Tag: corruption

Ukraine’s Anti-Graft Agencies Say They Uncovered Major Drone Procurement Bribery Case

Ukraine’s anti-corruption agencies said on Aug. 2 they had uncovered a large-scale bribery scheme involving the procurement of military drones and electronic warfare equipment.

This came just days after the agencies’ independence was restored following mass protests over government efforts to curb their powers.

The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) said in a statement on Saturday that the alleged plot involved a sitting lawmaker, current and former regional officials, National Guard personnel, and a company executive.

Investigators alleged that those involved had refined a scheme over the past two years to systematically siphon off budget funds allocated by local authorities for defense needs, and to secure “unfair benefits in particularly large quantities.”

Ukrainian media outlet Ukrainska Pravda, citing unnamed law enforcement sources, identified the accused lawmaker as Oleksii Kuznetsov of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s Servant of the People party.

Party leader Davyd Arakhamiia later said on Telegram that Kuznetsov’s membership in the parliamentary faction would be suspended while the investigation is underway, and that a disciplinary panel was weighing his expulsion.

The Epoch Times has reached out to the Ukrainian parliament’s press office with a request to forward a comment request to Kuznetsov.

In a separate statement, the party said it supported the work of NABU and SAPO, and stressed that responsibility for corrupt acts “must be borne by everyone, regardless of position, status or political affiliation.”

It said the recently passed law restoring the agencies’ independence “created additional guarantees for their work,” for them to act decisively and professionally in combating corruption.

Zelenskyy said in a statement posted on X on Saturday that he had been briefed on the investigation by the heads of NABU and SAPO, confirming that a lawmaker, local officials, and several National Guard servicemembers had been “exposed for bribery.”

“I am grateful to the anti-corruption agencies for their work,” he wrote. “There can only be zero tolerance for corruption, clear teamwork in uncovering it, and ultimately, a fair sentence. It is important that anti-corruption institutions operate independently, and the law passed on Thursday guarantees them all the tools necessary for a real fight against corruption.”

The law he referred to marked a dramatic about-face for his administration.

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Zelensky Party Lawmaker Among Ukraine Officials Arrested over Corruption: Report

Multiple military and political officials in Ukraine, reportedly including a lawmaker from President Zelensky’s party, have been accused of corruption schemes to steal money intended for the war effort and bribery.

Just weeks after thousands took to the streets of Kyiv to protest against the loosening of anti-corruption standards, forcing the Zelensky government to backtrack immediately, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) said that four people have been arrested on suspicion of corruption.

According to a report from Ukrainska Pravda, this included Member of Parliament Oleksii Kuznetsov of Zelensky’s Servant of the People party. The news outlet went on to claim that the other officials included former Luhansk governor Serhii Haidai, head of Luhansk Oblast’s Rubizhne district Andrii Yurchenko, and an official from Ukraine’s National Guard.

In a statement, the NABU said that the officials established a scheme to fraudulently overcharge on defence spending, including on electronic warfare systems and on military drones, by upwards of 30 per cent.

“After the contract was executed, the company’s officials handed over their ‘kickback’ to the members of the criminal group,” the agency said.

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Everything Damaging To Democrats Is ‘Russian Disinformation’ To The Media

There’s a reliable pattern: Whenever something truly devastating to Democrats comes to light, the dying news media will immediately call it “Russian disinformation,” even when the goods are 1,000 percent real; the latest being newly declassified documents this week with yet more evidence indicating that Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign planned to smear Trump by connecting him to Russia — the basis of the completely fabricated Russia-Trump collusion hoax that ultimately framed President Trump and his associates with crimes they didn’t commit.

An alternate reality exists wherein the New York Times assesses the new details and concludes that one of the country’s major political parties engaged in some truly corrupt, sinister conduct, and perhaps there might be avenues to pursue legal accountability. Unfortunately, we live in this reality where the Times runs the headline, “‘Clinton Plan’ Emails Were Likely Made by Russian Spies, Declassified Report Shows,” a naked attempt to dismiss what the new information actually shows.

Senate Republicans on Thursday declassified a portion of a special counsel report that included purported communications involving the 2016 Clinton campaign and a left-wing non-profit group, which suggest the parties plotted to implicate Trump and his campaign in Russian election interference. The best part of the article, authored by Times reporters Charlie Savage and Adam Goldman, is when they brush annex revelations aside, essentially because Durham couldn’t locate the originals of a couple of emails.

