Category Archives: Quiet War

Independent Media, Investigative Journalism, Notable Occurrence, Quiet War

Fauci’s Finances Leaked – Multi-Millionaire Profited During Pandemic

Leave a comment

Carmine Sabia
January 15, 2022

It appears that Dr. Anthony Fauci made a gigantic mistake when he crossed Republican Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall, who has now shown the world the doctor’s financial information.

His financial records show that Dr. Fauci, who makes more than President Joe Biden annually and is the highest paid federal employee, and his wife, have a combined net worth of around $10 million, The Daily Mail reported.

Fauci’s salary is $434,312 annually, more than Biden’s $400,000, and his wife, Christine Grady, who works as the Chief of the Department of Bioethics at the National Institutes of Health, rakes in $176,000 each year.

And it also showed that Fauci, who has headed the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984, and his wife, profited during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Fauci’s records show that he and his wife were paid $13,298 to attend four galas and ceremonies – three of them virtual.

He was paid $5,000 to attend a ‘RFK Ripple of Hope’ virtual awards ceremony in December 2020; $1,600 to attend ‘An Evening of Hope’ virtual event in April 2020; and $1,500 to attend a ‘Prepared for Life’ virtual gala in October 2020. 

He was also reimbursed $5,198 for costs associated with his being awarded federal employee of the year and being given the Service to America medal, in October 2020.

The four events were listed under ‘gifts and travel reimbursements’. 

They also have an interest in an Italian restaurant in San Francisco, Jackson Fillmore Trattoria. The restaurant did not make them any money, however, the disclosures show. 

Fauci’s wife, Christine Grady, 69, is also still working full-time at the National Institutes of Health on an annual salary of $176,000. 

The senator who leaked Fauci’s financials had an altercation with him during a Senate hearing this week which also brought him to introduce legislation named for Fauci.

The “Fauci Act,” as it is being called, is being introduced by Republican Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall who wants to capitalize on a hot-mic moment Dr. Fauci had this week, The New York Post reported.

The bill, formally titled the Financial Accountability for Uniquely Compensated Individuals (FAUCI) Act, would also require the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) to publish a list of government officials whose financial disclosures are not publicly available, according to multiple outlets. 

Marshall clashed with the White House chief medical adviser during a Senate hearing Tuesday after the senator asked Fauci: “Would you be willing to submit to Congress and the public a financial disclosure that includes your past and current investments?”

“My financial disclosure is public knowledge and has been so for the last 37 years or so,” the doctor, who called Marshall “so misinformed, it’s extraordinary,” said.

“We cannot find them. Our office cannot find them. Where would they be if they are public knowledge?” the senator said.

“It is totally accessible to you if you want it,” the doctor said.

“For the public? Is it accessible to the public?” the senator said.

“To the public, to the public!” Dr. Fauci said.

“Great, we look forward to reviewing it,” Sen. Marshall responded.

But after that Dr. Fauci muttered into the live mic, “What a moron! Jesus Christ!”

“Well, I think we were both very much in the moment,” the senator said to Fox News. “I did not take it personal one bit. I was more focused on the true facts. The fact that he had just lied to Congress.”

“And it takes the NIH, it takes this White House months to respond to any type of request for information, and then it’s redacted. It’s quite a game they’re playing. So I was shocked, I was shocked by his response, that he would lie to Congress again after he had already lied about the viral gain-of-function question that I asked him earlier,” the senator said.

Civil Unrest, DOJ, Independent Media, Notable Occurrence, Quiet War

DOJ Creates Specialized Unit For Domestic Terrorism Amid Attempts To Dub Jan. 6 “Worse Than 9/11”

Leave a comment

From the beginning, the Biden administration has clearly prioritized the threat of ‘White extremism’ as the prime and most pressing domestic security concern – for example in June issuing the White House’s National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism, which defined the “the two most lethal elements of today’s domestic terrorism threat” as : (1) racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists who advocate for the superiority of the white race and (2) anti-government or anti-authority violent extremists, such as militia violent extremists.”

Naturally, this became a cause for concern as often simple ‘middle America’ Trump voters were increasingly labeled by mainstream media and in public discourse as associated with “terrorism” – given especially the events of Jan.6 – which some Republican leaders too have begun to label as a “terrorist attack”. Prominent liberal pundits, for example over at MSNBC and other outlets, began to suggest that Jan.6 was “worse than 9/11”.

Now, the Biden administration is ready to give the DOJ some teeth in enforcing a crackdown on this supposed #1 threat facing the nation, by creating a new special unit to tackle what’s broadly defined as “domestic terrorism” – however loosely that label is currently being thrown about in Washington.

