Category: Corruption

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Corruption COVID How sick is this? Reprints from others.

OMG! US Military Used Contact Tracing During COVID Then Sent Families of the Possibly Infected to Filthy Barracks for Days

During the COVID crisis, the US military used contact tracing to identify individuals with a high risk of catching the virus and sent them and their families, with little warning to filthy barracks for 10 days.

A report coming out of Korea discussed the military’s tactics there to combat COVID.  The result was a trampling of soldiers’ freedoms and privacy.   A post at trmlx.com discussed what happened in the military when COVID hit.

A lot of things took place across the broad spectrum of the DOD during 2020 and 2021 which have been unethical at best and flat out illegal at worst…

…A system of surveillance rose up in South Korea during 2020 in a supposed effort to tackle the high volume of Covid positive individuals that were popping up all over the peninsula. Right out of the gate I’ll declare that it was illegal and runs afoul of a number of laws we have in place to protect American citizens from abuses at the hands of their own government.

Under the leadership of General Robert Abrams, a method of contact tracing involving the use of CCTV (closed circuit television, or security footage) was used to track the movement of personnel on Camp Humphreys, collect and store their information, then remove them from their homes and put them in isolation/quarantine facilities.

COL Tremblay (pictured on right and Garrison Commander of Camp Humphreys at the time) says, “we’re gonna find out who you are because we have other ways of finding you. Whether it’s through CCTV or a number of our other capabilities…”

The process for identifying and tracking personnel worked like this:

  • When people entered the PX (post exchange or mini mall) they would scan in with their CAC (common access card or ID) and sign their name along with the time.

  • If someone tested positive for Covid, they would use those sheets and CCTV footage to identify anyone who may have had close contact with the individual while out shopping.

  • Screenshots would be taken from the saved CCTV footage and posted to the Camp Humphrey’s official facebook page and pushed out for all to see.

The Covid tracking team was called the Covid Surveillance Cell. After personnel were identified and tracked based on the collected and stored information, a contact clean team, along with a team to collect the individual and/or that person’s family to send them into isolation, were sent out from the command.

TRMLX then discusses why this was illegal:

Executive Order 12333 dictates very clearly what is and isn’t allowed within the context of United States Intelligence Activities. This order is well known by commanders at every echelon due to the ramifications it holds if it’s broken.

Elements of the Intelligence Community are authorized to collect, retain, or disseminate information concerning United States persons only in accordance with procedures established by the head of the Intelligence Community element concerned or by the head of a department containing such element and approved by the Attorney General, consistent with the authorities provided by Part 1 of this Order, after consultation with the Director.

A document pertaining to Intelligence Oversight from Marine Corps Headquarters even states,

Generally you may not intentionally target, collect, retain, and disseminate information on U.S.
persons whether CONUS or OCONUS.

It goes on to clarify that law enforcement has the authority to retain information on U.S. persons for up to 90 days who pose a threat to DOD personnel, resources or activities, but I don’t think you could find a sober attorney alive who would argue that shopping at the PX poses a criminal threat to the DOD.

After individuals and their families were identified and teams came to collect them, it was often a hurried process to get them out of their domicile and into isolation.

Original Here:

 

Categories
Back Door Power Grab Corruption Crime Politics

Visitor Logs Show Joe Biden Met with Hunter’s Business Partner at the White House

Yes you did. Government overreach. FOX Photo.

By Jack Davis  April 24, 2022 at 7:57am

A new report says that White House visitor logs confirm that a business partner of Hunter Biden met with President Joe Biden in the White House while Joe Biden was vice president during the Obama administration.

The president has insisted on multiple occasions that he was never involved in or aware of the business activity of his son, which included contacts in Ukraine, Russia and China.

Eric Schwerin, who at the time was president of the since-dissolved Rosemont Seneca Partners — which Hunter Biden helped found — met with Joe Biden on Nov. 17, 2010, visitor logs document, according to the New York Post.