Pack it up guys! Nothing to see here!

That’s not an exaggeration. “[U]ltimately, in weighing all the evidence,” the article said, “[Special Counsel John] Durham concluded that the Russians had probably faked the key emails…” But that’s not true. The immediate paragraph thereafter quotes a line included in the annex documents that literally says Duram’s office assessed the emails in question to be “a composite of several emails that were obtained through Russian intelligence hacking of the U.S.-based Think Tanks, including the Open Society Foundations, the Carnegie Endowment, and others.” As The Federalist’s Elle Purnell noted, that’s “obviously not the same thing as saying he thought the Russians completely made them up.”

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Dr. Oz exposes the nonprofit lie at the heart of US health care

American health care is a paradox. We spend more than any nation in history — nearly 20% of our GDP — yet our outcomes remain stubbornly mediocre.

New hospitals rise like monuments to excess. Their parking lots fill with luxury cars. Tax dollars pour in from every level of government. Private spending remains sky-high. But while the profits flow, patient satisfaction and results don’t keep pace.

That’s because the system doesn’t reward quality. It rewards short-term financial performance.

Health care costs keep rising faster than inflation. Voters resist higher taxes, so deficits explode. The federal government now routinely runs annual shortfalls exceeding 6% of GDP — even during boom times. Something’s got to give.

Enter Dr. Mehmet Oz. Once a fixture on daytime TV, now head of Medicare and Medicaid Services under President Trump, Oz has zeroed in on the real source of bloat: hospital executives enriching themselves under the guise of nonprofit care.

Oz recently urged Americans to review tax filings and publicly “shame” hospital administrators pulling down massive salaries. He’s right to sound the alarm.

Most hospitals claim nonprofit status — but their leadership rakes in pay packages in the tens of millions, complete with bonuses, stock perks, and golden parachutes. Those compensation schemes only make sense because the IRS grants nonprofits huge tax breaks. And the standards for maintaining that status? Laughably weak.

As a result, the federal government forfeits tens of billions of dollars annually — revenue that could support real health care reform or reduce the deficit.

Consider Nazareth Hospital in Philadelphia. It belongs to Trinity Health Mid-Atlantic, a large nonprofit chain. Trinity’s CEO earns over $1.4 million a year. Yet, Nazareth carries a dismal one-star Medicare rating, charges high prices, and provides very little charity care. Despite funneling more than $160 million annually through its doors, it contributes almost nothing in taxes — while local, state, and federal governments foot the bill for many of its patients.

It’s a rigged system: Taxpayers pay, executives profit, and patients suffer.

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Hillary Clinton’s 2016 election post-mortem confirms plan to smear Trump with Russia, like intel

Newly declassified evidence shows the FBI was alerted to intelligence in 2016 indicating Hillary Clinton planned to smear then-candidate Donald Trump by linking him to Russian leader Vladimir Putin, and then bureau leaders played right into the campaign’s strategy by conducting a sweeping investigation into false claims of Trump-Russia collusion.

Now a major question hovers over the Justice Department strike force set up by Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate the affair: was it just a political dirty trick or did it rise to the level of a criminal conspiracy?

Clinton’s own words in a 2016 election post-mortem are likely to be key to investigators. 

Public records show Clinton herself, in coordination with her campaign general counsel Marc Elias, campaign manager Robby Mook, campaign chairman John Podesta, campaign communications director Jennifer Palmieri, campaign policy adviser Jake Sullivan, and others launched an effort to link Trump to Putin as the 2016 battle for the White House raged.

Newly declassified evidence dubbed the “Clinton Plan intelligence” included purported intercepted communications from a George Soros ally suggesting that Clinton’s 2016 campaign against Trump was plotting an effort to demonize the Republican nominee by connecting him to Putin, and that the Clinton campaign expected the FBI would put more fuel on the fire.

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What did Nancy Pelosi know and when did she know it?

This May 16, 2016, quote from Nancy Pelosi has haunted me:

“Donald Trump is not going to be President of the United States. Take it to the bank, I guarantee it.”

