Tyb
six with sunglasses
Donald J. Trump/ @realDonaldTrump
09/23/2022 11:18:19
Truth Social: 109048384699760470
Corrupt Democrats and RINOs (including 40 point loser Liz Cheney) passed the âPresidential Election Reform Actâ in the House, making it âimpossibleâ for a Vice President to cure Election Fraud and Malfeasance. These same people have been screaming that Mike Pence had NO power to do the right thing, and send it back to the States to investigate widespread Election Fraud. Itâs now clear he could, and should, have done it, otherwise why would they need new law? Alsoâbill may be unConstitutional!
Capital Letters: CDRINOLCPERAHVPEFMTMPNOSEFIAC
https://qagg.news/?read=TT1985
TWEET STORM 13 posts so far
Exclusive â Trumpâs Truth Social Exploring Legal Action Against SEC for Alleged Delays in Company Merger Approval Process
The company founded by former President Donald Trump that launched his social media platform Truth Social is considering legal action against the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for allegedly slow-walking approval of the companyâs planned merger with another company that would provide the joint entity a mass infusion of capital, Breitbart News has learned exclusively.
Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), in a statement provided exclusively to Breitbart News, said it was exploring possible legal action against the SEC for the alleged delays, which the TMTG statement attributes at least in part to alleged political bias at the regulatory agency. TMTG â a private company â has been planning to merge with the SPAC, or special purpose acquisition company, Digital World Acquisition Corp. (DWAC), but the matter is on hold awaiting SEC approval â and has been for months. DWAC is a publicly-traded company.
âThe SEC has stalled its review of our planned merger with DWAC, having failed to act despite DWAC having filed its registration statement more than four months ago,â TMTG said in the statement. âThis inexcusable obstruction, which directly contradicts the SECâs stated mission, is damaging investors and many others who are simply following the rules and trying to expand a successful business. In light of the obvious conflicts of interest among SEC officials and clear indications of political bias, TMTG is now exploring legal action against the SEC. Despite the increasing weaponization and politicization of government agencies, Truth Social will continue its expansion plans, supported by the unprecedented levels of user engagement on the platform.â
The SEC has not publicly confirmed the reason for the delays, but leaks to establishment media outlets suggest the agency is investigating several things about the merger â and that the Justice Department is also investigating. âThe SEC launched an investigation into DWAC in December after allegations surfaced that company executives may have held talks with TMGT before DWACâs initial public offering, which would violate regulations that prohibit SPACs from reaching merger agreements before raising funds,â Forbes reported in early August, for instance. âDWAC also revealed last month itâs the subject of a Justice Department criminal probe. Itâs stated in regulatory filings that each member of the companyâs board received a grand jury subpoena seeking information on communications with âmultiple individuals, and information regarding Rocket One Capitalâ a little-known Miami-based private equity firm.â
The delays risk access to significant capital that would have been available to Truth Social had the SEC approved the merger by Tuesday of this week. In total, approximately $1 billion in additional financing was committed by investors to TMTG through what is known as a private investment in public equity, or PIPE. Those commitments from the investors who pledged the billion dollars were contingent upon SEC approval of the private companyâs merger with the SPAC by Tuesday, something that clearly will not happen because of SEC delays.
While it is unclear what the exact motives for the delays and investigations are, several recent reports â one from Just the Newsâs John Solomon and another from RealClearInvestigationâs Paul Sperry â seem to indicate several senior SEC officials in Democrat President Joe Bidenâs administration may be engaging in political retaliation against their ideological foes. TMTG was obviously founded by Trump, and Truth Socialâs CEO is former Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) â the one-time chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI).
Nunes in his time as chairman during the Trump administration uncovered the origins of the Russia hoax against Trump, including several details regarding the Christopher Steele dossier and about the FBIâs alleged misconduct.
Now, according to Solomon and Sperry, in turns out the SEC chairman under Biden was actually intricately involved during his previous role in 2016 as chief financial officer of failed Democrat presidential nominee former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clintonâs campaignâs payments to fund the creation of the now-discredited Steele dossier. Bidenâs SEC chairman is Gary Gensler, who was appointed when Biden took office and was confirmed by the Senate in the spring of 2021.
