Tag: fbi

Is the FBI secretly running dark web terrorist recruitment?

A high-level conspiracy of silence surrounding a US terrorism prosecution raises serious questions over whether the FBI possesses technological means to bypass dark web user anonymity, or alternatively manages extremist group recruitment sites in secret, in order to entrap unsuspecting visitors.

US citizen Muhammed Momtaz Al-Azhari was charged in May 2020 with attempting to provide material support to ISIS. He came to the attention of the FBI due to a series of visits he made to a dark web site, which hosts “unofficial propaganda and photographs related to ISIS” in May 2019.

The Bureau pinpointed specific pages of the site Al-Azhari perused including sections on making donations, ISIS media assets, photos and videos, and stories of military operations allegedly conducted by ISIS fighters in Iraq, Syria, and Nigeria. These actions were linked to him directly by uncovering his IP address, and therefore his identity and location.

Al-Azhari accessed the site via the TOR browser, which theoretically provides anonymity to users, and makes it difficult if not impossible for a site’s owner or external prying eyes to track visitor IPs. A recent court filing by Al-Azhari’s lawyers reveals that’s precisely what the FBI did though and exactly how they achieved this is being withheld by government decree. 

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Russian oligarch keeps showing up in the most inconvenient places for FBI, Washington elites

The bombshell indictments this week alleging that a former senior FBI counterintelligence agent had an inappropriate financial relationship with Oleg Deripaska focused fresh light on an uncomfortable truth: Washington elites have simultaneously demonized and cozied up to the controversial Russian oligarch over the last two decades.

Deripaska, a protégé of Russian president Vladimir Putin and once owner of the country’s largest aluminum company Rusal, has been courted over the years by a prominent Democrat senator seeking help from his lawyer and FBI agents seeking dirt on Donald Trump, enlisted by the bureau to spend his own money to find a missing FBI agent in Iran and lured into hiring Christopher Steele for a legal project before the former MI-6 agent penned his famous dossier.

Even Hunter Biden once crafted a plan to make money off Deripaska by seeking a handsome $80,000 fee to dig up dirt on the Russian businessman for an American aluminum company.

The efforts to court, cajole and cash in on Deripaska occurred at the same time the U.S. government was casting the Russian as a potentially nefarious actor who should be kept from U.S. shores.

In the early 2000s, it was the State Department alleging, with scant public evidence, that the Russian was tied to organized crime or brutal killings. In 2016, he became a focal point of the FBI efforts to prove Donald Trump colluded with Russia to hijack the 2016 election, an allegation that proved spurious. And in 2018, he was sanctioned by the Treasury Department as an ally of Putin and Russian influence campaigns and later indicted by the Justice Department.

Throughout the saga, Deripaska has always maintained his innocence, while his accusers have sent a tantalizing mixed message by courting his help at the same time they were vilifying him.

In a 2019 videotaped interview with this reporter for The Hill newspaper, Deripaska said his on-again-off-again relationship with the American government was symbolic of the larger drifting apart of Russia and the United States as allies after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

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Former top FBI official Charles McGonigal arrested over ties to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska

A former top FBI official in New York has been arrested over his ties to a Russian oligarch, law enforcement sources told ABC News Monday.

Charles McGonigal, who was the special agent in charge of counterintelligence in the FBI’s New York Field Office, is under arrest over his ties to Oleg Deripaska, a Russian billionaire who has been sanctioned by the United States and criminally charged last year with violating those sanctions.

McGonigal retired from the FBI in 2018. He was arrested Saturday afternoon after he arrived at JFK Airport following travel in Sri Lanka, the sources said.

He was charged along with a court interpreter, Sergey Shestakov, who also worked with Deripaska.

McGonigal, 54, is charged with violating U.S. sanctions by trying to get Deripaska off the sanctions list. McGonigal is one of the highest ranking former FBI officials ever charged with a crime.

McGonigal and Shestakov, who worked for the FBI investigating oligarchs, allegedly agreed in 2021 to investigate a rival Russian oligarch in return for payments from Deripaska, according to the Justice Department. McGonigal and Shestakov are accused of receiving payments through shell companies and forging signatures in order to keep it a secret that Deripaska was paying them.

Both face money laundering charges in addition to charges for violating sanctions. Each of four counts carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

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Area 51 expert slams US government for raiding his home: I’ve lost faith in the justice system

The home of an Area 51 website owner was violently raided by more than a dozen armed FBI agents in November, and since then, Joerg Arnu has received minimal explanation for the bombardment that caused $25,000 in damages to his property.

