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Brexit: Soros Insists His ‘Stay’ Campaign Contributions Were ‘Educational’, Not Partisan

Sputnik – November 2, 2019

Hedge fund billionaire and convicted insider trader George Soros believes his involvement in the UK’s Brexit debate is just “political philanthropy,” and told The Guardian that Britain’s continued membership in the European Union would make a defence of ‘European values’ easier to accomplish.

“Brexit is a process of disintegration that hurts both sides. It hurts Britain more on a pro rata basis and Europe more in absolute terms. Most importantly, European values can be better defended if the two of them are united,” Soros said.

“My contributions were not used for partisan or electoral purposes. They were used to educate the British public,” he added, brushing off concerns expressed by numerous politicians that his Open Society Foundations were engaging in meddling in the internal affairs of other countries.

Soros made headlines in the run-up to the Brexit vote in 2016 when he warned that a vote to leave the bloc might cause a Europe-wide economic meltdown and make the EU’s disintegration “practically unavoidable.”

Two years later, the financier garnered controversy in the UK after making a £400,000 donation to ‘Best of Britain’, a group aimed at stopping Britain’s exit from the bloc. Pro-Brexiteers slammed the donation as a “secret plot” and an attempt to stage a “coup… against the democratic will of the people.”

Nigel Farage, leader of the Brexit Party and member of the European Parliament, has been one of the most outspoken UK-based critics of Soros, once describing him as the “biggest danger to the entire Western world.”

Britons voted to leave the EU on June 23, 2016, with approximately 52 percent voting in favour of exiting the bloc, while 48 percent sought to remain.

30+ Years of Political Interference

Soros has been spending his fortune on trying to bring forth political and social change for at least three decades, providing cash to anti-communist movements spreading in Eastern Europe in the 1980s in countries including Hungary and Poland, and spending hundreds of millions of dollars on efforts to institute political, economic and institution reforms across Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union starting in the early 1990s, including over $100 million in Russia alone. Since then, his activities have spread to over 60 countries around the world.

Soros was convicted of insider trading by a French court in 2002 and forced to pay a fine of €2.2 million. His conviction was upheld by the European Court of Human Rights in 2011.

On September 16, 1992, Soros successfully staged a run on the pound, forcing the British government to withdraw from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, and leading to an estimated  billion pounds in losses to Britain’s economy. Soros earned his first billion dollars from the day’s events.

Russia banned Soros’s Open Society Foundations in 2015, when the OSF was listed as an organisation whose activities pose a threat to the country’s national security.

November 2, 2019 Posted by | Deception | , | Leave a comment

London Times runs fake Browder story by acolytes Ben Brandon & Alex Bailin

By Lucy Komisar | The Komisar Scoop | October 25, 2019

Ben Brandon and Alex Bailin are London lawyers who have co-authored a fake story based on fabrications by William Browder about Russia’s legal action against his tax evasion and the death of his accountant, Sergei Magnitsky. The writers of this London Times op ed managed to put eight lies into just five opening lines.

Co-author Brandon is the lawyer representing the U.S. in its request to extradite war-crimes whistleblower- publisher Julian Assange. This raises questions about the connection between the U.S. and the U.K. in the promotion of the Browder/Magnitsky hoax and the attack against Assange.

Here is their story. And my proof of their fabrications.

Their Story

Screen shot of the London Times op ed.

The Times, October 24 2019

By Ben Brandon and Alex Bailin

We must not lag behind the rest of the world when it comes to holding human rights abusers and corrupt regimes to account.

Sergei Magnitsky, a young lawyer, was hired in 2008 by Bill Browder, the chief executive of Hermitage Capital, to investigate a tax fraud on his fund. Having diligently uncovered a large scale embezzlement by influential Russian officials, Mr Magnitsky was arrested and mistreated in prison in an attempt to pressure him into withdrawing his testimony.

He refused to retract and was beaten to death.

My Response

Dear Messrs Brandon and Bailin, I assume that as lawyers you think it’s a good idea to check out what people claim, since even clients lie. Therefore, please consider the evidence below, not what convicted fraudster William Browder apparently told you.

[1] Lawyer: Magnitsky was an accountant. Browder acknowledges in his deposition in US federal court 2015 that Magnitsky didn’t have a law degree or go to law school. See him say it in a video clip. In his own interrogations, Magnitsky is identified as an auditor.

[2] Hired in 2008: Magnitsky worked for the accounting/law firm Firestone Duncan which Browder hired in 1997 to handle his company accounts and tax filings. The Russian court found that Magnitsky in the interests of Browder in 1997-2002 implemented an illegal tax evasion scheme using firms registered in Kalmykia and managed by Hermitage Capital. (See article) Browder claims he hired Magnitsky in 2007, so Brandon and Bailin get even that fabrication wrong.

[3] To investigate a tax fraud: See above. He was hired in 1997, ten years before the 2007 tax refund fraud. Magnitsky’s 2006 interrogation was about Browder’s company tax evasion. See his testimony and the cited article. And the fraud wasn’t on his fund, it was on the Russian Treasury. Fraudsters scammed the Russian Treasury by obtaining a $230mil tax refund based on fraudulent lawsuits.

[4] Uncovered embezzlement: The tax fraud, which is not properly described as an embezzlement as it was a fraud on the Russian Treasury, not on a company, was first reported by Rimma Starova in April 2008. The Russian newspaper Vedomosti and the New York Times reported it in July 2008. Magnitsky mentioned in testimony only in his October 2008 interrogation.

[5] Influential Russian officials: There are no Russian officials accused in any of the reports, by Starova, the newspapers or by Magnitsky. Read the documents.

[6] Mistreated: He suffered the same poor conditions as other inmates.

[7] pressure him into withdrawing his testimony: There is no evidence he was pressured to withdraw testimony. Or do you have any?

[8] Beaten to death: There is no evidence he was beaten to death. Or do you have any?

The only on-site independent report, by the Moscow Public Oversight Commission, indicates terrible prison conditions and failure to provide needed medical care. The Physicians for Human Rights (Cambridge Mass) report, cites the POC report and is addressed to Browder, who gave PHR 44 documents to back up his claims. It reached the same conclusion.

Browder’s initial statements about Magnitsky’s death, in 2009 and 2010, mention no beatings.

Check out his talk at Chatham House, in your home town. “I don’t know what they were thinking. I don’t know whether they killed him deliberately on the night of the 18th, or if he died of neglect.”

How Browder changed his stories about Magnitsky’s death. (Graphic by Michael Thau)

And the video of his address to the San Diego Law School the next year. “They put him into a straight-jacket, put him into an isolation room and waited outside the door for 1hr18 minutes until he died.”

He invented the beating death in 2011 when he decided to create and lobby for the Magnitsky Act in the U.S. Congress to stop Russian authorities from pursuing him for $100 million in evaded taxes and illicit stock buys.

Ironically, though he uses the U.S. to build a wall against Russian tax collectors, he gave up his American citizenship in 1998 to avoid paying taxes. He is listed by CBS News as a “tax expatriate.”

If you are serious lawyers and investigators, you will examine the evidence and respond. (And change your story.)

The rest of the op ed is to support unspecified steps to hold to account those who benefit from human rights abuses and corruption. No mention of the persecutors of Julian Assange or the beneficiaries of the U.K.’s worldwide system of tax havens. The real purpose appears to be to repeat the Browder hoax in the lede.

