UPDATED: Pentagon Abruptly Halts Biden Transition Briefings, Leaving Officials "Stunned"

Update: Biden's team is directly contradicting an earlier statement by Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller which sought to severely downplay the controversy, claiming Biden transition officials had agreed to a holiday "break" in DoD intelligence briefings. "There was no mutually agreed upon holiday break" for transition briefings, Biden's spokesman Yohannes Abraham has stated pushing back against Miller's explanation.

"We were concerned to learn this week about an abrupt halt” in cooperation, Biden's team said at a Friday briefing, and underscored the alarming move reflects "isolated resistance in some quarters, including from political appointees within the Department of Defense."

It comes after Trump admin officials were reportedly enraged over alleged leaks from the Biden transition team designed to embarrass Trump politically.

Here's the prior statement from SecDef Miller that refuted the central claims of the Friday morning Axios story:

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/abrupt-halt-bidens-pentagon-transition-briefings-leaves-officials-stunned

Facebook Now Censoring 'Congressional Records' To Help Keep Biden's Image Clean

Facebook-owned Instagram on Wednesday censored as “false” a user’s post that President-elect Joe Biden’s 1994 crime law added to the mass incarceration of black people - a fact that was even supported by the Black Lives Matter organizers in the early days of the Primary season.

That claim is vehemently backed by both left-wing and conservative criminal justice reform advocates, and by attorneys for people with long prison punishments.

Artist Brad Troemel, who has over 100,000 Instagram followers, posted a picture of Biden and then-President Bill Clinton, writing: “Find someone that looks at you the way Biden looked at Clinton after Clinton signed Biden’s crime bill into law. Bringing mass incarceration to black Americans.”

The post was immediately censored with an interstitial notification stating it is “False Information.”

A message describing the censorship says, “Independent fact-checkers say this information has no basis in fact.” Users are told the claim was rated “False” by a USA Today reporter,

Doug Stanglin, in July.

Facebook spokeswoman Stephanie Otway explained that Instragram won’t stop its censorship except USA Today changes its assessment.

“People can appeal a rating by contacting a fact-checking partner directly. Fact-checking partners are ultimately responsible for deciding whether to update a rating, which will lift enforcement on the content,” she stated.

Whether Biden’s law added to the mass imprisonment is a matter of dispute.

The 1994 law added $12.5 billion in donations to encourage states to adopt “truth in sentencing” laws that required inmates to serve most of their sentences. A separate three-strikes plan gave many drug dealers federal life sentences.

USA Today’s review leans in part on a report from New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice, which determined the law “helped fuel a prison construction boom” and that “while some states had already started to enact tougher sentencing laws, the legislation rewarded states for those decisions, providing powerful incentives for others to adopt them.”

USA Today concentrated heavily on whether the law expanded the percentage of blacks in prison since then.

“Black prisoners in 1995 accounted for 45.7% of prisoners, and in 2002 accounted for 45.1%,” USA Today wrote.

https://www.blabber.buzz/blab/pop/1022322-facebook-now-censoring-congressional-records-to-help-keep-biden-s-image-clean?utm_source=c-mid&utm_medium=c-mid-email&utm_term=c-mid-GI&utm_content=7qADBZLM3hpVkmwJlCp5QQsI-3Jd30ksnl90Gnuy2xio.A

Modeling Agent Who “Gifted” Epstein Two 12-Year-Olds Arrested Fleeing France

Jean-Luc Brunel, who allegedly once gifted Epstein two 12-year-old French girls, was arrested in Paris this week.

In the past week, two of Jeffrey Epstein’s wealthy and famous accomplices have been arrested under suspicion of rape, sex trafficking, and other related charges.

As we reported on Monday, fashion mogul Peter Nygård was arrested for charges relating to dozens of victims, who claim that the 79-year-old multi-millionaire was just as bad, if not worse than Epstein.

Now, another well-known modeling agent that was associated with Epstein has been arrested. Jean-Luc Brunel, who allegedly once gifted Epstein two 12-year-old French girls, was arrested in Paris this week while attempting to board a flight to Dakar in Senegal.

Victims believe that Brunel was on his way to Dakar because he was tipped off about the arrest, as Senegal doesn’t have an extradition treaty with France.

According to Le Parisien newspaper, Brunel was arrested for charges of rape, sexual assault against minors, sexual harassment, criminal conspiracy, and human trafficking.

BREAKING: Modeling scout Jean-Luc Brunel, one of Jeffrey Epstein's accused recruiters, arrested on sex trafficking charges. https://t.co/lE8jCOcyZn

— julie k. brown (@jkbjournalist) December 17, 2020

Brunel has been in hiding since Epstein’s apparent death, and has been known as a close associate. Brunel’s name appeared more than 15 times on flight logs for Epstein’s private jet, and he visited Epstein close to 70 times when he was in prison the first time ten years ago.

