US Attorney Joe diGenova: “Bill Barr Announced There Are Going to be Indictments” In Deep State’s Crossfire Hurricane Sham

Former US Attorney Joe diGenova was on the radio earlier this week and he dropped some bombshells when discussing the ongoing work related to the crimes committed by Obama’s Deep State actors.

Here is a section of what diGenova said early in the interview:

Bill Barr announced there are going to be indictments in this case. When he went on the Laura Ingraham Show the other night, and gave an amazing interview for an Attorney General of the United States.

He said, yeah sure John Durham could write a report but that’s not what he’s doing. He’s getting ready to bring indictments if he has the evidence, quote unquote. But if he has the evidence is like a passe footnote. What the Attorney General was saying after saying that Crossfire Hurricane was one of the greatest travesties in American history, and that he was deeply disturbed about the evidence that he had seen. I think it’s pretty clear that John Brennan, if he doesn’t have a lawyer now then he better get one because the indictments are coming.

As we have discussed on this program for a long time. This was never about John Durham writing a report. He can do that if he wants to but the most important thing is to bring indictments and the Attorney General just said to us, that’s exactly what he’s doing.

Other notes from great interview:

The FBI was not only pushing garbage to get the Carter Page FISA warrant, they knew they were pushing garbage.

The items redacted in the FISA Report from the DOJ IG Horowitz are redacted because they implicate foreign governments which are likely: the UK, Italy, Australia and perhaps others.

The entire interview is well worth your time. It looks like indictments are finally coming!

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/04/us-attorney-joe-digenova-bill-barr-announced-going-indictments-deep-states-crossfire-hurricane-sham/

France Also was Involved with the Wuhan Coronavirus Facility and Awarded ‘Bat Doctor’ Shi a High Level French Civil Medal

The French were involved in the coronavirus as well. At this point, are ordinary Americans the only ones who weren’t involved?

We know that China elites like the former Head of the China Communist Party, Jiang Zemin was involved in the companies and entities related to the coronavirus disaster. We also know George Soros was connected to the companies in the middle of the disaster. We know that the Gates Foundation, Dr. Fauci and French company Sanofi Pasteur were involved.

Now as we look further into the coronavirus facilities in Wuhan, China, we have determined that the French were involved as well.

The French provided the design, engineering, and architecture for the Wuhan P4 site. Dr. Shi Zhiming (who ran the coronavirus program) has an advanced degree from a French school. She and the Yuan Zhiming, the manager of the P4 facility, were also awarded the highest France civil medals.

We know that many manufacturers of vaccines moved their operations to China and these companies were involved in developing vaccines for the virus and still are.

We also know that the US awarded $3.7 million to the Wuhan lab for the study of the coronavirus.

Really, who wasn’t involved in the China coronavirus disaster?

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/04/france-also-involved-wuhan-coronavirus-facility-awarded-bat-doctor-shi-high-level-french-civil-medal/

>>8826179

Wonder if these are related?

Almost HALF of French Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier group tested positive for Covid-19

Some 1,081 servicemen of the 2,300-strong Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier group have tested positive for Covid-19, the French defense minister said. France’s only carrier was forced to return to port after the outbreak.

The Charles de Gaulle coronavirus tally surged by over 300 confirmed cases on Friday when the country’s military revealed new official figures.

Speaking to the country’s National Assembly via video link, Defense Minister Florence Parly said that 2,010 tests had been carried out within the carrier group and 1,081 sailors tested positive. Some 545 of them have shown symptoms and 24 remain hospitalized including one in an intensive care unit.

Speaking to the Senate before the minister, Director of the Armed Forces Health Service Maryline Gygax Généro gave a slightly different account of the outbreak, revealing that a large number of test results were still pending.

The Charles de Gaulle and its escort were forced to return to the French southern port of Toulon on Sunday after dozens of servicemen tested positive for coronavirus. The crew has been quarantined since then, yet the number of confirmed cases have continued to grow steadily.

