Tag: fbi

FBI Confirms Hunting Stand Near Trump’s Air Force 1: 4 Things to Know

The FBI’s deputy director provided more details about a hunting stand that was found overlooking President Donald Trump’s Air Force One in Florida, saying the agency is now using its forensic tools in an investigation.

On Oct. 19, FBI Director Kash Patel confirmed the existence of the stand in a statement to multiple news outlets, including The Epoch Times.

Hunting stands, also known as tree or deer stands, are platforms that give hunters a better vantage point when hunting game such as deer.

Stand Is Dismantled

Agents with the Secret Service discovered the stand and were “very concerned” about the finding, FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino told Fox News on the morning of Oct. 20.

“I believe we had our plane flown down there,” he said. “This hunting stand was appropriately dismantled. It’s being flown to our lab. I believe it’s there right now, and all the forensic tools we have, from digital tools to biometric tools, are all going to be applied to try to find out who put this up there and why.”

The Secret Service has since made changes to the security around the Palm Beach International Airport in West Palm Beach, Florida, where the stand was found, Bongino said.

“The FBI has since taken the investigatory lead—flying in resources to collect all evidence from the scene, and deploying our cell phone analytics capabilities,” Patel said in his Oct. 19 statement. “We are working with our [Justice Department] partners on service of any legal process required and will provide updates when able.”

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Patel aims to protect civil liberties, reform the FBI to prevent serial weaponized spying

Director Kash Patel says his team is working on implementing new civil liberties protections at the FBI and touted his effort to refocus the bureau after confirmation that the investigative agency collected expansive phone data on Republican senators, House members, staff, and White House officials. 

He said his team has, or is currently working on, implementing new civil liberties protections at the FBI and touted his effort to refocus the bureau on its core mission. 

“We’ve ended that regime,” Patel told Just the News in a wide-ranging interview with the Just the News, No Noise TV show which aired on Wednesday. 

30 million lines of telephone data

Earlier this month, Just the News reported that the FBI collected call data on Republican senators and one House member as part of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into the January 6 Capitol riot. 

Just the News also reported on Tuesday that congressional investigators had collected 30 million lines of phone data mapping contacts between conservatives and the Trump White House in the name of investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol breach. The data was later offered to the bureau on the eve of the 2024 election. 

Patel: “It is law enforcement first”

“We’ve already implemented changes. We’ve already informed Congress we won’t be grabbing their cell phone records or their staff or cell phone records for just a sense of weaponization,” Patel said. 

He told Just the News a big part of preventing these abuses in the future is refocusing the agency on its core mission, to enforce the law and investigate crimes. 

“So the good news about this FBI, it is mission focused,” Patel said. “It is law enforcement first, and it doesn’t matter if you’re red or blue or in between, or where you live, we are going to come in and root out not just criminality, but corruption in every single town in this country.”

Internal documents unearthed by Patel’s FBI and turned over to Congress showed that Special Counsel Smith obtained the phone records from eight senators and one House member in President Trump’s orbit. 

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Patriot Act supporting senators are mad when they are the targets

When it was reported this week that former President Joe Biden’s FBI may have targeted the cellphones of eight Republican senators in the “Arctic Frost” investigation related to the January 6, 2021 Capitol Hill riot, the Republicans that were supposedly surveilled were not happy about it.

One was Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), who posted on X Wednesday, “We need to know why (ATT) and (Verizon) did not challenge the subpoena for the phone records of eight United States senators when the Biden FBI spied on us during an anti-Trump probe.”

“There needs to be a reckoning for this,” she declared.

On Thursday, Republican Congressman Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) explained to Blackburn why this might have happened, “It’s called the Patriot Act, FISA, and CISA.”

“Please vote no next time,” he insisted.

During her tenure in the House, Blackburn voted for the Patriot Act each time it came up for renewal since it was passed in 2001 and numerous other federal surveillance measures since that time too.

The Patriot Act was first hastily signed into law in the politically charged days and weeks after 9/11, significantly expanding the federal government’s spying and law enforcement powers. Section 215 allows the F.B.I. to obtain secret court orders and to collect any business records the agency deems vital to national security.