Long before the Epstein scandal broke, Brunel was accused of rape by several models in a 1988 CBS documentary.

Brunel founded the modeling agencies Karin Models and MC2 Model Management, and used his position in the industry to take advantage of young girls, many of whom came from poor families.

Thysia Huisman, one of Brunel’s victims, said that the arrest was entirely unexpected.

“It’s incredible. I didn’t expect it all. Brunel raped me in 1991. He drugged me and raped me and I never came forward as I was ashamed. After Epstein’s arrest I felt I had to come forward,” Huisman told The Daily Beast.

Huismann wrote a book called “Close Up” where she details many of her experiences, including her encounters with Epstein and Brunel.

“I met Epstein through Brunel. I stayed at Brunel’s place in Paris and at night there were parties with older business friends of his and young, very young models and one night he gave me a drink and said we had to celebrate the start of my career in Paris,” she said.

She told investigators that Brunel drugged her drink and then raped her.

“I woke up the next day and the only thing I thought of was I had to escape his house and I took the first train out of Paris to Brussels and I never came back to Paris until last year when I went back to speak to the police and they took it really seriously,” she said.

Anne-Claire Lejeune, a lawyer representing several of Brunel’s alleged victims said that they have been waiting for this arrest for a long time.

“The victims have long awaited the arrest of Jean-Luc Brunel. They welcome this custody with relief, and confidence in the legal consequences that will be given. Their word finally takes on a meaning,” Lejeune said.

It is not clear when Brunel will be due to appear in court.

https://themindunleashed.com/2020/12/modeling-agent-who-gifted-epstein-two-12-year-olds-arrested-fleeing-france.html

‘An Information Coverup’: New Study Says California’s EDD (Employment Development Department) Fraud Could Top $8B

“I think this is rising to the level of not only a rat’s nest of incompetence, it is rising now to, essentially, an information coverup,” he said.

Assemblywoman Cottie Petrie-Norris, D-Newport Beach, said she was introducing a bill to have EDD crosscheck the names of inmates with those receiving benefits after a group of prosecutors found at least $400 million in fraudulent claims filed on behalf of people who were incarcerated.

“I think this is going to go down in history as one of the biggest demonstrations of big government incompetency in the history of California,” Assemblyman Jim Patterson, R-Fresno, said.

A previous investigation by CBS Los Angeles’ David Goldstein found children as young as 1-year-old collecting benefits — with claims filed on their behalf stating that they were unemployed actors or fashion models.

Patterson said he believes the California Employment Development Department was not being truthful about the extent of the fraud.

“I think this is rising to the level of not only a rat’s nest of incompetence, it is rising now to, essentially, an information coverup,” he said.

Assemblywoman Cottie Petrie-Norris, D-Newport Beach, said she was introducing a bill to have EDD crosscheck the names of inmates with those receiving benefits after a group of prosecutors found at least $400 million in fraudulent claims filed on behalf of people who were incarcerated.

“It’s completely unacceptable and completely horrifying,” she said.

Some of those benefits have even been paid out in the name of convicted murderers like Scott Peterson, whose name was used to collect weekly benefits. His identity was confirmed using a driver’s license that expired in 2004.

“Ensuring that we check our unemployment insurance claims against prison records, ensuring that we’re not verifying IDs that expired 15 years ago — those are really easy,” Petrie-Norris said. “Those are easy things to get right.”

A request for comment from EDD was not immediately returned.

In September, EDD shut down for two weeks to overhaul its system, but lawmakers said the changes were not enough to prevent ongoing fraud.

https://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2020/12/15/goldstein-investigates-edd-fraud-over-8-billion/

Over 820,000 Signatures Collected to Remove CA Gov Newsom From Office

Residents are calling out Governor Gavin Newsom for his hypocrisy and demanding the recall of his governorship

California residents are calling out Governor Gavin Newsom for his hypocrisy and demanding the recall of his governorship. An entire “citizen movement” of thousands of volunteers on the ground in California are petitioning to have the governor removed from office.

Their message is simple: “what makes this different is it’s Gavin Newsom itself” said Recall Gavin Newsom senior adviser Randy Economy on “America’s Newsroom” earlier this week. “This governor is his own worst enemy, and every day he does something more that puts him deeper and deeper into controversy, and he’s become a problem here in California.”

Specifically, the citizens fault him for his leadership during the 2020’s coronavirus pandemic. “He shut down the fifth-largest economy in the world the last nine months, and every single person out there in California should be outraged by that.” An impressive 820,000 signatures have already been collected by Economy’s group.

The signatures collected are part of an “effort to prompt a recall vote, which allows voters to directly remove an elected official from office before his or her term is up” reports Fox News. 1.5 million signatures total is needed by March in order to put the issue on the ballot.