âWhile Gensler was widely known to be the Clinton campaignâs CFO, former Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta personally singled Gensler out for responsibility for funding the dossier,â Solomon wrote earlier this month. âIn testimony before the House Intelligence committee in 2017, Podesta said Gensler was the top official in the campaign who would have approved payments to the campaignâs law firm Perkins Coie to reimburse for the work that the Fusion GPS research firm and Steele did on the dossier.â
âLast year, Gensler named Melissa Hodgman his associate director of enforcement,â Sperry wrote in July. âShe happens to be married to disgraced former FBI official Peter Strzok, whoâs also implicated in Durhamâs probe. Strzok led the investigation of Trump and his campaign, codenamed âCrossfire Hurricane,â before he was fired in 2018 over anti-Trump texts he exchanged with his mistress, former FBI lawyer Lisa Page. As adviser to the head of the SECâs enforcement division, Hodgman currently is helping oversee an investigation into Trumpâs social media start-up, Truth Social. According to regulatory filings, the SEC last month served Trump Media & Technology Group with a federal subpoena for records. The company owns Truth Social, Trumpâs answer to left-leaning Twitter, which kicked him off its platform last year over remarks he made concerning the Jan. 6 riot. The SEC reportedly wants to know more about merger talks between Trumpâs parent company and Digital World Acquisition Corp., a publicly traded company regulated by the SEC. RCI contacted the SEC about the investigation and Genslerâs previous work for the Clinton campaign, but did not hear back.â
Depending on how this all shakes out â and whether legal action is pursued by TMTG and what form that possible legal action takes â this could turn into a nasty and bitter political battle that mirrors the dueling narratives over the Trump-Russia collusion hoax storyline. Obviously, in the end, Trump ended up winning that one; no evidence emerged to substantiate the hoax and plenty of evidence emerged undercutting the hoaxâs creators. This particular storyline, while in its early stages, has already seen one of the hallmarks of the deep stateâs efforts against Trump which is a handful of strategically placed establishment media leaks with at least partial truths designed to undercut confidence in Trumpâs narrative that Truth Social is a successful enterprise.
But this type of activity extending beyond the normal political and intelligence and law enforcement world into the business world is, as one person deeply familiar with the matter told Breitbart News this weekend, âcompletely unprecedented.â This source expects Trumpâs allies in Congress will furiously investigate this matter as well, especially if Republicans retake either the House or the Senate or both in the November midterm elections. Thatâs not because it involves Trump, this source said, but because the SEC is supposed to protect shareholdersâthat was the charter purpose under which the agency was foundedâand these delays seem to be harming the very shareholders the agency is supposed to be looking out for. On that note, on Monday, hundreds signed onto an effort of retail investors of DWAC who launched a change.org petition to pressure the SEC to approve the merger.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/09/19/exclusive-trumps-truth-social-exploring-legal-action-against-sec-alleged-delays-company-merger-approval-process/
>>17566941, >>17566944, >>17566949 Trumpâs Truth Social Exploring Legal Action Against SEC for Alleged Delays in Company Merger Approval Process
for notables
Mark Zuckerberg hit with legal complaints over alleged attempt to influence 2020 election
Zuckerberg's alleged actions were 'beyond disgraceful,' the Center for Renewing America said
FIRST ON FOX: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, his wife and three voting rights groups were hit Thursday with legal complaints alleging malfeasance related to activities surrounding the 2020 election.
The Center for Renewing America (CRA) filed two complaints â the first against Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan and the second against the groups Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL), Center for Election Innovation and Research (CEIR) and National Vote at Home Institute (NVAHI) â Thursday morning with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
The complaints, obtained by FOX Business, allege that Zuckerberg and the three groups were involved in a scheme to inject nearly $500 million into the 2020 election in order to "throw it" to President Biden. Biden ultimately defeated former President Donald Trump, winning key swing states Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Zuckerberg hired former Obama campaign manager David Plouffe to spearhead the effort, according to the CRA. Plouffe allegedly funneled most of the hundred-million-dollar grants from the couple to Democratic-leaning jurisdictions in swing states via the three tax-exempt voting rights groups ahead of the November 2020 electio
"It is beyond disgraceful to imagine federal taxpayers subsidizing the partisan preferences of billionaires who easily could have given to a Democrat super PAC in 2020," the CRA said in a statement shared with FOX Business.
"But, of course, then they would not have been able to take a tax deduction, so they disguised the political nature of their donations and shuffled them through 'charitable' intermediaries, making ordinary Americans foot the bill," the CRA continued.
The CRA noted that federal law prohibits individuals from making donations intended to illegitimately aid one political party over another.
