Repost from PB

Court memos detail unethical, unpunished leaks in case handled by potential Biden AG Preet Bharara

Preet Bharara knew about FBI leaks two years before his office denied them. No one has been punished.

Preet Bharara is often mentioned as a possible U.S. attorney general in a Joe Biden administration after building a reputation as a hard-charging federal prosecutor and self-proclaimed ethicist teaching law school and dispensing morality on Twitter. But one of the last cases he handled as the chief federal prosecutor in New York City cuts against the grain of his carefully manicured image, exposing widespread leaking by the FBI — and knowledge of it by the Manhattan U.S. attorney's office — during the insider trading case of businessman and former Las Vegas sports gambler Billy Walters. The government's misconduct initially was hidden from the judge, and to this day remains unpunished despite the court's demands for accountability, according to legal filings reviewed by Just the News. Bharara personally had to admit the government's wrongdoing, filing under his name a lengthy report of misconduct with U.S. District Judge Kevin Castel in January 2017, shortly before President Trump fired Bharara as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. After months of telling the court in 2016 that Walters' requests for evidence of grand jury leaks was "a fishing expedition," Bharara's office had to admit that a senior FBI agent in the case, David Chaves, and others in the FBI and U.S. attorney's office had contacts with the news media and one or more may have committed a crime by leaking grand jury evidence. "It is now an incontrovertible fact that FBI leaks occurred, and that such leaks resulted in confidential law enforcement information about the Investigation being given to reporters," Bhahara's prosecutors wrote in a Jan. 4 2017 ex parte memo to the court.

While prosecutors did not admit directly to a violation of the Rule 6(e) prohibition on leaking grand jury information, they wrote "we believe that the appropriate course is for the Court to assume that a Rule 6(e) violation occurred and proceed to consider the issue of remedy." It is extremely rare for prosecutors to acknowledge grand jury violations. Nonetheless, Walters was convicted and sent to prison, from which he was recently released to home confinement due to medical concerns related to the pandemic. Today, the case stands as the latest glaring example of the failure of the FBI and DOJ to punish its own wrongdoing, which some judges who reviewed the case suggested was worse than Walters' crime. Chaves was never charged with any wrongdoing and was allowed to retire from the FBI without penalty. He declined comment through his lawyer. Peter Carr, a DOJ spokesman, declined to say whether the leaks are still being investigated. Bharara declined to comment. In the court filing and in statements he has made since he left office, Bharara has repudiated the alleged conduct of Chaves and insisted he and his office weren't involved. "The available information uniformly indicates that the USAO was not a source of confidential information provided to reporters about the Investigation. Members of the USAO, at all levels, were distressed by the leaks," Bharara's memo to the court said. In a 2017 speech after he left office, Bharara added, "It came to the court's attention and our attention that a particular FBI Agent did what he should not have done, and that came to light because we brought it to the attention of the court." "The FBI Agent is potentially subject to criminal prosecution" and "will suffer consequences as he should and he absolutely should," Bharara told the audience in Nevada.

But internal emails gathered during the investigation show Bharara and others in his office were directly aware of the leaks as early as 2014, two years before the prosecutors portrayed to the judge that the defense request for leak evidence was an unwarranted fishing expedition. "Hey George, I know you agree these leaks are outrageous and harmful," Bharara wrote in a June 1, 2014 email to the head of the FBI office in New York City, George C. Venizelos, after the U.S. attorney was alerted to a Wall Street Journal article mentioning wiretaps. "Let me know what action you want to take together. Hope your weekend was good."

https://justthenews.com/government/courts-law/hold-court-memos-detail-ethical-concerns-unpunished-leaks-case-handled#digital-diary

https://justthenews.com/sites/default/files/2020-09/2017-01-04_exparte_memo.pdf

https://www.lit-wc.shearman.com/siteFiles/25138/U.S.%20v.%20Walters.pdf

https://twitter.com/PreetBharara/status/1290980881478250496

Assange's U.S. extradition hearing resumes in U.K. as WikiLeaks founder admonished for outbursts

Judge tells Assange hearing will proceed without him if he continues to interrupt witnesses.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, wanted in the U.S. on espionage charges, returned this week to a London court to resume an extradition hearing to return him to the United States to face prosecution. The hearings resumed Monday after being delayed for months because of the coronavirus pandemic, and are expected to continue through October. The 49-year-old Assange faces 18 charges related to espionage and computer misuse, in connection with WikiLeaks publishing secret U.S. military documents in 2010.

