FBI says 2 Homeland Security agents in Utah sold illegal drugs for profit through informant

By HANNAH SCHOENBAUM and MATTHEW BROWN December 10, 2024

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Two Department of Homeland Security agents in Utah sold drugs that were previously seized as evidence through an informant in an illegal scheme that brought in up to $300,000, according to court documents.The agents sold an illicit synthetic drug commonly known as “bath salts” to a confidential informant once or twice a week beginning last spring through early December, according to an FBI affidavit filed in the case. The transactions typically involved one ounce (28 grams) of the drug for $5,000 that would then be sold by the informant at a higher cost.

The informant, who has a lengthy criminal history, had been recruited while in prison by federal agents to work for them upon his release.But in addition to conducting legitimate controlled buys from suspected drug dealers, the informant said he was compelled by the two agents to engage in illegal sales, the affidavit said.

Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent David Cole was arrested in Salt Lake on Friday and charged in U.S. District Court with a single count of conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance. He was ordered to be detained during an initial court appearance on Monday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Dustin Pead. If convicted, Cole could face up to 10 years or more in prison, according to court documents.

A second Homeland Security special agent — identified in court documents only as “Person A” — also sold drugs to the informant, according to the court documents. But it was not immediately clear if that agent also could face charges .Cole’s attorney, Alexander Ramos, declined to directly address the criminal allegations and said he was still trying to gather information about the case. “Dave has many years of service to his community as an outstanding agent with HSI and holds a great reputation among the federal law enforcement community,” Ramos said. He added that he looked forward to responding to the allegations in court.

Ingestion of synthetic bath salts, also known as Alpha-PVP or cathinone, can lead to bizarre behavior such as paranoia and extreme strength, according to authorities who say it’s similar to methamphetamine, cocaine or ecstasy. They are unrelated to actual bathing products.

During searches of the agents’ homes, government vehicles, phones, work cubicles and a safety deposit box, investigators seized more than $67,000 in cash, an unspecified quantity of apparent “bath salts” and other evidence, the affidavit said. “Based on an average of one or two drug buys per week, involving 25 grams of bath salts and the amount of $5,000 each buy,it is estimated that Cole and Person A have profited approximately $150,000 to $300,000 in illegal proceeds,” FBI Special Agent Tristan Hall said in a court affidavit.

The investigation began after the informant’s defense attorney contacted the U.S. Attorney in Utah in October to report that Cole and the second agent had required him to engage in potentially unlawful acts. The informant then cooperated with the FBI “for monetary value and out of fear for his personal safety,” the affidavit said.

The informant saidCole and the second agent got the drugs that they sold to him from evidence seized in a prior Homeland Security investigation, according to the affidavit. Thesecond agent “appears to have evidence custodian duties,” according to the affidavit, which said officials were still verifying the informant’s allegations.

The agents would meet the informant in public places such as Panera Bread, Shake Shack, a Nike store and several local grocery stores to exchange the drugs, the affidavit said. On one occasion, the informant handed over to the FBI a Styrofoam Chick-Fil-A cup containing a granular substance that tested positive for “bath salts,” which he said the agents had left for him in a parking lot trash can.

Details offered by the informant were confirmed through surveillance and other sources, the affidavit said. Cole and the second agent hadtheir Homeland Security investigation credentials suspended but have not been fired, according to the affidavit. The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to emails seeking comment Tuesday.

In a motion seeking Cole’s detention, federal prosecutors said they had serious concerns that he might try to obstruct the case by interfering with witnesses, harming himself or fleeing.FBI spokesperson Sandra Barker declined to comment on the case or whether anyone else was being investigated. An arraignment for Cole is scheduled on Dec. 20 in Salt Lake City.

https://apnews.com/article/homeland-security-agents-drug-conspiracy-f98d9538430b60f9b75ef8e09e67e471

Listen to Beattie here, then Kari’s interview with Bannon, why Kari is great for VOA, posting next.

