Judge Cannon Puts Jack Smith on Trial. 1/2

While vacating Donald Trump's trial date, Cannon set an aggressive hearing schedule over the next several weeks that will turn the tables on Smith and the Department of Justice.

JULIE KELLY MAY 10, 2024

U.S. District Court Judge Aileen Cannon may have just indefinitely postponed Donald Trump’s espionage and obstruction trial but that doesn’t mean her federal courtroom in Fort Pierce, Florida will lie dormant over the next few months.

In officially vacating the existing May 20 trial date—an impossibility considering the defendant will be in a Manhattan courtroom for the foreseeable future—Cannon declined to set another date, calling it “imprudent” at this stage of the process. She noted a “myriad” of unresolved matters in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s 42-count indictment-against the former president and his two co-defendants, Mar-a-Lago employees Waltine Nauta and Carlos De Olivera, for willfully retaining national defense information and attempting to impede the government’s investigation.

Cannon, however, did schedule a number of proceedings that could be considered a way to put the Department of Justice on trial. In a stunning turn of events, Cannon, appointed by Donald Trump in 2020, is poised to make Smith a defendant of sorts.

Over the next several weeks,prosecutors will be forced to publicly counter defense motions that accuse the DOJ of selective and vindictive prosecution; insist the appointment of Smith is illegal; and claim that several parties, including Joe Biden’s White House, colluded behind the scenes as early as May 2021 to concoct the unprecedented case.

Her hearing schedule represents a broader spilling of bad blood between Cannon and the DOJ dating back to September 2022, when Cannon took the courageous step of appointing a special master, or third party, to vet the all of the evidence seized by the FBI during the armed raid of Mar-a-Lago the month before.

Noting at the time the prosecution’s suspected leaks to the news media and the mishandling of evidencein the early stages of the investigation—in addition to what she called the need for “public trust” in the case—Cannon granted Trump’s request for the special master.

Although the 11th Circuit Court overturned her order a few months later on grounds she did not have proper jurisdiction, Cannon now is exonerated amid disclosures bySmith in a May 3 brief that evidence has been mishandled and key documents possibly misplaced. “[There] are some boxes where the order of items within that box is not the same as in the associated scans (taken right after the raid),” Smith’s team revealed, referring to 34 boxes taken from Mar-a-Lago.

Smith also revealed that in some instances, sheets of paper that FBI investigators used to replace classified records within a box do not match. “In many but not all instances, the FBI was able to determine which document with classification markings corresponded to a particular placeholder sheet,” Smith wrote.

In other words, the government officials prosecuting Trump with mishandling top-secret files–mishandled top-secret files.

Trump Off the Hook for Now, Smith Goes on Defense

Even more problematic is Smith’s confession that his lead prosecutor,Jay Bratt, misrepresented to Cannon the existing condition of the boxes. During an April hearing, Cannon directly asked Bratt, “are the boxes in their original, intact form as seized?” Bratt replied that they were with “the exception that the classified documents have been removed and placeholders have been put in the documents.”

Smith admitted in a footnote that Bratt’s statement was “inconsistent” with the facts, which could prompt Trump’s counsel to seek a contempt of court charge.

But that might be the least of Smith’s concerns right now. Cannon’s aggressive hearing schedule will put Smith and the entire Justice Department on the hot seat—and the timing could not be worse; with the other criminal trials against Trump in Washington and Fulton County imploding, all eyes are focused on southern Florida.

A bit of background before turning to the pending schedule.After months of what can only be described as harassment by the National Archives, including Obama-appointed archivist David Ferriero, throughout 2021 to demand the return of alleged government records, Trump gave 15 boxes of papers to the archives in January 2022.

Archive officials immediately claimed they found material with “classified markings” among the boxes’ contents. That prompted for the first time ever the archives sending a criminal referral to the DOJ in February 2022. Smith indicted Trump and Nauta in June 2023; the following month, Smith added De Olivera and additional charges in a superseding indictment…

https://www.declassified.live/p/judge-cannon-puts-jack-smith-on-trial

>>20855625

2/2

But defense attorneys now have evidence that disputes Smith’s course of events and the number of officials involved in the case. In January, the defense filed a motion asking Cannon to consider numerous agencies including the archives, the Biden White House, top DOJ officials, and the FBI as part of the prosecution team.