This week, the French military launched an investigation into the outbreak, while reports by the country's media suggested that it might have grossly mishandled the situation. According to France Bleu radio which interviewed an anonymous crewmember of the carrier, the first case of Covid-19 was actually detected on board weeks ago, yet the vessel was still ordered out to sea – while its captain offered to halt the mission in the port of Brest when the group visited there mid-March.

France’s defense minister dismissed the allegations that the ship’s captain wanted to stop the mission weeks ago as false. Still, she admitted that it was not possible to tell whether Covid-19 had been on board before the Brest stopover.

https://www.rt.com/news/486132-half-charles-de-gaulle-covid-19/

The real black box: American Airlines share buybacks are a scam to enrich execs – and the Covid-19 bailouts will fuel more of them

To anyone doubting the Covid-19 bailouts will line executives’ pockets, American Airlines CEO Doug Parker says he’ll “find a way around” the rules against it. This after making $150 million while AAL’s stock plummeted 70%.

Stock buybacks are the ultimate vehicle of self-enrichment. Consider the following as a ‘case study’ of Wall Street’s legal fraud. Under CEO Doug Parker’s leadership from 2013-2020, American Airlines (AAL) has seen its stock plummet 70%. When one looks at Parker's pay awarded vs the company’s three-year average economic profits, his pay-for-performance metrics are abominable. The media worships Parker for his stewardship of AAL during this crisis and reports that, for the past three years, Parker’s salary and bonus were zero.

However, they fail to mention that AAL's legal Ponzi stock-buyback scheme saw Parker's 2016-2018 take-home pay rocket to $70.2 million. (According to the Financial Times, Parker’s total award from selling stock since 2013 is $150 million). It’s not bad for Parker, but it’s horrendous for AAL employees, shareholders and American taxpayers who will be stuffed with a $20 billion bailout. Fair? Not on your life.

Debt-fuelled stock buybacks and dividend payments are engineered to artificially increase stock prices so that self-interested CEOs like Parker can “earn” higher compensation. Increasing debt creates an illusion of better earnings. However, buybacks cannibalize corporate balance sheets, leaving taxpayers exposed to unlimited “bailouts” when these leveraged bets go wrong.

What’s the difference between rogue hedge fund managers and airline CEOs? Not much, except some airline CEOs have been given golden parachutes to the tune of nearly $17.5 million.

So who is enabling these CEOs to line their pockets with taxpayer money?

Last summer, the US Federal Reserve released the results of its annual Comprehensive Capital Analysis and Review (CCAR). The CCAR is a bank stress test, which all the banks passed, and after passing the stress test, the Federal Reserve approved $125 billion in share buybacks!

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/486133-american-airlines-covid-bailout/

RETALIATION? Michigan’s Democrat Governor Threatens to EXTEND Stay-At-Home Order in Response to #OperationGridlock Protesters

Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has threatened to extend her extreme stay-at-home order in response to protesters who rallied against it at the state’s capital on Wednesday.

In an interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, Governor Whitmer said that the protest was “irresponsible” and that “we might have to actually think about extending stay-at-home orders, which is supposedly what they were protesting.”

“When you see a, you know, a political rally — that’s what it was yesterday — a political rally like that, where people aren’t wearing masks, and they’re in close quarters, and they’re touching one another, you know that that’s precisely what makes this kind of a disease drag out and expose more people,” Whitmer said.

Thousands of protesters had converged for a protest called “Operation Gridlock” to protest her order, which is one of the strictest in the nation.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/04/retaliation-michigans-democrat-governor-threatens-extend-stay-home-order-response-operationgridlock-protesters/

As Protests Mount Across the US, Multiple Sheriffs Openly Stand Against Lockdown

On Wednesday, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) issued a warning and urged governments to take action as global societal unrest is on the horizon. The IMF cautioned that “some countries remain vulnerable to new protests, particularly if policy actions to mitigate the COVID-19 crisis are perceived as insufficient or as unfairly favoring large corporates rather than people.” In the ostensible land of the free, that is indeed the case as Americans were given laughable $1,200 deposits for 10 weeks (or longer) to stay home while banks and large corporations received trillions. While a new ‘Occupy’ movement has yet to materialize over the corporate bailouts, people tired of watching the economy turn to dust have already began to revolt.