“The Justice Department is establishing a specialized unit focused on domestic terrorism, the department’s top national security official told lawmakers Tuesday as he described an elevated threat from violent extremists in the United States,” The Associated Press reports Tuesday.

Schumer: “We didn’t look away after the attack on Pearl Harbor. We didn’t look away after the attacks on 9/11 … just because it was Americans who did this, we cannot look away after the attack on Jan. 6”

— Kevin Frey (@KevinFreyTV) January 6, 2022

The unit is being described as necessary to handle the “more than double” the number of suspected violent extremism cases which have popped up since spring of 2020, according to Congressional testimony this week of Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen.

Harris slammed for comparing Capitol riot to 9/11, Pearl Harbor attacks https://t.co/qYNwPR7FVH pic.twitter.com/ieKEyyBAWN

— New York Post (@nypost) January 6, 2022

“We have seen a growing threat from those who are motivated by racial animus, as well as those who ascribe to extremist anti-government and anti-authority ideologies,” Olsen stated.

The specialized domestic terrorism unit, he described, is further necessary to “to augment our existing approach” – despite the DOJ already having a counterterrorism section within National Security Division, and such cases also long being handled by FBI units.

Meanwhile…

Does this new FBI department exist to prevent domestic terrorism or to perpetrate it, like that time the FBI hatched a plan to kidnap and kill Michigan’s governor? https://t.co/niR5dVm51n

— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) January 11, 2022

Source: ZeroHedge

Congress, Independent Media, politics, Quiet War

Mccarthy Says If Republicans Win Back the House Swalwell, Omar, Schiff Will Lose Committee Seats

Leave a comment

Sophie Mann
January 11th, 2022

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy says he plans to take away committee assignments from at least three Democrats should Republicans win control of the chamber in November.

“The Democrats have created a new thing where they’re picking and choosing who can be on committees,” he said in an interview with Breitbart.com published Monday,

The California Republican also said: “Never in the history [of Congress] have you had the majority tell the minority who can be on a committee.”

House Democrats have stripped GOP Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene. of Georgia, and Paul Gosar, of Arizona, of their committee assignments in the roughly the past year. Among other issues facing the House GOP leader, McCarthy has been criticized for not doing enough to protect the members of his caucus.

Given the new standard, McCarthy discussed how he will play the game, if Republican retake the chamber in the upcoming midterm election.

“If Eric Swalwell cannot get a security clearance in the private sector, there is no reason why he should be given one to be on Intel or Homeland Security. He will not be serving there,” he said, referring to the House’s Intelligence and Homeland Security committees. 

In late 2020, it was revealed that Swalwell, a Democrat congressmen from California, became worryingly close with an alleged agent of the Chinese Communist Party, including likely engaging in a romantic tryst with her, that U.S. investigators stepped in to provide the member with a briefing of security situation.

McCarthy continued listing Democrats he would bump from committees including Reps. Illhan Omar, of Minnesota, and Adam Schiff, of California.

“Ilhan Omar should not be serving on Foreign Affairs. … You look at Adam Schiff. He should not be serving on Intel when he has openly, knowingly now used a fake dossier, lied to the American public in the process and doesn’t have any ill will [and] says he wants to continue to do it.”

Media Corruption, politics, Quiet War, Thought Manipulation

Florida’s DeSantis Says WH, Mainstream Media ‘Hostile’ to Him Over Therapies to Treat COVID-19

Leave a comment

Florida’s conservative governor has long had strained relations with the federal authorities and mainstream media over his stance on the southern border crisis and COVID-19 countermeasures, as Florida has remained open most of the time.

Despite some of the relative successes of Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in combating the COVID-19 pandemic, the Biden administration and much of the media remain hostile to Florida’s way of coping with the virus, the governor believes.

In an interview with Fox News’ “Life, Liberty & Levin” on Sunday, DeSantis said that the constant assault of negative publicity and criticism from Washington is “all political.”He claimed that he wears such a critique like a badge of honor, telling presenter Mark Levin that it is all “positive feedback.”

“If the corporate press nationally isn’t attacking me, then I’m probably not doing my job,” he said. “So the fact that they are attacking me is a good indication that, you know what, I’m tackling the big issues.”DeSantis explained that the state authorities reject critical race theory, promoted by the left, challenge the vaccine mandates imposed by the federal government, and fight against the flow of illegal immigration that has affected the state, “all those things that a vast majority of Floridians and Americans want to see done but that does threaten the ruling class and the regime.”

US Politicians Flee From ‘Draconian’ COVID Policies to Florida to ‘Enjoy Life’, Gov. DeSantis Jokes4 January, 14:04 GMTHe then emphasized that he is genuinely working to provide Floridians with therapeutic choices such as monoclonal antibodies to complement White House-backed vaccines, while also allowing citizens to choose whether or not they want to be injected with the vaccines in the first place.”

