Olbermann is delusional. In February he demanded Fox News be deplatformed and Shut down For 'National Security' Now he's accusing Trump of Threatening to kill Manhatttan DA Bragg, and never let out on bail.
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Former MSNBC and ESPN and the defunct Al Gore-owned Current TV anchor, Keith Olbermann called for Fox News to be shut down and de-platformed back in February.
The belligerent fascist, who is known for losing high-profile jobs and for his unhinged Twitter rants, referred to the network as a “threat” to the country’s security in a Twitter video he used to advertise his podcast.
In a screed in Late February against the Fox network, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, and Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia,the deranged leftist portrayed releasing all available footage from the Jan. 6 Capitol incursion as a bad thing.
McCarthy offered thousands of hours of videos to Carlson in a show of transparency. According to Olbermann, the act is one that will assist the “next insurrectionists.”
Olbermann also referred to Greene as a “traitor” in the short clip.
“She was raised on a diet of Fox News,” he claimed of the Georgia lawmaker, who was well into her twenties when Fox News was founded.
Olbermann went on to call for the country’s most-watched cable news network to be muzzled. “Now that Fox’s true evil has been revealed in the Dominion lawsuit, and Fox’s true evil has been revealed while Kevin McCarthy has turned over 41,000 hours of Jan. 6 surveillance video to Tucker Carlson — exclusively — so he can show the next insurrectionists how to avoid all those cameras and reach all those panic rooms,” he said.
“The time has now come,” Olbermann concluded. “We must de-platform Fox news, and we must close down Fox News.”
And if you watched formerly relevant sportscaster and cable news anchor Keith Olbermann’s unhinged Twitter rant on Friday (3/24/23) morning, you might be under the impression that former President Donald Trump made “terroristic threats.” [See video clip posted on Twitter HERE. ]
Naturally, that is not true.
The perennially unemployed host at networks such as ESPN, MSNBC, and the defunct Al Gore-owned Current TV relies on hyperbole to get his messages across on social media these days.
Actually, it is generous to say he is engaging in mere hyperbole, as he could just as well be completely insane.
Olbermann was begging people to listen to his podcast on Friday and took a few creative liberties in a Twitter video, calling for Trump to be jailed immediately and held without bail.
He claimed the former president threatened to kill Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, whose office might or might not indict Trump in the coming days or weeks.
“Donald Trump must be arrested for his terroristic threats against Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg,” Olbermann said. “In social media posts yesterday, Trump called him [an] ‘animal.’”
Olbermann also said Trump posted a photo of himself threatening Bragg with a baseball bat.
Note that the picture Olbermann uses clearly shows that the thing is a link to Nationalfile.com.
“It is a call to murder by stochastic terrorism, a murder by remote control as disgusting as Charles Manson,” Olbermann blathered. “Arrest Trump now.”
Olbermann said Trump is an “active, mortal threat” to those investigating him — and any “witnesses.”
“Trump cannot be granted bail,” he concluded.
Where did Olbermann cook up his wild theories? He cruised the former president’s very public Truth Social account and cherry-picked the following posts as proof that Trump is now a terrorist:
As for that “threatening” photo Trump supposedly posted of himself with a baseball bat — it was a link Trump shared from the site National File, which had reported that Bragg was elected in a race with low turnout.
Quite obviously, the person who should be locked up is not Trump but Olbermann as a danger to himself and others. Olbermann’s star has fallen dramatically. The man is so detached from reality that even MSNBC recently rebuffed his advances.
So it is quite alarming that he was given such a large platform by the establishment media just a few years ago.
Trump supporters occupy the West Front of the Capitol and the inauguration stands on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
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This is a follow-up to a previous article.
Further proof the trial is another witch hunt.
From Various sources
The trial involving members of the Proud Boys was halted this week after it was revealed that a witness expected to testify was previously a government informant.
According to the Associated Press, the revelation was announced on Wednesday by federal prosecutors in the sedition case involving Proud Boys members Enrique Tarrio, Joseph Biggs, Dominic Pezzola, Ethan Nordean and Zachary Rehl for their alleged role in the January 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot.
Rehl’s attorney, Carmen Hernandez, requested that the trial be suspended “until these issues have been considered and resolved,” AP reported.
Attorneys for the five Proud Boys on trial on charges of seditious conspiracy said on Wednesday that the Justice Department had informed them that a witness one of them had been prepared to call as part of the defense this week has been a government informant since 2021.
“During this period of time, the [informant] has been in contact via telephone, text messaging and other electronic means, with one or more of the counsel for the defense and at least one defendant,” said Carmen Hernandez, an attorney for one of the five Proud Boys, Zachary Rehl, in a motion seeking more details of prosecutors’ use of informants in the case.