Darren Beattie Offers Future Of Reform For The U.S. Institutions, Wray's Legacy Is One Of Disgrace. His opinion of VOA and what Kari can do

9:45

https://rumble.com/embed/v5wdz8w/?pub=4

>>22154203

Director Of VOA Kari Lake Reflects On News Media Career, Resulting In VOA Director

9:20

https://rumble.com/embed/v5wdznh/?pub=4

A Review of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Handling of Its Confidential Human Sources and Intelligence Collection Efforts in the Lead Up to the January 6, 2021 Electoral Certification

The IG released this report today, usually they are pretty low key on complaints on agencies, but they point out some obvious problems,I've only started reading, the small article this a.m. from AP, seems to think there was only one problem the FBI did before and after that day. But this is an 88 page report, so I'm sure there is more info.

Introduction and Overview

In the aftermath of the riot and breach of the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, among the questions that were raised was how the breach had occurred and what was known by federal law enforcement in advance of January 6 about the possibility of a violent protest that day. On January 15, 2021, the Department of Justice (Department or DOJ) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) announced its review to examine the role and activity of DOJ and its components in preparing for and responding to the events at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Separately, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Department prosecutors immediately began criminally investigating individuals who violated federal law in connection with the riot at the U.S. Capitol on January 6. The Department—through the U.S. Attorney’s Office (USAO) for the District of Columbia (DC)—has reported that it has brought charges against over 1,500 individuals and described the January 6 investigations and prosecutions as having “moved forward at an unprecedented speed and scale.”

attached is the OIG report

>>22154589

There's so many companies that do this, but McKinsey is well known CIA cutout to make money for the agency. Anyone that interned or worked for them worked for the CIA. Buttiedge was only one of them. There are 1,000s that start there, and never end up really leaving there.

12 Dec, 2024 18:08

NATO tells members to divert social spending to militaries

Security comes above all else, the US-led bloc’s head Mark Rutte has said

(All these countries wasted their money for the people in this stupid war in Ukraine, so now they have to start a war to make more money. Taking money from the people before, during and after their stupid plans)

European members of NATO need to cut welfare and direct more of their GDP to the military-industrial complex in the name of “safety,” NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte has said.

Rutte spoke at an event in Brussels organized by theCarnegie Endowment for International Peace, a US-based think-tank.

“I know spending more on defense means spending less on other priorities. But it is only a little less,” Rutte said on Thursday.

“On average, European countries easily spend up to a quarter of their national income on pensions, health and social security systems. We need a small fraction of that money to make our defenses much stronger, and to preserve our way of life,” he added. (Where does he get the right to tell countries how much they can spend on the people, the very people that paid in to the government to take care of them?)

While NATO members are spending more of their GDP on the military than a decade ago, that’s nowhere near the Cold War levels, Rutte argued, noting thatthe US-led military bloc will “need a lot more than 2%” if it wants to defend Europe against an allegedly aggressive Russia.(they will never do it)

Spending billions on weapons will bring security, Rutte argued, and “without security, there is no freedom for our children and grandchildren. No schools, no hospitals, no businesses. There is nothing.”

He urged the audience to tell their governments that “security matters more than anything” and that they “accept to make sacrifices today so that we can stay safe tomorrow.”

“Tell your banks and pension funds it is simply unacceptable that they refuse to invest in the defense industry,” Rutte said. “Defense is not in the same category as illicit drugs and pornography. Investing in defense is an investment in our security. It’s a must!”

In 2014, the US pressured its fellow NATO members to ramp up military spending to 2% of GDP, citing the tensions between Ukraine and Russia following the Western-backed coup in Kiev.

The US and its allies have sent over $200 billion worth of weapons, equipment, ammunition and cash to prop up Ukraine in its conflict with Russia.

The West has mainly emptied out its military stockpiles, while struggling to ramp up production of ammunition and replacement parts due to deindustrialization and the “green energy transition,” among other reasons.

