Tag: fbi

FBI lost count of how many paid informants were at Capitol on Jan. 6, and later performed audit to figure out exact number: ex-official

The FBI had so many paid informants at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, that it lost track of the number and had to perform a later audit to determine exactly how many “Confidential Human Sources” run by different FBI field offices were present that day, a former assistant director of the bureau has told lawmakers.

At least one informant was communicating with his FBI handler as he entered the Capitol, according to Steven D’Antuono, formerly in charge of the bureau’s Washington field office.

D’Antuono has testified behind closed doors to the House Judiciary Committee that his office was aware before the riot that some of their informants would attend a “Stop the Steal” rally thrown by former President Donald Trump, but he only learned after the fact that informants run by other field offices also were present, along with others who had participated of their own accord.

The Washington field office had to ask FBI headquarters “to do a poll or put out something to people saying w[ere] any CHSs involved,” he said, so they could get a handle on the scale of the FBI’s spying operations at the Capitol that day.

“We started getting responses back” from FBI headquarters, added D’Antuono, which helped identify which field offices had planted confidential informants in the crowd. 

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Three men accused of Gretchen Whitmer kidnap plot ACQUITTED

The last three men who were charged in a plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer have all been found not guilty. William Null, twin brother Michael Null and Eric Molitor were among the 14 charged in the alleged plot, and all three have been acquitted.

Adam Fox and Barry Croft Jr. were convicted of kidnapping conspiracy in 2022. The two were also found guilty of conspiring to obtain a weapon of mass destruction such as a bomb to destroy a bridge near the governor’s vacation home.

William and Michael Null as well as Eric Molitor were found not guilty of providing support for a terrorist act and a weapons charge, according to WLNS 6.

The three were accused of supporting the plan’s leaders by participating in military-style drills, as well as traveling to see Whitmer’s northern Michigan vacation home.

According to MSNBC, two of the three testified that they took part in these drills but did not know of the plan until the end.

Adam Fox, the co-leader of the plot, was sentenced to 16 years in prison in December of 2022. Government prosecutors had pushed for a life sentence, but the judge said this was “not necessary” to achieve the purposes of providing punishment and deterrence to commit further acts.

Fox and Croft Jr. were convicted in a second trial after a Grand Rapids jury could not reach a unanimous verdict during the first.

William Null testified that he and his brother walked away when talks turned to obtaining explosives. Molitor said Fox was “incredibly dumb” and wouldn’t pull off a kidnapping.

Two others were previously acquitted of charges.

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Ex-CIA agent convicted of largest leak in agency’s history faces NYC trial for child porn

A Manhattan jury is expected to hear opening arguments Tuesday at a former CIA engineer’s third New York City trial in as many years, this time including child pornography allegations.

Joshua Schulte – convicted in July 2022 of carrying out the most prolific leak in the CIA’s history — is accused of transporting and possessing thousands of images and videos showing the rape and sexual abuse of children.

The feds say Schulte brought the sick trove to New York in 2016 when he moved to the city from the suburbs of Washington, D.C., for a job at a financial services firm. It was allegedly stored on his home desktop computer, buried under layers of encryption, and categorized by victims’ identities and characteristics.

Prosecutors say the FBI found the disturbing libraries on Schulte’s computer, which included images of very young children, after decrypting files using a password on one of his cellphones during the probe into his leaks at the CIA.

Schulte has previously argued without evidence that the FBI framed him because of what he did at the CIA. He won’t be permitted to make that argument at trial.

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THE DANCING ISRAELIS: FBI DOCS SHED LIGHT ON APPARENT MOSSAD FOREKNOWLEDGE OF 9/11 ATTACKS

NEW YORK — For nearly two decades, one of the most overlooked and little known arrests made in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks was that of the so-called “High Fivers,” or the “Dancing Israelis.” However, new information released by the FBI on May 7 has brought fresh scrutiny to the possibility that the “Dancing Israelis,” at least two of whom were known Mossad operatives, had prior knowledge of the attacks on the World Trade Center.

Shortly after 8:46 a.m. on the day of the attacks, just minutes after the first plane struck the World Trade Center, five men — later revealed to be Israeli nationals — had positioned themselves in the parking lot of the Doric Apartment Complex in Union City, New Jersey, where they were seen taking pictures and filming the attacks while also celebrating the destruction of the towers and “high fiving” each other. At least one eyewitness interviewed by the FBI had seen the Israelis’ van in the parking lot as early as 8:00 a.m. that day, more than 40 minutes prior to the attack. The story received coverage in U.S. mainstream media at the time but has since been largely forgotten.

The men — Sivan Kurzberg, Paul Kurzberg, Oded Ellner, Yaron Shimuel and Omar Marmari — were subsequently apprehended by law enforcement and claimed to be Israeli tourists on a “working holiday” in the United States where they were employed by a moving company, Urban Moving Systems. Upon his arrest, Sivan Kurzberg told the arresting officer, “We are Israeli; we are not your problem. Your problems are our problems, The Palestinians are the problem.”