Prosecutors pushed back Thursday, contending that any suggestion of impropriety was baseless and that the informant was never tasked with gathering information about the Proud Boys defendants or their lawyers. They produced additional documents to the defense teams outlining the informant’s work for the FBI and emphasized that her relationship with the bureau was terminated soon after she was subpoenaed by Tarrio’s lawyers to appear as a witness.
The Justice Department supplemented its response with an affidavit from an FBI agent based in San Antonio, who described the informant as someone who had been on the bureau’s radar since 2019 after she came forward due to “her status as a victim.” The agent indicated that the informant helped the bureau with Jan. 6-related matters and had provided information about two of the Proud Boys defendants to the bureau in 2019 — before she officially signed up as a paid informant.
In a hearing before U.S. District Court Judge Tim Kelly, government attorneys agreed that the suggestions made by defense lawyers were serious and that they would attempt to provide additional information to allay their concerns. But they said prosecutors had no knowledge of the informant’s contacts with defendants and their counsel.
“This is all news to the government,” said Denise Cheung, acting deputy chief of DOJ’s criminal division.
But attorneys for Biggs and Pezzola said the damage could be too great to continue the trial. Norm Pattis, one of Biggs’ attorneys, described “20 to 30″ contacts between Biggs and the informant, including discussions of his legal representation and finances.
“I don’t want the trial to proceed,” Pattis said.
An attorney for Pezzola, Roger Roots, said the informant had similarly helped shape his client’s witness list. And Nicholas Smith, attorney for Nordean, said the informant had reached out to him “unsolicited” with questions and suggestions for defense strategy.
Kelly emphasized that the key question he’s considering is whether the prosecutors leading the trial learned anything they shouldn’t have known as a result of the informant’s contacts with the defendants or their lawyers. He said he didn’t see an immediate reason to pause the trial but that he would consider the matter further on Friday.
Defense attorneys have repeatedly raised questions about the presence of informants within the Proud Boys and how they might have been deployed by the FBI to track the group ahead of Jan. 6. Jurors in the trial have been shown evidence that there were some informants — also called confidential human sources, or CHSs — within the group, both in text message chains and on the ground on Jan. 6.
The use of such sources is commonplace for the FBI, but there are risks when they remain involved in potential criminal activity alongside targets of an investigation.
In the three-page filing, Hernandez expressed frustration that the Justice Department had not shared more details with the defense team about the informants used in the investigation.
The information about the newly disclosed confidential source, she noted, came a day before one of the defendants was prepared to call this witness to the stand.
Prosecutors have bristled at claims of impropriety, noting that they have made nearly 10 confidential sources available to testify as part of the defense case who could discuss their contacts with the bureau. But the Justice Department is resisting efforts by the Proud Boys defense team to demand testimony from FBI agents who handled those informants and were in touch with them in the days and weeks leading to Jan. 6.
UPDATE: The Proud Boys trial is canceled for today and instead there will be a hearing this afternoon on the new evidence of informants disclosed to the defense yesterday. https://t.co/TK4cwXAwuwpic.twitter.com/YWkpqTasuQ
The revelation this week comes amid the trial in one of the biggest Capitol riot cases being handled by the Department of Justice (DOJ). Throughout the trial, there have been similar issues brought up by attorneys representing the Proud Boys.
This month, Nordean’s attorney, Nicholas Smith, filed a motion accusing an FBI special agent of hiding messages following her testimony. Special Agent Nicole Miller was required to turn over any written statements that were related to her testimony, but Nordean’s attorney said in a court filing that “a close examination of the agent’s sheet revealed over one thousand hidden Excel rows of messages.”
The DOJ issued a responding motion on Thursday morning that disputed some of the claims made by the Proud Boys’ attorneys.
“Although the FBI was generally aware that the CHS was active in assisting defendants charged with crimes related to the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol and their families, including by assisting in fundraising efforts and protesting against their conditions of confinement,the FBI intentionally chose to never ask the CHS about her relationship with defendant Enrique Tarrio or any of the other defendants or counsel in this matter,” the motion said.
Former U.S. Attorney General Matt Whitaker told Newsmax on Wednesday that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s potential criminal case against former President Donald Trump represents a “slippery slope” that will lead to further political prosecutions by both sides across the country.
“I think what’s going to happen is we’re going to go down this slippery slope where local prosecutors start to prosecute folks wearing the other team’s jersey,” Whitaker told “The Chris Salcedo Show” on Wednesday. “Conservative prosecutors in conservative jurisdictions are going to go after Democrat-leaning politicians for ‘stretch cases.'”
Whitaker said that the criminal case Bragg is trying to make in New York against the former president is such a “stretch case.”
“They have to jump over so many hurdles to ever even get it to trial,” he said. “It seems like they just want to file the charges to get the hit in and drive-by media to get their videos and their mug shots, but I think it’s going to be very challenging for our republic to sustain itself.”
