Tag: corruption

Trump Stands by Huckabee After Unannounced Pollard Meeting

n 1987, Jonathan Pollard was sentenced to life in prison for selling national secrets to Israel. Last July, nearly a decade after his parole, the disgraced former Naval intelligence analyst met with U.S. Ambassador to Mike Huckabee at the United States Embassy in Jerusalem.

The meeting was his first with U.S. officials since his release and immigration to Israel. A break with precedent, the move by Huckabee, even all these years after the crime, still alarmed intelligence officials.

The Trump administration was left in the dark. “The White House was not aware of that meeting,” Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told RealClearPolitics. It was reportedly left off the public schedule of the ambassador. And yet, the administration still condoned the actions of the U.S. envoy to Israel.  

“The president stands by our ambassador, Mike Huckabee,” Leavitt added, “and all that he’s doing for the United States and Israel.”

The case sent shockwaves through both Washington and Tel Aviv at the time of the conviction. The rare spy who offered his services to an ally, Pollard pled guilty, confessing to selling thousands of pages of secret documents to the Israelis for cash, vacations to Europe, and promised future payments to be wired to a Swiss bank account. A federal judge dismissed pleas for mercy even after Pollard’s cooperation led to the indictment of an Israeli air force officer.

The episode came at the height of the Cold War when the CIA was on the lookout for Soviet, not Israeli, spies. The press had dubbed 1985 the “Year of the Spy” as President Ronald Reagan vowed to combat espionage wherever it might fester. “We’ve added resources, people, and top-level attention to this task,” Reagan said during a November radio address that year. “We will not hesitate to root out and prosecute the spies of any nation.”

The FBI nabbed Pollard two years later outside the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., during a failed attempt to gain asylum.

Pollard was released from prison in 2015 during the Obama administration. After his parole restrictions expired in December of 2020, at the tail end of the first Trump administration, the former spy emigrated to Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu greeted him on the tarmac, telling Pollard “You’re home.”

The private jet that flew him there was reportedly owned by the late casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, a Republican megadonor who was a benefactor of both Netanyahu and Trump.

Pollard has no regrets for his actions. He told the New York Times, who first broke the news of his meeting with Huckabee, that it was necessary because the U.S. had cut Israel out of intelligence sharing. During that interview, the former spy, who was granted Israeli citizenship while incarcerated, reportedly called Trump a “madman who has literally sold us down the drain for Saudi gold.”

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Congresswoman Faces Expulsion After Indictment for Stealing FEMA Funds, Filing False Tax Return

Far-left Democratic Representative Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick might soon be expelled from Congress if House Republicans get their way.

The reason: A federal grand jury has indicted her and other defendants, including her brother, for purloining $5 million from the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) and using it for contributions to her 2021 congressional campaign.

The indictment isn’t Cherfilus-McCormick’s first brush with federal law. In April, she was the target of a complaint to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) for myriad shenanigans with campaign funds and contributions.

The indictment and the FEC complaint are cited in the expulsion resolution from GOP Representative Greg Steube, also of Florida.

The DOJ Indictment

The Justice Department’s (DOJ) summary of the indictment explains that Cherfilus-McCormick, 46, and her brother, Edwin, 51, “worked through their family health-care company on a FEMA-funded COVID-19 vaccination staffing contract in 2021. In July 2021, the company received an overpayment of $5 million in FEMA funds.”

The defendants conspired to steal the money, then attempted to disguise the sources by routing the funds through “multiple accounts,” DOJ alleges:

Prosecutors allege that a substantial portion of the misappropriated funds was used as candidate contributions to Cherfilus-McCormick’s 2021 congressional campaign and for the personal benefit of the defendants.

The indictment also claims that Cherfilus-McCormick and another conspirator, Nadege Leblanc, 46, “arranged additional contributions using straw donors” from that contract. That went to “friends and relatives who then donated to the campaign as if using their own money.”

Also involved in the scheme, prosecutors allege, was Cherfilus-McCormick’s tax preparer, David K. Spencer, 41, who helped the congresswoman file a false return in 2021. The pair “falsely claimed political spending and other personal expenses as business deductions and inflated charitable contributions in order to reduce her tax obligations,” DOJ alleges.

Cherfilus-McCormick could go to prison for half a century, while big brother Cherfilus faces up to 35 years. Spencer and Leblanc face 33 years and 10 years, respectively.

Said U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi:

Using disaster relief funds for self-enrichment is a particularly selfish, cynical crime. No one is above the law, least of all powerful people who rob taxpayers for personal gain. We will follow the facts in this case and deliver justice.

