Debunking Fake News.
(Photograph by Erin Schaff/Getty Images.)
Article was originally here.
A viral tweet claims that Supreme Court Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Samuel Alito justified overturning Roe v. Wade in the leaked draft majority opinion because “the US needs a ‘domestic supply of infants.’”
The draft was written by Alito, not Barrett and Alito as the tweet suggests. The section of the opinion from which the quote is pulled is a footnote, with the line not being written by Barrett or Alito, but coming from a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention paper on adoption. The line reads: “[N]early 1 million women were seeking to adopt children in 2002 (i.e., they were in demand of a child), whereas the domestic supply of infants relinquished at birth or within the first month of life and available to be adopted had become virtually nonexistent.”
This paper is cited in a paragraph summing up arguments from pro-life Americans, specifically being cited in a sentence noting that a newborn put up for adoption in the United States will likely find a home. The footnote appears in the following section, following the italicized portion (italicization added):
“Americans who believe that abortion should be restricted press countervailing arguments about modern developments. They note that attitudes about the pregnancy of un-married women have changed drastically; that federal and state laws ban discrimination on the basis of pregnancy,42 that leave for pregnancy and childbirth are now guaranteed by law in many cases,43 that the costs of medical care associated with pregnancy are covered by insurance or government assistance44; that States have increasingly adopted ‘safe haven’ laws, which generally allow women to drop off babies anonymously45; and that a woman who puts her newborn up for adoption today has little reason to fear that the baby will not find a suitable home46.”
From the context of the footnote, it’s clear that the CDC quote appeared in the footnote only to highlight the fact that unwanted babies put up for adoption in the United States will likely find a family—not, as the tweet implies, that domestic birth rates need to increase to meet adoption demands. What’s more, the paragraph in which the footnote appears is about the arguments of pro-life Americans, taking place in a summary of the public debate surrounding abortion. Immediately preceding the above paragraph is another summing up the beliefs of pro-abortion Americans, which reads:
“Defenders of Roe and [Casey v. Planned Parenthood] do not claim that any new scientific learning calls for a different answer to the underlying moral question, but they do contend that changes in society require the recognition of a constitutional right to obtain an abortion. Without the availability of abortion, they maintain, people will be inhibited from exercising their freedom to choose the types of relationships they desire, and women will be unable to compete with men in the workplace and in other endeavors.”
Following both summaries, the opinion continues:
“Both sides make important policy arguments, but supporters of Roe and Casey must show that this Court has the authority to weigh those arguments and decide how abortion may be regulated in the States. They have failed to make that showing, and we thus return the power to weigh those arguments to the people and their elected officials.”
Parishioners confronted several pro-abortion protesters in costumes from The Handmaid’s Tale who attempted to disrupt Sunday mass at Our Lady of the Angels, the “mother church” of the L.A. archdiocese.
The Catholic News Agency confirmed the disruption, and reported:
The description of the protesters’ attire provided by the parishioner, Bradford Adkins, resembles costumes worn by members of the pro-abortion group Ruth Sent Us, which threatened to disrupt Catholic Masses on Sunday, Mother’s Day.
As of 10 p.m. EDT on Sunday, the group did not appear to have taken responsibility for the protest in Los Angeles. Representatives of the group did not respond to CNA’s request for comment prior to publication.
…
Ruth Sent Us has taken responsibility for disrupting Catholic churches before, such as at the Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption in San Francisco in February. During Mass at St. Mary’s, video footage shows protesters walking down the aisle toward the altar wearing red robes and white bonnets or “handmaids” costumes frequently worn by abortion activists. The costumes symbolize enslaved women who are raped and forced to give birth, inspired by Margaret Atwood’s 1985 dystopian novel, “The Handmaid’s Tale.”
The left-wing protesters continued to resist being moved out of the Cathedral in Los Angeles after failing to shut down Sunday mass. The male protester in the group almost became violent. #abortion#prochoice#prolifepic.twitter.com/RNkvozAAPO
Attorney Brad Geyer seeks information on unidentified “suspicious actors” at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (Brad Geyer/Graphic via The Epoch Times)
By Joseph M. Hanneman May 6, 2022Updated: May 7, 2022
Defense attorneys are seeking to identify and investigate 80 suspicious actors and material witnesses, some of whom allegedly ran an entrapment operation against the Oath Keepers on January 6, 2021, and committed crimes including the removal of security fencing, breaching police lines, attacking officers, and inciting crowds to storm into the Capitol.