Whitaker said he wanted to know where the “statesmen” on both sides of the aisle are now to speak out against this kind of “political targeting” for prosecutions.
He said that the current criminal investigations into Trump, including Bragg’s in New York, Special Counsel Jack Smith’s in Washington, D.C., and one in Atlanta, Georgia, dealing with the 2020 election, are taking place because the left wants to stop Trump from winning in 2024.
“It just seems like we’re watching something where everyone’s trying to trip up the Trump 2024 campaign,” he said. “I hope Trump’s lawyers are up for the fight. I know that the president is, but I hope he’s got people around him that are willing to do whatever it takes to win these cases and to make sure that the truth gets out.“
Attorney Robert Costello, the former legal adviser to Michael Cohen, spoke to Tucker Carlson on Monday night after he testified to the Manhattan Grand Jury investigating President Donald Trump.
Costello told the FOX News audience that he testified for two hours in front of Alvin Bragg’s Manhattan Grand Jury.
Robert Costello told Tucker Carlson, “I spoke to the jury for two hours… It was clear to me the Manhattan Grand Jury did not want to get to the truth.”
And it now is being reported that New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg was HIDING exculpatory evidence from the Grand Jury!
According to FOX News legal mind Gregg Jarrett, Soros-funded DA Alvin Bragg HID nearly 600 pages of exculpatory evidence to the New York Grand Jury investigating President Trump.
Gregg Jarrett: I mentioned it yesterday, I think, when Bob Costello got into that Grand Jury room and told them, “Wait a minute. You don’t have the hundreds of pages I handed over to Alvin Bragg over here? You only have six cherry-picked documents?” You know, hiding from grand juries exculpatory information is reprehensible and unconscionable. And the conduct of Alvin Bragg and his henchman Mark Pomeranz, who specifically says in his book, “We’re targeting zombies because we don’t like his beliefs,” those guys should face disbarment proceedings.
Once again the REAL crooks reveal themselves.
And Jarrett is right. If there was a real justice system in the country, they should be disbarred.
By Joe Saunders for The Western Journal with additional quotes from Twitter
Hunter Biden has been investigated for almost five years. Aside from fact he’s been a junkie dirtbag nothing remotely criminal has been uncovered. Put up or shut up.
This is the hill big-mouthed Geraldo picks to die on?
With Republicans on the House Oversight Committee bearing down -on first son Hunter Biden’s financial records, the knee-jerk liberal at Fox News decided that Tuesday would be a good time to issue a Twitter challenge to Hunter’s legion of critics to “put up or shut up” when it came to law-breaking activity.
Unfortunately for both Hunter and Geraldo, he had plenty of takers.
If Hunter Biden's last name was Trump, he'd be in a federal prison tonight
I can't believe you've become such a shill for the establishment. You were a hero when you showed the Zapruder film and conducted in depth interviews on the fraud that was the Warren Commission. I guess people get older and richer and it changes their perspective
Well, even if a disgraceful history of drug abuse, adultery, and child abandonment were all there was to the Hunter Biden story, River’s glib “aside from fact he’s been a junkie dirtbag” would rank right up there with “Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?” as a masterwork of sliding (aka “omitting” – TPR ) the obvious.
But as anyone who’s followed Hunter’s saga with even a half-open eye knows, there’s a lot more to Hunter’s perfidy than personal transgression.
Mollie Hemingway, top-selling author, editor-in-chief of conservative website The Federalist, and Fox News contributor, has both eyes more than half open. And she let Rivera know it in a response bristling with mockery.
Setting aside the gun crimes, prostitution crimes, drug crimes, tax crimes, bribery receipts, foreign agent shenanigans, money laundering, pay-for-play, and kid-glove treatment from the corrupt and politicized FBI and DOJ, this is a really astute observation. https://t.co/mU76xrqqT2
It’s undisputed public knowledge that Hunter Biden lied on a background check form while purchasing a gun in 2018. He’s written a whole book about using illegal drugs. He has a documented history of what are euphemistically called “tax issues.”
Hunter himself has effectively admitted that his lucrative job as a board member of the Ukrainian energy firm Burisma was a result of his last name.
The kid-glove treatment of Hunter Biden by the Department of Justice and the FBI Hemingway referred to is a parody of privilege and power.
The FBI, remember, had the Hunter Biden laptop for almost a year before the public became aware of it and its incendiary, incriminating contents thanks to the New York Post’s reporting in 2020 — reporting that was squelched by the lords of social media at the instigation of the FBI.
Plenty of Hemingway’s followers on Twitter chimed in with their own answers to the Rivera challenge:
As one Twitter user put it, “last I knew being called a junkie would require the possession of some kind of illegal drug. Geraldo never disappoints.”
Obviously agree with you on all of it, but last I knew being called a junkie would require the possession of some kind of illegal drug. Geraldo never disappoints.
