Tag: secrecy

CIA officer found with $40 million in gold bars in his basement reaches tentative plea agreement

Federal prosecutors said on Friday that they reached a tentative plea deal with a former CIA officer who was found with more than $40 million in gold bars in the basement of his Virginia home. 

According to U.S. officials, David J. Rush, who was an officer in the agency’s science and technology division, created a false classified program that only a few people were allowed to know about. The program allowed him to accumulate the gold bars. He was arrested on May 19 after FBI agents found 303 gold bars and nearly three dozen luxury watches in his home, the New York Times reported. 

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A court filing seeking an extension of time to file an indictment states that government lawyers and Rush’s attorney told a federal district court in Virginia that a “preindictment resolution promotes the public interest.” Part of the reason, the attorneys explained, is the extensive hurdles that dealing with classified material might create to a trial.

“The parties have made significant progress and have a plea agreement in principle that would resolve the matter prior to an indictment,” the government and defense lawyers wrote in a joint filing to the court.

In a court filing, the lawyers for the government and Rush’s attorney asked the court to give them until Oct. 8 to reach an agreement. 

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How Romania Came To Host A Post-9/11 CIA Black Site & Got US Cash Bonanza

Ammar al-Baluchi remembers the cold most of all. Held nearly naked in a cell lit around the clock by fluorescent bulbs, he referred to his detention “as if I was living in a refrigerator”.

The nephew of self-declared 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Baluchi was one of six to a dozen men believed to be held and tortured in a secret CIA prison in Bucharest between 2003 and 2005. The treatment of detainees at the facility, formally known as “Detention Site Black”, is described in detail in Guantanamo court filings.

Solitary confinement under lights that never switched off, sleep deprivation that at times meant being forced to stand shackled for days, repeated dousing with icy water, and forced shaving and physical handling that interrogators euphemistically logged as “attention grasps” and “facial holds” were common practice.

A photo released by Baluchi’s lawyers to the press in 2024 shows him stripped naked and photographed. It is believed to be the first published image – of tens of thousands – of a “war on terror” detainee in a CIA black site.

“We know they were tortured horrifically,” Ben Keith, a British barrister representing Baluchi outside the US, told Middle East Eye. “It’s not always possible to say which bit of torture took place because they were tortured for days and weeks, but you don’t detain somebody in a black site with the purpose of just talking to them.”

A quarter-century after the 9/11 attacks, which triggered the so-called “war on terror” and devastating US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq that directly killed at least 940,000 people, a US military judge has finally set a trial date for Baluchi: 5 June 2028.

Lieutenant Colonel Michael Schrama ruled this month that the case against Mohammed, Baluchi, Walid bin Attash and Mustafa al-Hawsawi will begin on that date.

Schrama is the fifth military judge to preside over a case that has been trapped for more than a decade in disputes over evidence, national security secrecy and, above all, whether confessions obtained under torture before the men ever reached Guantanamo can be used at trial.

That question runs directly through a basement in Bucharest, where the accused are believed to have been detained and tortured.

In April 2025, a Guantanamo military judge ruled that statements Baluchi gave the FBI in 2007 were involuntary and inadmissible, tainted by what the court called torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment inflicted on him in CIA custody, including in Romania.

The judge found that Guantanamo’s “modestly changed confinement circumstances” had not been enough to remove the “lingering taint” of what happened before he arrived there.

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U.S. Secretly Removed Accused Pedophile Diplomat From Britain: Report

American authorities allegedly removed a U.S. diplomat serving in London from the country in a secret operation after he was accused of possessing child porn.

A report from The Sun — Britain’s top circulation newspaper — has claimed that U.S. secret agents carried out a clandestine operation on UK soil without informing local police, seizing an American diplomat from his London flat, taking him to a U.S. air base, and returning him to the United States.

The diplomat was reportedly under investigation after allegedly receiving indecent images of children from his brother. According to the report, American agents received a court order in the U.S. before carrying out the raid on the diplomat’s apartment in Putney, London, on August 25th. An investigation of the flat is said to have confirmed that the diplomat was in possession of the child pornography in question.

The move to remove the unnamed man back to the United States has riled feathers in London given that American officials have no authority to carry out policing operations in the United Kingdom.

A British government source is quoted by The Sun saying: “They should have told Scotland Yard when they carried out the raid, and certainly when they found material. Instead, we think they have taken him to a US airbase and flown him 4,000-plus miles to where his brother was being investigated. We think it was a dawn raid before they then took him to the base in a US military convoy.