I sent copies of the article to Brandon and Bailin. No response.

I also sent a complaint to IPSO the British Independent Press Standards Organization.

It calls itself “the independent regulator of most of the UK’s newspapers and magazines.” It says: We hold newspapers and magazines to account for their actions, protect individual rights, uphold high standards of journalism and help to maintain freedom of expression for the press.

Clauses breached
1 Accuracy
This op ed article is based on egregiously fake facts. See this story and the links for the evidence. I have sent it to the authors. They should retract the story. https://www.thekomisarscoop.com/2019/10/london-times-runs-fake-browder-story-by-acolytes-ben-brandon-alex-bailin/

Lucy Komisar is an investigative reporter who writes about financial corruption and won a Gerald Loeb award, the most important prize in financial journalism, for breaking the story about how Ponzi schemer Allen Stanford got the Florida Banking Dept to allow him to move money offshore with no regulation. Her stories about William Browder focus on tax evasion.  Find out more on The Komisar Scoop and on Twitter, @lucykomisar.

November 2, 2019 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , | Leave a comment

Killing Julian Assange: Justice Denied When Exposing Official Wrongdoing

By Philip Giraldi | Strategic Culture Foundation | October 31, 2019

The hideous treatment of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange continues and many observers are citing his case as being symptomatic of developing “police state” tendencies in both the United States and in Europe, where rule of law is being subordinated to political expediency.

Julian Assange was the founder and editor-in-chief of the controversial news and information site WikiLeaks. As the name implies, after 2006 the site became famous, or perhaps notorious, for its publication of materials that have been leaked to it by government officials and other sources who consider the information to be of value to the public but unlikely to be accepted by the mainstream media, which has become increasingly corporatized and timid.

WikiLeaks became known to a global audience back in 2010 when it obtained from US Army enlisted soldier Bradley Manning a large quantity of classified documents relating to the various wars that the United States was fighting in Asia. Some of the material included what might be regarded as war crimes.

WikiLeaks again became front page news over the 2016 presidential election, when the website released the emails of candidate Hillary Clinton and her campaign manager John Podesta. The emails revealed how Clinton and her team collaborated with the Democratic National Committee to ensure that she would be nominated rather than Bernie Sanders. It should be noted that the material released by WikiLeaks was largely documentary and factual in nature, i.e. it was not “fake news.”

Because he is a journalist ostensibly protected by the First Amendment guarantee of free speech, the handling of the “threat” posed by journalist Assange is inevitably somewhat different than a leak by a government official, referred to as a whistleblower. Assange has been vilified as an “enemy of the state,” likely even a Russian agent, and was initially pursued by Swedish authorities after claims of a rape, later withdrawn, were made against him. To avoid arrest, he was given asylum by a friendly Ecuadorean government seven years ago in London. The British police had an active warrant to arrest him immediately as he had failed to make a bail hearing after he obtained asylum, which is indeed what took place when Quito revoked his protected status in April.

As it turned out, Julian Assange was not exactly alone when he was in the Ecuadorean Embassy. All of his communications, including with his lawyers, were being intercepted by a Spanish security company hired for the purpose allegedly by the CIA. There apparently was also a CIA plan to kidnap Assange. In a normal court in a normal country, the government case would have been thrown out on constitutional and legal grounds, but that was not so in this instance. The United States has persisted in its demands to obtain the extradition of Assange from Britain and London seems to be more than willing to play along. Assange is undeniably hated by the American political Establishment and even much of the media in bipartisan fashion, with the Democrats blaming him for Hillary Clinton’s loss while Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has labeled him a “fraud, a coward and an enemy.” WikiLeaks itself is regarded by the White House as a “hostile non-government intelligence service.” Sending Julian Assange to prison for the rest of his life may be called justice, but it is really revenge against someone who has exposed government lies. Some American politicians have even asserted that jail is too good for Assange, insisting that he should instead be executed.

The actual charges laid out in the US indictment are for alleged conspiracy with Chelsea Manning to publish the “Iraq War Logs,” the “Afghan War Logs” and the US State Department cables. On May 23rd, the United States government further charged Assange with violating the Espionage Act of 1917, which criminalizes any exposure of classified US government information anywhere in the world by anyone. Its use would create a precedent: any investigative journalist who exposes US government malfeasance could be similarly charged.

Assange is currently incarcerated in solitary confinement at high-security Belmarsh prison. It is possible that the Justice Department, after it obtains Assange through extradition, will attempt to make the case that Assange actively colluded with the Russian government, a conspiracy to “defraud the United States” to put it in legalese. Assange is unlikely to receive anything approaching a fair trial no matter what the charges are.

Assange’s prison term ended on September 22nd, but an earlier procedural hearing at Westminster Magistrates’ Court had already decided that a full hearing on extradition to the US would not begin until February 25th, 2020. District Judge Vanessa Baraitser ruled that Assange would not be released even though the prison term had ended, because he was a flight risk. His status in the prison system was duly changed from a serving prisoner to a person facing extradition and his final hearing would be at the high security Belmarsh Magistrates’ Court rather than in a normal civil court. Belmarsh is where terrorists are routinely tried and the proceedings there permit only minimal public and media scrutiny.

Most recently, on October 21st, 2019, Assange was again in Westminster Magistrates’ Court for a “case management hearing” regarding his possible extradition to the US, Judge Baraitser denied a defense team request for a three-month delay so that they could gather evidence in light of the fact that Assange had been denied access to his own papers and documents in order to prepare his defense. British government prosecutor James Lewis QC and the five US “representatives” present opposed any delay in the extradition proceedings and were supported by Judge Baraitser, denying any delay in the proceedings.

Another procedural hearing will take place on December 19th followed by the full extradition hearing in February, at which time Assange will presumably be turned over to US Marshalls for transportation to the Federal prison in Virginia to await trial. That is, of course, assuming that he lives that long as his health has visibly deteriorated and there have been claims that he has been tortured by the British authorities.

Former British Ambassador Craig Murray, who knows Julian Assange well, was present when he appeared in court on the 21st. Murray was shocked by Assange’s appearance, noting that he had lost weight and looked like he had aged considerably. He was walking with a pronounced limp and when the judge asked him questions, to include his name and date of birth, he had trouble responding. Murray described him as a “shambling, incoherent wreck” and also concluded that “one of the greatest journalists and most important dissidents of our times is being tortured to death by the state, before our eyes.”

The British court was oblivious to Assange’s poor condition, with Judge Baraitser telling the clearly struggling prisoner that if he were incapable of following proceedings, then his lawyers could explain what had happened to him later. Objections to what was happening made by both Assange and his lawyers were dismissed by the Crown’s legal representatives, often after discussions with the American officials present, a process described in full by Murray, who, after describing the miscarriage of justice he had just witnessed observed that Julian Assange is being “slowly killed in public sight and arraigned on a charge of publishing the truth about government wrongdoing.” He concluded that “Unless Julian is released shortly he will be destroyed. If the state can do this, then who is next?” Indeed.

October 31, 2019 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture | , , | Leave a comment

Rights groups slam Bahrain for torturing 9 female activists in detention

Press TV – October 30, 2019

Rights groups have slammed the Bahraini regime over the detention and mistreatment of nine female activists, saying that the United States and Britain are complicit in Manama’s human rights abuses.