“That Hunter hasn’t been arrested for the myriad crimes for which there is ample evidence on the laptop isn’t an indication of his innocence. It’s proof of the type of corruption we typically see in 3rd world countries.”
That Hunter hasn't been arrested for the myriad crimes for which there is ample evidence on the laptop isn't an indication of his innocence. It's proof of the type of corruption we typically see in 3rd world countries.
Meanwhile, Rep. James Comer, chairman of the House Oversight Committee, announced on Tuesday that his committee has managed to get through stonewalling by the Treasury Department to get access to records that indicated “suspicious activity” when it came to the Biden family’s finances.
“After two months of dragging their feet, the Treasury Department is finally providing us with access to the suspicious activity reports for the Biden family and their associates’ business transactions,” the Kentucky Republican said in a statement on the Oversight Committee’s website.
“It should never have taken us threatening to hold a hearing and conduct a transcribed interview with an official under the penalty of perjury for Treasury to finally accommodate part of our request.”
The Treasury records Comer is getting are called “suspicious activity reports,” and are generated required from banks and other financial institutions when transactions involve large amounts of money that are suspected of being involved in money laundering, according to a Reuters report explaining the process.
The more the country learns about Hunter Biden’s dealings with foreign companies and governments — including China and its communist dictatorship — the more the country should be worried that the president himself has been compromised by his own past.
As Comer’s statement on the committee’s website made clear, there is more at stake than Hunter Biden or even the whole Biden family.
“According to bank documents we’ve already obtained, we know one company owned by a Biden associate received a $3 million dollar wire from a Chinese energy company two months after Joe Biden left the vice presidency. Soon after, hundreds of thousands of dollars in payouts went to members of the Biden family.
“We are going to continue to use bank documents and suspicious activity reports to follow the money trail to determine the extent of the Biden family’s business schemes, if Joe Biden is compromised by these deals, and if there is a national security threat. If Treasury tries to stonewall our investigation again, we will continue to use tools at our disposal to compel compliance.”
To a normal person, that’s a big deal. To a patriotic American, that should be a very big deal.
But to a card-carrying member of the establishment media like Geraldo, Hunter Biden is simply a “junkie dirtbag,” not admirable, but evidently no more guilty — and no more worthy of attention — than any of the countless millions of others who’ve struggled with addiction.
But there’s much more to Hunter Biden than that — dangerously much more.
Mollie Hemingway knows it. Honest Americans who follow the news know it.
Geraldo, either overconfidently corrupt himself or crippled by the willful blindness of the rest of the establishment media when it comes to Biden’s corruption allegations, issued a challenge about the wrong person at the wrong time.
And, boy, did he get an answer.
And, in case you never saw them:
This redacted photo shows an underage girl sharing Hunter’s bed. It is rumored to be his dead brother’s daughter, Natalie.
One of the “underage obsessions appears to be a niece,
“800 pages of text messages sent or received by Hunter Biden from 2018 and 2019 repeatedly reveals that his former love interest Hallie, the widow of the late Beau Biden, claimed he behaved in a “sexually inappropriate” way around a minor family member. Hunter Biden told his sister Ashley Biden that Hallie described him as being “sexually inappropriate” with a minor female family member. The texts reveal that most members of Hunter Biden’s family seemed to know about these allegations. Among these family members are Hunter’s parents Joe Biden and Jill Biden, his sister Ashley Biden, and Jim Biden, the brother of Joe Biden. In some cases, family members decided to take Hunter’s “side” of the apparent family argument over the allegations, choosing to believe him over Hallie Biden. Previous reporting pertaining to the situation, including comments by prominent pundit Candace Owens and Rep. Lauren Boebert, have claimed that the teenage relative in question is Natalie Biden.”
Lock them up. Hillary and Barack were never charged. Supposedly Trump will be charged with using campaign money to make a bribe to a former hooker. Yes the same person who was ordered to pay $300 K to Trump in a defamation lawsuit.
But Obama and Clinton both paid six figure fines and no charges were brought against them for admitting to illegally using campaign money. In the Trump case, he wasn’t the one who paid the Hooker.
This will end up going nowhere, but for the left it makes good theater. What else do they have to do?
This will likely backfire for the far-left Manhattan DA and result in skyrocketing fundraising and poll numbers for Trump. In August, when the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) conducted a raid on Mar-A-Lago, his home in Palm Beach, Florida, contributions to Trump’s political action committee skyrocketed over one million dollars in two days.
Witch-hunts continue. Screenshot, Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/AP, AP Photo/Andrew Harnik
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Thanks to The Hill for this article. Another view on the Witch Hunt.
Get ready for Manhattan DA’s made-for-TV Trump prosecution.