“If there are child-abuse crimes, there are possibly other crimes he could have committed. There are fears the Yanks are trying to keep this in-house and it’s a cover-up. And we now don’t know if we’ll ever get him back to face British justice.”

An American diplomatic source reportedly defended the action, saying that the United States “acted decisively” and that if it had not acted swiftly, “there could have been delays and diplomacy that could have gone on for weeks or months.”

It is not the first time that American officials have avoided the British judicial system for crimes allegedly committed in the UK. London has previously raised the alarm over the case of a U.S. fighter pilot, Captain Jacob Wulfson, who strangled a woman in Cambridge. Rather than facing trial in England, Capt. Wulfson was tried on a U.S. air base.

He was acquitted of sexual assault and aggravated sexual contact, but was found guilty of strangulation, for which he received a six-month sentence. Downing Street said that it was “very concerning” that he avoided prosecution in Britain.

Commenting on the latest report, a U.S. Embassy spokesman said: “We are aware of allegations concerning an individual assigned to the U.S. Embassy in London. The United States government expects all personnel to adhere to the highest standards of conduct, and we take these allegations seriously.

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CIA ‘Proxy’: Unravelling Saudi Arabia’s True 9/11 Role

In the leadup to 9/11’s silver anniversary, it was widely reported a forthcoming New York District Court civil case brought against notorious Saudi government operative Omar Bayoumi would deliver “smoking gun” proof tying Riyadh directly to the attacks. Compelling evidence Saudi Arabian intelligence not only managed several hijackers as agents, but did so as a “proxy” for the CIA, has lain unexamined in plain sight for years. Yet, the Agency’s sinister shadowplay remains eerily absent from media consideration, despite mounting recognition of Riyadh’s role.

Bayoumi has long-been accused by major news outlets and US officials of maintaining an intimate and suspicious relationship with hijackers Nawaf Hazmi and Khalid Mihdhar, immediately upon their arrival to the US in January 2000. A subsequent FBI investigation, dubbed Operation Encore, ruled there was a “50/50 chance” Bayoumi – and the House of Saud by extension – had detailed advance knowledge of the 9/11 attacks. This explosive finding was not publicly divulged until March 2022.

However, the media remained steadfastly silent a year later when a bombshell filing from the Office of Military Commissions – the legal body overseeing prosecutions of 9/11 defendants – was released. The document summarises classified government discovery disclosures, and private interviews conducted with anonymous high-ranking US intelligence officials. Its contents shed unprecedented light on how the CIA recruited at least Hazmi and Mihdhar if not others who participated in the 9/11 attacks, “via a liaison relationship” with Riyadh’s General Intelligence Directorate (GID).

The same document elucidates how the 9/11 Commission was deliberately sabotaged by its chief Philip Zelikow, who personally endeavoured “to blunt” inquiries “into Saudi involvement with the hijackers.” Concurrently, senior FBI officials tasked with investigating the attacks were prohibited from interviewing Saudi nationals, despite “many” leads pointing directly to Riyadh’s Washington DC embassy. No wonder – probing those connections would’ve amply revealed how the GID was acting as a “cutout” for the CIA, in all its clandestine dealings with the 9/11 hijackers.

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Australia: Officials Ask Parliament to Restrict Social Media Clips of Public Hearing Evidence

Just when you thought Australia’s steamrolling toward censorship couldn’t get any worse, the heads of Australian government departments want new limits on how members of parliament share recordings of officials testifying at public parliamentary hearings.

A new attempt to this end was made last week by the Secretaries Board, made up of the heads of Australia’s government departments. The board is currently chaired by Steven Kennedy, secretary of the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, which advises the prime minister and coordinates policy across the government.

The proposal was contained in a submission to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Parliamentary Standards.

The board is unhappy that politicians are using excerpts of the footage from these hearings, often to criticize the officials, and sometimes to ridicule them, by editing the clips and adding captions to highlight certain parts of the testimony.

Comments left on social media under these posts are also a major concern for the board, as they can be “highly offensive” – and sometimes even defamatory.

As examples, the board cites personal attacks on officials’ physical appearance (especially if they are women), their integrity, as well as comparisons to “Nazis, pedophiles, and other criminal offenders.”

Some of the “highlights” of the comments mentioned in the submission include “despicable,” “filth,” “political puppet,” “bigot,” “pig,” “KKK member,” “parasite,” “shill,” “criminal,” “fraud,” “clown,” and “lying corrupt grub.”

