Election Watchdog Warns Against Empowering FEC in Calls for Alabama ‘False-Flag’ Probe

An election-integrity watchdog is skeptical of an aggressive push for the Federal Elections Commission to investigate an alleged “false-flag” disinformation campaign during a 2017 special U.S. Senate election in Alabama. While the campaign was allegedly perpetrated by Democratic Party operatives and funded by party mega-donors, the center-right Public Interest Legal Foundation is wary of emboldening federal authorities at the FEC, even though the secret social-media operation resembled the Russian meddling attack during the 2016 presidential election.

“Let’s call this what it is—an influence operation,” said Logan Churchwell, spokesman for the Public Interest Legal Foundation, in an interview. “But we shouldn’t fight fire with fire, to ban fire.” In other words, “Be careful about giving the FEC too much power,” Churchwell said, warning about the potential for the Alabama false-flag event—where fake evidence was created to sway the election—to boomerang into regulating political speech.

The New York Times reported in December that the secret Alabama operation was funded in part by Democratic billionaire and Linkedin co-founder Reid Hoffman. The project directed thousands of Twitter accounts designed to appear like Russian bots to follow Moore. A Facebook page then falsely portrayed Moore’s social-media efforts as being amplified by a network of Russian bots. On Jan. 7, The New York Times reported on a second false-flag campaign that falsely promoted a non-existent Republican initiative to ban alcohol in the state.

Doug Jones, a Democrat, won the U.S. Senate seat in the deeply conservative stronghold of Alabama by just 1.5 percent, or 20,715 votes. Jones has denied any involvement or foreknowledge of the alleged social-media attack against his Republican opponent, Roy Moore. In a letter dated Jan. 9, Jones asked FEC investigators to examine “efforts to disseminate misinformation” in the 2017 race to replace former Sen. Jeff Sessions, a Republican, after he was appointed U.S. Attorney General. “It is imperative to send a clear message that these disinformation tactics will not be tolerated and will be punished to the fullest extent of the law,” he wrote. A thorough investigation, however, could further implicate activist donors at the highest reaches of the Democratic Party.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/election-watchdog-warns-against-empowering-fec-in-calls-for-alabama-false-flag-investigation_2767349.html

Sen. Doug Jones Letter to FEC

https://www.scribd.com/document/397216959/Sen-Doug-Jones-Letter-to-FEC

Family Behind Purdue Pharma Pushed Opioid Marketing, Massachusetts Says

Members of the wealthy Sackler family behind Purdue Pharma LP personally pushed the company to boost sales of OxyContin and other opioid products even as questions emerged about the extent its painkillers were being abused, Massachusetts’ attorney general alleged Jan. 15.

Attorney General Maura Healey filed an amended lawsuit against Purdue and current and former officers and directors of the drugmaker that drew on internal records to reveal new details about family’s involvement in the company. Her lawsuit, originally filed in June in Suffolk County Superior Court, was the first by a state attorney general to try to hold members of the Sackler family, who own privately-held Purdue, personally responsible for contributing to the U.S. opioid epidemic. Purdue in a Jan. 15 statement said Healey’s lawsuit “distorts critical facts” and “is littered with biased and inaccurate characterizations of these documents and individual defendants.” The allegations were made public despite Purdue’s legal efforts to keep much of the 279-page complaint redacted, though parts remains sealed.

Healey’s lawsuit alleges Purdue for years deceived doctors and patients by misrepresenting the risks of addiction and death associated with the prolonged use of its prescription opioids. The complaint cites years of internal records to argue that members of the Sackler family including Richard Sackler, its former chief executive and chairman, personally directed the marketing in order to make billions of dollars. They did so despite growing evidence of the dangers opioids posed, the lawsuit said. In a 2001 email, Richard Sackler argued Purdue needed to shift responsibility away from the company and “hammer on the abusers in every way possible,” the complaint said.

