FBI « Aletho News

Enemies Above: The FBI and the Creation of the Brown Scare Myth

By Brandan P. Buck | The Libertarian Institute | July 19, 2023

“Today’s threat to our national security is not a matter of military weapons alone. We know of new methods of attack. The Trojan Horse. The Fifth Column that betrays a nation unprepared for treachery.”

Such were the remarks from President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s fireside chat on May 26, 1940. Roosevelt’s sentiments captured and propagated a growing sense of fear and paranoia that the United States was entering a covert war with a hostile foreign power. These sentiments, coupled with the steps taken by the United States government to fight them, are strikingly similar to those of today. With Vladimir Putin as a stand-in for Hitler and MAGA for the alleged rising presence of domestic fascism, supporters of the foreign policy status quo are mobilizing a version of history to frame current dissent as beyond the pale and to justify their extraordinary steps to curtail it.

As they had during the Great War, the United States government and American interventionists preceded official entry into World War II with a concerted effort to convince Americans of the need to aid the Allies. This push to move foreign policy opinion accompanied a growing panic concerning domestic extremism, particularly on the Right, in what historian Leo Ribuffo called “the Brown Scare.”

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was among the institutions that perpetuated the scare and constricted American foreign policy opinion. During the height of the “Great Debate” concerning American entry into the Second World War, the White House used the FBI as a means to surveil and gather political intelligence. The FBI’s authority to conduct these operations stemmed from a 1936 directive in which FDR formally granted the bureau the power to monitor “subversive activities,” primarily the presence of explicitly illiberal organizations like the German American Bund. The fear of domestic extremism, coupled with the domestic security demands of the Second World War, proved a boon to the FBI and the career of its director, J. Edgar Hoover. From 1933 through the end of World War II, the FBI’s budget grew 16-fold and its number of agents rose from 266 to around 5,000. With the outbreak of war in Europe, and the ensuing foreign policy debate in the United States, the FBI’s writ to monitor “subversive” organizations was extended to noninterventionist groups, chiefly, the America First Committee (AFC).

To achieve its mission to monitor the AFC and its leadership, principally Charles Lindbergh, the FBI employed its usual litany of odious and often extralegal collection techniques, including wiretaps, break-ins, and bugging. The entirety of the FBI’s surveillance campaign against the AFC was done without a criminal predicate, and was, therefore, illegal. In addition to the FBI’s assortment of black-bag techniques, the bureau also attended AFC meetings, gathered their materials, and collected public and often derogatory information on members and leadership. Among the information collected during the FBI’s campaign was some of the non-interventionist Senator Gerald Nye’s correspondence, collected incidentally during an illegal wiretap in the execution of another and eventually unfounded investigation. Knowledge gathered by the FBI, either fair or foul, revealed nothing legally actionable but did provide the Roosevelt administration and its allies in Congress with information it would not have otherwise obtained.

Throughout 1941, FBI headquarters and field offices received reports from private citizens in which they offered up gossip, commentary, and concerns about the America First Committee, its members, and its activities. Letters to J. Edgar Hoover and other government officials, located within the FBI files on the AFC, revealed that numerous Americans voluntarily participated in the FBI’s domestic surveillance and legitimately believed that non-interventionism presented an existential threat to the nation and advocated for authoritarian measures to address the presence of the alleged internal threat.

In a letter addressed to President Roosevelt, one such correspondent from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania wrote, “I therefore implore you, or have someone In Washington, try to break this rotten [America First Committee]” and added that “a Democracy should not permit traitors to go on and on and on causing more disunion.” Similarly-minded individuals who wrote to the FBI saw the AFC as an enemy within and opined on possible solutions to this “fifth column.” One concerned citizen floated the idea of sending AFC’s leadership “to concentration camps, or some place [sic] where they could do no more harm.” In a letter dated from June 10, 1941, a full seven months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, another correspondent agreed with such sentiment. Its author complained that the FBI was unwilling to find all the “subversive individuals,” i.e., antiwar activists, and “round them all up.” Not content with mere extrajudicial imprisonment, still, another writer to the FBI lamented that America was too lenient with the America Firsters to do what other countries, “big or small,” do with their “traitors,” and put them “against the wall.”

While other correspondents with the FBI were considerably less authoritarian in their desires, they willfully offered up information to the bureau. These voluntary assets delivered the names and addresses of AFC members, forwarded AFC materials, circulated anti-AFC propaganda, and provided their assessments of individuals’ motivations and assumed links to Nazi Germany. These citizen spies made note of America Firsters’ views on FDR, his foreign policy, the location of new chapters, speculated on the presence of draft-dodgers within these chapters, and the ethnic makeup and presence of foreign accents at AFC events.

Correspondents also ratted out their neighbors and coworkers to the FBI, treating membership in the AFC akin to membership in a spy ring. One correspondent from Staten Island was appalled that AFC members showed disdain for FDR and his foreign policy. They noted that “a woman with a decided [sic] German accent” made the galling suggestion that FDR “should be impeached [underlined in original].” They went on to note that they were stunned into silence and dared not defend the honor of the president as they were “spotted” by “3 tough men.” Implicit within this correspondent’s letter, as with others, was the view that merely disagreeing with the president was worthy of suspicion.

The information citizens gave amounted to little more than gossip, generating more paperwork than leads. Despite the FBI’s failure, these acts of surveillance, including writing the FBI, matched with the official writ of the bureau and the often-glowing responses from government officials helped to sustain fear among the American populace. Correspondents, be they regular people or members of Congress, sought and received validation for their paranoia and thereby sustained a domestic panic that curtailed legitimate foreign policy debate; as historians Douglas M. Charles and John P. Rossi wrote, the FBI’s efforts, even if indirectly, “successfully defined the parameter of what was permissible in public debate and cautioned those who would oppose government policy.” Combined with those of the British government and (nominally) private actors, the FBI’s energies successfully collapsed the Overton Window. They created a useable (and mythic) history that has served the foreign policy consensus for decades.

Despite the FBI’s best efforts, their agents found no evidence of illegal activity or overseas connections, or unlawful funding activity within the America First Committee. From the perspective of the White House, the FBI’s efforts, at best, provided them with political information that gave it an edge in public debate. The FBI’s collection also served as a means of distributing information on AFC and other non-interventionists to friendly members of Congress. Despite failing to create a legal mechanism to silence the America Firsters, the FBI’s surveillance campaign succeeded in one area; it helped to sustain an environment of fear that successfully branded non-interventionism as a subversive activity worthy of opprobrium and suspicion.

The United States did not look over the brink into the chasm of domestic fascism in the waning days of American neutrality, and moral considerations of entering the war aside, the United States was never under military or covert threat from the Nazi regime. Nor did their avatars within the German American Bund, or its fellow travelers like the Silver Shirts—however odious their presence—constitute a threat to the American republic. However, the United States took its first giant steps into imperium overseas, and it implemented a form of soft authoritarianism within its borders that lasted long after the end of the Second World War.

The federal government repurposed the powers, personnel, and legal techniques granted to the FBI during World War II against left-wing targets. The postwar growth of the security state, coupled with the normalization of corporatism (banally referred to as “private-public partnerships”) and an aggressive overseas foreign policy, bear many of the characteristics of the dreaded F word. Yet an AFC member with controversial views of FDR did not implement these transformations to American society. These changes were wrought by the federal government, bolstered by the opinions of the redacted correspondents who longed to imprison or execute their political opponents, all in the name of fighting fascism.

Yet, the image of the AFC as an inherently subversive organization has resurfaced in recent years. Despite the dispositive findings of the FBI and decades of scholarship from credentialed academics, the Brown Scare has returned to (liberal) American consciousness. Recent academic work like Susan Dunn’s 1940, Bradley W. Hart’s Hitler’s American Friends, Sarah Churchwell’s Behold America as well as Rachel Maddow’s pop history podcast Ultra, and the novel and HBO miniseries The Plot Against America have all resurrected the Brown Scare and view American non-interventionism as a subversive activity, one either essentially embedded within, or suspiciously adjacent to American fascism.

With the postwar American order under strain overseas and losing legitimacy within the minds of a growing number of Americans, consensus tastemakers have remobilized the image of America, teetering on the edge of fascist tyranny in the late 1930s to buttress policy objectives in a post-2016 world. In doing so, they not only repackage a long-debunked version of the past, but they obscure the civil rights abuses of yesteryear to legitimatize government efforts to censor speech or undermine associations deemed threatening to the regime in the present. As in the past, supporters of current American foreign policy, either earnestly or cynically, compare their domestic opponents to agents of outside hostile actors. Meanwhile, the federal government, yet again, has inserted itself into the domestic foreign policy debate, monitored antiwar activists, and allegedly suppressed online speech on behalf of a foreign power.

History is repeating, just not in the manner portrayed in the pages of The New York Times or on the programming of MSNBC.