“This is an unjust, baseless, sham indictment — and I am innocent. The timing alone is curious and clearly meant to distract from far more pressing national issues,” Cherfilus-McCormick claimed.

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Some evidence appears to be missing in Charlie Kirk murder case: Report

Apublic records request with the Washington County Sheriff’s Office found that video footage of alleged Charlie Kirk assassin Tyler Robinson turning himself in no longer exists, a Utah news outlet reported Wednesday. 

Kirk, who is remembered for his staunch Christian faith and for founding the conservative grassroots organization Turning Point USA, was assassinated at a rally in Utah in September. Robinson has been charged with aggravated murder, two counts of obstruction of justice, witness tampering and commission of a violent offense in the presence of a child for Kirk’s death.

Washington County Sheriff Nate Brooksby told KUTV 2 News that Robinson was taken to his office days after the shooting, where he was greeted by two plainclothes detectives. But a public records request found that video showing Robinson entering the Washington County Jail and holding area no longer exists. 

“We do not have any records responsive to this portion of the request, as Tyler Robinson did not go to or enter the jail area,” a records officer with the sheriff’s office told the outlet. 

The outlet then filed another request a few weeks later that more broadly requested footage of Robinson walking into the department, which the sheriff’s office again said it did not have. 

“Our office does not have any applicable records responsive to this request, as the surveillance footage is no longer available after the 30-day retention period,” the officer said.

When asked whether the footage was ever shared with another law enforcement agency or department, the office said, “It is my understanding it was never sent out to any agency.”

Criminal defense attorney Rudy Bautista told the outlet that the office not having the footage was “concerning.” 

“For the state of Utah, we would certainly hope that this video is available,” Bautista said. “If, in fact, it has been destroyed and not preserved, it’s very concerning. And if it has, then it’s very concerning that they’re telling you they don’t have it. If they no longer have it, I would have expected to say that this video has been provided to the Utah County law enforcement.”

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How CDC and FDA Defrauded the American Public about Serious Vaccine Harms

n a fascinating book released in September, Vaccines, Amen. The Religion of Vaccines, lawyer Aaron Siri explains how the American public was systematically misled by the very institutions they are supposed to trust. 

Via numerous lawsuits, Aaron brought many deeply buried, politically inconvenient facts to light, and he is very factual, which is uncommon for vaccine books. They are usually emotional and far too critical of vaccines, or far too positive, with little in-between, which is where the truth is.

The value of lawyers cannot be overestimated. Nothing hurts like the truth about healthcare, which is why we badly need lawyers to dig it out. When drug policy researcher Alan Cassels reviewed my 2025 book, How Merck and Drug Regulators Hid Serious Harms of the HPV Vaccines, he concluded that “If you want the real truth about drugs, don’t ask doctors – ask lawyers.”  

Another quote on my book cover is from Martin Kulldorff, the current chair of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC): “Drugs and vaccines can heal and save lives, but also harm. That puts our lives in the hands of pharmaceutical companies. Can we trust them? In this well-documented book, the clear answer is: NO.”

It is essential to understand this. We know very little about the harms of vaccines because most of the data come from substandard and flawed trials performed by drug companies, which leave out important adverse events from their publications and avoid, with virtually no exceptions, to compare their vaccines with a placebo. 

As an expert witness in a lawsuit against Merck, I read 112,452 pages of confidential study reports and uncovered multiple instances of scientific misconduct in which the drug agencies were complicit. It turned out that Gardasil, an HPV vaccine, causes serious and persistent neurological harms, which drug regulators have denied. 

Aaron explains right from the start why vaccines are sacrosanct. People never say they believe in cars but many say they believe in vaccines, without having the data needed to provide an informed opinion. I found the same when I analysed BMJ articles about Kennedy’s much-needed vaccine reforms; it was all about faith, not about science. 

Aaron has used lawsuits to demonstrate that vaccinologists have a self-reinforcing belief system whose dogmas do not stand up to scrutiny in court. His takedown of Stanley Plotkin, the “high priest” of vaccines, during a deposition is a masterpiece in exposing that the emperor has no clothes when claiming that childhood vaccines are safe and have been carefully tested. 

Plotkin was unable to understand why his earnings of hundreds of millions of dollars from royalties and his close alignment with the interests of the industry could influence his views on vaccines. He didn’t know that safety monitoring in certain trials only lasted 4-5 days after vaccination, which is way too short to capture autoimmune adverse events. Worst of all, Plotkin stated that certain vaccines don’t cause certain harms, or he stated that they were rare, without having any evidence in support of his wishful thinking. 