In a motion (pdf) and supplement (pdf) filed after 11 p.m. on May 5 in federal court in Washington, attorney Brad Geyer listed 80 people, some of whom he said could be government agents or provocateurs. The people are seen on video operating in a coordinated fashion across the Capitol grounds on January 6, the attorney alleged.
Geyer’s suggestion of an entrapment scheme will resonate with dozens of January 6 defense attorneys, coming shortly after two men were acquitted of an alleged plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D). There was a hung jury on charges against two other defendants. The jury in that case was allowed to consider FBI entrapment as a defense.
Geyer, who represents Oath Keepers defendant Kenneth Harrelson, is seeking a court order from U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta compelling federal prosecutors to help identify the individuals and disclose whether they were working for law enforcement or any government agency on January 6. Geyer wrote that the information is exculpatory, which compels the government to produce it. Other Oath Keepers defendants are expected to join in the motion.
The May 5 filing comes on the heels of an April 12 Oath Keepers motion that alleged at least 20 “assets” from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) were embedded in the crowds on January 6.
More than a dozen ‘suspicious actors’ flagged by defense attorneys line up on the east steps of the U.S. Capitol, shortly before they pushed past police and climbed to the Columbus Doors on Jan. 6, 2021. (Attorney Brad Geyer/Screenshot via The Epoch Times) According to the new filing, video evidence the defense gained access to only recently shows that some of the 80 people attacked police, other people, and members of the Oath Keepers; entered the Capitol on the west side “with apparent permission or acquiescence of government actors”; opened the Columbus Doors on the east side of the Capitol “from the inside, possibly with even further assistance of government actors”; and deployed “sophisticated crowd-behavior techniques,” orienting themselves between protesters and police.Suspicious actors are seen on video “associating, conferring and traveling with others, engaging in behavior to confuse law enforcement through body masking, facial masking, clothing changes, and disorienting skirmishing behavior,” Geyer wrote.
The suspected people used earpieces, satellite phones, and other communication equipment. “Often it appears that these communications devices do not seem to be affected by capacity restriction or sophisticated jamming that was evident throughout the day,” Geyer wrote.
“If it can be established that these SAs [suspicious actors] were government agents, this could amount to entrapment defense that will dispose of this 7th indictment prior to trial,” the motion said.
“If it can be established that SAs, even without established government agency, from the west or elsewhere, were let into the Capitol and/or were assisted in opening the Columbus Doors from the inside—a reasonable inference from video evidence—a reasonable jury might conclude that one or more SAs had government sponsorship,” Geyer wrote.
Eleven members of the Oath Keepers were charged on January 12 with seditious conspiracy, obstruction of a government proceeding, and other counts. The government alleged the Oathkeepers committed the crimes to prevent the certification of Electoral College votes from the 2020 presidential election.
Two Oath Keepers defendants of the original 11 accepted deals offered by prosecutors and pleaded guilty to seditious conspiracy and obstruction. Another Oath Keepers member from North Carolina was charged May 4 with the same counts and pleaded guilty on May 5. All three are expected to assist the FBI with its ongoing January 6 investigations.
Geyer suggested the Oath Keepers who entered the Capitol Rotunda through the famous Columbus Doors atop the east stairs were entrapped by suspicious actors who boxed them in and attempted to push them into the Capitol after the doors were opened from the inside.
“Prima facie evidence of an entrapment scheme (very possibly without formal government agency) is becoming impossible to ignore on video,” Geyer wrote.
Video shot by a French television crew, and surveillance footage under court seal raise “significant concerns of informants, influencers, and inciters whose activities are now clearly observable,” said a footnote in the motion.
Suspicious Examples
“The now observable behavior suggests the exact kind of specialized training, coordination, logistical support, timing, and common goals and objectives that the government attributes to the Oath Keepers,” Geyer wrote. “Conduct alleged against the Oath Keepers seems to have been perpetrated by others before the Oath Keepers were brought in front of the Columbus Doors.”