“The moment that we are waiting for, we made it to the finale together” — those familiar words from “America’s Got Talent” — could well be the opening line for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg next week, when he is expected to unveil an indictment of former President Trump. With Trump’s reported announcement that he expects to be arrested on Tuesday, it would be a fitting curtain raiser for a case that has developed more like a television production than a criminal prosecution. Indeed, this indictment was repeatedly rejected only to be brought back by popular demand.
Trump faces serious legal threats in the ongoing Mar-a-Lago investigation. But the New York case would be easily dismissed outside of a jurisdiction like New York, where Bragg can count on highly motivated judges and jurors.
Although it may be politically popular, the case is legally pathetic. Bragg is struggling to twist state laws to effectively prosecute a federal case long ago rejected by the Justice Department against Trump over his payment of “hush money” to former stripper Stormy Daniels. In 2018 (yes, that is how long this theory has been around), I wrote how difficult such a federal case would be under existing election laws. Now, six years later, the same theory may be shoehorned into a state claim.
It is extremely difficult to show that paying money to cover up an embarrassing affair was done for election purposes as opposed to an array of obvious other reasons, from protecting a celebrity’s reputation to preserving a marriage. That was demonstrated by the failed federal prosecution of former presidential candidate John Edwards on a much stronger charge of using campaign funds to cover up an affair.
In this case, Trump reportedly paid Daniels $130,000 in the fall of 2016 to cut off or at least reduce any public scandal. The Southern District of New York’s U.S. Attorney’s office had no love lost for Trump, pursuing him and his associates in myriad investigations, but it ultimately rejected a prosecution based on the election law violations. It was not alone: The Federal Election Commission (FEC) chair also expressed doubts about the theory.
Prosecutors working under Bragg’s predecessor, Cyrus Vance Jr., also reportedly rejected the viability of using a New York law to effectively charge a federal offense.
More importantly, Bragg himself previously expressed doubts about the case, effectively shutting it down soon after he took office. The two lead prosecutors, Carey R. Dunne and Mark F. Pomerantz, resigned in protest. Pomerantz launched a very public campaign against Bragg’s decision, including commenting on a still-pending investigation. He made it clear that Trump was guilty in his mind, even though his former office was still undecided and the grand jury investigation was ongoing.
Pomerantz then did something that shocked many of us as highly unprofessional and improper: Over Bragg’s objection that he was undermining any possible prosecution, Pomerantz published a book detailing the case against an individual who was not charged, let alone convicted.
He was, of course, an instant success in the media that have spent years highlighting a dozen different criminal theories that were never charged against Trump. Pomerantz followed the time-tested combination for success — link Donald Trump to any alleged crime and convey absolute certainty of guilt. For cable TV shows, it was like a heroin hit for an audience in a long agonizing withdrawal.
And the campaign worked. Bragg caved, and “America’s Got Trump” apparently will air after all.
However, before 12 jurors can vote, Bragg still has to get beyond a series of glaring problems which could raise serious appellate challenges later.
While we still do not know the specific state charges in the anticipated indictment, the most-discussed would fall under Section 175 for falsifying business records, based on the claim that Trump used legal expenses to conceal the alleged hush-payments that were supposedly used to violate federal election laws. While some legal experts have insisted such concealment is clearly a criminal matter that must be charged, they were conspicuously silent when Hillary Clinton faced a not-dissimilar campaign-finance allegation.
Last year, the Federal Election Commission fined the Clinton campaign for funding the Steele dossier as a legal expense. The campaign had previously denied funding the dossier, which was used to push false Russia collusion claims against Trump in 2016, and it buried the funding in the campaign’s legal budget. Yet, there was no hue and cry for this type of prosecution in Washington or New York.
A Section 175 charge would normally be a misdemeanor. The only way to convert it into a Class E felony requires a showing that the “intent to defraud includes an intent to commit another crime or to aid or conceal the commission thereof.” That other crime would appear to be the federal election violations which the Justice Department previously declined to charge.
The linkage to a federal offense is critical for another reason: Bragg’s office ran out of time to prosecute this as a misdemeanor years ago; the statute of limitations is two years. Even if he shows this is a viable felony charge, the longer five-year limitation could be hard to establish.
Of course, none of these legalistic problems will be relevant in the coming frenzy. It will be a case that is nothing if not entertaining, one to which you can bring your popcorn — so long as you leave your principles behind.
Indeed, some will view it as poetic justice for this former reality-TV host to be tried like a televised talent show. However, the damage to the legal system is immense whenever political pressure overwhelms prosecutorial judgment. The criminal justice system can be a terrible weapon when used for political purposes, an all-too-familiar spectacle in countries where political foes can be targeted by the party in power.
None of this means Trump is blameless or should not be charged in other cases. However, we seem to be on the verge of watching a prosecution by plebiscite in this case. The season opener of “America’s Got Trump” might be a guaranteed hit with its New York audience — but it should be a flop as a prosecution.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at The George Washington University.