All these years, I’ve wondered, how could she be so certain?  This wasn’t just the usual campaign hyperbole. Her phrasing was a simple noun-verb construction, nakedly declarative, and absolutely certain. She left herself absolutely no wiggle room for later, just in case. Seasoned politicians don’t do that sort of thing typically, and Nancy Pelosi is most definitely seasoned. So why??  Why do it?

We may have gotten our answer.

The long-classified annex from the Durham report was declassified this Thursday. What it tells us is that the clock, as it were, on when the organizational malfeasance — the coup — against Donald Trump began may have to be ratcheted back months.

Down at the bottom of the now-declassified page in this X post is a paragraph from hacked emails the Russians had exfiltrated in March of 2016:

…The Clinton staff, with support from special services is preparing scandalous revelations of business relations between Trump and ‘The Russian Mafia.’  Currently, they are studying his connections…

Ironically, these are the first actual Russian-hacked emails we have proof of after all these years! As you may recall, the DNC “hack” has never been proven, as the FBI has never examined the hard drives.

The internet is now speculating what “special services” means, but I know what I read it to mean, in the context (you’ll see it in a moment) of the entire document:  the FBI. 

Now, where did this information come from? Whose hacked email are we talking about?

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Former FBI Director Chris Wray Criminally Referred to DOJ Over Claims He Lied to Congress

Former FBI Director Christopher Wray has been criminally referred to the Justice Department, according to Fox News.

The Oversight Project referred Wray to the DOJ for allegedly making false statements to Congress and obstructing proceedings related to two cases: The FBI’s anti-Catholic bias and the FBI’s involvement blocking an investigation into a Chinese mail-in voting scam.

Last month, Senator Chuck Grassley released new information from declassified documents that reveal the FBI blocked an investigation into the allegations that the Chinese Communist Party manufactured thousands of fake driver’s licenses and shipped them to the US in a scheme to help Joe Biden win the election by fraudulent mail-in votes.

The FBI hid the investigation in order to protect dirty FBI Director Chris Wray who had lied to Congress about the election.

Wray also lied to Congress about the Richmond memo targeting Catholics.

In February 2023, the Committee on the Judiciary and the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government launched its investigation after whistleblower Kyle Seraphin exposed the Richmond memorandum within the FBI’s internal systems.

The leaked memo suggested that, to infiltrate Catholic parishes, FBI agents could use clergy and parish staff as “tripwires” and monitor online communities associated with the Traditional Latin Mass.

FBI Director Christopher Wray has called the memo “appalling” and stated that it was retracted promptly upon discovery.

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Origins of Medical Harm

The level of compensation doctors receive from Medicare is currently under renewed scrutiny; these standards are mirrored by health insurers. The quantity of reimbursement weighted to specialists is likely to shift towards primary care physicians. Reconfiguration of doctors’ fees is overdue, although they are determined by a secretive American Medical Association committee. 

Analysis and debate about the ongoing healthcare crisis emphasize misdirected funding rather than considering how to revitalize the ethics of medicine. The Hippocratic Oath clarifies the priorities essential for the mindset of a physician. Despite its primary warning, first, do no harm, damage done to patients is rampant. Resolution of this tragic dynamic appears insoluble. 

When decisions are made by any medical organization with financial interests, the primary impetus of the Oath is lost; the AMA’s control over payment schedules reinforces and exemplifies a corrupt institutional flaw. The harm done by the business of medicine needs to be evaluated and controlled.

The seemingly intractable conflict of interest undermining medical care is directly tied to a profit-oriented model in mitigating human suffering. Dispensing treatments with earnings in mind is a form of profitable planned obsolescence and ultimately a methodology that degrades patient autonomy and vitality. 

Although there is often consensus among critics of the healthcare system about its numerous faults, approaching the central issue of profiting from illness is virtually avoided. 

In an attempt to broach the topic of money and medicine, the AMA’s Journal of Ethics presents a self-justifying analysis. The following excerpt exposes how this inherently conflicted view of healthcare depends on the illness of the nation. 

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DOJ Official Who OK’d $2M Payouts To Russia Hoax Lovers Now Running Anti-Trump Lawfare Group

The Biden Justice Department official who greenlit $2 million in taxpayer-funded payouts to disgraced FBI lovebirds Peter Strzok and Lisa Page has resurfaced at the helm of a Democrat-aligned group dedicated to suing Donald Trump into oblivion, records show.

