Tag: doj

Republican Majority Rewarded FBI-DOJ for Breaking the Law – Approved FISA Process Through Next Election Cycle

Former Defense Department Chief of Staff Kash Patel joined Maria Bartiromo this morning along with Attorney Alan Dershowitz to discuss political hitman Jack Smith and his political maneuvers to take down Donald Trump.

During their conversation Kash Patel reminded the FOX News audience that Republicans just voted to reauthorize the FISA Program through the 2024 election that was used to spy on President Trump by the FBI in 2016 and beyond.

It is well known today that the FBI knowingly and willfully lied to the FISA Court to spy on the Trump Campaign in 2016 and later on his administration and even family members.

Kash Patel: Yeah, it’s great to be with you, Maria. Look, the biggest concern I have going forward is the politicization and weaponization and creation of a two tier system of justice as a result. Back when Devin Nunes and I ran the Russia gate investigation and exposed the FISA corruption, we recommended a slew of fixes. So it never happened again. Unfortunately, Congress chose to allow 702 FISA to basically be reauthorized.

What does that mean? What is 702? It’s fancy for foreign intelligence surveillance. It means me, as a former national security prosecutor and intelligence operative, would go overseas and manhunt terrorists. That’s what it’s for. But the FISA court, in April of 2022, publicized an opinion that said the FBI used it illegally 275,000 times domestically against Americans, 16 different occasions against those affiliated with, January 6, 19,000 times domestically against donors to a congressional campaign, and, wait for it, 24,000 separate times against Americans and groups in and around January 6.

That FISA process has been turned on its head, redirected inwards. And anyone who says, oh, that’s just a Republican conspiracy speak, that’s the FISA court that rescinded Rod Rosenstein’s illegal surveillance of Donald Trump twice based on our investigation. And now they do it again, and they prove the FBI and DOJ have weaponized justice. And the Republican leadership in Congress allowed it to be reauthorized, essentially through the next election cycle…

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Blaze journalist who covered Jan 6 to be charged by Biden DOJ

Journalist for The Blaze Steve Baker has been notified by the FBI that he is going to be charged by Biden’s Department of Justice for his work covering the protest and riot at the Capitol Building on January 6, 2021. He was told to surrender to authorities on Tuesday and has not yet been made aware of the charges.

He said that he entered the Capitol on that day, “like about 60 other journalists, but “Did no damage or parading or violence.”

Info Wars journalist Owen Shroyer just served a nearly 2 month sentence for having been on the Capitol grounds on that day. Other journalists have also been arrested and tried. 

Far-left journalist John Sullivan, who sold his footage of J6 to mainstream media outlets, was also charged after covering the event. He was charged with Obstruction of an Official Proceeding; Civil Disorder; Entering and Remaining in a Restricted Building or Grounds; Disorderly and Disruptive Conduct in a Restricted Building or Grounds; Disorderly Conduct in a Capitol Building; Parading, Demonstrating, or Picketing in a Capitol Building; and Aiding and Abetting, per the Department of Justice.

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Ahead Of Oral Arguments, Safe Drug Consumption Site Lawyers Call Out DOJ’s ‘Irreconcilable’ Legal Positions

With oral arguments set for Monday in a federal court case over a proposed Philadelphia safe drug consumption site, counsel for the would-be facility sent a letter to the judge in the case on Thursday calling out the Department of Justice (DOJ) for taking apparently contradictory legal positions.

In the Philadelphia safe consumption site case itself, the letter says, DOJ has argued that the harm reduction aims of Safehouse, the nonprofit attempting to open facility where people can use illicit substances in a medically supervised environment, are “socio-political” rather than religious.

In a separate case involving an Episcopal church in Oregon, however, DOJ recently filed a statement of interest arguing that “distribution of free meals to persons in need is ‘religious exercise’” that would be infringed by a local zoning ordinance.

Writing to Judge Gerald McHugh of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, DLA Piper attorney Ilana Eisenstein said the government can’t have it both ways.

DOJ’s arguments in the Oregon case, Eisenstein wrote, “demonstrate that Safehouse has adequately pled a substantial burden on its religious exercise.”

In other words, the letter asserts that if the government views handing out free meals to people in need as protected on religious grounds, it can’t simultaneously deny that harm reduction services could deserve similar protections.

“DOJ’s positions in that case are irreconcilable with its arguments here,” the letter says, “and confirm that this Court should deny the DOJ’s pending motion to dismiss.”