“New evidence, obtained via requests pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act reveals that politically motivated operatives in the Biden Administration and the National Archives and Records Administratio(“NARA”) began this crusade against President Trump in 2021,” Trump’s lawyers wrote. “The FOIA releases, coupled with other evidence…reflectclose participation in the investigation by NARA and Biden Administration components such as the White House Counsel’s Office, as well as senior officials at DOJ and FBI. These revelations are disturbing but not surprising.”

Hundreds of pages of exhibits show emails and meetings between archive officials and Biden’s general counsel’s office throughout the second half of 2021.Gary Stern, the archives general counsel, further disclosed in an August 2021 email that he hadhad “informal” talks with unidentified DOJ officials to seek advice on how to prepare a criminal referralagainst Trump for refusing to turn over government records.

Smith, naturally, denies the allegations, claiming defense attorneys were advancing “speculative, unsupported, and false theories of political bias and animus.”

Both sides will have the chance to duke it out next month.

Over the course of three days during the last week of June, per Cannon’s new schedule,Smith and the defensewill participate in an extended hearing to debate evidence of collusion. Not only do the proceedings pose a risk to Smith’s case based on prior pleadings to the court but proof of correspondence and meetingscontradicts public claims by Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garlandthat the investigation was independent of the White House.

First Public Vetting of Smith’s Potentially Illegal Appointment

Smith also will have to defend himself before the court during a June 21 hearing related to thepotential unlawfulness of his appointment as special counsel. Citing an amicus brief filed by former Attorney General Edwin Meese before the Supreme Court earlier this year—Meese said that “Jack Smith does not have authority to conduct the underlying prosecution [because] those actions can be taken only by persons properly appointed as federal officers to properly created federal offices”—Trump also argues that “Jack Smith lacks the authority to prosecute this action.”

The controversy represents dicey territory for Smith; in fact, during oral arguments at SCOTUS last month on the question of presidential immunity,Justice Clarence Thomas asked Trump’s attorney whether they “challenge[d] the appointment of special counsel” in the matter, signaling the court may considerthe amici brief in its final decision.

Smith has not yet responded to the hearing timetable; his media allies, however, continue to demand Cannon’s recusal.

But both Smith and his allies know Cannon has the upper hand. And it appears, at least for the time being, she plans to use it as a hammer against the DOJ.

https://www.declassified.live/p/judge-cannon-puts-jack-smith-on-trial

FBI’s sinister anti-Christian ‘PATCON’ program is the internet’s best kept secret. Until now….. 1/2

May 12, 2024 (5 hours ago)

It’s tough to keep track of all the FBI’s programs—programs they’re actively using against the American people. Most of us are familiar with COINTELPRO, a program from the 1960s and 1970s that was supposedly targeted at radical leftists. It’s out there for everyone to read up on and is often cited as a shameful instance of suppression against supposedly innocent Americans, and it very well might have been.

Here’s just a snippet of what Wikipedia has to say about COINTELPRO:

COINTELPRO (a syllabic abbreviation derived from Counter Intelligence Program) was a series of covert and illegal[1][2] projects conducted between 1956 and 1971 by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting American political organizations that the FBI perceived as subversive.[3][4][5][6] Groups and individuals targeted by the FBI included feminist organizations,[7][8] the Communist Party USA,[9] anti–Vietnam War organizers, activists in the civil rights and Black power movements (e.g., Martin Luther King Jr., the Nation of Islam, and the Black Panther Party), environmentalist and animal rights organizations, the American Indian Movement (AIM), Chicano and Mexican-American groups like the Brown Berets and the United Farm Workers, independence movements (including Puerto Rican independence groups such as the Young Lords and the Puerto Rican Socialist Party), a variety of organizations that were part of the broader New Left, and white supremacist groups such as the Ku Klux Klan[10][11] and the National States’ Rights Party.[12]

The FBI has used covert operations against domestic political groups since its inception; however, covert operations under the official COINTELPRO label took place between 1956 and 1971. Many of the tactics used in COINTELPRO are alleged to have seen continued use,including discrediting targets through psychological warfare; smearing individuals and groupsusing forged documents and byplanting false reports in the media; harassment; wrongful imprisonment; illegal violence; and assassination.[13][14][15][16] According to a Senate report, the FBI’s motivation was “protecting national security, preventing violence, and maintaining the existing social and political order”.[17]

Notice how quickly Wikipedia labels COINTELPRO as ‘illegal.’ Keep that in mindas we delve into another sordid story involving anFBI programyou’ve probably never heard of,called PATCON. Despite being equally suppressive and likely illegal, Wikipedia never mentions it. The likely reason it remains one of the web’s best-kept secrets? It targets those theFBI and the left consider the “real enemies” of their precious democracy:right-wing Christians.