The logs indicate that Schwerin met with aides of Joe and Jill Biden multiple times between 2009 and 2013.

Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, who has investigated Hunter Biden’s activities, said the president’s claim to have never been involved in his son’s business ventures rings hollow.

”Not everyone gets to meet the Vice President of the United States in the White House. The press should be asking why Hunter Biden’s business associates — like Eric Schwerin — had that privilege and were given access to the Obama White House,” he said.

“This is additional evidence that Joe Biden lied when he said he never discussed Hunter’s foreign business dealings. It’s well past time for the corporate media to demand the truth from Joe Biden. The corruption of Biden Inc. must be exposed,” Johnson said.

In October 2009, Schwerin met with Evan Ryan, then-Vice President Biden’s assistant for intergovernmental affairs and public liaison. Four months later, Hunter Biden was copied in on a request for an appointment to the National Labor Relations Board, which was later made by former President Barack Obama.

Schwerin “did financial stuff for the family but that’s really all I know,” Margaret Campbell, a former Special Assistant to Jill Biden said, adding, “It would make sense if he stopped into the White House.”

Schwerin was involved in Joe Biden’s tax matters, according to the hard drive of the laptop computer that once belonged to Hunter Biden.

“Your Dad just called me (about his mortgage) and mentioned he’d be out a lot soon and not really back until Labor Day … He could use some positive news about his future earnings potential,” Schwerin wrote to Hunter Biden in July of 2010

The evidence is mounting that the full story needs to be told, Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas said.

“It’s increasingly obvious that Hunter Biden’s business revolved around providing access to his father and the highest levers of power. It reeks of pay-to-play. The clear solution is a Special Counsel investigation to fairly investigate the disturbing allegations of Biden family corruption,” Cruz said.

From the start, questions have been raised about Joe Biden’s connections with Hunter Biden’s pals.

When the first reports of the contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop emerged in 2020, a report in the New York Post said that a 2015 email reveals that Hunter Biden introduced his father to a top executive of a Ukrainian energy firm at a time when Joe Biden was vice president.

The email was from Vadym Pozharskyi, an adviser to the board of Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian energy company that once had Hunter Biden on its board and payroll.

“Dear Hunter, thank you for inviting me to DC and giving an opportunity to meet your father and spent [sic] some time together. It’s realty [sic] an honor and pleasure,” the April 17, 2015, email read.

When asked about the content of the emails, White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates told Fox News, “We don’t comment on the laptop.”

Categories
Child Abuse Corruption Drugs Human Traficking Politics

26 Governors Create Border Strike Force ‘In the Absence of Federal Leadership’

Charlotte Cuthbertson for EPOCH TIMES April 20, 2022
Twenty-six governors, all Republican, announced the creation of a Border Strike Force to “disrupt and dismantle transnational criminal organizations” on April 19.

The group of governors signed a memorandum of understanding, pledging to work together to “serve as a force multiplier to target cartels and criminal networks financially and operationally.”

“Together, governors will improve public safety, protect victims from horrific crimes, reduce the amount of drugs in our communities, and alleviate the humanitarian crisis at the Southern Border,” the agreement states.

The group includes two border states—Arizona and Texas—as well as 24 others: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

“In the absence of federal leadership, states are partnering together to create the American Governors’ Border Strike Force to disrupt and dismantle transnational criminal organizations by increasing collaboration, improving intelligence, investing in analysis, combating human smuggling, and stopping drug flow in our states,” the agreement states.

Epoch Times Photo
A group of illegal aliens is apprehended by law enforcement on a ranch in Kinney County, Texas, on Jan. 15, 2022. (Courtesy of Kinney County Sheriff’s Office)

The governors will coordinate to share intelligence, disrupt smuggling corridors, and assist border states. They plan to focus efforts on targeting cartel finances and border-related crime.

The participating states also plan to review state laws regarding human trafficking, drug trafficking, and transnational criminal organizations “to ensure that such crimes are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

For example, Arizona doesn’t currently have a state law against human smuggling, while Texas just strengthened its anti-smuggling laws last September.

