shooting his young victim—a vote that Pennsylvania attorney general and Democratic gubernatorial nominee Josh Shapiro did not reciprocate. A review of Fetterman’s tenure on the board, meanwhile, shows that the Democrat has voted to release an array of violent criminals jailed for their roles in brutal murders, a far cry from the “innocent” people Fetterman often says he works to release. Those votes—as well as Fetterman’s unabashed support for George Soros-funded Philadelphia district attorney Larry Krasner—prompted a letter from 13 Pennsylvania sheriffs who said Fetterman’s crime policy positions “would add to already rising crime rates in Pennsylvania.” Their criticism of Fetterman could plague the Democrat’s campaign as Pennsylvanians deal with a record murder spike.
Fetterman’s campaign did not return a request for comment. The Board of Pardons denied the Free Beacon’s public records request for a video or transcript of the June 2021 hearing, saying that records of the public event are “confidential.” Fetterman’s office, which issued the denial, did not respond to a request for comment.
Beyond his support for Covington’s commutation, Fetterman has supported the release of violent criminals Denise Crump and Anthony Eberhardt, pardon board votes reviewed by the Free Beacon show. Crump received life in prison in the late 1980s after she and an accomplice killed a 46-year-old man to “steal his television set, which was then sold for $60 to buy cocaine,” according to the Philadelphia Daily News. Eberhardt also participated in a robbery-murder, which led to the shooting death of a beer distributor.
Pennsylvania’s Board of Pardons has faced high-profile recidivism issues in the past. In 1992, board members voted to commute the sentence of serial killer Reginald McFadden, who immediately went on a murdering spree, killing two and kidnapping and raping a third within three months of his release. After that ordeal, Pennsylvanians voted to raise the board’s approval standard from a majority vote to a unanimous one, a move that caused life-sentence commutations to plummet.
Fetterman has called McFadden’s actions “unthinkable.” But the infamous murderer’s post-release killing spree has not stopped the Democrat from backing an amendment to lower the board’s vote threshold to 4-1. Since 2019, Fetterman has cast the sole vote to pardon or commute a sentence at least 27 times, pardon board records reviewed by the Free Beacon show.
In January, Fetterman appointed his campaign political director, Celeste Trusty, as secretary of the Board of Pardons. Trusty supports many of the same criminal justice reform policies as Fetterman, and has called to “disarm the police.” She worked on Fetterman’s campaign through this January, according to Federal Election Commission records.
Former White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said in an interview with CNN on Aug. 11 that he never witnessed “intentional destruction of important papers” during his time in office.
Mulvaney, who served the Trump administration for 15 months and has been a critic of former President Donald Trump since, told CNN’s “New Day” host Brianna Keilar, “I never saw the intentional destruction of documents for the purpose of keeping anything from the National Archives or the public in the future.”
According to Mulvaney, all White House staff were well aware of how to comply with paper destruction regulations.
“We knew the rules, we taped them back together, and we made copies. As long as copies are preserved, you can pretty much do whatever you want to with the other documents,” he said.
Grilled by Keilar if he had ever seen Trump rip documents, Mulvaney said he had, but asserted that documents were all handled “in the ordinary course of business.”
“The flushing,” the host said, referring to claims made by New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman. “You never heard about him flushing documents?”
“Not a single time,” he said.
Denied Report
Mulvaney’s account contradicts Haberman’s report claiming, “White House staffers regularly found ripped-up printing paper in the toilet of the presidential residence during Trump’s term in office.”
The statement came with a pair of photos from an anonymous source purporting to show notes written by Trump in a toilet allegedly at the White House.
Trump swiftly denied her account, calling it “another fake story” when it first emerged back in February.
“Also, another fake story, that I flushed papers and documents down a White House toilet, is categorically untrue and simply made up by a reporter in order to get publicity for a mostly fictitious book,” Trump said in an emailed statement to the New York Post.
Haberman doubled down on her claim in an interview with CNN on Aug. 8, the same day that the FBI conducted a search at Trump Mar a Lago residence and just ahead of the October publication of her book on Trump, “Confidence Man.”
Her account this time was again dismissed by a spokesman for the former president.
“You have to be pretty desperate to sell books if pictures of paper in a toilet bowl is part of your promotional plan,” Taylor Budowich told Axios, referring to Haberman, adding that there are “enough people willing to fabricate stories like this in order to impress the media class—a media class who is willing to run with anything, as long as it’s anti-Trump.”
If you are white and believe in CRT, shouldn’t you kill yourself? [US Patriot]
Faculty at the University of California–Los Angeles (UCLA) School of Law have created a database to identify and record efforts to block critical race theory (CRT) being taught in schools across the country.
The database, called the CRT Forward Tracking Project, allows users to “track attacks on critical race theory” and filter the information as part of an effort to “support anti-racist education, training and research,” according to the school.
The project was created by UCLA’s Critical Race Studies Program, founded in 2000 as the first law school program in the nation dedicated to critical race theory.
CRT, according to the school, is “the study of systemic racism in law, policy and society,” and suggests efforts need to be made to fix these alleged injustices.
Parents concerned about Critical Race Theory took home these buttons from a school board activist training Jan. 19, 2022 in Sarasota, Florida. (Alexis Spiegelman)
Meanwhile, critics say CRT pushes a controversial worldview related to Marxism that analyzes all aspects of life through a racial lens instead of through the concept of class struggle.
UCLA Law announced earlier this month it would track anti-CRT activity through the database at all levels of government across the nation.
“The project was created to help people understand the breadth of the attacks on the ability to speak truthfully about race and racism through the campaigns against CRT,” said Taifha Natalee Alexander, project director of CRT Forward, in a statement.
The database analyzes these efforts to determine where the activity is happening and how opponents are taking action, such as protesting curriculum at the school board level.
It also includes the type of CRT content being restricted, such as a course being taught at a public school, as well as the institution or group being targeted and enforcement mechanisms being used to regulate the content.
For example, the Placentia-Yorba Linda School Board voted to ban the teaching of CRT in classrooms this past April, ending months of debate in the Orange County district.
Prior to the narrow 3-2 vote, supporters for the ban asserted CRT is a divisive ideology that pushes a political narrative. Other trustees at the April 5 school board meeting, however, claimed such efforts amounted to censorship, according to public comments.
The UCLA program claims that many of those who are against these concepts being taught in K-12 schools are using the term CRT “incorrectly,” and have “affected plans to include ethnic studies more broadly for students before they get to college.”
Chinese-American parents in California rally against Assembly Bill 101, which was later signed into law to make ethnic studies a high school graduation requirement, in Los Angeles on April 26, 2020. (Linda Jiang/The Epoch Times)
In 2021, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation making ethnic studies a statewide requirement for high school graduation starting in the 2029–30 school year, amid debate among parents and teachers about whether ethnic studies curriculum includes elements of CRT.
Tracking Results
As of Aug. 2, the UCLA database has screened nearly 24,000 media articles and identified 479 instances of anti-CRT activity since August 2021.
The database team found this activity is “much more pervasive and extensive than generally reported,” according to the school, with such policies either proposed or enacted in 49 states.
The project also found that most anti-CRT proposals have occurred in Florida, Virginia, Missouri, and the U.S. Congress, while local school board measures make up more than 20 percent of the activity in the database.
Signs against critical race theory in front of the Loudoun County School Administration building in Virginia on Nov. 9, 2021. (Terri Wu/The Epoch Times)
Most such measures at the school board level have been introduced in California, North Carolina, Florida, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, with Californians enacting five out of the eight proposed measures.
The study also found the most common anti-CRT enforcement measures include withholding funding or issuing fines against individual teachers, administrators, schools, and districts for engaging in “prohibited conduct,” the school says.
CRT Controversy
Noah Zatz, faculty director of the UCLA Law’s Critical Race Studies Program, is helping to spearhead the tracking project. CRT Forward staff also include law librarians and undergraduate and law school research assistants.
“We need critical race theory to understand this assault on racial justice, where even naming structural racism gets portrayed as unfair to white people. And we need CRT to develop legal theories of education and free speech that not only blunt these attacks but place anti-racism at the center of a democratic society,” said Zatz in a statement.
However, opponents contend that CRT is not needed and does not teach hard history, but is instead an approach to analyzing that history with the intent to dismantle modern systems that proponents claim are white supremacist.
A man holds up a sign against Critical Race Theory during a protest outside a Washoe County School District board meeting in Reno, Nev., on May 25, 2021. (Andy Barron/Reno Gazette-Journal via AP)
“Those that are upset about proposed bans on CRT in our schools have been misled to think that states that have banned CRT from being taught will no longer teach about Jim Crow Laws, the displacement of Native Americans, or even slavery in America. This is simply not true,” according to a CRT guide written by former California teacher Kali Fontanilla. “On the contrary, banning CRT will remove a dangerous twisting and rewriting of American history.”
The UCLA project is funded by a $400,000 grant from the Lumina Foundation, a private, Indianapolis-based foundation with about $1.4 billion in assets, according to the nonprofit’s website.
Top House Democrats asked intelligence officials to review alleged national security damage from former President Donald Trump’s mishandling of government documents, a day after the release of the search warrant used by the FBI on its Mar-a-Lago raid.
The federal agents executed a search warrant of Trump’s Florida estate last Monday, before an inventory accompanying the search warrant was made public on Aug. 12. A property receipt obtained by The Epoch Times shows the FBI removed approximately 20 boxes, including one set of materials labeled as “various classified/TS/SCI documents,” referencing top secret or sensitive compartmented information.
“Former President Trump’s conduct has potentially put our national security at grave risk. This issue demands a full review, in addition to the ongoing law enforcement inquiry,” House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and House Oversight Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) wrote on Aug. 13 to Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Avril Haines.
Despite Trump declaring the documents taken by federal agents were “all declassified,” the three-page letter (pdf) seeks a classified briefing on the review “as soon as possible.” The two lawmakers specifically asked for the DNI’s office to initiate a damage assessment, in a bid to evaluate any damage to national security related to Trump’s handling of official records.
The latest action is the first major move by House committees following the Aug. 8 raid of Trump’s Florida resort.
The Saturday letter also cited previous reports by legacy media claiming that FBI agents were searching for highly classified documents on “nuclear weapons” at Mar-a-Lago, a claim that has been slammed by the former commander-in-chief, who called it a “hoax.”
The Democrat-led House Oversight Committee stepped up in February an investigation into Trump’s alleged violation of federal records laws by removing White House records—something Trump denied.
While federal law bars the removal of classified documents to unauthorized locations, Trump could argue that as president, he was the ultimate declassification authority.
Prior to Trump, his lawyers have said that the former president used his authority as president to declassify the material before he departed office in early 2021.
“They didn’t need to ‘seize’ anything,” the former president said in a statement on Friday afternoon. “They could have had [the documents] at anytime they wanted without playing politics and breaking into Mar-a-Lago.”
The U.S. Army is expected to fall nearly 40,000 troops short of its recruiting goals over the next two years. Fiscal year 2022 is expected to miss the mark by 10,000 troops, while the number in fiscal year 2023 could reach 28,000. These figures mean that this year is on track to be the Army’s worst recruiting year in almost 50 years.
The Army plans to circumvent the problem by offering $1 billion for its recruiting program and placing more emphasis on the use of its reserve units.
The Epoch Times reached out to the U.S. Army Recruiting Command for comment, and Maj. Charles Spears of the Combined Arms Center replied to various inquiries about the state of recruiting. Spears offered several reasons for the Army’s recruiting challenges in the years ahead.
First, he said, “only 23 percent of American youth are qualified to serve without a waiver, [noting that] obesity, addiction, medical, and behavioral health are the top disqualifiers for service.”
The Army is also competing with corporate America, he said, adding that “social media’s virtual public square shapes the values and perceptions of American youth, which is increasingly unfamiliar with the benefits of Army service.”
According to Spears, the American population is “increasingly disconnected” from serving in the Army and military service, Spears said. “Oftentimes, influencers [like parents, teachers, and coaches] do not recommend military service.” He also added that “the share of youth who have seriously considered military service is at a historic low of nine percent.”
Finally, Spears said, “the COVID-19 pandemic severely limited the ability of recruiters to interact with prospects in person, [and] also exacerbated academic and physical fitness challenges, limiting the pool of qualified applicants.” As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, he said, there has been a nine percent decrease in Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB) scores as well as increased applicate obesity.
In addition to these factors, servicemembers have expressed other concerns that they say have contributed to the recruitment crisis.
Soldiers with the 82nd Airborne division walk across the tarmac at Green Ramp to deploy to Poland at Fort Bragg, Fayetteville, North Carolina, on Feb. 14, 2022. (Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty Images)
Army Boots on the Ground
The Epoch Times spoke to an active-duty Army soldier with over 15 years of service on the condition of anonymity, fearing reprisals. He is gravely alarmed about the Army falling short on recruitment numbers.
“In the past,” he said, “the Army targeted a specific demographic of people based on their values, [and these recruits] were patriots and loved America.” In today’s general population, he doesn’t see the same interest in patriotism. “Much of the country doesn’t love America like it use to,” he said. “And with a military no longer upholding the values, the oaths, or the creeds it once did, what kind of new recruits should we expect [to join the Army]?” he asked.
“From a macro perspective, we had a significant breach of trust in the last election.” By oath, he said, the military swears to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” But the U.S. military has said nothing about the previous election, according to the soldier. “I’m not saying there is a final answer, but as defenders of the Constitution, they owed open and transparent conversation to the force and to the American people,” he said.
Instead, he said, “they happily encourage mandated vaccines, back the transgender issue, and speak out in opposition to the Supreme Court of the United States in regard to Roe v. Wade—all of which are very political.”
In his opinion, “we now have a Department of Defense [DoD] that has taken various political positions that are very much opposed to the heart of America.”
All the while, he said, the size of battalions is shrinking. “Some are less than two-thirds of where they need to be,” he said. And many of those who remain are not “usable deployables.”
He said, “Much of America is missing the fact that the Army is intentionally kicking people out in a precarious way that it knows is unnecessary, because the data shows that it’s unnecessary.” He is under the impression that “our military is intentionally being weakened.”
Rather than watching the military “decay,” he said, “military leadership needs to take action for the good of the America people.” But he’s not convinced this will happen, because “for the most part, the higher-ups are cowards and they lack the personal courage to take the actions needed to put an end to this sad state of affairs.”
As recruiting woes mount and solutions appear scant for the U.S. Army, service members of the nation’s other military branches are equally concerned.
A member of the U.S. military receives the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine at Camp Foster in Ginowan, Japan, on April 28, 2021. (Carl Court/Getty Images)
Mishap for the Marines
Maj. Paul Lewis (a pseudonym), a recognized subject matter expert on personnel retention matters within the Marine Corps who previously sounded the alarm on personnel end-strength issues within the DoD, spoke to The Epoch Times once again.
According to Lewis, military readiness has been impacted in the past few years by “a toxic combination of poor leadership and the politicization of the military.” He said there has been “a steady reduction in readiness due primarily to reckless policies that have eroded the trust of the rank and file service-members.
“It really came to light in the wake of COVID when service members began to see that senior leaders chose to put politics ahead of military readiness,” he said. “Senior officers and senior civilian executives have run the military into the ground in the name of career stability and progression instead of keeping faith with Marines and their families.”
Potential recruits are not signing up to serve in the Marine Corps as they have in previous years, and Lewis attributes this to “a rejection of the bureaucratic leadership.” For American citizens to choose to serve in the “all-volunteer force,” he states, “they want to be able to trust that their leadership has their best interest at heart, and that doesn’t appear to be the case anymore.”
According to Lewis, this erosion of trust can be “manifested in the military loss in Afghanistan as well as how COVID vaccine mandates have been enforced in a draconian and illegal manner,” and this according to him has led to “a complete loss of trust and confidence in the leadership.”
In the years ahead, he said, these issues will have an impact on the national security of the United States. “Within the national security apparatus,” Lewis said, “we need a certain number of troops to man the line, this is known as statutory end-strength and is set by Congress, [because] we have defense obligations all over the world with partners and allies.”
“A small gap in readiness, losing 100 or 200 recruits or unplanned departures from the service might be acceptable,” Lewis admitted. “But when you get into the numbers of 40,000 or more in a single year, it’s no longer just a minor blip on how we deploy our military, but it is an unmitigated disaster,” he said. “It will affect every decision made on how we are going to meet our obligations and ultimately we will be increasingly relying on less troops to do the same job.”