Trump indictment would be targeted prosecution: Alan Dershowitz | America Right Now
By Eric Mack | Saturday, 18 March 2023 05:03 PM EDT
Regardless of former President Donald Trump’s arrest for a “hypercreative” prosecution, Democrats leading this charge will not stop him from running for president, according to legal expert Alan Dershowitz on Newsmax.
“They’re going to want to make this political circus; in the end, it will help Trump politically,” Dershowitz told “America Right Now.” “And remember that it doesn’t matter if he’s indicted or even convicted or even in prison: He can still run for president and serve as president.
“The state can’t stop it and the Legislature can’t stop it. It’s in the Constitution.” Dershowitz, Harvard Law professor emeritus, cannot fathom the concocting of this case against Trump.
“I taught law for 50 years, I have no idea how you can combine a federal statute about campaign contributions with a state misdemeanor statute about other things and come up” with something to charge Trump with, Dershowitz told host Tom Basile.
“You know, it’s 1 and 1 equal 11 here — not 1 and 1 equals 2. It’s just wrong.”
The timing is also suspect, Dershowitz noted, as allegations of influence peddling against the Biden family has reached a crescendo. Also, this week, Dershowitz released his latest book
“It shows not a single one of them is justified,” Dershowitz said of his book laying out myriad attempts to find crimes to charge Trump with. “If it wasn’t Donald Trump, no prosecutor would dream of bringing this stretched indictment. The criminal law is not supposed to be an act of creativity. You’re supposed to investigate people for existing well-known crimes.”
The weaponization of justice against the political opposition in Democrat-led states like New York is on full display, according to Dershowitz.
“This purely, purely political,” Dershowitz said. “Look, the attorney general of New York ran on a campaign to get Trump; Bragg essentially the same thing. This is 100% political.
“There is no basis for this prosecution; but with the judiciary in New York, you never know. The courts could uphold it.”
Efforts to “get Trump” have effectively tossed the ethics of prosecution out the window, Dershowitz warned.
“That’s the problem,” he said. “The problem is every part of the judicial system has become politicized: Get Trump. This get Trump business idea, about which I wrote this book, ‘Get Trump,’ has permeated every aspect of our legal system.
“Normally a person has a guarantee at least that the courts will free him. Here there’s no assurance that the courts of New York will. It may have to go to the United States Supreme Court.”
This is an age-old example of “show me the man and I will find the crime,” according to Dershowitz.
“The prosecution itself is an unrighteous prosecution,” he said. “It’s a targeted prosecution. It’s an example of the conversation between the head of the KGB and Stalin, where the KGB guy said to Stalin: ‘Show me the man, and I’ll find you the crime.’ This is selective, targeted prosecution.
“The indictment itself, if it comes forward, would be an act of hypercreativity, combining together a federal statute, the state statute — unprecedented, unjustified, and yet likely to succeed, because in New York you can indict a ham sandwich if you’re the grand jury, and probably convict the ham sandwich if his name is Trump, because the jury pool will be so dramatically opposed to Trump.
“This is a very bad day for America. Look, I’m a liberal Democrat. I want to vote against Trump for the third time. This has nothing to do with politics. This has to do with my lifetime commitment for a single standard of justice and no weaponization of justice.”
WASHINGTON, DC – MARCH 9: CDC Director Rochelle Walensky speaks during a news conference at HHS headquarters March 9, 2023 in Washington, DC. Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra and other agency heads discussed President Joe Biden’s fiscal year 2024 budget request for the Department of Health and Human Services. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Now they’re claiming we can’t trust the Vaers database they themselves set up.
U.S. health authorities have responded to the warning from Florida’s surgeon general about a spike in reports of adverse events following COVID-19 vaccination.
Drs. Rochelle Walensky and Robert Califf claimed in the response that Dr. Joseph Ladapo, the surgeon general, was misleading the public by focusing on the increase in adverse events reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS).
“The claim that the increase of VAERS reports of life-threatening conditions reported from Florida and elsewhere represents an increase of risk caused by the COVID-19 vaccines is incorrect, misleading, and could be harmful to the American public,” Walensky and Califf said in the missive.
The COVID-19 vaccines were given emergency authorization in late 2020. Under the emergency authorizations, vaccine companies and healthcare workers are required to report certain adverse events through VAERS, “so more reports should be expected,” Walensky and Califf said.
“Most reports do not represent adverse events caused by the vaccine and instead represent a preexisting condition that preceded vaccination or an underlying medical condition that precipitated the event,” they said.
They did not cite any studies or other research to support the claim.
While anyone can lodge reports with the system, authorities request medical records and other documentation in an effort to verify reports of certain events. Out of 1,826 reports of heart inflammation after Pfizer or Moderna vaccination in adults through May 26, 2022, for instance, the CDC verified 72 percent.