Assange was arrested in London in 2019 after Ecuador revoked his asylum after seven years and forced him to leave the country's embassy in the United Kingdom. The embattled Assange has already run afoul of the court. On Tuesday, a British judge told Assange that his hearing will proceed without him if he continues to speak from the dock and interrupt witnesses, according to the Associated Press.

https://justthenews.com/government/courts-law/assanges-us-extradition-hearing-resumes-uk-wikileaks-founder-admonished#article

State Dept Gives 3-YEAR Response Time When Asked For Details About Biden-Xi Private Meetings (1 of 2)

Democratic Presidential Candidate Joe Biden once boasted of having 25 hours of private meetings with Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping, a massive figure allegedly brought to his attention by the U.S. State Department. When asked for details of the meetings, the State Department gave The National Pulse a whopping three year time frame for a response.

The National Pulse submitted a Freedom of Information Act request in May 2020, in order to obtain the relevant documents. We were informed the estimated date of completion for the request would be April 5th, 2023 – over three years into a potential Biden presidency. Comments from Biden during a Council on Foreign Relations event on January 23rd, 2018 revealed that State Department officials had divulged that he had “spent more time in private meetings with Xi Jinping than any world leader.” The private meetings, involving only Biden, Xi and an interpreter, potentially warrant investigation in light of his family inking billion-dollar contracts with Chinese Communist Party-owned enterprises.

Biden’s resurfaced remarks read: “I’ve spent a lot of time—apparently, I was told by the folks at State—I’ve spent more time in private meetings with Xi Jinping than any world leader. I have 25 hours of private dinners with him, just he and I, and one interpreter.” In response to the video, the National Pulse submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to the U.S. State Department on May 24th, 2020. The request sought “any and all information – times, dates, locations, attendees, transcripts, readouts, and any and all references to – from former Vice President Joe Biden’s private dinners with Chinese President Xi Jinping,” emphasizing that “American citizens reserve the right to know the nature and content of Biden’s conversations with the leader of the Chinese Communist Party since the subject matter discussed or ostensible agreements reached in the meetings could influence how Biden uses the office of the presidency and the interests he chooses to promote.”

The State Department, however, replied to an inquiry about the return date by stating its estimated completion would be on April 5th, 2023 – more than halfway into a potential Biden presidency. That’s over two years and two months past inauguration day. In fact, it’s over 300 days closer to election day for 2024 than 2020. While the State Department noted estimated dates of completion “are estimates and are subject to change” and The National Pulse followed up by narrowing its query to the years 2015 through 2019. We have not received a response.

https://thenationalpulse.com/exclusive/biden-foia-3-year-details-xi-meetings/

What We Know About Hunter Biden’s Dealings in China

https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-we-know-about-hunter-bidens-dealings-in-china-11570181403

>>10569017

Biden Boasts of 25 Hours of “Private” Meetings With Xi Jinping

Dec 12, 2019

Chinese State Media Gloats: Biden’s ‘Worldview Runs Parallel To Beijing’s’

A Chinese state-run media outlet revealed it believes that Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden’s “worldview runs parallel to Beijing’s,” suggesting the candidate would be less “confrontational” and open to “reconciling” with the Chinese Communist Party.

The article, “China’s Place in a Biden Presidency,” recently ran in China Global Television Network (CGTN), a mouthpiece for the views of the Chinese Communist Party. It confirms a recent U.S. National Counterintelligence and Security Center (NCSC) report concluding the Chinese Communist Party “prefers” Biden over President Trump in the upcoming election. The nearly 800-word piece insisted that Biden’s worldview “runs parallel to Beijing’s”: “It is against this backdrop that Biden’s multilateral worldview runs parallel to Beijing’s demonstrated pursuit for global cooperation, affording new openings for foreign policy convergence.” The CGTN op-ed also draws a distinction between President Trump and Biden regarding their relationship with the Chinese Communist Party, emphasizing Biden “does not share Donald Trump’s enthusiasm for an all-out trade war with Beijing”.

CGTN foresees a Biden administration rejecting “confrontational” tactics deployed by President Trump: “A Biden victory offers an opportunity to transform some dynamics. Biden’s official track-record is informed by a degree of foreign policy statecraft, and he recognizes the value of constructive dialogue in diffusing tensions, even if tactical. Above all, the former vice president will find it increasingly difficult to measure Sino-U.S. progress based on confrontational metrics introduced and practiced by Trump.” The propaganda organ also wagers that Biden is interested in “reconciling” America’s relationship with the Chinese Communist Party, emphasizing the Chinese government would greet him with open arms: “For China, the reality is much simpler: If Biden is truly determined to reconcile with Beijing, nothing should stop him from coming to the negotiating table.”