In light of losses associated with the mandated vaccine, Lewis said it has become apparent to him that “our leadership is willing to sacrifice military service members, forcing them out the door in the name of financial reprioritization.” He said, “American people need to be aware that the military is using these personnel cost savings to commit additional resources to yet another round of equipment modernization that is lining the defense industries pocket.
“But all the while, they’re losing the individuals qualified to operate these systems,” he said. “For example, you cannot fly an F-35 with a student pilot; you need an experienced pilot with years of operational flight time.
“When the cards are down and we need to face our adversaries, we need experienced warfighters using this equipment,” said Lewis. “Unfortunately, the defense lobby has just about every congressional office enthralled with the idea of higher defense spending with their companies rather than investing in its people.”
According to Lewis, “the American soldier is the country’s most valuable resource, [but] our leadership and our decisionmakers have devalued their people” who serve in the military. “This is sadly exemplified in the dead Marines on the deck in Afghanistan because of poor politically driven leadership.”
If members of the nation’s military were valued, he said, “these same people should be raising legitimate concerns about vaccine efficacy, but they are failing the American people once again.”
Lewis contends that “generational damage” is being done and the core of rank-and-file service members whose families have traditionally served will no longer choose to do so in the future because of the utter betrayal they are facing from their own leaders.
“It’s reckless, like a child playing with fire,” said Lewis. “Do the math: it is impossible to have an all-volunteer force if you don’t have volunteers.” Moving forward, he questions whether the U.S. military will be able to continue to “meet the expectations of the American people and keep the homeland safe.”
U.S. Air Force CH-47 Chinook helicopters are seen landing at the airport in Jasionka near Rzeszow, Poland, on Feb. 16, 2022. (Wojtek Radwanski/AFP/Getty Images)
Air Force Mission Ignored
A master sergeant currently serving in the Air Force has been a recruiter for nearly a decade. As the military vaccine mandate began to be enforced, he was “alienated from the service” for refusing to take the shot. “Many in the Air Force have stood up for freedoms our entire career, but when our freedom is on the line, who’s going to stand up for us?” he asked. He has witnessed junior airmen break down in tears over being coerced and threatened into taking the vaccine.
Air Force Recruiting Service is facing its lowest recruiting numbers since 1999 according to senior leadership’s public statements, he said. “While we lose decades of experience to mandates and poor leadership decisions,” he said, “we will be forced to ease standards just to continue the mission.” He further added, “I see firsthand in recruiting that the sentiment towards joining the military has been negatively impacted over the last year.”
What’s more, he said, “there is an imbalanced focus on diversity over performance when deciding the fate of an airman’s career. We’re focusing on the wrong things instead of the mission, which is protecting and serving the nation,” he said. “Wokeism combined with bad policies are destroying the military and if we don’t course correct soon, it could cause irreparable harm, in my opinion.”
Navy is Getting Weaker
A Navy lieutenant said, “the DoD has forgotten the first rule of holes—and that’s when you get into one, you stop digging.” According to the recruiter, “the Navy has probably alienated the majority of its recruiting base that you could have always counted on historically.”
Mandatory vaccines are an issue, he said. But “social experimentation” within the Department of Defense is also a problem. For example, in the digital signature of Rear Admiral Alexis T. Walker, he said, “he has his own little personal font with a rainbow hue for his pronouns.” Walker is the commander of Navy Recruiting Command.
The Clinton administration’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy was once “a hot button for the military,” he said. “But fast forward nearly 30 years, and transgenders have been normalized.”
To that end, he said, “The fact that you would set a double standard in terms of military readiness where you would claim an unvaccinated service member isn’t ready, but somebody in the middle of a life-changing transition that’s on hormones is ready and is not a threat to readiness, bothers me.”
By his estimation, senior leadership of the military has “bought into a big lie that somehow the population at large wants a military which reflects the population diversity of the country.” He disagreed, stating that “the public simply wants to know that they have a military that’s capable and lethal, and could successfully defend this nation on a moment’s notice.”
Apart from “a few niche areas, like the special warfare communities, military readiness is questionable at best,” he said. “We’ve gone too far into the weeds politically, which has resulted in a weaker, political military force.”
A U.S. Coast Guard vessel docks during an offload of packages of marijuana and cocaine at Port Everglades, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on Nov. 22, 2021. (Eva Marie Uzcategui/AFP via Getty Images)
Coast Guard Gone Woke, Too
Continuing to actively serve in the Coast Guard, a “Coastie” with recent experience as a recruiter is very disturbed that he could be “throwing years of dedicated service down the drain” for refusing to take the vaccine. It’s clear that he’s not the only one impacted, as he said, the Coast Guard will fall far short of making recruiting mission this year. While he said it is hard to pinpoint exactly why, the vaccine mandate is a large part of the issue. “There’s definitely been some young folk who said they’re not going to join because they don’t want to get the COVID vaccine,” he explained.
In addition, he said, “The woke culture has bugged some people.” In one example of wokeness infiltrating the Coast Guard, he said, “When writing awards or performance reviews, I can’t even identify myself as a he, [adding that] I can only identify myself by my name, rank, or by they.” He finds it strange that he cannot assume his own gender. Taking diversity and inclusion to this extreme, alongside the vaccine mandate, has hurt retention in his opinion.
The Coast Guardsman strongly believes that “medical and fitness standards that were once non-negotiable are all on the table right now.” When asked about the reason, he goes on to say, “It seems like the average teenager these days has a much higher likelihood of being prescribed antidepressants, asthma inhalers, or attention deficit medications, all of which used to be a hard stop for someone trying to join.”
“But if recruiters can’t make mission and mission execution suffers, eventually something has to give,” he said. “The question that bothers me is how much does race and gender now play into the likelihood of those medical waivers being granted?”
Each anonymous interviewee emphasized that their views do not reflect the views of the Department of Defense (DoD), the Air Force, Army, Marines, Navy, or Coast Guard. The Epoch Times also reached out to the recruiting headquarters for the Air Force, Coast Guard, Marines, and Navy for comment.
Former President Donald Trump said Sunday that privileged material was taken during the FBI raid on his Mar-a-Lago property and demanded it back.
“Oh great! It has just been learned that the FBI, in its now famous raid of Mar-a-Lago, took boxes of privileged ‘attorney-client’ material, and also ‘executive’ privileged material, which they knowingly should not have taken,” the former president wrote on Truth Social, as he posted a Fox News article that cited anonymous sources for the claims.
Attorney-client privilege makes reference to a legal privilege that allows communications between a client and their attorney confidential.
“By copy of this TRUTH (post), I respectfully request that these documents be immediately returned to the location from which they were taken. Thank you!” Trump also wrote Sunday morning.
The FBI said it took classified records from Trump’s Florida residence during an unprecedented raid last week, which was announced by the former president himself. It’s not clear what the documents entailed.
According to a property receipt that was unsealed on Aug. 12 by a judge in the case, some of those documents were marked top secret, and a warrant in the case said Trump is being investigated for possibly violating provisions under the Espionage Act as well as obstruction of justice.
Since the raid was announced on Aug. 8, both the FBI and Department of Justice have remained mostly tight-lipped about what the FBI was searching for and why.
Tight-Lipped
It wasn’t until the afternoon of Aug. 11 that Attorney General Merrick Garland issued a terse statement during a news conference, saying he personally authorized the raid. He did not elaborate on the FBI’s investigation. The affidavit in the case has not been unsealed—only the warrant and property receipt.
“First, I personally approved the decision to seek a search warrant in this matter,” Garland said during the press conference. “Second, the Department does not take such a decision lightly. Where possible, it is standard practice to seek less intrusive means as an alternative to a search, and to narrowly scope any search that is undertaken.”
Former President Donald Trump’s residence in Mar-a-Lago, Palm Beach, Fla., on Aug. 9, 2022. (Giorgio Viera/AFP via Getty Images)
The warrant and receipt were unsealed on Aug. 12 by Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart after several news outlets and transparency watchdogs requested that it be released to the public.
“The locations to be searched include the ‘45 Office,’ all storage rooms, and all other rooms or areas within the premises used or available to be used by FPOTUS and his staff and in which boxes or documents could be stored, including all structures or buildings on the estate,” the warrant stated.
The warrant also provided agents the authority to take “all physical documents and records constituting evidence, contraband, fruits of crime, or other items illegally possessed” that violate the U.S. Code. That includes classified documents and materials with presidential seals created throughout the entirety of Trump’s presidency.
The FBI and Department of Justice have not returned requests for comment.
NO ONE IN THE BIG PHARMA-SPONSORED MEDIA SEEMS TO HAVE PICKED UP ON THIS. STRANGE, HUH?
Former White House coronavirus task force spokesman Ambassador Deborah Birx has effectively laid blame for thousands of deaths at the door of big pharmaceutical giants Pfizer and Moderna, claiming their refusal to pursue a “compassionate use authorization” for the COVID-19 vaccines led to a delay which directly impacted nursing home residents, The National Pulse can reveal.
The details come in the final parts of Birx’s little read book – Silent Invasion – wherein she details how she used “subterfuge” to get around the will of the Trump administration, as well as naming Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner and Vice President Mike Pence as her “go to” people in the government.
In Chapter 19, entitled “Winter Is Here,” Birx turns her guns on the same pharmaceutical companies she and her colleague Anthony Fauci promoted and protected during the COVID-19 outbreak. Specifically, she points out the corporates who were shielded by government from liability failed to get vital doses of their vaccines into the arms of those who needed it earliest: the elderly:
“Getting as many people inoculated as quickly and equitably as possible remained one of my priorities. In addition to “emergency use authorization,” or EUA, the FDA also has the authority to allow the use of therapeutics and vaccines (and the use of experimental drugs to people outside clinical trials) under what’s called “compassionate use authorization,” or CUA. Lacking the holy grail of emergency use authorization (which was pending), I continued to try to find a way to get the highest-risk group immunized as quickly as possible. In early November, I asked Tony and Steve to approach Moderna and Pfizer and urge them to apply for CUA while their vaccines’ efficacy was still being determined but safety was fairly clear. With a CUA in hand, we could inoculate any nursing home residents who wished to be. Whether they volunteered for the jabs or not, at least they’d have the option.”
But as many continued to die, her wishes were not carried through, she explains:
“We had a narrow window, and it was closing. Fifteen hundred nursing home residents died in the first week of October. The vaccine manufacturers, I learned, had already stockpiled three million doses. If we could draw from that supply through CUA, thousands of lives could be saved.
“This didn’t happen. Pfizer and Moderna declined to pursue compassionate use authorization. They believed the process would be a distraction. Their eyes were fixed on the EUA, another complicated process; taking on both simply wasn’t possible.
“I believed it was—it just wasn’t part of the plan these manufacturers had envisioned.”
Birx then goes on to detail the number of people that were affected by the major corporations’ refusal to pursue a faster route to market. At the time, many suspected they were refusing to do so because such speed would give President Trump an ostensible boost right before the U.S. presidential election.
“Take a moment to imagine that they did apply for compassionate use. And imagine that 1.5 million of the 3 million stockpiled doses went to nursing homes in November, and another 1.5 million at the end of November, for a second dose. If this had happened, the nursing home residents would have been fully protected in December, at the start of the surge, and not, as it turned out, as late as February, after the surge. An additional six-thousand-plus nursing home residents died in mid-December. They all could have been fully immunized and protected before this happened and we could have saved thousands of lives. If this had been done, literally thousands of lives could have been saved. Great good could have been done, and at low risk to these vulnerable people. In a pandemic, you need to innovate on the fly in response to the reality of the moment and not be locked into a rigid plan.”
Birx’s theory rests on the efficacy of the vaccines, however. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines were altered this past week to remove the distinctions between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated. Regardless of the “science” today, the United States continues to restrict foreign travelers into the country who are not vaccinated, unless they come in illegally through America’s porous southern border.
The protocols require ‘mind-blowing cognitive dissonance’
Nurses who witnessed “brutal” hospital COVID-19 treatment protocols kill patients paint a bleak picture of what is taking place in state and federally funded health care systems.
“They’re horrific, and they’re all in lockstep,” Staci Kay, a nurse practitioner with the North Carolina Physicians for Freedom who left the hospital system to start her own early treatment private practice, told The Epoch Times. “They will not consider protocols outside of what’s given to them by the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) and the NIH (National Institute of Health). And nobody is asking why.”
Fueled by cognitive dissonance amid an array of red flags, Kay said hospital staff is ignoring blatantly problematic treatments that performed poorly in clinical trials, such as remdesivir, and protocols such as keeping the patient isolated, just to adhere to the federal canon.
“I’ve seen people die with their family watching via iPad on Facetime,” Kay said. “It was brutal.”
As a former nurse in intensive care, Kay said she had seen her share of tragedy, but how she saw COVID patients being treated “had me waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat with chest pains.”
“I hated my job,” Kay said. “I hated going to work. I was stressed in a way I’ve never been before in my entire life.”
Keeping families isolated was especially difficult, she said, because people couldn’t come to say goodbye to their loved ones.
‘We Can Do Better’
Kay was looking for other options when she found an inpatient protocol designed Dr. Paul Marik, founding member of Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance, which purported to have a 94 percent success rate.
However, after Kay pitched it to the head of the pulmonary critical care department, she was dismissed, and the physician boasted that the hospital had a 66 percent survival rate at the time.
“I told him, ‘I feel like we can do better,’ but I was very quickly shut down,” Kay said. “I became very angry because I’m watching people die and I knew we could have been doing better.”
It was as if formerly smart people had become brainwashed, “and then just dumb,” Kay said, lacking the mental wherewithal to discern true from false.
This led Kay to begin treating patients in the outpatient setting to prevent their admission into the hospital system, which is now her full-time job after being fired for not submitting to what she described as illogical testing requirements for those who weren’t vaccinated.
At her telemedicine business, Kay said she’s seeing multiple cases of people suffering from COVID-19 vaccine injuries.
“I saw things on the inpatient side, too, that I suspected were vaccine injuries that went unacknowledged by our physicians,” Kay said. “I saw brain bleeds, seizures out of nowhere, cancer that just spread like wildfire, ischemic strokes, and I saw one person die horrifically from myocarditis.”
On the outpatient side, she said she’s seen conditions resulting from the COVID-19 vaccine such as brain fog, cognitive decline, joint pain, gastrointestinal dysfunctions, and neuropathy, which is numbness and tingling in hands, feet, and extremities.
‘The Old School Becomes The New School’
Kay’s business, Sophelina Counseling, provides telemedicine, mobile urgent care, and mobile IV therapies. It’s independent of corporate, federal, and state control, which she said is a solution to a health care system paralyzed with oppressive requirements.
“As long as there’s corporate control over medicine, whether it’s Medicare or private insurance companies, you’re always going to have providers who are forced, pressured, and coerced to do things that they wouldn’t normally do,” she said. “Physicians don’t have the treatment they used to have.”
Because of this corporate control, Kay said the list of boxes they must check takes time away from the actual patient.
“Getting away from this corporate structure is going to be a game changer,” she said.
Kay advocated for returning to the “old school” way, which is the direct, primary care model, in which the patient pays a monthly or annual fee to have access to the provider without the interference of a traditional insurance company that requires “too many hoops to jump through, headaches, and checkboxes.”
Kay points to a health care model called GoldCare, designed by Dr. Simone Gold, founder of America’s Frontline Doctors.
Gold, who was sentenced to two months in prison for her alleged involvement in the Jan. 6 breach of the Capitol, created GoldCare as a private membership association (PMA).
Because much of what insurance companies do revolves around potential lawsuits, to be a member of the PMA, one must sign a clause, agreeing that they won’t sue.
“What that does for us is we don’t have to order unnecessary testing or consults just to cover our back end because that’s most of what corporate medicine does,” she said.
As a result, Kay said, both the patient and the physician are happier because the treatment process hasn’t been weighted down with bloated insurance requirements.
For Kay, this model—an evocation of a simpler time in medical care when doctors were more connected with their patients—is key.
“The old school is going to have to become the new school,” Kay said.
NIH and the CDC did not respond to The Epoch Times’ request for comment on COVID-19 treatment protocols.
Boycotting the System
Having taken salmon, eggs, and honey for payment, a nurse in Washington state who wished to remain anonymous shares Kay’s more traditional vision for the future of health care.
