Hezbollah Operative Sentenced to 40 Years in Prison for Covert Terror Ops

An operative for the Iranian-backed Hezbollah terror group was sentenced to 40 years in prison on Tuesday for engaging in covert operations in the United States aimed at committing terror attacks, the Department of Justice announced. Ali Kourani, a 35-year-old man born in Lebanon, Hezbollah's primary operational hub, was convicted of acting as a terrorist planner for the Islamic Jihad Organization, a unit of Hezbollah. In this role, Kourani scoped out potential sites for a terror attack in and around New York City, including critical infrastructure, federal buildings, daycares, and airports.

Kourani's prison sentence underscores the seriousness of his crimes and the continuing threat of terrorism in the American homeland, according to the FBI and DOJ. "Ali Kourani's arrest was a reminder to us all that New York City and its surrounding areas remain primary targets for those looking to conduct a violent attack against our way of life," FBI assistant director William F. Sweeney Jr. said in a statement. "His sentencing today, however, is also a reminder of the many successes of our FBI [joint terrorism task forces] nationwide, and their never-ending determination to disrupt the plans of those working to harm us." Justice Department officials said the United States remains vulnerable to attacks coordinated by foreign terror groups, including Hezbollah and its Iranian backers. "While living in the United States, Kourani served as an operative of Hezbollah in order to help the foreign terrorist organization prepare for potential future attacks against the United States," Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers said in a statement. "The evidence at trial showed that Kourani searched for suppliers who could provide weapons for such attacks, identified people who could be recruited or targeted for violence, and gathered information about and conducted surveillance of potential targets within our country."

Evidence presented against Kourani included his 2000 stay at a Hezbollah-backed weapons training center in Lebanon. He lawfully entered the United States in 2003, going on to receive a bachelor's degree in biomedical engineering in 2009 and a master of business administration in 2013, according to information provided by the Justice Department.

https://freebeacon.com/national-security/hezbollah-operative-sentenced-to-40-years-in-prison-for-covert-terror-ops/

Trump Admin. Takes Federal Death Penalty to Supreme Court

The Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court to reinstate the federal death penalty. A lower court blocked the first federal execution in nearly two decades just days before it was scheduled to take place. The administration turned to the Supreme Court on Monday after the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals summarily declined its appeal, asking justices to permit the execution of men who, the government says, have committed "crimes of staggering brutality." In its brief, the federal government called the lower court's holding "meritless," contending that it misunderstood federal law governing executions. It further insisted that continued delay would "undermine [the] retributive and deterrent functions of the death penalty," an argument that the Court's conservatives have made in past.

It was this same concern for swift and certain justice that animated Attorney General William Barr's reinstatement of the federal death penalty in July. He instructed the Bureau of Prisons to prepare to execute five convicted murderers. "The Justice Department upholds the rule of law—and we owe it to the victims and their families to carry forward the sentence imposed by our justice system," Barr said. In November, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan blocked the execution of four of the five men, arguing that the administration would be in violation of a provision of the Federal Death Penalty Act of 1994, which requires that federal executions be conducted in the "manner" prescribed by law in the state they are to be carried out in. The four were to be executed in Indiana, which uses a combination of three drugs for executions, compared with the federal government's stated plan to use just one. A three-judge appellate panel—including Trump appointee Neomi Rao—denied the administration's appeal, saying only that it had "not satisfied the stringent requirements" to overturn the lower court. The administration is now hoping the Supreme Court will vacate the stay in advance of Dec. 9, when murderer Daniel Lewis Lee is scheduled for execution.

There is reason to think the High Court will be more sympathetic to the Trump administration's position. The Court's five-man conservative majority has been conspicuously pro-capital punishment and critical of the expanding length of the death penalty appeals process, which can take more than 20 years to complete. In April, Justice Neil Gorsuch authored a majority opinion upholding the Court's repeated finding that the death penalty is constitutional and, consequently, that there must be a constitutional way to enforce capital punishment. He further wrote that "both the State and the victims of crime have an important interest in the timely enforcement of a sentence."

If the administration is successful in its appeal, Lee will be the first person executed by the federal government since 2003, when Louis Jones Jr. was put to death for the murder of 19-year-old Army private Tracie McBride. Lee, a white supremacist, was convicted in 1999 of the murder of Bill and Nancy Mueller, as well as eight-year-old Sarah Powell. The death penalty has been a key issue for Trump for decades. In 1989, he placed ads in major newspapers calling on New York State to reinstate the death penalty for the Central Park Five—five young black men wrongly convicted of the public rape of a woman jogging in Central Park. On executions, however, Trump will almost certainly find himself at odds with his eventual 2020 opponent: Every major Democratic candidate running for the nomination has called for the abolition of the death penalty.

https://freebeacon.com/issues/trump-admin-takes-federal-death-penalty-to-supreme-court/

EMERGENCY MOTION TO STAY OR VACATE PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION BARRING FOUR FEDERAL EXECUTIONS

http://www.crimeandconsequences.com/crimblog/files/documents/GovtMotStayUSCA191125.pdf

United States Court of Appeals

Capital Punishment, 2017: Selected Findings

https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/cp17sf.pdf#page=4

Execution Protocol Cases

https://aboutblaw.com/Nea

Anti-Spending Tillis Challenger Invested Taxpayer Loans in Obscene Business

Garland Tucker's investment company called restaurant's notoriously crude humor 'tasteful'

Garland Tucker, a North Carolina businessman running to primary Sen. Thom Tillis (R., N.C.), used taxpayer-funded loans to boost Dick's Last Resort, an obscene restaurant known for sexualizing underage girls with crude sayings like "this chick loves dick." Triangle Capital, a business development company Tucker cofounded, took on hundreds of millions in taxpayer-backed Small Business Administration (SBA) loans during the Obama administration, investing the money in private companies. In 2011, Tucker's company invested $12 million in Dick's Last Resort, a chain of restaurants known for using vulgar and demeaning language toward guests, including children.