The new video evidence “not only exculpates defendant Harrelson and the Oath Keepers in compelling ways, it also shows a large group of SAs that actually carry out the crimes of which the Oath Keepers are accused and which is the centerpiece of the government’s case,” the motion said.
The many unidentified individuals in the court filing are referred to by the hashtag nicknames assigned by the Sedition Hunters website.
“James Dean Wannabe” stood on a column near the Columbus Doors and led “vicious attacks by SAs on police with chemicals and mace,” Geyer wrote.
As soon as the inner doors to the Rotunda opened, James Dean Wannabe shot inside the door and began violently pulling protesters into the Capitol, the document said. He also helped to trap Oath Keepers member James Dolan into a tight space with a Capitol Police officer, the report alleged. He was later seen on the east steps after changing clothes and removing his hat.
“Lemony Kickit” and “Lemon Zest,” both known for their colorful hats, appeared at the first and second breach points of the day near Ray Epps, the alleged provocateur who was captured on video on January 5 and 6 imploring protesters to go into the Capitol.
Video also showed Lemony Kickit and Lemon Zest pushed at police and breached the police line on the east steps before they moved up the stairs to the Columbus Doors.
Columbus Doors Were Closed
Videos referenced in Geyer’s motion show that the 17-foot-high, 20,000-pound bronze Columbus Doors were closed when the crowd gathered at the bottom of the steps and then breached the police line. When the crowd reached the top, the fortress-like doors were still shut. It’s not clear when, or why, the doors were opened.
That significant revelation backs up arguments made in January by attorney Jonathon Moseley, who told prosecutors his client, Kelly Meggs, could not have breached the doors because they are controlled from inside the Capitol.
“The outer doors cast from solid bronze would require a bazooka, an artillery shell, or C4 military-grade explosives to breach,” Moseley wrote in a letter to federal prosecutors. “That of course did not happen. You would sooner break into a bank vault than to break the bronze outer Columbus Doors.”
The 17-foot-high bronze Columbus Doors at the U.S. Capitol were closed when protesters and suspicious actors pushed past police on the east steps on Jan. 6, 2021. The 20,000-pound doors can only be opened from inside. (Attorney Brad Geyer/Screenshot via The Epoch Times)
The towering Columbus Doors that lead into the Rotunda on the east side of the U.S. Capitol are secured by magnetic locks that can only be opened from the inside by using a security code controlled by Capitol Police, Moseley wrote in an eight-page memo in January.
The two inner doors are secured by magnetic locks and cannot be opened from the outside. Twice within an hour on January 6, suspicious actors opened the inner doors from inside the Rotunda, surveillance video shows.
According to Geyer’s filing, a large number of suspicious actors controlled the scene directly in front of the Columbus Doors after the giant doors were opened. They chased away regular protesters with pepper spray and moved other actors into place. The Oath Keepers, each of whom was shadowed by at least one suspicious actor, were positioned and coaxed toward the entrance.
Six to eight suspicious actors attacked police with mace in preparation to breach the entrance, Geyer wrote.
“The dynamic of the crowd makes this almost invisible or fleeting to almost all publicly available camera angles, so most people in the crowd could not have known these chemical assaults occurred and certainly no one could have known who was standing on the steps which is where the Oath Keepers were positioned at exactly this moment.”
The net effect is that the Oath Keepers, who had come up the east stairs, were swept into the Capitol with the group of suspicious actors, the document alleged. The actors attacked police, breached the doors, and led a crowd inside the Rotunda.
Members of the Oath Keepers were flanked and followed into the U.S. Capitol by suspicious actors on Jan. 6, 2021. (Attorney Brad Geyer/Screenshot via The Epoch Times)
Some of the video evidence referenced in the court motion was redacted from the document because it is part of the more than 14,000 hours of video under a protective court seal.
The court filing will bring fresh attention to the issue of provocateurs at the U.S. Capitol. Epps, a former Oath Keepers member from Arizona, denies he was working as a government informant on Jan. 5 and 6.
