Tag: fbi

FBI Reopens Assange Investigation

Three years after indicting him on espionage and computer intrusion charges, the Federal Bureau of Investigation appears to be still seeking more evidence against WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange.  

The Sydney Morning Herald has reported in its Thursday edition that the F.B.I. last week sought an interview in London with Andrew O’Hagan, who worked as a ghostwriter on Assange’s autobiography in 2011.  

The London Metropolitan Police’s counterterrorism command sent the letter to O’Hagan, which said: “The FBI would like to discuss your experiences with Assange/WikiLeaks …”  

O’Hagan told the Herald: “I would not give a witness statement against a fellow journalist being pursued for telling the truth. I would happily go to jail before agreeing in any way to support the American security establishment in this cynical effort.”  

The news comes amid growing optimism among Assange supporters that a deal may be in the works to free Assange from London’s Belmarsh prison, where he has been kept since 2019 awaiting the outcome of a U.S. extradition request.  

Assange’s Australian lawyer, Stephen Kenny, told the Herald:

“It appears they are continuing to try to investigate, which I find unusual given the amount of time that has passed since the investigation began.

I would think it is of some concern because we have been working to try to secure an arrangement that would see Julian come home. It would be very unusual if the FBI was trying to gather evidence that could help clear his name.”

Gabriel Shipton, Assange’s brother, told the newspaper: “It shows they understand how weak the charges against Julian are and are trying to strengthen them.”

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The FBI Knows What Car Was Used In J6 DNC Pipe Bomb, But Refuses To Identify Prime Suspect

The FBI is continuing to stonewall congressional oversight of the agency’s investigation into a pair of pipe bombs found at the Democrat National Committee and Republican National Committee headquarters on Jan. 6, 2021.

On Wednesday, House Republicans on the Judiciary Committee re-upped demands for a comprehensive briefing on the two-year-old case over which the FBI has refused transparency.

“Your failure to comply with our request is particularly concerning given recent media reports regarding the pipe bomb investigation,” lawmakers wrote.

Earlier this month, an FBI whistleblower told the Washington Times the FBI identified the vehicle the suspect entered shortly after planting the bombs but has not pursued the individual.

“The FBI had surveillance video that showed the person entering a car with a visible license plate after exiting a Metro stop in Northern Virginia,” the Times reported.

Kyle Seraphin, a former FBI agent who worked on the case, told the paper that the agency “tied whoever the person was that dropped the bombs with [surveillance] cameras all the way through the train and getting into a car with that license plate.” Seraphin also told the Washington Times that the two bombs were inoperable.

“One former FBI assistant director observed, ‘[i]t just doesn’t add up … there’s just too much to work with to not know who this guy is,’” the Judiciary Republicans wrote.

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FBI has IDENTIFIED Zodiac Killer as Air Force veteran Gary Francis Poste – who died in 2018 – and has partial DNA sample that could link him to five serial murders, cold case investigator claims

A cold case investigator is claiming that the FBI has identified the man suspected to be the infamous ‘Zodiac Killer’, who killed at least five people in the late 1960s.

Journalist Thomas Colbert alleges that an FBI whistleblower confirmed to him that Air Force veteran Gary Francis Poste, who has been previously posited as the killer, is currently listed by the bureau as a suspect.

Colbert claims FBI labs have a ‘partial’ DNA sample on Poste – who has been dead since 2018 – that links him to the murders, and believes authorities didn’t look into him enough when he was alive.

‘The felon has been secretly listed as the Zodiac “suspect” in Headquarters’ computers since 2016,’ Colbert’s organization, Case Breakers, said in a statement.

While the Zodiac killer is known to have killed five people in Northern California, the true figure is believed to be between 20 and 28 people, while the killer themselves claimed to have killed 37 in taunts sent to officials.

The FBI has long denied that the long-open case has been solved, confirming it remains open as recently as October 2021.

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FBI Whistleblower Report: Bank of America Gave Americans’ Banking Info to FBI Around January 6

A House Judiciary Committee report on FBI whistleblowers found that Bank of America provided the FBI a list of anyone who used their services in the D.C. area regardless of if they participated in the events of the January 6 protests.

The House Judiciary Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government released an interim report on the government’s abuse, misallocation of resources, and retaliation.

Among the Judiciary Committee’s many revelations, FBI whistleblowers Garret O’Boyle, and retired FBI supervisory Intelligence George Hill testified about how Bank of America (BoA) gave the FBI’s Washington Field Office a list of individuals who had made transactions in the D.C., Maryland, and Virginia area with a BoA credit or debit card between January 5 and 7, 2021.