Area 51 expert Joerg Arnu explained on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” that the search was related to images he posted on his website.

“I can’t get ahold of anyone. Three doors were kicked in. A country gate was busted. My girlfriend was dragged out of the house in Las Vegas. I was dragged out of the house in Rachel. And nobody can give us any answers,” Arnu explained Friday.

Arnu has pleaded for an explanation from the U.S. Justice Department for months, but has largely remained in the dark. 

“I published photos of Area 51 on my website, which is something I have done for 20 years without anyone really taking issue with it. And all of a sudden, this thing comes out of the blue crashing down on my homes. I really still don’t have an explanation,” the expert continued. 

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MLK Assassination Exposed as Conspiracy of ‘Governmental Agencies & Others’ in Court Victory

As the world remembers the life, and death, of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., one little-known fact regarding his assassination is that in 1999 the family of Dr. King won a civil lawsuit against Loyd Jowers and others, including governmental agencies, for the wrongful death of King in the case of the King Family versus Jowers and Other Unknown Co-Conspirators.

According to a New York Times report from 1999:

A jury in a civil suit brought by the family of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. decided today that a retired Memphis cafe owner was part of a conspiracy in the 1968 killing of Dr. King.

The jury’s decision means it did not believe that James Earl Ray, who was convicted of the crime, fired the shot that killed Dr. King.

After four weeks of testimony and one hour of deliberation, the jury in the wrongful-death case found that Loyd Jowers as well as ”others, including governmental agencies” had been part of a conspiracy. The jury awarded the King family the damages they had sought: $100, which the family says it will donate to charity.

The family has long questioned Mr. Ray’s conviction and hoped the suit would change the legal and historical record of the assassination.

”This is a vindication for us,” said Dexter King, the youngest son of Dr. King.

He said he hoped history books would be rewritten to reflect this version of the assassination.

The 1999 civil court trial is the only trial ever conducted regarding the assassination of Dr. King, and provides unique insights that had, for decades, been kept from the public. While a civil court trial uses a preponderance of evidence standard, rather than a reasonable doubt standard, there is no mistaking the dark picture painted by the evidence over the course of the trial.

King family friend and attorney William F. Pepper won the civil trial, which found ‘US governmental agencies’ guilty of being part of a conspiracy that resulted in the wrongful death/assassination of Dr. King.

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FBI Raids NYC Building Where Communist China Is Accused of ‘Conducting’ Secret ‘Police Operations’

An Asian country has allegedly expanded monitoring of its citizens using secret police outposts in foreign countries, including the U.S.

Federal Bureau of Investigation agents searched a New York City office late last year believed to be policing Chinese nationals without U.S. knowledge, according to a New York Times report.

The Daily Wire further reported:

The New York Times reported that on the third floor of the six-story office building was a Chinese outpost that the feds say was conducting police operations without jurisdiction or diplomatic approval from U.S. officials.

The raid by FBI counterintelligence agents was conducted in conjunction with the U.S. attorney’s office in Brooklyn as part of the U.S. government’s crackdown on communist China’s notorious effort to surveil their citizens and hunt down dissidents overseas and force them to return back to China.

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FBI Informants Who Marched With Proud Boys on Jan. 6 Will Testify for Their Defense

Before the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, the FBI had well-placed informants in the Proud Boys who the government hoped could glean information about the notorious far-right street-fighting gang’s inner workings. 

Now, some of those same informants are being called as witnesses in the Proud Boys’ high-profile seditious conspiracy trial—by the defense, who think their testimony will help get their clients off the hook and prove they had no plot to storm the Capitol. 

According to defense lawyers, those informants were privy to Proud Boys’ chats and even marched alongside them to the Capitol on Jan. 6. 

After several delays, opening arguments finally got underway Thursday in the high-profile seditious conspiracy trial against the Proud Boy ‘s ex-“chairman” Enrique Tarrio, top organizers Joseph Biggs, Zach Rehl, and Ethan Nordean, and member Dominic Pezzola. 

All five men are accused of entering into a secret agreement to storm the Capitol, with the ultimate goal of disrupting and even preventing the peaceful transition of power. They face a maximum of 20 years in prison. 

Each of the defendants has their own legal teams—an array of personalities and characters who are employing a grab bag of strategies and arguments they hope will exonerate their clients. But it’s clear that the biggest asset to the defense’s case, by far, could be the testimony of those government informants. 

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