The complaints said the IRS must deny any personal income tax exemptions collected by Zuckerberg and Chan for their donations to the CTCL, CEIR, and NVAHI during the 2020 election cycle. The CRA also requested that the IRS terminate the tax exemptions of the three groups.
"We leave to the Service to determine whether there is enough evidence to sustain a criminal investigation into Chan or Zuckerberg for tax fraud," the CRA complaint stated.
"Nevertheless, at the very least, it is incumbent upon the IRS to recoup what is likely a false tax deduction on a roughly hundred-million-dollar order of magnitude: an unlawful taxpayer subsidy running to support Democrat electioneering purposes."
The CRA added that it's "rubbish" to suggest that Zuckerberg and Chan hired Plouffe to help local governments on a non-partisan basis.
The CRA is a conservative policy group headed by former senior Trump administration official Russ Vought. The organization's mission is to "renew a consensus of America as a nation under God with unique interests worthy of defending."
In a statement, Brian Baker, a spokesperson for Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan, noted a 6-0 ruling from the Federal Election Commission in August which stated the connection between the couple's 2020 donations and any purpose to influence the election is "speculative at best."
"As the recent unanimous, bipartisan 6-0 decision from the Federal Election Commission has confirmed, the donations to two 501(c)(3) non-profit organizations (the Center for Tech and Civic Life and the Center for Election and Innovation Research) to help support voting in 2020 during the unprecedented conditions of the pandemic were apolitical, non-partisan and intended only to ensure that all Americans could vote safely, regardless of party affiliation or candidate preference," Baker told FOX Business.
"While we have neither received nor reviewed the complaint, we are confident that any IRS review of the facts will confirm this. Moreover, reporting on the complaint by the Center for Renewing America suggests it is based on obvious factual inaccuracies and repeats several disproven and preposterous claims," he added.
The CTCL, CEIR and NVAHI didn't respond to requests for comment.
https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/mark-zuckerberg-hit-legal-complaints-alleged-attempt-influence-2020-election
>>17566969, >>17566976 Mark Zuckerberg hit with legal complaints over alleged attempt to influence 2020 election
for notables
Nolte: âNewâ CNN Moves Failed Left-Wing Anchors to Primetime
The âNewâ CNN is looking an awful lot like the old, tired, humorless, discredited, basement-rated CNN America has grown to despise and then ignore.
Color me gobsmacked that the lying godforsaken liars at CNN lied about a âNewâ CNN that would be less partisan and more down the middle.
Oh, yeah, nothing like promoting Jake âRussia Collusion Conspiracy Colluder and Lyinâ Election Meddlerâ Tapper to a sweet primetime spot at 9 p.m. to prove how much things will change.
But Iâm sure Tapperâs promotion was based on merit due to the huge audience he will bring with him from his two 4 p.m. hours. Oh, wait, Tapper consistently comes in last place at 4 p.m. (by a mile) and barely cracked 800,000 total viewers last month. But maybe Iâm missing something. There must be a market survey somewhere showing that the American people are pining for smug dishonesty at 9 p.m.
But guess who else failed her way into CNNâs primetime? Alisyn âGun-Grabbing, Racial Pandering, Trump-Derangedâ Camerota. And why not? When co-hosting CNNâs New Day, she too consistently landed in far-last place. But Iâm sure all 300,000 of her faithful morning viewers will eagerly tune in at 10 p.m. for two hours of smug lying.
Hey, maybe CNN Chief Chris Licht is doing this for the lulz? Because watching Jake Tapper humiliated as he earns fewer viewers than Chris Cuomo is gonna be hilarious. For all his flaws and character defects, at least Fredo had a personality. Tapper is the boyfriend you hope your older sister dumps for one whoâs more fun.
CNN is doing nothing to improve itself. Moving the deck chairs around on the Titanic solves nothing. These are the same unlikable, self-righteous, humorless, left-wing liars that turned CNN into CNNLOL, into a national punchline.
Licht claims he wants to go straight news, but going straight news means that you sometimes report out things that might lose a Democrat an election. Don Lemon, Jake Tapper, and Alisyn Camerota will never-ever-ever do that. All they care about is their fascist agenda. All they care about is their status among the left-wing elite. Founders of the Woke Gestapo will never risk their status or hurting the fascist cause of the state. These people are enforcers of the left-wing religion. They see their duty as policing purity, not truth-telling.
