Meet The Board Of The Fusion GPS-Linked Group Investigating Trump

A mysterious nonprofit group backed in part by George Soros and linked to Fusion GPS has investigated President Donald Trump and possible Russian interference. The Democracy Integrity Project has largely remained a mystery, but The Daily Caller News Foundation has learned new details about the group’s board of directors. One board member is an attorney who has worked closely with Fusion GPS in the past. The lawyer, Adam Kaufmann, has worked for Derwick Associates, a Venezuelan power company accused of bribery and money laundering.

Days after Donald Trump’s inauguration, a nonprofit organization opened up shop in Washington, D.C., to continue a private investigation into the president’s possible ties to Russia. Only a few details of the group, the Democracy Integrity Project, have trickled out over the nearly two years since its founding. The organization’s founder, a former Senate Intelligence Committee staffer named Daniel J. Jones, hired opposition research firm Fusion GPS and dossier author Christopher Steele as part of the initiative, he told the FBI in March 2017. And it has been revealed that billionaire financier George Soros has given at least $1 million to the group and is considering giving more.

But The Daily Caller News Foundation has obtained Demand Integrity Project’s articles of incorporation showing that a white collar defense attorney who has worked with Fusion GPS in the past and a former State Department official were also on the group’s board of directors. Documents obtained through a public records request show that Adam Kaufmann, a partner at the firm Lewis Baach Kaufmann Middlemiss, and Dafna Hochman Rand, the former deputy assistant secretary of state in the bureau of democracy, human rights and labor, are listed along with Jones as Democracy Integrity Project board members.

Rand is listed on the initial registration for the Democracy Integrity Project, which was filed on Jan. 31, 2017. Her LinkedIn profile says that she worked at the State Department through January 2017, though the exact date of her departure is unknown. Rand is not listed as a board member in a March 31, 2017, filing, suggesting that she left the organization shortly after joining. She did not respond to a request for comment.

But it is Kaufmann’s link to Democracy Integrity Project that is especially noteworthy. The former chief investigator at the Manhattan district attorney’s office, Kaufmann has worked in the past with Fusion GPS on behalf Derwick Associates, a Venezuelan power company reportedly under investigation for bribery and money laundering. Kaufmann also recently commented for a New York Times story about Trump’s family taxes. “All of this smells like a crime,” Kaufmann told The Times in a lengthy story published in October that details various tax shelters used by the Trump real estate empire. His role with the Democracy Integrity Project was not mentioned.

But a DCNF search could not find Kaufmann providing quotes for any other news stories during Trump’s tenure. Jones has said that one of Democracy Integrity Project’s objectives is to provide information to the FBI, lawmakers and the press. Neither Kaufmann nor Jones responded to multiple requests for comment.

At Lewis Baach, Kaufmann has represented Derwick Associates, a Venezuelan power company reportedly under investigation for a bribery and kickback scheme. In addition to his work for Derwick, Kaufmann has is also representing Francisco Convit Guruceaga, a Venezuelan national and Derwick Associates director charged by the Justice Department in July in a money laundering case involving Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, PDVSA. For Derwick, Kaufmann worked alongside Fusion GPS co-founder Peter Fritsch, allegedly to kill negative stories about their client.

Thor Halvorssen, an activist who heads the Human Rights Foundation, submitted written testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee on July 26, 2017, alleging that Kaufmann and Fritsch met in Caracas, Venezuela, in 2014 with Wall Street Journal reporter Jose de Cordoba, a former colleague of Fritsch’s who was investigating Derwick’s activities. Halvorssen testified that de Cordoba told him that Fritsch and Kaufmann confronted him in an attempt to derail his investigation of Derwick. Fritsch also provided de Cordoba with a dossier of negative information on Halvorssen and other Derwick critics, Halvorssen claimed. A former senior U.S. government official told The Daily Caller in 2017 that de Cordoba told him that Fritsch pressured him to soften his coverage of Derwick.

https://www.dailycaller.com/2018/12/12/democracy-integrity-trump-fusion/

Journo Who Uncovered Organ Harvesting Gets His Day in Court

David Daleiden asks Appeals Court to toss suit blocking public records request

Center for Medical Progress founder David Daleiden asked a federal appeals court to dismiss the “character assassination” waged by researchers seeking to redact their information as part of a public records request.

Ten of the Washington state-based researchers are seeking to block the release of their identifying information, such as job titles, connected to their taxpayer-funded work using body parts obtained from aborted babies. Daleiden attorney Peter Breen, of the Thomas More Society, said the plaintiffs have failed to produce evidence demonstrating that the release of details about their taxpayer-funded work would subjected them to reprisals or harassment. A district court granted a preliminary injunction. The three appellate judges are now weighing the suit's claim that research using organs obtained from abortion is protected by the First Amendment. "The District Court on remand invited additional evidence," Breen said. "Despite doubts at the first argument at this case, the plaintiffs produced no additional evidence … instead they've turned into this campaign of character assassination."Daleiden and his attorneys have disputed the idea that the researchers' work falls under First Amendment protected activity. He has described his work as journalism, comparing it to other undercover reporting that has long been protected by federal and state courts when it comes to investigations of the meatpacking industry or the criminal justice system. "The only party in this case with identifiable First Amendment advocacy work is Mr. Daleiden and he's now being pilloried for his own effectiveness in terms of his advocacy," Breen said.

Vanessa Power represented the 10 Jane Doe plaintiffs at the center of the suit during Monday's hearing. She argued the scope of the injunction was "narrow" and would not undermine public records law. "This is simply applying Public Records Act and applying exemptions within the scope," she said. "We don't see [the suit] as extending [the act] beyond the contours of the law as it stands now."Judge A. Wallace Tashima, a Bill Clinton appointee, disputed that characterization. "If we affirm the district court's position it would be an extension in this sense … we would recognize that there's some First Amendment protection for researchers." "Why is the collection and delivery of fetal tissue a First Amendment activity? That's almost beyond me," he said. "It's like Grubhub delivering lunch to somebody up in the laboratory."