This Act supposedly designed to target potential terrorists has since been used to go after drug dealers, track website users, parents at school board meetings, and more.

Perhaps even spying on Republican senators.

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) has long been a vocal champion of the Patriot Act. He was also one of the Republicans reportedly surveilled — and he’s very mad about it.

In a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Tuesday, Graham roared to Attorney General Pam Bondi, “Can you tell me why my phone records were sought by the Jack Smith agents?” — Smith being the J6 investigation special counsel.

“Why did they ask to know who I called and what I was doing from January 4th to the 7th?” Graham wondered loudly and aggressively.

In May 2015, after Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) attempted to block an extension of the Patriot Act with a ten-plus hour filibuster, Sen. Graham famously rolled his eyes over Paul’s efforts.

Paul warned that the Patriot Act undermined civil liberties. Then and now, Graham has always appeared to have full faith in the government handling power responsibly.

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Jack Smith Referred to DOJ For Criminal Investigation and Disbarment

Former Special Counsel Jack Smith has been criminally referred to the Justice Department for a misconduct investigation and possible disbarment.

After publicly stating she was going to take action, Senator Marsha Blackburn on Friday sent a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi criminally referring Jack Smith to the DOJ for prosecution and disbarment.

Blackburn demanded that the DOJ take action after it was revealed that Jack Smith spied on several GOP Senators.

Joe Biden’s FBI – and later Jack Smith – spied on eight Republican Senators during the ‘Arctic Frost’ investigation into January 6.

Republican Senators Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson earlier this year released new records detailing the FBI and DOJ’s sweeping investigation that formed the basis of Jack Smith’s DC case against President Trump.

Grassley and Johnson previously blew the lid off another sham investigation orchestrated by Biden’s corrupt Department of Justice and compromised FBI.

According to the documents released earlier this year, the FBI and DOJ weaponized their power to target President Trump, former Vice President Mike Pence, and their allies through a probe dubbed “Arctic Frost.”

“Operation Arctic Frost” was a taxpayer-funded witch hunt launched in April 2022 that seized government-issued cell phones belonging to Trump and Pence while conducting a barrage of interviews across the country.

Jack Smith tracked private phone calls of eight GOP Senators.

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Member of Satanic “764” Cult Charged After 13-Year-Old Girl Found Hanging in Parking Lot

An investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and German authorities led to charges Wednesday against a man accused of convincing a 13-year-old to hang herself in Washington State on behalf of a cult-like group, according to multiple reports.

German prosecutors charged an unnamed defendant dubbed “White Tiger” with hundreds of crimes, including the teen’s murder, for an alleged campaign of online abuse and sexual predation that victimized more than 30 children, CBS News reported. Authorities linked the man to “764,” a Satanic online movement that the FBI says is driven by a nihilistic hatred of society.

The teenage victim’s body was found in Gig Harbor, Washington, in January 2022 after she had hung herself with an extension cord on a black chain link fence in a grocery store parking lot, The Washington Post reported. After police sought the FBI’s help, investigators found that online predators associated with 764 allegedly groomed her into the suicide, which she livestreamed on Instagram via her phone. The individuals allegedly suggested in online messages that she take off her clothes because it would make the spectacle “hotter.”

The child victim told her parents she was a transgender boy at age ten and later became anorexic and depressed, FBI agents learned, according to The Washington Post. German prosecutors allege that “White Tiger” began building an online relationship with her while manipulating her and numerous other children into self-harm, starting when the suspect was 16, CBS News reported.

Threats against children from 764 have risen in recent years as the cultists lure vulnerable minors into private group chats and coax them into self-harm or degrading sexual acts, according to the FBI. Similar groups may go by different names but unite around 764’s methods, and adherents work together to evade bans from tech platforms, the Daily Caller News Foundation previously reported.

Investigators traced the digital footprint of “White Tiger” and allegedly found other victims on multiple social media platforms who he had convinced to cut themselves, as well as a photo of him cross-dressing in women’s clothes, according to The Washington Post. He allegedly shared the child abuse content with other followers of 764 to boost his reputation in the criminal network.