We were assured CNN would stop lying. Instead, the liars at CNN are now lying about lying.
https://www.breitbart.com/the-media/2022/09/22/nolte-new-cnn-moves-failed-left-wing-anchors-primetime/
Dem Rep. Steny Hoyer quite angered by âTrump wonâ banner he saw at a county fair
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer was the victim of an egregious wrong recently and itâs clear he could be suffering from the ensuing PTSD for some time to come.
What happened? Here, let Rep. Hoyer explain while trying to control his rage:
Majority Leader Steny Hoyer is upset that he saw a giant "TRUMP WON" sign at the Charles County Fair last week. pic.twitter.com/7yx7vAQjxR
â Townhall.com (@townhallcom) September 21, 2022
Get the fainting couch! It looks like Rep. Hoyer might need to pay a visit to the Congressional therapist. So much triggering!
pic.twitter.com/AeEVnQaJSy
â jujuâď¸â¤đžâ (@jujulexangel) September 21, 2022
They do have their âprioritiesâ:
Do you feel the same way on the crime increase nationwide? How about the Fentanyl distribution? How about laws that pertain to insider trading?
â garyelam23 (@garyelam23) September 21, 2022
Sorry youâre going through this, Steny. Thoughts & prayers. https://t.co/BBgHddGJms
â Watcher On The Wall (@OnCoffman) September 21, 2022
Setting the stage to cry âstolen electionâ is only acceptable if the Democrats do it. Hoyer probably didnât tell Nancy Pelosi to knock it off:
Nancy Pelosi: "Our bill makes crystal clear that states cannot change the rules governing an election after the election has occurredâŚ.MAGA politicians are waging a sinister campaign across the country to subvert our future elections." pic.twitter.com/VMKTEUH5sI
â Townhall.com (@townhallcom) September 21, 2022
As usual, casting doubts about election results are OK when Democrats do it, just like it was fine to do after Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election before becoming taboo again after the 2020 election.
***
Related:
âWho wants to tell him?â David Hoggâs ultimatum to Steny Hoyer over assault weapons ban isnât the flex he thinks it is
The more you know: House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer says âweâre at warâ (is that so?), so we need to be nicer to Joe Biden
âLOLâ! Reason Rep. Steny Hoyer wants Republicans to support Demsâ DC statehood bill is pretty hilarious
***
https://twitchy.com/dougp-3137/2022/09/21/dem-rep-steny-hoyer-quite-angered-by-trump-won-banner-he-saw-at-a-county-fair/
How Government Secrets Are Declassified and Disclosed
President Trump spoke at a memorial for peace officers on Monday.
By Charlie Savage
May 15, 2017
WASHINGTON â The news that President Trump disclosed highly classified information about the Islamic State during a meeting with Russian officials, jeopardizing an allyâs intelligence source, has raised interest in legal issues surrounding disclosures of classified information.
Who sets the rules for declassifications or disclosures?
The classification system is regulated by executive orders, which presidents periodically update and replace. The current version is Executive Order 13526, which President Barack Obama signed in late 2009. Under its rules, âoriginal classification authoritiesâ â like the heads of various departments and agencies â can normally classify and declassify information âownedâ by their organizations. They can then authorize its disclosure to someone who has the proper security clearance and is deemed to need to know it. But the president oversees all the agencies and can also directly exercise his powers.
Did Mr. Trump have legal authority to disclose the information?
Yes. The designation of information as a restricted national security secret is considered part of the presidentâs constitutional powers as commander in chief. Because the classified information system was not established and is not regulated by congressional statutes, Mr. Trump has the power to declassify or disclose anything he wants.
âThe classification system is not based on a law,â said Steven Aftergood, a government secrecy specialist with the Federation of American Scientists. âIt is an expression of presidential authority, and that means that the president and his designees decide what is classified, and they have the essentially unlimited authority to declassify at will. The president defines the terms of the security clearance system and the parameters that determine who may be given access to classified information.â
Did Mr. Trumpâs disclosure declassify the information?
Apparently not. Notably, although White House officials put out statements late on Monday playing down any problem with what he told the Russians, the administration also implored Washington Post reporters not to publish the details lest their dissemination damage national security.
What would happen if someone else did this?
Such an official could lose his or her security clearance and job. He or she could also be prosecuted under the Espionage Act, which makes it a felony punishable by 10 years in prison to disclose information to someone not authorized to receive defense-related secrets that could hurt the United States or aid another country. In recent years, the government has frequently used that statute to prosecute people who leak information to the public.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/15/us/politics/trump-classified-secrets.html
Trump's Classified Disclosure Is Shocking But Legal
Why federal laws that criminalize the revealing of secrets donât apply to the president.
