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notable memes
Supreme Court revives case of citizen journalist arrested for seeking information
By John Fritze, CNN
Published 9:57 AM EDT, Tue October 15, 2024
The Supreme Court on Tuesday revived the case of a citizen journalist who was arrested in 2017 for seeking information from a police department source in Laredo, Texas.
The court threw out a decision against the journalist and ordered the appeals court to look at the case again.
Priscilla Villarreal, who posts her reports on Facebook to more than 200,000 followers, was arrested under a Texas law that makes it a crime to seek non-public information with āintent to obtain a benefit.ā Villarreal, whose case was later thrown out, wants to sue police and prosecutors.
Though she doesnāt work for a traditional news organization, Villarreal has a significant following in Laredo. And she now also has the backing of some of the nationās best-known news brands, including The New York Times and The Washington Post, who are supporting her case at the Supreme Court.
āThe journalism of the last two-and-a-half centuries would be unrecognizable without the right to seek answers from public officials,ā those organizations and others wrote in a brief backing Villarreal.
Villarreal sought to sue Laredo officials for civil rights violations, but her case was rejected because lower courts ruled those officials were entitled to qualified immunity, a legal doctrine that shields government employees from civil lawsuits unless their actions are obviously unconstitutional. A sharply divided 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the city andblocked her lawsuit from moving forward.
āVillarreal and others portray her as a martyr for the sake of journalism. That is inappropriate,ā US Circuit Judge Edith Jones, a Ronald Reagan nominee, wrote for the majority in January. āShe could have followed Texas law, or challenged that law in court, before reporting nonpublic information from the backchannel source.ā
Authorities said Villarreal confirmed and published the identities of a suicide victim, a US Border Patrol employee, as well as the victim of a car accident.
Villarrealās case has ties to one the Supreme Court decided in June involving a city councilwoman who was arrested for removing a public document ā an arrest she said was in retaliation for her exercising her First Amendment rights. In an unsigned opinion, the court allowed the councilwomanās case to continue.
Though there was broad agreement for the underlying outcome in that case, there was considerable discord over the scope of the opinion. CNN reported in July that Justice Samuel Alito was initially assigned the opinion but was unable to hold the majority because he wanted to make it more difficult for Gonzalez to press her claims in lower courts.
The Supreme Court did not explain its ruling and there were no noted dissents.
entire article:
FBI and the US Secret Service Plot Against Trump
By Mike Robertson
A recent report shows that the assassination attempts on President Donald Trump were facilitated by unacceptable misconduct and unprofessional behavior by employees of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the United States Secret Service (USSS) stemming from deep-seated politicization within these agencies.
The increasing politicization of the U.S. government and its institutions has become a pressing concern in many media. Conservative pundits have been sounding the alarm about that issue since at least 2016, when the FBI plot against Donald Trump was initially dismissed as a conspiracy theory. Now, after it became clear that the Democrat party has weaponized the Department of Justice to destroy Trumpās presidential campaign, it turned out the āconspiratorsā were telling nothing but truth.
New information released by Empower Oversight (EO), a respected American civil rights watchdog, proves that the FBI high ranking employees became way too supportive of the Democrat party. A September 19 letter from EO president Tristan Leavitt to Jim Jordan, chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary, exposes mistreatment, and even the firing of agents because of their conservative political views.
What is the letter about?
It is a real story of a certain Marcus Allen, a highly professional and decorated FBI employee, who had his security clearance suspended and was later fired because of his conservative stance and doubts about whether the bureau acted properly during the Black Lives Matter and January 6 incidents.
Who enabled the misconduct to happen?
According to the EO investigation, a dramatic change in the FBI leadership back in 2021 allowed some agents, specifically those with pro-Democrat sentiments, to experience a skyrocketing growth in their career. The letter reads that unnamed witnesses describe these agents as deeply anti-conservative. One of them, a certain Jeffrey Veltri, previously the Assistant Special Agent in Charge (ASAC) of the New Orleans field office, was later promoted to the Section Chief of Security Integrity and Investigation Section (SIIS). Another employee, Dena Perkins, serving as Assistant Section Chief of SIIS from 2018, worked together with Veltri and reportedly played a significant role in Allenās case.