Power argued that as the research is linked to abortion it must enjoy special protection. "If it didn't arise under the context of abortion … which is such a controversial and such a politicized issue in this country—it's the connection to that that brings it within the First Amendment," Power said.

"What you're saying is any connection with a controversial topic entitles the person on the other end of the connection to constitutional protection?" Tashima asked in a follow-up. "We would say it's the context here with the associated risk of harm," she responded. Daleiden received support from the Washington Coalition for Open Government. The state transparency advocacy group said the continued injunction would "gut the [Public Records Act] by creating an unworkable situation … and sets up huge barriers" for any citizen seeking out public records. Blocking the release of additional information would overturn decades of jurisprudence for public information laws, according to WCOG board member and counsel Stephanie Olson.

Judge M. Margaret McKeown, another Clinton appointee, questioned Olson's approach to the case, since the hearing only dealt with a preliminary injunction, rather than a final precedent-setting ruling on the lawsuit. "Your sky-is-falling situation seems premature to me," she said. Olson said the court's approach to extending First Amendment protections to research and the suit's focus on Daleiden's pro-life views invites viewpoint discrimination for accessing public records. "It requires a distinction between the identity of the requestor to try to determine potential harassment, and that is going into an inquiry as to the purpose of the request, both of which are categorically prohibited by the PRA," Olson said. "It invites discrimination." The public records suit is the second major civil litigation that Daleiden has faced since he began releasing undercover videos documenting the organ harvesting trade in the abortion industry in July 2015. He also is challenging a preliminary injunction obtained by the National Abortion Federation that prohibits him from releasing footage obtained at two NAF conferences. That suit is ongoing.

https://freebeacon.com/issues/journo-uncovered-organ-harvesting-day-court/

>>4287717

The behavior of these people reminds me of the movie "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest" Insane!

Clinton’s ‘Resistance’ Nonprofit Raised Only $3M in Donations During First Year

$800K was transferred from Clinton's presidential campaign committee

The nonprofit launched by Hillary Clinton to allow her to be a “part of the resistance” following her defeat raised just $3 million during its inaugural year and disbursed $1.1 million to left-wing organizations, filings show.

Onward Together, Clinton's 501(c)4 that is dedicated to "advancing progressive values" and encouraging people to "organize, get involved, and run for office," was incorporated on April 24, 2017, by Marc Elias, a partner at the Washington, D.C., office of the Perkins Coie law firm and Clinton's former top campaign lawyer, filings show. The Washington Free Beacon reached out to a number of individuals who work directly with the group or who are close to Clinton—including Kelly Mehlenbacher, the chief operating officer of Onward Together, and Nick Merrill, Clinton's spokesperson—to get its 2017 tax forms, but have yet to receive a response in relation to the request. However, state filings from the group shed light on its financial situation for its first year in operation.

According to filings in the state of North Carolina, the group reported $1,858,451 in unrestricted direct contributions while $1,300,000 in donations was secured through a third-party channel. The group also reported $3,077,460 in program service revenues. A sizable portion of the $3.1 million in contributions that Onward Together collected during its first fiscal year came from Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign committee.

On May 1, 2017, an $800,000 transfer was made from Hillary for America, Clinton's presidential committee, to Onward Together, the Free Beacon previously reported. The donation was made from the campaign to nonprofit less than a week after its incorporation. Mehlenbacher, Onward Together's chief operating officer, is also the treasury manager of Clinton's campaign committee. Clinton's website shows that her group partners with 12 other left-wing groups including the likes of Latino Victory, Color of Change, Demand Justice, and Indivisible, all prominent anti-Trump groups. Some of the donations that were made from Onward Together to other liberal groups can be gleaned if the supported organization's funding was made to a connected PAC, which was the case for a few of the groups.

Onward Together disbursed $100,000 to Swing Left in May 2017, FEC filings show. The group sent $100,000 the Color of Change PAC in November of last year. While not included with 2017's totals, a search of the FEC database shows hundreds of thousands more in contributions for the 2018 fiscal year to Swing Left, Color of Change PAC, and the Latino Victory Fund. While Onward Together's website contains virtually no information about the group's internal members—such as who sits on its board of directors—some of this information is also contained within the state filings.

https://freebeacon.com/politics/clintons-resistance-nonprofit-raised-3m-donations-first-year/

Physicist linked to China program

A noted Chinese-born physicist and Stanford University quantum scientist who died Dec. 1 was linked to Beijing’s major program to corner the world market in key advanced technologies. Zhang Shoucheng, 55, died in an apparent suicide and had suffered from depression, according to his family.

However, his death came days after a Nov. 30 report by U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer linking the Silicon Valley venture capital firm Danhua Capital, which Zhang founded and led, to China’s “Made in China 2025” technology dominance program. The 2025 program was launched in 2015 and has been cited by the Trump administration to show that Beijing is engaged in a strategic program of stealing American know-how. The program is aimed at helping China dominate world markets in advanced technologies, including aerospace, information and communications technology, robotics, industrial machinery, new materials and automobiles.

Stanford said in a statement that Zhang was involved in quantum physics research related to interacting electrons. The research led to predictions of new phenomena and exotic states of matter. He took part in research on novel materials, quantum gravity and artificial intelligence. The USTR report said China is using venture capital investment companies, including Danhua, as a new means of securing cutting-edge technologies and intellectual property from the United States. From January to May, Chinese venture capital investment reached nearly $2.4 billion, a record level.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/dec/12/physicist-linked-to-china-program/