May 16, 2017 at 1:31 AM UTC
Oh for the days when Donald Trump wasnât taking the presidential daily brief â and didnât know highly classified information that he could give to the Russians. But a bit bizarrely, Trumpâs reported disclosure of Islamic State plans to two Russian officials during an Oval Office visit last week wasnât illegal.
If anyone else in the government, except possibly the vice president, had revealed such classified information that person would be going to prison. The president, however, has inherent constitutional authority to declassify information at will. And that means the federal laws that criminalize the disclosure of classified secrets donât apply to him.
If this doesnât make much sense to you, I feel your pain. To understand the legal structure of classification and declassification requires a brief journey into the constitutional law of separation of powers. Thatâs not always especially fun. But at this juncture in U.S. history, itâs essential. Not since Richard Nixonâs administration has separation of powers been so central to the fate of the republic.
The authority to label facts or documents as classified rests with the president in his capacity as a commander in chief. Or at least thatâs what the U.S. Supreme Court said in a 1988 case, Department of the Navy v. Egan.
Justice Harry Blackmun, who wrote the opinion, said that the executiveâs âauthority to classify and control access to information bearing on national security ⌠flows primarily from this constitutional investment of power in the President and exists quite apart from any explicit congressional grant.â
Blackmunâs idea that the president has an inherent right to decide who gets access to classified information seems to imply the converse: that the president has the inherent authority to declassify information, too. Although thereâs no case on this point, scholars took that view during the years of the George W. Bush administration, when the president was thought to have declassified some information that was leaked to the news media by White House aide I. Lewis âScooterâ Libby.
It makes sense. If it is up to the president to decide what canât be disclosed, it should be up to him to decide what can be.
That still leaves the question of whether the president would need to issue a formal order of declassification before revealing the information. According to the report in the Washington Post, Trump pretty clearly didnât do that: He just made a judgment that he wanted to pass on the information to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. Indeed, it seems altogether conceivable that he made the decision in the moment, without thinking through its practical consequences, much less the classification status of the information. (White House National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster denied the Postâs report Monday night, saying, âAt no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed, and the president did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known.â)
It would be nice to say that, just as the president authorizes classification through a formal executive order, he should have to issue a similar statement to declassify. But thatâs probably too formalistic. In constitutional terms, an executive order is just a presidential order reduced to writing for the benefit of the rest of the executive branch. The president likely canât be bound by an executive order, whether his or an order from the proceeding president.
If youâre following closely, youâll have noticed an anomaly: The president can classify and declassify. But the president canât send people to prison for disobeying his order. That requires a federal law passed by Congress, and a conviction before a judge. Thus, under the separation of powers, the president has inherent authority to fire his own employees for disclosing classified information, but lacks the power to punish them criminally without Congress and the courts.
That law exists: 18 U.S. Code Section 798, if you care to look it up. It makes it a federal crime to communicate âclassified informationâ to an âunauthorized person.â The catch is that the law defines classified information as information determined classified by a U.S. government agency, and similarly defines an unauthorized person as someone not determined authorized by the executive branch.
That puts Trump in the clear insofar as he has an inherent authority to declare information unclassified.
The law goes on to criminalize any disclosure of classified information thatâs âprejudicial to the safety or interest of the United States or for the benefit of any foreign government to the detriment of the United States.â At first blush that language would seem arguably to apply to Trumpâs disclosure. But once again, the clause depends on disclosure of classified information â and Trump can simply say he declassified the information when he gave it to the Russians.
A twist with potential legal relevance might arise if someone else like the leaker of this story repeated classified information after Trump effectively declassified it. That person would have a compelling claim to be exempt from criminal prosecution also. This might matter if Trump decides to go after the leaker criminally. 1
So go ahead, be shocked by Trumpâs disclosure. I know I am. Whether it reflects a studied or instinctive pro-Russian position or simply unthinking bad judgment, it seems to be a highly unusual and poor presidential move. But itâs protected by the constitutional power that comes with getting elected president of the United States.
Although the news media arenât (yet) disclosing the details of the Islamic State intelligence or the country that provided it, thatâs a purely voluntary act on their part.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2017-05-16/trump-s-classified-disclosure-is-shocking-but-legal
Why President Trump Can Share Classified Information If He Wants
By Lily Rothman
May 16, 2017 6:04 PM EDT
When the Washington Post reported on Monday that President Donald Trump had shared classified information with Russian officials during a meeting at the White House, the White House response was to deny that any military details had been shared that werenât already known â even as the President attested on Twitter that he had the âabsolute rightâ to share facts with foreign officials.