The lawsuit alleges the push to boost sales came even after Purdue’s staff showed him and other family members on the company’s board a map correlating suspected illegal prescribers and reports of opioid poisonings in 2011. Hundreds of lawsuits have accused Purdue and other companies like Endo International Plc and Johnson & Johnson of deceptively promoting the benefits of using opioids to treat chronic pain while downplaying the risk of addiction. At least 1,549 lawsuits against opioid manufacturers and distributors are pending in federal court. Many other cases by state attorneys general are pending in states courts. At least 37 states have sued Purdue.

In 2007, Purdue and three executives pleaded guilty to federal charges related to the misbranding of OxyContin and agreed to pay a total of $634.5 million in penalties.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/family-behind-purdue-pharma-pushed-opioid-marketing-massachusetts-says_2767679.html

Huawei CEO Breaks Silence, Says Company Doesn’t Spy for China

Huawei founder and CEO Ren Zhengfei, in a rare public appearance following the arrest of his daughter in Canada, said his company has never spied for the Chinese government, the Financial Times reported. “No law in China requires any company to install mandatory backdoors,” Ren said, in his first public comments in years, during an interview with reporters in the Chinese city of Shenzhen on Jan. 15. “Huawei, and myself, have never received any request from any government to provide [improper] information.” The normally reclusive Ren’s public comments come as the Chinese telecoms giant battles several controversies. Meng Wenzhou, who is Ren’s daughter and the chief financial officer of Huawei, is facing extradition to the United States, where prosecutors allege that she violated U.S. sanctions against Iran by misleading banks about the company’s dealings in the Middle Eastern country.

Huawei has also been banned from several countries’ markets due to security concerns, while an employee was arrested on spying allegations in Poland this past weekend, along with a former Polish security official. Ren, a former army engineer and current Communist Party member, said his company “would not answer to” requests from the Chinese regime to hand over information, the Wall Street Journal reported. Ren didn’t provide details about how the company would resist requests from the government. But under China’s national security laws, all companies operating in the country are required to grant authorities control of its data if asked. The concept of national security is expansively defined to cover threats to the Chinese Communist Party’s authoritarian control, including opinions critical of the Party.

Huawei, the world’s largest producer of telecommunications equipment, has been under heightened scrutiny in the West over its close relationship with the Chinese regime and allegations that its products could be used by Beijing for spying—an allegation it has denied.

The company has effectively been excluded from the U.S. market since a 2012 congressional report sounded the alarm that the company’s products could pose a security threat. Last August, the United States banned government agencies from using or purchasing equipment from Huawei and its domestic competitor ZTE. President Donald Trump is considering an executive order that would also ban U.S. companies from doing so.

In a November report, The Australian news outlet cited secret Australian intelligence reports that confirmed Huawei had turned over passwords and access details to China’s intelligence services to allow them access to a “foreign network,” although not an Australian one, a source said. Last year, Australia and New Zealand banned Huawei from providing technology for their 5G networks, citing security risks. Japan also barred its government agencies from purchasing Huawei technology.

In the UK, the nation’s largest telecommunications company BT said in December 2018 that it wouldn’t use Huawei to develop its 5G network, and it would also remove Huawei gear from the core of its existing 4G and 3G networks. Canada is also currently reviewing whether the company’s equipment represents a national security risk. Most recently, Poland said Jan. 13 it may consider banning the use of Huawei products by public bodies, after the arrest of the Chinese Huawei official.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/huawei-ceo-breaks-silence-says-company-doesnt-spy-for-china_2767312.html

I thought this had been exposed before, must have been to a limited audience, however..wonder how many people actually read that publication…

>>4773121

Indeed, I didn't see one utterance of truth in any of those statements, just deny deny..

>>4772907

I hear and see fools also

>>4773185

Well his company is in free fall and this is probably the last resort to save his legacy..or protect his daughter from prosecution..he thinks

>>4773328

Indeed..no question in my mind!