She told The Epoch Times that people “need to boycott their health insurance.”
“I think people who don’t need surgery to save their life should not go to the hospital,” the nurse said. “I think people need to find doctors who are private pay and pay for only what they need to be done.”
The federal government must be removed from the health care equation, she added.
“I especially don’t think any children should be going to these practitioners who are accepting state funding or Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements,” the nurse said
The nurse requested anonymity because—in addition to being unvaccinated—in Washington and Oregon state, she said the government has made it possible for the public to submit anonymous complaints, “devoid of evidence,” against health care workers who promote treatments that deviate from the official protocols.
After the nurse was fired for not complying with the vaccine mandate, she started her own private care business that offers monoclonal antibodies, L-lysine and vitamin C infusions, infrared red light therapy, and nebulizer machines as treatments as needed and when indicated.
‘Widespread Data Suppression’
With her newly launched business, she performed the early interventions that she said hospitals should be doing, “but refuse to do because they say there’s no evidence for it.”
The nurse works with a growing network of physicians and providers that function as a “total parallel society” existing in the shadows beside the “crooked” health care system, she said.
In the aftermath of the public vaccine campaign in her community, the nurse said she saw an increase in strokes and embolization procedures as doctors engaged in “widespread data suppression,” such as not reporting to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System what she saw as vaccine injuries and deaths and recording non-COVID deaths to be caused by COVID.
Even before the CDC had modified its definition of the unvaccinated, the hospital system was reclassifying patients who had only received one vaccine as unvaccinated, she said.
“The worst part of it was when the pulmonologists decided that unvaccinated patients would get seven days on the ventilator, then they would tell the families that nothing more could be done,” she said. “They would then terminally extubate these patients even when more could have been done.”
The nurse personally witnessed this, she said, with a 33-year-old mother of two children.
“She had been on ivermectin at home and was viewed as an anti-vax conspiracy theorist,” the nurse said.
Before the mother was terminally extubated and her status changed to “comfort care,” the nurse said she argued with hospital administrators for 12 hours.
She had asked the pulmonologist to consider running more tests, she said.
“It had been over a week since the last D-dimer, and this would have indicated whether fibrin in the bloodstream was increasing or decreasing,” the nurse explained. “The usual process with a known pulmonary embolism was to check every three days. There were more anticoagulant drugs and routes of administration that could have been utilized. Intravenous heparin is reversible. If they were willing to withdraw life support, why were they not willing to try something that could clear a circulatory impairment?”
In the end, the hospital won, she said.
“The mother died gasping for air while my hand was on her back,” she said. “I couldn’t believe it. I went to my manager and asked for an audit to be done on our coagulation times and pulmonary embolism treatment protocols. That got me booted from the ICU until I was fired.”
The nurse said she observed administrators repeatedly promoting the safety of the vaccine, though these claims weren’t reflecting what they were seeing with the growing cases of vaccine injuries.
Though there was some staff who saw the truth but ignored it to keep their jobs, there were many whom she observed—just as Kay reported—who exhibited “mind-blowing cognitive dissonance.”
“They received the vaccines themselves, and if they were to ever confront the possibility that they willingly became the hands of a truly evil agenda, I don’t think they could live with themselves,” the nurse said. “I used to consider my co-workers as people with whom I’d trust my life, but after they got that second dose of the vaccine, it was like they had a hive mind bent on hatred. It’s very eerie to say that out loud.”
Former White House official Kash Patel on Sunday revealed former President Donald Trump has been involved in a battle with the federal government to declassify documents before last week’s FBI raid.
Patel, who was a top official in the Department of Defense, said Trump declassified numerous documents.
“President Trump made me his representative a month ago, and we’ve been in a bureaucratic battle,” he told Fox News on Sunday morning. “We found whole sets of documents we got out to the American public … about 60 percent.”
Patel, who hosts “Kash’s Corner” for Epoch TV, added that Trump “made it his mission to declassify and be transparent.”
“In October 2020, he issued a sweeping declassification order for every single Russiagate document and every single [former Secretary of State] Hillary Clinton document,” Patel said, adding that “whole sets of documents” were declassified under his watch.
“And this is a key fact … President Trump, as a sitting president, is a unilateral authority for declassification,” he continued. “He can literally stand over a set of documents and say ‘these are now declassified,’ and that is done with definitive action immediately.”
Patel further noted that due to the Department of Justice’s latest actions and the FBI’s ongoing investigation, Americans “will never be allowed to see the Russiagate docs or any other docs that President Trump lawfully declassified, and they will hide it from the public.”
Other Details
Late last week, a U.S. magistrate judge ordered the release of the FBI warrant and property record used to raid Trump’s Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach. The documents showed the FBI seized alleged classified documents and said the former president may be under investigation for possibly violating the 1917 Espionage Act and obstruction of justice, although neither the Justice Department nor FBI have released the affidavit in the case.
In late 2020, Trump issued a declassification memo that referred to materials connected to the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation, which has been the subject of intense controversy and scrutiny. Republicans and Trump have long asserted the investigation used fabricated information and anonymous leaks to the press to denigrate the former president.
“I hereby declassify the remaining materials in the binder. This is my final determination under the declassification review and I have directed the Attorney General to implement the redactions proposed in the FBI’s January 17 submission and return to the White House an appropriately redacted copy,” then-President Trump wrote on Dec. 30, 2020, or just three weeks before Joe Biden was sworn in as president.
After the warrant and property receipt were unsealed, Trump posted to his Truth Social page that the materials the FBI allegedly took were “all declassified.”
“They didn’t need to ‘seize’ anything. They could have had it anytime they wanted without playing politics and breaking into Mar-a-Lago. It was in secured storage, with an additional lock put on as per their request,” he wrote on the website on Aug. 12.
On Sunday, the former president wrote that among other items that were taken by agents, attorney-client material and executive privileged material were removed from Mar-a-Lago.
“By copy of this TRUTH, I respectfully request that these documents be immediately returned to the location from which they were taken. Thank you!” Trump wrote.
Democrats have one priority, and it’s not the United States, Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas) says. Instead, Democrats want to destroy former President Donald Trump, and they’ll do “everything they can” to accomplish that goal.
Nehls, along with the Republican Study Committee, spent three hours with Trump after the raid and said the former president not only firmly grasps the situation but also fully understands that Democrats are out to “get him.”
“They’ve been out to get him with one impeachment, two impeachments, the Russia hoax. … Democrats will do everything they can to keep him off the ballot in 2024,” Nehls told The Epoch Times and NTD as part of a special EpochTV report on the raid.
Nehls, who has a law enforcement background and was a sheriff for several years, said that to obtain a search warrant, you first have to obtain a “probable cause” affidavit. Once you have a signed affidavit, you can get a search warrant to look for specific items in a person’s home.
Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas) speaks during a press conference at the Capitol Triangle in Washington, on July 21, 2022. (Nathan Howard/Getty Images)
Unfortunately, according to Nehls, probable cause affidavits can be “very, very weak,” but if you find a “friendly judge” to sign it, it doesn’t matter; you can search a person’s home for whatever is on the warrant.
Furthermore, Nehls said everyone in law enforcement knows a judge who will rubber stamp affidavits and search warrants and said that’s what happened to Trump and the “raid” on Mar-a-Lago.
“They found the friendly judge there, with Reinhardt in the Southern District. … These guys are big Obama supporters, … and they got the judge to sign the warrant.”
Garland Approves Unsealing of Warrant
Concerning Attorney General Merrick Garland stating he approves unsealing the warrant, Nehls said that’s only part of what needs to be released.
Specifically, Nehls said he wants to know if the person who tipped off the Department of Justice (DOJ) is an FBI informant.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump’s residence in Mar-A-Lago, Palm Beach, Fla., on Aug. 9, 2022. (Giorgio Viera/AFP via Getty Images)
“Who is the individual that said … the former president has a bunch of these documents inside … the basement of Mar-a-Lago and … they’re classified or not classified, and we need to do something?”
Nehls said seeing the affidavit and the warrant would let people know what the FBI was “really looking for.”
Indeed, Nehls is skeptical about the FBI’s stated reason for raiding Trump. Instead, he thinks it’s likely that the FBI is creating a false pretext to destroy Trump.
Nehls pointed out that Democrats, the DOJ, and the FBI have targeted Trump and his family for the past few years, claiming they colluded with Russia. In the end, however, the evidence exonerated the past president.
Now, the DOJ and Democrats are up to the same old tricks. But instead of “Russia Collusion,” it’s “Jan. 6.”
Nehls argued that the FBI has lowered its standards and is now going after political adversaries at the behest of former President Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
Nehls concluded that he expects Biden and his lackeys to go after Trump “until they can find a way to destroy him.”
Roger Stone, a longtime ally of Donald Trump, said he found it “a little perplexing” that the former president’s grant of clemency for him topped the list of Mar-a-Lago materials FBI agents seized.
The clemency letter that Trump issued in December 2020 was among around 20 boxes of items the agents removed during a raid of Trump’s Florida residence on Aug. 8, along with documents marked as classified, top secret, and confidential, although Trump said that the documents were “all declassified.”
In an interview with The Epoch Times shortly after the FBI search warrant was unsealed, the political lobbyist wondered why the clemency letter became a focus of the federal agency’s attention.
“Why these documents are being struggled over between the president and the National Archives, I have no idea other than to say everything was done perfectly legally,” said Stone.
No ‘Corrupt Bargain’
Trump issued the pardon in December 2020 to Stone as his term as the 45th U.S. president was nearing the end, saying that the then-68-year-old had “numerous medical conditions” and had been “treated very unfairly” due to “prosecutorial misconduct.”
Stone, who served briefly as a Trump campaign adviser in 2015, was arrested in January 2019 in connection with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into whether the Trump campaign had colluded with Russia in influencing the 2016 presidential election.
Mueller’s report in April 2019 stated there was no evidence Trump or his associates had knowingly conspired with Russia.
Stone acknowledged that he had made misstatements to Congress under oath but maintained that they were “all innocuous” and “immaterial.”
“One cannot lie to Congress about Russian collusion, if no Russian collusion took place, can they? So I was framed solely for the purpose of pressuring me into giving false testimony against the president,” Stone said during the interview.
According to Stone, in July that year, prosecutors told his attorneys that if he agreed to testify falsely against the president regarding some 26 phone conversations they had during the 2016 presidential campaign, they would argue for his leniency with the judge, an offer he said he refused. Trump commuted Stone’s sentence that same month, a day before he was due to begin serving a term of three years and four months over the Russian interference probe.
Roger Stone, former adviser to President Donald Trump, leaves the Federal Court after a sentencing hearing in Washington, on Feb. 20, 2020. (Samira Bouaou/Epoch Times)
He speculated that the FBI agents may be looking into the records indicating “a corrupt bargain or some impropriety,” which he insisted was “not true.”
“There was no communication whatsoever between me and the president, or my lawyers and the president’s lawyers, or myself and the president through any other third party from the time I was charged, till the time that he called me to tell me he was commuting [my] sentence. No communications whatsoever,” he said.
“So any insinuation that there’s something improper about the clemency in my case, that would be categorically false.”
‘It’s About Intimidation’
Stone had a taste of the FBI raid himself on the day of his arrest in 2019.
At six o’clock that morning, 29 FBI agents swarmed his residence in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, with 17 armored vehicles, a government helicopter overhead, and two amphibious units. The agents were there for 13 hours, he recalled.
Like how the agents went through former First Lady Melania Trump’s wardrobe, Stone said they also searched all of the personal items and clothing of his wife.
He stressed that nothing from the raid on his home, office, and Manhattan apartment was used against him at trial.
“So it’s about intimidation,” he said. “The whole purpose of this is to intimidate the former president, which, having known him for 42 years, Donald Trump cannot be intimidated. If anything, they have galvanized his resolve to run again.”
He sees the raid as “the latest in a series to disqualify Trump” from running for president in 2024, following the two impeachment attempts while Trump was in office and the ongoing Jan. 6 Committee probe.
One federal code listed in the search warrant concerns the willful and unlawful concealment, removal, or mutilation of public records, which could cause the individual to “forfeit his office and be disqualified from holding any office under the United States.”
A member of the Secret Service in front of the home of former President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., on Aug. 9, 2022. (Giorgio Viera/AFP via Getty Images)
But a hypothetical conviction under the statute is still not a legal basis barring the former president from seeking a second term, some legal experts have argued, as the statute cannot override or supersede qualifications for the presidency as set out in the Constitution—minimum age of 35, and being a natural-born citizen who has lived in the country for at least 14 years.
It’s a signal that Trump’s opponents are “desperate” for legal ways to thwart his presidential ambitions, suggested Stone.
“They must not feel that they have any kind of viable case against the president regarding Jan. 6, and therefore they’re using this new rubric as an excuse to try to eliminate him as a candidate in 2024.”
Stone said his time going through the political prosecution has revealed to him a “two-tiered justice system,” contrasting what he saw as a differential treatment between those on the Democrat camp, such as Hunter Biden, the second son of Joe Biden who had engaged in foreign ventures while his father was holding a public office, and the handling of those on the Republican side.
“If you’re a liberal Democrat, you have nothing to fear from the FBI or the justice system. If you’re a supporter of Donald Trump, if you’re a Republican, well then you’re a target.”
The FBI declined to comment. The Epoch Times has contacted the Department of Justice over Stone’s statements.
Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee say they have received information from the non-partisan scorekeeper at the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) challenging the Biden administration’s narrative that Americans making less than $400,000 a year won’t see higher IRS audit rates.
The remarks came in an Aug. 12 statement that was published as the Democrat-controlled House passed the Inflation Reduction Act, which includes nearly $46 billion in additional funding for IRS enforcement of the $80 billion or so total funding boost to the tax agency.
Committee Republicans said that the CBO statement they were provided with confirms that, under the new legislation, lower and middle-income Americans will be squeezed harder by the tax man to the tune of at least $20 billion.
‘Supercharged IRS’ Coming For Middle-Income Americans
This figure was arrived at by calculating how much less tax revenue would flow into government coffers if legislators had accepted amendment 5404 (pdf) proposed by Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) that explicitly called for none of the funds appropriated under the Inflation Reduction Act to be used to audit taxpayers making less than $400,000 a year.
“The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) confirms that had this amendment passed and lower- and middle-income taxpayers been protected, revenue in Democrats’ bill would have been reduced by at least $20 billion,” Committee Republicans said.
This confirms that “at least $20 billion of the $124 billion in new revenue expected by a supercharged IRS will be coming from higher audits on low- and middle-income Americans” and that this would be “in addition to existing audits on these income levels.”
The Epoch Times has reached out to the CBO with a request for confirmation of the scorekeeper’s assessment and comment, with no response received by publication.
‘Absolutely Not’ Increasing Audit Scrutiny?
Republicans said the CBO statement proves that members of the Biden administration are misleading the public by claiming that lower and middle-income Americans won’t face additional tax audits.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has insisted Republican claims that tax auditors will target lower and middle-income Americans at higher rates are false and politically motivated.
“I direct that any additional resources—including any new personnel or auditors that are hired—shall not be used to increase the share of small business or households below the $400,000 threshold that are audited relative to historical levels,” Yellen said in an Aug. 10 letter to IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig.
“This means that, contrary to the misinformation from opponents of this legislation, small business or households earning $400,000 per year or less will not see an increase in the chances that they are audited,” she added.
The IRS chief, too, has insisted that the tax agency would “absolutely not” be increasing audit scrutiny on small businesses or middle-income Americans relative to “recent years,” according to a letter to members of the Senate on Aug. 4 (pdf).
More Audits ‘Almost Certain’
A previous CBO analysis indicated that, under basically the same funding plan as is featured in the Inflation Reduction Act, audit rates would be restored to levels around 10 years ago and that audit rates would rise “for all taxpayers,” though ones with higher incomes would face the biggest increase.
IRS audit rates have fallen sharply over the past decade, with the Government Accountability Office (GAO) saying in a report that rates in 2019 were about one third of those in 2010 for all income groups, dropping from 0.9 percent down to 0.25 percent.
A CBO estimate (pdf) shows that that the additional $80 billion in funding will bring in around $204 billion in new revenues, including from enforcement.
Despite Yellen’s and Rettig’s insistence that audit rates wouldn’t jump for those making under $400,000, Rachel Greszler, senior research fellow at the Grover M. Hermann Center, wrote in an op-ed for the Heritage Foundation that this is likely not the case.