Epoch Times Photo
A Border Patrol agent walks from the wreckage of Wanda Sitowski’s car after a 16-year-old smuggler ran a red light at 105 miles per hour and caused a fatal crash in Cochise County, Ariz., on Oct. 30, 2021. (Zach Bennett/Sierra Vista News Network)

States can request help from other participating states and state-specific certifications and licenses will be honored among the states. Each state is responsible for its own costs.

The Border Strike Force was announced days after Customs and Border Protection released its March statistics, which show the highest number of Border Patrol apprehensions—209,906—along the southern border since early 2000.

Epoch Times Photo
Border Patrol agents apprehend a group of Cubans who just crossed the Rio Grande from Mexico into Eagle Pass, Texas, on April 19, 2022. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves wrote on Twitter that “we’re all border states now & we’re going to protect ourselves.”

“Despite what the Biden Admin would have you believe, criminals, drugs & human trafficking don’t just stay on the border. They make their way to every state,” Reeves wrote on April 19.

Idaho Gov. Brad Little accused President Joe Biden of refusing to address the border crisis.

“America’s governors are stepping up. Our multi-state partnership is designed to disrupt and dismantle the transnational criminal organizations taking advantage of the open border with Mexico,” Little wrote on Twitter on April 19.

Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey said his state has had a similar state-level in operation since 2015.

“What we’re doing in Arizona works,” Ducey said in an April 19 statement. “If our entire southern border isn’t secure, our nation isn’t secure.”

Categories
Corruption Crime Human Traficking Politics

Record Number of Illegal Immigrants Waiting in Mexico for ‘Magic Day’: Immigration Expert

Senior National Security Fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) Todd Bensman in an interview with EpochTV’s “Facts Matter” program on April 2022. (The Epoch Times)
By Masooma Haq and Roman Balmakov for EPOCH TIMES  April 18, 2022

With U.S. intelligence officials estimating a massive increase in the number of illegal immigrants inundating illegal entry points at the southern border, Todd Bensman of the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS) in Washington said many who have been temporarily held off in Mexico will flood the border after Title 42 ends.

“Now you have Title 42 people coming in, who are just saying, ‘I’m coming to wait for the magic day,’” Bensman, senior national security fellow at CIS, told EpochTV’s “Facts Matter.”

Title 42 is a federal health statute that allows the government to impose health control measures to limit the number of people seeking asylum from entering the country during a health emergency. It’s slated to end on May 23.

During the Trump presidency, “everybody [who] gets caught crossing the border goes back immediately to Mexico. That drove the numbers down to kind of historic low levels,” Bensman said.

He said that although Biden was forced to keep Title 42, he carved out “huge exemptions in it for family groups and unaccompanied minors, that … created the mass migration crisis that we have today.”

With the Biden carve-outs, record numbers of illegal immigrants are entering the United States, but intelligence officials are predicting that after Title 42 is lifted, between 12,000 and 18,000 illegal immigrants will flood the southern border each day.

“That’s on the outer limits of the estimates, [which] are coming from the American intelligence community. … This is what they’re expecting,” Bensman said. “They’re saying it could be as low as 12,000 a day. But to give you some context, we’re at [6,000] and 7,000 a day right now, which is just too big to handle at present.”

Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas directed the Federal Emergency Management Agency in March to support Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) officers over the following three months to help process families and children who enter illegally more quickly.

“They’re bringing in fleets of aircraft to be able to quickly move people off the riverbanks into other places, other cities, other towns. They’re doing expansions of existing facilities, like kind of soft-sided tent-like facilities. They’re probably going to be bringing in the army to help with crowd control. And they’re working closely with the Mexicans to see if the Mexicans can control things on their side,” Bensman said.

their side,” Bensman said.