July 19, 2023 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | FBI, Human rights, United States | Leave a comment

Greenwald: Ex-Spies Run Censorship Operations for Tech Giants

By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. | The Defender | July 14, 2023

Former security state operatives occupy the highest positions at Big Tech internet platforms, and are responsible for censoring political content and limiting public debate, Glenn Greenwald reported on Tuesday.

Americans have been aware of security state efforts to control media narratives since the 1970s, when the Senate’s Church Committee exposed the CIA’s Operation Mockingbird, Greenwald told listeners of his podcast, “System Update.”

Under that program, CIA agents covertly infiltrated and influenced the nation’s largest news organizations.

Project Mockingbird’s exposure greatly embarrassed the media and the government, as the CIA is forbidden from targeting the American public, Greenwald said.

Over the past decade, a series of whistleblowers revealed the U.S. security state has again amped up its covert targeting of American citizens, particularly since the start of the post-9/11 War on Terror.

News that intelligence agencies spied on Americans or infiltrated the news media was considered scandalous just over a decade ago.

But today, things have changed, Greenwald said. In fact, it has become common for top news outlets to openly hire former U.S. security state agents to report and comment on the news.

And in the last few months, the Twitter files and the latest Missouri v. Biden decision made clear how aggressive the censorship regime has become.

The U.S. government, in part, dictates what content social media platforms ought to allow on their sites, Greenwald said. But, he added:

“There’s another element, another layer to it, which is they’ve infiltrated these Big Tech companies — these ex-CIA agents have — exactly like they’ve infiltrated corporate news outlets. They’re all over these censorship regimes.”

Greenwald said top positions at the tech firms are now held by people coming directly from intelligence agencies.

For example James Baker, who the Twitter Files revealed was involved in most censorship decisions prior to Elon Musk’s takeover of the platform, worked as general counsel for the FBI before he became deputy counsel for Twitter.

“So the FBI sent its top lawyer to go work in the part of Twitter that censored political content,” Greenwald said. “Do you understand? That’s the FBI controlling our domestic political discourse and the limits of it.”

MintPress News profiled a number of former CIA agents who now manage and develop misinformation policies for Facebook in a July 2022 article that Greenwald shared.

According to the article, the problem isn’t that these people are incompetent. “The problem is that having so many former CIA employees running the world’s most important information and news platforms is only one small step removed from the agency itself deciding what you see and what you do not see online — and all with essentially no public oversight.”

Greenwald said this allows the intelligence agencies to maintain significant influence over news and information flows, while maintaining “some veneer of plausible deniability.”

The U.S. government doesn’t need to tell the platforms what to do because the people making the decisions rose in the ranks of the National Security State first — “meaning their outlooks match those of Washington’s,” Greenwald said, quoting MintPress News.

Greenwald said this is evidence of a multi-pronged effort, where on the one side, former security state operatives propagandize the American people on corporate media and on the other side, they control what can be said on the largest Big Tech platforms.

As a result, he said, the entire range of dissenting views is “simply banned.”

The ‘censorship-industrial complex’

The Twitter account @NameRedacted247 tracks the movement of security state operatives into social media corporations where they work on misinformation and disinformation.

The account provided a thread, which Greenwald’s team confirmed, reporting that as of December 2022, Google employed at least 165 people in high-ranking positions from the intelligence community.

Across the company there were 27 former CIA agents, 52 former FBI agents, 30 people who came from the National Security Agency (NSA), 50 from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and six from the Director of National Intelligence.

Facebook had at least 115 former security state operatives in high-ranking positions — 17 from the CIA, 37 from the FBI, 23 from the NSA and 38 from DHS.

Google’s “trust and safety team,” which manages what content is allowed on the platform, is managed by three former CIA agents who control misinformation and hate speech.

One of them, Nick Rossman, referred to “anti-vaxxers” on Twitter as “Nazis” and “Confederates,” Greenwald said, asking:

“Do you think these people are objective arbiters of misinformation? Or do you think they’re using their censorship power inside Big Tech for this in the same way that people inside corporate media are using it to advance the propaganda games of these agencies against their own citizens?”

Greenwald presented a series of online profiles of people who worked in intelligence for years or decades before recently moving into their new roles in Big Tech.

Matt Taibbi reported that the companies began hiring former intelligence agents after the 2016 election when the FBI established its social media-focused task force, The Foreign Influence Task Force or FITF.

Since then, a massive “censorship-industrial complex” has grown up, Greenwald said, that includes the U.S. state, philanthropic foundations, “fact-checking” organizations, Big Tech, universities, think tanks, nonprofits and private contractors.

The ‘hallmark of totalitarianism’

But the most amazing part of this story, Greewnald said, is the lack of pushback by liberals, who used to be the primary critics of the security state. “Central to left liberal politics was the view that these agencies are nefarious,” he said. But that all changed with the Trump presidency:

“… in 2015, in 2016, the US Security state aligned itself against Donald Trump and devoted itself to sabotaging first the Trump campaign and then the Trump presidency.

“That’s where Russiagate came from. That’s where all of those scams came from, including the lie in 2020 if the Hunter Biden laptop was misinformation.”

And because there are now very few media outlets reporting critically on these agencies, he said, they are at “the peak of their power, more powerful than ever.”

Because of that, he said they are embedded in the biggest corporations that control information and propaganda in the U.S. — corporate media and Big Tech.

Greenwald concluded:

“This is why they’re so obsessed with destroying the few outposts of independent media, the few places they cannot control, because without those, they really do have a fully closed information system.

“And a fully closed information system is the hallmark of totalitarianism. If you can control how people think and prevent them from hearing dissent, you can control all of their actions because their actions are based in what their thoughts are.

“And if you can control their thoughts, you don’t even need to control their actions. And that is the system that is being created.”

Brenda Baletti Ph.D. is a reporter for The Defender. She wrote and taught about capitalism and politics for 10 years in the writing program at Duke University. She holds a Ph.D. in human geography from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a master’s from the University of Texas at Austin.

This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.

July 14, 2023 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video | CIA, COVID-19 Vaccine, FBI, Human rights, NSA, United States | Leave a comment

Former FBI Agent: Wray ‘Evasive’ Under Scrutiny Because Bureau Has Become ‘Ministry of Truth’

By Fantine Gardinier – Sputnik – 14.07.2023

FBI Director Christopher Wray was grilled by lawmakers at a Thursday hearing called by the House Judiciary Committee that demanded answers about the bureau’s coordination with social media companies, its alleged abuse of a secret intelligence court, and use of informants during the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol Building.

FBI Director Christopher Wray has been blasted by US House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) for “weaponization of the government against the American people,” which he said had eroded public confidence in the integrity of the FBI, on Thursday.

Jordan and other GOP lawmakers spent several hours interrogating the federal law enforcement chief about a number of incidents they said proved the FBI was being used as a political bludgeon against conservatives, including the use of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) to spy on Donald Trump’s presidential campaign during the 2016 election, a now-withdrawn memo from the FBI’s office in Richmond, Virginia, that suggested spying on Catholic anti-abortion groups over domestic terrorism fears, and news that some people involved in the breaching of the US Capitol by Trump supporters on January 6, 2021, were paid FBI informants who acted as provocateurs.

In response, Wray pointed to the fact that he is a registered Republican Party member, telling lawmakers that “the idea that I’m biased against conservatives seems somewhat insane to me, given my own personal background.”

He also rejected the GOP lawmakers’ assertions that the FBI used agent provocateurs to encourage people to commit crimes on January 6 or that the agency was protecting the Biden family by sitting on potentially incriminating information or suppressing a news story about the contents of Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop computer. However, he acknowledged the FBI’s failings in properly using the FISC, in line with previous findings by special counsel John Durham and a DoJ Inspector General’s report.

Coleen Rowley, a retired FBI agent and whistleblower over the bureau’s failure to stop the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, said Wray was “evasive” and had to resort to “euphemistic bromides” to defend the FBI’s reputation, because of the demands placed on the bureau by US policies.

Noting that Wray had adopted a “9/11 changed everything” mindset, Rowley pointed out that “it’s one of the few things they don’t lie about: 9/11 did change everything. Between the Vietnam War and the so-called War on Terror, that now has morphed into a war on rival economic nuclear superpowers … has created all of this polarization and power mongering and control of the media through propaganda, which is what we’re talking about with the FBI now serving as liaison – if you want a nice term for it – our liaison telling social media what to censor.”

She noted that in a recent federal court order blocking the Biden administration from much of the coordination over suppressing so-called “disinformation” on social media, the judge noted there are some 80 FBI agents working in that area.

“We talked about all the work on violent crime and the FBI work against child predators, etc. I disagree that those are the priorities. The priority has been supporting the narrative. And you can see this going all the way back to Russiagate with [Peter] Strzok and all the rest, trying to do what they could on election issues, etc., and carrying through to today where 80 FBI agents are in this disinformation component.”