As TFTP reported this week, on Tuesday, more than 100 protesters took the the city streets of Raleigh, North Carolina to voice their desire to reopen the state’s economy. They were quickly met with police action but the well-organized protesters stood their ground through multiple threats.

According to the News and Observer, the protest was organized by ReopenNC, a private Facebook group organized last week that wants people to make their own stay-at-home decisions to avoid exposure to COVID-19 as the worldwide pandemic continues. The group surpassed 28,000 members on Tuesday afternoon.

Then, on Wednesday, Michigan followed suit. Thousands of Michigan citizens took to the streets — and literally blocked them — on Wednesday to protest the government’s stay at home order and demand the state reopen the economy.

As the Ocala Post reports, healthcare workers, EMTs, off-duty police officers, some military personnel, and thousands of others participated in the protest. Armed citizens even stormed the steps of the capitol building.

Vehicle protests at Michigan Capitol over stay home order

'Operation Gridlock' aims to jam the roads around the Michigan Capitol in Lansing to object to restrictions in the stay-home order

Posted by Detroit Free Press on Wednesday, April 15, 2020

Ironically, the protesters — many of whom wore MAGA hats and carried Trump flags — employed the same tactics they once decried, and blocked traffic. This is the same act that many MAGA folks claimed people should be run over or shot for when they were protesting police killings. But I digress.

https://thefreethoughtproject.com/protests-mount-sheriffs-join-cause/

Joe Scarborough: Dr. Phil And Dr. Oz Spreading ‘Propaganda’ For Trump

“Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough said Friday that celebrity doctors Dr. Phil McGraw and Dr. Mehmet Oz are spreading “propaganda” for President Donald Trump by downplaying the threat of the coronavirus on public health.

“Lives are going to be lost because of the propaganda that is being spewed out there. And it really has started the past couple of days by … Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz and so many other people,” Scarborough said on his MSNBC program.

“The problem is, they both have huge followings, huge audiences who listen to their every word. And they know better. Both of those guys know better. They’re not dumb guys. So what are they up to? That’s the question,” panelist Will Geist asked.

“Something with Trump. Maybe a job,” suggested co-host Mika Brzezinski.

Trump has established an economic task force to assess the reopening the American economy and says he is optimistic about doing so by May 1. He says he will make a decision about that date “shortly,” although it will be the “most difficult” one of his life.

the economy and that even if fatalities occurred as a result of that decision it would be justifiable.

In a Fox News guest appearance, Dr. Phil states, “The fact of the matter is, we have people dying, 45,000 people a year die from automobile accidents. 480,000 from cigarettes. 360,000 a year from swimming pools, but we don’t shut the country down for that. But yet we’re doing it for this?”

A clip of Dr. Oz from Thursday night’s “Hannity” on Fox News, shows him calling the reopening of schools “a very appetizing opportunity” even if it costs up to “2% to 3% of total mortality.”

Oz has apologized for making that comment, saying he “misspoke.”

“If something doesn’t make sense, like, there’s a reason it doesn’t make sense. There’s something going on,” Scarborough said. “Here we have the president saying he is [Italian dictator Benito] Mussolini a couple days ago.”

“At the same time, you have TV doctors, ‘Oh, we have to get back to work.’ Are they trying to set up governors, like in Michigan and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania … Are they trying to take the blame off of Donald Trump? He still doesn’t have testing down. We still can’t safely reopen the government,” Scarborough said.