The de facto endorsement from the Chinese Communist Party comes as no surprise. While in government, Biden has championed the selling out of America’s manufacturing base, intellectual property, and economic hegemony to China, and his family members have profited from billion-dollar business deals with the Chinese Communist Party. The article is just the latest – and certainly not last – example of Chinese state-run media divulging its preference for the Democratic candidate.

https://thenationalpulse.com/politics/cgtn-state-media-gloats-biden-beijing/

China's place in a Biden presidency

https://news.cgtn.com/news/2020-09-06/China-s-place-in-a-Biden-presidency-TyvNifgYSc/index.html

Counterintelligence Report: China Prefers that Trump Loses Election

https://www.breitbart.com/2020-election/2020/08/07/intelligence-report-china-prefers-that-trump-loses-election/

Joe Biden was an advocate for outsourcing critical U.S. industry to China

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/may/10/editorial-joe-biden-was-advocate-outsourcing-criti/

New Movie Underscores Importance of Electoral College As Democrats Attempt to Steal 2020 Election

As Democrats attempt to undermine the Electoral College, the documentary “Safeguard: An Electoral College Story” outlines how the system conceived by America’s Founding Fathers serves as a bulwark against mob rule and the tyranny of the majority.

The documentary, released September 9th, 2020, features conservative thought leaders such as Steve Forbes and Constitutional scholars who explain the genesis of the Electoral College. The must-watch, hour-long film also emphasizes the body’s relevance today. “Getting rid of the Electoral College is the simplest way to make sure we fall short of our potential,” interviewee Joseph Pinion describes. While the voting system has changed over America’s nearly 250-year-long history, the Electoral College is comprised of a body of electors from all 50 states who together wield 538 votes. 270 votes is the required number to secure the presidency. The system, which helps to amplify the voices of smaller states and limit the supremacy of the coastal states, has allowed Presidential candidates, often Republican, to win elections despite losing the popular vote.

As a result, the system is spurned by many Democratic activists – radical and mainstream – and even the Transition Integrity Project, the George Soros and Chinese Communist Party-linked group attempting to secure a victory for Democratic candidate Joe Biden. Much like Democrats are trying to cancel all vestiges of American history and culture, the Electoral College appears to be their latest – and most consequential – target. Luckily, Safeguard makes a convincing case for the efficacy and significance of the system, a bulwark against mob rule, corruption, and domination of coastal elites. The Transition Integrity Project, a bellwether for the left’s tactics to abolish the electoral college, takes a different view on the “profoundly anti-democratic” body: “TIP recognizes and shares the view that the Electoral College is profoundly anti-democratic, and that numerous long-standing practices also function to create structural biases in our voting system. For present purposes, however, these constraints are treated as givens.” The movie rightly contends that the perennial “threat to liberty is power,” and radical, power-hungry Democrats are the modern incarnation of the warning. Safeguard is available to view on Amazon’s Prime Video.

https://thenationalpulse.com/politics/safeguard-electoral-college-importance/

>>10569268

FISA court scolds FBI for 'widespread violations' of privacy rules

Bureau's upstream searching of records routinely violates privacy protections, Judge Boasberg rules.

Under Director Chris Wray, the FBI continues to engage in "widespread violations" of rules protecting Americans' privacy while searching through national security surveillance data, the chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has concluded. In a ruling made in December but unsealed over the Labor Day weekend, Judge James Boasberg revealed that a July 2019 audit had found 87 instances in which the FBI queried "raw FISA acquired" evidence even though agents or analysts "were not reasonably likely to retrieve foreign intelligence information or evidence of a crime" as required by law. In other words, they risked violating Americans' privacy without a lawful basis. "There still appear to be widespread violations of the querying standard by the FBI," Boasberg concluded, citing examples in which NSA records were searched for unnecessary or unlawful reasons.

In his 83-page heavily redacted ruling, the judge also cited concern about a group of searches involving 16,000 people, rejecting the bureau's argument they were necessary and lawful. "Based on the facts reported, the FBI's position that the queries for all 16,000 persons were reasonably likely to retrieve foreign-intelligence information or evidence of a crime is unsupportable," he wrote, Despite the concerns, the judge nonetheless proceeded to approve the latest rules allowing the FBI to continue to conduct such searches of data gathered by the National Security Agency or under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. "After considering the matters discussed above and other incidents reported by the government and assessing the overall state of implementation of the current targeting, querying, and minimization procedures, the Court finds that the proposed procedures, as reasonably expected to be implemented, comply with applicable statutory and Fourth Amendment requirements," Boasberg wrote. "It will, however, continue to monitor the government's implementation of the procedures, especially regarding U.S.-person queries."

https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/privacy/fisa-court-scolds-fbi-widespread-violations-privacy-rules

https://justthenews.com/sites/default/files/2020-09/2019_702_Cert_FISC_Opinion_06Dec19_OCR.pdf

>>10569324

Way to easy!, kek.