The CDC also identified hundreds of safety signals for the Moderna and Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines through analyzing VAERS data in 2022, according to records obtained by The Epoch Times. A safety signal is a possible sign of a side effect. Only a handful of adverse events are definitely caused by the vaccines, according to the CDC, including myocarditis, or heart inflammation, and severe allergic shock.
Ladapo said in February that in Florida, the number of reports to VAERS after the COVID-19 vaccines were authorized spiked by 1,700 percent, while the increase in vaccine administration rose by just 400 percent.
“We have never seen this type of response following previous mass vaccination efforts pushed by the federal government,” Ladapo said in a letter to Walensky and Califf.
“These findings are unlikely to be related to changes in reporting given their magnitude, and more likely reflect a pattern of increased risk from mRNA COVID-19 vaccines,” he added, calling for “unbiased research … to better understand these vaccines’ short- and long-term effects.” The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines both use messenger RNA (mRNA) technology.
Florida officials pointed to a study that found in the original clinical trials that the vaccinated were more at risk of serious adverse events, as well as otherpapers that found an increased risk of adverse events after COVID-19 vaccination.
Florida currently recommends against COVID-19 vaccination for young, healthy males who have been shown to be at the highest risk of myocarditis. Vaccinating the population “doesn’t make any sense” from a risk-benefit standpoint, Ladapo, appointed by Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, told The Epoch Times. The heart inflammation causes serious problems and can even lead to death in some cases.
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Robert Califf testifies during a Senate Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Subcommittee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington on April 28, 2022. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
Officials Differ
Walensky and Califf, both appointed by Democrat President Joe Biden, told Ladapo that their reference information supports vaccinating virtually all people aged 6 months and older with not only a primary series of the COVID-19 vaccine, but boosters.
“Based on available information for the COVID-19 vaccines that are authorized or approved in the United States, the known and potential benefits of these vaccines clearly outweigh their known and potential risks,” they said. “Multiple well conducted, peer-reviewed, published studies and demonstrate that the risk of death, serious illness and hospitalization is higher for unvaccinated individuals for every age group.”
The officials cited studies from the CDC, including papers published by the agency’s quasi journal. According to the CDC, some papers published by the journal aren’t peer reviewed. All of the studies are shaped by agency officials to align with its messaging, which during the pandemic has been aggressively pro-vaccination, even as awareness of confirmed and possible side effects has grown.
The messaging was on display in the letter.
“As the leading public health official in state, you are likely aware that seniors in Florida are under-vaccinated, with just 29% of seniors having received an updated bivalent vaccine, compared to the national average of 41% coverage in seniors,” Walensky and Califf said. “It is the job of public health officials around the country to protect the lives of the populations they serve, particularly the vulnerable. Fueling vaccine hesitancy undermines this effort.”
The officials said that they “stand firmly behind the safety and effectiveness of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, which are fully supported by the available scientific data.”
“Staying up to date on vaccination is the best way to reduce the risks of death and serious illness or hospitalization from COVID-19. Misleading people by overstating the risks, or emphasizing the risks without acknowledging the overwhelming benefits, unnecessarily causes vaccine hesitation and puts people at risk of death or serious illness that could have been prevented by timely vaccination,” the officials continued.
The letter came after the CDC’s recent risk-benefit assessment of the new, updated boosters was criticized by independent medical professionals for downplaying risks and exaggerating benefits.
Florida Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo. (York Du/The Epoch Times)
Reaction
Walensky’s and Califf’s response to Ladapo featured citations to flawed studies, Dr. Harvey Risch, professor emeritus of epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health, told The Epoch Times via email, “The CDC routinely conducts cross-sectional studies and inappropriately analyzes them as if they were case-control studies, which substantially overestimates their reported vaccine efficacy measures.
“In this letter, these doctors cherry pick studies and ignore, for example, reliable Public Health UK data showing the exact opposite of what they claim,” Risch said.
“As much as they claim that the VAERS data are not quantitatively useful, these data indeed show a major COVID-19 vaccine rollout-period mortality signal that cannot be ignored or handwaved away by the lack of a population reference. These agencies continuously proclaim their data monitoring of several other information sources, yet they have not been transparent with these data,” he added.
Risch noted that insurance data shows a jump in COVID-19 deaths after the vaccines were authorized and that, according to a recent survey, many Americans know of at least one person who has suffered an adverse event after vaccination.
“FDA and CDC have lost credibility with much of the American public, and accusing Dr. Ladapo of misinformation when they themselves are the official purveyor of misinformation is unconscionable,” Risch said.
Nikki Whiting, a spokeswoman for Ladapo, said that the surgeon general would be sending a response letter to the officials.
“The response from the federal government is just another redundant display of the same apathetic talking point of ‘safe and effective.’ Googling their fact sheets would have achieved the same result,” she told The Epoch Times in an email.