Meanwhile, the Russian military industry has gone into high gear and kept the frontline troops well-supplied, defying predictions from Western experts about the impact of sanctions.

https://www.rt.com/news/609272-rutte-nato-spending-welfare/

(There’s no freakin way that PDJT is going to join in with their insane plan. Russia has no intent of taking on Europe of NATO countries, these people are covering up for their own corruption and what their plan was, which was to steal Russia territory. They are going to have a rude awakening. PDJT should ditch NATO ASAP, and let them do these awful plans on their own. When working with Carnegie, it’s just the NOW plan. Unfortunately these think tanks, care nothing about the people. The next buzz statement, NATO countries, fight to the last man in your countries==. It’s time to shut down their manipulation of the US)

>>22154677

12 Dec, 2024 13:20

NATO states considering spending hike signal to Trump – FT

A 50% increase in target allocation for military budgets by 2030 may be approved next June, sources have told the newspaper

NATO members are holding talks about implementing a sharp spike in defense spending as part of a review of the bloc’s targets, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Thursday.The proposed increase would present a positive response to US President-elect Donald Trump's previous criticisms of bloc members, according to an FT source.

Members of the US-led bloc are currently asked to spend at least 2% of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on their military. The benchmark was widely ignored by bloc members but amid increasing tensions with Russia, the number of those in compliance has risen significantly.

According to estimates released by NATO in June,only eight of its 32 members, including Canada, Italy, and Spain, are now lagging in fulfilling their obligations. The US will have spent 3.38% of its GDP this year on defense, behind only Poland and Estonia, the review said, while the median level is 2.11%.

During their annual meeting in The Hague next June, NATO leaders could increase the short-term target to 2.5%, with a 3% benchmark set for 2030, the FT reported, citing four persons familiar with the deliberations.Confidential talks on the idea started last week but could fail,the sources said.

The discussion was fueled by the re-election of Donald Trump in November, according to the report. A commitment to 3% minimum spend on military projects would also be a “good signal to the US and Trump,” a German official told the British newspaper.

During his first term, from 2017 to 2021, Trump accused European NATO members of being freeloaders, for their failure to spend enough on defense. He has since claimed credit for pushing allies into increasing the military-allocated portions of their national budgets.

Remarks made by Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto last week seem to reflect the deliberations among NATO nations. Speaking to the news agency ANSA, he said his country “will be forced to reach 2%, and maybe even 3%” and that Trump will “surely accelerate” the timing of the hike.

Moscow considers NATO a hostile organization whose expansion in Europe poses a major national security threat to Russia. The stated intention to grant membership to Ukraine and an increase in military assistance to Kiev were among the core reasons for the escalation of the Ukraine conflict to a shooting war in 2022, according to Russian officials.

https://www.rt.com/news/609250-nato-spending-target-ft/

Taking away money from the citizens of these countries, is not going to impress Trump, it’s a hideous idea to starve them to feed NATO. He doesn't even want to be in NATO, we are dragged into the shit they start all the time.They really don't understand what makes Trump tick.

>>22154680

They are going to try, it's insane, they are willing to kill millions more people to cover up for all their stupid mistakes.

12 Dec, 2024 13:27

Trump blasts Biden over long-range missile strikes into Russia

Ukrainian attacks using Western medium-range missiles are foolish and a major escalation, the US president-elect has said

US President-elect Donald Trump has criticized Ukraine’s strikes deep into Russia using Western-supplied weapons, saying that they only escalate the conflict between Kiev and Moscow. Trump made the statement on Thursday in an interview with Time magazine, which named him the 2024 Person of the Year.

“I disagree very vehemently with sending missiles hundreds of miles into Russia. Why are we doing that?” he asked rhetorically. According to the president-elect, such attacks are “just escalating this war and making it worse.”

“That should not have been allowed to be done… And I think that is a very big mistake, very big mistake,” he said of strikes deep into Russia’s internationally recognized territory.

Trump returned to the issue later in the interview, saying that“the most dangerous thing right now” is the fact that “[Ukrainian leader Vladimir] Zelensky has decided, with the approval of, I assume, the President [Joe Biden], to start shooting missiles into Russia.”