“Despite the Biden administration’s claims, it’s almost certain that households making less than $400,000 a year would face increased audits under Democrats’ bill,” Greszler wrote.
“And despite estimates from official congressional scorekeepers that the Schumer-Manchin-Biden tax increase indeed would raise taxes on those Americans, the administration has doubled down on the claim,” she added.
Rep. Kevin Brady (R-Texas) said on the House floor that the way Democrats can manage to raise $200 billion in new tax revenues is “with thousands of new agents targeting what I would call Walmart shoppers.”
“They’re real hard working American families. They are my constituents, they are my neighbors in my district. They’re living paycheck to paycheck, struggling with inflation and high gas prices,” Brady said.
“They will be hit with over 700,000 new audits thanks to a skyrocketing surge in IRS agents,” he added.
“Higher taxes, harassing IRS audits on our Walmart shoppers, no relief from inflation—all as America battles a recession,” Brady said.
The Inflation Reduction Act passed in a strictly party-line vote on Aug. 12, with the bill next heading to Joe Biden’s desk for final approval.
A former director of national intelligence said Aug. 12 that it is “virtually impossible” to prosecute people for mishandling classified documents, and asserted that former President Donald Trump has the “ultimately declassification authority” in terms of such documents.
“The president does have ultimate declassification authority. He can literally declassify—and President Trump had that authority, and could declassify anything you want while he was president,” John Ratcliffe, a Republican congressman before Trump appointed him to be director of national intelligence, said on Fox News.
According to documents unsealed earlier Friday, Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home was raided by FBI agents on Aug. 8 because of potential violations of several laws, including the Espionage Act, which some legal experts say relates to possessing classified defense information.
An inventory showed that agents seized what they listed as classified, secret, and top secret documents.
Ratcliffe said on Fox that before the search warrant materials were made public, he didn’t believe the raid was about classified materials.
“It has to be more than that because the Department of Justice and the FBI have already set a standard that makes it virtually impossible to prosecute a case like that,” he said, pointing to how former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s possession of classified documents was handled by the FBI, including then-Director James Comey.
“As people talk about Espionage Act and classified documents and all of that, the standard was set in 2016. Remember the Department of Justice and the FBI took the official position that Hillary Clinton, who was in possession of classified documents … that [being] in possession of that, that wasn’t enough, and that being grossly negligent and being careless, Jim Comey told us, that’s not enough under the Espionage Act. You have to know you’re violating the law,” Ratcliffe said.
“Even if you assume the worst case scenario for President Trump, that there were classified documents in his possession at Mar-a-Lago, that only puts him where Hillary Clinton was. And what the FBI and the Department of Justice would have to show is that he knew the documents were there and he didn’t think they were declassified,” he added.
Trump wrote on Truth Social that all the documents seized from Mar-a-Lago were declassified.
“He had a standing order that documents removed from the Oval Office and taken into the residence were deemed to be declassified,” a Trump spokesperson told Just the News. “The power to classify and declassify documents rests solely with the President of the United States. The idea that some paper-pushing bureaucrat, with classification authority delegated BY THE PRESIDENT, needs to approve of declassification is absurd.”
Others weren’t sure.
“He can’t just wave a wand and say it’s declassified,” Immerman said. “There has to be a formal process. That’s the only way the system can work,” Richard Immerman, an assistant deputy director of national intelligence during the Obama administration, told NBC News. “I’ve seen thousands of declassified documents. They’re all marked ‘declassified’ with the date they were declassified.”
Retired Major General Paul Vallely reacted to the recent FBI raid on former president Donald Trump’s residence, claiming that there is a socialist-communist coalition involved with the act.
He believes that there is a “socialist coalition” that aspires to “overthrow” the U.S. constitutional republic and transform it into a totalitarian communist state.
“The American Republic founded in 1776 is under attack by a Socialist-Communist Coalition and an out-of-control Federal Government,” Vallely said in a statement he sent to The Epoch Times.
The retired major general thinks the raid violates the Fourth Amendment, a right given to the U.S. citizenry granting protection from “unreasonable searches and seizures.”
“This cabal has illegitimately exercised their power in attacking the private residence of President Donald J. Trump and his personal residence in Mar a Lago, Florida,” Vallely said.
Secret Service personnel are seen in front of the home of former President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla. on Aug. 8, 2022. The FBI raided the home reportedly to retrieve classified White House documents. (Eva Marie Uzcategui/Getty Images)
On Thursday, Attorney General Merrick Garland vocalized the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) first public statement about the FBI raid that targeted Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence earlier this week.
“I personally approved the decision to seek a search warrant in this matter … the Department does not take such a decision lightly,” Garland said.
Garland further said that his agency filed a motion to unseal the court-approved search warrant.
“The weaponization of government power has become clear,” Vallely noted. “The abuse of such powers to interfere with future elections cannot be ruled out as this action suggests there are no limits to their abuse of authority to retain power.”
U.S. Army Major General Paul E. Vallely (Ret.) (Courtesy of Paul E. Vallely)
On Wednesday, Trump suggested that the FBI could have planted evidence during the raid at his residence since members of his team were blocked from watching the agents’ actions.
“History is repeating itself as we see the tactics of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) used by a few dystopian tyrants who have methodically and comprehensively infiltrated and assumed leadership of the Democratic Party,” Vallely said.
In addition, Vallely, who has been calling out “wokeism” in the military academies, thinks that Trump’s political rivals are trying to take him out with “selective enforcement of provisions that are normally overseen in a civil, not criminal manner.”
“Where have we seen that before? None of this is a coincidence, and none of it is justified. Even if Trump was in possession of some documents that needed to be archived, that is the kind of thing that has historically been dealt with in court, not with an FBI raid, and the former president was fully cooperating to this point,” Vallely stated.
Upon request for comment, the FBI referred to The Epoch Times to the following statement by the bureau’s director Christopher Wray: “Unfounded attacks on the integrity of the FBI erode respect for the rule of law and are a grave disservice to the men and women who sacrifice so much to protect others. Violence and threats against law enforcement, including the FBI, are dangerous and should be deeply concerning to all Americans. Every day I see the men and women of the FBI doing their jobs professionally and with rigor, objectivity, and a fierce commitment to our mission of protecting the American people and upholding the Constitution. I am proud to serve alongside them.”
The new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) COVID-19 guidance is the agency acknowledging it was wrong in the past to downplay natural immunity and promote unprecedented policies like asymptomatic testing, a California epidemiologist says.
The new guidance, released on Aug. 11, rescinds and alters a number of key recommendations, including treating unvaccinated and vaccinated people differently for many purposes, explicitly stating that people with previous infection have protection against severe illness, and removing six-foot social distancing advice.
“The CDC is admitting it was wrong here, although they won’t put it in those words,” Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, professor of medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine, told The Epoch Times.
“What they’ll say is that, well, ‘the population is more immunized now, has more natural immunity now, and now is the time—the science has changed.’”
But a large percentage of the U.S. population has had natural immunity, or protection from prior infection, Bhattacharya noted, while over 80 percent of the elderly population had protection from severe disease from COVID-19 vaccines, previous infection, or both, since 2021.
“This is two years too late, but it’s a good step,” Bhattacharya added.
CDC Statement
The CDC, which did not respond to a request for comment, portrayed the change as streamlining previous guidance, with the adjustments stemming from more people being vaccinated and more COVID-19 treatments available.
“We’re in a stronger place today as a nation, with more tools—like vaccination, boosters, and treatments—to protect ourselves, and our communities, from severe illness from COVID-19,” Greta Massetti, the CDC author of the new guidance, said in a statement. “We also have a better understanding of how to protect people from being exposed to the virus, like wearing high-quality masks, testing, and improved ventilation. This guidance acknowledges that the pandemic is not over, but also helps us move to a point where COVID-19 no longer severely disrupts our daily lives.”
Dr. Jerome Adams, the surgeon general during the Trump administration, echoed the line of thinking.
“The fact that @CDCgov is changing guidance shouldn’t be taken as proof that they were necessarily ‘wrong,’ on a particular issue. The virus has changed, our tools and immunity have changed, and our knowledge has changed. So too must our guidance. That’s how science works,” Adams wrote on Twitter.
Vaccination numbers have fallen off in recent months, with little change among adults and little update among children, even after the vaccines were authorized and recommended for kids as young as 6 months old.
No new treatments have been authorized since December 2021, and a number of the treatments have been shown as less effective against newer strains of the virus that causes COVID-19, as have the vaccines and, in some cases, natural immunity.
Nearly half of the 20 papers and briefs cited by the CDC in support of the adjusted guidance were published in 2020 or 2021, while a number of others were released in early 2022.
No Mandates Rescinded Yet
Among the most significant changes in the guidance: a rollback of recommendations for asymptomatic testing for individuals exposed to COVID-19, loosening guidance related to tracing contacts of COVID-19 cases, and ending quarantine recommendations for people exposed to a positive case.
Some rules are stricter for high-risk settings such as nursing homes.
Masking is also recommended for 10 days for people who were exposed to COVID-19, including when a person is at home around others.
Bhattacharya, who co-authored the Great Barrington Declaration in 2020, a document that called for focused protection on the elderly and fewer restrictions on others, said that the guidance is closely aligned with the principles outlined in the declaration.
Based on the new guidance, the CDC should immediately rescind the COVID-19 vaccine mandate for foreign travelers entering The United States, a policy imposed in November 2021, the professor added.
The CDC’s webpage describing the mandate says that the agency “is reviewing this page to align with updated guidance.” The U.S. government has not adjusted or rescinded any of its vaccine mandates since the guidance was changed.
Trump lawyer refutes claims of an informant, says ‘I’ll believe it when I see it’
Former White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said that someone close to President Donald Trump may have tipped off the FBI before its raid Monday.
When asked by a CNN reporter Thursday about whether a person in “Trump’s orbit” tipped off the FBI and knew where documents at Mar-a-Lago were, Mulvaney said that person would have been “really close” to the former president.
“I didn’t even know there was a safe at Mar-a-Lago, and I was the chief of staff for 15 months. This would be someone who was handling things on day to day, who knew where documents were, so it would be somebody very close to the president,” he claimed.
“My guess is there is probably six or eight people who had that kind of information. I don’t know the people on the inside circle these days, so I can’t give any names of folks who come to mind, but your instinct, I think, is a good one. If you know where the safe is, and you know the documents are in 10 boxes in the basement, you’re pretty close to the president.”
No Confirmation of Informant
The Epoch Times has contacted several Trump spokespeople for comment. Neither Trump, his lawyers, nor members of his family have publicly commented on whether they believe an FBI informant tipped off the raid.
A lawyer for Trump, Christina Bobb, told Fox News on Thursday that left-wing legacy media outlets are trying to “sow division” with the former president’s camp about an informant. Bobb said that regarding an informant, “I’ll believe it when I see it.”
After serving as Trump’s chief of staff, Mulvaney was appointed to a position as special envoy to Northern Ireland after the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol breach. Mulvaney resigned from that position on Jan. 6 and has often criticized Trump.
In early 2022, Mulvaney was hired by CBS News as a political pundit and has been increasingly critical of the former president. Mulvaney in late June told the outlet to “count me among one of the Republicans who hopes [Trump is] not the nominee at this point.”
The former president confirmed the FBI Mar-a-Lago raid on Monday evening, accusing the Biden administration and Department of Justice of being politically motivated.
Since then, the FBI and Justice Department have issued no public comments on the search until Attorney General Merrick Garland’s press conference on Thursday afternoon. The attorney general confirmed that he “personally approved” the FBI raid and said his agency is filing a motion to unseal a warrant that was used to search the former president’s property.
“I personally approved the decision to seek a search warrant in this matter … the Department does not take such a decision lightly,” Garland said.
The School District of Philadelphia is requiring all students and staff to wear masks for the first 10 days of the upcoming school year, officials announced on Friday.
After that, everyone is allowed to go mask-optional, regardless of COVID-19 vaccination status, unless the community transmission level is high.
“For the first 10 days of the new school year—from Aug. 29 through Sept. 9—all students and staff will be required to wear masks while in school, regardless of the COVID-19 Community Level,” according to an announcement on the district’s website.
“This is an extra precaution for everyone’s health and well-being since increased end-of-summer social gatherings may heighten the risk of exposure to COVID-19,” the post states.
The district will follow guidelines set by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to determine whether masking will be mandatory on campus and on buses.
If the CDC finds the COVID-19 community transmission level is “high” in Philadelphia, masks will become mandatory again. When the level is “medium,” the health agency “strongly recommends” masking.
There will also be periods the district will re-implement mask requirements following extended breaks in the school year and holidays when “increased social gatherings may heighten the risk of exposure to COVID-19,” or in the event of a “classroom” or “school-wide outbreak.”
If a student, or staff member, is exposed to COVID-19 but doesn’t show any symptoms, they will be allowed to remain at school, but are required to wear a mask for 10 days.
If a student tests positive for COVID-19, they will need to isolate at home for at least five days. If symptom-free after five days, they can return to school but are required to “wear a high-quality (N95 or KN95) mask for an additional 5 days and must eat in a designated area,” the district’s announcement reads.
Students and staff attending the district’s “Pre-K Head Start” program are required to wear a mask regardless of transmission levels for the entire 2022–2023 school year, according to updated pandemic protocols (pdf) presented by Dr. Kendra McDowell, the district’s chief medical officer.
For those unable to wear a mask due to a disability, the school should be informed to assist the student with “accommodations around mitigation efforts,” which include rapid antigen testing every 48 hours for 10 days. If testing isn’t available, or possible, the student will be required to quarantine at home for 10 days.
McDowell and Tony Watlington Sr., the district’s superintendent, said at a news conference they’re “determined to keep students in school for in-person learning” following significant disruptions over the past three school years.
Dr. Marc Siegel, a professor of medicine at New York University Langone Medical Center, told Fox News that requiring masks for the first 10 days of the school year is “a sign of hypocrisy,” noting that the mandate offers “no public health value.”
“The whole thing is, mandates aren’t working at all,” Siegel declared. “So, you know, they just obscure the question about whether there’s any public health value in actually doing any of this. I mean, I think if you’re at high risk, there is. So if I was in an area with a lot of spread, and I was at high risk, I might choose to wear a mask indoors. But there’s no evidence that these mandates doing anything.”
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) said the FBI search of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home was “unbelievable” and “unprecedented,” while demanding that Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray face Congress so they can be grilled about the raid.
“This makes absolutely no sense,” Jordan said of the raid in Friday remarks to Fox News, while calling on Garland and Wray to testify before the House Judiciary Committee, on which Jordan serves as ranking member.
“Why not come talk to us and answer the questions that the American people have about this unprecedented event that took place on Monday night?” the Republican lawmaker said.
Jordan made a similar demand during an earlier appearance on Fox News’ The Ingraham Angle, where he called on the pair to testify before the Judiciary Committee “so we can ask them the questions that the American people deserve answers to.”
“This is unbelievable,” Jordan said. “We deserve answers now.”
With his demand for Garland’s and Wray’s testimony, Jordan joins other Republicans who have expressed outrage at what they say is score-settling by Trump’s political foes.
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) speaks at a news conference in Washington, on July 21, 2021. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
‘Assault’ and ‘Surprise Attack’?
The Justice Department and FBI have remained mostly quiet about the aim and probable cause behind the Mar-a-Lago raid and have declined to publicly comment to The Epoch Times and other news outlets.
Garland did tell reporters on Aug. 11, however, that he “personally approved the decision to seek a search warrant in this matter” and that the Justice Department “does not take such a decision lightly.”
Wray said a day earlier that he wouldn’t discuss any details of the FBI search of Trump’s property, saying it’s “not something I can talk about, and I’d refer you to the department.”
It was Trump who on Aug. 8 revealed the FBI had executed a search warrant at his Palm Beach home, with the former president portraying the raid as an act of political retribution.
“Such an assault could only take place in broken, Third-World Countries. Sadly, America has now become one of those Countries, corrupt at a level not seen before,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.
In a later statement, Trump called the search a “surprise attack, POLITICS, and all the while our Country is going to HELL!”
Former President Donald Trump prepares to speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference held at the Hilton Anatole in Dallas on Aug. 6, 2022. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
‘Illegally Possessed’ Documents and Records?
