Tag: trump derangement syndrome

FBI Denies Targeting Trump Supporters Ahead of 2024 Election

On Thursday, the FBI denied reports that it is targeting Trump supporters ahead of the 2024 presidential elections. 

Newsweek reported Wednesday that the FBI had created a category to evaluate threats known as anti-government and anti-authority violent extremism, which encompasses individuals who are deemed as threats, but don’t fall under anarchist, militia or sovereign citizen groups. 

According to the outlet, more than a dozen current and former anonymous government officials said that the program primarily targets supporters of former President Donald Trump.

In a statement, the FBI denied the existence of this new designation, contesting the report and claiming it was false.  

“Any allegation that the FBI targets individuals solely for their political beliefs is categorically false,” an FBI spokesperson said. “The FBI investigates those who commit acts of violence or threaten violence, and we do not take action based on political belief or any First Amendment protected activity.”

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FBI Creates ‘MAGA’ Extremist Category, Targets Trump Supporters Ahead Of 2024 Election

The Biden FBI has ‘quietly created a new category of extremists that it seeks to track and counter: Donald Trump’s army of MAGA followers’ ahead of the 2024 election, according to prolific (and well connected) anti-war journalist and political commentator, William Arkin, who has previously reported on the FBI’s efforts to “Fight MAGA Terrorism.”

In a Wednesday Newsweek article, Arkin reveals that the vast majority of FBI investigations into “anti-government” activities are of Trump supporters.

“The FBI is in an almost impossible position,” a current FBI official told Arkin, who added that the agency’s stated intent is stopping a repeat of January 6th type incidents (which was riddled with feds), while balancing the Constitutional right of Americans to protest the government “Especially at a time when the White House is facing Congressional Republican opposition claiming that the Biden administration has ‘weaponized’ the Bureau against the right wing, it has to tread very carefully,” the official continued.

Newsweek spoke to over a dozen current or former government officials who specialize in terrorism in a three-month investigation to understand the current domestic-security landscape and to evaluate what President Joe Biden‘s administration is doing about what it calls domestic terrorism. Most requested anonymity because they were not authorized to talk publicly, were reluctant to stray into partisan politics or feared the repercussions of speaking frankly.

Newsweek has also reviewed secret FBI and Department of Homeland Security data that track incidents, threats, investigations and cases to try to build a better picture. While experts agree that the current partisan environment is charged and uniquely dangerous (with the threat not only of violence but, in the most extreme scenarios, possibly civil war), many also question whether “terrorism” is the most effective way to describe the problem, or that the methods of counterterrorism developed over the past decade in response to Al-Qaeda and other Islamist groups constitute the most fruitful way to craft domestic solutions.

We would note that an FBI whistleblower in March claimed that the agency pressured him to inflate domestic terrorism figures against conservatives, and that the agency created a specific threat tag for pro-lifers “THREATSCOTUS2022” following the leaked Supreme Court opinion on abortion (and not a threat tag for the violent leftists who threatened SCOTUS justices?).

The FBI told Newsweek in a statement that: “The threat posed by domestic violent extremists is persistent, evolving, and deadly. The FBI’s goal is to detect and stop terrorist attacks, and our focus is on potential criminal violations, violence and threats of violence. Anti-government or anti-authority violent extremism is one category of domestic terrorism, as well as one of the FBI’s top threat priorities,” adding “We are committed to protecting the safety and constitutional rights of all Americans and will never open an investigation based solely on First Amendment protected activity, including a person’s political beliefs or affiliations.”

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Media Critics Agree: Stop Interviewing the Bad People!

On Sunday, NBC’s Meet the Press, which has been interviewing notable politicians for the past 75 years, brought in for questioning the runaway favorite for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination: Donald Trump.

Media critics were—predictably by now—livid. Not just at new MTP host Kristin Welker’s inability to corral Washington’s most slippery fish, but at the very notion that a politician-interviewing show should even interview this particular politician, after all that he has done.

“It’s arguable that, at this juncture, there is really no need to interview Trump,” posited CNN media writer Oliver Darcy. “Just a colossal mistake to showcase this sociopath,” tweeted American Enterprise Institute emeritus scholar and Atlantic contributing editor Norman Ornstein. “Downright dangerous journalism to legitimize this guy—in the name of having a ‘talked about’ premiere,” charged former New York Times media reporter Bill Carter. “Is it possible,” an exasperated former Chicago Tribune editor Mark Jacob wondered, “that journalists who platform lying fascists don’t know they’re undermining democracy?”

It may seem counterintuitive that protecting democracy requires refusing to talk with a primary-frontrunning former president who more than 74 million Americans voted for in 2020. But not if you think that Trump is uniquely awful and dangerous, that his fact-tethered interlocutors are helpless against his firehose of lies, and that there are no meaningfully compensatory benefits to be gleaned from the traditional journalistic practice of interrogating a candidate for high office.