“What the hell is going on? I guess they’re real doctors. I’ve never seen their certificates … Maybe we can get evidence today that they’re real doctors. But nobody is this ignorant.”

https://dailycaller.com/2020/04/17/joe-scarborough-dr-phil-dr-oz-propaganda-trump-covid-19/

Coronavirus: International Flights Continue to Bring 100,000 Unchecked Travellers a Week to Britain

Despite introducing severe lockdown on its own residents, the UK government has not enacted any incoming travel restrictions, leaving over 100,000 arrivals a week free to enter the country unscreened, the health secretary revealed.

Asked by UK television host — and self-proclaimed “friend” of U.S. President Donald Trump — Piers Morgan on how many people were being tested for coronavirus as they stepped off international flights arriving in the nation’s airports, health secretary Matt Hancock revealed there was no routine testing at Britain’s air borders going on at all.

Following up that admission with the number of people still arriving in the United Kingdom by air, despite much of the global flying industry working at minimum capacity, Mr Hancock said around 15,000 people a day were landing, reports London’s Times.

While this number is a fraction of the number of people normally arriving in the United Kingdom — Heathrow, the country’s largest airport, would typically see an aircraft land or take off every 45 seconds and 213,000 people move through it a day — it still means a significant 105,000 people coming to Britain every week without a health check.

Mr Hancock defended the no-testing policy because the number of arrivals had fallen, and called the 105,000 a week figure of new arrivals during a time of global pandemic “very very low”. He further explained that the scientific advice he had received was the benefits of closing the borders was small because there was already transmission going on within the United Kingdom, and that arrivals from some areas were treated differently, but did not elaborate.

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2020/04/17/coronavirus-international-flights-bring-100000-unchecked-travellers-week-britain/

Angela Merkel Voices ‘Full Support’ for W.H.O. After Trump Freezes Funding

German Chancellor Angela Merkel voiced support on Thursday for the embattled World Health Organization (W.H.O.) while speaking to fellow Group of Seven (G7) leaders after President Donald Trump halted U.S. funding for the United Nations-backed organization.

German government spokesperson Steffen Seibert said Merkel reiterated her call for “strong and coordinated international response” to the Chinese coronavirus pandemic and expressed “full support to the W.H.O.”

The Trump administration released a separate readout of the call in which it highlighted Trump’s criticism of the W.H.O. for its “lack of transparency and chronic mismanagement” of the crisis, saying that “the leaders called for a thorough review and reform process.”

President Trump announced Tuesday that he has halted funding for the W.H.O. while his administration reviews the body’s response to the outbreak.

“America and the world have chosen to rely on the W.H.O. for accurate, timely, and independent information to make important public health recommendations and decisions,” the president stated in his Rose Garden remarks. “If we cannot trust that this is what we will receive from the W.H.O., our country will be forced to find other ways to work with other nations to achieve public health goals.”

“We spend $500 million a year,” he added, noting that China only pledges up to $40 million per year.

As Breitbart News reported, “The W.H.O. claimed in January that ‘preliminary investigations’ by China found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the virus in Wuhan. Further, the organization called on countries to keep borders open despite labeling the massive outbreak a global emergency.”

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/04/17/angela-merkel-voices-full-support-w-h-o-trump-freezes-funding/

US Refuses Release of 9/11 Documents, Claims Reason for Secrecy is Secret

In a last-minute court filing this week, the US government moved to block the release of a trove of documents about the September 11, 2001, attacks to families of the victims. However, senior intelligence officials said they were unable to explain the reasons for the secrecy, as doing so would compromise US national security.

In its latest move to protect its relationship with the Saudi monarchy, the Trump administration has blocked the release of FBI files on the September 11 attacks that it has been deemed to contain information that would imperil US national security.

According to a report by ProPublica, the US Department of Justice claimed in a federal court filing late Monday night that the documents exposed state secrets, but said that it could not explain what those secrets involved, because that, too, is secret.