The report, prepared by the London-based Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy (BIRD) and Americans for Democracy & Human Rights in Bahrain (ADHRB) last month, was presented during a congressional panel event in Washington, DC, on Tuesday.

The 138-page report examines the cases of nine female political prisoners all arrested, interrogated, and convicted between February 2017 and January 2019.

Speaking during the panel, ADHRB Legal Officer Bridget Quitter said the women had been targeted as part of Bahrain’s “systematic” crackdown on free speech.

“The ill-treatment and torture, coercive interrogation tactics, unfair trial, substandard conditions of detention are not merely coincidental, but part of a systematic repression of the Bahraini population,” she said. “These women were targeted for their opinions or those of their relatives.”

The study revealed that the women had been arrested without search warrants, some of which took place during “highly militarized police raids.” The women faced physical, psychological and sexual abuse during their interrogation, according to the report.

Of the nine women, three are still held in prison in dire conditions, such as being denied access to medical care. The other six have been released after serving their prison terms.

Speaking on Tuesday, Quitter explained that the female activists had been convicted based on forced confessions, and even threatened with rape and death if they refused to comply.

“They were subjected to rights violations from the moment of their arrest, through their interrogation and torture, unfair trials and detention in conditions which fail to meet international standards,” Quitter said.

The report also highlighted how Manama had been using “broad interpretations of counter-terror laws” to facilitate the conviction of the female activists, going as far as revoking citizenship in a number of cases.

“Bahrain has created a system which whitewashes and conceals human rights abuses,” Quitter said.

The Al Khalifah regime has been mounting a heavy-handed security crackdown since a popular uprising began in the country in mid-February 2011.

The protest campaign is demanding that a just system representing all Bahrainis replace the Al Khalifah ruling dynasty.

Enjoying extensive assistance from the Saudi kingdom and the backing of London and Washington, however, the Manama regime has sought to crush any perceived threat to its authoritarian rule.

The report, which was presented on Capitol Hill on Tuesday, also revealed that UK-funded and trained “oversight bodies” have “consistently whitewashed” Bahrain’s human rights abuses. London actively ignores that “taxpayer money” is being used to support such initiatives, it added.

The report also said that the US government provides “funding, training, and assistance to Bahraini government bodies implicated in human rights abuses.”

The rights groups have called on Bahrain to release the three remaining female prisoners and urged the US and UK to cooperate in improving human rights conditions in the country.

October 30, 2019 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

“Major Revelation” from OPCW whistleblower: Jonathan Steele speaking to the BBC

By Tim Hayward | October 27, 2019

The following is a transcription of an interview given by Jonathan Steele (former Senior Middle East Correspondent for the Guardian ) to Paul Henley, on the BBC World Service programme, Weekend, on 27 October 2019.

Jonathan Steele: “I was in Brussels last week … I attended a briefing by a whistleblower from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. He was one of the inspectors who was sent out to Douma in Syria in April last year to check into the allegations by the rebels that Syrian aeroplanes had dropped two canisters of chlorine gas, killing up to 43 people. He claims he was in charge of picking up the samples in the affected areas, and in neutral areas, to check whether there were chlorine derivatives there …

Paul Henley: And?

JS: … and he found that there was no difference. So it rather suggested there was no chemical gas attack, because in the buildings where the people allegedly died there was no extra chlorinated organic chemicals than in the normal streets elsewhere. And I put this to the OPCW for comment, and they haven’t yet replied. But it rather suggests that a lot of this was propaganda…

PH: Propaganda led by?

JS: … led by the rebel side to try and bring in American planes, which in fact did happen. American, British and French planes bombed Damascus a few days after these reports. And actually this is the second whistle blower to come forward. A few months ago there was a leaked report by the person who looked into the ballistics, as to whether these cylinders had been dropped by planes, looking at the damage of the building and the damage on the side of the cylinders. And he decided, concluded, that the higher probability was that these cylinders were placed on the ground, rather than from planes.

PH: This would be a major revelation…

JS: … it would be a major revelation …

PH: … given the number of people rubbishing the idea that these could have been fake videos at the time.

JS: Well, these two scientists, I think they’re non-political – they wouldn’t have been sent to Douma, if they’d had strong political views, by the OPCW. They want to speak to the Conference of the Member States in November, next month, and give their views, and be allowed to come forward publicly with their concerns. Because they’ve tried to raise them internally and been – they say they’ve been – suppressed, their views have been suppressed.

For more on the story

Media Coverage of OPCW Whistleblower Revelations 

“Unacceptable Practices at OPCW” – by José Bustani and international panel

Flawed OPCW Douma Report: key criticisms

October 27, 2019 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism | , , , | Leave a comment

With Little Fanfare, William Barr Formally Announces Orwellian Pre-Crime Program

By Whitney Webb | MintPress News | October 25, 2019

Last Wednesday, U.S. Attorney General William Barr issued a memorandum to all U.S. attorneys, law enforcement agencies and top ranking Justice Department officials announcing the imminent implementation of a new “national disruption and early engagement program” aimed at detecting potential mass shooters before they commit any crime.

Per the memorandum, Barr has “directed the Department [of Justice] and the FBI to lead an effort to refine our ability to identify, assess and engage potential mass shooters before they strike.” The Attorney General further described the coming initiative, slated to be implemented early next year, as “an efficient, effective and programmatic strategy to disrupt individuals who are mobilizing towards violence, by all lawful means.” More specific information about the program is set to follow the recent memorandum, according to Barr, though it is unclear if that forthcoming document will be made public.

Barr also requested that those who received the memorandum send their “best and brightest” to a training conference at FBI headquarters this coming December where the DOJ, FBI and “private sector partners” will prepare for the full implementation of the new policy and will also be able to provide “new ideas” for inclusion in the program. 

Perhaps the most jarring aspect of the memorandum is Barr’s frank admission that many of the “early engagement” tactics that the new program would utilize were “born of the posture we adopted with respect to terrorist threats.” In other words, the foundation for many of the policies utilized following the post-9/11 “war on terror” are also the foundation for the “early engagement” tactics that Barr seeks to use to identify potential criminals as part of this new policy. Though those “war on terror” policies have largely targeted individuals abroad, Barr’s memorandum makes it clear that some of those same controversial tactics will soon be used domestically.

Barr’s memorandum also alludes to current practices by the FBI and DOJ that will shape the new plan. Though more specifics of the new policy will be provided in the forthcoming notice, Barr notes that “newly developed tactics” used by the Joint Terrorist Task Forces “include the use of clinical psychologists, threat assessment professionals, intervention teams and community groups” to detect risk and suggests that the new “early engagement program” will work along similar lines. Barr also alludes to this “community” approach in a separate instance, when he writes that “when the public ‘says something’ to alert us to a potential threat, we must do something.”

However, the memorandum differentiates suspected terrorists from the individuals this new program is set to pursue. Barr states that, unlike many historical terrorism cases, “many of today’s public safety threats appear abruptly and with sometimes only ambiguous indications of intent” and that many of these individuals “exhibit symptoms of mental illness and/or have substance abuse problems.”

