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February 11, 2021 – Michael Novakhov – Shared News Links: The Capitol Riot as the focus of the Counterintelligence Investigations – Articles

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February 11, 2021 – Michael Novakhov – Shared News Links:

The Capitol Riot as the focus of the Counterintelligence Investigations

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German intelligence warns Capitol riot, Covid lockdown fuel right-wing extremism. Alleged Oath Keeper leader Thomas Caldwell was former FBI agent with top-secret clearance, attorney says. Investigate The Investigators! How many of the current and past FBI agents participated in the organizing, planning, and the execution of the Capitol Riot? Capitol riot defendants shared history of financial probelms: WaPo. Dominic Pezzola, Capitol riot defendant, was ‘misled’ and ‘duped’ by Donald Trump: Lawyer. Germany hails Biden’s move to halt Trump-ordered troop cuts

Michael Novakhov – SharedNewsLinks 
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Capitol insurrection: Most of the people charged, like Jenna Ryan, showed signs of prior money troubles

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Yet Ryan, 50, is accused of rushing into the Capitol past broken glass and blaring security alarms and, according to federal prosecutors, shouting: “Fight for freedom! Fight for freedom!”

But in a different way, she fit right in.

Despite her outward signs of success, Ryan had struggled financially for years. She was still paying off a $37,000 lien for unpaid federal taxes when she was arrested. She’d nearly lost her home to foreclosure before that. She filed for bankruptcy in 2012 and faced another IRS tax lien in 2010.

Nearly 60 percent of the people facing charges related to the Capitol riot showed signs of prior money troubles, including bankruptcies, notices of eviction or foreclosure, bad debts, or unpaid taxes over the past two decades, according to a Washington Post analysis of public records for 125 defendants with sufficient information to detail their financial histories.

The group’s bankruptcy rate — 18 percent — was nearly twice as high as that of the American public, The Post found. A quarter of them had been sued for money owed to a creditor. And 1 in 5 of them faced losing their home at one point, according to court filings.

The financial problems are revealing because they offer potential clues for understanding why so many Trump supporters — many with professional careers and few with violent criminal histories — were willing to participate in an attack egged on by the president’s rhetoric painting him and his supporters as undeserving victims.

While no single factor explains why someone decided to join in, experts say, Donald Trump and his brand of grievance politics tapped into something that resonated with the hundreds of people who descended on the Capitol in a historic burst of violence.

“I think what you’re finding is more than just economic insecurity but a deep-seated feeling of precarity about their personal situation,” said Cynthia Miller-Idriss, a political science professor who helps run the Polarization and Extremism Research Innovation Lab at American University, reacting to The Post’s findings. “And that precarity — combined with a sense of betrayal or anger that someone is taking something away — mobilized a lot of people that day.”

The financial missteps by defendants in the insurrection ranged from small debts of a few thousand dollars more than a decade ago to unpaid tax bills of $400,000 and homes facing foreclosure in recent years. Some of these people seemed to have regained their financial footing. But many of them once stood close to the edge.

Ryan had nearly lost everything. And the stakes seemed similarly high to her when she came to Washington in early January. She fully believed Trump’s false claims that the election was stolen and that he was going to save the country, she said in an interview with The Post.

But now — facing federal charges and abandoned by people she considered “fellow patriots” — she said she feels betrayed.

“I bought into a lie, and the lie is the lie, and it’s embarrassing,” she said. “I regret everything.”

The FBI has said it found evidence of organized plots by extremist groups. But many of the people who came to the Capitol on Jan. 6 — including Ryan — appeared to have adopted their radical outlooks more informally, consuming baseless claims about the election on television, social media and right-wing websites.

The poor and uneducated are not more likely to join extremist movements, according to experts. Two professors a couple of years ago found the opposite in one example: an unexpectedly high number of engineers who became Islamist radicals.

In the Capitol attack, business owners and white-collar workers made up 40 percent of the people accused of taking part, according to a study by the Chicago Project on Security and Threats at the University of Chicago. Only 9 percent appeared to be unemployed.

The participation of people with middle- and upper-middle-class positions fits with research suggesting that the rise of right-wing extremist groups in the 1950s was fueled by people in the middle of society who felt they were losing status and power, said Pippa Norris, a political science professor at Harvard University who has studied radical political movements.

Miller-Idriss said she was struck by a 2011 study that found household income was not a factor in whether a young person supported the extreme far right in Germany. But a highly significant predictor was whether they had lived through a parent’s unemployment.

“These are people who feel like they’ve lost something,” Miller-Idriss said.

Going through a bankruptcy or falling behind on taxes, even years earlier, could provoke a similar response.

“They know it can be lost. They have that history — and then someone comes along and tells you this election has been stolen,” Miller-Idriss said. “It taps into the same thing.”

Playing on personal pain

Trump’s false claims about election fraud — refuted by elections officials and rejected by judges — seemed tailored to exploit feelings about this precarious status, said Don Haider-Markel, a political science professor at the University of Kansas who studies political extremism.