“This assertion of privilege is over highly sensitive and classified national security information concerning foreign government information; intelligence activities, sources and methods; and information concerning foreign relations and foreign activities of the United States, including confidential sources,” acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell said in a sworn declaration given to the US District Court for the Southern District of New York.

“This information must be protected because its disclosure reasonably could be expected to cause serious damage, and in many cases exceptionally grave damage, to the national security of the United States,” Grenell said, according to the blog Florida Bulldog. His testimony was joined by those of US Attorney General William Barr and other leading intelligence officials.

“The extraordinary lengths that they’re going to here suggest that there must be some deep, dark secret that they’re still trying very hard to hide after almost 20 years,” Steven Pounian, a lawyer representing the September 11 victims’ families, told ProPublica.

“But who are they protecting? Something might be a Saudi government secret. But how can these be secrets that still need to be kept from the American people after all this time?”

The releases would have been part of a 2017 lawsuit against Saudi Arabia by the families of those who died in the September 11 attacks and the aftermath. On that day, 19 hijackers from the terrorist group al-Qaeda took over four US airliners and flew them into three buildings: the two World Trade Center towers in New York, which later collapsed, and the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, a portion of which burned; the fourth plane fell from the sky over Pennsylvania when the passengers attempted to retake control of it.

Of those 19 hijackers, 15 were from Saudi Arabia, and the mastermind of the operation, Osama bin Laden, came from one of the country’s wealthiest families.

Last September, Barr allowed the families to learn the classified name of one of the hijackers’ accomplices, but only under a strict vow of secrecy.

While the 9/11 Commission fact-finding probe between 2002 and 2004 officially found “no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually funded” the attacks, it noted “the likelihood” that Saudi-sponsored charities did, AP noted. A 2016 law permitting Americans to sue foreign governments for acts of terrorism is what allowed the families’ lawsuit to go forward.

However, after a more recent barb in the US-Saudi relationship appeared in late 2018 when Saudi journalist and US resident Jamal Khashoggi was assassinated and dismembered in the Saudis’ Istanbul consulate, Washington similarly swept the issue under the rug, with US President Donald Trump finding himself at odds with the CIA in assigning blame for the murder.

"The United States has never - not once - put this relationship on the line over the fate, or the human rights, of any individual or group of individuals,” author and historian Thomas Lippmann told Sputnik in October 17, 2018, just weeks after Khashoggi disappeared.

“In fact, the Truman administration put a policy in writing that said exactly the opposite. It said: ‘We're there to do business and for reasons of security. We're not there to tell them how to run their country or organize their society.' That policy's never been rescinded, and that's what we have always done,” Lippmann said.

https://sputniknews.com/us/202004161078990135/

Over 43,000 US millionaires will get ‘stimulus’ averaging $1.6 million each

At least 43,000 American millionaires who are too rich to get coronavirus stimulus checks are getting a far bigger boost — averaging $1.6 million each, according to a congressional committee.

The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act trumpeted its assistance for working families and small businesses, but it apparently contains an even bigger benefit for wealthy business owners, the committee found.

The act allows pass-through businesses — ones taxed under individual income, rather than corporate — an unlimited amount of deductions against their non-business income, such as capital gains, the Washington Post said. They can also use losses to avoid paying taxes in other years.

That gives the roughly 43,000 individual tax filers who make at least $1 million a year a savings of $70.3 billion — or about $1.6 million apiece, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation.

Hedge-fund investors and real estate business owners are “far and away” the ones who will benefit the most, tax expert Steve Rosenthal told the Washington Post.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) called it a “scandal” to “loot American taxpayers in the midst of an economic and human tragedy.”

Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) claimed that “someone wrongly seized on this health emergency to reward ultrarich beneficiaries.”