Thus, the goal of the program is ostensibly to circumvent these issues by finding new and likely controversial ways to determine intent. As will be shown later in this report, Barr’s recent actions suggest that the way this will be accomplished is through increased mass surveillance of everyday Americans and the use of algorithms to analyze that bulk data for vaguely defined symptoms of “mental illness.”

Barr also suggested the likely courses of action that would follow the identification of a given individual as a “potential mass shooter.” The Attorney General notes that in past cases individuals deemed a violent or terroristic threat before they commit a crime are subject to “detention, court-ordered mental health treatment, substance abuse counseling, electronic monitoring”, among other measures. Ostensibly, the new program would then apply these same practices to individuals in the U.S. that federal authorities believe are “mobilizing towards violence,” as Barr put it.

Bill Barr’s been busy

The memorandum, despite heralding a new era of Orwellian surveillance and “pre-crime” on a national level, has been sparsely covered by the mainstream media. One of the few reports that did cover the new Justice Department policy, published Wednesday by the Huffington Post, framed the new Barr-led initiative as largely positive and asserted that the “anti-terror tactics” to which Barr alluded could “help thwart mass shooters.” No mention was made in the piece of the threat such a program is likely to pose to civil liberties.

Furthermore, no mention was made of Barr’s clear push over the past few months to lay the groundwork for this recently announced program. Indeed, since becoming Attorney General under President Trump, Barr has spearheaded numerous efforts to this end, including pushing for a government backdoor into consumer apps or devices that utilize encryption and for a dramatic increase of long-standing yet controversial warrantless electronic surveillance programs.

On July 23rd, Barr gave the keynote address at the 2019 International Conference on Cyber Security (ICCS) and mainly focused on the need for consumer electronic products and applications that use encryption to offer a “backdoor” for the government, specifically law enforcement, in order to obtain access to encrypted communications as a matter of public safety.

Barr went onto say that “warrant-proof encryption is also seriously impairing our ability to monitor and combat domestic and foreign terrorists.” Barr stated that “smaller terrorist groups and ‘lone wolf’ actors” — such as those involved in the series of mass shootings in California, Texas and Ohio that occurred in the weeks after his speech — “have turned increasingly to encryption.” Barr later noted that he was specifically referencing encryption used by “consumer products and services such as messaging, smartphones, email, and voice and data applications.”

To overcome the resistance by some private companies — who do not want to renege on their right to privacy by giving the government backdoor access to their devices — and American consumers, Barr tellingly anticipated “a major incident may occur at any time that will galvanize public opinion on these issues.” Shortly after this speech, several mass shootings, including one at an El Paso Walmart took place, which again brought the issue to the forefront of political discourse.

As MintPress reported at the time, Barr’s uncanny prediction and a litany of other oddities related to the El Paso shooting left many answered questions about the FBI’s foreknowledge of the event. In addition, the tragedy did appear to serve as the very “galvanizing” event that Barr had anticipated, as the solution offered by President Trump in the wake of the shootings was the creation of a government backdoor into encryption as well as calling for the very pre-crime system Barr formally announced just last week.

The pre-crime dragnet takes shape

More recently, Barr and U.K. Home Secretary Priti Patel signed a data access agreement on October 3rd that allows both countries to demand electronic data on consumers from tech companies based in the other country without legal restrictions. It is the first executive agreement reached as part of the controversial Clarifying Overseas Use of Data Act or CLOUD Act passed by the U.S. Congress last year.

The CLOUD Act has come under fire from rights groups who have warned that the legislation gives “unlimited jurisdiction to U.S. law enforcement over any data controlled by a service provider, regardless of where the data is stored and who created it” and that this also “applies to content, metadata, and subscriber information”, including private messages.

Yet, Barr and Patel claimed that the data access agreement will instead “enhance” civil liberties and further asserted that the agreement would be used to go after “pedophiles” and “organized crime”, even though both Barr and his U.K. equivalent have shown minimal interest in pursuing the co-conspirators of child sex trafficker and pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, whose sex trafficking network has been linked to both organized crime and the intelligence agencies of both the U.S. and Israel. Some have charged that the lack of interest on the part of William Barr is due to the fact that Barr’s father once hired the now deceased pedophile.

Notably, Jeffrey Epstein also had an apparent interest in pre-crime technologies, and was a key funder of the controversial technology company Carbyne911, along with former Israeli Prime Minister and close Epstein associate Ehud Barak. Carbyne911 is one of several Israeli companies that market their software products to the U.S. as a means of reducing mass shootings and improving the response times of emergency service providers. These companies boast numerous and troubling connections to the governments and intelligence communities of both the U.S. and Israel. Epstein, himself linked to the intelligence apparatuses of both nations, invested at least $1 million in Carbyne911 through a “data mining” company he controlled.

As was detailed in a recent MintPress exposé on these companies, Carbyne911 and similar companies extract any and all data from consumer smartphones for merely making emergency calls and then use it to “analyze the past and present behavior of their callers, react accordingly, and in time predict future patterns,” with the ultimate goal of smart devices making emergency calls to the authorities, as opposed to human beings.

Data obtained from these software products, already used by several U.S. counties and slated to be adopted nationwide as part of a new national “next generation” 911 system, will then be shared with the same law enforcement agencies who will soon be implementing Barr’s “national disruption and early engagement program” to target individuals flagged as potentially violent based on vague criteria.

Notably, following the El Paso shooting, President Trump has been mulling the creation of a new federal agency known as HARPA that would work with the Department of Justice to use “breakthrough technologies with high specificity and sensitivity for early diagnosis of neuropsychiatric violence,” specifically “advanced analytical tools based on artificial intelligence and machine learning.” The data to be analyzed would be harvested from consumer electronic devices as well as information provided by health-care providers to identify who may be a threat.

It is important to point out that such initiatives, whether HARPA or Barr’s newly announced program, are likely to define “mental illness” to include some political beliefs, given that the FBI recently stated in an internal memo that “conspiracy theories” were motivating some domestic terror threats and a series of questionable academic studies have sought to link “conspiracy theorists” to mental illnesses. Thus, the Department of Justice and “mental health professionals” have essentially already defined those who express disbelief in official government narratives as both a terror threat and mentally ill — and thus worthy of special attention from pre-crime programs.

Sleepwalking into a nightmare

This widely overlooked background is crucial to understanding William Barr’s recent memorandum and the massive and greatly underreported shift in the policy it heralds. Over a period of several months, Barr — aided by “private sector partners” as well as other current and former government officials — has been laying the groundwork for the system he has now formally announced.

Through the software products offered by companies like Carbyne911 and through Barr’s personal crusade to mandate government backdoors into encrypted software and products, Barr’s new pre-crime program already has the tools for the mass extraction and storage of consumer data by means of both private tech companies and public services like emergency call centers.

Through the already drafted plan for HARPA and its proposed solution to identifying “mental illness” via artificial intelligence and machine learning, this newly announced “pre-crime” program will have the means to analyze the mass of data harvested from consumer electronic devices from Carbyne and other means using vague “mental health criteria.”

While many of the specifics of the program remain unknown, the actions of Barr and others in government and private sectors show that this newly announced initiative is the product of years of careful planning and many of the tactics and tools it is poised to use have been in the works for months and even years.