The board wants parliament to come up with “guidance” on how to use these recordings on social media, and lists several ways to do it, such as preventing “potentially harmful” use of committee evidence, and requiring that a link to the full hearing or transcript is provided whenever an extract of an official’s testimony is posted.

Another idea is to have MPs disable comments on social media when they post these clips, and make sure that the full, unedited version of the hearing, or the transcript, is made available instead of extracts.

Reporting on the submission described full hearings and transcripts as the preferred approach, with fallback restrictions on editing, captions and posts targeting individual officials.

The submission said that officials appearing at these public hearings “have not consented to a subsequent use of their image, or its use by parliamentarians and their political parties for party-political purposes.”

And the board also complained of “the increasing use of excerpts from committee proceedings on social media, particularly where material is presented without context and exposes officials to ridicule, hostility or abuse.”

The proposal was rejected by Greens Senator Steph Hodgins-May, who said that bureaucrats should not be allowed to decide how parliamentarians do their job, and that the proposed restrictions would be an attempt to “take the teeth out of parliamentary scrutiny.”

“Bureaucrats shouldn’t get to decide where to draw the line on parliamentary scrutiny, particularly when they’re the ones being scrutinised,” Hodgins-May said. “Restricting what parliamentarians can post from public proceedings is not the answer. This looks like an attempt to take the teeth out of parliamentary scrutiny. Frankly, if this scrutiny wasn’t having an impact, they wouldn’t be so worried about it.”

But the board’s proposal is not the first of its kind. In fact, the previous week, Celia Perkins, deputy secretary of Australia’s Department of Defence, made a similar request to a parliamentary hearing, asking that the committee prevent MPs from sharing video and audio of officials appearing at public hearings on social media.

Perkins said that public servants giving evidence “do not consent to the reposting of our evidence to social media sites or the reproduction of our likenesses for the purposes outside the framework of the parliament and the transparent public proceedings of this committee.”

However, the Senate committee rejected the request on the advice of the Senate clerk.

Professor Luke Beck from the Monash University Law School, who specializes in constitutional law, believes that the latest proposal may be unconstitutional because it would likely violate the implied freedom of political communication in the Australian Constitution by “directly and expressly” burdening political communication.

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A Secretive DHS ‘Predictive Policing’ Unit is Analyzing Americans’ Financial Habits and Pulling Them Over

Border Patrol is running secretive predictive policing units that analyze Americans’ financial activity and other data, then feed that intelligence to local police who pull people over who are not suspected of any specific crime, but which the government thinks may be worth searching, 404 Media has found.

The units, the name of which 404 Media is revealing here for the first time, are called Predictive Intelligence Targeting Teams (PITT). In one case, a PITT analyzed the financial activity of a man who was driving across Montana, and local authorities stopped him under the pretense of an obstructed license plate and charged him with a DUI.

404 Media identified one PITT in the Spokane Sector, Washington, which polices the U.S. border with Canada, and another in the Laredo Sector, Texas, which polices the border with Mexico. The findings add to an Associated Press investigation from last year which found Border Patrol was using automatic license plate readers (ALPRs) as part of the same wide-spanning predictive policing program.

“The bottom line is genuine probable cause cannot be synthetically generated,” Jake Laperruque, deputy director of the Security and Surveillance Project at the Center For Democracy & Technology, told 404 Media in an email. Here Border Patrol seems to be “using parallel construction to cloak the reason behind its car stops in secrecy. If we can’t meaningfully review and evaluate these systems, we can’t trust them,” he added.

Predictive policing is a highly controversial practice that police departments and federal agencies are increasingly turning to. The practice is designed to find people who may have committed crimes, but at the moment, no evidence of them doing so exists. Broadly, law enforcement may analyze data — such as a person’s movements, where they are at a certain time, or the roads they drive — then create or find another pretense to pull them over.

At around 9:30pm one night in May, Kyle William Olson was driving his black Chevy SUV on Interstate 90, with his dog Ducky in the backseat, according to police reports and an interview Olson gave to 404 Media. In Olson’s vehicle were marijuana edibles, marijuana cuttings, and butane hash oil. He works on a licensed cannabis farm in California, where he had picked up the weed, and was transporting it home to Wisconsin, he told 404 Media.

Olson drove past Sergeant James Beck of the Montana Highway Patrol who was sitting in his police car along with a colleague. When Olson passed, Beck noticed the vehicle’s license plate was obstructed by what he described as a tinted cover and the luggage holder, according to a police report. Beck pulled out, caught up to Olson, and pulled him over.