“While the Feds gaslight the American public, Florida pushes for the truth. Three inquiries remain unanswered: 1. Access to raw patient-level data to allow for unbiased research. 2. Adequate attention surrounding the risks detected by numerous researchers around the world. 3. Public transparency from the CDC, FDA, and Big Pharma.”
WASHINGTON, DC – DECEMBER 19: Attorney Steven Metcalf (2nd L), representing seditious conspiracy defendant Dominic Pezzola for his role in the attacks of January 6 at the U.S. Capitol, arrives at the E. Barrett Prettyman United States Courthouse December 19, 2022 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
By Gary Bai for The Epoch Times
March 9, 2023Updated: March 10, 2023
FBI agents ordered to alter or destroy evidence
The trial of Dominic Pezzola, one of the defendants of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol breach, was paused on Thursday due to classified FBI messages revealed in court, which the defense attorneys say show FBI agents discussing the altering of evidence.
Pezzola is one of the Proud Boys members on trial for obstruction and conspiracy charges related to the Jan. 6 Capitol breach. He was arrested on Jan. 15, 2021, and indicted the same month. Pezzola’s trial began in January of this year.
“There are a couple of emails between FBI agents casually discussing altering a document and destroying hundreds of pieces of evidence. It’s very disturbing and right now we have more questions than answers,” Roger Roots, an attorney at John Pierce Law, wrote to The Epoch Times. Roots confirmed that Washington District Court Judge Timothy J. Kelly, a Trump appointee, paused the trial on Thursday after the leaked messages were shown in court.
The exchange Roots referred to came into light on Wednesday during the testimony of FBI special agent Nicole Miller, who was involved in the agency’s investigations of the Jan. 6 defendants.
When cross-examining Miller, Nick Smith, an attorney representing Proud Boys member Ethan Nordean (listed as co-defendant on Pezzola’s case), revealed classified FBI emails that were hidden in a tab in an Excel spreadsheet. Roots, in Pezzola’s case, used this evidence to support a motion to dismiss (pdf) the charges against Pezzola, which Roots’s team filed on Wednesday.
In the motion, Pezzola’s team said the emails showed that the FBI monitored communications between Nordean and his lawyer, violating the Sixth Amendment, which prohibits invasions of the right to counsel (Matter of Fusco v. Moses).
“In the Nordean case, confidential attorneys-client trial/defense strategy and position was wrongfully obtained by the government, about which was overheard, shared, utilized, where potentially ‘338 items of evidence’ were ordered to be ‘destroyed,’ said Pezzola’s legal team in the motion to dismiss.
According to a separate filing by Nordean’s lawyers, Miller said in one correspondence that “[her] boss assigned [her] 338 items of evidence [she has] to destroy”; Nordean’s lawyers allege that another email show an agent requesting Miller to “go into [a] CHS [informant] report” that Miller “just put [together] and edit out that [the agent] was present.”
The emails show Miller “admitted fabricating evidence and following orders to destroy hundreds of items of evidence,” Pezzola’s lawyers wrote in its motion to dismiss, and that the government obtained information that benefitted itself in the trial, causing substantial prejudice to each of the defendants, including Pezzola.
“If justice means anything, it requires this case to be dismissed,” Pezzola’s lawyer said.
Roots is representing Pezzola on a pro bono basis. Legal non-profit National Constitutional Law Union (NCLU) is helping cover Roots’s expenses while he is in Washington, according to NCLU Executive Director Natalie Danelishen.
“My thoughts are we need a longer pause to get to the bottom of some of Agent Miller’s emails,” Roots told The Epoch Times.
As of Thursday evening, the court has not issued an order responding to the motion to dismiss.
Alleged Brady Violations
In addition to their argument about the Sixth Amendment, Pezzola’s lawyers also argued in their motion to dismiss that newly surfaced footage of events of the Jan. 6 Capitol breach constitutes exculpatory evidence. The defendants’ lawyers say the government, by withholding that evidence, violated their client’s constitutional rights as defined in Brady v. Maryland, a 1963 case in which the Supreme Court held that prosecutors must make available exculpatory evidence to defense counsel.
The defendants’ motion comes two days after House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) released more than 40,000 hours of Jan. 6 footage to Fox News’s Tucker Carlson, who then aired some of the footage on his show on Monday and Tuesday.
One tape aired Monday showed Capitol Police officers walking alongside Jacob Chansley, a Jan. 6 defendant serving a 41-month sentence after pleading guilty to an obstruction charge. Chansley was unarmed and walked past several Capitol police officers.
The aired footage “is plainly exculpatory,” Pezzola’s lawyers said in the motion.
The FBI declined to comment and referred The Epoch Times to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for comment.
U.S. Attorney’s Office did not provide The Epoch Times with comment by
As for that “threatening” photo Trump supposedly posted of himself with a baseball bat — it was a link Trump shared from the site National File, which had reported that Bragg was elected in a race with low turnout.