We set up these centers this summer when we started to see the delta variant rear its head, and it worked. We were keeping tens of thousands of people out of the hospital, saved thousands of lives. No one disputes that,” DeSantis said of the monoclonal antibody treatment sites. “Well, as that was happening in September, the federal government decided to seize control of the monoclonal antibodies and cut supplies to Florida and Texas, mainly.”According to the governor, when that happened, he contacted GlaxoSmithKline in Brentford, UK, to get sotrovimab medicines, in order to continue providing Floridians with the help against the novel coronavirus.

When omicron strain emerged, DeSantis sought antibody treatment once more, and Biden’s Health and Human Services department reportedly refused, figuratively saying: “‘Oh, Florida, you use too much of it’,” according to the governor.”Well, part of the reason we use more than other states is because we’ve actually embraced treatment. Most of these other governors and the people like Fauci and the federal leadership, they basically say get a shot, wear a mask, and they never talk about treatment,” he said.

Biden continues to reiterate pro-vaccine platitudes and carry on the same way the feds have for months, the governor added, by neglecting the significance of examining, approving, and assisting states in obtaining treatment choices like the ones he supported.”I wish the vaccines were sterilizing, but they’re not providing that type of an immunity,” DeSantis explained. “So to just not deal with treatment and be hostile to people like me who are, it shows so much of this is about a political agenda.”According to the Florida governor, this agenda is “about partisanship, and it’s not about the best interests of the American people, when you talk about how these folks are acting.“According to the latest Johns Hopkins University data, as of Sunday, January 9, the Sunshine State recorded a total of 4.6 million cases of COVID-19 with 62,688 deaths. Since the start of the vaccination campaign, more than 13.7 million residents have been fully vaccinated, which is about 65% of the total population.

The state had more than 120,000 new cases of the virus as of Saturday, with a seven-day average increase of more than 58,000 infections.

deep state, Independent Media, Investigative Journalism, Notable Occurrence, Quiet War, Thought Manipulation

BREAKING: Feds Finally Admit to Running Secretive DOJ “Commandos” at Jan. 6 Trump Protests

4 Comments

Jim Hoft
January 3, 2022

The Department of Justice admitted this week to running secretive DOJ “commandos” at the January 6 protests in Washington DC.

Four Trump supporters died that day including two women who were killed by Capitol Hill Police.
A third woman was nearly killed but was rescued by Green Beret Jeremy Brown.

The DOJ Commandos were given “shoot to kill” orders.

Now they’re admitting the government did in fact have commandos at the capitol on Jan. 6.

After nearly a year this information is finally coming out.
And they accused this website and others of being conspiracy nuts for reporting on the feds in the crowd that day.

We will likely never know how many feds were working that day to sabotage the peaceful protests.

Newsweek reported:

On Sunday, January 3, the heads of a half-dozen elite government special operations teams met in Quantico, Virginia, to go over potential threats, contingencies, and plans for the upcoming Joint Session of Congress. The meeting, and the subsequent deployment of these shadowy commandos on January 6, has never before been revealed.

Right after the New Year, Jeffrey A. Rosen, the acting Attorney General on January 6, approved implementation of long-standing contingency plans dealing with the most extreme possibilities: an attack on President Donald Trump or Vice President Mike Pence, a terrorist attack involving a weapon of mass destruction, and a declaration of measures to implement continuity of government, requiring protection and movement of presidential successors.

Rosen made a unilateral decision to take the preparatory steps to deploy Justice Department and so-called “national” forces. There was no formal request from the U.S. Capitol Police, the Secret Service, or the Metropolitan Police Department—in fact, no external request from any agency. The leadership in Justice and the FBI anticipated the worst and decided to act independently, the special operations forces lurking behind the scenes.

“I believe that DOJ [Department of Justice] reasonably prepared for contingencies ahead of January 6, understanding that there was considerable uncertainty as to how many people would arrive, who those people would be, and precisely what purposes they would pursue,” Rosen later told Congress. He stressed that his department “no frontline role with respect to crowd control,” that they were focused on “high-risk” operations.

The contingency units meeting on January 3 included the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team, the FBI’s national “Render Safe” team, an FBI SWAT team from the Baltimore Field Office, Special Response Teams from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), and the U.S. Marshals Service Special Operations Group…

…FBI tactical teams arrived on Capitol Hill early in the day to assist in the collection of evidence at sites—including the Republican and Democrat party national headquarters—where explosive devices were found. FBI SWAT teams and snipers were deployed to secure nearby congressional office buildings. Other FBI agents provided selective security around the U.S. Capitol and protection to congressional members and staff.