Hill also testified that individuals who had previously purchased a firearm with a BoA product were elevated to the top of the list provided to the FBI Washington Field Office, which was reported by Breitbart News’s Ashley Oliver.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), a member of the weaponization subcommittee, emphasized during the subcommittee’s Thursday hearing that Hill testified that there was no geolocation fencing regarding the datamining of Americans’ purchasing of firearms.

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Disturbing Testimony Reveals FBI Collected License Plate Numbers of Parents Attending School Board Meetings

During Thursday’s hearing by the House Judiciary Select Committee on the weaponization of the federal government, FBI whistleblower Stephen Friend testified that he was ordered to write down the license plate numbers of parents who attended school board meetings.

Friend — a 12-year veteran of the bureau — was suspended after he refused to take part in a SWAT-style raid on a January 6 suspect who was facing misdemeanor charges last summer. “I have an oath to uphold the Constitution,” Mr. Friend, a 12-year veteran of the bureau, told his supervisors when he declined to participate in the raid on August 24, 2022. “I have a moral objection and want to be considered a conscientious objector.”

On Thursday, U.S. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) questioned the FBI whistleblowers on the bureau’s “terrorism symbol guide.”

The agents told Gaetz that voicing support for the second amendment, the Betsy Ross flag and writing “2A” were all among the FBI’s designated domestic terrorism symbols. Gaetz then turned his attention to Friend and asked about school board meetings.

Friend told the panel that the FBI directed him to record license plate numbers from vehicles belonging to parents opposed to leftist agendas at school board meetings. The suspended agent was one of those parents himself, having attended a number of local school board meetings to voice curriculum concerns.

“After I attended privately my colleagues teased me that [the FBI] were probably going to start investigating me,” Friend said.

In addition, Friend revealed that he was pulled from cases involving child predators in order to investigate parents at school board meetings.

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Clintons in the crosshairs…again! Republicans demand new probe into Bill and Hillary after report reveals FBI top brass shut down FOUR criminal investigations into millions of dollars in foreign donations and speaker fees

The FBI had at least four criminal investigations into Hillary and Bill Clinton that were ultimately shut down months before the presidential election in 2016, a new Justice Department report reveals – and Republicans want to reopen those probes.

A long-awaited report by Special Counsel John Durham released on Monday shows the FBI began investigating claims in late 2014 from a ‘well-placed’ confidential source that two foreign governments were trying to make illegal donations to buy influence with Hillary during her presidential campaign. 

Investigators were even offered documents of one alleged $2,700 illegal contribution that led to a ‘substantial’ further donation.

The bombshell report also reveals three different FBI field offices, in Washington, D.C., Little Rock, Arkansas, and New York, launched investigations into the Clinton Foundation in early 2016 for ‘possible criminal activity.’ 

One of the investigations was partly based on statements made in journalist Peter Schweizer’s 2015 book, Clinton Cash, claiming the Clintons’ charity was taking millions in donations from foreign governments trying to change US foreign policy while Hillary was Secretary of State. 

But despite making progress, all four criminal investigations were shut down by senior officials, Durham found. 

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US authorities destroyed dossiers on Lord Mountbatten at the request of the British Government after discovery of wartime FBI file accusing aristocrat of having a ‘perversion for young boys’, historian claims

The US destroyed FBI dossiers on Lord Mountbatten at the request of the British Government after the discovery of a wartime file accusing the royal of being a paedophile, his biographer has claimed.

Writing for The Mail’s new Royals section, Andrew Lownie expanded on his 2019 discovery of a Second World War-era file which contained the claim that the Earl was a ‘homosexual with a lusting for young boys’. 

When he made a request to the FBI for other files the agency held on Mountbatten, he was told they had been destroyed ‘after you asked for them’. 

Dr Lownie, the author of The Mountbattens: their Lives & Loves, claimed this had been ‘clearly’ carried out at the ‘request of the British Government’. 

The historian also lamented the ‘absurd’ difficulty faced by biographers in getting access to royal archives in the UK after finding that files on King Edward VIII and his American wife Wallis Simpson were ‘mysteriously’ withdrawn from public view. 

He claimed that files on Edward and Wallis which had been available in the National Archives for more than two decades, including ones related to Mrs Simpson’s affair with a used car salesman, have been removed in recent years.

Earl Mountbatten, who was assassinated by the IRA in 1979, served as head of the Royal Navy and had been Viceroy of India when the country became independent from Britain in 1947.

He was a well-known figure in Britain thanks to his close relationship with the Queen, Prince Philip and King Charles, when he was the Prince of Wales. 