Epoch Times Photo
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)
He said of how the country’s migrant advocate-driven asylum system currently functions, “All you have to do is cross, say ‘I declare asylum,’ and you have this off-ramp into the American interior, pretty much forever. … [The migrant advocacy industry] want this to be available to everybody.”CIS estimates that the Biden administration has helped 1.3 million illegal immigrants resettle in the United States during President Joe Biden’s term with an honor system for court dates or notices to appear later to have their asylum cases adjudicated.

Bensman said Biden has all but abolished the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency and almost no deportations are being conducted, which won’t change until another administration comes in. Noting that even if someone is a terrorist or murderer, it would still take a long process for that person to be deported.

“The number of deportations are at the lowest that they’ve been in memory and maybe in history. The number of deportations of criminal aliens with records is at a nadir,” he said.

Using Inspections to Control Border

“The state of Texas has this muscle that they’ve never used, that I don’t think anybody’s even thought to use before, which is to put its vehicle inspection officers at the bridges—more of them—and to ‘inspect’ every single truck coming off of these bridges with freight,” Bensman said.

This action forced Mexican governors to do immigration control on their side, he said. Four governors signed immigration deals with Texas to hold back immigrants as long as trucks can pass through entry points efficiently. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has said if the immigration deals aren’t enforced, he’ll put the inspection patrols back.

“These cause a huge amount of pain on both sides actually, a lot of Texans are feeling that pain: businesses, a lot of Abbott’s constituents. It’s politically risky, but it shows the desperation of Texas about Title 42 and what’s about to happen, to do whatever, pull out whatever stops,” Bensman said.

Trucks wait in a long queue for border customs control to cross into U.S. at the World Trade Bridge in Nuevo Laredo
Trucks wait in a long queue for border customs control to cross into the United States at the World Trade Bridge in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, on April 2, 2019. (Daniel Becerril/Reuters)

Bensman said this type of diplomacy around immigration is really the job of the federal government, but seeing that nothing was happening, Abbott bypassed the Biden administration.

“This is something that the Biden administration should have done,” Bensman said. “Trump did this type of thing. He threatened economic pain if the Mexicans didn’t go along with his plan. And it worked when he did it.”

He said if he was put in charge of the crisis at the southern border, he would overhaul the asylum law: “Just take it off the table and come up with something else. It’s going to take bipartisan support. And in the meantime, we need to leverage Costa Rica, Colombia, and Panama to shut their borders down.”

 

Categories
Back Door Power Grab Corruption Elections Faked news Politics The Courts

“None of Them Should Be in Jail. They Should All Be Out On Bail…It Is an American Gulag” – Judge Napolitano

By Joe Hoft for Gateway Pundit April 14, 2022 at 7:25pm

Judge Napolitano was on The Joe Hoft Show at the Real Talk radio network today.  He discussed the Jan 6 incident and the horrors of the abuse taking place in DC.

Judge Napolitano was on The Joe Hoft Show at the Real Talk radio network today. He discussed the Jan 6 incident and the horrors of the abuse taking place in DC.

The judge shared the following about those being held in the DC jail due to their actions on Jan 6.

None of them should be in jail.  They should all be out on bail. Most jails are garbage, particularly inner city jails.  There’s no political support for spending an nickele in there.  Politicians don’t care because the public doesn’t care.  So it shouldn’t be a surprise.

But what’s surprising is that they have been attacked violently and that they’ve been subjected to a disgusting environment for more than a few hours and that they’re in jail to begin with.  I mean none of these people is a threat to society and all of them would gladly come back at time of trial and most of them shouldn’t be charged anyway because most of them are there to partake in 1st Amemdment protected behavior.

The judge then talked about reading a piece by Roger Stone about the heartbreaking stories in the DC jail and then the Virginia state jail system.

The Feds are trying to wear these people down.  They’re way overcharging them so they can get guilty pleas and they’re making their lives miserable so that the defendants will say to their lawyers, ‘get me out of here’, or ‘I’ll agree to testify to anything, just so I can have a decent night sleep and a decent shower and a decent meal.’  It shouldn’t be that way.  It is an American Gulag.  

