FBI Collected Nearly One Billion Records in Top Secret Program That Likely Was Used for Political Purposes

An FBI Agent who ran a warrantless spying program recently revealed that the FBI spent millions on a program that he believes was used for political purposes.

According to JusttheNews.com:

The FBI agent who ran the bureau’s warrantless spying program said Wednesday he warned ex-Director James Comey and his deputy, Andrew McCabe that the program was a useless waste of taxpayer money that needlessly infringed Americans’ civil liberties but his bosses refused to take action.

Retired Special Agent Bassem Youssef ran the FBI’s Communications Analysis Unit from late 2004 until his retirement in late 2014. He told Just the News he fears the deeply flawed program, which was started in response to the Sept. 11 attacks, was allowed to keep going to give Americans a false sense of security in the war on terror and possibly to enable inappropriate spying, such as that which targeted President Trump’s 2016 campaign.

“I have no doubt, or very little doubt, that it was used for political spying or political espionage,” Youssef said during a lengthy interview for the John Solomon Reports podcast.

Youssef confirmed that the FBI performed an audit of the highly classified program (also known as the NSA program because it searched call records captured by the National Security Agency) after Edward Snowden leaked its existence.

It was also reported from the Freedom Act’s Telephone Call Records Program report released by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, that the number of records collected by the government was in the millions and former DNI Dan Coates was well aware of this:

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/02/report-fbi-collected-nearly-one-billion-records-in-top-secret-program-that-likely-was-used-for-political-purposes/

US and Taliban ink Afghanistan peace agreement, set conditions for troop withdrawal

Washington and the Taliban movement have signed a deal that lays out conditions for the withdrawal of US and NATO troops from Afghanistan.

The agreement was signed by US peace envoy for Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad and one of the Taliban's senior leaders, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, in Qatar’s capital Doha on Saturday.

The deal will see Washington and its allies withdrawing their troops from five bases in Afghanistan within the next 135 days. The remaining American soldiers will leave the country in 14 months if the Taliban fulfills its commitments.

The document lays the groundwork for future negotiations between the Taliban and the Afghan government, aimed at bringing a lasting peace to the country. The US has agreed to facilitate the talks and lift sanctions from Taliban members by August, provided the negotiations commence as planned. Taliban leader Hibatullah Akhundzada called on all of his fighters to honor and abide by the agreement.

The US and Afghan governments said earlier that the peace agreement will include guarantees that Afghan territory will not be used by terrorist groups to target the US and its allies.

Also, Washington and Kabul agreed on a prisoner exchange with the Taliban by March 10, vowing to release up to 5,000 and 1,000 people respectively.

Calling the deal “a decisive step toward real peace in Afghanistan,” US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spoke about the victories against Al-Qaeda, the group behind the 9/11 attacks.

“Al-Qaeda today is a shadow of its former self. We have decimated its leadership, and now we have the Taliban agreeing that Al-Qaeda must never again find safe haven in Afghanistan,” he said.

The US-led coalition invaded Afghanistan in 2001 following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, expelling the Taliban from the country’s capital Kabul and other major cities. The years that followed saw prolonged fighting and the resurgence of militants. In the end, officials in Washington reluctantly agreed to hold peace talks with the Taliban, which stalled several times.

https://www.rt.com/news/482016-afghanistan-us-taliban-troops-withdrawal/

LOCKDOWN

Corona-fear: France bans all mass public gatherings in confined spaces as German, Swiss fairs canceled

No gatherings of more than 5,000 people in confined spaces will be allowed in France due to fears of the coronavirus epidemic, Paris has announced, as neighboring nations have canceled mass events, bracing for an outbreak.

The French authorities announced the restrictions as the number of confirmed cases in the country climbed to 73. Fifty-nine people remain in the hospital after testing positive for the infection, Health Minister Olivier Veran said at a press conference on Saturday. Twelve people have successfully recovered while two died from the disease: a 60-year-old French teacher and an 80-year-old Chinese tourist.

The minister spoke after emergency meetings of the French cabinet and National Security Council to assess the epidemics.

The ban on mass gatherings will remain in place until further notice. Among the scheduled events affected by it are a half-marathon run in Paris and an agriculture show, both of which were supposed to take place on Sunday.

On Friday, the French authorities declared the coronavirus a stage-2 outbreak on a 3-stage scale. Veran said his ministry’s recommendation to the public is to wash hands regularly and avoid handshakes.

Notably, the virus has already disrupted the operation of the 110 Air Base Creil outside Paris, where several cases of Covid-19 were identified. The military facility has been put on lockdown due to the outbreak.

https://www.rt.com/news/482017-france-bans-mass-gatherings-coronavirus/

Trump Admin Considering Tax Cuts, Pressuring Powell To Cut Rates In Hopes Of Containing Coronavirus Fallout

It appears that every response offered by the Trump administration to contain the coronavirus pandemic, is wrong.

