AWFUL. FBI Under Director Wray Issues Weak and Pathetic Response to Rare Rebuke From FISA Court

The FBI on Tuesday afternoon issued a statement in response to a rare public rebuke from the FISA court.

In October 2018 Representative Mark Meadows sent a letter to to U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer, the chief judge of the FISA Court. Over a year ago Mark Meadows encouraged Collyer to investigate the FISA abuses that took place under President Obama’s FBI. In particular Meadows asked Judge Collyer to act on the abuses by love birds Peter Strzok and Lisa Page.

On Tuesday Rosemary Collyer, the presiding judge on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), rebuked the FBI under Director James Comey for the abuse of the FISA Court.

“The FBI’s handling of the Carter Page applications, as portrayed in the [Office of Inspector General] report, was antithetical to the heightened duty of candor described above,” Collyer wrote.

“The frequency with which representations made by FBI personnel turned out to be unsupported or contradicted by information in their possession, and with which they withheld information detrimental to their case, calls into question whether information contained in other FBI applications is reliable,” she added.

Instead of actually disciplining FBI officials who defrauded the FISA court, which the FISA judge has the ability to do on the spot, she issued an order that is equivalent to a light slap on the wrist.

The FBI immediately responded to the FISA rebuke and claimed Director Wray “has ordered more than 40 corrective steps to address the Report’s recommendations, including some improvements beyond those recommended by the IG.”

The reality is that there have been ZERO indictments of any of the corrupt FBI officials who abused the FISA process — ZERO FBI officials who violated Carter Page’s Constitutional rights have gone to jail — ZERO FBI officials who planned to remove Trump from office with an attempted coup have gone to jail.

These statements back and forth from the FISA court to the FBI is just an attempt to calm the public.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2019/12/fbi-issues-weak-response-to-rare-rebuke-from-fisa-court/

https://www.justice.gov/news

Busy day!

UK: Boris Johnson to Pass Anti-BDS Law, Says Senior Conservative Politician

Former Conservative Party chairman Eric Pickles: “BDS is antisemitic and should be treated as such.”

Days after winning a landslide majority in the UK general elections, Prime Minister Boris Johnson is considering a law combating the anti-Israel boycott campaign, the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS), a senior Conservative politician revealed on Sunday.

The proposed legislation will forbid public sector organizations from boycotting Israel, former chairman of the Conservative Party Eric Pickles said at a conference in Jerusalem. “BDS is antisemitic and should be treated as such,” Pickles added.

Prime Minister Johnson’s Conservatives scored a resounding victory over Jeremy Corbyn’s socialist Labour Party on Thursday, winning 364 of the 650 seats in the British Lower House. The comfortable majority of 74-seats paves the way for Brexit on 31 January and allows the Conservative Party to pass new laws in the parliament.

The proposed Conservative legislation comes at a time when anti-Israel activists aided by Labour party officials are strong-arming local city councils into boycotting Israeli companies. The law seeks to “ban public bodies from imposing their own direct or indirect boycotts, sanctions or disinvestment against a foreign country,” the British newspaper Daily Telegraph reported recently quoting a Conservative source.

The Jerusalem Post reported the remarks made by former Conservative Party chief:

The new Conservative government in the UK will pass a law making it illegal for public bodies to engage with BDS, UK Special Envoy for post-Holocaust issues Eric Pickles said at the International Institute for Strategic Dialogue’s conference in Jerusalem on Sunday.

“BDS is antisemitic and should be treated as such,” Pickles said, explaining that the new law will not allow public bodies to work with those who boycott, divest from or sanction Israel in any way.

Pickles, who is also the chairman of Conservative Friends of Israel, said that Labour’s historic defeat in last week’s general election in the UK showed that the British people reject antisemitism.

“Antisemitism an attack on the British way of life and British identity. Without our Jewish citizens we would be a lesser nation,” he said.

The anti-BDS legislation is a fulfillment of an election promise made by Prime Minister Johnson in the Conservative Party manifesto. The pledge was in opposition to the stance taken by his leftist rival Corbyn backing the anti-Israel campaign. “The pledge is designed to contrast the party with Jeremy Corbyn, who has said banning BDS by councils is an ‘attack on local democracy,'” Daily Telegraph reported mid-November.