A tactical team of the Hostage Rescue Team was one of the first external federal agencies to actually enter the Capitol after protestors breached the building. In addition to augmentation of emergency security assets, one team coordinated with the U.S. Capitol Police and Secret Service to provide additional safeguarding of Vice President Pence, who had been moved to the underground parking structure beneath the Capitol, from where he was supposed to evacuate. But Pence refused to leave the building and stayed underground instead.

The presence of these extraordinary forces under the control of the Attorney General—and mostly operating under contingency plans that Congress and the U.S. Capitol Police were not privy to—added an additional layer of highly armed responders. The role that the military played in this highly classified operation is still unknown, though FBI sources tell Newsweek that military operators seconded to the FBI, and those on alert as part of the National Mission Force, were present in the metropolitan area. The lingering question is: What was it that the Justice Department saw that provoked it to see January 6 as an extraordinary event, something that the other agencies evidently missed.

Notable Occurrence, politics, Quiet War

Durham Zeroes in on Clinton Campaign, Could Call Some Aides to Testify, Court Memo Reveals

Leave a comment

By John Solomon

Hillary Clinton’s team long fought to keep its ties to Christopher Steele’s dossier from public view, but Special Counsel John Durham is now making clear he has a strong interest in her campaign’s behavior during the Russia collusion probe. He is even suggesting some of her aides could be summoned as trial witnesses.

Durham’s earth-shaking revelation came inside a routine court filing this month in the case of Igor Y. Danchenko, a Russian analyst who was a primary source in 2016 for Steele’s now-infamous dossier. Danchenko has been charged with repeatedly lying to the FBI during the Russia collusion probe and has pleaded innocent.

File DanchenkoIndictment.pdf

Durham’s motion asked the presiding judge to determine whether Danchenko’s lawyers —Danny Onorato and Stuart Sears of the Schertler Onorato Mead & Sears law firm — pose a conflict of interest because the firm also represents the Hillary for America campaign as well as several former campaign officials in “matters before the special counsel.”

“The Clinton Campaign financed the opposition research reports, colloquially known as the ‘Dossier,’ that are central to the Indictment against the defendant,” the Durham team stated in the motion. “Accordingly, for the reasons set forth below, the government respectfully requests that the Court inquire into the potential conflict issues set forth herein.”

File DurhamMotionDanchenkoClintonConflicts.pdf

Prosecutors said they want to know what the Clinton campaign knew about the accuracy of the Steele dossier’s now-discredited allegations of Trump-Russia collusion and whether any campaign “representatives directed, solicited, or controlled” Danchenko’s activities assisting Steele.

“The interests of the Clinton Campaign and the defendant could potentially diverge in connection with any plea discussions, pre-trial proceedings, hearings, trial, and sentencing proceedings,” the prosecutors told the court, often referring to the Steele dossier as “Company Reports.”

“For example, the Clinton Campaign and the defendant each might have an incentive to shift blame and/or responsibility to the other party for any allegedly false information that was contained within the Company Reports and/or provided to the FBI,” the Durham filing stated. “Moreover, it is possible that one of these parties might also seek to advance claims that they were harmed or defrauded by the other’s actions, statements, or representations.”

For the first time, Durham also raised the possibility aides to Hillary Clinton could testify at Danchenko’s trial.

“In the event that one or more former representatives of the Clinton Campaign (who are represented by defense counsel’s firm) are called to testify at any trial or other court proceeding, the defendant and any such witness would be represented by the same law firm, resulting in a potential conflict,” Durham’s team argued.

And for one of the first times, Durham’s team declares to a court what it believes was the political motive for the Clinton campaign to pay its law firm, Perkins Coie, to hire the Fusion GPS investigative firm to hire the retired MI6 agent Steele to write anti-Trump Russia reports known as the dossier.

“The Clinton Campaign, through Law Firm-1 and U.S. Investigative Firm-1, commissioned and financed the Company Reports in an attempt to gather and disseminate derogatory information about Donald Trump,” the filing stated.

In all, the latest Durham court filing identifies five areas where the prosecutor’s case may pose a conflict, including:

  • the Clinton campaign’s “knowledge or lack of knowledge concerning the veracity of information” in the dossier created by Steele with help from Danchenko;
  • the Clinton campaign’s “awareness or lack of awareness of the defendant’s collection methods and sub-sources”;
  • “meetings or communications” between the Clinton campaign, Fusion GPS and Steele “regarding or involving” Danchenko;
  • “the defendant’s knowledge or lack of knowledge regarding the Clinton Campaign’s role in and activities surrounding the” Steele dossier;
  • And “the extent to which the Clinton Campaign and/or its representatives directed, solicited, or controlled” Danchenko’s activities.