“He tried to say, ‘no no, it’s not about us declaring what is disinformation to the social media, it’s all about foreign influence’. So he’s trying to steer it in that direction, which makes it more difficult for the Republicans to attack. But in fact, I think it’s been acknowledged that this was a truth ministry. And in fact, that’s the Orwell term: Ministry of Truth. And that’s actually in the judge’s injunction, that the FBI is acting as a Ministry of Truth, deciding what is misinformation or not. And, of course, we’re living in an era where government propaganda has been legalized.”

Rowley turned to the subject of Ray Epps, an Arizona man who has filed a lawsuit against Fox News for pushing a story that Epps was “an undercover FBI agent and was responsible for the mob that violently broke into the Capitol and interfered with the peaceful transition of power for the first time in this country’s history,” according to the filing.

In a short video, Epps can be heard telling demonstrators they need to go into the Capitol but will probably be arrested for doing so, after which someone started chanting “Fed, Fed, Fed!”

“Let me just explain a few additional points about this business of ’undercover agents,’” Rowley told Sputnik. “This was a confusing thing, some of the Congress people didn’t understand: when you ask about an undercover agent, that’s a specific meaning. That means an actual FBI special agent who has gone through the special training that they give, behavioral training, to assume a role. It goes through a whole process. So what they really wanted to ask, Ray Epps was not an undercover agent by the FBI definition. What he was, if anything, was an informant, or they call it now a ‘confidential human source’ or something like that – there’s different categories even of confidential human sources.”

However, the former FBI agent pointed out that “when it comes to a protest, the FBI would have been remiss not to have lots of agents being on the ground. So, even if you go back to 2008 in the Twin Cities, when the Republican National Convention occurred, I was in a library room with 20 people talking about [how] there was going to be a march against the RNC and there was going to be a peace picnic, etc. And we were in this little library room: three of the people in the room were FBI or Joint Terrorism Task Force, okay? There were only 20 people listening and two or three of them were law enforcement. One guy was hiding, he thought I might recognize him, so he was hiding behind someone else.”

Rowley noted that the FBI also designates “special events” where they dispatch agents, which even includes non-political events such as golf tournaments.

“So that’s one thing. Then the other thing is the operation of actual FBI informants. And that, of course, has to be cloaked with complete secrecy. So I don’t know if it has to be in some cases, but that’s the rule, that’s the procedure. So of course, Wray was hedging on this. He would not answer.”

“A lot of the entrapments that we saw in the War on Terror, they were issues of an informant or a source egging on a group of people to pretend that they were, you know, bombing something. And that’s the modus operandi here. And so then, of course, the source has to back out. They what they do is they egg it on and then at the end, they don’t show up at the tail end. So for the actual event, that’s a common profile. That’s what in fact, that’s what they’re trying to do. So Ray Epps actually does fit that profile, whether or not he could have been just a normal person out there and, you know, maybe he got cold feet after a while. Or, he does fit the profile. And therefore, if Tucker Carlson said, ‘What’s the explanation?’ You know, really, that’s a good question. What is the truth? And, of course, the FBI won’t tell you the truth about any informants who commit criminal acts,” Rowley explained. “They’re allowed to do that under the cloak of secrecy.”

July 14, 2023 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | FBI, Human rights, United States | Leave a comment

US House Panel Reportedly Concludes FBI Helped Ukrainian Intel Censor US Accounts

Sputnik – 11.07.2023

WASHINGTON – The FBI helped the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) censor social media accounts based in the United States as part of an effort to combat alleged Russian disinformation, US media reported, citing a US House Judiciary Committee report.

The FBI forwarded Meta an SBU-provided list of accounts flagged for removal, based on their alleged involvement in spreading disinformation, the Monday report detailed. However, the list included some US-based accounts, including the US State Department’s own Russian-language Instagram account.

The FBI and SBU marked authentic accounts belonging to the US government and journalists in an effort to have them censored, the report said.

The Judiciary Committee’s allegations are reportedly based on information gained through subpoenas sent to Meta and Alphabet – the parent company of Google and YouTube.

Google was inundated with censorship requests following the launch of Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine, the report said, citing a senior Google cybersecurity official. The requests primarily came from the Ukrainian government, other Eastern European governments, the EU and European Commission, the employee reportedly said.

The judiciary panel’s report was developed alongside the subcommittee on the weaponization of the US government, which is investigating governmental abuse of authority and collaboration with private companies to suppress certain viewpoints.

The FBI’s actions constitute unconstitutional misconduct and endanger national security, the lawmakers’ report said. The subject is expected to arise during a committee hearing with FBI chief Christopher Wray later this week.

The allegations mirror those made earlier this year in the so-called “Twitter Files” release, which featured an email demonstrating collaboration between the FBI and SBU to forward censorship requests to Twitter.

July 11, 2023 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | FBI, Human rights, Ukraine, United States | Leave a comment

“Orwellian Ministry Of Truth” Busted – Judge Bars Biden Officials, Agencies From Contacting Social Media Companies

By Tyler Durden | Zero Hedge | July 5, 2023

In an order fittingly issued on Independence Day, a federal judge in Louisiana has forbidden multiple federal agencies and named officials from having any contact with social media companies with the intent to moderate content.

The preliminary injunction arises from a suit filed by the states of Missouri and Louisiana, along with individuals that include two leading critics of the Covid-19 lockdown regime — Harvard’s Martin Kulldorff and Stanford’s Jay Bhattacharya — and Jim Hoft, who owns the right-wing website Gateway Pundit.

“If the allegations made by plaintiffs are true, the present case arguably involves the most massive attack against free speech in United States’ history,” wrote US District Judge Terry A. Doughty. “The plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits in establishing that the government has used its power to silence the opposition.”

The dozens of people and agencies bound by the injunction include President Biden, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, the Food and Drug Administration, Centers for Disease Control, the Treasury Department, State Department, the US Election Assistance Commission, the FBI and entire Justice Department, and the Department of Health and Human Services.

Bhattacharya and Kulldorff, who are among the originators of the Great Barrington Declaration that denounced the lockdown regime, have been victims of social media censorship. For example, the pair says their censorship-triggering statements included assertions that “thinking everyone must be vaccinated is scientifically flawed,” questioning the value of masks, and stating that natural immunity is stronger than vaccine immunity.

While the case is dominated by Covid-19 censorship, it also encompasses the Justice Department’s efforts to suppress reporting about Hunter Biden’s “laptop from hell” in the run-up to the 2020 election. Doughty gave credence to that accusation.

The injunction represents a major validation of accusations that government officials have colluded with social media platforms to suppress speech that counters official narratives, with the restraints falling almost exclusively on conservative viewpoints.

“The evidence thus far depicts an almost dystopian scenario,” wrote Doughty in a 155-page ruling. “During the COVID-19 pandemic, a period perhaps best characterized by widespread doubt and uncertainty, the United States Government seems to have assumed a role similar to an Orwellian ‘Ministry of Truth’.”

“The White House defendants made it very clear to social-media companies what they wanted suppressed and what they wanted amplified,” wrote Doughty. “Faced with unrelenting pressure from the most powerful office in the world, the social-media companies apparently complied.”

Doughty quoted communications from administration officials to social media company employees, saying they represent “examples of coercion exercised by the White House defendants.” Here’s a small sampling:

“Cannot stress the degree to which this needs to be resolved immediately. Please remove this account immediately.”
To Facebook: “Are you guys fucking serious? I want an answer on what happened here and I want it today.”
“This is a concern that is shared at the highest (and I mean highest) levels of the WH”
“Hey folks, wanted to flag the below tweet and am wondering if we can get moving on the process of having it removed. ASAP”

The judge noted that the badgering came simultaneous with threats of changing the social media regulation scheme, and that those threats had extra credibility since they came as the Democrats controlled the White House and Congress.

The accusation that the social media platforms and government were acting in concert is substantiated by the communication and bureaucracy that surrounded the endeavor. “Many emails between the White House and social-media companies referred to themselves as ‘partners.’ Twitter even sent the White House a ‘Partner Support Portal’ for expedited review of the White House’s requests,” wrote Doughty, a 2017 Trump nominee.

A long list of agencies and people are now barred from contacting social media platforms with “the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech.”

“If there is a bedrock principal underlying the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable,” wrote Doughty.

July 5, 2023 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | FBI, United States | Leave a comment

Who Is National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Why He Should Debate RFK Jr.

By Rick Sterling | Global Research | June 27, 2023

National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan is one of the key people driving US foreign policy. He was mentored by Hillary Clinton with regime changes in Honduras, Libya and Syria. He was the link between Nuland and Biden during the 2014 coup in Ukraine. As reported by Seymour Hersh, Sullivan led the planning of the Nord Stream pipelines destruction in September 2022. Sullivan guides or makes many large and small foreign policy decisions. This article will describe Jake Sullivan’s background, what he says, what he has been doing, where the US is headed and why this should be debated.