The raid appears to have been part of a probe into whether Trump unlawfully removed White House records as he left office, some of which investigators suspect were classified, according to the FBI search warrant made public on Aug. 12.
The warrant was issued in relation to a possible violation of federal laws, including the Espionage Act, with the warrant authorizing the seizure of documents and records at Mar-a-Lago that may have been “illegally possessed in violation of 18 U.S.C. § § 793, 2071, and 1519.”
One of the statutes, 18 U.S.C. § 793, is part of the Espionage Act of 1917, which prohibits a series of actions regarding sensitive government records, including gathering, transmitting, or losing information related to national defense.
Another, 18 U.S.C. § 2071, prohibits concealing, removing, mutilating, obliterating, or destroying government records.
Finally, 18 U.S.C. § 1519 prohibits altering or destroying records with the intent to obstruct or influence federal investigations.
The most serious of these carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, though the listing of the statutes in the warrant is not equivalent to a formal charge.
Trump has not been accused of any crimes in connection with the raid.
Local law enforcement officers in front of the home of former President Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., on Aug. 9, 2022. (Giorgio Viera/AFP via Getty Images)
‘Obvious Damage Control’
An inventory list attached to the unsealed warrant says FBI agents seized around 20 boxes from Trump’s residence, including materials marked classified, secret, and top secret.
Lawyers representing Trump have argued that he used his presidential authority to declassify the materials before he left office in 2021.
“The Biden administration is in obvious damage control after their botched raid where they seized the President’s picture books, a ‘hand-written note,’ and declassified documents,” Trump spokesman Taylor Budowich told Fox News on Friday.
“This raid of President Trump’s home was not just unprecedented, but unnecessary—and they are leaking lies and innuendos to try to explain away the weaponization of government against their dominant political opponent. This is outrageous,” Budowich added.
Trump on Friday said the documents the FBI seized were “all declassified” and denounced as a “hoax” anonymously sourced reporting from The Washington Post claiming some of the documents related to nuclear weapons.
Jack Phillips and Zachary Stieber contributed to this report.
Credit card giant will spend $3 billion on ‘BIPOC businesses in Canada’ and ‘Latinx’ events
American Express in an “Environmental, Social, and Governance” report released August 4 pledged to devote billions of dollars to left-wing social causes.
The credit card giant announced in its report that it would allocate $3 billion to a “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Action Plan,” in addition to the billion dollars the company already earmarked in October 2020. So far, American Express has spent funds on social justice nonprofits, “BIPOC businesses in Canada,” events that refer to Hispanic Americans as “Latinx,” and LGBT sites in New York City. The report also touts the company’s launch of “ByBlack,” a platform that checks whether a business is majority-owned by black people.
American Express has faced scrutiny for allegedly discriminating against white employees. Nick Williams, a former employee, alleges he was fired so that management could fill his position with a non-white worker. Williams has since filed a civil rights suit against American Express.
“Investors and customers should be wary of a company that spends billions on woke initiatives … and is willing to drop trusted vendors and employees based on race,” said a spokesman for Color Us United, a group that opposes “woke” policies at corporations.
The report comes as Republican attorneys general are pushing back against other financial giants’ spending on left-wing causes. Arizona’s Mark Brnovich and 18 other Republican attorneys general are putting pressure on BlackRock in response to its Environmental, Social, and Governance policies. According to a letter from the group, BlackRock’s spending on left-wing causes could represent a breach of its responsibility to stakeholders.
American Express in its report includes a chart that says “inclusion and diversity” is of more “importance to business” than data privacy and security, business ethics, financial resiliency, employee health and safety, stopping bribery, responsible investing, responsible tax practices, public policy, and customer satisfaction, among other things.
American Express beneficiaries include left-wing nonprofits such as the Hispanic Federation and the First Nations Development Institute. Aside from grant funding, the credit conglomerate will also consider race and sexual orientation when deciding suppliers.
The company also announced in the report that it will set aside $500 million for building “more resilient and equitable communities.”
In addition to its spending policies, American Express maintains internal diversity and equity policies. The company’s ESG report boasts that it has maintained “100 percent pay equity across genders” for two straight years. The report also says, however, that female employees’ median pay is 106.7 percent of male employees’ median pay. The company also promotes, hires, and retains women at higher rates than men.
American Express did not respond to the Washington Free Beacon‘s request for comment.
Salman Rushdie, the award-winning author whose 1988 novel The Satanic Verses earned him a fatwa from Iran, was attacked on stage Friday just before beginning a lecture in New York.
Rushdie was apparently stabbed in the neck by a man who rushed the stage as the author took the podium at the Chautauqua Institution in Western New York, the Associated Press reports. The man stabbed Rushdie 10 to 15 times before he was detained. Rushdie fell to the ground and was airlifted to a hospital, where his condition is uknown.
The attack comes more than 30 years after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa calling on “all brave Muslims of the world” to kill Rushdie, as well as his authors and publishers, “without delay.” Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, slammed The Satanic Verses as “against Islam, the Prophet of Islam, and the Qu’ran,” and noted that Rushdie’s assassination was necessary to ensure “no one will dare insult the sacred beliefs of Muslims henceforth.”
Khomeini’s fatwa claims “whoever is killed in this cause will be a martyr.” Rushdie’s head also carries a $3 million bounty in Iran.
The Satanic Verses is a sprawling work that consists in part of a fictionalized narrative of the founding of Islam by the Prophet Mohammad. In the book, Rushdie refers to Mohammad as “Mahound,” reportedly a derogatory term for the prophet used by Medieval Christians. The book’s title comes from a scene in which Mahound rejects his earlier revelation permitting polytheistic worship as the work of the Devil.
Some Muslims objected to The Satanic Verses before Khomeini’s fatwa. Several countries banned the book, and critics held book burnings around the world.
Rushdie was defiant when asked about the backlash to The Satanic Verses in a 1989 television interview.
“Frankly I wish I had written a more critical book,” the author said, adding that “religious leaders who are able to behave like this, and then say this is a religion which must be above any kind of whisper of criticism, that doesn’t add up.”
Khomeini’s February 1989 fatwa led to a barrage of death threats and drove Rushdie into hiding under British government protection. The author reentered public life nine years later, and went on to marry model and Top Chef host Padma Lakshmi.
More than a third of Americans have drawn on their savings accounts to handle rising prices, taking out hundreds of dollars on average, according to a recent survey by New York Life Insurance Company.
Since January, 36 percent of Americans have drawn an average of $617 from their savings to pay their bills, the company found. Nearly 90 percent of those surveyed expressed anxiety that a recession is approaching, and roughly a third reported being “uncertain” or “anxious” about their personal finances. Respondents cited monthly bills, health care costs, grocery prices, and gas prices as their areas of greatest financial concern.
Voters overwhelmingly blame Joe Biden for the state of the economy. Sixty-four percent of Americans, including 53 percent of Democrats, believe the president’s policy decisions are to blame for soaring costs. While White House officials boasted this week about slowing inflation, prices are still up 8.5 percent from last year, with that number even higher in several key swing states.
Americans are not replenishing their savings accounts as they drain them. The personal savings rate, or the proportion of income people don’t spend or lose to taxes, more than halved between July 2021 and June 2022, falling from 10.5 percent to 5.1 percent.
To make up for tightening purse strings, Americans are increasingly turning to debt. Americans’ collective credit card debt jumped to $890 billion last quarter, marking the largest yearly increase in two decades. The number of credit cards also hit an all-time high in the second quarter, with more than 500 million in circulation.
Pennsylvania lieutenant governor John Fetterman’s (D.) campaign for Senate is tapping a far-left activist who has called allowing children to undergo surgical gender transitions a matter of “human rights.”
The Fetterman campaign launched Real Doctors Against Oz Wednesday, an initiative meant to discredit Mehmet Oz, the Republican nominee for Senate. Val Arkoosh is among the activists taking shots at Oz. Arkoosh, a failed Senate candidate, has a history of pushing gender theory. When she was still a candidate for Senate, Arkoosh sent out an email calling a parent’s right to refuse “gender affirming care” for their children a “gross violation of both human rights and the relationship between a patient and their doctor.” She also falsely claims that it’s legal to discriminate against transgender individuals in employment.
Sixty percent of Americans believe that a person cannot change their gender and a plurality of Americans oppose giving hormone blockers to children. Democratic opposition to parental rights has not worked out well for the party in past elections. Many pundits attribute Virginia governor Glenn Youngkin’s (R.) upset victory in November 2021 to his focus on expanding parental rights.
Real Doctors Against Oz are criticizing Oz for having ties to the pharmaceutical industry, being pro-life, and promoting supplements during his time as a television host. Oz, meanwhile, is attacking Fetterman for avoiding Pennsylvania voters by running a “John Fetterman Basement Tracker” cataloging the amount of time since his last public event.
Despite the implication of the name of Fetterman’s group, Oz is a real doctor. He graduated from an Ivy League medical school and was later a professor of surgery at Columbia University, where he won a research award.
WARNING: Disturbing content. Viewer discretion is advised.
The Oxford English dictionary defines meme as “a humorous image, video, piece of text, etc., that is copied (often with slight variations) and spread rapidly by internet users.” Depending on how rotten your brain is from prolonged exposure to social media, you may or may not be aware that we are in the midst of a “meme war” that will ultimately determine the fate of American democracy.
One of the most significant new developments in this raging conflict is the emergence of the “Dark Brandon” meme, which portrays Joe Biden as a laser-eyed Machiavellian overlord skilled in the art of four-dimensional political chess. It also seeks to expropriate the “Brandon” moniker from Biden’s critics, who embraced the phrase “Let’s Go, Brandon!” in 2021 after a filthy NASCAR journalist falsely claimed that fans at Talladega were chanting in support of winning driver Brandon Brown. (Fact Check: They were chanting, “F— Joe Biden!”)
In any event, the Washington Free Beacon has exclusively obtained a number of avant-garde “Dark Brandon” memes created with the help of cutting edge artificial intelligence technology. Bear in mind: The mainstream media does not want you, the American people, to see these humorous images. Enjoy!
Failed university pageant contestant now running against winner of Miss Ohio pageant
Emilia Sykes, an Ohio state legislator now running for U.S. Congress, filed a lawsuit against Tuskegee University after the historically black institution mistakenly honored her as Miss Tuskegee University in 2006 and revoked her title. Tuskegee University awarded Sykes the victory because her top competitor was mistakenly docked points for a rules violation. The school yanked her crown away when officials realized they had erred in scoring the contest. In reality, Sykes had placed third in the popular vote but was ultimately given second place.
A Democratic congressional candidate sued her college after she lost a hotly contested university beauty pageant, according to court records reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon.
Sykes didn’t handle the defeat with grace, according to legal filings. Sykes and her parents filed a lawsuit against school officials, arguing that she was owed at least $75,000 for the psychological stress caused by the embarrassment of losing her crown.
“Sykes has been subjected to extreme mental and physical anguish, is unable to respond to persons who believe she is Miss Tuskegee University, and has experienced public embarrassment and personal psychological distress,” her lawyers wrote in the lawsuit, which was quickly dismissed by a federal judge.
The act of desperation by Sykes could impact her standing with voters, especially as she faces off against an actual beauty queen—the Republican nominee in the district is 2014’s Miss Ohio pageant winner, Madison Gesiotto Gilbert. The lawsuit also offers more evidence to the criticism that Sykes inherited her political career from her parents, who have both been members of the Ohio state legislature and joined Sykes in the lawsuit. The two claimed that their daughter’s pageant humiliation injured their political ambitions.
The question of who received the highest competition score was never disputed. Rather, Sykes claimed that the rightful winner, Calida Joy McCampbell, should have her crown revoked because she spoke over her allotted time during a speech, according to an article in the Tuskegee News from the time. University officials concluded upon review that McCampbell did not exceed her time limit.
That led Sykes and her parents to sue the school, arguing that Tuskegee University officials denied her “due process” when they revoked her title. Sykes and her family claimed the incident resulted in tens of thousands of dollars in damages stemming from the fact that her parents had altered “their busy schedules to be with their daughter” and “expended funds to increase her wardrobe.”
The experience of losing the pageant crown, Sykes and her parents claimed in court filings, resulted in “mental and physical anguish.” Some of that “anguish” was due to the fact, according to Sykes and her parents, that Sykes decided not to “remain on the cheerleading squad” following her loss of the beauty pageant crown.
Her parents also complained in the lawsuit that they had to cancel political fundraisers because of her Miss Tuskegee responsibilities, and that she had already received “gifts or congratulations from the Girls Scouts of America…and U.S. Senator Barak [sic] Obama.” The filing points to myriad local news coverage of Sykes winning the pageant to argue that it was simply too late to take the honor away.
The court disagreed—the lawsuit was dismissed by U.S. district judge Myron Thompson, a Tuskegee native put on the federal court by President Jimmy Carter in 1980. The judge said Sykes and her family were asking the court “to award the title of Miss Tuskegee to [Sykes] despite the fact that she scored lower than another contestant.”
It is unclear when Sykes left the university, but she ultimately graduated from Kent State University back in her home state of Ohio, according to her official biography, on which Tuskegee University is not mentioned.
Sykes did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesman for Gesiotto Gilbert declined to comment.
The lawsuit is not the only time Sykes has relied on her parents for help. Her father, state senator Vernon Sykes (D., Ohio), co-chairs the Ohio Redistricting Commission, the state body in charge of creating the state’s congressional map. Vernon Sykes introduced two proposed congressional maps earlier that would have given his daughter an advantage in her race. Both those maps were struck down by Ohio courts.
Ohio’s 13th district is currently occupied by Rep. Tim Ryan (D., Ohio), who vacated his seat to run for Senate. A May survey of voters in the district found Gesiotto Gilbert, who was an Ohio State University student when she won Miss Ohio in 2014, leading the race by nine points.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) revised its COVID-19 guidance on Aug. 11, stating that the United States should move away from quarantines and social distancing and focus on treating severe disease caused by the virus.
New guidelines from the federal agency no longer recommend staying at least six feet away from other people to reduce exposure. The six-foot social distancing recommendation had been intact since early 2020, although some public health officials have raised questions about whether the measure is actually effective.
In another major change, the agency stated that it’s no longer recommending unvaccinated people to quarantine after exposure. Unvaccinated people who have been in close contact with an infected person aren’t advised to go through a five-day quarantine period if they haven’t tested positive or shown symptoms, according to the revised guidelines.
“CDC’s COVID-19 prevention recommendations no longer differentiate based on a person’s vaccination status because breakthrough infections occur, though they are generally mild, and persons who have had COVID-19 but are not vaccinated have some degree of protection against severe illness from their previous infection,” the CDC stated.
Regardless of vaccination status, according to the CDC, “you should isolate from others when you have COVID-19” or are “sick and suspect that you have COVID-19 but do not yet have test results.” Previously, the CDC said fully vaccinated people who were exposed could skip the quarantine period.
“The current conditions of this pandemic are very different from those of the last two years,” Greta Massetti, a senior epidemiologist with the CDC, told media outlets on on Aug. 11. “High levels of population immunity due to vaccination and previous infection and the many available tools to protect the general population and protect people at higher risk allow us to focus on protecting people from serious illness from COVID.”
Testing to screen for COVID-19 won’t be recommended by the CDC in most places for individuals who don’t have COVID-19 symptoms, according to the new guidelines. Contact tracing should be relegated to hospitals and high-risk situations, such as nursing homes, the agency stated, while it placed less emphasis on screening for COVID-19 other than places such as prisons and nursing homes.
The CDC is now recommending that people “wear a high-quality mask for 10 days and get tested on day five” after exposure to the virus regardless of vaccination or prior infection. If one is sick, they should stay away from individuals such as elderly people or those who are also likely to develop severe symptoms from the virus
“When considering whether and where to implement screening testing of asymptomatic people with no known exposure, public health officials might consider prioritizing high-risk congregate settings, such as long-term care facilities, homeless shelters, and correctional facilities, and workplace settings that include congregate housing with limited access to medical care,” the CDC wrote in its report explaining the changes.
Former President Donald Trump on Friday said that the allegedly classified materials the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) sought in the agency’s raid of his Mar-a-Lago resort were “all declassified.”
“Number one, it was all declassified,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday, shortly before the court unsealed the search warrant the FBI used for its Aug. 8 raid of his Florida resort.