Judge Nap went on to say:

Judges don’t like to tell jailers how to do their jails but when it’s a violation of a constitutional right, the judges should.  The judges should be releasing these people, like I said.  They should be released on a moderate amount of bail because the Constitution prohibits requiring an unreasonable amount of bail…The overwhelming majority are not accused of an act of violence…There’s every indication that these people should be given bail and they’re not…Judges are not doing their job.  This stuff should make its way to the Supreme Court of the United States which rarely hears matters involving bail or conditions in prison unless a cause of death.  But it needs to be exposed and it needs to be corrected.

Original here (includes video)

Categories
Corruption Elections Politics The Courts

Zuckerberg Ends Controversial Grants to Election Offices

Facebook Chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies before the House Financial Services Committee on “An Examination of Facebook and Its Impact on the Financial Services and Housing Sectors” in the Rayburn House Office Building in Washington, DC on October 23, 2019. (Photo by Nicholas Kamm / AFP) (Photo by NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP via Getty Images)
By Matthew Vadum for Epoch Times  April 13, 2022

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, who in the 2020 election cycle flooded election offices across the United States with hundreds of millions of dollars in grants, won’t be participating in such grantmaking this year, according to a spokesman.

Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, made $419.5 million in donations to nonprofits—“Zuckerbucks” or “Zuckbucks,” as some have called the money—$350 million of which went to the “Safe Elections” Project of the left-wing Center for Technology and Civic Life (CTCL). The other $69.5 million went to the Center for Election Innovation and Research. The CTCL reportedly distributed grants to upward of 2,500 election offices.

Zuckerberg spokesman Ben LaBolt, who was previously spokesman for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, said the donations were a one-time deal.

“As Mark and Priscilla made clear previously, their election infrastructure donation to help ensure that Americans could vote during the height of the pandemic was a one-time donation given the unprecedented nature of the crisis,” LaBolt told The New York Times on April 12. “They have no plans to repeat that donation.”

The money was supposed to be used to buy personal protective equipment and new ballot-counting equipment, train poll workers, and expand mail-in voting.

But critics have a less charitable take on what happened. They say the Zuckerbergs helped buy the presidency for presidential candidate Joe Biden by improperly influencing election officials and artificially driving up turnout in Democrat, but not Republican, strongholds across the nation.

Author J.D. Vance, who’s seeking the Republican nod for the Ohio U.S. Senate seat, said on April 12 on the campaign trail that he believed the 2020 presidential election was stolen through fraud. Illegal ballot harvesting and Zuckerberg putting money into Democratic turnout in battleground states were also key in the election, he said.

The donations spawned a series of lawsuits across the country. For example, last month, the Thomas More Society filed a complaint with the Wisconsin Elections Commission claiming that Milwaukee officials were involved in an election bribery scheme for accepting election-assistance money from CTCL, as The Epoch Times reported.

Grants to election administrators created “a two-tiered election system that treated voters differently depending on whether they lived in Democrat or Republican strongholds,” Phill Kline, director of the Amistad Project of the Thomas More Society, wrote in a report in late 2020.

“This privatization of elections undermines the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), which requires state election plans to be submitted to federal officials and approved, and requires respect for equal protection by making all resources available equally to all voters,” Kline wrote.

Several states, including Florida, subsequently banned private donations to election offices.

In May 2021, Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, signed the state’s new election integrity law, which, in addition to prohibiting the use of private funds to administer elections, also banned ballot harvesting and mass mailing of ballots, and strengthened voter identification requirements.

“Florida took action this legislative session to increase transparency and strengthen the security of our elections,” DeSantis said at the time, as The Epoch Times reported. “Floridians can rest assured that our state will remain a leader in ballot integrity. Elections should be free and fair, and these changes will ensure this continues to be the case in the Sunshine State.”

Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) President J. Christian Adams, a former U.S. Justice Department civil rights attorney whose group frequently files election integrity lawsuits, said at the time that the Zuckerbergs’ money had a huge influence on the 2020 elections.

“Zuckbucks were the biggest factor, juicing blue areas in 2020,” Adams said around the time Florida cracked down on private money being used in election administration.

“A private citizen should not be allowed to influence how our elections are run. At the Public Interest Legal Foundation, we are proud to have played a role in ensuring that this money will not be spent to influence the Florida elections in 2022.”

CTCL Executive Director Tiana Epps-Johnson said earlier this week that her group is launching a new five-year, $80 million program called the U.S. Alliance for Election Excellence to assist election offices across the United States.

Bolt said the Zuckerbergs won’t be involved in the new project.

So why isn’t he in Jail? Answer: $$$$$$$

Categories
Corruption Elections Politics

OUTSTANDING! Alabama Governor Kay Ivey Shares the Greatest Campaign Ad of the Season and the Far-Left Goes Crazy

Alabama Governor Kay Ivey dropped the most accurate and succinct campaign ad to date.  She’s starting the 2022 election off with fire. 

Alabama Governor Kay Ivey shared what she has done for Alabama and what she will continue to do – protect the election process from being stolen like President Trump’s election was stolen in 2020.

Governor Ivey shares:

The fake news, Big Tech and blue state liberals stole the election from President Trump.”

“But here in Alabama, we are making sure that never happens,” she continues. “We have not, and will not, send absentee ballots to everyone and their brother. We banned corrupt curbside voting, and our results will always be audited. I’m Kay Ivey. The Left is probably offended. So be it. As long as I’m governor, we’re going to protect your vote.”

See full video below and on Youtube

Categories
Corruption COVID Drugs How sick is this?

FOIA Request Unearths that Pfizer Planned to Hire 1,800 Employees to Deal with Reporting on Adverse Effects from COVID Vaccine

Pfizer hired 600 employees with a plan to hire a total of 1,800 employees when side effects from its COVID vaccine started showing up.  The employees were hired to address the flood in adverse effects reporting. 

Posted by Jim Holt for The Gateway Pundit April 10, 2022 at 4:00pm

Zerohedge shared a report Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times: 

Pfizer hired 600 employees in the months after its COVID-19 vaccine was authorized in the United States due to the “large increase” of reports of side effects linked to the vaccine, according to a document prepared by the company.

Pfizer has “taken a multiple actions to help alleviate the large increase of adverse event reports,” according to the document. “This includes significant technology enhancements, and process and workflow solutions, as well as increasing the number of data entry and case processing colleagues.”

At the time when the document—from the first quarter of 2021—was sent to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Pfizer had onboarded about 600 extra full-time workers to deal with the jump.

“More are joining each month with an expected total of more than 1,800 additional resources by the end of June 2021,” Pfizer said.

Pfizer tried to hide the information

In addition, Zerohedge reported:

The analysis of adverse event reports was previously disclosed to the health transparency group, but certain portions were redacted (pdf), including the number of workers Pfizer onboarded to deal with the jump in adverse event reports.

“We asked that the redactions on page 6 of this report be lifted and the FDA agreed without providing an explanation,” Aaron Siri, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs, told The Epoch Times in an email.

After the document was produced, the FDA determined that the three redactions on that page “could be lifted,” an FDA spokesperson told The Epoch Times via email.

The redactions had been made under (b) (4) of the Freedom of Information Act, which lets agencies “withhold trade secrets and commercial or financial information obtained from a person which is privileged or confidential.”

The unredacted version of the document also now shows that approximately 126 million doses of Pfizer were shipped around the world since the company received the first clearance, from U.S. regulators, on Dec. 1, 2020. The shipments took place through Feb. 28, 2021.

It was unclear how many of those doses had been administered as of that date.

As TGP reported previously, after the courts ordered Pfizer to release data on its COVID vaccine, documents showed over 1,200 vaccine deaths in the first 90 days after taking the vaccine.