Background

Jake Sullivan was born in November 1976. He describes his formative years like this:

“I was raised in Minnesota in the 1980s, a child of the later Cold War – of Rocky IV, the Miracle on Ice, and ‘Tear down this wall’. The 90s were my high school and college years. The Soviet Union collapsed. The Iron Curtain disappeared. Germany was reunified. An American-led alliance ended a genocide in Bosnia and prevented one in Kosovo. I went to graduate school in England and gave fiery speeches on the floor of the Oxford Union about how the United States was a force for good in the world.”

Sullivan’s education includes Yale (BA), Oxford (MA) and Yale again (JD). He went quickly from academic studies and legal work to political campaigning and government.

Sullivan made important contacts during his college years at elite institutions. For example, he worked with former Deputy Secretary of State and future Brookings Institution president, Strobe Talbott. After a few years clerking for judges, Sullivan transitioned to a law firm in his hometown of Minneapolis. He soon became chief counsel to Senator Amy Klobuchar who connected him to the rising Senator Hillary Clinton.

Mentored by Hillary

Sullivan became a key adviser to Hillary Clinton in her campaign to be Democratic party nominee in 2008. At age 32, Jake Sullivan became deputy chief of staff and director of policy planning when she became secretary of state. He was her constant companion, travelling with her to 112 countries.

The Clinton/Sullivan foreign policy was soon evident. In Honduras, Clinton clashed with progressive Honduras President Manuel Zelaya over whether to re-admit Cuba to the OAS. Seven weeks later, on June 28, Honduran soldiers invaded the president’s home and kidnapped him out of the country, stopping en route at the US Air Base. The coup was so outrageous that even the US ambassador to Honduras denounced it. This was quickly over-ruled as the Clinton/Sullivan team played semantics games to say it was a coup but not a “military coup.” Thus the Honduran coup regime continued to receive US support. They quickly held a dubious election to make the restoration of President Zelaya “moot”. Clinton is proud of this success in her book “Hard Choices.”

Two years later the target was Libya. With Victoria Nuland as State Department spokesperson, the Clinton/Sullivan team promoted sensational claims of a pending massacre and urged intervention in Libya under the “responsibility to protect.” When the UN Security Council passed a resolution authorizing a no-fly zone to protect civilians, the US, Qatar and other NATO members distorted that and started air attacks on Libyan government forces. Today, 12 years later, Libya is still in chaos and war. The sensational claims of 2011 were later found to be false.

When the Libyan government was overthrown in Fall 2011, the Clinton/Sullivan State Department and CIA plotted to seize the Libyan weapons arsenal. Weapons were transferred to the Syrian opposition. US Ambassador Stevens and other Americans were killed in an internecine conflict over control of the weapons cache.

Undeterred, Clinton and Sullivan stepped up their attempts to overthrow the Syrian government. They formed a club of western nations and allies called the “Friends of Syria.” The “Friends” divided tasks – who would do what in the campaign to topple the sovereign state. Former policy planner at the Clinton/Sullivan State Department, Ann Marie Slaughter, called for “foreign military intervention.” Sullivan knew they were arming violent sectarian fanatics to overthrow the Syrian government. In an email to Hillary released by Wikileaks, Sullivan noted “AQ is on our side in Syria.”

Biden’s adviser during the 2014 Ukraine Coup

After being Clinton’s policy planner, Sullivan became President Obama’s director of policy planning (Feb 2011 to Feb 2013) then national security adviser to Vice President Biden (Feb 2013 to August 2014).

In his position with Biden, Sullivan had a close-up view of the February 2014 Ukraine coup. He was a key contact between Victoria Nuland, overseeing the coup, and Biden. In the secretly recorded conversation where Nuland and the US Ambassador to Ukraine discuss how to manage the coup, Nuland remarks that Jake Sullivan told her “you need Biden.” Biden gave the “attaboy” and the coup was “midwifed” following a massacre of police AND protesters on the Maidan plaza.

Sullivan must have observed Biden’s use of the vice president’s position for personal family gain. He would have been aware of Hunter Biden’s appointment to the board of the Burisima Ukrainian energy company, and the reason Joe Biden demanded that the Ukrainian special prosecutor who was investigating Burisima to be fired. Biden later bragged and joked about this.

In December 2013, at a conference hosted by Chevron Corporation, Victoria Nuland said the US has spent five BILLION dollars to bring “democracy” to Ukraine.

Sullivan helped create Russiagate

Jake Sullivan was a leading member of the 2016 Hillary Clinton team which promoted Russiagate. The false claim that Trump was secretly contacting Russia was promoted initially to distract from negative news about Hillary Clinton and to smear Trump as a puppet of Putin. Both the Mueller and Durham investigations officially discredited the main claims of Russiagate. There was no collusion. The accusations were untrue, and the FBI gave them unjustified credence for political reasons.

Sullivan played a major role in the deception as shown by his “Statement from Jake Sullivan on New Report Exposing Trump’s Secret Line of Communication to Russia.”

Sullivan’s misinformation

Jake Sullivan is a good speaker, persuasive and with a dry sense of humor. At the same time, he can be disingenuous. Some of his statements are false. For example, in June 2017 Jake Sullivan was interviewed by Frontline television program about US foreign policy and especially US-Russia relations. Regarding NATO’s overthrow of the Libyan government, Sullivan says, “Putin came to believe that the United States had taken Russia for a ride in the UN Security Council that authorized the use of force in Libya… He thought he was authorizing a purely defensive mission… Now on the actual language of the resolution, it’s plain as day that Putin was wrong about that.” Contrary to what Sullivan claims, the UN Security Council resolution clearly authorizes a no-fly zone for the protection of civilians, no more. It’s plain as day there was NOT authorization for NATO’s offensive attacks and “regime change.”

Planning the Nord Stream Pipeline destruction

The bombing of the Nord Stream pipelines, filled with 50 billion cubic meters of natural gas, was a monstrous environmental disaster. The destruction also caused huge economic damage to Germany and other European countries. It has been a boon for US liquefied natural gas exports which have surged to fill the gap, but at a high price. Many European factories dependent on cheap gas have closed down. Tens of thousands of workers lost their jobs.

Seymour Hersh reported details of How America Took Out the Nord Stream Pipeline. He says, “Biden authorized Jake Sullivan to bring together an interagency group to come up with a plan.” A sabotage plan was prepared and officials in Norway and Denmark included in the plot. The day after the sabotage, Jake Sullivan tweeted

“I spoke to my counterpart Jean-Charles Ellermann-Kingombe of Denmark about the apparent sabotage of Nord Stream pipelines. The U.S. is supporting efforts to investigate and we will continue our work to safeguard Europe’s energy security.”

Ellerman-Kingombe may have been one of the Danes informed in advance of the bombing. He is close to the US military and NATO command.

Since then, the Swedish investigation of Nord Stream bombing has made little progress. Contrary to Sullivan’s promise in the tweet, the US has not supported other efforts to investigate. When Russia proposed an independent international investigation of the Nord Stream sabotage at the UN Security Council, the resolution failed due to lack of support from the US and US allies. Hungary’s foreign minister recently asked,

“How on earth is it possible that someone blows up critical infrastructure on the territory of Europe and no one has a say, no one condemns, no one carries out an investigation?”

Economic Plans devoid of reality

Ten weeks ago Jake Sullivan delivered a major speech on “Renewing American Economic Leadership” at the Brookings Institution. He explains how the Biden administration is pursuing a “modern industrial and innovation strategy.” They are trying to implement a “foreign policy for the middle class” which better integrates domestic and foreign policies. The substance of their plan is to increase investments in semiconductors, clean energy minerals and manufacturing. However the new strategy is very unlikely to achieve the stated goal to “lift up all of America’s people, communities, and industries.” Sullivan’s speech completely ignores the elephant in the room: the costly US Empire including wars and 800 foreign military bases which consume about 60% of the total discretionary budget. Under Biden and Sullivan’s foreign policy, there is no intention to rein in the extremely costly military industrial complex. It is not even mentioned.

US exceptionalism 2.0

In December 2018 Jake Sullivan wrote an essay titled “American Exceptionalism, Reclaimed.” It shows his foundational beliefs and philosophy. He separates himself from the “arrogant brand of exceptionalism” demonstrated by Dick Cheney. He also criticizes the “American first” policies of Donald Trump. Sullivan advocates for “a new American exceptionalism” and “American leadership in the 21^st Century.”

Sullivan has a shallow Hollywood understanding of history: “The United States stopped Hitler’s Germany, saved Western Europe from economic ruin, stood firm against the Soviet Union, and supported the spread of democracy worldwide.” He believes “The fact that the major powers have not returned to war with one another since 1945 is a remarkable achievement of American statecraft.”

Jake Sullivan is young in age but his ideas are old. The United States is no longer dominant economically or politically. It is certainly not “indispensable.” More and more countries are objecting to US bullying and defying Washington’s demands. Even key allies such as Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates are ignoring US requests. The trend toward a multipolar world is escalating. Jake Sullivan is trying to reverse the trend but reality and history are working against him. Over the past four or five decades, the US has gone from being an investment, engineering and manufacturing powerhouse to a deficit spending consumer economy waging perpetual war with a bloated military industrial complex.