Corbyn, who has long associated himself with far-left and Islamist groups, once referred to the jihadi terrorist organizations, Hamas and Hezbollah, as his ‘friends.’ Earlier this year, the Islamic terrorist group Hamas “saluted” the Labour Party chief for supporting their cause in a published statement. In what one can only describe as mutual love, Corbyn was, in turn, caught laying a wreath at the graves of Arab terrorists behind the killing of eleven Israel athletes at the 1972 Olympics, photographs published last year in the UK’s Daily Mail.

https://legalinsurrection.com/2019/12/uk-boris-johnson-to-pass-anti-bds-law-says-senior-conservative-politician/

Washington DC’s role behind the scenes in Hollywood goes deeper than you think

On television, we found more than 1,100 titles received Pentagon backing – 900 of them since 2005, from ‘Flight 93’ to ‘Ice Road Truckers’ and ‘Army Wives’

The US government and Hollywood have always been close. Washington DC has long been a source of intriguing plots for filmmakers and LA has been a generous provider of glamour and glitz to the political class.

But just how dependant are these two centres of American influence? Scrutiny of previously hidden documents reveals that the answer is: very.

We can now show that the relationship between US national security and Hollywood is much deeper and more political than anyone has ever acknowledged.

It is a matter of public record that the Pentagon has had an entertainment liaison office since 1948. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) established a similar position in 1996. Although it was known that they sometimes request script changes in exchange for advice, permission to use locations, and equipment such as aircraft carriers, each appeared to have passive, and largely apolitical roles.

Files we obtained, mainly through the US Freedom of Information Act, show that between 1911 and 2017, more than 800 feature films received support from the US Government’s Department of Defence (DoD), a significantly higher figure than previous estimates indicate. These included blockbuster franchises such as Transformers, Iron Man, and The Terminator.

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/hollywood-cia-washington-dc-films-fbi-24-intervening-close-relationship-a7918191.html

World's wealthiest people are using 'reputation management companies' to wipe their embarrassing stories from Google search results

Reputation management companies create positive stories about their clients

These stories help balance past controversies and improve Google results

One New York hedge fund manager spent between $4,000 and $5,000 a month

A new kind of tech company has emerged to help people outrun their bad online reputations.

Reputation management companies will execute comprehensive plans to ensure past controversies and bad publicity fade out of someone's Google search results.

One of the industry’s biggest movers is Status Labs in Austin, which has been listed on Inc.’s list of the 5,000 fastest growing companies in America in 2019.

A new report in the Wall Street Journal sheds some light on how Status Labs and company's like them operate, flooding the internet with fake news sites that post positively-slanted stories about their subjects.

The company has worked in some capacity with a variety of clients, including a former member of the adultery website Ashley Madison, and a University of Missouri professor who became a target of conservative media after ending up in a viral protest video.

A single false accusation can cause permanent damage to a person or a company’s hard-earned reputation,’ Ryan Stonerock, a lawyer at the firm Harder LLP, which represents Status Labs, told the Journal.

‘This imbalance of power has made the first page of Google the first, and often times the last, impression for individuals and companies.’

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-7802753/The-worlds-richest-people-use-party-companies-help-scrub-embarrassing-stories.html

William Barr 'Must Be Removed': Letter Urges Congress to Impeach Attorney General for Repeatedly Violating Oath of Office

"The Attorney General," says president of Common Cause, "has repeatedly proven unwilling to put the interests of the nation before those of the man who appointed him and he must be removed from office before he does more harm to the nation."

The pro-democracy watchdog Common Cause on Tuesday sent a letter to congressional lawmakers calling for the impeachment of U.S. Attorney General William Barr.

Sent to every member of both the U.S. House and U.S. Senate, the letter (pdf) charges that Barr—appointed by President Donald Trump as the nation's top law enforcement official to lead the Justice Department—has repeatedly violated his oath of office in a way that has put the interests of the president ahead of those of the American people.