“Nothing major,” Beck said once he approached the passenger side window and exchanged pleasantries with Olson, according to bodycam footage. Beck said Olson’s license plate was “a little bit obstructed.”

“Just so you know, that’s our reason for stopping you,” Beck said. In the end, the officers demanded Olson step out of the vehicle, they tested his blood and charged him with a DUI. Authorities later charged Olson with possession with intent to distribute because of the marijuana in his vehicle, Olson told 404 Media.

But that wasn’t the real reason for stopping Olson.

During discovery in his case, Olson was provided a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) document that explained how Border Patrol instigated his traffic stop. Written by Border Patrol Agent Matthew Phelps, the document said Phelps was assigned to the “Spokane Sector Border Patrol Targeting & Intelligence Division (TID) — Predictive Intelligence Targeting Team (PITT).” Olson shared the document with 404 Media.

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WHO’S LEAKING AMERICA’S MILITARY SECRETS? Top Pentagon Officials Forced to Take Polygraphs After Classified Weapons Stockpile Information Reaches Media

Some of America’s highest-ranking military officials were subjected to polygraph examinations during a sweeping Pentagon investigation into the leaking of highly classified information about the nation’s weapons stockpiles.

President Donald Trump was reportedly furious after sensitive details concerning America’s supply of sophisticated weapons appeared in media reports.

According to leftist CBS News, several dozen officials were questioned earlier this summer, including officials assigned to U.S. Central Command and other combatant commands.

The scale of the polygraph operation was described as extraordinarily rare.

Although high-ranking military and civilian officials with access to top-secret information routinely undergo periodic polygraph examinations, sources told CBS that the large number of officials summoned at once indicated that investigators were conducting a targeted leak probe.

The questioning reportedly covered a range of national-security matters, including whether officials had provided sensitive military information to members of the media.

Two sources claimed that none of the officials failed the questions specifically designed to identify the leaker.

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Dan Caine was reportedly not among those polygraphed.

The New York Times first reported the broader hunt, saying investigators put roughly 50 members of the Joint Staff through polygraphs in August after a wave of stories about depleted stocks of long-range missiles, Patriot interceptors, and other finite munitions as the United States fights Iran.

Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell told CBS Friday night the Department “does not comment on internal personnel or investigative matters but takes all leaks of classified national security information extremely seriously and investigates accordingly.”

“Securing classified information is critical to ensuring the security of the United States and of our troops deployed around the world,” Parnell said.

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Sulzbergers Keep Secret Archives at Taxpayer Expense While Denouncing Supreme Court for Doing the Same Thing

A highly hyped New York Times investigation—touted with the unusual label “Times Exclusive”—appeared this month under the headline “How the Supreme Court Locks Away Its Own History.” It complained that “many of the justices have valued confidentiality over transparency and chosen to postpone scrutiny of their work for years to come.”

“Some scholars question why papers should be sealed long after a justice has retired,” says the Times article, by Jodi Kantor, with research and reporting contributed by Julie Tate, Ann Marimow, and Adam Liptak. It quoted a legal historian at the University of California, Davis, Mary Ziegler, accusing the justices of engaging in “reputation management,” and, as Ziegler was paraphrased in the article, “protecting themselves from examination and second-guessing.”

Not disclosed in the Times article: that the papers of former Times publishers Arthur Ochs Sulzberger and Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., donated to the New York Public Library in 2007, are closed to public access until 2035 and 2057, respectively, according to the finding aid to the collection.

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Leon Black Sues Congress To Avoid Epstein Testimony

Between 2012 and 2017 – after Jeffrey Epstein got out of prison – billionaire Leon Black paid him roughly $170 million. Black has not provided a credible explanation as to why he paid Epstein amounts vastly exceeding those paid to other professional advisors – and instead of sitting down to explain it to Congress on Thursday, he sued the House Oversight Committee.

Recall, Black:

  • Paid Epstein $158 million per Dechert, the law firm Apollo hired, or $170 million per Sen. Ron Wyden’s investigation.
  • Stepped down as Apollo CEO in 2021 after a Dechert review “cleared” him, which we called bullshit at the time.
  • Wrote the 2003 birthday book poem about “Blond, Red or Brunette, spread out geographically,” signed “Love and Kisses.”
  • Paid roughly $20 million to a dozen women, some via Epstein; at least three have accused him of assault.
  • Says he signed Guzel Ganieva’s 2015 NDA because she was extorting him; her rape suit was dismissed.
  • Paid $62.5 million to the U.S. Virgin Islands in 2023 to settle Epstein-related claims before any were made public.
  • Used Epstein to help structure his $106 million Picasso purchase through Narrows Holdings, as we reported in February.
  • Told Congress in June “I knew Jekyll. I didn’t know Hyde,” then walked out rather than discuss his NDAs.