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Rapper Gets 14 Years in Prison for Funneling Millions of Dollars in Illegal Campaign Contributions to Obama in 2012

Rapper Prakazrel Michel, part of the pop music group the ‘Fugees,’ was sentenced to 14 years in prison this week, after being found guilty of funneling millions of dollars worth of illegal campaign contributions to Obama in 2012.

Obama’s campaign was accused of receiving illegal campaign donations in 2008 as well.

In this case, prosecutors were actually seeking a life sentence for Michel. His defense wanted a three year sentence. In the end, the court found 14 years was sufficient.

Even if the defense appeals this sentence, that could take years. Michel is going to be in prison for a while, either way.

Breitbart News reports:

Fugees Rapper Pras Michel Sentenced to 14 Years in Prison over Illegal Donations to Obama Campaign

Grammy-winning rapper Prakazrel “Pras” Michel of the Fugees was sentenced on Thursday to 14 years in prison for a case in which he was convicted of illegally funneling millions of dollars in foreign contributions to former President Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign.

Michel, 52, declined to address the court before U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly sentenced him.

In April 2023, a federal jury convicted Michel of 10 counts, including conspiracy and acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government. The trial in Washington, D.C., included testimony from actor Leonardo DiCaprio and former Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

Justice Department prosecutors said federal sentencing guidelines recommended a life sentence for Michel, whom they said “betrayed his country for money” and “lied unapologetically and unrelentingly to carry out his schemes.”

“His sentence should reflect the breadth and depth of his crimes, his indifference to the risks to his country, and the magnitude of his greed,” they wrote.

Defense attorney Peter Zeidenberg said his client’s 14-year sentence is “completely disproportionate to the offense.” Michel will appeal his conviction and sentence, according to his lawyer.

Will Obama release any kind of statement? Will the press ask him about it?

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Rand Paul Slams Alcohol And Marijuana Interests Over Federal Hemp Ban, Announcing He’ll File A Bill To Reverse It Next Week

A GOP senator says he’ll be filing a bill next week to protect the hemp industry from an impending federal ban on most cannabinoid products. He’s also calling out alcohol and marijuana interests for allegedly “join[ing] forces” to lobby in favor of the prohibitionist policy change, which will restrict access to a plant and its derivatives that are often used therapeutically—including by members of his Senate colleagues’ families.

In an interview on “The Chris Cuomo Project” podcast that was posted on Thursday, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) previewed his plan to push back against the hemp ban that was included in major spending legislation President Donald Trump signed into law last week.

Paul has been sounding the alarm for weeks about the potential consequences of the hemp recriminalization provisions, which he says would cause mass job losses and a $25 billion industry to be “wiped out.”

As he previewed during a separate webinar organized by the Kentucky Hemp Association on Wednesday, the senator told Cuomo that he intends to introduce legislation next week that would make it so state policy regulating hemp cannabinoid products—with basic safeguards in place to prevent youth access, for example—”supersedes the federal law.”

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White House crafting executive order to thwart state AI laws

An executive order that could soon be signed by President Donald Trump would thwart states’ artificial intelligence laws by launching legal challenges and withholding federal funding, according to a draft of the order obtained by CNBC on Wednesday.

The draft surfaced shortly after Trump publicly called for a single federal standard on AI “instead of a patchwork of 50 State Regulatory Regimes.”

The draft order would give Attorney General Pam Bondi 30 days to establish an “AI Litigation Task Force” whose sole task is to challenge state AI laws.

Those challenges would be issued “on grounds that such laws unconstitutionally regulate interstate commerce, are preempted by existing Federal regulations, or are otherwise unlawful in the Attorney General’s judgment,” the draft says.

The order also directs Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick to notify states with contested AI laws that they are ineligible for funds under the federal Broadband Equity Access and Deployment program. BEAD is a more than $42 billion program that has allocated funding to all U.S. states and territories.

The order, which was first reported by The Information, is not yet finalized. A White House official told CNBC that any discussion around it is just speculation until it is officially announced.

As written, the EO would be a major win for the burgeoning AI industry, whose leaders — including Sam Altman’s OpenAI, venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and other Silicon Valley titans — oppose an inconsistent state-by-state policy approach.

It would be just as big a blow to state lawmakers across the country who have sought to pass bills that would place guardrails on the nascent technology.

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Whistleblower: FBI top brass shielded from scrutiny of the bureau’s internal counterespionage unit

An FBI employee blew the whistle on the unit that investigates counterespionage inside the bureau, accusing it of “gross misconduct, fraud and potentially criminal activities.”

Members of the FBI Senior Executive Service have conspired at various times to ensure they are shielded from internal espionage or counterintelligence investigations, according to the whistleblower disclosure provided to the House Judiciary Committee.