Instead of reforming and rebuilding the US, the national security state expends much of its energy and resources trying to destabilize countries deemed to be “adversaries”.

Conclusion

Previous national security advisers Henry Kissinger and Zbignew Brzezinski were very influential.

Kissinger is famous for wooing China and dividing the communist bloc. Jake Sullivan is now wooing India in hopes of dividing that country from China and the BRICS alliance (Brazil,Russia, India, China, South Africa).

Brzezinski is famous for plotting the Afghanistan trap. By destabilizing Afghanistan with foreign terrorists beginning 1978, the US induced the Soviet Union to send troops to Afghanistan at the Afghan government’s request. The result was the collapse of the progressive Afghan government, the rise of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and 40 years of war and chaos.

On 28 February 2022, just four days after Russian troops entered Ukraine, Jake Sullivan’s mentor, Hillary Clinton, was explicit: “Afghanistan is the model.” It appears the US intentionally escalated the provocations in Ukraine to induce Russia to intervene. The goal is to “weaken Russia.” This explains why the US has spent over $100 billion sending weapons and other support to Ukraine. This explains why the US and UK undermined negotiations which could have ended the conflict early on.

The Americans who oversaw the 2014 coup in Kiev, are the same ones running US foreign policy today: Joe Biden, Victoria Nuland and Jake Sullivan. Prospects for ending the Ukraine war are very poor as long as they are in power.

The Democratic Party constantly emphasizes “democracy” yet there is no debate or discussion over US foreign policy. What kind of “democracy” is this where crucial matters of life and death are not discussed?

Robert F Kennedy Jr is now running in the Democratic Party primary. He has a well informed and critical perspective on US foreign policy including the never ending wars, the intelligence agencies and the conflict in Ukraine.

Jake Sullivan is a skilled debater. Why doesn’t he debate Democratic Party candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr over US foreign policy and national security?

Rick Sterling can be contacted at RSterling1@gmail.com.

June 27, 2023 Posted by aletho | Deception, Militarism | FBI, Hillary Clinton, Obama, United States | Leave a comment

Leave Trump Alone (Because It Does Not Matter)

By Peter Van Buren | We Meant Well | June 26, 2023

The narrative is set. Everything between now and November 2024, absent an actual alien intervention, is filler material.

Trump will ride his narrative to the polls, campaigning even if in hand cuffs and an ankle monitor. He is, he will make clear, the victim of a Democratic plot to weaponize “justice,” dating back to 2016 when Hillary was let off scot-free for her email shenanigans, followed by the FBI’s concocted Russiagate, two impeachments, and now a carousel of indictments. His opponent is Joe Biden, older than Yoda but presenting more like Jar Jar, crooked in cahoots with his scum bag son to hard suck bribe money out of eastern Europe. Sleepy Joe’s narrative is to count on the same FBI going after Trump with both barrels to shuffle its feet investigating him and Hunter through the election, with a final surge under the slogan “Oh who cares, I’m not Trump!” to wrap things up. It’s all a rich tapestry.

The problem is it is compelling; there is a lot of truth underneath the showmanship. There was David Petraeus, Obama’s CIA Director, who leaked secret docs to his girlfriend, and Sandy Berger, Clinton’s NSA Director, who stole secret docs. But it was Hillary who did get away with it all, at the FBI’s discretion (so much for one law for everyone) what Trump has been accused of in Mar-a-Lago. Hillary Clinton maintained an unsecured private email server which processed classified material on a daily basis. Her server held at least 110 known messages containing classified information, including e-mail chains classified at the Top Secret/Special Access Program level, the highest level of civilian classification. The FBI found classified intelligence improperly stored and transmitted on Clinton’s server “was compromised by unauthorized individuals, to include foreign governments or intelligence services, via cyber intrusion or other means.”

Clinton and her team destroyed tens of thousands of emails, evidence, as well as physical phones and Blackberries which potentially held evidence — obstruction as clear as it comes. She operated the server out of her home kitchen despite the presence of the Secret Service on property who failed to report it. A server in a closet is not as dramatic a visual as boxes of classified stored in a shower room, but justice is supposed to be blind. More recently, what of Mike Pence and Joe Biden, both of whom have escaped indictment so far on similar charges of mishandling classified information. Trump voters know if the FBI is going to take similar fact sets and ignore one while aggressively pursuing another, it is partial and political. No matter which candidate wins and loses, DOJ’s credibility is tanked.

The Stormy Daniels case, and the guilty finding in the Jean Carroll defamation case, reek of politics. Neither case would have seen daylight outside of Democratic hive New York, and neither could have held up outside a partisan justice system that permits it to ignore Jeffrey Epstein’s death in custody or a city in a crime tornado (New York in the past year reduced 52 percent of all felony charges to misdemeanors, opposite of what was done to Trump) while aggressively allowing the system to pursue a decades-old rape case of dubious propriety.

Witch hunt meet Hunter. New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg ran for office on the promise to prosecute Trump. He fulfilled a campaign promise and paid off his George Soros-connected backers. Bragg, in the words of law professor Jonathan Turley, had a “very public, almost Hamlet-like process where he debated whether he could do this bootstrapping theory [bumping misdemeanors up to felonies in the Stormy case.] He stopped it for a while and was pressured to go forward with it. All of that smacks more of politics than prosecutorial discretion.”

Calling it all a witch hunt is just a starting point. The point here is not innocence; it is whether the justice system is going to take fact sets and ignore one while aggressively pursuing another, risking being seen as partial and political. No matter which candidate wins or loses, credibility is tanked.

Still to come (at the least) are whatever judicial actions will emerge from the Special Prosecutor over Trump’s role in January 6, and legal action over the 2020 Georgia vote count (with another Democratic openly anti-Trump prosecutor.) Trump jokes in his stump speech nowadays every time he flies over a Blue State he gets another subpoena. He could easily head into the Republican convention to accept the nomination with multiple convictions and/or indictments on his shoulders. It won’t matter. The justice system is going to take fact sets and ignore some while aggressively pursuing others, partial and political plain as day. No matter which candidate wins, credibility is tanked. It grinds that most of the serious charges against Trump are under the hoary Espionage Act, seen by many as reviving the now-discredited trope Trump was a Russian agent.

Mostly overlooked for now is how much of the apparent evidence against Trump at Mar-a-Lago came from his own attorneys. Attorney-client privilege is recognized as one of the cornerstones of fairness in our system. In the Trump case, the Justice Department used the one major exception to privilege, when the communication is intended to further a criminal or fraudulent act, to compel Trump’s lawyers to give evidence against their own client. Justice asserted Trump lied to his own team about having no more classified documents, and that this constituted a crime of fraud and maybe obstruction, and thus privilege is not available and Trump’s lawyer can be made to testify against his client. The crime or fraud exception to attorney-client privilege itself has a long history, dating back to English common law. In the United States, the crime or fraud exception was first recognized by the Supreme Court in the 1840 case of United States v. Privileged Communications. But Trump’s supporters are unlikely to read deeply into the case law; all they’ll see is what looks like strong-arm tactics by the Department of Justice. No matter which candidate wins and loses, DOJ’s credibility is tanked.

The thing is no one has to work very hard to convince Trump supporters of the truth of what he is saying, that he is the victim. Trump support remained unmoved by the many investigations that plagued his presidency. Even during peak crises, views of him were static. Post-presidency polls continued the trend. Public opinion of Trump remains remarkably stable, despite his unprecedented legal challenges, and about half of Americans do not see his behavior as disqualifying, sharper if you divide along partisan lines. When asked if Trump’s legal troubles would impact their views of him, two-thirds of his supporters said it would not make a difference. That’s a committed bunch. Perhaps just as important, 57 percent of voters, including one-third of Democrats, said the indictment in New York earlier this year was politically motivated.

No one can say who will win in November 2024, but one loser is certain, faith in the rule of law by a large number of Americans. They will leave the polls certain the system was bent to “get” Trump, either saddened by the fall of blind justice or saddened that it did not work and Trump remined a powerful figure with a large movement behind him, either in or out of the Oval Office.

June 26, 2023 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Progressive Hypocrite | DOJ, FBI, Hillary Clinton, United States | Leave a comment

CIA Vet Warns US Intel Agencies ‘Will Do Everything’ to Help Dems in 2024 Race

By Svetlana Ekimenko – Sputnik – 22.06.2023

Former Special Counsel John Durham offered his first public testimony before the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday regarding the details of his report into the FBI’s handling of allegations of collusion between ex-President Donald Trump and Russia. The day before, Durham testified behind closed doors to the US House Intelligence Committee.

While it is not completely clear whether the Federal Bureau of Investigation knew from the outset that dug-up “information on Trump” had been paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign in 2016, there is “no excuse for their having learned that and, nevertheless, proceeded with the investigation,” former CIA station chief Philip Giraldi told Sputnik.

“There might have been personal malice involved in going after Trump, but that has not been clearly demonstrated,” the Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest added, referencing the FBI’s investigation into the alleged Trump-Russia “collusion”.