For years, the official story has been that these individuals, while they had engaged in “immature” behavior by celebrating and being “visibly happy” in their documenting of the attacks, had no prior knowledge of the attack. However, newly released FBI copies of the photos taken by the five Israelis strongly suggest that these individuals had prior knowledge of the attacks on the World Trade Center. The copies of the photos were obtained via a FOIA request made by a private citizen.

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FLASHBACK: Sixteen More Reasons to Question 9/11

It has been 16 years since the crimes of September 11th, 2001. In that time, facts have been revealed that led more than a third of Americans to believe that the U.S government was involved in the attacks. This blog noted 14 such incredible facts on the 14th anniversary of the crimes. Here are 16 more.

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A Cop Jailed Her for 2 Years on Fake Charges. Will She Ever Get Justice?

A Minnesota woman has resuscitated her effort to sue a police officer who jailed her as a teenager for two years on false charges associated with a sham sex trafficking investigation that the FBI once billed as its largest human trafficking crackdown. The case is another example of the legal labyrinth victims are required to navigate when attempting to get recourse after the government infringes on their rights and once again raises the question: How inoculated should those government officials be from civil suits for violating the Constitution?

Hamdi Mohamud’s odyssey began over a decade ago when St. Paul police officer Heather Weyker had her arrested on witness tampering charges concerning a woman named Muna Abdulkadir, who allegedly attacked Mohamud and her friends at knifepoint. Abdulkadir was crucial to Weyker’s sex-trafficking case, which, as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit conceded, was “plagued with problems from the start.” Some of those problems included Weyker lying under oath, coercing witnesses, editing police reports, and making up evidence.

The groundless charges against Mohamud were ultimately dropped, but not until she spent about two years in federal prison, where those accused of federal crimes are typically held pretrial.

When Mohamud sued, Weyker was denied qualified immunity, the legal doctrine that makes it difficult to sue state and local government actors unless their alleged misconduct was “clearly established” in a prior court precedent. Yet the 8th Circuit in 2020 overturned that decision, citing Weyker’s position on a federal task force. Government employees at the federal level receive an even more muscular immunity.

“Qualified immunity makes it very, very difficult to sue government officials,” Patrick Jaicomo, an attorney at the Institute for Justice (I.J.), told me in 2021. “This makes it impossible.” The U.S. Supreme Court further strengthened that protection in June 2022.

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FBI Refuses To Release Body Cam Footage From Utah Raid That Left An Elderly Trump Supporter Dead

The FBI is refusing to release DOJ-mandated body camera footage from agents who participated in a raid that killed Craig Robertson, a 75-year-old disabled Trump supporter who allegedly threatened President Biden on Facebook, according to a report from Daily Wire reporter Gregg Re.

“The fbi is refusing to release the doj-mandated body camera footage in the shooting death of Utah man Craig Robertson. They say it could “interfere” with “enforcement proceedings.” (??)” Re wrote in an X post on Tuesday. “This is an elderly guy that the salt lake field office decided to surprise and swarm at 6 am.”

Re included a response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request that sought to obtain the footage. “The material you requested is located in an investigative file which is exempt from disclosure,” the response states.

“The records responsive to your request are law enforcement records: there is a pending or prospective law enforcement proceeding relevant to these responsive records, and release of the information could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings,” the letter continued. “Therefore, your request is being administratively closed.”

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FBI Knew Ukrainian Spy Was at Capitol Riot: QAnon Shaman

Jacob Chansley, known as the “QAnon Shaman,” claimed the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) knew that an alleged Ukrainian spy participated in the riot at the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Chansley, who was sentenced to 41 months in prison over his involvement in the January 6 riot but was released earlier this year, said in an interview with conservative activist Laura Loomer that the FBI questioned him about the presence of Sergai Dybynyn, an alleged Ukrainian spy with reported ties to the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, which has risen to prominence amid the Russia-Ukraine war.

The FBI has not confirmed Chansley’s statement, which could not be independently verified. Newsweek reached out to the FBI via email for comment.

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Did Banks Hand Private Financial Data to the FBI Without Legal Process?

The House Judiciary Committee is investigating banks for sharing Americans’ financial information with the FBI without regard for privacy concerns. In fact, there’s no doubt about the threat to civil liberties posed by the government’s leverage over the financial industry; that’s long established. At question in this investigation is whether the danger to our freedom inherent in that cozy relationship is being wielded in political warfare between the country’s political factions. But the larger problem should be fixed no matter what lawmakers discover.

“Today, Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) subpoenaed Citibank for documents and communications related to the Judiciary Committee’s and Weaponization Select Subcommittee’s investigation into major banks sharing Americans’ private financial data with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) without legal process for transactions made in the Washington, D.C., area around Jan. 6, 2021,” the House Judiciary Committee announced August 17.

The subpoena followed June 12 queries to Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase & Company, PNC Financial Services, Truist, U.S. Bankcorp, and Wells Fargo after testimony by FBI whistleblowers that Bank of America voluntarily handed the FBI records on people who had used its services in the Washington, D.C. area around the time of the January 6 Capitol riot. “Individuals who had previously purchased a firearm with a BoA product were reportedly elevated to the top of the list,” according to a May report.

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