Rescue California campaign manager Anne Dunsmore spoke to “Fox & Friends” saying working to remove Newsom from office is “probably one of the most important efforts I have worked on in over 40 years of campaign efforts.” Newsom has implemented strict shutdown orders but has allowed “big box stores to stay open” creating irreversible economic damage to small business owners and employees.

Dunsmore said Newsom is being “pulled” too far to the left and it is not working. “He’s going to put businesses out, he’s going to be putting mom and pop businesses out of business- he already has.” Dunsmore added, “and those that have slightly survived this turmoil are fleeing this state and even the corporate giants are leaving. It’s not sustainable. It’s going to end up hurting –his tax base is basically being obliterated.”

https://thegreggjarrett.com/over-820000-signatures-collected-to-remove-ca-gov-newsom-from-office/

DEA Ditches Location Data Vendor Currently Being Investigated By Congress

The Supreme Court ruled that law enforcement agencies needed a warrant to obtain cell site location info. The ability to turn third parties (like telcos) into proxy long-term tracking devices concerned the court, which decided this wasn't permissible under the Fourth Amendment. Every American carries a cellphone. But just because they do doesn't mean they agree the government should be able to track their movements with them.

No problem, said federal law enforcement agencies. We'll just get the same data from new sources – ones not specifically mentioned in the Carpenter decision. Data brokers harvesting location data from phone apps sell access to government agencies, allowing them to bypass the warrant requirement.

This new source of data location has become a concern for some legislators, which have demanded answers from agencies like the IRS and CBP about their acquisition and use of this data. One company Venntel is currently facing a Congressional investigation of its data selling practices. This hasn't stopped CBP from buying data to track immigrants. But it has perhaps led to one agency one with a long history of bulk collection violations to ditch its contract with Venntell. Joseph Cox fills in the details at Motherboard.

The Drug Enforcement Administration abruptly cancelled its contract with Venntel, a U.S. contractor that sells location data harvested from ordinary apps installed on people’s phones around the world.

The news signals that although Venntel's smartphone location data may be popular with some federal agencies, including Customs and Border Protection (CBP) which Motherboard found spent nearly half a million dollars to access the data, other law enforcement bodies may have less use for such technology.

As Cox's report suggests, this may not be an indicator of reluctance to engage with a vendor currently under investigation. Instead, it may indicate some agencies find the harvested data less useful than others. The data CBP accesses allows it to track people's movements on both sides of the border, which is far more useful than scattershot data that may not deliver anything of value to DEA agents seeking to make a drug bust.

The DEA's cancellation was rather abrupt, suggesting it didn't feel like paying for something it didn't see itself using.

Keith Chu, communications director for the office of Senator Ron Wyden, described to Motherboard a conversation that his office had with the DEA.

"On DEA, they told our office: '[The Venntel contract was] terminated on our end before the first 30 days of the one year period of performance after determining it would not fit our needs,'" Chu said.

Then again, the DEA may have just cancelled this contract temporarily. The company is being investigated by Wyden and the senator has asked a lot of questions agencies may not feel like answering. Perhaps the DEA may re-engage when the heat dies down. Or it may seek to obtain this data from a different broker – one not currently targeted by a Congressional investigation. Given the restraints on collecting location data from service providers, any parallel source of data is still preferable to seeking a warrant.

If it's not useful now, there's a chance it will be in the future. That's why Congress needs to act. And if it doesn't, the courts need to examine this data collection under the constraints of the Carpenter decision and decide whether it's ok for law enforcement to dodge warrant requirements that would seem to apply to ANY tracking of individuals, even if the data is sourced from third party data brokers.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20201215/12333545892/dea-ditches-location-data-vendor-currently-being-investigated-congress.shtml

FBI Briefs McCarthy on Swalwell’s Relationship with Chinese Spy and Honeypot Fang Fang

The FBI is currently briefing GOP Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Speaker Pelosi on Democrat Rep. Eric Swalwell’s relationship with Chinse spy Fang Fang.

Earlier this week McCarthy said he had asked the FBI for a briefing on Swalwell’s ties to Chinese spy Fang Fang – and twice it has been canceled by the FBI.

“Swalwell is a national security liability. This is too important for the FBI to continue to stonewall,” McCarthy said.

A Chinese spy raised money for Democrat Rep. Eric Swalwell (CA) and planted an “intern” in his congressional office.

A Chinese national named Fang Fang, AKA, Christine Fang targeted politicians in California between 2011 and 2015 at the direction of China’s internal spy agency and even had intimate relationships with two Midwestern mayors, according Axios.

Fang was a “bundler” for Eric Swalwell and other Democrat candidates but it is also believed the Chinese spy and honeypot had an intimate relationship with Swalwell.