TGP has reported many additional reports of deaths or injuries caused by the Pfizer vaccine.  The information to date does not look good for the Pfizer vaccine.

Categories
Corruption Elections Politics The Courts

Here’s hoping: Durham Asks Court to Compel Production From Clinton Campaign, DNC

FILE - This 2018 portrait released by the U.S. Department of Justice shows Connecticut's U.S. Attorney John Durham. Durham, the federal prosecutor tapped to investigate the origins of the Russia investigation, has been presenting evidence before a grand jury as part of his probe, a person familiar with the matter said Friday, Aug. 13, 2021. (U.S. Department of Justice via AP, File)
https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/09/john-durham.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1200

Crossfire Hurricane

By Zachary Stieber for the Epoch Times April 7, 2022

Special counsel John Durham’s team on April 6 asked a federal judge to force Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and two other parties to hand over documents they claim are protected by attorney–client privilege.

The campaign, the Democratic National Committee (DNC), and research and intelligence firm Fusion GPS appear to be withholding documents that aren’t actually protected by the privilege, Durham’s team said in the filing, entered in the case against ex-Clinton lawyer Michael Sussmann.

Of the withheld materials, almost all “appear to lack any connection to actual or expected litigation or the provision of legal advice,” prosecutors told U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, an Obama appointee who is overseeing the case.

In fact, of the 1,455 documents being withheld by Fusion GPS, only 18 emails and attachments are said to involve an attorney.

The Clinton campaign, the DNC, and Fusion didn’t respond to requests for comment.

The documents in question are being sought for the upcoming trial of Sussmann, who was charged with lying to the FBI for going to a bureau lawyer in 2016 and falsely stating he didn’t hand over unsubstantiated claims about then-candidate Donald Trump on behalf of a client.

The claims were compiled with funding from the campaign and the DNC by former British spy Christopher Steele and Fusion GPS, which was founded by former reporters.

Sussmann and his lawyers have been pressing the judge to dismiss the case prior to trial, arguing that the lie about not bringing the information on behalf of a client wasn’t material to the information itself.

Attorney–client privilege protects many communications between a client and their lawyer. Disclosure to third parties usually undercuts privilege claims.

In the new filing, Durham’s team pointed out that Fusion GPS co-founders Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch penned a book published in 2019, which means even if a valid privilege did once exist, it might have since been waived.

Prosecutors also noted that Fusion GPS operatives regularly communicated with reporters about their work, resulting in several stories before the 2020 election and a spate of others after voters hit the polls.

Further, the Clinton campaign (HFA) and the DNC have claimed privilege over communications sent between Rodney Joffe, whom Sussmann was also representing at the time, and a Fusion operative, “despite the fact that no one from either the DNC or HFA is copied on certain of these communications,” prosecutors said.

The government subpoenaed information from the parties in 2021.

Fusion GPS was paid by the Democratic entities through Perkins Coie, a law firm. The agreement was introduced as an exhibit in the case.

Many if not most of the actions taken by Fusion GPS employees “do not appear to have been a necessary part of, or even related to” Perkins Coie’s legal advice to the campaign and the DNC, Durham’s team said.

Prosecutors want to examine the communications in a private, in-camera setting “in order to resolve these issues and ensure that only legitimately privileged and/or attorney work product-protected communications and testimony be withheld from the otherwise admissible evidence and testimony that is presented to the jury at trial.”

The trial is currently set to start on May 16.

Categories
Back Door Power Grab Corruption Elections Politics

Trump Lost AZ by 10,457 Votes but Look at Eerie Number of AZ Federal-Only Voters Who Voted Without ID

JEFF KOWALSKY/AFP via Getty Images

Another item can be added to the list of those who have concerns about the integrity of the 2020 general election in Arizona.

President Joe Biden won the state by 10,457 votes (0.3 percent of the 3.4 million cast), which was the narrowest margin of any of the swing states that went for him.