The FBI file on him, which emerged in 2019, also claimed that his alleged penchant for young men made him ‘an unfit man to direct any sort of military operations’.

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John Durham releases final report, concludes FBI had no verified intel when it opened probe on Trump

Special Counsel John Durham released a damning final report Monday after more than three years investigating the Russia collusion probe, declaring the FBI had no verified intelligence or evidence when it opened the Crossfire Hurricane probe of President Donald Trump’s campaign in the summer of 2016. The prosecutor, however, recommended no new criminal charges.

“Neither U.S. law enforcement nor the Intelligence Community appears to have possessed any actual evidence of collusion in their holdings at the commencement of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation,” Durham wrote in a 300-plus page report sent to Congress and others and obtained by Just the News.

DOJ was slated to make the report public later Monday.

The prosecutor faulted the department and the FBI for failing to follow their own standards and allowing a probe to persist, including the surveillance of an American citizen, without basis under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

“Based on the review of Crossfire Hurricane and related intelligence activities, we concluded the Department and the FBI failed to uphold their important mission of strict fidelity to the law in connection with certain events and activities described in this report,” Durham wrote.

“The FBI personnel also repeatedly disregarded important requirements when they continued to seek renewals of that FISA surveillance while acknowledging – then and in hindsight – that they did not genuinely believe there was probably cause to believe that the target was knowingly engaged in clandestine intelligence activities on behalf of foreign power.”

You can read the full report here:

 Durham Report

The report’s release touched off instant outrage and impact on Capitol Hill, where House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan tweeted he planned to summon Durham for testimony next week.

The FBI immediately reacted, saying Durham’s findings justified the changes that current Director Christopher Wray made after taking over from fired Director James Comey.

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FBI Contractor Created Fake Online IDs to Join Chatrooms Run by Groups Organizing Against Vaccine Mandates

An FBI surveillance contractor infiltrated the chatrooms of two airline industry groups opposed to vaccine mandates to collect intelligence on the groups’ organizing activities, investigative journalist Lee Fang reported.

The contractor, Flashpoint, which in the past infiltrated Islamic terror groups, now focuses on “anti-vaccine” groups and other domestic political organizations, according to Fang.

In a webinar presentation for clients last year, which Fang analyzed on his Substack, Flashpoint analyst Vlad Cuiujuclu demonstrated his company’s methods for identifying and entering encrypted Telegram chat groups.

He explained how the company attempted to join chatrooms of transportation workers resisting the COVID-19 vaccine mandates.

Fang described the presentation:

“‘In this case, we’re searching for a closed channel of U.S. Freedom Flyers,’ said Cuiujuclu. ‘It’s basically a group that opposed vaccination and masks.’

“As he clicked through a database, Cuiujuclu showed a chat group on Telegram sponsored by Airline Professionals For Justice, another group formed by airline industry workers opposed to the mandate. The forum, he added, provided useful insights, including Zoom links for meetings of the grassroots organization.

“‘Private chats,’ said Cuiujuclu, ‘require for you to have an invite link,’ which he noted can often either be found by scrolling through public forums or by ‘engag[ing] the admin of that channel.’”

Flashpoint also offers clients artificial intelligence and internet scraping tools.

According to Fang, the firm is a leader in the “threat intelligence industry,” a growing number of security and surveillance firms that create fake online identities to infiltrate Discord chats, WhatsApp groups, Reddit forums and dark web message boards to gather information for clients, including corporations and the FBI, to monitor potential threats.

Joshua Yoder, president of US Freedom Flyers, said he is aware that Flashpoint infiltrated private chat groups associated with his organization.

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Ex-FBI agent who feds say urged Jan. 6 rioters to kill police worked terrorism task force

An ex-FBI official who allegedly urged rioters to “kill” officers during the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol was previously the supervisory special agent in charge of Homegrown Violent Extremism for the FBI New York Field Office’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, a senior law enforcement official told NBC News.

Jared Wise was arrested in Oregon this week, charged with four misdemeanor counts. After he entered the Capitol and exited through a broken window, an FBI affidavit alleges, Wise yelled at officers outside the Capitol.

“You’re disgusting. You are the Nazi. You are the Gestapo. You can’t see it,” he yelled, according to the bureau. “Shame on you! Shame on you! Shame on you!”

As officers were knocked down in front of him, Wise turned toward the violence and started yelling again, according to the FBI.

“Yeah, f— them! Yeah, kill ’em!” Wise said, according to the FBI. “Kill ’em! Kill ’em! Kill ’em!”

Wise, according to a senior law enforcement official, served in the homegrown violent extremism role from 2014 to 2017.

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