According to documents obtained by The Federalist, Brian Netter, a former Deputy Assistant Attorney General under Merrick Garland, personally approved the eye-popping settlements. Strzok, who infamously plotted the “insurance policy” against Trump while investigating the Clinton campaign’s Russia collusion hoax, pocketed $1.2 million. His mistress, ex-FBI lawyer Page, scored $800,000 [reeee sexist bribe gap!].

The duo had sued the DOJ, whining that the release of their scandalous, government-resource–written texts violated their privacy. Instead of fighting, the Biden team cut them fat checks – at taxpayer expense.

Now, Netter has taken his talents to Democracy Forward, where he serves as legal director. The left-wing group, proudly launched in 2017 to fight Trump with endless litigation, brags about taking the 45th president to court more than 100 times. The New York Times even hailed them last fall: “Liberal Legal Group Positions Itself as a Top Trump Administration Foe.”

The group’s board reads like a Who’s Who of Democratic Party royalty: Clinton campaign manager John Podesta, Biden’s ex–chief of staff Ron Klain, Vice President Kamala Harris’ sister Maya Harris, and Democratic strategist Mindy Myers. We’re sure Podesta is dazzling them with his famous walnut sauce on pasta and whatnot.

At the top sits Marc Elias, the Democratic super-lawyer notorious for bankrolling the Clinton campaign’s Russia collusion scheme through his law firm and masterminding the chaotic 2020 mail-in ballot expansion. Clinton’s campaign was fined just $113,000 for disguising opposition research as “legal services.”

Netter’s ties to Democratic power brokers run even deeper. He’s married to Karen Dunn, a high-powered Democratic lawyer who prepped Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Kamala Harris for presidential debates. The 2009 wedding? Officiated by none other than Merrick Garland.

Dunn, a former Hillary confidante widely floated for White House Counsel if Clinton had won in 2016, co-founded a law firm with Jeannie Rhee, a Mueller probe alum who helped keep the Russia hoax alive. They later hired yet another Mueller hand, Rush Atkinson.

Both Netter and Dunn clerked for liberal Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, while Dunn also clerked for Garland on the D.C. Circuit.

Congressional Republicans had long tried to learn who authorized the cushy settlements for Strzok and Page but were stonewalled by Biden’s DOJ, which claimed it didn’t know.

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White House PressSec Slams Media Over Silence On Russia Collusion Hoax Bombshells

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt took members of the press corps to task over their refusal to cover newly released evidence that shows Hillary Clinton approved the Russian collusion hoax against Donald Trump.

Leavitt’s comments come on the heels of a newly declassified appendix to the Durham Report that exposes a reported Clinton campaign plan to falsely accuse President Trump of collusion with Russia.

Leavitt chided members of the press, telling them, “This is a story that every outlet in this room should be covering,” and that “This is further evidence that Hillary Clinton approved the Russia Hoax against President Trump. Her campaign financed it.”

Leavitt added that “the FBI and the CIA were both weaponized to accelerate this hoax against then-candidate and former president Trump.”

The Press Secretary told reporters that, “The president wants to see justice served and he trusts the Attorney General and the Department of Justice to implement that justice and hold these people accountable.”

The so-called “Durham annex” to John Durham’s Special Counsel report was released yesterday by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and brings previously classified information to light regarding the Clinton campaign’s plans to falsely tie Trump to Russia.

In a press release, Grassley said, “History will show that the Obama and Biden administration’s law enforcement and intelligence agencies were weaponized against President Trump. This political weaponization has caused critical damage to our institutions and is one of the biggest political scandals and cover-ups in American history. The new Trump administration has a tremendous responsibility to the American people to fix the damage done and do so with maximum speed and transparency.”

At a press conference just one week ago, Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard said that the Obama administration promoted a “contrived narrative” that Russia interfered in the 2016 election.

Gabbard stated, “There is irrefutable evidence that details how President Obama and his national security team directed the creation of an intelligence community assessment that they knew was false. They knew it would promote this contrived narrative that Russia interfered in the 2016 election to help President Trump win, selling it to the American people as though it were true it wasn’t.”

Independent journalist Matt Taibbi has suggested that mainstream media has left itself few options because it cannot cover the most recent disclosures without making major admissions to its own part in the hoax.

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