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Biden’s Justice Department Says Marijuana Consumers Are ‘Unlikely’ To Store Guns Properly In Latest Defense Of Federal Ban

The Biden administration has once again found itself in federal court defending a ban preventing people who use marijuana from buying or possessing firearms, arguing that historical precedent “comfortably” supports the restriction and that cannabis consumers with guns pose a unique danger to society, in part because they’re “unlikely” to store their weapon properly before using marijuana.

In a brief submitted to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit on Wednesday, attorneys for the Justice Department responded to a series of prompts from the judges, asserting that the firearm ban for marijuana consumers is justified based on historical analogues to restrictions on the mentally ill and habitually drunk that were imposed during the time of the Second Amendment’s ratification in 1791.

The federal government has repeatedly affirmed that those analogues, which must be demonstrated to maintain firearm restrictions under a recent Supreme Court ruling, provide clear support for limiting gun rights for cannabis users. But several federal courts have separately deemed the marijuana-related ban unconstitutional, leading DOJ to appeal in several ongoing cases.

For the case before the Third Circuit, the government is defending the ban against Erik Matthew Harris, who was convicted of violating the federal statute prohibiting the possession of a firearm by a person “who is an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled substance.” As the Daily Caller first reported, Harris’s legal representation also submitted a supplemental brief to the court on Wednesday that broadly disputes both the substance of the conviction under the statute, as well as the idea that there are relevant historical analogues to uphold the existing ban.

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It Begins. Biden’s DOJ Starts Arresting Trump Supporters Who Stood Outside the US Capitol and Committed No Violence – Despite Registered Rallies on Capitol Grounds that Day

On October 13, 2022, the FBI testified that they were using geo-tracking data to identify Trump supporters who had gathered near the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.

A bombshell report by the Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF) revealed the “vast, secretive” partnership between private companies and the federal government to surveil and track the movements of millions of Americans.

According to the EFF, the intel alphabet agencies, including ICE, the FBI, US Secret Service, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and the Department of Defense (DoD), as well as state and local law enforcement, are being funneled hordes of private cell phone location data by private brokers who harvest the information.

This is the same tactic that Gregg Phillips, Catherine Engelbrecht, and True The Vote used for their investigation into the mail-in ballot dropbox fraud during the 2020 election. The cell phone location data collected by this group was used to identify the network of Democrat operatives who committed mass election fraud, as seen in the recently-released documentary “2000 Mules.”

The FBI was alleged to have used this data to identify patriotic protesters who traveled to Washington DC on January 6, 2021, to support President Trump and the US Constitution.

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DOJ ordered Hunter Biden investigators to ‘remove any reference’ to Joe Biden in FARA probe warrant: House GOP

The U.S. Department of Justice ordered FBI and IRS investigators involved in the Hunter Biden probe to “remove any reference” to President Biden in a search warrant related to a Foreign Agents Registration Act probe, new documents released by the House Ways & Means Committee reveal.

Committee Chairman Jason Smith, R-Mo., led a vote Wednesday to release new documents provided by IRS whistleblowers Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler that “corroborate their initial testimony to the Committee and reinforce their credibility and their high esteem among colleagues.”

“The Biden Administration — including top officials at the Justice Department — lied to the American public and engaged in a cover-up that interfered with federal investigators and protected the Biden family, including President Biden himself,” the committee said.

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DOJ files lawsuit accusing SpaceX of hiring discrimination against refugees, asylum recipients

The Department of Justice (DOJ) on Thursday filed a lawsuit against SpaceX accusing the company of discriminating against asylum recipients and refugees in its hiring decisions.

The DOJ alleges that SpaceX “routinely discouraged asylees and refugees from applying and refused to hire or consider them, because of their citizenship status, in violation of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA).” According to the suit, SpaceX wrongly claimed that federal regulations related to export controls restricted the company to only hiring U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents, also known as green card holders.

“Our investigation found that SpaceX failed to fairly consider or hire asylees and refugees because of their citizenship status and imposed what amounted to a ban on their hire regardless of their qualification, in violation of federal law,” said Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division. “Our investigation found that SpaceX recruiters and high-level officials took actions that actively discouraged asylees and refugees from seeking work opportunities at the company.”

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Biden’s DOJ Removes ‘International Sex Trafficking of Minors’ as an ‘Area of Concern’

The Department of Justice (DOJ), led by Democrat President Joe Biden, has taken child sex trafficking off it’s list of offenses that it regards as “areas of concern.”

The DOJ removed information from their webpage on child sex trafficking in late May.

The section had been added by President Donald Trump’s administration and highlighted that cracking down on the “international sex trafficking of minors” was a top priority for the U.S. government.

The horrible crime is no longer recorded as a “concern” for Biden’s DOJ, it has just been disclosed that the data was erased.