“For those earning $1 million annually, a tax break buried in the recent coronavirus relief legislation is so generous that its total cost is more than total new funding for all hospitals in America and more than the total provided to all state and local governments,” he stressed in a statement.

https://nypost.com/2020/04/16/43k-us-millionaires-will-get-stimulus-averaging-1-6m-each/

Central Bankers: We Own You! Prepare For 13 Months of Shutdowns

Business Revolt: Says Some States Can Reopen Before May 1

Lies & Data Manipulation: NYC Adds 3,700 Who Never Tested Positive To COVID-19 Death Toll

Exposed: Lies, Corruption, & Pay To Keep The Public In a Fear-Induced Panic For Ultimate Control

Ventilators By Cloak & Dagger: Israel’s Mossad Boasts Of Stealing Medical Gear From Other Countries

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Central Bankers: We Own You! Prepare For 13 Months of Shutdowns

Mac Slavo

April 14th, 2020

SHTFplan.com

Comments (9)

Central bankers at the Federal Reserve are warning Americans that they plan to take action and enslave you for the next 18 months. Neel Kashkari, the head of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, basically said that central bankers own you and they want ultimate control for the next 18 months, according to a report by Market Watch.

Central bankers like Kashkari will decide if and when you can run a business. They will decide what kind of life you’ll live and the will decide that you don’t have any human rights. Kashkari didn’t mince words. He wants Americans to be ready for 18 months of ultimate enslavement and all but said that during a CBS interview on Sunday morning.

The longer we allow these tyrants to lock us in our homes and ban us from making a living, the easier it will be for them to control us. As people lose their sense of security and start living in a constant state of fear, they become pliable and easy to enslave by those who want power over everyone. It’s up to all of us to read between the lines and understand exactly what these totalitarians want, and they want you to be their slave and others to follow orders to force it upon you.

Kashkari spoke of what he thinks lies ahead for the United States economy as the country continues to battle the coronavirus pandemic while destroying the liberty, basic human rights, and financial security of most of the country. We’ve given up our basic human rights to prevent the spread of a disease that’s been hyped up to appear much worse than it is.

“We could have these waves of flare-ups, controls, flare-ups, and controls until we actually get a therapy or a vaccine,” he said. “We need to find ways of getting the people who are healthy, who are at lower risk, back to work and then providing the assistance to those who are most at risk, who are going to need to be quarantined or isolated for the foreseeable future.”

Looking ahead, Kashkari doesn’t envision a quick rebound for the U.S. economy, which has already suffered more than 16 million job losses in the past three weeks. “This could be a long, hard road that we have ahead of us until we get to either an effective therapy or a vaccine,” he said. “It’s hard for me to see a V-shaped recovery under that scenario.”

https://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/central-bankers-we-own-you-prepare-for-13-months-of-shutdowns_04142020

How to Think About the Fed Now

[This text is excerpted from the introduction to Anatomy of the Crash, a Mises Institute ebook to be released in April 2020.]

The Great Crash of 2020 was not caused by a virus. It was precipitated by the virus, and made worse by the crazed decisions of governments around the world to shut down business and travel. But it was caused by economic fragility. The supposed greatest economy in US history actually was a walking sick man, made comfortable with painkillers, and looking far better than he felt—yet ultimately fragile and infirm. The coronavirus pandemic simply exposed the underlying sickness of the US economy. If anything, the crash was overdue.

Too much debt, too much malinvestment, and too little honest pricing of assets and interest rates made America uniquely vulnerable to economic contagion. Most of this vulnerability can be laid at the feet of central bankers at the Federal Reserve, and we will pay a terrible price for it in the coming years. This is an uncomfortable truth, one that central bankers desperately hope to obscure while the media and public remain fixated on the virus.

But we should not let them get away with it, because (at least when it comes to legacy media) the Fed’s gross malfeasance is perhaps the biggest untold story of our lifetimes.