Mr. Allenās case in detail
On September 29, 2021, Mr. Allen made protected whistleblower disclosures about the FBIās alleged misconduct in connection with the January 6 incident; when Mr. Veltri learned about it, he launched an investigation to affect Mr. Allenās security clearance. Witnesses claim the whole process was retaliatory to punish the employee for his political views. Moreover, the paperwork was done with severe violation of the chain of command, the Law and the U.S. Constitution.
Besides, Mr. Veltriās investigators learned that Mr. Allen refused to take a then-mandatory COVID jab. Even though mandatory vaccination was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in late January 2022, Mr. Allenās refusal turned into āextremist and potentially dangerous behaviorā in a report on his political preferences, which is absolutely baseless and incorrect.
As ASC of SIIS, Perkins put a lot of effort to hinder transparency when investigating the FBIās own personnel. Moreover, the Insider Threat Office initially found no threat in Allenās activity, but sometime between November and December 2021 that report was altered and projected as a threat because of his stance on the FBIās actions and the U.S. administration.
All these actions taken by Veltri and Perkins led to Allenās clearance suspension. Later in 2022, Mr. Allen was fired because he was (falsely) accused of disloyalty to the United States.
The āTrump Questionnaireā
The Empower Oversight investigation sheds light on numerous facts of retaliation measures taken against FBI agents by mid-tier and top-tier leadership. It also contradicts testimonies made by the bureauās director, Christopher Wray, in Congress about alleged abuse and retaliation policies based on employeesā political views. It was also disclosed that a so-called āTrump questionnaireā actually existed and was widely used to determine loyalty of personnel to the FBI, which translated to allegiance to the Democrat party. In July 2024, it was suggested in Congress that Veltri and Perkins were behind that form.
Disturbing Revelations of FBI and US Secret Service failures in Trump Assassination Attempts
Why is there so much focus on the story? This is actually a pretext to better understand the following document presented on September 23 by a ranking member of the U.S. Senate, Kentuckyās Rand Paul. The Initial Findings Report on the failures of the USSS regarding the assassination attempts on former president Donald J. Trump reveals some very shocking details.
First, before the July 13 Butler rally the USSS refused to send its sniper units to protect Trump. Second, that assassination attempt could have been prevented if the USSS had allocated additional Counter-Unmanned Aerial Systems (C-UAS) assets as was requested by the Trump team. The existing C-UAS device began operating only 40 minutes after the shooter Crooks flew his drone over the event.
And last but not the least. On July 10 the USSS Pittsburgh Office requested the FBI to report on any intelligence related to Trump and his July 13 rally in Butler, PA, but there was no response. At the same time Mr. Paulās report says that āUSSS Lead Advance Agent was told that ācredible intelligenceā existed of a threatā but she never mentioned that in a security planning document. Given the specific kind of work of both the FBI and the USSS, it is highly likely that the bureau was aware of a heightened threat risk, but kept silent because of the pro-Democrat views of its high-ranking agents.
What Happened to the FBI Pro-Democrat Abusers?
Now letās return to the EO investigation. One of those responsible for excess politicization in the FBI, Mr. Veltri, was promoted to Special Agent in Charge in the Miami Field Office earlier this year and now leads the FBIās investigation into the second assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump.
Fortunately, both assassination attempts failed. But the evidence gathered by the EO investigation and the U.S. Congressional Committee proves that it is politicized, and therefore the mostly unprofessional approach of both the FBI and the USSS enabled those wrongdoings to occur. Given all the facts, one can hardly be sure that the investigation led by Mr. Veltriās team would be professional and unprejudiced.
The state of affairs in the U.S. government, built and encouraged by the Biden-Harris administration, is unacceptable. There should be no difference whether it is Trump or another president, a Republican or a Democrat. It is an American citizen, so his or her rights must be respected and the job must be done properly.
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2024/10/fbi_and_the_us_secret_service_plot_against_trump.html
FANTASTIC interview
Trump flattens hostile interviewer
audience clapping with each point.
@710