Trump’s comments directly contradict legacy media news reports following the raid that the documents were top-secret, with The Washington Post citing anonymous sources who claimed that the documents contained information about nuclear weapons. Trump panned the claim, calling it a “Hoax.”
“Nuclear weapons issue is a Hoax, just like Russia, Russia, Russia was a Hoax, two Impeachments were a Hoax, the Mueller investigation was a Hoax, and much more,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Friday morning.
The nature of the document is important, for it determines whether the FBI’s raid is justified by a cause heavy enough to outweigh the political ramifications of such an action conducted in the home of a former U.S. president.
The Search Warrant
Trump’s comments came shortly before Bruce Reinhard, the magistrate judge who approved the search warrant, unsealed the search warrant following requests from both the Department of Justice and Trump.
While the warrant did not pinpoint what probable cause the FBI established to conduct the raid, it showed the items that federal agents took from the former president’s resort, which included “Various classified/TS/SCI documents,” binders of photos, a “Grant of Clemency” to Roger Stone, a “Confidential Document,” “Miscellaneous Secret Documents,” and “Miscellaneous Top Secret Documents.”
The question becomes whether Trump, by simply possessing any of these documents, would have violated any federal codes listed in the search warrant, which the federal agents pursued:
18 USC 2071: Concealment, removal, or mutilation (of public records)
18 USC 793: Gathering, transmitting, or losing defense information
18 USC 1519: Destruction, alteration, or falsification of records in Federal investigations and bankruptcy
Presidential Declassification Powers
According to Mike Davis, President of the Article III Project and a former law clerk under Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, the president of the United States can declassify records by simply leaving the White House with them.
“The President of the United States has both the constitutional (and statutory) power to declassify anything he wants,” Davis wrote on Twitter on Aug. 11. “If President Trump left the White House with classified records, they are declassified by his actions.”
“As discussed, the Office of Former President Trump—like every other former president’s federal office—is equipped and secure enough to handle these declassified records,” Davis added. “This is a routine dispute with bureaucrats at the National Archives whether these are presidential records.”
Davis cited Department of Navy v. Egan (ruling), a 1988 Supreme Court decision that Davis says shows the president possesses the constitutional power to “classify and declassify” records “regardless of any statute passed by Congress.”
“The President, after all, is the ‘Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States,’” The Supreme Court ruled at the time. “His authority to classify and control access to information bearing on national security and to determine whether an individual is sufficiently trustworthy to occupy a position in the Executive Branch that will give that person access to such information flows primarily from this constitutional investment of power in the President and exists quite apart from any explicit congressional grant.”
“When President Trump had the records sent to Mar-a-Lago, they were declassified,” Davis explained. “Former presidents don’t have this power. But Trump did this as the president.”
Trump: It’s a Political ‘Witch Hunt’
Trump and his allies have characterized the raid as a “witch hunt” driven by political motives, especially considering no former presidents had been prosecuted for the reason that the FBI allegedly told sources close to Trump that motivated the raid; namely, Trump was nominally required by the Presidential Records Act to return the materials to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) upon the conclusion of his term, but allegedly didn’t.
“NARA’s singling out of President Trump’s handling of official records stands starkly in contrast to the way NARA has treated far clearer violations committed by politicians and officials who are not Republicans,” 20 Republicans, including numerous Committee ranking members, wrote in an Aug. 10 letter addressed to U.S. Acting Archivist Debra Wall, first published by Politico. The lawmakers cited reports that point to recent U.S. administrations’ violations of the Presidential Records Act, listing Bill Clinton as an example.
“The seeming weaponization of the federal government against [Joe] Biden’s political rivals cannot go unchecked, and if NARA is working to further these efforts, it will be only the latest agency to lose its credibility in the eyes of the American people under the Biden Administration,” the Republican lawmakers wrote.
Meanwhile, Trump revealed earlier this week that the FBI had recently been given a tour of where the records were stored, with the FBI only suggesting that Trump further secure the storage space.
“In early June, the DOJ and FBI asked my legal representatives to put an extra lock on the door leading to the place where boxes were stored in Mar-a-Lago – We agreed,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Aug. 10.
“They were shown the secured area, and the boxes themselves,” Trump added. “Then on Monday, without notification or warning, an army of agents broke into Mar-a-Lago, went to the same storage area, and ripped open the lock that they had asked to be installed. A surprise attack, POLITICS, and all the while our Country is going to HELL!”
Terrorists in prison can pray to Allah but upright citizens cannot pray to God? WTF? [US Patriot]
This week, First Liberty filed an appeal at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit on behalf of our clients, Cambridge Christian School (CCS). The case involves two private Christian schools that competed for a state championship in 2015. In a brazen attack on religious freedom, the Florida High School Athletic Association prohibited them from using the city-owned microphone to offer a prayer before kickoff.
The game took place at Orlando’s Camping World Stadium, more commonly known as the Citrus Bowl. This is the same venue where evangelist Billy Graham twice (in 1969 and 1983) preached and shared the Gospel message with thousands in attendance. In another twist of irony, two Christian schools played a championship game at this stadium in 2012 and were allowed to pray through the loudspeakers.
A federal district court ruled in favor of the athletic association earlier this year. The judge ruled that the prayer might be viewed as an endorsement of religion since the students would be praying on government property:
“The Court concludes that the First Amendment does not apply because the speech at issue is government speech, but even if some portion of the speech is considered private speech, the Court finds no constitutional violation occurred.”
Even more shocking, the judge questioned the sincerity of CCS’s religious beliefs:
“The Court concludes that communal pregame prayer over the PA system is a preference of CCS’s, not a deeply rooted tradition that rises to the level of a sincerely held belief.”
This is the same judge who ruled against the school in 2017. We appealed that decision. In 2019, a unanimous panel at the 11th Circuit sent the case back for reconsideration, stating the “the district court was too quick to dismiss all of Cambridge Christian’s claims out of hand.”
As we await a response to the most recent request, there are several reasons to be hopeful for a victory.
In First Liberty’s landmark victory for Coach Joe Kennedy, the U.S. Supreme Court held that private speech, even if occurring on government property, is doubly protected by the Free Exercise and Free Speech clauses of the First Amendment.
That means government cannot censor private religious expression. The decision correctly points out “the Constitution neither mandates nor tolerates that kind of discrimination.” This wasn’t just a win for one coach, however. The ruling made it clear: coaches, teachers, students and employees in public schools across the country are free to live out and express their faith.
In addition to the Kennedy decision, the Court issued a unanimous ruling in Shurtleff v. Boston, holding that flying a religious flag outside a government building with government consent was not government endorsement of religion. When government opens a public forum, it cannot say every viewpoint is acceptable except for a religious one. That’s unconstitutional.
The 11th Circuit also held in Chandler v. Siegelman that the First Amendment “does not require the elimination of private speech endorsing religion in public places,” nor does it “permit the state to confine religious speech to whispers or banish it to broom closets. If it did, the exercise of one’s religion would not be free at all.”
What’s more, federal law protects students’ right to engage in religious practices—a protection that extends to important events such as graduation ceremonies or athletic competitions.
The outcome of CCS’s case is vitally important. It could impact the freedoms and rights of students and religious schools across the country. If state officials can discriminate against two private, Christian schools and prevent them from praying in public, it won’t be long before they pick and choose other types of speech to censor.
First Liberty needs your support to fight for Cambridge Christian in federal appeals court. After losing their religious freedom, our clients need a win—a victory that will affirm it’s perfectly legal for two private, religious schools to open their football games with a prayer. Give today and help us move the chains closer to victory!
Billionaire tech mogul Elon Musk posted an ironic message on Twitter mocking Democrats’ efforts to give the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) an $80 billion cash injection amid swirling fears the money might be used to hire legions of tax auditors that would target middle-income Americans with audits.
“When the country that revolted over taxes hires 87,000 new IRS agents,” reads the message in Musk’s meme, which was placed above a photo of a laughing British Army officer from a movie.
“Fate 🖤 Irony,” reads Musk’s caption, with the message apparently rooted in the idea that boosting funding for tax authorities—part of which will be used for enforcement—runs afoul of principles that underpinned America’s founding, like freedom from government intrusion.
Despite repeated insistence by Biden administration officials that the Inflation Reduction Act’s funding boost for the IRS would not be used to increase audit rates among American households making under $400,000 per year, critics of the bill have warned that exactly that might happen.
Tax Crackdown on Middle America?
Republicans have speculated that the money would be used to hire tens of thousands of IRS agents while arguing that their enforcement efforts would target ordinary Americans.
“Democrats in Washington plan to hire an army of 87,000 IRS agents so they can audit more Americans like you. That’s more than the entire population of Joe Biden’s hometown of Scranton,” House Minority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said in an Aug. 11 statement, which comes as Democrats in the House get ready to give their final seal of approval to the big spending measure, with an estimated price tag of roughly $700 billion.
While the bill itself makes no mention of specific hiring targets, a Treasury Department report from May 2021 (pdf) estimated that an investment roughly the size of the one in the Inflation Reduction Act would enable the IRS to hire around 87,000 employees across a range of positions by 2031.
The 87,000 figure was also cited by Grover Norquist, president of the Americans for Tax Reform, in a recent interview on Fox News.
“They want to take $80 billion from taxpayers, $80 billion and hire 87,000 more bureaucrats in the IRS. They’re going after small businesses. The IRS itself says they’re going to dramatically increase how they go after independent contractors and small businesses, not General Motors, smaller businesses. That’s where they think they’re going to make their money,” he told the outlet.
No Targeting of Middle-Income Americans, Democrats Say
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen insists Republican claims that tax auditors will target middle-income Americans are false and politically motivated.
She said in an Aug. 10 letter to IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig that the “much-needed” funding would be used to modernize outdated technological infrastructure, improve taxpayer service, and enforce tax laws against high-earners and big corporations that don’t pay what they owe in taxes.
Yellen vowed that audit rates wouldn’t increase for households making less than $400,000 per year.
“Specifically, I direct that any additional resources—including any new personnel or auditors that are hired—shall not be used to increase the share of small business or households below the $400,000 threshold that are audited relative to historical levels,” Yellen said.
“This means that, contrary to the misinformation from opponents of this legislation, small business or households earning $400,000 per year or less will not see an increase in the chances that they are audited,” she added. (Then why did my friend with a 30K annual salary have to file a W9 because he sold just over $600 of gifts on eBay to make ends meet? How many people making over $400K a year would even bother to sell anything on eBay? Give me a break!! [US Patriot])
The IRS chief, too, has insisted that the tax agency would “absolutely not” be increasing audit scrutiny on small businesses or middle-income Americans (Too late. See above [US Patriot]), according to a letter to members of the Senate on Aug. 4 (pdf).
Democrats have argued that the funding is needed to crack down on wealthy tax dodgers.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the funding boost to the IRS is expected to bring in $203.7 billion in revenue from 2022 to 2031.
Christina Bobb, an attorney for former President Donald Trump, dismissed a Washington Post report alleging that the FBI was looking for records including classified documents related to nuclear weapons during its raid of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property on Aug. 8.
Bobb alleged the report, which cited unnamed people familiar with the FBI investigation, was an attempt by the Democrats to cause fear.
“This is what the Democrats do. They don’t have any good reason for doing what they did. The pathetic presser that Merrick Garland held for three minutes was insufficient, so they had to create fear,” Bobb told Fox News on Aug. 11.
“Normally, they should come out with exactly what happened, and why, and explain themselves and if it was a good reason, they would have solid ground,” Bobb continued. “They are not on solid ground.”
“So they had to come up with something that would potentially terrify the American public into freely giving up their constitutional freedoms,” Bobb added.
Attorney General Merrick Garland delivers a statement at the Department of Justice in Washington on Aug. 11, 2022. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
On Thursday, Attorney General Merrick Garland told reporters in a brief statement how he “personally approved” the FBI raid against Trump’s resort in Florida.
“I personally approved the decision to seek a search warrant in this matter,” Garland said. “The Department does not take such a decision lightly.”
Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee also took notice of the close timing between Garland’s press appearance and the Washington Post’s publication of the report.
“So hours after Merrick Garland says that DOJ [Department of Justice] only speaks through its filings in court, they go out and leak this story to the Washington Post,” House GOPs on the Judiciary Committee wrote on Twitter.
Bobb said it would be a different scenario if the United States were on the brink of war.
“If we are on the verge of nuclear war, giving up the nuclear codes, maybe it’s acceptable that they violated the president’s constitutional rights,” she said. “It was not acceptable, and they’re trying to come up with reasons to make it sound appropriate and make it sound OK, because they don’t actually have a good reason for doing what they did.
Garland also told reporters on Thursday that the DOJ has asked a federal court to unseal the search warrant the FBI obtained and executed on Trump’s property. The warrant was signed off by U.S. Magistrate Judge Bruce Reinhart, a judge at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
Secret Service personnel are seen in front of the home of former President Donald Trump at Mar-A-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla. on Aug. 8, 2022. The FBI raided the home reportedly to retrieve classified White House documents. (Eva Marie Uzcategui/Getty Images)
Many Republican lawmakers have since criticized Garland for failing to tell the public more information on the FBI raid.
“AG Garland spent four minutes reading an empty and inconsequential statement, and then refused to take questions,” Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) wrote on Twitter. “We STILL don’t know the reason for the raid, the nature and extent of probable cause, and why the DOJ felt it necessary to take such extreme and intrusive measures.”
“AG Merrick Garland gave a useless statement on the Mar-a-Lago raid that included zero useful information, then refused to take questions,” Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) wrote on Twitter. “The House will be back in Washington tomorrow, he should come over and answer some real questions. And bring FBI Director Wray with him.”
House lawmakers are scheduled to reconvene briefly on Aug. 12 from summer recess.
Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee took exception to one of Garland’s comments, when he said the Justice Department applies the law “evenly without fear or favor.”
“Think Merrick Garland will apply the same standards to Hunter Biden?” the Republicans wrote. “Nope.”
Judicial Watch is suing the U.S. Department of Justice in federal court to release records ordered declassified and released by President Trump the day before he left office.
Despite Trump’s order, Justice Department officials are not releasing the records.
The ordered-declassified records relate to “Crossfire Hurricane,” a Justice Department operation against President Trump, his 2016 presidential campaign and other Trump associates that falsely accused the Trump campaign of “colluding” with Russian government agents to influence the results of the 2016 presidential election. (RELATED: Leading Republicans Reveal What Durham’s Up Against)
“The Obama-Biden Administration and Deep State spying on Trump and his associates is the worst government corruption scandal in American history,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “And to make matters worse, the Biden DOJ simply refuses to release smoking gun documents about this corruption that the American people have an absolute right to see!”
JW notes a “Just the News report details that the documents include ‘transcripts of intercepts made by the FBI of Trump aides, a declassified copy of the final FISA warrant approved by an intelligence court, and the tasking orders and debriefings of the two main confidential human sources, Christopher Steele and Stefan Halper, the bureau used to investigate whether Trump had colluded with Russia to steal the 2016 election.’”
The lawsuit was filed after the DOJ failed to respond to a February 17, 2022, FOIA request for:
All records regarding the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation that were provided to the White House by the Department of Justice on or about December 30, 2020. For purposes of clarification, the records sought are those described in a January 19, 2021 Presidential Memorandum (see https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/presidential-actions/memorandum-declassification-certain-materials-related-fbis-crossfire-hurricane-investigation/ ).
All records of communication between any official or employee of the Department of Justice and any official or employee of any other branch, department, agency, or office of the federal government regarding the declassification and release of the records described in part one of this request.
Trump’s memo authorized the declassification and release of the records:
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, I hereby direct the following:
Section 1. Declassification and Release. At my request, on December 30, 2020, the Department of Justice provided the White House with a binder of materials related to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation. Portions of the documents in the binder have remained classified and have not been released to the Congress or the public. I requested the documents so that a declassification review could be performed and so I could determine to what extent materials in the binder should be released in unclassified form.
I determined that the materials in that binder should be declassified to the maximum extent possible. In response, and as part of the iterative process of the declassification review, under a cover letter dated January 17, 2021, the Federal Bureau of Investigation noted its continuing objection to any further declassification of the materials in the binder and also, on the basis of a review that included Intelligence Community equities, identified the passages that it believed it was most crucial to keep from public disclosure. I have determined to accept the redactions proposed for continued classification by the FBI in that January 17 submission.