In recent decades, and especially after the September 11 attacks, Americans have quietly traded an increasing number of civil liberties for increased government “counter-terrorism” programs and wars purportedly waged to “keep us safe.” Now, those same policies used to target “terrorists” are set to be used against ordinary Americans, whose electronic lives and communications are now set to be scoured for evidence of “mental illness.” If these untransparent algorithms flag an individual, that could be enough lead to court-ordered “mental health treatment” or even imprisonment regardless of whether or not a crime was committed or even planned.

As a consequence, William Barr’s coming “pre-crime” program is arguably worse than the stuff of dystopian science fiction novels and films as it not only aims to detain Americans who have committed no crime but will expressly target individuals based on their use of electronic consumer products and the contents of their communications with their friends, family, co-workers, and others.

Whitney Webb is a MintPress News journalist based in Chile. She has contributed to several independent media outlets including Global Research, EcoWatch, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has made several radio and television appearances and is the 2019 winner of the Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism.

October 25, 2019 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Leave a comment

West’s hacking allegations aimed at ‘driving a wedge’ between Iran, Russia: Moscow

Press TV – October 25, 2019

Russia has dismissed a report by Western media this week that Russian hackers had used Iranian computer infrastructure to attack dozens of countries across the world.

Citing British and American spy agencies, Reuters reported Monday that a cyber-espionage group, known as Turla and allegedly linked to Russian intelligence agency, had hijacked the tools of an Iranian group to lead attacks in more than 35 countries over the last 18 months.

The attacks were allegedly carried out against government departments, military installations and industrial organizations, the British news agency said.

A spokesman for the Russian embassy in the UK reacted to the report on Thursday, describing it as “an unsavory interpretation of a concise report of the British National Cyber Security Center and the American National Security Agency.”

“The security services themselves are not putting forward any accusations against Russia and Russian citizens,” he added.

The spokesman said that the publications are aimed at driving “a wedge” between Moscow and Tehran, both of which have repeatedly denied Western hacking allegations in the past.

Russia and Iran enjoy strong bilateral ties and have been working in a strategic partnership format on their issues of mutual interest.

Russia has been critical of Washington’s exit from a 2015 multilateral deal with Iran and the re-imposition of harsh sanctions against the Islamic Republic.

Tehran and Moscow have also been assisting Syria in its efforts to uproot the terrorist groups that have been wreaking havoc on the Arab state since 2011 with the backing of Washington and its allies.

October 25, 2019 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , | Leave a comment

UK protestors face jail for campaigning against Israel owned arms factory

MEMO | October 23, 2019

Seven people are facing the prospect of three months in prison for protesting against an Israeli-owned arms factory based in the UK.

The case against the seven activists will be heard in a Folkestone Magistrates Court Kent today. They are expected to plead not guilty of the charge of Aggravated Trespass, an offence which carries a maximum sentence of three months in prison. A number of the activists are locally connected to Kent.

The activists were arrested in August following a two-day occupation at the Elbit-Instro arms factory, which is newly situated in Discovery Park business park in Sandwich, Kent. Its parent company Elbit Systems supplies military equipment to Israel and activists claim that its products are the “backbone” of Israel’s drone fleet.

Elbit Systems also supplies weapons to a number of other countries accused of committing war crimes including Saudi Arabia. The weapons manufacturer is Israel’s largest privately-owned arms company. Campaign groups say that it provides 85 per cent of Israel’s drones which were used to attack Gaza’s civilian population repeatedly. Drones were used during Israel’s Operation Protective Edge which killed over 2,300 civilians, including over 500 children.

A statement released by the Stop Elbit-Instro Defendants Solidarity Campaign said: “The skilled engineers of Elbit-Instro could be working to make the world a better place, yet instead they are employed to build machines that incinerate children.” It added: “Shame on them all.”

According to the campaign group locals resent the arms manufacturer and relations between Elbit-Instro and Kent residents soured following its attempted take-over of an airport site.

A spokesperson for East Kent Campaign Against the Arms Trade said: “There are urgent questions about whether Instro’s specialist targeting technology is employed by Israel for targeting Gazan civilians every Friday during the Great Return March civil rights demonstrations, or in maintaining the surveillance of Palestinians along its illegal separation barrier, enabling the occupation’s apartheid infrastructure.”

October 23, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Brexit: Parliament Tethers Britain to a Failing Experiment

Europe is crumbling, & Britain’s elite desperately want to be part of the wreckage

By Kit Knightly | OffGuardian | October 20, 2019

Brexit isn’t going to happen. Left or Right – Lexit or Rexit – it’s over. It’s time to make peace with that idea.

Penned in by the absurd Benn Act, No Deal is off the table, which means Britain will be forced to either remain or accept a deal that’s Remain by another name.

The Letwin Ammendment and Johnson’s unsigned extension request are just morbid theatre. Unnecessary nails in a well-sealed coffin.

It’s all very Weekend at Bernies’ – A lame cast of characters, puppeteering Brexit’s corpse to keep up a tired joke that was never funny to begin with.

Parliament has become an absurd pantomime, where a clown Prime Minister – his majority willfully destroyed – sets up straw men that the “opposition” bayonet with increasingly maniacal glee. No thought is given to policy or consequences, only increasing the tally of Boris Johnson’s parliamentary defeats.

Labour, and the bedraggled, hysterical remainers in the Lib Dems/TIG/Green Party, have become nothing but contrarians – automatically gain-saying anything tabled by the government for the simple joy of humiliating the nation’s Court Jester in Chief.

Corbyn has been so successfully gaslighted by his remain-heavy PLP he doesn’t even realise he’s betraying his life-long principles, his mentor Tony Benn, and entire swaths of the Labour’s Northern heartlands, who all voted to leave.

When a general election does come, it will mean nothing.

Labour will likely be destroyed as working-class voters either flock to the Brexit Party or simply collapse into the apathy of the voiceless, and stay home.

If Labour scrapes together enough voters from Remain country in Scotland and London to claw their way to a small majority, well their socialist manifesto will be crippled by the EU’s austerity policy and restrictions on nationalisation.

In either event, Corbyn will be replaced by a New Labour non-entity of little renown and less worth. The papers will declare socialism dead (again), and maybe clap Corbyn on the shoulder for doing “well, considering” and “changing the conversation”.

We’ll be invited the celebrate the new (inevitably) female leader as a sign of “progress”, while society continues to slip backwards.

Whether the hardcore Remainers get their “People’s Vote” or not, and whichever of the carousel of undesirables happens to be Prime Minister when it all eventually wraps up, Brexit is dead. Parliament killed it.

This on-going, slow-burn sabotage is hard to watch – but it’s not what this article is about.

What it’s about is a question. An important question. One that should weigh heavily on the shoulders of Remainers on the eve of their – for want of a better word – victory:

Do we really want this? Does the EU, right now, really look like something we want to be a part of?

Let’s run down the situation on The Continent.

France is miserable, sick of austerity. Sick of spending cuts and falling standards and neo-liberal economics promising a trickle-down that never seems to come.

In Paris – and many other French cities – the Yellow Vests are nearing their fiftieth straight week of protests, and don’t seem to be slowing down (Hopefully they plan something nice for their first birthday).

People have lost eyes, hands, even lives. The Hong Kong protests – so long front-page news in the UK – have been a picnic in comparison.