In a late Friday article, the WaPo reported that the Trump administration officials are holding preliminary conversations about economic responses to the coronavirus, and with stocks suffering their worst week since the collapse of AIG, "among the options considered are pursuing a targeted tax cut package". Additionally, Trump cronies are also discussing whether the White House should lean even harder on the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates, even though in a surprise announcement on Friday afternoon, Fed Chair Powell the central bank on Friday afternoon said it would step in if necessary.

While the explanation is hardly necessary, the WaPo also points out that "these ideas would not be designed to stop the spread of the coronavirus, but they would seek to arrest the economic fears spreading through the economy. And some of the ideas would need cooperation from Congress or the Fed, as the White House has limited powers to unilaterally rewrite tax policy or direct the central bank to act."

And yet the reason why the market barely even glanced at this report from WaPo, is that if a business revenue has collapsed as global supply chains implode and as consumer demand tumbles as Americans opt to stay locked up inside until the pandemic passes, there is no pre-tax income, and thus no taxes to pay, so cutting the tax rate has zero effect on anything.

What's worse, if this is the best the Trump admin can come up with, it means the president refuses to even acknowledge how serious the situation is, when instead by this point Trump should at least be grasping the catastrophic dilemma the entire world is now facing, one which BofA called "an impossible trade-off" facing authorities:

Adopt the Draconian quarantine measures seen in China and trigger a global recession as worldwide economic activity grinds to a halt

Risk a pandemic by failing to take more aggressive action on Covid-19, also resulting in a global recession

That Trump is unwilling to proceed with either one of these two options - and only two as there is nothing more Trump can do absent pulling a page from the Hong Kong playbook and handing out $10,000 to every US citizen - means that the Coronavirus pandemic in the US will only get worse… assuming the CDC ever starts running the right tests to find out just how many Americans are infected.

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/trump-admin-considering-tax-cuts-pressuring-powell-cut-rates-hopes-containing-coronavirus

‘Get out of the way, let us deal with Assad regime’, Erdogan says he told Putin regarding Idlib, Syria

As tensions in Idlib province reach the boiling point, Turkey has asked Russia to let it fight the Syrian government face-to-face, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan revealed.

Erdogan asked Putin “to get out of the way” and let the Turkish troops deal with Syrian President Bashar Assad, the Turkish leader told his AK Party on Saturday.

Erdogan was explaining to lawmakers his government’s handling of the escalation in the northwestern Syrian province of Idlib, where Turkish and Syrian troops have engaged in several clashes over the past weeks. The hostilities have all but ruined Turkey’s 2018 agreement with Russia on de-escalating the violence in the area, which remains the last major stronghold of anti-government forces in Syria.

Describing his phone conversation with Putin, Erdogan said if Russia’s interest in Syria was to keep a military presence there, Turkey, a NATO member, does not object to it.

I asked Mr Putin: What's your business there? If you establish a base, do so but get out of our way and leave us face to face with the regime.

Moscow intervened in the Syrian conflict in 2015 to help Damascus fight against jihadist groups. Moscow said helping the Syrian government prevented future attacks launched by this would-be entity against other nations, including Russia.

Erdogan said Ankara now considers Syrian government troops a legitimate target for its attacks, claiming Damascus lost over 2,100 soldiers in Idlib. It was not immediately clear if the casualty number only represents Syrian troops killed directly by the Turkish military or includes those killed by Turkish-backed armed groups. Erdogan added that “seven warehouses with chemicals” were also destroyed in Syria, but did not offer any details or evidence regarding whether Syria still had chemical weapons in its possession.

The Turkish leader said fighting against the Syrian government is necessary to prevent a humanitarian disaster in Idlib, which would cause a new influx of refugees into Turkey across the border. Part of the Turkish response to the situation was opening the border with Europe to asylum-seekers. Erdogan said the EU failed to support Turkey, which already hosts over 3,6 million refugees from Syria and faces as many as 4 million new arrivals now.

We will not close those doors… Why? Because the European Union should keep its promises.

The Turkish president said he expects the international community and NATO in particular to support his country in the fight against the Assad government.

He claimed Turkey’s incursion into Syria was made by invitation “from the Syrian people” and that Ankara is not interested in territorial expansion or capturing Syrian oil. The latter remark seems like a veiled jab at US President Donald Trump, who said “securing the oil” in eastern Syria was a major achievement of the US troops deployed there.

https://www.rt.com/news/482006-erdogan-russia-syria-fighting/

Second time’s a charm? Trump nominates Texas Congressman Ratcliffe as DNI chief again

US President Donald Trump has tapped Representative John Ratcliffe (R-Texas) to be the new Director of National Intelligence, pending Senate confirmation. Ratcliffe withdrew his nomination last summer.

The surprise announcement, praising Ratcliffe as “an outstanding man of great talent,” came on Friday afternoon as Trump departed Washington for a campaign rally in South Carolina.

By way of explanation, Trump said he “would have completed [the] process earlier, but John wanted to wait until after [the] IG Report was finished.” This is a reference to the Justice Department’s inspector-general, who in December delivered his account of the probe into claims of Trump’s “Russian collusion” by the FBI and special counsel Robert Mueller.