Steve Bannon’s Warroom journalist Natalie Winters revealed the astounding modification.

The shift in strategy comes as criticism of Biden’s ongoing encouragement of mass migration through America’s open southern border grows.

The border is a prime avenue for child sex trafficking, as we at Leading Report have previously reported.

It also coincides with the recent release of the hit anti-child trafficking film “Sound of Freedom.”

On May 12th, 2023, the Department of Justice (DOJ) made significant changes to its homepage detailing what defines child sex trafficking and how the department is combating it, including the removal of the three sections: “International Sex Trafficking of Minors”; “Domestic Sex Trafficking of Minors,” and “Child Victims of Prostitution.”

The website, which belongs to the DOJ’s Criminal Division, lists the “subject areas” that the organization’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Services concentrate on.

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DOJ announces multiple indictments against whistleblower who alleged Biden received payments from CCP-affiliated individuals

The Department of Justice has announced multiple indictments against Dr. Gal Luft, the Israeli-American co-director of a Maryland think tank who gained notoriety as the “missing witness” in the investigation into Joe Biden’s corruption. The New York Post recently shared a video of Luft wherein he broke down allegations against Biden and claimed that he had been arrested to prevent him from testifying to the House Oversight Committee with damning evidence against the first family.

Now, long after coming out as a whistleblower, Luft himself has been charged by the Biden DOJ for allegedly engaging in “multiple serious schemes” involving the Chinese and Iranians alongside a “former high-ranking US Government official.” The charges include numerous offenses related to failing to register under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, arms trafficking, Iranian sanctions violations, and making false statements to federal agents.

According to the DOJ, Luft allegedly “subverted foreign agent registration laws in the United States to seek to promote Chinese policies by acting through a former high-ranking U.S. Government official, acted as a broker in deals for dangerous weapons and Iranian oil, and he told multiple lies about his crimes to law enforcement.”

The agency explained that Luft had allegedly conspired with others to “advance the interests of the People’s Republic of China … as agents of China-based principals, without registering as foreign agents as required under US law.”

He supposedly used his position as co-director of the think tank to recruit and pay the aforementioned government official at the behest of Chinese bosses, to “publicly support certain policies with respect to China.”

In the video shared by the Post, Luft alleged that he had provided potentially inciminating evidence against Biden during a meeting with FBI and DOJ officials in 2019, but that his warnings were not heeded, but rather, covered up.

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A Post-Clemency Prosecution Shines a Light on a Broken System

A month before he left office, then-President Donald Trump freed Philip Esformes, a Florida nursing home operator who had served nearly five years of a 20-year sentence for bilking Medicare and Medicaid. Despite that commutation, the Justice Department plans to retry Esformes for the same conduct that sent him to prison in the first place.

Critics of that unprecedented move say it undermines the pardon power and violates the Fifth Amendment’s ban on double jeopardy. As witnesses at a recent congressional hearing emphasized, the case also illustrates the sorry state of the federal clemency system, which in recent decades has become increasingly stingy, inefficient, and haphazard.

Esformes was arrested in 2016 and charged with numerous crimes related to a scheme that prosecutors said involved bribes, kickbacks, and medically unnecessary treatments, all of which helped fund a “lavish lifestyle.” After an eight-week trial in 2019, U.S. District Judge Robert N. Scola Jr. directed the jury to acquit Esformes of six charges, including two counts of health care fraud, deeming the evidence underlying them insufficient as a matter of law.

The jury convicted Esformes of 20 other charges, including conspiracy to defraud the United States, money laundering, payment and receipt of kickbacks, and obstruction of justice. But it failed to reach verdicts on six counts, including the central charge of conspiring to commit health care fraud.

Based on the 20 convictions, Right on Crime Executive Director Brett Tolman noted in his congressional testimony, “Mr. Esformes was facing 5 years in prison.” But prosecutors successfully urged Scola to sentence Esformes as if he had been convicted of health care fraud, which “increased Mr. Esformes’ sentence by 15 years.”

Although it defies conventional notions of justice, federal judges are allowed to punish defendants for crimes that have not been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. In this case, Scola explicitly said he considered the six undecided counts in determining Esformes’ sentence.

The Justice Department nevertheless wants to take another stab at convicting Esformes of those crimes. It argues that the commutation Esformes received does not preclude another prosecution, because it says nothing about the unresolved counts.

Trump explicitly left in place three years of post-release supervision, plus restitution and forfeiture totaling about $44 million. But it is hard to believe he thought he was leaving the door open to a trial that could send Esformes back to prison. That prospect instead seems to be the result of a mistake that could have been avoided if Trump had been better advised.

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