In Hungary, an elected President is held hostage by the bureaucracy of the EU. Whatever you think of Orban, he was democratically elected to enact the political promises he made during his campaign. That Brussels can sanction him, and threaten to remove Hungary’s voting rights, is perverse. Anti-democracy in the name of democracy.

They say it’s about “protecting European values”, but is it?

That’s pretty hard to believe, considering the situation elsewhere in Europe…

Spain will join France in the flames soon. They already sent thirteen politicians to prison for sedition.

Take a moment to consider that – actual “sedition”.

This comes after sending in riot police to break up a peaceful referendum. Spanish police beat voters, arrested protesters and destroyed ballot boxes.

Madrid has faced no punishment, or even criticism, for this. They – unlike Orban – have escaped any sanction or censure. Police attack Catalonian independence protests on the streets of Barcelona…and Brussels’ silence is deafening.

(Imagine Russia had just jailed 13 opposition politicians for sedition. Imagine Maduro was blinding protestors with rubber bullets. The difference in coverage and attitude would be breathtaking.)

What is the difference between Budapest and Paris? Or Moscow and Madrid?

Well, Orban is anti-EU (as are the Gilets Jaunes). The governments of France and Spain are Pro EU, with a ferocity that fully justifies the capital P.

Follow a pro-EU agenda of austerity, uncontrolled immigration and globalisation and you can blind as many protesters as you want.

The harder you look, the more it seems “European values” is slang for “European power”.

The talk of the EU Army bubbles away on the back-burner, whilst the European Parliament merrily votes through massive funding for “StratCom” programmes to “counter misinformation”.

We hear about peace, but we don’t see it. We hear about prosperity, but we don’t feel it.

Austerity is choking the birthplace of democracy to death, and its – again, for want of a better word – “leaders” are spending tax revenues on propaganda and the military.

Is that going to help a single ordinary citizen out of poverty? Are these moves designed to make life fair, equal or easy for ordinary citizens? Or consolidate and enforce authority?

Look at Europe. Really look at it. It’s burning. And yet Remainers sit amongst the flames and say everything’s fine.

We are lectured on “European Values”, but that phrase has been meaningless for years, and every day edges closer and closer to full-on parody.

Europe is a sinking ship the rats in Parliament refuse to leave.

Kit Knightly is co-editor of OffGuardian. The Guardian banned him from commenting. Twice. He used to write for fun, but now he’s forced to out of a near-permanent sense of outrage.

October 19, 2019 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics | , , | Leave a comment

No Inquest for Dawn Sturgess

By Craig Murray | October 18, 2019

The killing of poor Dawn Sturgess was much the most serious of the events in Salisbury and Amesbury that attracted international attention. Yet nobody has been charged, no arrest warrant issued and no inquest held.

The inquest for Dawn Sturgess has today been yet again postponed, for the fourth time, and for the first time no new prospective date has been given for it to open. Alarmingly, the coroner’s office are referring press enquiries to Scotland Yard’s Counter Terrorism Command – which ought to have no role in an inquest process supposed to be independent of the police.

Congratulations to Rob Slane and to John Helmer for their excellent work in following this.

It appears very probable that the independent coroner’s inquiry process is going to be cancelled and, as in the case of David Kelly, replaced by a politically controlled “public inquiry” with a trusty or malleable judge in charge, like Lord Hutton of Kincora. This is because the truth of Dawn Sturgess’ death in itself destroys key elements of the government’s narrative on what happened in Salisbury.

Simply put, the chemical that killed Dawn Sturgess could not have been the same that allegedly poisoned the Skripals. Charlie Rowley is adamant that he found it in a packaged and fully sealed perfume bottle, in a charity bin. Furthermore he states that it was a charity bin he combed through regularly and it had not been there earlier, in the three months between the alleged attack on the Skripals and his taking it from the bin.

The government narrative that “Boshirov and Petrov” used that perfume bottle to attack the Skripals, then somehow resealed the cellophane, and disposed of it in the bin, depends on the Russians having a tiny plastic resealing technology concealed on them (and why bother?), on their taking a long detour to dispose of the “perfume” in a charity bin – the one method that guaranteed it being found and reused – and the “perfume” then achieving a lengthy period of invisibility in the bin before appearing again three months later.

Those are only some of a number of inconvenient facts. Perfume does not come as a gel; it cannot both have been applied as a gel to the Skripals’ doorknob and sprayed on to Dawn Sturgess’ wrists. Gels do not spray. Neither Porton Down nor the OPCW was able to state it was from the same batch as the chemical allegedly used on the Skripals’ house.

Then there is the fascinating fact that it took eleven days of intensive searching for a vial of liquid in a small modern home, for the police to find the perfume bottle sitting on the kitchen counter.

Nobody has been charged with the manslaughter or murder of Dawn Sturgess. There is still an international arrest warrant out for Boshirov and Petrov for the attack on the Skripals. Very interestingly indeed, this warrant has never been changed into the names of Chepiga and Mishkin.

From the moment I heard of the attack on Dawn Sturgess I worried that she – a person down on her luck and living in a hostel – was exactly the kind of person the powerful and wealthy would view as a disposable human being if her death fitted their narrative. The denial of an inquest for her, and the complete lack of interest by the mainstream media in the obvious nonsense of the official story that ties her to the Skripal poisoning, tends to confirm these fears. What Dawn Sturgess’ death tells us, beyond doubt, is that the government narrative is fake and the Skripal and Sturgess cases are two separate incidents. Which makes a local origin of the chemical very much more likely. No wonder the government is determined to avoid the inquest.

I was struck today that the tame neo-con warmongering “Chemical weapons expert” Hamish De Bretton Gordon, former head of the British Army’s chemical weapons unit, appeared on Sky News. He was being interviewed on use of white phosphorous by Turkey in Syria and repeatedly tried to deflect the narrative on to alleged chemical weapons use by Syrian government forces, arguing that the present crisis was the moral responsibility of those who opposed western military action against Assad. But what particularly struck me was that he appeared by Skype – from Salisbury. When you look at the British government’s own chemical weapons expertise, you are continually led back to Salisbury, perhaps not surprisingly given the location of Porton Down.

I am aiming to make a full documentary film on the Salisbury events entitled “Truth and the Skripals”, based around the questions raised on this blog. I shall be looking to launch crowdfunding for the documentary shortly, probably within the week.

 

October 18, 2019 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

UK under fire for compiling secret database on Britons

By Bianca Rahimi | Press TV | October 15, 2019

London – Human rights groups describe it as “utterly chilling” experts as a “trawling exercise”. The UK government is under fire for a secret database supposedly used to prevent radicalization and terrorism.

The personal details of thousands of people are recorded and can be accessed by any bobby on the beat. Rights groups say it’s purpose is not keeping Britain safe though.

If you live in the UK your most personal information, from what you do and who you associate with, to what you drew as a toddler in nursery, might be on a secret government database. One compiled by counter-terrorism police and fed into by the controversial anti-radicalization program called Prevent.

The police say recording referrals ensures accountability and allows forces to understand when vulnerabilities are increasing; but human rights campaigners say it is nothing more than a trawling exercise.

Schools now have a legal duty to act but experts warn that educators are poorly trained. Teachers are scrutinizing pupils as young as 4 for signs of radicalization but according to their unions, teachers feel burdened by this responsibility and may refer too often and arbitrarily to cover their backs.