Federal prosecutors announced earlier this year they would disclose more information about Epps, whose photo was removed from the FBI’s Jan. 6 most-wanted list. He has not been arrested or charged, despite urging crowds to enter the Capitol and being present when police lines were breached by protesters.
Some of the suspicious actors on Geyer’s list were also seen in the hallway outside the Speaker’s Lobby where Ashli Babbitt was shot at 2:44 p.m. on Jan. 6. There are a number of other unidentified individuals who stood near Babbitt before she tried to climb out of the hallway and was shot and killed by Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd.
Three witnesses to the Babbitt shooting were removed from the FBI’s most-wanted list in April 2021 without explanation. Those men have not been identified or charged.
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas dismissed the idea of pressuring the court for desirable outcomes at a judicial conference Friday.
Thomas spoke at the 11th Circuit judicial conference in Atlanta this week, where he discussed the Supreme Court’s leaked draft opinion for the first time. The opinion would overturn Roe v. Wade if made official, sparking panic among Democrats and protests against the court.
“We can’t be an institution that can be bullied into giving you just the outcomes you want. The events from earlier this week are a symptom of that.,” Thomas said, according to reports.
Chief Justice John Roberts agreed with him:
“A leak of this stature is absolutely appalling,” Roberts said. “If the person behind it thinks that it will affect our work, that’s just foolish.”
Immediately after the leak, Democrats attempted to bully the court into ruling in favor of Roe v Wade.
A far-left group doxxed the addresses of Supreme Court Justices who are votes against Roe v Wade – they have protests planned at their houses.
Plus, Democrat Chuck Schumer announced that a vote would be held attempting to make abortion up to birth a federal law.
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on Thursday announced the Senate will vote on abortion legislation, via the Women’s Health Protection Act, Wednesday.
This legislation “would enshrine abortion on demand and up-to-birth in federal law as well as void all state laws aimed at protecting the lives of the unborn.”
The vote is likely to fail bigly. Democrats need 60 Senate votes to pass the legislation. And polling shows that public opinion may be at odds with Schumer: Democrats have failed to secure a majority consensus among voters to enact abortion legislation, a Wednesday Politico/Morning Consult poll revealed. Only 47 percent support codifying Roe v. Wade. Fifty-three percent of the electorate either oppose abortion legislation or have no opinion.
Amazing how fast these PROFESSIONALLY printed signs showed up. Coincidence?
It’s amazing how fast these PROFESSIONALLY printed signs showed up. The leak was not made public until Monday afternoon, yet by dark protesters already had professionally printed signs. Coincidence?
Republicans in Congress on May 2 decried the leak of a Supreme Court opinion which would end legal protections for abortion, while Democrats called for the end of the Senate filibuster to preempt the court’s ruling.
Politicopublished a leaked opinion on May 2 authored by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito. The opinion, written in February, shows that Alito believed at the time that four other justices have voted in favor of overturning Roe v. Wade, the decades-old Supreme Court precedent which prohibited states from making laws restricting access to abortions.
The leak is unprecedented and represents a major breach of decorum and trust within the court, which is known for its cordial fellowship.
“The Supreme Court’s confidential deliberation process is sacred & protects it from political interference. This breach shows that radical Democrats are working even harder to intimidate & undermine the Court. It was always their plan. The justices cannot be swayed by this attack,” Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) wrote on Twitter.
“This leak is outrageous & dangerous. I pray & remain hopeful SCOTUS stays true to this potential decision, but this unprecedented, intentional leak is malicious & threatens the independence of our highest court,” Rep. Vicky Hartzler (R-Mo.) wrote on Twitter.
“This unprecedented leak of a draft ruling is an effort to overtly inject politics into the court itself. This individual should not be celebrated. They should be held accountable for their egregious breach. I am praying for the safety of all the Justices during these extraordinarily challenging and unprecedented times,”Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-Mich.) wrote on Twitter.
Democrats, in the meantime, called for the end of the filibuster so that the Senate can pass the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would legalize abortion up to the point of birth nationwide.