Former Special Counsel John Durham paid his second visit to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to face the House Judiciary Committee over the details of his May report, released after almost a four-year-long investigation into the origins of the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation codenamed, Crossfire Hurricane. Durham had found that the agency had been “seriously deficient,” relying on “raw, unanalyzed, and uncorroborated intelligence,” when probing the 2016 Donald Trump campaign’s alleged ties to “Russia.”

“One has to assume that the Bureau felt it had a great deal invested in maintaining Democratic Party control of the presidency and that there were concerns that Trump would upset the arrangements made under [Barack] Obama,” Giraldi said.

The Durham report had also exposed the Democratic establishment’s anti-Trump narrative, and the role of Hillary Clinton’s campaign in spawning and then pushing the Trump-Russia collusion hoax.

During his probe, the special counsel charged and convicted FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith, who admitted to doctoring an email to state that Trump aide Carter Page had never been a CIA asset (which was not true) in order to push ahead with surveilling the former Trump campaign adviser. Durham also brought charges against Hillary Clinton’s campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann and Brookings Institution scholar Igor Danchenko for lying to the FBI. Danchenko has served as the main ‘subsource’ for ex-MI6 agent Christopher Steele, the author of the now infamous Steele dossier. It had been funded by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) through the law firm Perkins Coie, which Marc Elias and Michael Sussmann worked for at the time.

The claims the “dirty” dossier contained were used by the FBI in a series of clandestine preliminary probes against Trump starting from 2016. John Durham, as part of his investigation, found that Steele’s source, Danchenko, when questioned by the FBI was unable to confirm any of the assumptions.

‘Acting on Behalf of the Deep State’

As the Hillary Clinton 2016 campaign sought to use fabricated information from the Steele dossier to smear Donald Trump and some of his advisors, similar tactics were wielded in the 2020 elections, Philip Giraldi previously underscored. After the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees found that senior Biden campaign officials colluded with the CIA to falsely discredit Hunter Biden’s “laptop from hell” as “Russian disinformation”, Giraldi pointed out that former acting CIA Director Michael Morell had drafted the notorious letter, titled “Public Statement on the Hunter Biden emails.” It was signed by 51 former intelligence officials including CIA Directors John Brennan, Leon Panetta, and Mike Hayden, former acting CIA Director Michael Morell, former Director of National Intelligence and James Clapper. The letter claimed that the data on Hunter’s hard drive “has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”

“The CIA did not ‘approve’ of the letter from the 51 former national security officials. My understanding is that it was submitted to them because the Agency exercises ‘prepublication review’ over all articles and books written by former undercover officers to block the publication of any national secrets. In this case, as I understand it, they confirmed that the letter contained no classified information. The letter itself was largely the product of collaboration by Tony Blinken and Michael Morell, both Democratic Party loyalists who expected to benefit personally,” Giraldi emphasized.

The 51 ex-spies’ opinion was quickly disseminated by the US mainstream press, while the Hunter Biden laptop story, shedding light on the Biden family’s questionable business dealings, was suppressed by both Big Media and Big Tech.

“Morell, Blinken and associates should have known that they were acting on behalf of the deep state and were in fact damaging US democracy such as it is! When the national security agencies go after candidates it is in fact the death of government of and by the people,” Giraldi remarked.

Ahead of John Durham’s testimony on June 21, Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) underscored in his opening statement that the hearing was tasked to provide more “detail and add more color” to the findings of the May report.

“Seven years of attacking Trump is scary enough… What’s more frightening is that any one of us could be next,” Jordan emphasized.

A number of Republicans echoed John Durham’s calls for reforming the FBI, underscoring that the agency, had become “politicized” and “weaponized”, and had carried out a “politically motivated” investigation of Donald Trump.

Looking ahead at the next election cycle, where both Biden and Trump are gearing up to vie for another Oval Office stint, Philip Giraldi concluded:

“For 2024, I expect that the agencies will do everything they can to help Biden or whoever replaces him from the Democratic Party but they will be a lot more careful about how they do it than they were in 2020.”

June 22, 2023 Posted by aletho | Corruption, Deception, Russophobia | CIA, DNC, FBI, Hillary Clinton, MI6, United States | Leave a comment

Is the Dam About to Burst on the Biden Crime Family?

By Andy Behlen | The Libertarian Institute | June 13, 2023

House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) said on June 5 that the FBI has a file on an informant that accuses President Joe Biden and his family of accepting millions of dollars in bribes.

“It suggests a pattern of bribery where payments would be made through shell accounts and multiple banks,” Comer said last week.

Comer described the informant as a trusted and “highly credible” source to the FBI.

FBI Director Christopher Wray initially refused to hand the committee the document, known as an FD-1023 form, which was dated from June 2020. Comer threatened to hold Wray in contempt of Congress over it. The committee even drafted a contempt resolution. But Wray yielded last week and allowed members of the committee to review the document.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL), a Republican member of the House oversight committee, tweeted “The (FBI) is afraid their informant will be killed if unmasked, based on the info he has brought forward about the Biden family.” Neither Comer nor any other committee member have echoed that sentiment.

The draft of the contempt resolution and memos from Committee staff provided a few details about the GOP’s latest allegations against the Biden family.

“Without having custody of the FD-1023 form… the Committee cannot assess whether the allegations in the document pose a national security risk,” the resolution stated. “Because of the FBI’s refusal to cooperate with our investigation, the Committee cannot use the allegations in the FD-1023 form to evaluate whether anyone from the Biden family received payments from the foreign national, how much those payments entailed, if they were made, and what, if any, companies (including shell companies) were used to make such payments.”

A memo dated March 16, 2023, detailed bank records that the committee subpoenaed. According to the memo, one of Biden family business associates, Mr. John Robinson Walker (Rob Walker), “transferred over $1.3 million in payments to Biden family members and their companies between 2015 and 2017, which he received from foreign companies and foreign nationals. The Rob Walker accounts made payments while then-Vice President Biden held public office.”

A second memo dated May 10, 2023, outlined additional bank record subpoenas:

“Through the Second Bank Records Memorandum, the Committee released several new findings. First, Biden family members and business associates created a web of over twenty companies—most of which were limited liability companies formed during Joe Biden’s vice presidency. Bank records showed the Biden family, their business associates, and their companies received over $10 million from foreign nationals’ companies. The Committee has identified payments to Biden family members from foreign companies while Joe Biden served as Vice President and after he left public office.”

After reviewing the FD-1023 form last week, Republican committee members confirmed that the allegations involve Hunter Biden’s relationship with the Ukrainian natural gas company Burisma Holdings.

It’s no secret that the Biden family has profited from business overseas, especially in Ukraine. But according to mainstream media reporting, all of this is perfectly fine and has nothing to do with corruption—even when a $5 million bribe shows up to shut down an investigation into the company that paid the president’s son $1 million a year.

On June 13, 2020, Reuters reported that Ukrainian authorities detained three individuals for offering $5 million in bribes to stop a corruption investigation into Mykola Zlochevsky, the founder and former president of Burisma Holdings..

The president’s son Hunter Biden joined the board of directors of Burisma Holdings in 2014, a position he held until 2019.

In 2020, Ukrainian anti-corruption officials were quick to exonerate the Bidens from any connection to the bribes.

“Let’s put an end to this once and for all. Biden Jr. and Biden Sr. do not appear in this particular proceeding,” said Nazar Kholodnytsky, head of the anti-corruption investigations in 2020.

The New York Post reported last week that Burisma paid Hunter Biden $83,333 per month while his father served as U.S. Vice President, according to invoices on the famous abandoned laptop. Those payments dropped by half after his father left office. Hunter Biden resigned from the Burisma board in 2019 while his father announced his presidential campaign.

In addition, Fox News reported last week on emails found on the laptop between the President’s son and Vadym Pozharskyi, an advisor to the Burisma board. In one exchange, Hunter Biden asked Pozharskyi to pass along his thanks to Burisma founder Mykola Zlochevsky for birthday gifts he received in 2016.

“Finally- thank (Zlochevsky) for the beautiful birthday gifts it was far too extravagant but much appreciated,” Hunter Biden said in the email dated February 4, 2016.

The emails did not indicate what the gifts were.

In March 2016, then-Vice President Joe Biden famously leveraged $1 billion in aid to Ukraine in order for the country to oust its top prosecutor, Viktor Shokin. Shokin had investigated Burisma Holdings in 2014 for money laundering.

In 2018 Biden bragged to the Council on Foreign Relations about his strong-armed negotiations with then-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko to get Shokin removed: “I looked at them and said: I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money. Well, son of a bitch, he got fired.”

But those close to the president said the threat to withhold aid had nothing to do with Burisma or Hunter Biden. A USA Today “Fact Check” from 2020 claims the reason was because Shokin did too little to fight corruption:

“Mike Carpenter, who served as a foreign policy adviser to the then-vice president, told USA TODAY that Shokin ‘never went after any corrupt individuals at all’ and ‘never prosecuted any high-profile cases of corruption.’”