October 15, 2019 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , | Leave a comment

These Scrubbed Reports Reveal New Secrets Into the Prince Andrew-Jeffrey Epstein Relationship

Graphic by Claudio Cabrera
By Whitney Webb | MintPress News | October 14, 2019

While the Jeffrey Epstein scandal has largely faded from media coverage in the United States, it has continued to attract attention abroad, particularly in the United Kingdom in connection with Epstein’s long-standing association with Prince Andrew, the Duke of York and the Queen’s son.

The Epstein-Prince Andrew relationship has long been a fascination of the U.K. press, with numerous articles dating back to the early 2000s detailing the most outrageous aspects of their relationship. Prior to that, Epstein had also garnered attention from U.K. newspapers regarding his association with Ghislaine Maxwell, whose reputation in the U.K. is rather notorious, as was that of her father, Robert Maxwell.

Yet, since Epstein’s arrest in July, many of these older articles on Epstein and Maxwell, as well as those focusing on the Epstein-Prince Andrew relationship, have disappeared from the archives of several prominent U.K. media outlets that reported on these relationships years ago.  

Several of these articles, though largely scrubbed from the internet, were recently obtained by MintPress and a review of their contents makes the likely motive behind their disappearance clear: several articles not only reference Epstein’s connection to both U.S. and Israeli intelligence years before the first investigation into Epstein’s exploitation of minors had even begun, but also reveal surprising aspects of Prince Andrew’s involvement with Epstein that strongly suggest that the Prince partook in illicit sexual activities with minors to a much greater extent than has previously been reported.

New, disturbing details of Prince Andrew’s early links to Epstein

Since Epstein was arrested the first time in 2006 and even more so after he was arrested again this past July, those named in press reports as his associates have made every effort to distance themselves from the accused pedophile and sex trafficker. For this reason, press reports that discuss Epstein long before there was any hint of the larger scandal are particularly important for understanding the true nature of Epstein’s past associations with the rich and powerful.

In light of what is now known about Epstein’s sexual blackmail operation and sex trafficking activities, several reports from the late 1990s and early 2000s contain details long since forgotten regarding Epstein’s relationship with Prince Andrew.

One particularly censored article that appeared in London’s Evening Standard in January 2001, for instance, gives several indications regarding the apparent entrapment of Prince Andrew as part of Epstein’s sexual blackmail operation, which is now known to have been connected to intelligence — specifically Israeli military intelligence, according to recent revelations in the case.

The article, written by Evening Standard journalist Nigel Rosser, quotes a personal friend of both Ghislaine Maxwell and Epstein as saying the following about their friendship with Prince Andrew:

A screenshot from a now-deleted 2001 Evening Standard article

Another friend of Maxwell and Epstein made similar claims that appear in the same article:

A screenshot from the same Evening Standard article

The article further describes Epstein and Prince Andrew as having a “curious symbiotic relationship,” adding that “wherever Ghislaine is seen with Prince Andrew, Epstein isn’t far behind.”

These quotes are particularly telling now that it is a matter of record that Epstein was seeking out rich and powerful individuals and entrapping them with minors for the purpose of blackmail. The fact that personal friends of Epstein and Maxwell at the time openly stated that their “manipulative” relationship with Prince Andrew was “very premeditated” and “probably being done for Epstein” strongly suggests that not only was the Prince entrapped, but that this type of entrapment activity was known to occur among those who were close to Epstein and Maxwell at the time.

Prince Andrew — as a member of the Royal Family, which is very protective of its social reputation, as well as the U.K. envoy for investment and trade — certainly fits into the category of people that Epstein entrapped on behalf of intelligence: rich, politically powerful, wary of damaging their social reputation, and thus susceptible to blackmail.

Notably, the year this article was published (2001), is the same year that Epstein’s most well-known accuser and victim, Virginia Giuffre (then Virginia Roberts), claims that she was introduced to Prince Andrew by Maxwell and Epstein and forced to have sex with the Prince on at least three occasions. She has also claimed that Epstein would subsequently instruct her to describe the encounters in order to learn compromising information about the Prince’s sexual habits and preferences. Her claims regarding Epstein’s trafficking of her, specifically to Prince Andrew, have since been largely corroborated by photographic evidence, flight logs, and public records.

This undated photo released by Virginia Giuffre shows Prince Andrew posing with a young Giuffre, Ghislaine Maxwell is shown in the background

While it appears that Prince Andrew was deliberately entrapped as part of Epstein’s intelligence-linked sexual blackmail operation, the article further suggests that Andrew’s involvement with the minors exploited by Epstein went far beyond his alleged three encounters with Giuffre.

Rosser quotes a friend of Prince Andrew’s ex-wife Sara Ferguson as saying that Andrew “used to be smart when he came back from abroad… He’s started having a girl massage him… He even travels abroad with his own massage mattress.”

During this same time period, Epstein and Maxwell also introduced Prince Andrew to “sex aid entrepreneur” Christine Drangsholt during a trip to Mar-a-Lago and describes Andrew traveling to Los Angeles, where he was seen “flirting… with a group of young girls,” and to Phuket, Thailand where he “wandered around the sex bars in the area’s red light district.” The Los Angeles trip saw Andrew accompanied by artist and close friend of Michael Jackson, Bruce Livingstone Strong, and Ghislaine Maxwell accompanied Andrew to Thailand.

The mentions of massages from a “girl” and Andrew traveling around with Maxwell and Epstein while bringing along “his own massage mattress,” are particularly striking given what is now known about Epstein’s sex trafficking and sexual blackmail operation. Court documents, police reports, and other evidence have since made it clear that “massage” was the code word Epstein and his co-conspirators used for sex with the minors he exploited and massage tables and sex toys were frequently present together in the rooms of his various residences where he forced underage girls to engage in sexual acts with him and others.

Most notable of all is the fact that claims of Prince Andrew receiving “massages” from girls during his trips with Epstein and Maxwell were published in January 2001, at least two months before Virginia Giuffre states that she was first introduced to and forced to have sex with the Prince in March of 2001. This means that the claims of Epstein- and Maxwell-brokered “massages” refer to at least one other girl, strongly suggesting that Andrew’s involvement with minors exploited by Epstein is greater than has been recently acknowledged.

Other recently reported information has added to the likelihood that Prince Andrew engaged in illicit activities with more minors than Virginia Giuffre. For instance, the FBI recently expanded its probe into Epstein’s sex trafficking network to include a specific focus on the Prince’s role. The FBI has claimed that they are reviewing claims regarding Prince Andrew made by other Epstein victims aside from Giuffre, but did not specify the nature of those claims.

Ghislaine Maxwell’s open secret

Media reports cite Prince Andrew and Ghislaine Maxwell as having developed a close relationship at least by February 2000, when Andrew had spent a week at Epstein’s controversial New York penthouse at 9 East 71st Street. One report published in 2000 by London’s Sunday Times claimed that the two were introduced by Andrew’s ex-wife Sarah Ferguson, often referred to as “Fergie” in the press, and further claims that this introduction had taken place several years prior. Epstein is alleged to have first been introduced to Andrew via Maxwell in 1999.