“I think that is a major escalation. I think it is a foolish decision,” he stressed.

The US president-elect’s comments came a day after the Russian Defense Ministry reported that Ukrainian forces had fired six US-supplied ATACMS missiles at a military airfieldnear the southern city of Taganrog.

Two of them were shot down and the rest were diverted using electronic warfare during the attack, the ministry said. The fallen debris resulted in some injuries and minor damage to two buildings and several vehicles, it added.

On Thursday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said thatRussia’s response to the strike on Taganrog “will follow at the time and in the way that will be deemed appropriate. But it will definitely follow.”

In late November, Russia used its new Oreshnik hypersonic ballistic missile system for the first time, striking the Yuzhmash military plant in the Ukrainian city of Dnepr.

According to Moscow, the deployment of the state-of-the-art weapon was a response to Washington and its allies allowing Ukraine to target internationally recognized Russian territory with the long-range weapons they supply to Kiev.

Russian President Vladimir Putin warned at the time that if Ukraine’s attacks deep inside Russia continue,Moscow reserves the right “to use our weapons against the military facilities of those countries that allow the use of their weapons against our facilities.”

https://www.rt.com/russia/609254-trump-american-weapons-russia/

(Bidan puppet is trying to blow up another war, hopefully Putin/Russia and Trump can contain this obvious provocation. Jan 20 can’t come any faster.)

I don’t believe Trump said this, the WSJ is owned by Murdochs, Murdoch’s want war, and to drag the US in major skirmishes. Trump doesn’t leak to the WSJ

12 Dec, 2024 22:12

Trump wants EU to send troops to Ukraine – WSJ

Arumoredceasefire proposal would rule out US boots on the ground

US President-elect Donald Trump has proposed that EU members send peacekeepers to Ukraine to monitor a ceasefire with Russia, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday, citingpeople familiar with the matter.

Trump ran for the White House on the promise of negotiating a swift end to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, but has been reluctant to reveal any specifics of his actual proposal since winning the election.

Speaking with French President Emmanuel Macron and Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky last Saturday,Trump argued that “Europe” should play the main rolein monitoring a ceasefire and that no US troops would be involved, the Journal reported, citing “officials briefed on the meeting.”(The WSJ can’t name one person involved)

The Journal’s sources claimed that the proposal “started as quiet discussions between British and French officials about the possibility” before including Trump, Zelensky and other governments.

According to one source, Trump also pushed the EU to demand of China to pressure Russia to end the conflict, suggesting the use of tariffs as leverage.

Discussions are still at such an early stage, according to the Journal, that the questions of which countries would be involved, with how many troops, and any US role in supporting the mission remain unresolved.

Thehypothetical peacekeeping or monitoring mission in Ukraine would not be under NATO commandbut would involve troops from member countries of the US-led bloc, according to the unnamed officials, who admitted this was something they were not sure Russia would accept. (That’s Freakin BS too…)

It was likewise unclear whether Washington’s European allies would be able to spare the actual soldiers or have the political support at home for such a mission.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has invited the leaders of the UK, France, Germany, Italy and Poland to meet with Zelensky in Brussels to discuss security guarantees for Kiev, two officials told the Journal. (WHY, why are they dragging the dog into this? They are obviously trying to manipulate Trump.)

According to unnamed aides, however, Trump is not “wedded” to any particular plan for ending the conflict and “hasn’t thought deeply about the issue” as he prepares the handover of power on January 20. (the unnamed aid or aides has no idea what he thinks deeply about. This is a fairytale delivered by WSJ, just like the NYT’s does, makes up stories, to cause trouble)

Russia has repeatedly said that Ukraine’s association with NATO would be a threat to its national security. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov has described Ukraine’s membership in the bloc as “categorically unacceptable” to Moscow, citing it as one of the major causes of the current conflict.

https://www.rt.com/news/609280-trump-eu-troops-ukraine/