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More charges could come in Kirk murder case if evidence warrants it, says FBI’s Patel

FBI Director Kash Patel told Just the News in an interview that the bureau is continuing to investigate the assassination of Charlie Kirk, including the possibility of accomplices or assistance from other suspects.

He said that once the bureau collects enough evidence, they would refer any possible additional suspects to the prosecutors who are handling the case. “We’re looking at everyone that was there, that was online, and we’re looking to refer these matters to the state prosecution authorities when there’s enough evidence,” Patel told the Just the News, No Noise TV show in a wide-ranging interview that aired last week. 

Since Kirk, a prominent and influential conservative activist and founder of Turning Point USA, was killed during a campus event at Utah Valley University outside of Salt Lake City, the suspected shooter, Tyler Robinson, was apprehended by law enforcement after he turned himself in. 

Fox Business news said that Charlie Kirk had 1.7 million Instagram followers before his death, and after his death more than a million new YouTube subscribers followed him, citing Social Blade metrics. “The surge lifts his subscriber base to 5 million, up from 3.8 million before his death,” the outlet reported.

“Multiple warning signs” before the assassination, says FBI’s Bongino 

Patel’s deputy director, Dan Bongino, said that Robinson displayed several warning signs before the attack including a recent interest in left-wing politics and a discussion with family about Kirk’s upcoming appearance in Utah and their dislike for the conservative activist.

“There appear to have been multiple warning signs,” Bongino said. “There were people in his network, friends and family who had stated that he had become more political.”

Because of this, the FBI said they are looking into whether other people in Robinson’s network, including online contacts, knew something about the shooting in advance and failed to or chose not to notify law enforcement. At the time, the bureau was also probing whether anyone else on the ground at the event may have been involved with the shooting.

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‘Loyal Public Servants’: Whistleblowers Punished for Exposing Hunter Biden Protection Scheme Reach Settlement

Compensation being paid, and DOJ using ‘this example’ to train federal prosecutors.

Two former FBI officials who were punished under the Biden administration for their efforts to expose a protection scheme for first son Hunter Biden now have reached settlements in their lawsuits.

Hunter Biden, of course, faced both gun and tax charge convictions, cases that could have left him behind bars for years.

Then his daddy gave him a get-out-of-jail free card through a presidential pardon that Joe Biden actually signed, unlike many of his pardons that were issued through autopen signatures.

The settlements were reached for former Supervisory Special Agent Gary Shapley and Special Agent Joe Ziegler who had charged illegal retaliation against them.

The settlements with the IRS and Justice Department (DOJ) “included significant compensation for damages and a requirement for new training for federal prosecutors to deter future whistleblower retaliation.”

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Foreign Espionage Arrests Up 50 Percent: FBI

FBI Director Kash Patel said on Oct. 15 that the agency is cracking down on espionage by foreign adversaries, with an increase in arrests as high as 50 percent.

“We have gone after espionage activities against our main counterparts in China, Russia, and Iran,” he said at a press conference.

“In China alone, we’ve had over a 50 percent increase in espionage arrests alone, and prosecutions,” Patel said. “In Iran, we have had a 50 percent increase, again, in espionage cases. And in Russia, we had a 33 percent increase in espionage cases alone.”

State Department employee Ashley Tellis, arrested on Oct. 12, was accused of removing classified information and meeting with Chinese regime officials.

A former State Department employee, Michael Schena, was arrested in March and sentenced on Sept. 4 for conspiring to collect and transmit national defense information to Chinese authorities.

In August, two Chinese nationals were arrested and accused of smuggling sensitive AI chips, subject to export controls, to China.

In June, two Chinese nationals were arrested on charges of spying for Chinese intelligence operations.

In September, an Armenian national was charged with conspiring to export goods and information that would help with semiconductor manufacturing to Russia.

On Aug. 6, Taylor Adam Lee, an active duty soldier, was arrested on charges of attempted transmission of national defense information to a foreign adversary, Russia.