Common Cause president Karen Hobert Flynn, who authored and signed the letter, said the Attorney General "has politicized the Department of Justice and undermined trust in the law by prioritizing and acting in the interests of a president who has committed impeachable offenses, rather than upholding the law and the Constitution."

Barr, she added, "has repeatedly violated his oath to the people he swore to protect and must be impeached and removed from office. The American people deserve an Attorney General committed to upholding the Constitution and applying the law without fear or favor. The Attorney General has repeatedly proven unwilling to put the interests of the nation before those of the man who appointed him and he must be removed from office before he does more harm to the nation."

The 9-page letter lays out the case for impeaching Barr in detail. According to a statement from the group:

Most recently Barr ignored the evidence and conclusions of the Justice Department Inspector General's report finding the FBI properly launched an investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election. Previously the Attorney General mischaracterized and undermined the work and conclusions of Special Counsel Robert Mueller into Russian election interference and obstruction of justice – intentionally delaying the release of the actual report in order to release his own "summary" to undercut the Special Counsel’s findings.

The letter also details Barr's actions to facilitate the Trump Administration’s unlawful withholding of the Ukraine whistleblower complaint from Congress on the basis of his Office of Legal Counsel’s severely flawed reasoning—reasoning sharply criticized by the DOJ’s own Inspector General and dozens of other federal agency inspectors general. Further the letter outlines the Attorney General’s obstruction of the congressional investigations into the Trump Administration’s attempt to insert a citizenship question into the 2020 Census by continuing to defy lawfully-issued Congressional subpoenas.

Paul S. Ryan, Common Cause vice president for policy and litigation, said, "Barr is blatantly abusing the considerable powers of his office and undermining the rule of law in this nation and he must be removed from office."

Ryan characterized Barr's abuse of power as "unprecedented for an Attorney General of the United States and cannot be tolerated in a democracy," and said, "Congress must move swiftly to impeach and remove William Barr from office."

Common Cause is not the first to call for Barr's removal. In April, the progressive advocacy group CREDO Action also called for the Attorney General to be impeached, accusing Barr of covering up for Trump in the wake of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report.

This fall, as the focus of Trump's misconduct shifted to his efforts to pressure the Ukrainian government to dig up dirt on his 2020 Democratic rival Joe Biden, Barr's efforts to use his position at the DOJ to insulate the president from accountability spurred fresh calls for the Attorney General's ouster.

"This isn't a presidential administration, it's a criminal enterprise," tweeted 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Julián Castro in early October. "The evidence is clear: both Trump and Barr must be impeached."

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/12/17/william-barr-must-be-removed-letter-urges-congress-impeach-attorney-general

Full report

https://www.commoncause.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Barr-Impeachment-Letter_12.17.19-FINAL.pdf

'History Is Watching Us': 600+ Rallies Planned Nationwide on Trump Impeachment Eve

"Those marching in the streets will send a clear message to Congress: Voters are watching, and we will remember who shows more loyalty to Donald Trump and the Republican Party than to the Constitution and their oath of office."

Hundreds of thousands of people across the country are expected to participate Tuesday night in more than 600 rallies across the country in support of impeaching President Donald Trump on the eve of the House of Representatives' expected vote.

"These nationwide 'Nobody Is Above the Law' rallies will put a face to the majority of Americans that support impeachment and removal," Sean Eldridge, founder of advocacy group Stand Up America, said in a statement.

"Tonight, those marching in the streets will send a clear message to Congress," Eldridge added. "Voters are watching, and we will remember who shows more loyalty to Donald Trump and the Republican Party than to the Constitution and their oath of office."

The rallies are scheduled to begin at 5:30 pm local time. The coalition of progressive organizations that organized the protests provided a map to help people to find local events:

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/12/17/history-watching-us-600-rallies-planned-nationwide-trump-impeachment-eve

Judge Declares American Samoans US Citizens; Samoan Government Objects

A federal judge in Utah has ruled that American Samoans are full U.S. citizens and ordered the Trump administration to issue the plaintiffs in the case new passports reflecting their full-citizen status.