That’s right—the Ukrainian prosecutor who investigated Burisma for money laundering “never went after any corrupt individuals at all.” To say otherwise would imply that Shokin may have had a case against Burisma and the President’s son.

Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) dropped a bombshell on Monday, saying that a Burisma executive at the center of the latest allegations has audio recording of then-vice president Biden accepting bribes, and that the FBI redacted this information in the FD-1023 form that the House Oversight Committee reviewed last week.

“The 1023 produced to that House Committee redacted reference that the foreign national who allegedly bribed Joe and Hunter Biden allegedly has audio recordings of his conversations with them—17 total recordings,” Grassley said in a speech on the Senate floor.

“These recordings were allegedly kept as a sort of insurance policy for the foreign national in case he got into a tight spot. The 1023 also indicates that then-Vice President Joe Biden may have been involved in Burisma employing Hunter Biden,” Grassley said.

Reporting on the development, Kerry Picket of The Washington Times wrote, “Mr. Grassley smelled a political double standard.”

“Special Counsel Jack Smith, who indicted former President Donald Trump on 37 counts, used an audio recording against former President Donald Trump and alleged Mr. Trump retained nuclear secrets and papers on foreign weapons systems at his Mar-a-Lago estate and waved around military plans to persons without proper clearance in 2021,” the article continued. “Mr. Grassley asked whether Delaware U.S. Attorney David Weiss was doing anything with respect to the alleged recordings of the Bidens ‘that are apparently relevant to a high-stakes bribery scheme.’”

It should be noted that the GOP’s investigation into Biden family corruption all began with tech companies’ efforts to censor stories about the Hunter Biden laptop in the leadup to the 2020 elections. Photos from the laptop purport to show Hunter Biden smoking crack and cavorting with hookers during the time when he sat on Burisma’s board of directors.

Andy Behlen is a reporter for the Fayette County Record, a twice-weekly newspaper in La Grange, Texas.

June 13, 2023 Posted by aletho | Corruption, Deception | FBI, Joe Biden, United States | Leave a comment

The Democrats Versus Trump: A Bad Horror Movie?

By Ron Paul | June 12, 2023

The Democrats and Donald Trump reminds me of a bad horror movie, where the hapless protagonists only make the monster stronger with each attempt to eliminate it. So goes the Democrats’ endless attempts to finally rid America of the “scourge” of Donald Trump.

Thanks to the Durham Report we now know they started even before Trump was elected president. Hillary Clinton’s campaign – with the full knowledge of the candidate and the sitting president, Barack Obama – cooked up a “dirty trick” to portray Trump as an agent of Russia in their effort to deny Trump the White House.

When that didn’t work they weaponized the FBI, CIA and the rest of the “deep state” to undermine and hobble his presidency. They spied on Trump and his campaign staff using false information manufactured by the FBI.

When that didn’t work they impeached him under the false charge that he sought foreign assistance for his 2020 re-election bid. This time a spy, in the person of NSC staffer Alexander Vindman, was sent to listen in on Trump’s phone call with Ukrainian president Zelensky and then make all manner of false charges against Trump based on it.

Democrats were furious that Trump was less than enthusiastic about their plans to use Ukraine as a proxy to go to war with Russia. Vindman, though an active-duty US military officer, was of Ukrainian background and was loyal to the country of his origin rather than the country of his citizenship. He also openly defied the military chain-of-command and his commander-in-chief. Trump’s lack of enthusiasm for their “Project Ukraine” infuriated Vindman and he sought his revenge against the US President.

When that didn’t work they impeached Trump again over the false charge that he led an “insurrection” against the US government on January 6, 2021. The more surveillance video we see of this “insurrection,” the more it looks like a false-flag operation cooked up perhaps by Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the Washington swamp to finally be rid of Trump. Hundreds of political prisoners have been held in solitary confinement on false accusations that they tried to overthrow the US government.

When that didn’t work and Trump’s re-election numbers looked more and more favorable while Biden’s approval rating continued to linger in the political basement, the Democrats have now indicted him over some classified documents apparently discovered in his residence in Florida.

The boxes and boxes of classified documents discovered at multiple Biden locations have disappeared into the memory hole with the help of the media. Nothing to see here.

Suddenly Donald Trump, who polling suggests would obliterate Joe Biden in a fair US election, faces 100 years in prison! Where else would you see the head of one political party arrest his main political opponent on cooked up charges? A banana republic!

For those of us who love this country, it is truly shocking to see this abuse of power. But there’s one thing these dirty tricksters never seem to understand: the more false evidence and false charges they cook up against Trump, the stronger Trump becomes. With these outrageous and continuous attacks on Trump, the Democratic Party (and plenty of Republicans) has lost all credibility. When this plan fails, and it will, I am afraid to think what they might try next.

June 12, 2023 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Progressive Hypocrite | CIA, FBI, Hillary Clinton, Obama, United States | Leave a comment

Trump’s Second Indictment Shows Democrats Uninterested in ‘Fair’ 2024 Election

Sputnik – 10.06.2023

The federal indictment against former US President Donald Trump was unsealed earlier Friday and revealed he was being charged with 37 felony counts, 31 of which were for violating the Espionage Act through his “willful retention” of classified records. The remaining offenses were for false statements and obstruction of justice.

The latest indictment filed against former US President Donald Trump highlights how much Democrats are uninterested in holding a “fair election” ahead of the 2024 presidential cycle, Ethan Ralph, a conservative political commentator and host of the Killstream, told Sputnik.

Ralph noted that “Democrats don’t seem to be interested in a fair election.”

“The increase in lawsuits, indictments, and other legal assaults on Trump is directly related to the viability of his 2024 candidacy,” the commentator said. “The Democrats themselves do not seem to think that they can beat Trump in a fair fight. Just look at their actions.”

The latest indictment filed against Trump centers around classified documents retrieved by FBI agents during a raid on his Mar-a-Lago residence. Although Trump has stated records were unclassified prior to him leaving office, his claims have not proven concrete as he did not follow government protocol.

Prior to this week’s indictment, Trump was previously hit with a 34-count indictment in New York for business fraud in April, and was later found liable for sexual abuse and defamation in early May in relation to a civil case filed by columnist E. Jean Carroll.

Asked whether the indictment had the potential of affecting the former president’s chances at returning to the Oval Office, Ralph admitted it was not likely Trump would wind up behind bars before the election kicked off.

“The latest federal indictment could hurt him with independents and other potential voters, but the polarization of the electorate and hardened views on Trump himself mean that it’s unlikely to hurt him very much,” he pointed out.

Not long after records were retrieved from Mar-a-Lago, classified documents began to turn up in the possession former US Vice President Mike Pence and US President Joe Biden.

In Biden’s case, several documents had been found at his Delaware home and office, as well as the Penn Biden Center in Washington, DC. However, unlike steps taken at Trump’s Florida residence, both the Biden and Pence cases did not involve a full blown raid and they haven’t received the same treatment in the media.

Ralph pointed out that “it’s particularly egregious” in how American media treated the cases – specifically that involving Biden. He noting that if outlets are going to cover the topic, it’s best to “have an equal playing field for Trump and non-Trump alike.”

“Last night on the cable news, you heard them making excuses for Biden’s behavior. But the fact remains; he mishandled classified material,” he pointed out. “It’s my opinion that this is a pretty common thing that goes on. It seems to cross both parties. It would be better not to politicize it to this degree.”

In the hours since Trump first revealed via a Truth Social post that he had been indicted, multiple political figures have come forward to condemn what they see as the weaponization of the US justice system against the former commander-in-chief.

Among the critics are Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who said late Thursday that it was “unconscionable” that Biden indicted “the leading candidate opposing him” in the 2024 election.

While the Biden White House has claimed it only found out about the indictment through the media, Ralph stated that the weaponization of federal law enforcement by Democrats is unlikely to ease up.

“I think as we move forward, the real danger is not just political retribution that the parties take on each other, but the retribution they eventually try to take on the other side’s voters,” Ralph said. “If empowered by a reelection and perhaps gains elsewhere, there’s a likelihood they take things further.”

“The useless US media certainly won’t do anything other than cheerlead the moves,” he concluded, pointing out that the “trend is towards repression by the West.”

June 11, 2023 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Progressive Hypocrite | FBI, United States | Leave a comment

Trump Indictment: FBI Veteran Raises Red Flags Over ‘Abnormal’ Mar-a-Lago Raid

By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 11.06.2023

A senior FBI official charged with executing the raid on former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago last year has raised a red flag about “abnormalities” and apparent violations in the Justice Department’s handling of the case.

Former Assistant Director of the FBI’s Washington Field Office (WFO) Steven D’Antuono has reached out to the US Congress citing concerns and frustration with the manner President Joe Biden’s Department of Justice arranged the August 2022 raid of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home.

House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan unveiled the damning testimony earlier this week and sent a letter to US Attorney General Merrick Garland demanding answers.