The committee went ahead with a closed-door session anyway, with ranking Democrat Robert Garcia demanding an ‘immediate’ contempt vote against Black. Chairman James Comer (R) said that if it were up to him, “I would hold him in contempt right now,” but he wanted to discuss Black’s lawsuit with the committee’s lawyers first so as not to jeopardize the thing the committee actually wants: non-disclosure agreements that Black allegedly signed with several women. 

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington against the committee and Comer, argues that the two subpoenas issued June 26 (one for Black’s sworn testimony, one for “all the NDAs” he is party to) are “invalid to the extent they exceed” the committee’s “delegated authority in seeking private information that bears no legitimate connection” to its legislative purpose. Producing the agreements, the suit says, “would also expose women who value their privacy, who have no known or public connection to Epstein.” Black’s lawyer Susan Estrich called the probe “a fishing expedition” and said, “This is no longer about finding the truth about Epstein. It is about trying to destroy Mr. Black.”

Comer hit back – saying that Black is “hiding behind litigation rather than provide answers to the American people.”

Black is the first Epstein witness to sue the committee rather than show up. Jes Staley and Kathy Ruemmler both sat for questions this summer. Which makes the timing of Thursday’s other Leon Black story hard to improve on.

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“You hired me to produce a work of art”

A few hours before the empty chair, Bloomberg Law published a piece about a May 2016 email in which Epstein described the tax plan he sold Black as, literally, art.

“Leon, you hired me to produce a work of art. it was not inexpensive. the value far exceeds any other piece in your collection.- by FAR . It took me 30 years to be able to craft such a work. I understand your desire to modifiy my work, in doing so you have brad telling me , just a bit more red., here let me show you, you yourself pick up a brush a add some strokes… however Im aware that you own the work and you have the right to paint over it. tear it up , put it in the closet in the basement . its yours.”

And on the price:

“Unfortunatley for us both, the price for my works has not changed since day one. 40m per year, I m willing to discount it to 35 as I did give you a bad number when asked and should pay an embarassment fine.”

And a weird line:

“you recently seemed shy to discuss certain things. , please be assured I make no judgement on any of your activities , whether or not i agree with them . not my role I am always on your side on the table. I hope your personal life quiets. you’ve had a rough 15 months.”

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Local Mom Dragged Into Court For Trying To Obtain Info On Secret Data Center Deals

An Arkansas mom and healthcare worker obtained a trove of documents about a data center deal between a local energy company and Google. Now, she is caught in a legal fight between the energy company and the news outlet she shared the documents with, with video surfacing of her being dragged into federal court Tuesday, weeping and scared.

Jessica Kivell recently sent a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the Arkansas Public Service Commission, which regulates state electricity prices, regarding a data center deal between Entergy Arkansas and Google, according to the Arkansas Times. The government appeared to have mistakenly handed Kivell the documents, which she then sent to a reporter at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

The documents purportedly revealed that Google will not be paying the entire cost of infrastructure upgrades needed to power a new data center in West Memphis, despite claims to the contrary, according to the Arkansas Times. Google will only pay a third of the cost, $526 million, of a new solar array required to power the data center, the outlet reported.

Entergy sent attorneys and officials to a federal courthouse Tuesday to prevent the documents and information from remaining public, according to the Arkansas Times. The company sued the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and requested a restraining order on Kivell, arguing the documents contained trade secrets, the publication of which might violate state and federal laws.

Kivell was “visibly scared” when she arrived in court in her work scrubs after she arranged for her husband to pick up their daughter, according to the Arkansas Times, which was also listed in Entergy’s restraining order request. Throughout a closed-door portion of the hearing, Kivell wept loudly and continued to sob when she returned to the courtroom, the Arkansas Times reported.

U.S. District Judge Lee Rudofsky issued a ruling Wednesday that denied Entergy’s request for a temporary restraining order that would have prohibited the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette from publishing information about the deal. He also denied the restraining order on Kivell.

Entergy disputed the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette’s reporting and called for a retraction Wednesday.

“The information first published in the Aug. 31 Arkansas Democrat Gazette contains a serious and careless mathematical error,” Entergy alleged. “The calculation accounts for only 12 months of payments rather than the full twenty-year term of the agreement — a fact that was known to the paper but not included in its math.”

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