Years after this introduction was made, Jeffrey Epstein would provide financial assistance to Ferguson at Prince Andrew’s behest by paying Ferguson’s former personal assistant £15,000, allegedly in order to allow for “a wider restructuring of Sarah’s £5 million debts to take place,” according to The Telegraph.

Oddly, by April of that year, Maxwell and Prince Andrew were spotted by their fellow diners at a posh New York restaurant holding hands, prompting both the Prince and Maxwell to claim that their relationship was merely “platonic.” However, a separate report from 2007 in the Evening Standard refers to Maxwell as one of Prince Andrew’s former girlfriends.

Within a year of their close relationship having become public, Andrew and Ghislaine were reported to have gone on eight different vacations together, of which Epstein accompanied them for five. Andrew also brought Maxwell and Epstein to celebrate the Queen’s birthday in 2000 as his personal guests.

Several reports from this period also provide interesting insight into Maxwell’s business activities and private life. One article from 2000, published in London’s Sunday Times, states that “for all her high-profile appearances on Manhattan’s A-List merry-go-round, she [Maxwell] is secretive to the point of paranoia and her business affairs are deeply mysterious.” It goes on to say that Maxwell “has been building a business empire as opaque as father’s” — referencing Robert Maxwell’s business empire, which included multiple front companies for Israeli intelligence — and adds that “her office in Manhattan refuses to confirm even the nature or the name of her business.”

On her relationship with Epstein, it states that “he’s always kept her secrets, no one knows what their relationship is really about.” An article from 2001 claims that Maxwell’s Manhattan lifestyle, her New York residence and her vehicles were all purchased by Epstein and that she was employed as his “consultant” while also acting as his social organizer and interior designer.

One report on Maxwell — which was published by the Evening Standard in 2003, years before Epstein was first publicly revealed to be exploiting minors — contains very telling information about Maxwell’s work for Epstein. It states “Ghislaine has risen, largely thanks to property developer Epstein bankrolling her, to become queen of the billionaires’ social circuit,” adding that “Jeffrey only likes billionaires or very young women and uses Ghislaine as his social pimp.” It then discusses “rumors” that Maxwell was hosting “bizarre parties at her house to which she invites a dozen or so young girls, then brandishes a whip and teaches them how to improve their sexual techniques.”

Given what is now known about Maxwell’s role as Epstein’s procurer of underage girls and her role in “training” them in sexual techniques, this passage — again from 2003 — reveals that Epstein’s and Maxwell’s dark acts were pretty much an open secret for years prior to Epstein’s first arrest in 2007.

Jeffrey Epstein, spy and property mogul?

One recurring theme in many of these older reports from the U.K. is their mention of Epstein’s alleged ties to both U.S. and Israeli intelligence. For instance, Nigel Rosser’s 2001 article contains the following passage:

A screenshot from a now-deleted 2001 Evening Standard article

Another article, published in 1992 in the U.K.’s Mail on Sunday, describes “rumors” that linked Epstein to the CIA and the Mossad and claimed that he had worked as “a corporate spy hired by big businesses to uncover money that had been embezzled.” In addition, an article published in 2000 in London’s Sunday Times also states of Epstein that “nobody knows whether he’s a concert pianist, property developer, CIA agent, a math teacher or a member of Mossad.”

A screenshot from a now-deleted 2000 Sunday Times article

Notably, these rumors of Epstein’s links to intelligence have since been confirmed. The CIA-Mossad links to Epstein were detailed in a recent MintPress investigative series and several mainstream media reports have corroborated Epstein’s time as a self-described “financial bounty hunter” who hunted down embezzled funds and also hid stolen money for powerful people and governments.

Another odd commonality among these now-scrubbed articles on Epstein from the 1990s and early 2000s is that the majority of them refer to Epstein not as a “financier” or “hedge fund manager,” as has become common in more recent reports, but as a “New York property developer” and even as a “property mogul.”

For instance, the 2001 Evening Standard article introduces Epstein as an “immensely powerful New York property developer and financier” with an “intensively secret business life” who “owns properties all over the country [the U.S.].” It also states that Epstein had made millions from “his business links with the likes of Bill Gates, Donald Trump and Ohio billionaire Leslie Wexner” during the 1990s and beyond.

A screenshot from a now-deleted 2001 Evening Standard article

Wexner, in addition to his other close financial ties to Epstein, was involved in several Manhattan real estate deals with Epstein and Epstein’s brother Mark while Donald Trump was then best known for his career as a New York property developer and real estate mogul. Trump is also cited in a separate article from January 2001 as being good friends with both Prince Andrew and his ex-wife. In addition, this article’s claim regarding Epstein’s most notable “business links” in 2001 contradicts Bill Gates’ recent assertions that he never had any business relationship with Epstein and did not meet with him until 2013. Notably, Gates’ former chief scientific adviser was recently named as an alternate executor for Epstein’s will and Gates appears on the flight logs of Epstein’s now-infamous private plane. Gates, one of the world’s richest men, has since claimed that he only had met with Epstein in order to meet other wealthy people and to discuss “philanthropy.”

Donald and Melania Trump with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell at the Mar-a-Lago club, Palm Beach, Florida in 2000. Photo | Davidoff Studios

Another article in the Evening Standard refers to Epstein as a “property mogul.” Several other articles — such as a 2000 article from Australia’s Sunday Mail, a 1995 article from Australia’s Sun Herald, and a 1995 article from the U.K.’s Mail on Sunday — also refer to Epstein as chiefly a “property developer.” Interestingly, references to Epstein as a property developer continued to occur (though less frequently) after his first arrest in 2007 and then again after his recent arrest this past July, yet oddly only in non-U.S. newspapers. Another article states that Ghislaine Maxwell had sold property on Epstein’s behalf and was also involved in the New York real estate market.

While several articles in the early 2000s describe Epstein as both “property developer” and “financier,” even earlier articles about Epstein refer to him exclusively as a “property developer.” For instance, the 1992 article in the Mail on Sunday cited above referred to Epstein as “a shadowy, almost maverick New York property developer” and noted that, even then, Epstein appeared “to have an inexhaustible supply of money and yet no one seems able to answer the question of precisely what the source.”

As will be revealed in an upcoming MintPress investigative series, these references allude to Epstein’s shady business activities in the New York and Palm Beach real estate markets from the mid-1980s to the late-1990s that were used to launder massive amounts of money for organized crime and intelligence. It is likely for this reason that Epstein’s real estate activities during this period have been so deliberately ignored by the U.S. press, even though other aspects of his financial activities were heavily scrutinized in recent months.

Indeed, in examining Epstein’s involvement in real estate markets, particularly in New York, it becomes clear that those activities have no shortage of controversial tie-ins to the current U.S. presidential administration as well as major New York power players involved in suspect financial activity immediately prior to the September 11 attacks as well as the 2008 financial crisis. All of those connections and more will be explored in MintPress’ upcoming investigative series on the financial crimes of Jeffrey Epstein and their broader implications.

Whitney Webb is a MintPress News journalist based in Chile. She has contributed to several independent media outlets including Global Research, EcoWatch, the Ron Paul Institute and 21st Century Wire, among others. She has made several radio and television appearances and is the 2019 winner of the Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism.

October 14, 2019 Posted by | Corruption, Deception | , | Leave a comment

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