Ratcliffe has been a key ally of Trump’s on the House Judiciary Committee, reviewing the FISA warrants used to spy on the Trump campaign and often sparring with Democrats who pursued Trump’s impeachment – which ultimately sank in the Senate earlier this month.

Trump initially sought to have him confirmed instead of the outgoing director, Dan Coats, in July 2019, only for the Texas congressman to bow out less than a week later.

“I do not wish for a national security and intelligence debate surrounding my confirmation, however untrue, to become a purely political and partisan issue,” Ratcliffe said at the time, following a flurry of hostile press coverage from Trump’s usual critics.

Trump blamed the “lamestream media” for treating Ratcliffe and his family “very unfairly,” and appointed a caretaker to the DNI post. Just last week, he announced that Ambassador Richard Grenell would be the new acting DNI pending a permanent nomination, setting off alarms in the media and among Democrats yet again.

Ratcliffe’s nomination last year was greeted with the same kind of panic as Grenell’s would be six months later. Both are considered Trump allies who would have a mandate to “clean house” in the US intelligence community, which played an important role in launching the ‘Russiagate’ conspiracy. Former DNI, CIA, and FBI heads went on to become prominent Democrat activists or anti-Trump TV pundits.

https://www.rt.com/usa/481978-ratcliffe-intelligence-chief-nomination/

Donald Trump Jr.: Hold to Your Second Amendment Rights ‘At All Costs’

During a CPAC interview with the NRA, Donald Trump, Jr. warned that the left is gunning for our liberties and urged Americans to hold to their Second Amendment rights “at all costs.”

His words come as prominent Democrat presidential hopefuls Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders, and Mike Bloomberg are all running on changing the legal landscape to allow gun manufacturers to be sued for the misuse of their products.

On February 24, 2020, Biden called out gun manufacturers, warned that he was coming for them, and added, “I’m going to take you down.”

At the state level, Democrats in Virginia pushed for an “assault weapons” ban, a “high capacity” magazine ban, AR-15 registration, universal background checks, a ban on suppressors, and gun rationing, among other things. In Arizona, Breitbart News reported that Democrat state Senators pushed SB 1925, which would require AR-15 owners to register their weapons with the government or hand them over.

The examples of the Democrat frontrunners combined with the empirical proof of the anti-gun actions taking by state-level Democrats in Arizona and Virginia makes clear that Democrats are gunning for the Second Amendment.

Donald Trump, Jr. addressed this, saying, “I can assure you we are up against a big juggernaut here. They will do whatever it takes to take away your rights, your ability to protect yourself. We must preserve our Second Amendment rights at all costs.”

He urged gun owners to be ready to show up in droves and vote in the 2020 elections the way they showed up to vote in 2016: “I need you to put the passion you have toward your pastime and towards your rights into this fight.”

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/02/29/donald-trump-jr-hold-to-your-second-amendment-rights-at-all-costs/

Witness No More — Hunter Biden Embraces Life As An Artist, And The NYT Is Here For It

Just weeks after President Donald Trump was acquitted in his Senate impeachment trial, one potential Republican witness has reinvented himself — and scored a flattering profile piece from the New York Times.

Hunter Biden, whose connection with Ukrainian gas company Burisma raised questions about former Vice President Joe Biden’s actions, topped many Republicans’ witness wish lists when it appeared that the president’s impeachment trial might go that particular route.

Biden, meanwhile, has reportedly been painting for years — but he told NYT’s Adam Popescu that it’s only recently that he has felt comfortable with the label “artist.”

Popescu’s piece reads like a profile of any new artist:

Dressed in Oxford boots, jeans and a long sleeve T-shirt, Hunter Biden ushered a reporter down a stone walkway, into a pool house-turned-art studio in the Hollywood Hills.

It was filled with colorful works of decorative abstraction — psychedelic florals and ethereal patterns that look like nature viewed through a microscope, leaning toward the surreal. There were nearly 100 of them, all by his own hand. Some were signed RH Biden, for Robert Hunter Biden, the 50-year-old son of the former vice president.

And while there were brief mentions of Biden’s questionable overseas connections and their possible impact on his father’s presidential campaign, the first came six paragraphs in and the second at the very end of the piece. (RELATED: Sen. Graham Says Investigating Hunter Biden ‘Doesn’t Make Me A Russian Agent’)

The focus was on Biden’s move to embrace art as the next chapter of his life, a move that he says is “literally keeping me sane.”

With President Trump’s impeachment trial in the past, the likelihood that Biden would be called to testify before Congress has lessened considerably — although some Republicans have continued to press for new investigations.

https://dailycaller.com/2020/02/28/hunter-biden-life-unknown-artist-nyt/

$5 Trillion Wiped Out From World Stocks Amid Fastest Collapse In History

https://www.blacklistednews.com/article/76381/5-trillion-wiped-out-from-world-stocks-amid-fastest-collapse-in.html

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