Whether or not the President did share information that others would want kept secret â a possibility that Russian media downplayed even as outlets like the New York Times continued to add details to the story, such as information about the Israeli sources of the intelligence â heâs basically correct that he could share such information if he wanted to.
The reason, says Timothy Naftali, Clinical Associate Professor of History and Public Service at New York University and former director of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, goes all the way back to the Constitution and the basic structure of power in the United States.
âThe president is the ultimate authorizing authority,â as he puts it.
The power to classify and declassify information â like the duty to protect intelligence sources and methods â has been reshaped several times over the course of American history, but the two powers are linked. The person or agency that has the right to keep something secret (or the successor agency, if original agency no longer exists) is the same one that has the right to decide when it should be made public. The hierarchical structure of government means that, in general, if a person has that power, so do her direct superiors, all the way up the chain. The President, at the top of the ladder, is everyoneâs superior.
Though Naftali traces the idea behind that structure all the way back to the Constitution, a more granular codification of that power can be found in Executive Order 11,652, which President Richard Nixon signed in 1972, clarifying the system of classification and how information would be both protected and shared going forward. Among its many other provisions, the order was clear on who could share information that had been declared classified: âInformation or material may be downgraded or declassified by the official authorizing the original classification, by a successor in capacity or by a supervisory official of either,â the order states.
In a statement on signing the order, Nixon said that his goal was to make sure that a balance could be maintained between the need for confidentiality inside government and the need for an informed public. He had ordered a review of the existing procedures in 1971, and he called the new rules for declassification âperhaps the most innovative and crucial aspectâ of the order, because it would allow for easy downgrading of the many pieces of information that, due to the backlog in the review system, were in classification limbo. (Ironically, the Executive Order was an effort by Nixon to reassure the public in response to a perception of government secrecy; just a few months later, the Watergate break-in would occur.)
Although that particular order would be replaced by further refinements of the classification system, the newer version (Executive Order 13,526 from 2009) retains the power for supervising officials to declassify information.
âThe way the system works now is that the successor agency to the organization that created the info back in the day has the right to decide whether the info can be released. If the CIA created the document, they can decide whether to release it,â Naftali explains. âThe president is on top of the entire executive branch and can decide on his own whether to release executive branch information.â
As Naftali wrote for CNN in January, there have been at least a few times when Presidents have made notable decisions to make use of the power to share intelligence information widely. For example, in 1986, President Reagan chose to reveal U.S. intelligence capabilities with regard to Libya in order to make the case that Libya was behind a terrorist attack.
However, Naftali adds, intelligence that comes originally from Israel is, in practice if not by law, a different story than intelligence uncovered by U.S. operatives. âSharing somebody elseâs secrets is fraught in a way that sharing your own secrets is not,â he says. âYou want your allies to trust you with their most secret information.â
One of the features of the American system is that winning a presidential election is, in a way, its own security-clearance process. Thereâs no other agency that vets the incoming president â if there were, it would be an undemocratic check on the peopleâs will, Naftali points out â and the security clearance comes automatically with the office. That means that, when it comes to sharing information with the President, trust is not a matter of background checks and investigations. So, while major intelligence-sharing alliances are unlikely to be disturbed by any given election, as they exist because theyâre in the alliesâ own interests, Naftali says that more fragile alliances may be shaken if thereâs the impression that secrets arenât safe with the President.
âThatâs why this matters. Itâs not that Trump has violated a secrecy agreement. He hasnât. He can do this,â Naftali says. âIt can be legal and unwise at the same time. The President can share this information but just because he can do something doesnât mean itâs a good idea.â
https://time.com/4780593/president-trump-russia-declassified/
FBI hero paying the price for exposing unjust âpersecutionâ of conservative Americans
Bombshell allegations by FBI Special Agent Steve Friend contained in a whistleblower complaint filed late Wednesday with the Department of Justice inspector general reveal a politicized Washington, DC, FBI field office cooking the books to exaggerate the threat of domestic terrorism, and Âusing an âoverzealousâ January 6 Âinvestigation to harass conservative Americans and violate their constitutional rights.
Friend, 37, a respected 12-year veteran of the FBI and a SWAT team member, was suspended Monday, stripped of his gun and badge, and escorted out of the FBI field office in Daytona Beach, Fla., after complaining to his supervisors about the violations.