“On each of these issues, the interests of the Clinton Campaign and the defendant may diverge,” the court filing explained.

The memo gives the most detailed explanation to date of Durham’s interest in the Clinton campaign and its potential exposure in his criminal investigation, surprising even some veteran Russiagate investigators.

“He is moving forward methodically against the largest organized criminal enterprise to ever take down a presidential election,” said Kash Patel, the former chief investigative counsel for the House Intelligence Committee. Patel worked with Rep. Devin Nunes, the committee’s chairman, to expose the bogus Russia collusion narrative as a political dirty trick that fed opposition research to the FBI to cause Trump to be investigated on false pretenses.

Patel, a former federal prosecutor and adviser to Trump, told the John Solomon Reports podcast that the memo is “an unbelievable twist” in the Russia case. He said the fact that the law firm representing the Clinton campaign is the same one representing Danchenko was certain to raise questions.

“You have to ask yourself why,” he said. “Why would the Clinton campaign lawyers go and represent the Steele dossier’s No. 1 source, who has been charged federally with five counts of lying to the FBI in a 39-page indictment that cites Clinton campaign former staffers?

“There is no such thing as coincidences in these types of investigations.”

Commentary, corruption, deep state, law, Notable Occurrence, politics, Quiet War

Durham Tells Court Members of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 Campaign Under Scrutiny

Leave a comment

Martin Walsh
December 22, 2021

OPINION: This article contains commentary which reflects the author’s opinion

Special Counsel John Durham’s team has informed a federal court that former members of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign are under scrutiny for their possible roles in spreading Trump-Russia collusion allegations.

“Durham’s team requested that a judge ‘inquire into a potential conflict of interest’ connected to the lawyers for British ex-spy Christopher Steele’s main anti-Trump dossier source, Igor Danchenko, pointing out that a separate lawyer at their firm ‘is currently representing the 2016 ‘Hillary for America’ presidential campaign, as well as multiple former employees of that campaign, in matters before the special counsel,’” Newsmax reported.

“Danchenko was charged with five counts of making false statements to the FBI. Durham’s indictment said Danchenko, a U.S.-based and Russian-born researcher, made these statements about the information he provided to Steele for his dossier, which the FBI relied upon when seeking authority for the secret surveillance of a former Trump campaign aide but which now has been discredited,” the report continued.

“The attorneys who took over as Danchenko’s lawyers this month told Judge Anthony Trenga of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia that Durham’s team was raising questions about Robert Trout, who is of counsel at their firm and previously represented Clinton campaign members, but insisted there is no conflict of interest,” the report continued.

Durham’s team said that there are 5 topics that may become relevant to Danchenko’s defense.

1. “The Clinton campaign’s knowledge or lack of knowledge concerning the veracity of information” in the Steele dossier;

2. “The Clinton campaign’s awareness or lack of awareness” of Danchenko’s “collection methods” for the dossier;

3. “Meetings or communications” between the Clinton campaign and Steele about Danchenko;

4. “The defendant’s knowledge or lack of knowledge regarding the Clinton campaign’s role in” the dossier;

5. “The extent to which the Clinton campaign and/or its representatives directed, solicited, or controlled” Danchenko’s actions.

Durham noted that: “On each of these issues, the interests of the Clinton Campaign and the defendant might diverge. For example, the Clinton Campaign and the defendant each might have an incentive to shift blame and/or responsibility to the other party for any allegedly false information that was contained within the Company Reports and/or provided to the FBI.”

Investigative reporter John Solomon has a theory about who special counsel John Durham will go after next — the FBI.

During an interview on Fox News, Solomon and host Maria Bartiromo spoke about Durham’s investigation and what might be next.

Russian-born analyst Igor Danchenko — key source for the Steele dossier that alleged ties between the Donald Trump campaign and Russia — was arrested by federal agents as part of the Durham investigation.

Solomon explained that he believes Durham is dealing with “two buckets.”

In one “bucket,” there are the last two indictments against officials who were connected to Hillary Clinton and their plan to feed the FBI false information about Trump-Russia conspiracies.

Solomon said the other “bucket” focuses on the FBI and whether agents knowingly mislead the FISA court to obtain warrants to spy on members of Trump’s 2016 campaign.

Solomon also disputes former FBI counterintelligence chief Peter Strzok’s statement on MSNBC last week that the FBI never investigated the Trump campaign in 2016, as Durham’s investigation into the origins of the Mueller probe makes another indictment.