“Congress must pass legislation that codifies Roe v. Wade as the law of the land in this country NOW. And if there aren’t 60 votes in the Senate to do it, and there are not, we must end the filibuster to pass it with 50 votes,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.) wrote on Twitter.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), responding directly to Sanders on Twitter, wrote: “Let’s change the rules of the Senate to pass a federal law legalizing the killing of unborn children right up to the day of delivery.”
“This is utterly shameful but we can stop it. The Senate MUST end the filibuster and codify Roe,” Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.) wrote on Twitter.
“There is no time left to wait. We need to abolish the filibuster and codify Roe v. Wade, ” Rep. Chuy García (D-Ill.) wrote on Twitter.
A number of Democrats called for the passage of the act but did not mention ending the filibuster to do so: Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-Penn.), Rep. Lori Trahan (D-Mass.), and Rep. Don Breyer (D-Va.)
A small number of Democrats in Congress called for the expansion of the Supreme Court as a way to fight back.
“There is no other recourse. We must expand the court,” Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) wrote on Twitter.
“#ExpandTheCourt and pass the Women’s Health Protection Act!” Rep. Andy Levin (D-Mich.) wrote on Twitter.
Several Republican lawmakers celebrated the opinion, while Democrats lamented what the decision would bring about.
“I was a senior in high school when Roe v. Wade was decided,” Rep. Billy Long (R-Mo.) said in a statement. “I didn’t understand abortion then, and I don’t understand it now. Killing an innocent human life is simply incomprehensible to me. I am optimistic that these reports are true, and that the Supreme Court will do the right thing, finally overturning this travesty of a decision.”
“This draft is harrowing and blatantly ignores 50 years of settled law with a complete disregard to the fundamental rights of women. We can not go back to a time when women couldn’t make decisions about their own bodies,” Rep. Colin Allred (D-Texas) wrote on Twitter.
Isn’t it amazing how this was leaked to a LEFT-LEANING website?
And how quickly the demonstrators appeared with PROFESSIONALLY crafted signage?
The SCOTUS responds:
The Supreme Court on Tuesday responded to the leak of a draft ruling and confirmed its authenticity, issuing a statement from Chief Justice John Roberts, who called the leak “a betrayal of the confidences” of the institution. “To the extent this betrayal of the confidences of the Court was intended to undermine the integrity of our operations,” Roberts wrote, “it will not succeed,” adding that the “work of the Court will not be affected in any way.”
Roberts also said he directed the Marshal of the Supreme Court to carry out an investigation into the leak and the individual who leaked it to the press. Should the leaker be identified, it’s not clear what punitive actions will be taken against them, although Roberts said the leak could be considered a significant breach of trust.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., talks to the media about her suspended accounts on Twitter, during a news conference, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, July 20, 2021. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
The Trump impeachment website remains live today, but PFS has moved on from years of seeking to drive the embattled Trump from the Oval Office to now trying to remove four of his strongest congressional supporters from their respective November 2022 ballots.
Although officially a nonpartisan educational nonprofit, PFS’s most notable activities since being organized in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision have all been directed at Trump and other Republicans.
Most recently, PFS made headlines with litigation it filed against four House Republicans and one Arizona Republican state representative seeking to have state courts remove the officials’ names from the November ballot.
An Arizona Superior Court judge rejected PFS’s request to remove U.S. Reps. Andy Biggs and Paul Gosar, both Arizona congressmen, and Arizona state Rep. Mark Finchem from the November ballot.The PFS lawsuit stated that the lawmakers’ alleged efforts in support of the January 2021 breach of the U.S. Capitol amounted to participation in an insurrection seeking to bring down the federal government.
Biggs and Gosar are seeking reelection to the U.S. House, while Finchem seeks to be elected as Arizona’s secretary of state.
Judges in North Carolina and Georgia are hearing similar suits brought by PFS-backed plaintiffs seeking the ouster of Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) from the November ballots in their states.
An analysis by The Epoch Times and the Capital Research Center (CRC) of available public records for PFS reveals a top leadership with deep ties throughout far-left precincts of liberal and progressive nonprofit political activism and funding from numerous well-known and some not-so-familiar liberal foundations.
A total of 91 grants to PFS from left-wing foundations with a value in excess of $7.3 million were found by CRC using the Foundation Search database.