I hereby declassify the remaining materials in the binder. This is my final determination under the declassification review and I have directed the Attorney General to implement the redactions proposed in the FBI’s January 17 submission and return to the White House an appropriately redacted copy.
My decision to declassify materials within the binder is subject to the limits identified above and does not extend to materials that must be protected from disclosure pursuant to orders of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and does not require the disclosure of certain personally identifiable information or any other materials that must be protected from disclosure under applicable law. Accordingly, at my direction, the Attorney General has conducted an appropriate review to ensure that materials provided in the binder may be disclosed by the White House in accordance with applicable law.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
Law professors warned that proposal would encourage illegal race discrimination
The American Bar Association on Monday axed a proposal to require law schools to “diversify” their student bodies after more than a year of warnings from law professors that the plan would force schools to violate federal law.
The proposal, first released in May 2021, would have required law schools to submit annual progress reports on minority enrollment to the American Bar Association. Law schools that failed to boost the enrollment of “underrepresented groups” would have been at risk of losing their accreditation.
The proposal underwent three rounds of revisions before finally being withdrawn by the association’s house of delegates, which did not rule out revisiting the proposal at a later date. An early draft had warned that U.S. anti-discrimination laws were “not a justification” for “non-compliance” with the diversity standard, a line that drew criticism from many in the legal community, including from elite universities.
Ten Yale Law School professors said in a public comment filed in June 2021 that the proposal “instructs schools to risk violating state or federal law in order to retain certification.” As late as February 2022, law professors were raising “legal concerns” about the “use of racial balancing or quotas,” according to a memo from the bar association summarizing the feedback it received.
The decision to withdraw the proposal comes as the Supreme Court is gearing up for oral arguments in a landmark affirmative action case, Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, that could outlaw racial preferences throughout higher education. It also comes as something of a surprise given the association’s relentless focus on diversity.
The association, which accredits almost every law school in the United States, has made noise about eliminating the LSAT, a test some say disadvantages minority applicants. And in February, it voted to require law schools to educate students “on bias, cross-cultural competency, and racism,” over the objections from law professors who said the requirement would threaten academic freedom.
The curricular mandate was nonetheless popular among law school administrators, with 150 deans calling on the American Bar Association to implement it. There has been much less administrative agitation for rules about minority enrollment, which law schools have long struggled to boost.
There has also been little consensus on what sort of diversity the American Bar Association should prioritize. Some comments on the now-scrapped proposal said it gave “priority to racial and ethnic diversity at the expense of LGBTQ+ and disability diversity,” according to the February memo, creating a “two-tiered DEI system.” Others attacked “the phrase ‘underrepresented groups,’” which “may exclude individuals of groups that have been limited by a history of discrimination.”
The American Bar Association did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
John Grande says Connecticut union retaliated against him for refusing to join labor group
A Connecticut gym teacher says his school threatened to fire him after he criticized its mandatory diversity training on “exploring privilege.” But when he filed a grievance against the school, the local teachers’ union dismissed the complaint without explanation.
John Grande filed the grievance against Hartford Public Schools for what he called targeted discipline—including threats of termination and further “Sensitivity Awareness” training—but the American Federation of Teachers Local 1018, which has jurisdiction over this arbitration process for teachers, rejected his plea, his attorney told the Washington Free Beacon. Grande, who has been a gym teacher for 30 years, said the union retaliated against him for refusing to join the labor group.
“Our employee handbook explicitly states that no employee of the Hartford public school system will be disciplined for exercising their right to free speech,” Grande told the Free Beacon. “When asked for my reaction to the training, I expressed my disagreement and was punished for doing so.”
Neither AFT Local 1018 nor the Hartford Board of Education responded to requests for comment.
Grande’s complaint comes as national teachers’ unions embrace race-based lesson plans and training. AFT president Randi Weingarten said last year that K-12 schools do not teach critical race theory but also said her union supports teachers who face backlash for race-based lessons. The National Education Association, meanwhile, pledged its support for schools that teach critical race theory but later removed the statement from its website following backlash.
The school district’s mandatory presentation on privilege, obtained by the Free Beacon, states that “it is critical for everyone to reflect on privilege in this way in order to use our individual and collective privilege(s) for equity and social justice.” The training included an activity for teachers to split into groups and discuss their privilege in eight categories: class, ability, race, gender/sex, sexuality, nationality/citizenship, religion, and “other.”
“If a police car pulls me over, I can be sure I haven’t been singled out because of my race,” one example of privilege read.
“I do not fear increased mortality from COVID-19 or standard medical procedures such as giving birth,” another stated.
Grande said he expressed criticism about the training when the school district asked for feedback. Two of Grande’s coworkers reported the gym teacher to the school district after he stated his frustrations about the training seminar.
Frank Ricci, a labor fellow at the Yankee Institute and a former union president of the New Haven Fire Department, said it appears the teachers’ union and school district coordinated to target Grande for his beliefs.
“The Hartford School System, aided and abetted by the teachers’ union, has failed our kids,” Ricci told the Free Beacon. “Instead of focusing on their dismal test scores or bridging the achievement gap, they are focusing on ‘privilege,’ which is nothing more than a distraction for their failed education policies.”
Grande in July filed a complaint at the Connecticut State Board of Labor Relations against AFT Local 1018 over its refusal to take up his grievance against the school. The union has complete control over arbitration of grievances and can reject specific cases. The Fairness Center, a nonprofit law firm that represents Grande at the state labor board, argued the union must represent all teachers equally.
“Officials are refusing to represent him simply because he isn’t a member,” Nathan McGrath, president of the Fairness Center, told the Free Beacon. “John is just asking the union to do its job so he can continue doing his.”
AFT and its PAC have spent a combined$13 million on the 2022 midterm election—all of which went to liberal causes and Democratic candidates.
Students can assume different pronouns, have access to other bathrooms, and change their name without parental involvement
Public schools nationwide are telling students they can assume different pronouns, have access to another sex’s bathroom, and change their name without letting their parents know, a violation of federal law legal experts tell the Washington Free Beacon.
Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia bar teachers from “outing” transgender students to parents, as do Montgomery County Public Schools in Maryland. These increasingly common policies are meant to guard students against parents who, according to Fairfax County schools, “may not yet be supportive of their child’s transition.” But according to Vernadette Broyles, they also violate parents’ right to privacy as codified in the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) of 1974.
“Privacy rights are held by the parents for the child, not by the child against their parents,” Broyles, president and founder of the Child and Parental Rights Campaign, told the Free Beacon. Broyles says Fairfax and Montgomery school officials are “attempting to usurp parental authority,” which is protected by the 14th Amendment. She called the schools’ policies “intentional obfuscation, driving a wedge between children and parents at a time when children need their parents most.” Three other attorneys involved in similar cases cited the same violations of the Constitution and federal law in support of parents’ rights.
The news comes as parents nationwide are filing lawsuits against school districts over the issue. Parents Defending Education, a conservative grassroots group, announced last week it was suing an Iowa school district for refusing to disclose a child’s transgender status without their permission. The district keeps “temporary” files for students’ gender support plans, allowing them to skirt official records requests from parents. Similarly, the Maryland and Virginia school districts instruct their employees to refrain from mentioning a child’s chosen gender identity on school forms or in emails where it could become public.
These policies are designed to conceal when a student begins to identify as a different gender without necessarily changing their physical appearance. To support “social transitions,” teachers are instructed to use a student’s chosen gender pronouns and treat them like their assumed gender, and in some cases giving students access to bathrooms “that correspond with their gender identity.”
Parents Defending Education president Nicole Neily told the Free Beacon the Iowa policy “intentionally evades federal law by placing students’ gender information in a temporary file—information that, if it were included in a child’s permanent file, would be accessible to parents through FERPA.”
The Montgomery County Board of Education is already embroiled in a lawsuit filed in 2019 over the policy. Attorneys for the plaintiffs argued in federal court last year that the policy is unconstitutional and violates FERPA, as well as state law. But the policy’s defenders claim that the same federal law protects a student’s right to privacy, even if the student is a minor.
LeRoy Rooker, a former director for the Education Department’s Family Policy Compliance Office, toldBethesda Magazine in 2021 that claim is false.
“There’s absolutely nothing in FERPA that would say they would violate FERPA by disclosing that to parents,” Rooker said. “The violation would be in not disclosing it if the parents request it.”
Some states have laws that ostensibly guard against such policies. A Virginia bill passed in 2013 protects parents’ rights to raise and educate their children. Fourteen other states have passed legislation along the same lines. In April, two Massachusetts parents sued their school district for violating federal and state law by hiding their children’s gender identity at school.
Parents say those laws haven’t been enough to protect children. Jeff Hoffman, a father of three Fairfax students and chairman of the Fairfax Parents First Coalition, wants the Virginia law to be written into school board policies statewide. Barring that, he called for parents to “put the entire transgender policy” on a ballot referendum for November.
“Fairfax County in Virginia is an example and proof of politically driven transgender policy that is systemically indoctrinated across our American schools,” Hoffman said.
The Free Beacon first reported in July that a Fairfax County faculty training module had directed teachers to forgo parental consent when students as young as kindergarten-age adopt a different gender at school.
Chris Deluzio didn’t pay his property taxes. He backs a proposal that would increase IRS scrutiny on Americans.
Pennsylvania Democrat Chris Deluzio, who is running in a competitive House race, was hit with penalties for delinquent property taxes last year, according to real estate records reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon.
Deluzio, a voting rights attorney, neglected to pay $2,976 in property taxes in 2021, for the historic Georgian colonial in Pittsburgh that he purchased two years ago. He was fined a little over $100 in penalties and interest, which he paid in March 2022, according to county records.
News of Deluzio’s late tax could become a campaign issue, and comes as he and Democratic Party leaders are advocating for the Inflation Reduction Act, which would steer billions of dollars into increased tax enforcement by the Internal Revenue Service. It also comes as other Democrats, including Rep. Matthew Cartwright and Wisconsin Senate candidate Mandela Barnes, have faced scrutiny for their history of late property tax payments. Cartwright also endorsed the Inflation Reduction Act.
Deluzio, who is worth between $1.9 million and $5.5 million, according to his financial disclosure report, endorsed the Biden administration-backed Inflation Reduction Act earlier this month. The bill, which raises corporate taxes, would allocate $80 billion to the IRS, including $46.6 billion for tax enforcement and audit activities.
“There are a lot great policies for #PA17 in The Inflation Reduction Act. It’s a bill that would ramp up clean energy and lower the cost of medicine, save people $ and help tackle inflation – all paid for by the ultra-rich and corporations,” said Deluzio in an Aug. 3 post on Twitter.
Deluzio’s campaign responded to a request for comment after publication. His spokesman, Matt Koos, said the late payment was a banking error.
“Chris’s bank made a mistake and did not pay the reassessed property taxes on time from escrow,” said Koos. “When Chris realized this, he made the payment.”
Republicans and some independent economic analysts say the bill will end up raising taxes for low-income and middle-class earners. According to an analysis by the Joint Committee on Taxation, a nonpartisan congressional committee, the proposal would function as a tax increase for Americans across all income brackets over the next decade.
The Senate passed the bill on a party-line vote last week, with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the tie-breaking vote for Democrats. The House will vote on the package on Friday.
Deluzio is facing off against Republican and Pennsylvania businessman Jeremy Shaffer in the race, which is considered a tossup, according to the Cook Political Report. The candidates are vying to replace Democratic Rep. Conor Lamb, who ran for U.S. Senate instead of seeking reelection and lost in the primary.
Update 11:27 a.m.: This piece has been updated to include comment from the Deluzio campaign.
Former colleagues say ‘it’s not true’ that John Fetterman was an effective mayor
Senate hopeful John Fetterman (D., Pa.), a former mayor who is casting himself as the man who “worked to rebuild” the town of Braddock, Pa., missed more than a third of the borough’s monthly meetings during his time in office, according to public records.
Fetterman skipped at least 53 meetings during his tenure as mayor of the Pittsburgh suburb from 2006 to 2018, according to documents obtained by the Washington Free Beacon. The progressive Democrat missed just 4 meetings in his first three years in office, but peaked at 11 no-shows in 2011 and 9 in 2015. The tally may be higher, but records for the year 2016, when Fetterman first ran for Senate, are illegible.
Fetterman has been dogged for years by criticism of his spotty work history. Jesse Brown, a former Braddock borough council president, said in 2015 that Fetterman “should have been at all council meetings,” but stopped showing up after several confrontations over his duties as mayor.
“He first come in thinking he was in charge of everything,” said Brown, who also criticized Fetterman for taking credit for Braddock’s economic revitalization. “Everything that’s happened in this community, he’s gotten credit for it. The people believe that all this has come about through John Fetterman, but it’s not true.”
Chardaé Jones, who succeeded Fetterman as mayor, said Fetterman’s failure to show up to city council meetings eroded his relationships with councilmembers. “When you’re not present at council meetings, there’s not much of a relationship there,” she toldPolitico.
Fetterman has faced similar complaints as lieutenant governor. State Sen. Tony Williams, the Democratic whip, told Politico that Fetterman often failed to show up to preside over Senate sessions, hampering his ability to forge ties with policymakers.
One area where Fetterman has shown up to work as lieutenant governor could hurt him come November. As lieutenant governor, Fetterman’s only official duty is to oversee the Board of Pardons. Fetterman has embraced the role, voting to free multiple murderers from prison, a record that has drawn criticism from a group of Pennsylvania sheriffs.
Fetterman’s Republican opponent Mehmet Oz seized on Fetterman’s work ethic with the release of a campaign website this month that portrays Fetterman as a slovenly layabout who works from his basement. The Oz campaign launched the site following a report that Fetterman lived off his wealthy father until his late 40s, when he was elected lieutenant governor in 2019.
Fetterman’s truancy has drawn notice on the campaign trail, even before he suffered a near-fatal stroke that has kept him out of public view since May. Black clergy members criticized Fetterman for missing a candidate forum in February, with some speculating he skipped the event to avoid questions about a 2013 incident in which he pulled a shotgun on an unarmed black jogger.
“If there is already suspicion on the part of the community that race may be an issue and he may not be in touch with the community the way he thinks he is, then this only reinforces that by not showing up,” Rev. Mark Tyler, who leads South Philadelphia’s Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, told the Philadelphia Tribune.
Fetterman, who cast only one vote during his stint as mayor, has defended his record in Braddock, claiming borough council members were “absolute obstructionists” who were “committed to my failure.”
Dozens of cases of Langya virus have been reported in China, according to new research from scientists who were previously linked to controversial bat coronavirus studies at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
The Langya henipavirus — referred to as LayV — belongs to a family of viruses that are “known to infect humans and cause fatal disease,” revealed a group of Chinese-led scientists in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Of the 35 confirmed LayV cases found in China’s Shandong and Henan provinces, however, none have proven deadly. Symptoms include fever, fatigue, cough, loss of appetite, and muscle aches.
The majority of the scientists behind the paper identifying the virus are affiliated with Chinese Communist Party-run scientific institutions, which are notorious for their ties to the regime’s military efforts and biological warfare programs. Researchers from labs including the Beijing Institute of Microbiology and Epidemiology and State Key Laboratory of Pathogens and Biosecurity are among the paper’s authors.
Lin-Fa Wang, a researcher at the Duke–National University of Singapore Medical School, is also an author of the peer-reviewed New England Journal of Medicine piece, whose work on the LayV virus follows his involvement with bat coronavirus research conducted by the Wuhan Institute of Virology using funds from Anthony Fauci’s National Institutes of Health (NIH) agency.
Led by EcoHealth Alliance President Peter Daszak and the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s “Bat Woman” Shi Zhengli, researchers used the samples to conduct risky “gain-of-function” research, as now-deleted webpages reveal the lab manipulating bat coronaviruses to “replicate efficiently in primary human airway cells and achieve in vitro titers equivalent to epidemic strains of SARS-CoV.”
Wang, who is an Honorary Professor at the lab, appears as a co-author on many of these now highly controversial studies including “Isolation and characterization of a bat SARS-like coronavirus that uses the ACE2 receptor” in 2013 and “Discovery of a rich gene pool of bat SARS-related coronaviruses provides new insights into the origin of SARS coronavirus” in 2017.”
Though Wang told the Chinese Communist Party-run Global Times that the reported LayV cases had “not been fatal or very serious” so far and that there was “no need for panic,” officials from Taiwan’s health authority are currently monitoring the virus’ spread.