“There’s no doubt there is activity inside the grand jury right now aimed at looking at top-level officials of the FBI, and it’s based on this evidence. We all look at the fact that Denchenko was interviewed by the FBI on January 17, and disowned a lot of the things that were said to him,” he said.

SOURCE: https://conservativebrief.com/criminal-56817/

deep state, Investigative Journalism, Notable Occurrence, politics, Quiet War

Gen. Flynn Files Restraining Order Against Nancy Pelosi

Leave a comment

 Martin Walsh
December 21, 2021

Former White House national security adviser Gen. Michael Flynn has filed a restraining order to block a subpoena from the House Select Committee that is investigating the incident at the U.S. Capitol on January 6.

He argues in his complaint that the subpoena, which would demand information and testimony from Flynn, was issued without legal authority.

The filing stated that Flynn had no part in organizing, speaking at, or participating in the rallies, protest,s or incursions that took place on Jan. 6, 2020.

The filed complaint named all nine members of the Select Committee as defendants, as well as Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

“General Flynn did not organize, speak at, or actively participate in any rallies or protests in Washington, D.C., on January 6, 2021, and he of course did not participate in the attack on the Capitol that day. Ex. A, Declaration of Michael Flynn (“Flynn Decl.”) ¶ 5. Nevertheless, the Select Committee—assuming the role of shadow prosecutor for the January 6 attack and working in parallel with the actual prosecutors at the Department of Justice—has diverted its attention from its important work to target General Flynn for a quasi-prosecution that is either aimless or transparently partisan,” the complaint reads.

“Despite not participating in any public events in Washington on January 6, Defendants have issued General Flynn a sweeping subpoena seeking twenty different categories of documents and a demand that General Flynn appears for a deposition in Washington, D.C. The subpoena demands records of General Flynn’s communications about the 2020 election and seeks to identify the basis for his beliefs and the persons with whom he associated, in addition to contacts with government officials. It thus constitutes a frontal assault on his 1st Amendment rights to freedom of speech, association, and petition,” it adds.

Editors Note: See the filed complaint and filed motion here.

Earlier this month, former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows announced he’s suing Pelosi and members of the partisan House January 6 Committee.

The lawsuit asks a federal court in Washington, D.C. to nullify subpoenas issued by the committee for Meadows’ testimony and his phone records. Meadows also argued that the demand for his cooperation with Congress is “overly broad and unduly burdensome.”

The lawsuit comes after Meadows informed the committee that he would no longer cooperate with its investigation.

Meadows argued in the filing that, “absent any valid legislative power,” may result in “grave harms” — namely that he could be “illegally coerced into violating the Constitution” in failing to comply with former President Trump’s claims of executive privilege.

“Mr. Meadows, a witness, has been put in the untenable position of choosing between conflicting privilege claims that are of constitutional origin and dimension and having to either risk enforcement of the subpoena issued to him” the complaint reads, “or, alternatively, unilaterally abandoning the former president’s claims of privileges and immunities.”

“Despite the need to maintain executive privilege and concerns about the breadth of the subpoena, Mr. Meadows continued to pursue the possibility of an accommodation that would allow the Select Committee to obtain non-privileged information,” the lawsuit alleges.

Meadows pointed out that he had handed over thousands of records to the committee, including “1,139 documents and 6,836 total pages” — all non-privileged — and “2,319 text messages and metadata from his personal cell phone.”

Meadows went on to argue in his lawsuit that the subpoenas from the House committee are “an unconstitutional attempt to usurp the Executive Branch’s authority to enforce the law and to expose what the Select Committee believes to be problematic actions by a political opponent. Congress has no authority to issue subpoenas for these purposes.”

Meadows announced that he is no longer cooperating with the Democrat-run Jan. 6 Committee, according to reports that cited a letter from his attorney.

Only two — Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger — decided to sit on the committee

CCP, Geopolitics, Independent Media, Notable Occurrence, Quiet War, Thought Manipulation

2021 Saw Record “Surge” of 488 Journalists Detained Worldwide, RSF Reveals

1 Comment

By Jessica Corbett

Reporters Without Borders announced Thursday that this year has featured a 20% surge in the number of journalists arbitrarily detained worldwide, documenting at least 488 cases, the highest figure since the global press freedom group began its annual roundup in 1995.

There are also at least 65 journalists being held hostage around the world, according to the group, also known by its French name, Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF).

“The extremely high number of journalists in arbitrary detention is the work of three dictatorial regimes,” RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire said in a statement. “It is a reflection of the reinforcement of dictatorial power worldwide, an accumulation of crises, and the lack of any scruples on the part of these regimes.”

Deloire added that “it may also be the result of new geopolitical power relationships in which authoritarian regimes are not being subjected to enough pressure to curb their crackdowns.”