One astute X user took a deep dive into thePATCON mystery, methodically peeling back the layers of this disturbing program, which isn’t easy to do since it’s so deeply guarded.

Pic and tweet

Revenant:

Watching @Black_Pilled’s PATCON series on Odysee— we’ve all heard of COINTELPRO and how the FBI supposedly “suppressed” leftists in the 60s & 70s. But did you knowWikipedia doesn’t even have articles on PAT-CON at all? If you were Joe Normie, you’d never even know it existed!

Pic

The reason theBoston Marathon bombingarticle comes up is because“PATCON” appearsin the title of a cited article — in the“Conspiracy Theories”section of the Boston Marathon article. 🤡…

https://revolver.news/2024/05/fbi-sinister-anti-christian-patcon-program-internet-best-kept-secret-until-now/

>>20855661

2/2

Thanks, Wikipedia! Without this I might have thought the FBI knowingly enabled terrorism.

Pic

I love, just love, how theWiki page calls it an “alleged practice,” then links to a published journal article about the documented history that the FBI has, in fact, done this. 🥴

Wiki editors are no different from journalists. All they do is lie.

Pic

The gist of it is that it’s basically what lefties claim COINTELPRO was, but targeting RWers instead.

Feds using informants and agitators to entrap targets,instigate or enable “terror attacks,” etc. so that the events can beused as propaganda.

(ghostRider tweet)

In truth, though,COINTELPRO also targeted RWers as well as leftists. There was so much actual leftist terror being done by sincere actors that the feds didn’t need to manufacture any.

So, what exactly is the PATCON program?Well, a research paper from Rutgers University outlines it this way:

Rutgers:

Since September 11, 2001, the U.S. government as well as policedepartments across the United States, most notably the New York City Police Department (NYPD), have beencollecting intelligence targeting MuslimAmerican communities. The controversial surveillance practices include the use of confidential informants, undercover operations, and entrapment, and infringing upon civil rights and civil liberties in the name of national security. Adecade before 9/11, however, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) conducted thesame practicesagainst a completely different demographic—Christian Right militants, through a program calledPATCON, short for Patriot Conspiracy.

Building upon the concept of surveillance as social sorting (Lyon 2013) and surveillance and terrorism (Monahan 2012), this article will compare the histories of surveillance practices as undertaken by the FBI on American Christian Right militants with the tactics used by the NYPD on non-militant Muslim Americans.

For a deeper dive into the PATCON program, we encourage you to check out the Odysee podcast. Click here to listen to the full discussion and get enlightened on thisvery shadowy program targeting Christians and the folks on the right.

https://revolver.news/2024/05/fbi-sinister-anti-christian-patcon-program-internet-best-kept-secret-until-now/

>>20855669

Here is the links to abstract mentioned in the article, 21 page PDF

Informants, Provocateurs, and Entrapment: Examining the Histories of the FBI’s PATCON and the NYPD’s Muslim Surveillance Program

Abstract

Since September 11, 2001, the U.S. government and police departments across the United States, most notably the New York City Police Department, have been collecting intelligence targeting Muslim American communities. The controversial surveillance practices include the use of confidential informants, undercover operations, and entrapment, and infringing upon civil rights and civil liberties in the name of national security. A decade before 9/11, however, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) conducted the same practices against a completely different demographic –Christian Right militants, through a program called PATCON, short for Patriot Conspiracy.Building upon the concept of surveillance as social sorting (Lyon 2013) and surveillance and terrorism (Monahan 2013), This article will compare the history of surveillance tactics used by the FBI against Christian Right militants and those used by the NYPD against non-militant Muslim Americans, and assess their implications in the context of civil rights, leaving a legacy of mistrust between these respective groups and the federal government that further undermines the national security interests of the United States.

https://ojs.library.queensu.ca/index.php/surveillance-and-society/article/view/informants

https://ojs.library.queensu.ca/index.php/surveillance-and-society/article/view/informants/informant

Supreme Court Justices Thomas and Alito Issue Warnings About State of America

‘Support for freedom of speech is declining dangerously,’ Justice Alito said, while Justice Thomas decried ‘nastiness and the lies’ in the Beltway.