In the paper, scientists sequenced the LayV virus genome and alleged that “the shrew may be a natural reservoir of LayV.”
In the early days of COVID-19, Chinese Communist Party scientists and their American counterparts pushed a similar narrative.
Attorney General Merrick Garland on Aug. 11 said he personally approved the FBI’s raid earlier this week of the personal Mar-a-Lago residence of former President Donald Trump.
The FBI usually seeks approval from the top before conducting a raid on a political target. Garland’s confirmation was the first public statement from the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the FBI on the unprecedented search.
Garland told reporters that his agency filed a motion on Aug. 11 to unseal the court-approved search warrant that was executed at a home “belonging to the former president,” after Trump confirmed the raid, “as is his right.”
“I personally approved the decision to seek a search warrant in this matter. … The Department does not take such a decision lightly,” Garland said.
He said copies of the warrant were provided to Trump’s lawyers on Aug. 8 by FBI agents.
The attorney general claimed that FBI agents are “patriotic” and “dedicated” public servants who protect Americans against violent crime and terrorism. “I am honored to work alongside them,” he said.
So far, the Justice Department and FBI have remained mostly quiet about the purpose and probable cause behind the raid and have repeatedly declined to publicly comment to The Epoch Times and other news outlets. Only alleged anonymous sources within the FBI and Justice Department have sporadically provided details about the incident to legacy media since Aug. 8.
A day before Garland’s statement, FBI Director Christopher Wray declined to speak about the FBI search, saying that it is “not something I can talk about, and I’d refer you to the department.”
The White House, meanwhile, said it wasn’t aware of the FBI raid. On Aug. 9, when asked by reporters about what Garland told him, President Joe Biden didn’t answer.
The judge who reportedly signed off on the warrant in the case, Bruce Reinhart, ordered the Justice Department on Aug. 10 to file a response before Aug. 15 after Judicial Watch and others asked the court to unseal the warrant.
Republicans in Congress have repeatedly called on the Justice Department to release documents and other information about the raid, with some arguing that it appears to be politically motivated. Even some Democrats, including former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, asserted that the agencies need to provide answers about the raid.
Because of the extraordinary targeting of a former U.S. president, many have speculated that officials at the highest levels of the Biden administration, including Garland and Wray, would have signed off on it. Meanwhile, news of the incident has triggered a political firestorm with just 90 days to go before the 2022 midterms and a possible announcement that Trump might run for president in 2024.
What Comes Next
It was Trump on Aug. 8 who confirmed the FBI raid at his Palm Beach home. The former president reportedly wasn’t there when it happened, and his lawyers said they weren’t able to observe the agents.
“Such an assault could only take place in broken, Third-World Countries. Sadly, America has now become one of those Countries, corrupt at a level not seen before. They even broke into my safe!” Trump wrote on his Truth Social website.
Members of Trump’s family and his lawyers said in multiple media interviews that agents went into several rooms in Mar-a-Lago, including Trump’s bedroom and office. The agents, his son Eric Trump said, didn’t provide lawyers with a copy of the warrant before the search and wouldn’t answer questions.
When speaking on Fox News about the search, Eric Trump said it was done because the “National Archives wanted to … corroborate whether or not Donald Trump had any documents in his possession.” Trump was referring to the National Archives having confirmed in February that classified documents were allegedly among several boxes that Trump took to his Florida residence last year.
As for Garland, some Republican lawmakers warned that he could be investigated or even impeached over the Aug. 8 raid if the GOP takes the House in 2022. The party of the president tends to lose seats in midterm elections, and Democrats currently hold slim majorities in both chambers of Congress.
“I’ve seen enough. The Department of Justice has reached an intolerable state of weaponized politicization,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said in a statement. “When Republicans take back the House, we will conduct immediate oversight of this department, follow the facts, and leave no stone unturned.”
In the Senate, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) suggested that if it’s found that Garland engaged in anything improper, he could face impeachment.
“Now, this is really something that’s going to require an investigation,” Paul said. “And I wouldn’t be surprised if the investigation leads to abuse of power that this could even lead to an impeachment of the attorney general.”
A person close to the Trump family suggested the FBI may have planted “listening devices” during a raid targeting former President Donald Trump’s Florida residence earlier this week.
Lawyers for the former president previously said that FBI agents would not allow Trump’s team to observe or supervise their search of Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach. One lawyer, Lindsey Halligan, told Fox News on Thursday that agents are believed to have searched Trump’s bedroom, office, and a storage room.
Because the FBI allegedly “didn’t allow anybody to supervise what they were doing, and they specifically requested to turn off the security cameras,” Kimbery Guilfoyle, Donald Trump Jr.’s fiancée and an advisor to the former president’s 2020 campaign, told Newsmax. “Why? Because they didn’t want to be caught with what they were doing. How do you know there weren’t listening devices planted or evidence planted there?
“It’s something that has to be investigated and checked out, and we want to see the affidavit and what was their probable cause to be able to go in there and break into the president’s home,” she added. For her claim, Guilfoyle did not provide evidence.
Trump’s son Eric Trump told the Daily Mail on Wednesday that security cameras remained on when the agents carried out their search, accusing the agents of refusing to hand over a warrant and kicking lawyers off the premises. Agents, he said, told Trump’s team to turn off the cameras but they remained on, and those agents went to places “they shouldn’t have been.”
No Response
The FBI and Department of Justice have not responded to requests for comment. The judge who approved the FBI warrant, Bruce Reinhart, ordered the Justice Department on Wednesday to respond to requests to unseal the warrant in the case.
The White House said Joe Biden was not aware of the FBI search before it was announced earlier this week. Top Republicans have called on the Department of Justice to release documents pertaining to the raid or to have Attorney General Merrick Garland speak about the matter.
Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray have remained silent on the Mar-a-Lago search. But on Wednesday, Wray complained to reporters in a press conference about alleged violent threats levied against federal law enforcement agents in the wake of the raid.
The former president on Wednesday took to his Truth Social app and speculated on whether the FBI planted evidence. Members of Trump’s team said he wasn’t there while the raid occurred.
“The FBI and others from the Federal Government would not let anyone, including my lawyers, be anywhere near the areas that were rummaged and otherwise looked at during the raid on Mar-a-Lago,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Everyone was asked to leave the premises, they wanted to be left alone, without any witnesses to see what they were doing, taking or, hopefully not, ‘planting.’”
INDIANAPOLIS, Ind.—An Indiana congresswoman who grew up under communism said the raid on former President Donald Trump’s home was similar to “KGB-style tactics.”
Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.) who grew up in Ukraine in the former Soviet Union, was one of about a dozen House Republicans who met with Trump on the evening of Aug. 9. She said the raid outraged her.
“As a US Congresswoman who grew up in the USSR, the FBI raid of President Trump’s home is alarming. It is reminiscent of KGB-style tactics,” Spartz said in an email to the Epoch Times.
Spartz called for equal treatment under the law, “not spectacles to destroy potential political opponents.”
“I don’t remember Hillary Clinton or Hunter Biden’s homes being raided in this embarrassing way,” Spartz said.
Spartz joined Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.) and members of the House Republican Study Committee in a three-hour meeting with the former president. Banks told Fox News that Trump was “upbeat” and has made his decision about whether to run for president in 2024.
Ukrainian-American U.S. Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.) speaks at a news conference on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at the U.S. Capitol on March 2, 2022 in Washington. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
Spartz counseled facts before feelings in the wake of the raid on Trump’s Palm Beach, Florida, home.
“Regardless of people’s feelings about President Trump, this should not be acceptable in a democratic society,” Spartz said.
“If the federal government can raid the home of a former president, all Americans should ask: what can 87,000 new IRS agents do to me?” the lawmaker added, referring to a provision in the Inflation Reduction Act that gives the Internal Revenue Service $45.6 billion in funding for tax enforcement activities, which is enough to hire up to 87,000 new agents. The bill was passed by the Senate and is expected to be approved by the House on Aug. 12.
Trump was in New York City while his Florida home was raided. Unconfirmed reports citing anonymous sources have said that the raid was related to a Department of Justice probe into whether Trump held on to records when he left the White House. Both the FBI and Justice Department have declined to comment on the raid.
All presidential correspondence and documentation have to be handed over to the National Archives when a president leaves office, according to a 1978 law.
The justification for the FBI search remains under seal. Trump’s legal team plans on asking the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida to unseal the search warrant affidavit, which would outline why authorities asked for the warrant.
“It breaks my heart to see what is happening in our country and around the world, but I have full faith in the American people to defeat the rise of socialism and communism once again with the right leaders,” Spartz said.
Banks said the lawmakers’ conversation with Trump involved Republicans winning back the congressional majority, and what they might do with that majority.
“I was honored to spend time with President Trump this week with my Republican colleagues and show our support,” Spartz said. “We need to have more people like President Trump who aren’t afraid to challenge the DC machine.”
Oversight GOP figures are requesting the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) provide information on the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) raid of former president Donald Trump’s resort in Mar-a-Lago.
“NARA’s singling out of President Trump’s handling of official records stands starkly in contrast to the way NARA has treated far clearer violations committed by politicians and officials who are not Republicans,” 20 Republicans, including numerous Committee ranking members, wrote in an Aug. 10 letter addressed to U.S. Acting Archivist Debra Wall, first published by Politico.
“To better understand the circumstances and NARA’s role, if any, in the FBI raid, Oversight Republicans request an immediate briefing on this matter,” the lawmakers wrote.
The lawmakers’ move marks the first of the GOP’s promised effort in investigating the FBI’s Aug. 8 raid of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property for any underlying political motivation.
It follows shortly after the GOP in unison cast doubt over the nature of the raid—House Republicans first, and Senate ones followed—with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) promising to “leave no stone unturned” in an investigation of the Department of Justice that he says has “reached an intolerable state of weaponized politicization.”
The Republican lawmakers who wrote the letter allege that “political motivation” underlies the actions of the FBI and the National Archives, as the agencies’ treatment of Trump was “so contrary” to that of other former government officials—such as former president Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton—whom the Republicans say also had “some Presidential Records Act violations.”
What Republicans Are Requesting
The GOP members of Congress are requesting that the NARA provide a “Member-level briefing” on the following no later than Aug. 17:
Any evidence of coordination between NARA and the FBI, or between NARA and the DOJ, on raiding the former president’s property
Any documents NARA produced and submitted to a U.S. federal court
Any documents that show NARA’s process in collecting presidential records after a presidential transition
In addition, the Republicans ask in their letter that NARA preserves records related to the warrant executed by the FBI at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort (which has, for now, yet to be unsealed), as well as any other NARA records related to Trump’s papers following Trump’s presidential term.
“The seeming weaponization of the federal government against Biden’s political rivals cannot go unchecked, and if NARA is working to further these efforts, it will be only the latest agency to lose its credibility in the eyes of the American people under the Biden Administration,” the Republican lawmakers say in their letter.
Trump’s Presidential Records
While the FBI’s search warrant for the raid remains under seal, multiple sources close to Trump have stated that the raid was conducted, at least in name, to look for presidential records that someone is alleging Trump himself has decided to keep in Mar-a-Lago after leaving office.
Trump’s lawyer, Christina Bobb, told The Epoch Times on Tuesday that FBI agents were looking for “what they deemed to be presidential records” and seized documents from Trump’s property.
“We had been very cooperative with them before. And it’s unclear to me why they went to such drastic measures to do this. But they did. And as far as the probable cause goes, they wouldn’t give that to us,” she added.
Bobb’s comments are consistent with what NARA said in statements earlier this year about how Trump’s representatives have been cooperating in transferring presidential records, including handing over 15 boxes containing presidential records. On Tuesday, the magistrate judge who reportedly approved the search warrant ordered the Department of Justice to file a response to a motion asking for the DOJ to unseal the warrant no later than Aug. 15.
Glasser portrays Milley as a dedicated military officer with a strong set of values who loathed his unstable and temperamental boss. But despite his commander in chief’s “fits of rage, late-night Twitter storms” and “abrupt dismissals,” Milley was determined not to resign for the good of his country. So altruistic.
There was that one time, however, when Milley was so utterly humiliated by Trump that he spent days in his Pentagon office, writing and rewriting a letter of resignation.
The occasion came during the June 2020 George Floyd riots. Members of Black Lives Matter had tried, but fortunately failed, to burn down St. John’s Church in Washington, D.C.’s Lafayette Square. Trump, accompanied by several advisers and Cabinet members, famously walked to the church and was photographed as he held up a Bible. Milley was among that group.
The legacy media claimed that a crowd of BLM protesters had been “violently” cleared from Lafayette Square by the U.S. Park Police for the sole purpose of this photo-op. One year later, the inspector general of the Interior Department released a report stating that the USPP had cleared the park to allow fencing to be installed “in response to destruction of property and injury to officers.”
In her new book, of course, Glasser tells readers, “Most of the demonstrations had been peaceful, but there were also eruptions of looting, street violence, and arson, including a small fire in St. John’s Church, across from the White House.”
Anyway, because members of the military are expected to remain apolitical and he had participated in a “political event,” Milley was filled with remorse.
During a pre-recorded commencement address to the graduating class of the National Defense University, Milley apologized. He said, “I should never have been there.”
“As senior leaders, everything you do will be closely watched, and I am not immune, as many of you saw the result of that photograph of me at Lafayette Square last week,” he told the graduates.
“I should not have been there. My presence in that moment and in that environment created a perception of the military involved in domestic politics. As a commissioned, uniformed officer, it was a mistake that I have learned from and I sincerely hope we all can learn from it.”
Upon additional reflection, Milley penned his letter of resignation, which is included in Glasser’s excerpt.
It is a boastful, four-paragraph letter written by a disgruntled subordinate with little sense of self-awareness. He tells the president he’s done some “deep soul-searching” and “can no longer faithfully support and execute your orders.”
“It is my belief that you were doing great and irreparable harm to my country,” he begins. “I believe that you have made a concerted effort over time to politicize the United States military. I thought that I could change that. I’ve come to the realization that I cannot, and I need to step aside and let someone else try to do that.”
Milley continues, “You are using the military to create fear in the minds of the people — and we are trying to protect the American people. I cannot stand idly by and participate in that attack, verbally or otherwise, on the American people.
“The American people trust their military and they trust us to protect them against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and our military will do just that. We will not turn our back on the American people.”
“I swore an oath to the Constitution of the United States and embodied within that Constitution is the idea that says that all men and women are created equal,” Milley writes. He expands upon his own acceptance of all people no matter their race, religion or sexual orientation, then moves on to his patriotism. The implication is, of course, that Trump is racist, bigoted and doesn’t love America.
“Lastly it is my deeply held belief that you’re ruining the international order, and causing significant damage to our country overseas, that was fought for so hard by the Greatest Generation that they instituted in 1945. Between 1914 and 1945, 150 million people were slaughtered in the conduct of war. They were slaughtered because of tyrannies and dictatorships.
“That generation, like every generation, has fought against that, has fought against fascism, has fought against Nazism, has fought against extremism. It’s now obvious to me that you don’t understand that world order.
“You don’t understand what the war was all about. In fact, you subscribe to many of the principles that we fought against. And I cannot be a party to that. It is with deep regret that I hereby submit my letter of resignation.”
Is he calling Trump a fascist? A Nazi? Sounds like it. If Milley thinks Trump damaged America’s reputation, we have to wonder how he feels about Biden’s blunders.
Unfortunately, he never submitted the letter to Trump.
Glasser writes, “Milley had finally come to a decision. He would not quit. ‘F*** that s***,’ he told his staff. ‘I’ll just fight him.’ The challenge, as he saw it, was to stop Trump from doing any more damage.”
Trump would have been better off if this coward had resigned. Among other allegations, Milley reportedly told his Chinese counterpart he would alert him if Trump were to plan any surprise attacks.
“Gen. Milley needs to be called in TODAY and asked under polygraph what he said to China.”
I would remind Milley of a certain oath he took a long time ago. He solemnly swore to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and to bear true faith and allegiance to the same.
The BLM riots in the summer of 2020 were not peaceful. They were responsible for over $1 billion in property damage. They caused injury and even deaths. It’s one thing to oppose racism and quite another to excuse crime in our cities.
Either you’re for the rule of law and against terrorism, or you’re not.
Standing up for the rule of law and against terrorism isn’t politics, Gen. Milley. It’s your job.
