Tag: corruption

FBI’s Operation to Infiltrate Right-Wing Extremist Groups Lies at Center of Transparency Lawsuit

An FBI right-wing infiltration operation tangled in allegations of witness tampering, evidence suppression, and connections to the Oklahoma City bombing has been exposed through one man’s unprecedented Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. government.

And the case isn’t over yet.

Utah attorney Jesse Trentadue’s 2006 FOIA lawsuit against the FBI and CIA for Oklahoma City bombing records is indeed still an open matter, having been sealed and litigated behind closed doors since 2015 over witness tampering allegations.

Trentadue’s case is unprecedented, according to Judicial Watch. It’s rare for a FOIA case to go to trial and even rarer for one to entail allegations as serious as witness tampering, according to Judicial Watch senior investigator Sean Dunagan.

“We’re one of the largest FOIA litigants in this country, and we’ve never been involved in anything that involves that degree of alleged misconduct by the [FBI],” Dunagan said. “It’s astounding.”

Trentadue declined to comment on the sealed aspects of the case, including when the litigation might conclude. However, he did agree to an interview about the events leading up to 2015. He also provided The Epoch Times with access to a trove of court documents, transcripts, and other records that show details about the federal government’s domestic counterterrorism operations.

His records describe an FBI program known as Patriot Conspiracy (PATCON)—a secret operation to infiltrate right-wing and domestic extremist groups.

PATCON has been in the public record for years, described in detail by historian Wendy Painting’s 2016 doctoral thesis-turned-book “Aberration in the Heartland of the Real.” But PATCON has received little media attention outside of the late journalist Will Grigg. Other journalists have attempted to cover PATCON, only to run into censorship issues.

The reasons for the alleged attempts to suppress PATCON are clear, according to Trentadue.

“The FBI’s real objective in PATCON had been to infiltrate and to incite these fringe groups to violence,” he said.

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Pete Buttigieg accepted $250,000 and gifts from mayoral campaign donors who were later awarded $33million in city contracts, raising concerns of ‘pay to play’ as Transportation Secretary doles out $210billion in infrastructure plan

Transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg’s top political donors received millions of dollars in city contracts after giving thousands to his campaigns while he was mayor of South Bend, Indiana.

Buttigieg’s political action committees took money from 23 companies who then got jobs from South Bend’s Board of Public Works whose members he appointed, documents obtained by DailyMail.com reveal.

On two occasions, the former presidential candidate received donations the same day the companies were awarded contracts.

Other city contractors gifted the mayor cigars, alcohol and golf trips worth hundreds of dollars.

The companies, their executives and spouses donated a total $253,750 to Buttigieg’s campaigns, and received a total of at least $33,310,426 in city contracts between 2011 and 2019. 

After Buttigieg appointed one former company executive to city’s Public Works department, the firm was then handed multiple infrastructure jobs, and became one of Mayor Pete’s largest donors.

Buttigieg served as the mayor of South Bend from 2012 to 2020. He was appointed transportation secretary by President Joe Biden early last year.

Government watchdogs say the pattern of donations and contracts could present the appearance of a ‘pay to play’ scandal – and raises concerns over the $210billion earmarked in the bipartisan infrastructure bill for Buttigieg to dish out in discretionary grants as transport secretary, part of a $1.2trillion budget.

‘The pattern of contracts and donations appears to be a huge conflict of interest,’ Taxpayers Protection Alliance president David Williams told DailyMail.com.

‘This really doesn’t bode well for the secretary of transportation when he has access to almost $1.2trillion in infrastructure money.

‘This is alarming, and very concerning, because this is the swamp personified. You don’t have to be a Rhodes Scholar to look at this and think that something’s wrong here. 

‘Was there a quid pro quo? Was there some sort of backroom deal for these projects? taxpayers deserve answers.’ 

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“A Recurring Fountain Of Revenue”: FDA Exec Admits Biden Planning Annual Jabs, Including Toddlers

Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Executive Officer Christopher Cole was caught on undercover camera by Project Veritas, where he revealed that his agency plans to announce that annual Covid-19 vaccinations will become official policy.

As Project Veritas reports (emphasis ours):

Cole is an Executive Officer heading up the agency’s Countermeasures Initiatives, which plays a critical role in ensuring that drugs, vaccines, and other measures to counter infectious diseases and viruses are safe. He made the revelations on a hidden camera to an undercover Project Veritas reporter.

Cole indicates that annual COVID-19 shots isn’t probable — but certain. When pushed on how he knows an annual shot will become policy, Cole states, “Just from everything I’ve heard, they [FDA] are not going to not approve it.”