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A Dozen Media Outlets that Fell for Fake News on Mar-a-Lago

Several media outlets, both mainstream and left-wing, fell for the fake news Friday that former President Donald Trump had sold or transferred ownership of his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida to his son, Donald Trump Jr.

The story originated in a mistaken report on the Zillow real estate website. But it was “to good to check” for many websites:

Breitbart News reported exclusively that the story was fake before Zillow confirmed the information was wrong.

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FBI Official Involved In Trump-Russia Hoax To Plead Guilty To — Conspiring With Russia

An ex-FBI agent who led the agency’s New York counterintelligence division and played a key role in the Trump-Russia collusion probe – will plead guilty to charges of colluding with Russia himself, a federal judge suggested in a Monday order reported by the Washington Times.

Charles McGonigal was arrested in January and charged with violating US sanctions on Russia by taking secret payments from a Russian oligarch, Oleg V. Deripaska, to investigate a rival oligarch.

“The court has been informed that defendant Charles McGonigal may wish to enter a change of plea,” wrote Judge Jennifer Reardon in a brief order in which she also scheduled a hearing for Aug. 15.

McGonigal initially pleaded not guilty on four corruption charges – including conspiring to evade U.S. sanctions, money laundering, conspiring to commit money laundering and conspiring to violate federal law against doing business with sanctioned individuals. Each count carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.

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NBC is slammed for report about black people needing ‘safe spaces’ to camp to avoid ‘trauma’ from white people who might have Trump flags

NBC News has been slammed online for a report about black people needing ‘safe spaces’ to enjoy outdoor activities.

NBC BLK reporter Char Adams described in a recently-revived June essay several black-led outdoor groups working to ‘provide safe spaces for black people to enjoy outdoor activities and dispel myths that the outdoors doesn’t belong to us.’

The report focused heavily on creating racially segregated ‘safe spaces’ so that black people can avoid ‘harassment’ and ‘trauma’ from white people who might fly ‘Trump flags’ at campsites.  

Adams explained that the groups were founded to combat racism from the Jim Crow Era barring African Americans from National Parks, and current stereotypes that black people do not enjoy outdoor activities.

Many on Twitter criticized the report after NBC News re-shared it on Tuesday, saying the media outlet was race-baiting.

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DOJ Reveals How Much Jack Smith’s Special Counsel Probe Is Costing Taxpayers

Special counsel Jack Smith’s wide-ranging investigation into former President Donald Trump has cost taxpayers over $9 million since he was appointed last year, according to a newly released government report on Friday.

His team has incurred some $5.4 million in rent, personnel, and other costs, while another $3.8 million in “component expenses” was also incurred by other Justice Department (DOJ) agencies over four months, according to figures (pdf) released by the DOJ on Friday. Last year, Attorney General Merrick Garland tapped Smith, a former Hague prosecutor, to oversee multiple probes targeting the former president, while Mr. Trump has characterized Smith as a partisan actor who is working on behalf of the Democrats to undermine him.

“Although not legally required, DOJ components that support the [Smith special counsel office] were asked to track non-reimbursed expenditures attributable to this investigation, which includes hours worked by agents and investigative support analysts, as well as the cost of protective details for the Special Counsel when warranted,” the DOJ report said. “The expenditures for this period totaled $3,818,818.”

About $2 million was used for federal employee salaries, another $1 million was paid for investigative support, and some $80,000 was used to help employees relocate while they worked for Smith. The report runs through March 31 of this year.

In comparison, special counsel John Durham’s investigation into the origins of the controversial FBI Crossfire Hurricane probe cost about $1 million in the same time period, while special counsel Robert Hur’s probe has cost some $600,000, according to reports. Meanwhile, former special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe, which ultimately did not reveal that Mr. Trump colluded with the Russian government, cost a whopping $32 million upon its conclusion.

Months after Mr. Smith was appointed, Mr. Hur was named by Mr. Garland to head the investigation into the handling of classified documents found at President Joe Biden’s home and private office. A report issued by the DOJ showed that he spent most of his expenses on employee pay.

Overall, Mr. Durham’s team spent about $9.4 million over several years, according to a filing, starting in late 2020 after then-Attorney General Bill Barr named him to head the investigation into the origins of the Trump–Russia probe and collusion narrative. His work ended in May after releasing a significant, 300-page report that faulted the FBI’s leadership for approving the investigation into Mr. Trump—although no charges were filed against any current employees at the FBI or DOJ and no one was fired.

That investigation netted one guilty plea from a former FBI lawyer who admitted to falsifying an email about a surveillance warrant for a former Trump aide. Mr. Durham’s prosecutions against a Democratic campaign lawyer, Michael Sussmann, and Igor Danchenko, who was used as a source for a controversial and widely discredited dossier, ended up in acquittals, respectively.

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A Post-Clemency Prosecution Shines a Light on a Broken System

A month before he left office, then-President Donald Trump freed Philip Esformes, a Florida nursing home operator who had served nearly five years of a 20-year sentence for bilking Medicare and Medicaid. Despite that commutation, the Justice Department plans to retry Esformes for the same conduct that sent him to prison in the first place.