“It’s an overwhelming victory, but it’s the first step in what will likely be several more steps,” Neil Weare, lawyer for the plaintiffs and president of the nonprofit Equally American, told CNN.

“It doesn’t feel very good when the federal government says you’re American, but not quite the same as other Americans, just a little bit different. Just being able to say they’re real American citizens, I think that goes a long way, in addition to being able to vote.”

The ruling came Dec. 12 after American Samoans living in Utah filed a lawsuit in 2018 in the case cited as Fitisemanu v. United States of America, asserting that because they are deemed “non-citizen nationals” instead of U.S. citizens, they are denied various rights, such as voting, that U.S. citizens take for granted. Their passports contain an endorsement that reads: “The bearer is a United States national and not a United States citizen.”

American Samoa became a U.S. territory in 1900. Congress adopted laws granting citizenship to those born in other U.S. territories—the Northern Marianas, Guam, the Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico—but not for American Samoa.

The judge in the case, Clark Waddoups of the U.S. District Court for the District of Utah, wrote in the 69-page ruling that the court was “not imposing ‘citizenship by judicial fiat.’ The action is required by the mandate of the Fourteenth Amendment as construed and applied by Supreme Court precedent,” the judge stated.

The U.S. government had argued in court that federal courts can’t make citizenship decisions.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/judge-declares-american-samoans-citizens-samoan-government-objects_3177428.html

“An Interesting Document – That Literally Misquotes the Constitution” – Mitch McConnell Rips Chuck Schumer’s Whiny Impeachment Letter (VIDEO)

On Sunday Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell demanding witnesses in the upcoming impeachment hearings.

Democrats are inspected to pass their sham articles of impeachment Wednesday in the US House of Representatives.

Democrats are going to impeach the most successful president in the last century based on completely made-up non-crimes.

Here is a copy of Schumer’s letter to Majority leader McConnell.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2019/12/an-interesting-document-that-literally-misquotes-the-constitution-mitch-mcconnell-rips-chuck-schumers-whiny-impeachment-letter-video/

=US Official Gold Reserves Auditor Caught Lying

In my previous post, from March 2018, on the audits of US official gold reserves, I have exposed that during the audit procedures of the US official gold reserves from 1974 through 2008, repeatedly audit staff deviated from the auditing protocol, while internal control meant to prevent this was failing. Many audits and assay reports have been destroyed. For decades a significant share of the metal was excluded from verifications for no apparent reason. And, the US government went to great lengths in withholding information and spreading false information about the audits, among other findings in documents obtained through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. All in all, these findings made me question the integrity of the auditor.

After my last publication, I have obtained more documents from the US Treasury through FOIA requests, which expose another falsehood that puts the auditor in an even more peculiar position. In conflict with the audit protocol, the permanent seals of the vault compartments have been broken, time and again. In addition, the auditor has lied about these events, and when confronted, it’s unable to explain its actions. By now, I have lost faith in the auditor fully.

Prologue

It’s been a very long investigative journey that has led me to make bold statements, such as the ones above, about the auditor of the world’s largest gold holding. I wouldn’t claim anything of this magnitude if I didn’t thoroughly do my homework and research every single possibility that could have caused the auditor to have accidentally spread inaccurate material, including asking the auditor for an explanation.

If any of their statements appeared to be false, surely, they would be able to explain what I was missing. The head auditor said during a congressional hearing in 2011 (source video 42:50):

Transparency is our business.

Who would disagree? The US official gold reserves, weighing over 8,000 metric tonnes, deserve nothing less than an accurate audit.

My journey started in 2014, when I first discovered—in contrast to what I was accustomed to reading on blogs and in newspapers—that the US official gold reserves are audited every year. I published an article on my discoveries, titled A First Glance At US Official Gold Reserves Audits, which was basically a summary of all publicly available documents about the audits. Logically, these documents present a narrative that looks to be credible at the surface, but I found some questions left unanswered, and wrote in my article “this post will be part one of a series.” (Little did I know what I got myself into.) Given the importance of the subject, I intended to submit FOIA requests at the US government, in an open-minded attempt to have my concerns removed.