Further, it was only the second time in the previous 70 years the state has sided with the Democratic candidate for president.

Last week, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey signed House Bill 2492 into law, which requires those who are only eligible to vote in federal elections in Arizona to provide documentary proof of citizenship.

“If they do not, they will not be eligible to vote in a presidential election or by mail,” Ducey’s office said in a Wednesday news release. “In 2020, more than 11,600 Federal Only Voters in Arizona participated in the general election without providing proof of citizenship. In Maricopa County alone, there are currently 13,042 active registered voters who have not provided evidence of citizenship to vote through use of the federal form.”

In other words, more people voted without being required to provide proof of citizenship — 11,600 — than the margin of Biden’s win in the Grand Canyon State — 10,457 votes.

In February, state GOP Rep. Jake Hoffman told Courthouse News that HB 2492 was intended to address a concerning trend in the number of “federal only” voters.

“In 2018, there were only 1,700 individuals who didn’t have documentary proof of citizenship on file,” Hoffman said. “In 2020, there were almost 12,000. So clearly, this is a trend that is increasing. This bill ensures that there is maximum flexibility to provide documentary proof of citizenship, but we don’t want foreign interference in our elections.”

And many of those federal-only votes likely came from Maricopa County, which encompasses the Phoenix metropolitan area and accounts for over 60 percent of the voters in the state.

In 2020, it was the only county in the state to flip from red to blue. Biden carried it with about the same 45,000-vote margin Republican Donald Trump did in 2016.

In a letter explaining his support for HB 2492, Ducey said, “Election integrity means counting every lawful vote and prohibiting any attempt to illegally cast a vote.”

This bill “is a balanced approach that honors Arizona’s history of making voting accessible without sacrificing security in our elections,” he added. “Federal law prohibits non-citizens from voting in federal elections. Arizona law prohibits non-citizens from voting for all state and local offices, and requires proof of citizenship.”

Democratic state Sen. Sally Ann Gonzales said the law creates a barrier to vote.

“I think [Republicans] hope is that not everybody is going to jump through those hoops and their hope is that the groups that are going to be impacted more are going to be the groups that are likely to vote against them,” Quezada told Governing.

In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that Arizona could not require proof of citizenship beyond an oath for those seeking to vote in federal elections. However, the state could continue to have ID requirements to register to vote for state and local elections. The Court held that Arizona’s law at the time was pre-empted by the National Voter Registration Act of 1993.

Federal law “precludes Arizona from requiring a Federal Form applicant to submit information beyond that required by the form itself,” then-Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for the majority.

“Arizona may, however, request anew that the [Election Assistance Commission] include such a requirement among the Federal Form’s state-specific instructions, and may seek judicial review of the EAC’s decision under the Administrative Procedure Act,” he added.

The Associated Press reported that two lawsuits had already been filed challenging HB 2492, including one by Democratic election attorney Marc Elias on behalf of Mi Famila Vota.

Elias played a very active role during the 2020 campaign season suing in multiple battleground states to get election procedures changed.

Last month, the Election Systems Integrity Institute released a report concluding that the Maricopa County mail-in ballot signature verification process used during the 2020 general election was deeply flawed.

The study, overseen by systems engineer Shiva Ayyadurai, found that the county allowed approximately 200,000 ballot envelopes with mismatched signatures to be forwarded for counting without adequate additional review.

ESII researchers reported that 11.3 percent of the approximately 1.9 million mail-in ballots should have gone through the curing process, rather than the 1.31 percent — or about 25,000 — that actually did.

Ultimately, only 587 ballots were rejected, or 0.03 percent.

It should be noted that no information has been disclosed regarding whom any of these ballots was cast for. Therefore, even if all 200,000 ballots in question were to be thrown out — a highly unlikely proposition — there is no way to know whether the outcome of the Arizona election would be changed.

Based on the findings of the study, the Arizona Attorney General’s Office sent a letter to the Maricopa County recorder and the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors requesting the voter signature files.