He was declared absent without leave last month for refusing to participate in SWAT raids that he believed violated FBI policy and were a use of excessive force against Jan. 6 Âsubjects accused of misdemeanor Âoffenses.
This American hero, the father of two small children, has blown up his âdream careerâ because he could not live with his conscience if he continued to be part of what he sees as the unjust persecution of conservative Americans.
âI have an oath to uphold the Constitution,â he told supervisors when he asserted his conscientious objection to joining an Aug. 24 raid on a J6 subject in the Jacksonville, Fla., area. âI have a moral objection and want to be considered a conscientious objector.â
Friend, who did not vote for Donald Trump in the 2020 election, said he told his immediate boss twice that he believed the raid, and the investigative process leading up to it, violated FBI policy and the subjectâs right under the Sixth Amendment to a fair trial and Eighth Amendment right against cruel and unusual punishment.
Steve FriendFriend served as a SWAT team member.Anna Friend
Multiple violations
In his whistleblower complaint to DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz, obtained by The Post, Friend lays out multiple violations of FBI policy involving J6 investigations in which he was involved.
He says he was removed from active investigations into child sexual exploitation and human trafficking to work on J6 cases sent from DC. He was told âdomestic terrorism was a higher priorityâ than child pornography. As a result, he believes his child exploitation investigations were harmed.
He also has reported his concerns about a politicized FBI to Republican members of Congress, among 20 whistleblowers from the bureau who have come forward with similar complaints.
Among Friendâs allegations:
The Washington, DC, field office is âmanipulatingâ FBI case management protocol and farming out J6 cases to field offices across the country to create the false impression that right-wing domestic violence is a widespread national problem that goes far beyond the âblack swanâ event of Jan. 6, 2021.
As a result, he was listed as lead agent in cases he had not investigated and which his supervisor had not signed off on, in violation of FBI policy.
FBI domestic terrorism cases are being opened on innocent American citizens who were nowhere near the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, based on anonymous tips to an FBI hotline or from Facebook spying on their messages. These tips are turned into investigative tools called âguardians,â after the FBI software that collates them.
The FBI has post-facto designated a grassy area outside the Capitol as a restricted zone, when it was not restricted on Jan. 6, 2021, in order to widen the net of prosecutions.
The FBI intends to prosecute everyone even peripherally associated with J6 and another wave of J6 subjects are about to be referred to the FBIâs Daytona Beach resident agency âfor investigation and arrest.â
The Jacksonville area was âinundatedâ with âguardianâ notifications and FBI agents were dispatched to conduct surveillance and knock on peopleâs doors, including people who had not been in Washington, DC, on Jan. 6, 2021, or who had been to the Trump rally that day but did not go Âinside the Capitol.
Friend says he was punished after complaining to his bosses about being dragged into J6 investigations that were âviolating citizensâ Sixth Amendment rights due to overzealous charging by the DOJ and biased jury pools in Washington, DC.â
His top-secret security clearance was suspended last week because he âentered FBI space [his office] and downloaded documents from FBI computer systems [an employee handbook and guidelines for employee disciplinary procedures] to an unauthorized removable flash drive.â
U.S. Capitol
In a Sept. 16 letter from the head of FBI human resources, he was told he was losing his security clearance also because he âespoused beliefs which demonstrate questionable judgment [and demonstrated] an unwillingness to comply with rules and regulations.â
Reprisals from bosses
In his whistleblower complaint, Friend describes âreprisalsâ from his supervisors after he voiced his conscientious objections.
He says they ignored his complaint about âmanipulative casefile practice [which] creates false and misleading crime statistics, constituting false official federal statements.
âInstead of hundreds of investigations stemming from an isolated incident at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, FBI and DOJ officials point to significant increases in domestic violent extremism and terrorism around the United States.
âAt no point was I advised or counseled on where to take my disclosure beyond the reprising officials above; the threatened reprisal constituted a de facto gag on my whistleblowing.â
On Aug. 19, he first told his immediate boss, Supervisory Senior Resident Agent Greg Federico, that he believed âit was inappropriate to use an FBI SWAT team to arrest a subject for misdemeanor offenses and opined that the subject would likely face extended detainment and biased jury pools in Washington, DC.