Since 2014 I have been prosecuting the US government. I have emailed staff of all related institutions—the US Treasury, The Office of Inspector General of the Treasury, the US Mint, and National Archives—that were initially replied, but as I got closer to the details, ceased altogether. I have submitted several dozen FOIA requests to all related institutions, some of which were honored, some not. In search of answers, I repeatedly called the Inspector General. In one of those calls, my contact simply hung up while I was talking. This incident is emblematic of this whole investigation.

On one occasion, the Mint wrote me a specific FOIA request would cost $3,145 “based on an estimate of 1,200 pages of responsive documentation and the duplication costs associated with the requested documents. This estimate also includes 40 hours of estimated search time and 8 hours of estimated review time…” The costs seemed outrages to me, but I got financed through a crowdfunding campaign and paid the Mint. A few months late(r), I received 223 redacted pages that contained 68 pages of reports I didn’t ask for and 21 pages that were copied twice. Effectively, I got 134 pages for $3,145. After some pressure on the Mint, they agreed the costs had been estimated too high, and I got the full amount refunded. (And I ordered my crowdfunding platform to refund all my donors.) The barrier of the costs was used to keep me at bay. To no avail, instead, I got some essential pages in my possession.

https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/us-official-gold-reserves-auditor-caught-lying

Mormon Church Hoarding $100 Billion in Donations for ‘Second Coming of Christ’ - Whistleblower

A former investment manager for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has filed a whistleblower complaint to the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) which alleges that church officials been stockpiling funds intended for charity.

Over more than 20 years, the Church of Latter-day Saints has accrued approximately $100 billion in investments, tithes and other donations for its charity war chest, according to a whistleblower complaint filed to the IRS on November 21 and recently obtained by the Washington Post.

Though the religious group is allowed to hold such funds and not required to pay income tax on its holdings - per US federal law pertaining to nonprofit organizations - David A. Nielsen, the 41-year-old whistleblower and former senior portfolio manager for the Church of Latter-day Saints, claimed the church is not worthy of its tax-exempt status.

The ex-employee of Ensign Peak Advisors, the church’s investment division, noted in the complaint that the church rakes in approximately $7 billion a year, and though $6 billion of that is used to cover annual operation costs, the remaining amount is handed off to Ensign. Internal accounting documents referenced in Nielsen’s complaint noted that the Ensign portfolio has grown from $12 billion in 1997 to around $100 billion today, and the complaint alleges that none of those funds have been used to assist in educational, religious or charitable activities within those 22 years.

“If you have a charity that simply amasses a war chest year after year and does not spend any money for charity purposes, that does not meet the requirements of tax law,” University of Pittsburgh professor and former IRS official Philip Hackney told the Post, adding that the complaint presented a “legitimate concern” in regard to Ensign’s tax-exempt status.

With none of the funds being used for duties necessary to retain nonprofit status, for what purpose is all this income being stockpiled? Nielsen, citing Ensign President Roger Clark, said the funds are being hoarded for the second coming of Christ.

The whistleblower was especially critical of the church leadership’s conduct toward members who could not afford to pay their tithes, an estimated 10% of their annual income, to the group.

“Would you pay tithing instead of water, electricity, or feeding your family if you knew that it would sit around by the billions until the Second Coming of Christ?” Nielsen said in a narrative accompanying his complaint.

According to federal law in the US, religious organizations are not forced to publicly report their income or assets.

“Having seen tens of billions in contributions and scores more in investment returns come in, and having seen nothing except two unlawful distributions to for-profit concerns go out, he was dejected beyond words, and so was I,” Lars Nielsen, the whistleblower’s twin brother, said in a statement provided to the Washington Post.

While the church did not deny the details laid out in the complaint, spokesman Eric Hawkins did issue response which explained, “The Church does not provide information about specific transactions or financial decisions.”

https://sputniknews.com/us/201912171077600955-mormon-church-hoarding-100-billion-in-donations-for-second-coming-of-christ-whistleblower/

>>7540467

Interesting