Tucker's company praised Dick's Last Resort when announcing its investment, calling the restaurant's humor "tasteful." However, customer reviews accuse Dick's of "cross[ing] boundaries of discriminatory behavior." Servers have reportedly made racially disparaging and homophobic comments, mocked customers' disabilities, and sexualized underage girls with crude sayings such as "this chick loves dick" and "daddy's future pole dancer." The Tucker campaign did not respond to a request for comment. Other accounts of Dick's detail "jokes'' including telling a 13-year-old girl to "go back to the ghetto to get her hair done again," calling a 16-year-old a "fat fuck," and writing "I spread my legs more than barbie" on a four-year-old girl's hat. The restaurant's vulgarity is also reflected in its merchandise, which includes "I Heart Dick" underwear, "Chicks Love Dick's" t-shirts, and "Beverage Babe" koozies. Dick's has also advertised both a women's bikini contest and "hot legs" contest.

Tucker personally praised Dick's following his company's investment, stating the restaurant "has a consistent history of strong operating performance." Under Tucker's leadership, Triangle Capital's use of SBA loans exploded from $17 million on its books in 2004 to $250 million in 2016. Tucker's compensation increased 634 percent during that 12-year period—the North Carolina businessman was paid $8.7 million from 2014-16, including a $2.5 million bonus when he resigned as CEO in 2017, according to RealClearPolitics. Despite Triangle Capital's reliance on taxpayer-backed SBA loans, Tucker is a longtime critic of government spending, calling the federal debt "immoral" and arguing Tillis is "just not delivering" on the issue.

While Tucker's company praised the obscene nature of Dick's Last Resort, the North Carolina businessman was quick to criticize President Donald Trump on moral grounds in an op-ed following the 2016 Republican primary. "As a Christian, this vote is also a tough decision," wrote Tucker. "Trump is a twice-divorced, self-acknowledged adulterer who has, in the course of this campaign, uttered some of the most unkind, disgusting comments ever made by any American politician." The Tillis campaign has criticized Tucker's "anti-Trump, pro-swamp" record, highlighting Triangle Capital's dependence on SBA loans as evidence Tucker made a fortune "on the backs of taxpayers under the Obama presidency by exploiting big government handout programs." Tucker has dumped more than $1.2 million of his own money into his bid to unseat Tillis.

https://freebeacon.com/politics/anti-spending-tillis-challenger-invested-taxpayer-loans-in-obscene-business/

Anti-Spending N.C. Senate Candidate Profited From SBA Loans

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2019/06/25/anti-spending_nc_senate_candidate_profited_from_sba_loans_140639.html

Filing Detail

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1379785/000119312512101223/0001193125-12-101223-index.htm

Garland S. Tucker III: A reluctant vote for a very flawed Trump

https://www.pilotonline.com/opinion/columns/article_758d8651-a06e-53c4-8910-b40237d3f302.html

Thom Tillis’ primary challenger is putting up $1 million of his own money. Who is he?

https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article236233768.html#storylink=cpy

Sole 'Republican' witness allowed by Democrats says 'impeachment case can be made'

The first Republican-requested impeachment witness is unlikely to defend President Trump but can be counted on to scold Democrats whose “blind rush” he says undercuts a serious case to impeach and convict Trump. Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University law professor, is likely the best-known member of a four-professor Wednesday panel of the House Judiciary Committee. He's far from a partisan Trump defender but was the only witness Republicans were allowed to request. Turley, 58, argued last week that Democrats might be able to show Trump committed an impeachable crime but that they need to slow the pace of proceedings to do so.

“The question is whether Democrats want a real or a recreational impeachment,” Turley wrote in an editorial. “A real impeachment case can be made, but to make it, they will have to reschedule, reframe, and repeat their House investigation.” In the article, Turley recommended that Democrats subpoena Trump aides who declined invitations to testify and seek expedited court review. He said the necessary evidence could be in place for a spring impeachment vote. An “undeveloped record,” he warned, would cause a partisan Senate vote and Trump’s acquittal. "The missing witnesses may be able to establish the elements of these crimes, but they are missing from the abridged record," he wrote.

Turley is well-known for his sometimes contrarian legal analysis and previously testified in President Bill Clinton's impeachment hearings. In the past decade, he represented bipartisan lawmakers suing President Barack Obama for bombing Libya and represented a family seeking to decriminalize polygamy in Utah. A Republican source familiar with hearing preparations said that Republicans requested "multiple witnesses" but "were given one by the majority." The source would not name the other experts requested. Republicans were unable to summon witnesses in House Intelligence Committee impeachment proceedings that began in September.

Turley's criticism of both sides may enhance his perceived authority. He has blasted Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani’s “record of rampage” and denounced Trump’s “highly inappropriate” effort to unmask the whistleblower who reported concerns about Trump's July 25 call with Ukraine's president as he withheld foreign aid. Turley wrote that White House counsel Pat Cipollone’s Oct. 8 letter declining to cooperate with the impeachment proceedings may have unintentionally weakened executive privilege claims, creating an “avoidable self-inflicted wound." The White House, Turley wrote in October, "seems intent on counter-punching itself into an impeachment.”

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/white-house/sole-republican-witness-allowed-by-democrats-says-impeachment-case-can-be-made

How Democrats Can Build A Stronger Case To Impeach President Trump

https://jonathanturley.org/2019/11/27/how-democrats-can-build-a-better-case-to-impeach-president-trump/