Report: Millions in Food Stamp Dollars Flowed to Terrorists

Millions of taxpayers dollars trafficked through food stamp fraud went to terrorists who funded their activities at home and abroad, according to an explosive report from the Government Accountability Institute (GAI). The report from GAI, where Breitbart News Senior-Editor-at-Large Peter Schweizer serves as president, highlighted several instances where money obtained through Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits fraud went to fund acts of terrorism, including the 1993 World Trade Center bombings and the 2013 Boston Marathon Bombing.

Although this method of using food stamp fraud money for terrorism has been around since the 1980s, it gained notoriety when New York City detectives testified before a Senate subcommittee about the 1993 World Trade Center bombings. Detectives told the committee that $125 million in food stamp fraud had “unwittingly” gone to terrorist activities.

One of the masterminds of the 1993 World Trade Center bombings, Mahmud Abouhalima, funded the attacks by operating a million-dollar food stamp fraud scheme out of a video store in Brooklyn. But the U.S. government did not pinpoint how a lot of these terrorists used money from food stamp fraud to fund their attacks until shortly after the September 11 attacks in 2001. The U.S. Treasury Department and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) identified that many terrorists would get away with funding their illicit activities by using businesses known as “hawalas” to launder money. A “hawala”— which is an Arabic term defined in English as transfer (or trust)— is a method of transferring money through informal agents from international networks, and many Muslim immigrants settled in western countries use the “hawala” method to transfer funds to family members.

GAI, citing a U.S. Treasury report, found that more than $7 billion flows into Pakistan alone through hawalas every year. Because of the informal, simple nature of the transaction, the “hawala” method has also been popular among criminals and terrorists to launder money from the U.S. to the Middle East, Africa, and Asia without a paper trail.

In one such instance in 2015, federal agents discovered couriers for these “hawala” networks traveling with cash-filled suitcases on flights leaving the United States for East Africa out of Sea-Tac Airport in Seattle, according to the report. The act of transporting the cash itself was not illegal, but it raised suspicion among federal authorities.

One federal investigator analyzing the financial records of the hawalas found that ten of the couriers working for those networks had been on federal welfare benefits. Investigators say it is very difficult to track the money moved around through hawalas, even though the federal government has known about the use of hawalas and their alleged role in financing terrorism for years. But as federal investigators became more familiar with the welfare fraud mechanisms used to fund terrorist activities after the September 11 attacks, investigators have cracked down on a number of instances where terrorists have used the benefit fraud for such purposes.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2018/10/23/report-millions-in-food-stamp-dollars-flowed-to-terrorists/

Exclusive — House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy: ‘No Longer Just Republicans Versus Democrats; It’s America Versus Socialism’

As the Democrats drift further leftward into openly embracing socialism, House Majority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) warns the political battle ahead of the midterm elections just two weeks from now is no longer a traditional partisan battle. Instead it is one where the country must confront and reject extreme ideas from the left.

“The debate today is different than the one we had before with Republicans versus Democrats on the size of what government can be,” McCarthy said in an exclusive interview on Breitbart News Daily on SiriusXM 125 the Patriot Channel on Tuesday. “You hit the nail on the head: It’s no longer Republicans versus the Democrats, it’s America versus socialism. The movement in this Democratic Party toward clear socialism, that’s what they’re doing on healthcare–government-run, it’s all government telling you what to do and when to do it instead of unshackling and unleashing the great powers of liberty and freedom.” With the latest caravan of thousands of prospective illegal aliens streaming from Central America through Mexico to the U.S. border right now, McCarthy said people in the United States “should be upset because in Congress we had put a bill on the floor for immigration reform that would deal with this and end catch-and-release and not one Democrat voted for it.”

McCarthy, as Breitbart News has previously exclusively reported, has put forward legislation that would fully fund President Donald Trump’s planned border wall along the U.S. border with Mexico. “It’s very simple,” McCarthy said of his bill, which is titled “Build the Wall, Enforce the Law” and would fully fund the border wall and include enforcement measures like Kate’s Law and blocking sanctuary cities among others. He continued: It would fully fund the wall. You’re watching individuals try to come and just cross the Rio Grande, and not have any wall there and just move across. But what it also does is say ‘enforce the law.’ Think about the MS-13 gang members that will be a part of this caravan, or those who are smuggling fentanyl. This increases the ability to send them back, a bill that we voted on before, but it also deals with sanctuary cities who are a magnet for bringing people in and I just heard a report where they were interviewing some people in the caravan and they have been deported three, four, five times and now they’re coming back through. We know what happens there, with Kate’s Law we need it and why we need it, but then it also goes through and makes sure we’re supporting ICE. If anyone has not been to the border and spent some time with Border Patrol, you don’t understand the challenge that you have when you have a lawless society and no protection along that southern border. That’s why I put the bill in, I think the American people want to see it, and we got a lot of places where we can go to help and move this bill when we get back to session.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2018/10/23/exclusive-house-majority-leader-kevin-mccarthy-no-longer-just-republicans-versus-democrats-its-america-versus-socialism/

>>3579510

Finally someone with the courage to say it out loud and Proud!

Trump turns tables, scores wins over Russia

President Trump’s often-criticized effort to forge better relations with Russia has morphed into a confrontational stance that this week scored economic and national security wins. German Chancellor Angela Merkel announced that her government is backing construction of a shipping depot for importing liquefied natural gas from the U.S., bowing to Mr. Trump’s demand that she loosen Russia’s grip on the country’s energy supply.

Mr. Trump then went directly after Moscow. He announced that the U.S. was pulling out of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty that for the past 31 years limited the development and deployment of missile or launch systems that can threaten Russia’s European neighbors. The president accused Russia of violating the missile system ban for years and, to the Kremlin’s dismay, vowed to force an expensive new arms race.

Russian President Vladimir Putin was riled. At a meeting Tuesday in Moscow with National Security Adviser John R. Bolton, Mr. Putin described the developments as “unprovoked moves that are hard to call friendly.” He said a face-to-face meeting with Mr. Trump was in order. Later, Mr. Trump said he is willing to sit down with Mr. Putin when the two men are in Paris next month for events marking the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. “It hasn’t been set up yet, but we probably will” meet, Mr. Trump said at the White House.

When he last faced off with Mr. Putin at a July summit in Helsinki, Mr. Trump was roundly criticized for being too soft and timidly accepting the Russian’s denial that his country meddled in the 2016 presidential election. In Paris, Mr. Putin might be looking to reset the relationship. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Edward R. Royce told The Washington Times that he welcomed the advances against Russia, saying the LNG terminal would help make Germany “less vulnerable to Russian manipulation.”

The California Republican backed up Mr. Trump on quitting the nuclear missile treaty. “The Russians have been violating INF for years, making this deal unsustainable. We need durable arms control agreements,” he said. Russia’s violations of the missile system ban go back 10 years, with allegations of cheating leveled by the Obama administration and European leaders. Critics said that ripping up the INF would free Russia to more aggressively pursue intermediate-range nuclear weapons systems and force the U.S. to do the same as well as deploy missiles in NATO countries. European leaders balked at Mr. Trump’s decision to quit the nuclear treaty, which aimed to soothe Cold War fears that a limited strike short of all-out global nuclear conflagration could erupt in Europe. “The world doesn’t need a new arms race that would benefit no one and on the contrary would bring even more instability,” said Federica Mogherini, the European Union’s foreign policy chief.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/oct/23/donald-trump-scores-wins-over-russia-economy-natio/