âI suggested alternatives such as the issuance of a court summons or utilizing surveillance groups to determine an optimal, safe time for a local sheriff deputy to contact the subjects and advise them about the existence of the arrest warrant.â
Federico told him it would have been better to just âcall in sickâ rather than voice his objection and âthreatened reprisal indirectly by asking how long I saw myself continuing to work for the FBI.â
Four days later, Friend was summoned to Jacksonville to meet his next-level bosses, Assistant Special Agents in Charge Coult Markovsky and Sean Ryan, about his refusal to join the SWAT raid.
He told them about his concerns over âirregularâ case handling of J6 matters that he believed were in violation of a legal rule known as âBradyâ that requires prosecutors to disclose evidence that would exonerate a defendant.
They asked if he believed any J6 rioters committed crimes and he replied: âSome of the people who entered the Capitol committed crimes, but others were innocent. I elaborated that I believed some innocent individuals had been unjustly prosecuted, convicted and sentenced.â
Markovsky then asked Friend if J6 rioters who âkilled police officersâ should be prosecuted, even though no such thing happened. When Friend pointed out that âthere were no police officers killed on January 6, 2021,â Markovsky told him he was being a âbad teammate.â
Both agents âthreatened reprisal again by warning that my refusal [to go on the SWAT raid] could amount to insubordination. References were made to my Âfuture career prospects with the FBI.â
Friend was labeled AWOL the day the raid took place and stripped of his pay.
A week later, he was told to meet the top agent in Jacksonville, Special Agent in Charge Sherri Onks, who told him he needed to do some âsoul searchingâ and decide if he wanted to work for the FBI.
When he told her âmany of my colleagues expressed similar concerns to me but had not vocalized their objections to FBI executive management,â she told him his âviews represented an extremely small minority of the FBI workforce.â
She then shared the emotional experience of fearing for her own life on Jan. 6, 2021, when she was sitting on the seventh floor of the secure J. Edgar Hoover Building, FBI headquarters, after protesters one mile away âseized the Capitol and threatened the United Statesâ democracy.â
Agents used as âpawnsâ
Friend says his concerns are shared by large numbers of rank-and-file FBI agents across the country who believe they are being used as pawns to pursue the political agenda of the bosses in Washington, DC.
These kinds of abuses of the law are a âmorale killerâ for field agents, he says.
Many agents, who joined the FBI in the wake of 9/11, are keeping their heads down because they are close to their 20-year retirement with full pension. But he says they are equally disgusted at being forced to take part in the politicization of federal law Âenforcement.
Other whistleblowers say that disquiet grew after the FBI raid on Donald Trumpâs Mar-a-Lago home in Florida on Aug. 8.
Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, who is working with these heroic FBI agents, has been trying to introduce legislation to strengthen the bureauâs woefully inadequate whistleblower protections. Friendâs complaint will be a test case.
In a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray on Aug. 11, Grassley alleged that a committee of FBI field agents had been to see Wray to express the concerns of agents in all 56 field offices across the country that âthe FBI has become too politicized in its decision-making.â Grassley further alleges âthose concerns were removed from this yearâs final reportâ of the FBIâs Special Agents Advisory Committee.
Wray ignored Grassleyâs letter along with a dozen other letters from the dogged Iowa senator alleging gross malfeasance at the bureau.
But unrest is growing among field agents about the weaponization of the FBI against the Biden administrationâs political opponents under Wray. He canât Âignore it for long.
https://nypost.com/2022/09/21/fbi-hero-paying-the-price-for-exposing-unjust-persecution-of-conservative-americans/
>>17567100, >>17567104, >>17567106 FBI hero paying the price for exposing unjust âpersecutionâ of conservative Americans
for noables
cakes
Little fyi, all those posts are from pjt ts, he shot off 13 posts, these are the articles
o7
>>17567075, >>17567076 Why President Trump Can Share Classified Information If He Wants
For notables
Do you fucking mind?
I can group together my own posts.
Why dont you go and play in traffic for a while.
look at the dates on all the articles FFS
Your opinion that 'all the other prezes did it' has nothing to do with the rule of law.
You dumbed it down. And that pisses me off. Shill tactic.
âThe president is the ultimate authorizing authority,â
The jig is up.
=Richard Grenell/ @grenell
09/23/2022 12:25:16
Truth Social: 109048647956178469
.@mattgaetz CLEARED.
It was all phony.
Shame on the media who slandered him for over a year.
https://qagg.news/?read=TO43772
That is well articulated.
Would like to see you write sound reasoning instead of four syllable baby talk.
excuse me for being a fuckwit, to begin with
>John Podesta personally singled Gensler out for responsibility for funding the dossier,â