The footage, which is part one of a two-part series on the FDA, also contains soundbites from Cole about the financial incentives pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer have to get the vaccine approved for annual usage.

“It’ll be recurring fountain of revenue,” Cole said in the hidden camera footage. “It might not be that much initially, but it’ll recurring — if they can — if they can get every person required at an annual vaccine, that is a recurring return of money going into their company.”

Perhaps the most explosive part of the footage is the moment where Cole brazenly talks about the impact that an Emergency Use Authorization has on overcoming the regulatory concerns of mandating vaccines on children.

“They’re all approved under an emergency just because it’s not as impactful as some of the other approvals,” Cole said when asked if he thought there was “really an emergency for kids.”

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Two Former Hawaii Lawmakers Who ‘Defrauded Citizens’ When They Accepted Bribes Plead Guilty

Two former Hawaii lawmakers who allegedly “defrauded citizens of the state” when they took part in a bribery scheme to benefit a company pleaded guilty Tuesday to felony charges, the U.S. Justice Department (DOJ) announced.

Jamie Kalani English, 54, and Ty Cullen, 41, were charged with one count each of honest services wire fraud. They are scheduled to be sentenced on July 5 and face up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000 if found guilty.

However, the sentences they receive will depend on various factors, including reductions for taking responsibility by pleading guilty early.

English, a Democratic state senator and Senate Majority Leader, represented Hana, East and Upcountry Maui, Molokai, Lanai, and Kahoolawe from 2000 until 2021 while Cullen was a Democratic state representative for communities including Village Park, Waipahu, Royal Kunia, West Loch, and Makakilo since 2013.

According to the DOJ, the defendants “defrauded the citizens of the State of Hawaii of their right to honest and faithful services as elected legislators through bribery and concealment of material information.”

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Biden’s Multi-Billion Afghan Theft Gets Scant Mention on TV News

Two months ago (FAIR.org, 12/21/21), I noted the striking contrast between vocal media outrage—ostensibly grounded in concern for Afghan people—over President Joe Biden’s withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, and the relative silence over the growing humanitarian crisis in that country, which threatens millions with life-threatening levels of famine.

While influenced by drought and Taliban policies, the current crisis is primarily driven by the US decisions to freeze the assets of the country’s central bank and maintain economic sanctions, which have destabilized the banking system and sent the economy into a tailspin.

Last Friday, Biden announced his intention to take the $7 billion in frozen funds currently held in US banks and use them as he sees fit, giving half to a humanitarian aid trust fund for Afghans and half to families of 9/11 victims.

Lest anyone imagine this to be generous in any way, note that the $7 billion—most of which originated as international aid, and representing the vast majority of the central bank’s assets—belongs to the Afghan people, not to Biden. And the Afghan people bear zero responsibility for the 9/11 attacks. On the contrary, they are also its victims, because of the subsequent US decision to invade and occupy their country.

Beyond that, giving them back half of the money that is rightfully theirs in the form of “aid”—instead of returning it to the banking system—is not only a band-aid that doesn’t solve the country’s liquidity problem, it’s nearly impossible to do anyway, given the sanctions still in place (Relief Web, 2/12/21).

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3 Military Industrial Execs Indicted for Illegal Campaign Contributions to Sen. Susan Collins

Three military-industrial executives with Department of Defense contracts have been indicted for allegedly making illegal contributions to Sen. Susan Collins’ (R-Maine) reelection bid.

According to a statement by the Department of Justice (DOJ), the three executives under investigation are Martin Kao, former chief executive of the firm Martin Defense Group, Clifford Chen, its chief financial officer, and Lawrence “Kahele” Lum Kee, an accountant for the firm.

Under the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, restrictions are placed upon who can make donations to candidates and the maximum amount that they can donate to those campaigns. Military contractors are among those prohibited from making campaign contributions under the legislation, in part due to the conflicts of interest that such contributions entail.

In an effort to get around this restriction, the three indicted men allegedly formed a shell company in 2019 called the Society of Young Women Scientist and Engineers. From there, they funneled $150,000 to the Collin-supporting 1820 PAC.

According to the DOJ statement, the three men also “allegedly used family members as conduits to make illegal contributions to the campaign committee of the same candidate, and then reimbursed themselves for those donations using funds obtained from their employer.” Donations given this way exceeded $52,000.

The charge, if proven to be true, would put the three men in clear violation of the Federal Election Campaign Act, which prohibits the use of “conduits,” or go-betweens to give donations in a secretive or roundabout way.

The trio has been charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States and to make conduit and government contractor contributions, making conduit contributions, and making government contractor contributions, according to the official indictment (pdf). Kao, the chief executive, has also been charged with two counts of making false statements for causing the submission of false information to the Federal Election Committee.

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