The FBI employee said the “executive exemption” from internal investigations was an unwritten policy and practice of the Internal Counterespionage Cell within the Global Operations Section, which is based at FBI headquarters in Washington.

Rep. Thomas Massie, Kentucky Republican and committee member, reviewed the disclosure.

“It appears the bureau has intentionally and unwisely created its own blind spot, which has compromised our national security. I’m hopeful this administration will take steps to remedy the situation,” he told The Washington Times.

The whistleblower reported the failure of Internal Counterespionage Cell investigators to the FBI’s Internal Affairs Section of the Inspection Division, but then experienced retaliation, said the whistleblower’s attorney, Kurt Siuzdak, who prepared the disclosure.

“After this FBI employee reported the misconduct of ICEC to the Inspection Division, the Inspection Division allowed the Counterintelligence executives to retaliate against the reporting employee by transferring him/her to another office. Retaliatory transfers are prohibited by law and regulation,” he said. “Another employee in ICEC was also threatened after he complained about the issues in ICEC. The Inspection Division took no action to stop the reprisal against this FBI employee.”

The FBI did not respond to a request for comment.

Mr. Siuzdak, who has represented other FBI whistleblowers, said a recently retired FBI supervisor who conducted security revocation reviews also provided a protected disclosure to Congress about misconduct within the Security Division.

Under the FBI’s protocol for internal investigation, one of the first steps when a bureau executive is the subject of a counterintelligence investigation is a review of the executive’s security clearance.

“The retired supervisor advised that he does not remember ever receiving any SES security review request from ICEC. He also did not remember any SES having their security clearance revoked by the Security Division,” Mr. Siuzdak said.

The retired supervisor said he would be willing to be reinterviewed by Congress regarding the lack of requests from the Internal Counterespionage Cell.

The “executive exception” is not a recent practice for FBI brass, the disclosure said. It has been in effect for a long time, spanning several FBI directors, and “protects the families and friends of SES executives.”

According to the disclosure, the FBI has the authority to investigate the family and cohabitants of FBI employees, but “does not open these investigations against the families or cohabitants of FBI SES executives.”

“In effect, FBI SES executives are exempt from the type of counterintelligence investigations that have been conducted against other public officials, including President Donald Trump,” it said. “For instance, the FBI received information that a retired FBI assistant director had classified information at his home.”

The disclosure said a senior counterintelligence official decided not to initiate an operation against the retired FBI executive, and no action was taken.

Several employees in the Internal Counterespionage Cell attempted to persuade a second senior counterintelligence official of the Global Operation Section “to open the investigation against the retired SES executive who illegally stole and possessed the classified information,” the disclosure said. The second senior counterintelligence official refused to proceed with the investigation.

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CIA ‘boasted’ about tricking Congress in JFK probe – Axios

CIA officials misled the US Congress about the movements of the man accused of killing President John F. Kennedy shortly before the assassination and boasted about doing so, Axios has reported, citing former CIA-State Department historian turned whistleblower Thomas Pearcy.

For decades, activists and researchers have demanded full disclosure of all records related to Kennedy’s killing on November 22, 1963. Many have questioned whether Lee Harvey Oswald, the man charged with the murder, acted alone or was even responsible.

The still-classified document described by Pearcy – in a CIA inspector general’s report – allegedly shows how intelligence officials “routinely have covered up facts and records” about Kennedy’s assassination.

According to the whistleblower, the report functioned as a CIA damage assessment examining how the agency’s reputation had been affected by the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), which reopened the JFK investigation in the late 1970s.

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Senator Van Hollen’s “Maryland Mom” Claim Omits Criminal History

Maryland Senator Chris Van Hollen (D) painted a tragic picture of a Maryland mom who is being deported unfairly, but predictably, left her criminal history out of the equation.

“Melissa Tran came here on a Green Card at age 11,” Van Hollen said on X.

“She’s since raised 4 kids, started a business, & is a beloved member of the Hagerstown community.”

“Trump is deporting her, despite a judge saying she poses no threat.”

“Is she the “worst of the worst”? Do you feel safer yet?”

Van Hollen shared the headline of The Baltimore Banner’s sensational article, which, although it included details of her criminal background, he failed to mention in his pleading X message.

Although Van Hollen left some of Tran’s other accomplishments out of his story, Assistant Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Tricia McLaughlin set the record straight.

McLaughlin noted on X, “Omitting some pesky facts, Senator.”

“Mong Tuyen Thi Tran, is a criminal illegal alien from Vietnam, with criminal convictions including grand larceny, multiple counts of forgery and fraud.”

“An immigration judge issued her a final order of removal in 2004–over 20 years ago. ICE arrested her in May.”

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