In March, two Iranian nationals were charged with conspiring to supply drones and launder money for the IRGC, a designated foreign terrorist organization.

Patel also said there have been 125 counterterrorism cases this year, compared to 100 last year. And he cited increased disruptions of cybercrime enterprises.

“This year, you already have 52 arrests. Fifty-two arrests of violent cyber criminals who are stealing from senior citizens, who are violating our children’s rights and freedoms, and who are violating everyday Americans,” he said.

U.S. law enforcement, cooperating with UK law enforcement, announced the seizure of $15 billion in bitcoin from a Cambodian cyberscam ring on Oct. 14. This represents the largest-ever digital currency seizure by U.S. law enforcement.

Chen Zhi and his Prince Group conglomerate allegedly engaged in a massive wire fraud and money laundering conspiracy via at least 10 slave labor scam compounds across Cambodia.

The scam ring also used networks around the world, according to the Justice Department, and one such branch in Brooklyn was responsible for laundering millions of dollars taken from more than 250 victims in the United States.

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DEVELOPING: Incoming Indictment…Grand Jury Considers Charges Against John Bolton

A grand jury on Wednesday convened to consider charges against John Bolton over his mishandling of classified materials.

Trump’s former National Security Advisor John Bolton transmitted classified emails over a private server system and they were intercepted by a hostile foreign country’s spy service, according to a recent leak to The New York Times.

John Bolton is reportedly under investigation for violating the Espionage Act.

The New York Post reported:

A grand jury is convening Wednesday afternoon to consider charges against former national security adviser John Bolton over his alleged sharing of highly sensitive classified materials on a private email server, The Post has learned.

The proceeding comes two months after federal investigators raided Bolton’s Maryland home and Washington, DC, office in search of evidence in the Trump critic’s alleged theft of “highly sensitive national security” information.

Justice Department officials expect an indictment to be handed up either Wednesday or Thursday, with one telling The Post that the case against the 76-year-old is “airtight.”

Bolton is accused of using his private email account to remove sensitive information and record diary-like notes of his daily activities and assessments throughout his time in office, sources told The Post.

New John Bolton documents with classified markings were released after the FBI raided his home in August.

The FBI raided John Bolton’s home over the summer.

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FBI Data Shows Marijuana Possession Arrests Make Up Over 20% of All Drug-Related Arrests

The FBI’s Crime Data Explorer reports at least 204,036 marijuana-related arrests last year, though the figure is likely an undercount due to gaps in reporting by some law enforcement agencies. The total also excludes cannabis cases that may be included in the tens of thousands of “unspecified drug abuse violations” reported by the bureau.

Of the 204,036 arrests, 92% — or 187,792 — were for simple possession. The remaining 16,244 arrests were tied to “sales/manufacturing.” In total, police reported 831,446 drug-related arrests nationwide in 2024.

Although the numbers remain high, marijuana arrests have declined significantly over the past decade. The drop coincides with the legalization of adult-use marijuana in 24 states and Washington, D.C. since 2012. At their peak in 2007, marijuana arrests surpassed 870,000, making up nearly half of all drug-related arrests at the time. Since 2000, police have made more than 16 million marijuana-related arrests.

“While the total number of marijuana-related arrests have fallen nationwide in recent years, it is clear that marijuana-related prosecutions still remain a primary driver of drug war enforcement in the United States,” said NORML Deputy Director Paul Armentano. “Hundreds of thousands of Americans continue to be arrested annually for low-level cannabis-related violations even though a majority of voters no longer believe that the responsible use of marijuana by adults should be a crime.”

Armentano added that these arrests often carry life-long consequences for those charged. “Low-level marijuana offenders, many of them younger, poor, and people of color, should not be saddled with an arrest, a criminal record, and with the lifelong penalties and stigma associated with it for engaging in behavior that is now legally regulated for adults in nearly half the states in this country.”

While the FBI adjusted its crime data collection methods in 2021, making exact comparisons more difficult, the long-term trend is clear: marijuana-related arrests, though down substantially, continue to account for a large share of U.S. drug enforcement.

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