Among the grants received between 2012 and 2019 were these: two grants (totaling $750,000) from the Schumann Media Center in New York; nine grants ($485,000) from the National Philanthropic Trust of Jenkintown, Pennsylvania; four grants ($375,000) from the Gaia Fund of San Francisco; five grants ($365,000) from the Madrona Foundation in Seattle; six grants ($255,000) from the Clements Foundation in Wilmington, Delaware.
Other notable grants during the period included four totaling $249,148 from the Tides Foundation in San Francisco; three grants ($205,000) from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund in New York; two grants ($60,000) from the Rockefeller Family Fund; and four grants ($54,670) from the Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund in Boston.
The funding from the Tides Foundation is notable because, in the 1970s, the San Francisco nonprofit pioneered the dark money fund that first provided a way for liberal donors to send large sums to support favored and oftentimes extremely controversial causes but without their names being publicly linked to the recipients.
The contribution is instead officially credited to Tides.
Such “donor-advised” funds are now common across the ideological and political spectrum.
The PFS 2020 IRS 990 tax return indicated that President John Bonifaz received nearly $217,000 in compensation that year, while legal director Ronald Fein was paid more than $159,000 for the period.
The depth of PFS links throughout the vast network of far-left liberal and progressive political activist nonprofits is seen in this analysis by InfluenceWatch, a CRC publication that specializes in reporting on such connections:
“Free Speech For People is led by a team with strong ties to the political left. John Bonifaz, founder of Free Speech for People, is the founder and former executive director of the National Voting Rights Institute (NVRI), a left-of-center electoral advocacy group.
“Steve Cobble, [former] senior political adviser for Free Speech for People, [was] an assistant fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, a left-wing think tank.
“Cobble is also a co-founder of Progressive Democrats of America, an organization that aims to support the Democratic Party and advocate for an agenda focused on fighting climate change and expanding public healthcare.”
Other PFS officials have similarly left-wing backgrounds. Alexandra Flores-Quilty, who is PFS’s campaign director, was previously executive director of We the People, an activist group that organizes mass protest marches against Trump.
Kristen Eastlick, CRC vice president, told The Epoch Times that “while this organization [PFS] was founded in the wake of the Citizens United decision, the group’s agenda has expanded beyond generic campaign finance activism into partisan hackery—from their effort to launch ImpeachDonaldTrump.org as soon as he took the oath of office to their efforts to remove individuals from appearing on ballots.”
“Free Speech for People might be the name, but if political speech is the bedrock form of free speech, then eliminating the people’s election options is an assault on that freedom,” she said.
Former Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane surrendered to law enforcement Friday for an alleged probation violation after being charged last month in a drunk driving case.
Kane, 55, turned herself in to authorities in Montgomery County after a judge issued a warrant for her arrest, Fox affiliate WTXF-TV reported. She is being held at the Montgomery County Correctional Facility outside Philadelphia.
Kane was found behind the wheel of an Audi on March 12 by Scranton police officers, who were called to respond to a two-car crash. She denied she had been drinking and pointed to her passenger, who said: “It’s totally not me,” according to an affidavit obtained by the news outlet.
Kathleen Kane, the former Pennsylvania attorney general was taken into custody Friday on an alleged probation violation. (Montgomery County / AP)
She said she had picked her sister up and was giving her a ride.
The other driver told authorities that Kane drove into his vehicle at an intersection and that he smelled alcohol on her. Kane allegedly sprayed perfume on herself before officers arrived and offered to pay for the damage to the other vehicle.
The driver called the police. Surveillance video shows Kane had been drinking prior to the crash at a restaurant, authorities said. She also failed a field sobriety test and refused a blood test, police said.
She had watery, bloodshot eyes and slurred her words — police said she had trouble saying the word “designated” — and failed a field sobriety test, the documents said.
Kane was a rising star when she resigned in 2016 after being convicted of perjury, obstruction and other counts for leaking secret investigative files to embarrass a rival prosecutor, the news outlet said.
Kathleen Kane. (WTTG)
She was eventually sentenced to 23 months in prison and released in 2019. At the time of the crash, she was on probation.
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.
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 TimesApril 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.
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)
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.
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.”