Symptoms of problems were readily apparent just last September during the commercial bank repo crisis. After more than a decade of quantitative easing, relentless interest rate cutting, and huge growth in “excess” reserves (more than $1.5 trillion) parked at the Fed, banks still did not have enough overnight liquidity? The repo market exposed how banks were capital contstrained, not reserve constrained. So what exactly was the point of taking the Fed’s balance sheet from less than $1 trillion to over $4 trillion, anyway? Banks still needed money, after a decade of QE?

As with most crises, the problems took root decades ago. What we might call the era of modern monetary policy took root with the 1971 Nixon Shock, which eliminated any convertibility of dollars for gold. Less than twenty years later, in October 1987, Black Monday wiped out 20 percent of US stock market valuations. Fed chair Alan Greenspan promised Wall Street that such a thing would never happen again on his watch, and he meant it: the “Greenspan Put” was the Maestro’s blueprint for providing as much monetary easing as needed to prop up equity markets. The tech stock crash of the NASDAQ in 2000 only solidified the need for “new” monetary policy, and in 2008 that policy took full flight under the obliging hand of Fed chairman Ben Bernanke—a man who not only fundamentally misunderstood the Great Depression in his PhD thesis, but who also had the self-regard to write a book titled The Courage to Act about his use of other people’s money to reinflate the biggest and baddest stock bubble in US history.​

https://mises.org/wire/how-think-about-fed-now

‘Shameful’: With blessing from Treasury, big bank seizes coronavirus relief payments from veterans

“USAA is confiscating the emergency $1,200 coronavirus checks from veterans and military families who have debt, leaving us struggling to survive during this crisis. This is absolutely unacceptable.”

The Treasury Department last week gave U.S. financial institutions the go-ahead to seize coronavirus stimulus payments to pay off individuals’ outstanding debts, and one of the nation’s largest banks is reportedly already taking advantage of the green light.

“USAA, the veteran-serving financial institution, took $3,400 in CARES Act payments from the family of a disabled veteran to offset an existing debt, denying the family emergency funds during a time of personal economic stress,” David Dayen, executive editor of The American Prospect, reported Thursday.

Headquartered in San Antonio, USAA has a membership of around 13 million that is comprised largely of current and former members of the military and their families.

“I, along with my colleagues in Congress, are doing everything we can to put an end to this. The Treasury Department and the IRS have the authority to prohibit this cruelty, and they should.”

—Rep. Ilhan Omar

“Text messages from USAA customers show that this is not an isolated incident,” Dayen noted. “In fact, USAA is using a boilerplate statement to respond to customer complaints about taking their payments.”

The New York Times on Thursday also reported that USAA and other institutions are garnishing stimulus payments.

Consumer advocates warned about this possibility after Dayen revealed Tuesday that Ronda Kent, chief disbursing officer at the Treasury Department’s Bureau of the Fiscal Service, told bankers in a webinar last week that “there’s nothing in the law that precludes” financial institutions from seizing stimulus payments to pay off a person’s existing debts.

The law Kent referenced was the CARES Act, a multi-trillion-dollar stimulus package President Donald Trump signed last month. The CARES Act authorized one-time $1,200 payments to adults who earn less than $75,000 a year. The law also approved an additional $500 for each child under the age of 17.

Carrie, a 22-year-old mother of two from Minnesota whose husband was injured while serving in the military, told the Prospect that she doesn’t “know where rent is going to come from” now that USAA has seized her family’s $3,400 payment.

“It was going to help my 18-month-old get her meds,” Carrie said. “I’m at a loss for words, they don’t care.”

Common Defense, an advocacy group that represents veterans, called USAA’s seizure of stimulus payments “absolutely unacceptable” and urged Congress to “make it illegal.”

The CARES Act explicitly gives Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin the authority to exempt the coronavirus relief payments from debt collection by banks, but Mnuchin—a former Goldman Sachs executive—has yet to exercise that authority despite pressure from Democrats in Congress and state attorneys general.

http://www.stationgossip.com/2020/04/shameful-with-blessing-from-treasury.html