In separate remarks at two different events on Friday, Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito issued warnings about the state of affairs in America today, including support for freedom of speech “declining dangerously” and the nation’s capital becoming a “hideous” place where cancel culture runs rampant.

Justice Thomas spoke at a conference of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in Point Clear, Alabama, while Justice Alito delivered a commencement address at the Franciscan University of Steubenville, a Catholic college in Ohio, with both of the conservative-minded judges painting a dark picture—while encouraging action and offering hope.

At the Alabama event, Justice Thomas was asked to comment by the moderator—U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle—about what it’s like to work “in a world that seems meanspirited.”

“I think there’s challenges to that,” Justice Thomas said. “We’re in a world and we—certainly my wife and I the last two or three years it’s been—just the nastiness and the lies, it’s just incredible.”

Justice Thomas has faced heavy fire from Democrats who accuse him of skirting disclosure rules, of corruption in general, and of being too cozy with wealthy Republicans. They have not been able to point to any specific court cases in which the justice has misbehaved. Some activists have even pushed for Justice Thomas’s impeachment.

By contrast, over 100 former Supreme Court clerks signed an open letter last year defending Justice Thomas’s integrity, calling him a man of “unwavering principle” whose independence is “unshakable.” They called various critical stories that have targeted him as “malicious” and “perpetuating the ugly assumption that the Justice cannot think for himself.”

“They are part of a larger attack on the Court and its legitimacy as an institution,”the letter also stated. “The picture they paint of the Court and the man for whom we worked bears no resemblance to reality.”

Public opinion polls suggest public trust in the Supreme Court recently fell to new lows.

Addressing the criticism, Justice Thomas said at the Alabama conference that Washington had become a “hideous” place where “people pride themselves in being awful,” while characterizing America beyond the Beltway as a place where regular people “don’t pride themselves in doing harmful things.”

Justice Thomas also expressed concern that court writings have become inaccessible to the average person, engendering a sense of alienation.

“The regular people I think are being disenfranchised sometimes by the way that we talk about cases,” Justice Thomas said, while expressing hope that this could change.

‘It’s Rough Out There’

Justice Alito warned graduates at the Catholic college in Ohio that freedom of speech and religion were both being assailed in today’s America, while expressing hope that young people would take up the mantle and fight for positive change.

In his address, Justice Alito made a reference to pop culture, namely to a graduation speech delivered by the character Thornton Melon (played by Rodney Dangerfield) in the movie “Back to School.”

He jokingly cited Mr. Melon’s advice to graduates, which was not to go out into the world after graduating because “it’s rough out there” and instead move back in with their parents, let them pay all the bills, and “worry about it.”

“As Mr. Melon said, it is rough out there,” Justice Alito said. “It’s probably rougher out there now than it has been for quite some time. But that is precisely why your contributions will be so important.”

Justice Alito said that, outside the walls of the campus, “troubled waters are slamming against some of our most fundamental principles,” referring to freedom of speech.

“Support for freedom of speech is declining dangerously,”he continued, noting that this problem is especially acute on college campuses, which he said are places where the exchange of ideas should be most protected.

“Very few colleges live up to that ideal. This place is one of them … but things are not that way out there in the broader world,” Justice Alito said.

He also raised the issue of freedom of religion being “imperiled,”noting that graduates may find themselves in jobs or social settings where they will be pressured to renounce their beliefs or adopt ones they find morally objectionable.

“It will be up to you to stand firm,” he said.

Notably, Justice Alito authored the 2022 ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade and handed the matter of deciding on abortion rights to states.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/supreme-court-justices-thomas-and-alito-issue-warnings-about-state-of-america-5648293?utm_source=epochHG&utm_campaign=CFP&src_src=epochHG&src_cmp=CFP