Critics of that unprecedented move say it undermines the pardon power and violates the Fifth Amendment’s ban on double jeopardy. As witnesses at a recent congressional hearing emphasized, the case also illustrates the sorry state of the federal clemency system, which in recent decades has become increasingly stingy, inefficient, and haphazard.

Esformes was arrested in 2016 and charged with numerous crimes related to a scheme that prosecutors said involved bribes, kickbacks, and medically unnecessary treatments, all of which helped fund a “lavish lifestyle.” After an eight-week trial in 2019, U.S. District Judge Robert N. Scola Jr. directed the jury to acquit Esformes of six charges, including two counts of health care fraud, deeming the evidence underlying them insufficient as a matter of law.

The jury convicted Esformes of 20 other charges, including conspiracy to defraud the United States, money laundering, payment and receipt of kickbacks, and obstruction of justice. But it failed to reach verdicts on six counts, including the central charge of conspiring to commit health care fraud.

Based on the 20 convictions, Right on Crime Executive Director Brett Tolman noted in his congressional testimony, “Mr. Esformes was facing 5 years in prison.” But prosecutors successfully urged Scola to sentence Esformes as if he had been convicted of health care fraud, which “increased Mr. Esformes’ sentence by 15 years.”

Although it defies conventional notions of justice, federal judges are allowed to punish defendants for crimes that have not been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. In this case, Scola explicitly said he considered the six undecided counts in determining Esformes’ sentence.

The Justice Department nevertheless wants to take another stab at convicting Esformes of those crimes. It argues that the commutation Esformes received does not preclude another prosecution, because it says nothing about the unresolved counts.

Trump explicitly left in place three years of post-release supervision, plus restitution and forfeiture totaling about $44 million. But it is hard to believe he thought he was leaving the door open to a trial that could send Esformes back to prison. That prospect instead seems to be the result of a mistake that could have been avoided if Trump had been better advised.

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Russiagate’s Missing Pieces

The first thing to understand about John Durham is that he was a fearless prosecutor who went after organized crime and put in prison retired and active FBI agents who protected the mob for money or other enticements. One of the agents he stopped had enabled James “Whitey” Bulger Jr., once one of America’s most wanted men, the Winter Hill Gang boss who evaded arrest for sixteen years.

In his forty-five years as a state and federal prosecutor in Connecticut and Virginia, Durham worked often and closely with FBI agents, especially on cases that involved violations of federal racketeering statutes.

Durham also handled two inquiries into the CIA’s conduct in the War on Terror, and he did so without angering his superiors in the executive branch. In one case he was asked to investigate the alleged destruction of CIA videotapes of detainee interrogations, the so-called torture tapes. His final report on the matter remains secret, and he recommended that no charges be filed. He was later asked to lead a Justice Department inquiry into the legality of the CIA’s “enhanced interrogation techniques” that resulted in the death of two detainees. In that case, he was told that officers who were given and obeyed what were determined to be illegal orders—there were many of those after 9/11—could not be prosecuted. No charges were filed.

Durham’s 306-page report was made public on May 15, and it pleased no one with its focus on the obvious. The journalist Susan Schmidt, whose byline was a must-read when she was a reporter for the Washington Post, pointed out on Racket News that Durham said the FBI would have done less damage to its reputation if it had scrutinized the questionable actions of the Clinton campaign in 2016: the Feds “might at least have cast a critical eye on the phony evidence they were gathering.”

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Schiff Aide Threatened Researchers Who Refused to Investigate False Trump–Russia Links

Staffers for Democratic congressman Adam Schiff (Calif.) and Senator Jack Reed (R.I.) threatened two university researchers to force them to help with an investigation into former president Donald Trump’s ties to Russia, the researchers told Special Counsel John Durham.

The researchers, from Georgia Tech University, told Durham that they were invited to Washington, D.C., in November 2018 to provide what they thought was a briefing about the school’s federal research contracts. Instead, they were lured into a meeting with staff members working for Schiff at the House Intelligence Committee and for Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee. The researchers said the Democratic staffers asked them to analyze a news article about alleged links between Trump’s company and Russia’s Alfa Bank.

When they balked at the request because it was “inappropriate” conduct for a public university, the Democratic staffers issued what one researcher believed was a “mild threat.” A staffer for Reed told the researchers that “we are now in charge,” and a staffer for Schiff pointed out the Democrat would soon take over as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, one researcher told Durham.

Durham’s office investigated whether the Democrats’ pressure campaign merited prosecution “for contract fraud or abuse of government resources,” though no charges were filed.

The revelation marks yet another black eye for Schiff in his failed quest to establish ties between Trump and Russia. The California Democrat, who is running for Senate, infamously claimed in 2017 that he had seen “more than circumstantial evidence” of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. He also read portions of the discredited Steele dossier at a congressional hearing on March 20, 2017. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R., Calif.) stripped Schiff of his House Intelligence position in January, citing the Democrat’s promotion of Trump conspiracy theories.

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