RSF took aim at the leaders of the three regimes responsible for the increase:

This exceptional surge in arbitrary detention is due, above all, to three countries—Myanmar, where the military retook power in a coup… Belarus, which has seen a major crackdown since Alexander Lukashenko’s disputed reelection in August 2020, and Xi Jinping’s China, which is tightening its grip on Hong Kong, the special administrative region once seen as a regional model of respect for press freedom.

RSF has also never previously registered so many female journalists in prison, with a total of 60 currently detained in connection with their work—a third (33%) more than at this time last year. China, the world’s biggest jailer of journalists for the fifth year running, is also the biggest jailer of female journalists, with 19 currently detained. They include Zhang Zhan, a 2021 RSF Press Freedom laureate, who is now critically ill.

Overall, China is detaining 127 reporters. Belarus is holding 32—15 male and 17 female—while Myanmar is holding 53, 44 male and nine female. Rounding out the top five for most detained media workers are Vietnam at 43 and Saudi Arabia at 31.

By contrast, the annual death toll has dropped dramatically to 46, a 20-year low. In fact, RSF noted, “you have to go back to 2003 to find another year with fewer than 50 journalists killed.”

“This year’s fall is mostly due to a decline in the intensity of conflicts in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen and to campaigning by press freedom organizations, including RSF, for the implementation of international and national mechanisms aimed at protecting journalists,” the group explained.

RSF—one of the groups that launched a people’s tribunal for murdered journalists at The Hague last month—found that at least 65% of those killed were “deliberately targeted and eliminated.”

🔴 2021 #RSFRoundUp : Murders, imprisonment, hostage-taking and enforced disappearances… an increasingly relentless persecution of journalists.

488 journalists are in prison (20% more than a year ago)

One journalist was killed every week in 2021.https://t.co/YIrIUr2fOp pic.twitter.com/3wsbeUsVcM

— RSF (@RSF_inter) December 16, 2021

The deadliest countries for reporters this year were Mexico and Afghanistan, where seven and six journalists were killed, respectively. India and Yemen tied for the third spot, with four reporters killed in each country through December 1 this year.

After the cutoff date for the report, freelance photographer Soe Naing died this month in Myanmar as a result of force used during interrogation. Three other journalists were arrested in the country in recent days—Zaw Tun, Aung San Lin, and Min Theik Tun.

“With Soe Naing’s death, a new tragic threshold has been crossed this morning in the terror that Myanmar’s military are using against journalists,” said Daniel Bastard, the head of RSF’s Asia-Pacific desk, in a statement earlier this week.

“His death must serve as an alarm signal and push the international community to impose new targeted sanctions on the military junta that has been running the country since February, starting with its chief, Gen. Min Aung Hlaing,” Bastard added. “The world can no longer look on without doing something.”

This will keep happening if people in power believe they can get away with it.
And right now, their calculations appear to be true.
Reporter dies under interrogation in Myanmar’s escalating terror https://t.co/l6JqLwhUrC

— Damakant (@damakant) December 15, 2021

According to RSF, some of this year’s “most striking” cases include:

This year’s longest prison sentence, 15 years, was handed down to both Ali Aboluhom in Saudi Arabia and Pham Chi Dung in Vietnam. The longest and most Kafkaesque trials are being inflicted on Amadou Vamoulké in Cameroon and Ali Anouzla in Morocco. The oldest detained journalists are Jimmy Lai in Hong Kong and Kayvan Samimi Behbahani in Iran, who are 74 and 73 years old. The French journalist Olivier Dubois was the only foreign journalist to be abducted this year.

The group’s roundup follows a similar tally released last week by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), which found that at least 293 reporters were incarcerated across the globe as of the beginning of the month. Its top five nations were China, Myanmar, Egypt, Vietnam, and Belarus.

“This is the sixth year in a row that CPJ has documented record numbers of journalists imprisoned around the world,” said the group’s executive director, Joel Simon. “The number reflects two inextricable challenges—governments are determined to control and manage information, and they are increasingly brazen in their efforts to do so.”

corruption, deep state, Independent Media, Independent Research, Investigative Journalism, Notable Occurrence, Quiet War, Thought Manipulation

UK Court Rules Julian Assange Can Be Extradited to US — The Same Country Who Plotted to Assassinate Him

Leave a comment

More than 2.5 years have passed since WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange was dragged from the Ecuadorian embassy in London after 7 years in hiding from British authorities, during which time Assange has struggled through a lengthy court battle, all while remaining imprisoned. And yet it seems Assange’s real nightmare is only just beginning as Britain’s high court ruled Friday that he could be extradited to the US to face charges that could see him imprisoned for the rest of his life.