First, D’Antuono, who had two decades of FBI experience, drew attention to the fact that the bureau’s headquarters made the decision to assign the execution of the search warrant in Trump’s Miami residence to… the Washington Field Office. As per D’Antuono, it looked strange given that the search occurred in the territory of the Miami Field Office, which should have been assigned with the task under the bureau’s rules.

Second, the DoJ failed to assign a US Attorney’s Office to the investigative matter of that magnitude which was “unusual” as per the FBI veteran. This triggered D’Antuono’s deep concerns as it was “out of the ordinary.” He noted that he “never got a good answer” from DoJ with regard to this decision.

Third, the FBI did not first seek consent to effectuate the search. D’Antuono recalled that at the meeting between FBI and DoJ officials, the Department of Justice pushed the bureau to execute the search warrant as quickly as possible. Referring to his experience, the FBI veteran underscored that the agency should have sought consent to search the premises prior to the raid. D’Antuono suggested that either AG Garland or FBI Director Christopher Wray made the decision to seek a search warrant despite “opposition” from the agents working on the case in the WFO. D’Antuono pointed out that “there was a good likelihood that [Trump’s legal team] could have given consent.”

Fourth, the FBI refused to wait for Trump’s attorney to be present before the raid, as per D’Antuono. The bureau veteran claimed that the FBI sought to exclude Trump’s lawyers from the search, which again sounded an alarm for the senior officer.

The FBI veteran’s testimony has prompted US Republican lawmakers to make a repeated request for bureau documents and information concerning the raid. In his latest letter to AG Garland, Jordan pointed out that a previous request regarding the matter was rejected by the Department of Justice.

The alleged expose of DoJ misconduct during the August raid comes after the department indicted Republican presidential candidate Trump earlier this week, charging him with 37 counts including the mishandling of classified materials. The charges further include obstruction of justice, destruction or falsification of records, conspiracy and false statements, as well as one charge under the Espionage Act.

“The Department [of Justice] will indict President Donald Trump, despite declining to indict former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for her mishandling of classified information and failing to indict President Biden for his mishandling of classified information,” Jordan wrote. “The indictment creates, at the minimum, a serious appearance of a double standard and a miscarriage of justice.”

The latest row between House Republicans and the DoJ erupted amid the congressional investigation into the apparent “preferential treatment” of Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, who has been probed for tax crimes since at least 2018. The House GOP is also presently looking into an uncorroborated report about Joe Biden receiving a $5 million bribe, which has recently been provided by the FBI to lawmakers.

June 11, 2023 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Deception | DOJ, FBI, United States | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries Next Entries »

Alon Mizrahi: ‘Israel Must Be Dismantled’

Aletho News Videos

or go to

Aletho News Archives – Video-Images

From the Archives

Allies Don’t Need Lobbies

By Jay Knott | Dissident Voice | September 24, 2013

In a recent article on Counterpunch, Rob Urie defended the traditional Marxist analysis of US policy in the Middle East. He argues that support for Israel is driven primarily by economic interest, not the Jewish lobby.

He starts by paying tribute to the idea that Western societies are uniquely racist. He says that the “Western narrative” claims there is an “Arab character”, and that this is “antique racist blather”. He gives no definition of these terms. Further, he establishes his credentials as part of the dominant current in the American left by claiming that “over a million people in Iraq died so ‘we’ in the West can drive SUVs.”¹

When he tries to criticize bourgeois economics, he makes it clear he doesn’t understand the developments it has made since Marx’s day, using the mathematical discipline known as “game theory”. He dismisses the basic abstraction of economic theory, the idea of the rational individual, on the grounds that it is “devoid of history, culture and political context”. But abstractions are always devoid of something.

He defends a more concrete economic theory, mostly Marxist, with some input from another theorist of capitalist crisis, Hyman Minsky. This concrete theory leads him to the view that US activity in the Middle East is primarily driven by rational capitalist motives, the need to secure a supply of oil.

“Taking the totality of circumstance — former oil company executives launching war on an oil rich nation on a pretext they publicly proclaimed they didn’t believe shortly before taking office — and that upon launching their war proved to be non-existent, requires a willingness to overlook the obvious — that the war on Iraq was for oil, that is difficult to support.”¹

Perhaps I’ve misunderstood him, but based on what he says in the rest of the article, this convoluted sentence seems to argue that, because president Bush and vice-president Cheney attacked Iraq on false premises, and they also said it was all about oil, and they are former oil executives, and Iraq has a lot of oil, it’s difficult to deny US attacks on Iraq are all about oil.

In fact, it’s not hard at all. As Urie points out, at times Bush and co. said that attacking Iraq was “protecting the world’s supply of oil.”¹ But, as he also points out, they are congenital liars. Why should we believe them when they say they are trying to “protect” the oil supply? Protect it against what? When politicians “admit” attacks on Middle Eastern countries are wars for oil, they are parroting the neo-con party line, feeding the public, both left and right, with a plausible-sounding pretext. For right-wingers, “it’s a war for oil” is a reason to support war, and for leftists, it’s a way to feel better by complaining impotently about corporate greed. Both approaches help the war drive. … continue

Blog Roll

Subscribe to Aletho News

Enter your email address to receive new posts by email.

Email Address:

Join 2,446 other subscribers
Visits Since December 2009
- 7,425,282 hits
Looking for something?

Search for:
Archives
Archives
Calendar

March 2026

M T W T F S S

1

2 3 4 5 6 7 8

9 10 11 12 13 14 15

16 17 18 19 20 21 22

23 24 25 26 27 28 29

30 31

« Feb
Categories

Aletho News Civil Liberties Corruption Deception Economics Environmentalism Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism Fake News False Flag Terrorism Full Spectrum Dominance Illegal Occupation Mainstream Media, Warmongering Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity Militarism Progressive Hypocrite Russophobia Science and Pseudo-Science Solidarity and Activism Subjugation - Torture Supremacism, Social Darwinism Timeless or most popular Video War Crimes Wars for Israel
Tags
9/11 Afghanistan Africa al-Qaeda Australia BBC Benjamin Netanyahu Brazil Canada CDC Central Intelligence Agency China CIA CNN Covid-19 COVID-19 Vaccine Donald Trump Egypt European Union Facebook FBI FDA France Gaza Germany Google Hamas Hebron Hezbollah Hillary Clinton Human rights Hungary India Iran Iraq ISIS Israel Israeli settlement Japan Jerusalem Joe Biden Korea Latin America Lebanon Libya Middle East National Security Agency NATO New York Times North Korea NSA Obama Pakistan Palestine Poland Qatar Russia Sanctions against Iran Saudi Arabia Syria The Guardian Turkey Twitter UAE UK Ukraine United Nations United States USA Venezuela Washington Post West Bank WHO Yemen Zionism

March 2026
M	T	W	T	F	S	S
	1
2	3	4	5	6	7	8
9	10	11	12	13	14	15
16	17	18	19	20	21	22
23	24	25	26	27	28	29
30	31

Aletho News
If Americans Knew
No Tricks Zone
Contact:

atheonews (at) gmail.com
Disclaimer

This site is provided as a research and reference tool. Although we make every reasonable effort to ensure that the information and data provided at this site are useful, accurate, and current, we cannot guarantee that the information and data provided here will be error-free. By using this site, you assume all responsibility for and risk arising from your use of and reliance upon the contents of this site.

This site and the information available through it do not, and are not intended to constitute legal advice. Should you require legal advice, you should consult your own attorney.

Nothing within this site or linked to by this site constitutes investment advice or medical advice.

Materials accessible from or added to this site by third parties, such as comments posted, are strictly the responsibility of the third party who added such materials or made them accessible and we neither endorse nor undertake to control, monitor, edit or assume responsibility for any such third-party material.

The posting of stories, commentaries, reports, documents and links (embedded or otherwise) on this site does not in any way, shape or form, implied or otherwise, necessarily express or suggest endorsement or support of any of such posted material or parts therein.

The word “alleged” is deemed to occur before the word “fraud.” Since the rule of law still applies. To peasants, at least.

Fair Use

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more info go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

DMCA Contact

This is information for anyone that wishes to challenge our “fair use” of copyrighted material.

If you are a legal copyright holder or a designated agent for such and you believe that content residing on or accessible through our website infringes a copyright and falls outside the boundaries of “Fair Use”, please send a notice of infringement by contacting atheonews@gmail.com.

We will respond and take necessary action immediately.

If notice is given of an alleged copyright violation we will act expeditiously to remove or disable access to the material(s) in question.

All 3rd party material posted on this website is copyright the respective owners / authors. Aletho News makes no claim of copyright on such material.

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

Copyright © 2023 by RonPaul Institute

Featured Video

From the Archives

By Jay Knott | Dissident Voice | September 24, 2013

Blog Roll

Subscribe to Aletho News

Visits Since December 2009

Looking for something?

Archives

Calendar

Categories

Tags

Contact:

Disclaimer

Site info