To date, Swalwell, who sits on the House Intelligence Committee and has access to highly classified information, has not answered questions about his relationship with Fang Fang.

On Thursday Swalwell was confronted by a reporter about his relationship with Fang Fang while coming home from a jog.

Swalwell ignored the reporter.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/12/developing-fbi-briefs-mccarthy-swalwells-relationship-chinese-spy-fang-fang/

Grand County, Colorado: 40% of COVID Deaths Were Actually Victims of Gunshot Wounds

The coroner in Grand County Colorado is speaking out after discovering 40% of the coronavirus deaths in the area were actually victims of gunshot wounds.

CBS News reported:

The Grand County coroner is calling attention to the way the state health department is classifying some deaths. The coroner, Brenda Bock, says two of their five deaths related to COVID-19 were people who died of gunshot wounds.

Bock says because they tested positive for COVID-19 within the past 30 days, they were classified as “deaths among cases.”

“It’s absurd that they would even put that on there,” she said. “Would you want to go to a county that has really high death numbers? Would you want to go visit that county because they are contagious. You know I might get it, and I could die if all of a sudden one county has a high death count. We don’t have it, and we don’t need those numbers inflated.”

“It’s absurd that they would even put that on there,” she said. “Would you want to go to a county that has really high death numbers? Would you want to go visit that county because they are contagious. You know I might get it, and I could die if all of a sudden one county has a high death count. We don’t have it, and we don’t need those numbers inflated.”

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/12/grand-county-colorado-40-covid-deaths-actually-victims-gunshot-wounds/

The Washington Post’s Former Chief Political Correspondent Registered as ‘Foreign Agent’ to Represent CCP-Linked Huawei

The Washington Post editorial board decried India’s “alarming” decision to ban 59 Chinese-developed apps as “fracturing the internet.” Meanwhile, former Washington Post staff now lobby for Huawei, the National Pulse can reveal.

Former Washington Post Chief Political Correspondent and Editor Terry Neal, also an ex-principal at Obama White House Counselor John Podesta’s lobbying group, “provided strategic communications advice” for Huawei, a China-based technology company vying to dominate the world’s 5G infrastructure.

Labeled a “national security threat” by the Trump administration and a Chinese military collaborator by the Department of Defense (DOD), Huawei routinely provides the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) backdoor access to its products and networks and devices.

Despite such fears, Neal, the current Executive Vice President for global communications firm Burson Cohn & Wolfe represented Huawei amidst the height of the U.S. government’s crusade against the company.

This revolving door, unearthed from Neal’s 2019 Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA), follows reports the Post received nearly $5 million from China Daily, a media outlet controlled and funded by the CCP, to run advertisements. Former Obama administration officials have also lobbied for Huawei, including Neal’s co-worker and former State and Treasury Department Adviser Shaila Manyam, and reporters from the Post’s legacy media counterparts such as CNN and the BBC have gone on to push CCP propaganda as state-run media talent.

WAPO = CCP.

https://thenationalpulse.com/news/washington-post-correspondent-huawei/

International Trio Indicted in Austin for Illegal Exports to Russia

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/international-trio-indicted-austin-illegal-exports-russia

Russia hack claims: What is the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA)?

Established under President Trump in 2018, CISA operates under DHS oversight

The federal Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) recently reported widespread hacks involving government agencies and private businesses – an apparent attack linked to Russia that may have gone unreported for up to nine months.

The hack compromised federal agencies and "critical infrastructure" in a sophisticated attack that was hard to detect and will be difficult to undo, CISA announced in an unusual warning message Thursday.

Established under President Trump in 2018, CISA operates under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) oversight.

Its activities are a continuation of the National Protection and Programs Directorate (NPPD). CISA was established when Trump signed the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Act.

CISA’s mission is to "build the national capacity to defend against cyber attacks" and to work "with the federal government to provide cybersecurity tools, incident response services and assessment capabilities to safeguard the .gov networks that support the essential operations of partner departments and agencies."

CISA is an independent arm under DHS, on par with the Secret Service or Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

Christopher Krebs was CISA’s first director. He was fired by President Donald Trump in November.

Like the NPPD, CISA oversees the Federal Protective Service (FPS), the Office of Cyber and Infrastructure Analysis (OCIA), the Office of Cybersecurity & Communications (OC&C) and the Office of Infrastructure Protection (OIP).

In an effort to reduce CISA’s backlog in cybersecurity vulnerability assessments, a Senate panel recently proposed offering CISA an additional $59 million in the Fiscal Year 2021 budget.

For the 2020 election, the agency conducted 131 remote penetration tests and 59 onsite risk and vulnerability assessments for local election infrastructure and approximately 263 election officials around the country are receiving weekly vulnerability scan reports. It also helped train thousands of election officials through online security courses.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/russia-hack-claims-what-is-the-cybersecurity-infrastructure-security-agency-cisa