Judges at the Royal Courts of Justice in London overruled a lower court judge who had decided nearly a year ago that Assange shouldn’t be extradited to the US due to the threat of him facing unjust physical harm (not to mention the very real possibility that Assange might kill himself, as the judge acknowledged). They ruled that Assange can face extradition to the US, practically guaranteeing that he will stand trial in an American courtroom.

Assange can appeal the ruling, but it’s clear at this point that the chips are stacked against him. The US government has been quietly pursuing charges against the Wikileaks founder under the Espionage Act for years. According to what’s been publicly revealed, Assange is facing an 18 count indictment in the US with most of the charges focused on violating the Espionage Act. Should he be found guilty, Assange could be imprisoned for up to 175 years.

In response to the ruling, WikiLeaks slammed the US for trying to avoid accountability by covering up the “collateral murder” incident where two Reuters journalists were killed in Iraq, along with innocent civilians, by the US military. The infamous footage from that incident, which was first published by Assange after being leaked by Chelsea Manning (back when she was an army intelligence analyst named Bradley Manning).

Julian Assange’s extradition is being sought for such revelations as the #CollateralMurder gunning down of civilians, including children and 2 @Reuters journalists by the US in #Iraq for which they tried to evade accountability #AssangeCase #FreeAssangeNOW pic.twitter.com/DX0tgHjeiA

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) December 10, 2021

As Axios reminds us, Assange’s case has serious implications for journalists in the US, and around the world.

The case has raised significant questions about First Amendment protections for publishers of classified information, as Assange argues he was acting as a journalist when he published leaked US government documents on Iraq and Afghanistan.

In a statement, WikiLeaks Editor-in-Chief Kristinn Hrafnsson said “Julian’s life is once more under grave threat, and so is the right of journalists to publish material that governments and corporations find inconvenient.”

WikiLeaks Editor-in-Chief Kristinn Hrafnsson: “Julian’s life is once more under grave threat, and so is the right of journalists to publish material that governments and corporations find inconvenient #AssangeCase #FreeAssangeNOW https://t.co/xD0NDaxhHJ pic.twitter.com/rtQkLglhv9

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) December 10, 2021

Assange’s fiancee, Stella Morris, called the ruling “dangerous and misguided” and said his legal team intends to appeal – something his lawyers also claimed in a letter that has been shared on social media.

In its petition to overturn the lower court’s decision to block Assange’s extradition, the US managed to assuage the judges’ concerns about Assange’s mental and physical health, and that Assange’s risk of suicide would be greatly reduced. The US authorities have given assurances that Assange will not be placed in the most highly restrictive conditions unless he does something in the future to warrant it.

Giving the judgment, Lord Chief Justice Lord Burnett said: “That risk is in our judgment excluded by the assurances which are offered.”

“It follows that we are satisfied that, if the assurances had been before the judge, she would have answered the relevant question differently.”

Judge Timothy Holroyde said he was satisfied with the assurances given by the US about Assange’s treatment in custody. Holroyde said the case must now be remitted to Westminster Magistrates’ Court with the direction that judges send it to the British government to decide whether or not Assange should be extradited.

To be sure, all is not yet lost for Assange. Reuters reported that Assange’s inevitable appeal would likely send the matter of his extradition to the UK’s Supreme Court.

As we mentioned above, lawyers for the US offered the British high court four assurances, including that Assange would not be subject to solitary confinement before or after his trial, and that he would not be detained at the ADX Florence Supermax jail in Colorado – a federal prison that’s home to some of America’s most infamous criminals. In light of reports about Assange’s deteriorating health, the US also promised that he would receive all necessary clinical and psychiatric help.

They argued Assange’s mental illness “does not even come close” to being severe enough to prevent him from being extradited, but also reassured the British that Assange would be allowed to transfer to Australia to serve any prison sentence he may be given closer to home.

The US has insisted that by publishing thousands of pages of classified documents, Assange put American lives in danger. It’s not clear when Assange will be extradited, but now that the High Court has ruled, it’s likely he will be moved across the Atlantic to stand trial in the US very soon. That trial will likely be closely covered by the international press, just like every other chapter of Assange’s nearly decade-long legal battle.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova, writing on her Telegram channel, blasted the UK high court’s judgment while pointing out the irony that it happened on International Human Rights Day.

“This shameful verdict in this political case against a journalist and public figure is another manifestation of the cannibalistic worldview of the Anglo-Saxon tandem,” she said.

Assange’s loyal band of supporters gathered outside of the court after the ruling, chanting “free Julian Assange” and “no extradition.” They tied hundreds of yellow ribbons to the court’s gates and held up placards saying “journalism is not a crime”.

Source: ZeroHedge via The Free Thought Project