“It’s hard to ignore with a Trump presidency that message that ‘the America you knew and loved is going away, and I’m going to protect it,’” Haider-Markel said. “They feel, at a minimum, that they’re under threat.”

While some of the financial problems were old, the pandemic’s economic toll appeared to inflict fresh pain for some of the people accused of participating in the insurrection.

A California man filed for bankruptcy one week before allegedly joining the attack, according to public records. A Texas man was charged with entering the Capitol one month after his company was slapped with a nearly $2,000 state tax lien.

Several young people charged in the attack came from families with histories of financial duress.

The parents of Riley June Williams — a 22-year-old who allegedly helped to steal a laptop from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office — filed for bankruptcy when she was a child, according to public records. A house owned by her mother faced foreclosure when she was a teenager, records show. Recently, a federal judge placed Williams on home confinement with her mother in Harrisburg, Pa. Her federal public defender did not respond to a request for comment.

People with professional careers such as respiratory therapist, nurse and lawyer were also accused of joining in.

One of them was William McCall Calhoun, 57, a well-known lawyer in Americus, Ga., 130 miles south of Atlanta, who was hit with a $26,000 federal tax lien in 2019, according to public records. A woman who knows Calhoun, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk candidly, said he started to show strong support for Trump only in the past year. An attorney for Calhoun declined to comment.

Ashli Babbitt, who was shot and killed by police when she tried to leap through a door’s broken window inside the Capitol, had struggled to run a pool-service company outside San Diego and was saddled with a $23,000 judgment from a lender in 2017, according to court records.

Financial problems were also apparent among people federal authorities said were connected to far-right nationalist groups, such as the Proud Boys.

Dominic Pezzola, who federal authorities said is a member of the Proud Boys, is accused of being among the first to lead the surge inside the Capitol and helping to overwhelm police. About 140 officers were injured in the storming of the Capitol and one officer, Brian D. Sicknick, was killed.

Pezzola, of Rochester, N.Y., also has been named in state tax warrants totaling more than $40,000 over the past five years, according to public records. His attorney declined to comment.

The roots of extremism are complex, said Haider-Markel.

“Somehow, they’ve been wronged, they’ve developed a grievance, and they tend to connect that to some broader ideology,” he said.

The price of insurrection

Ryan, who lives in Frisco, Tex., a Dallas suburb, said she was slow to become a big Trump supporter.

She’s been described as a conservative radio talk show host. But she wasn’t a budding Rush Limbaugh. Her AM radio show each Sunday focused on real estate, and she paid for the airtime. She stopped doing the show in March, when the pandemic hit.

But she continued to run a service that offers advice for people struggling with childhood trauma and bad relationships. Ryan said the work was based on the steps she took to overcome her own rough upbringing.

Twice divorced and struggling with financial problems, Ryan developed an outlook that she described as politically conservative, leaning toward libertarian.

But politics was not her focal point until recently. She recalled being upset when President Barack Obama won reelection in 2012. And she preferred Trump over Hillary Clinton four years later. But she said she wasn’t strident in her support for Trump.

That changed as the 2020 election approached.

She said she started reading far-right websites such as Epoch Times and Gateway Pundit. She began streaming shows such as Alex Jones’s “Infowars” and former Trump chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon’s “War Room: Pandemic.” She began following groundless assertions related to QAnon, a sprawling set of false claims that have coalesced into an extremist ideology. She said she didn’t know whether the posts were true, but she was enthralled.

“It was all like a football game. I was sucked into it. Consumed by it,” Ryan said.

She attended her first-ever protest in April, going to Austin to vent about the state’s pandemic shutdown orders. That was followed by a rally for Shelley Luther, who gained national attention for reopening her beauty salon in Dallas in defiance of the shutdown.

Ryan said she traveled to Trump’s “Save America” rally on a whim. A Facebook friend offered to fly her and three others on a private plane.

They arrived in Washington a day early and got rooms at a Westin hotel downtown, Ryan said.

It was her first trip to the nation’s capital.

The next morning, Jan. 6, the group of friends left the hotel at 6 a.m., Ryan said. She was cold, so she bought a $35 knit snow hat with a “45” emblem from a souvenir shop. They then followed the crowd streaming toward the National Mall.

“My main concern was there were no bathrooms. I kept asking, ‘Where are the bathrooms?’” she said. “I was just having fun.”

They listened to some of the speakers. But mostly they walked around and took photos. She felt like a tourist. They grabbed sandwiches at a Wawa convenience store for lunch. They hired a pedicab to take them back to the hotel.

She drank white wine while the group watched on television as Congress prepared to certify the electoral college votes. They listened to clips of Trump telling rallygoers to walk to the Capitol and saying, “We fight like hell, and if you don’t fight like hell you’re not going to have a country anymore.”

They decided to leave the hotel and go to the Capitol.

Ryan said she was reluctant.

But she also posted a video to her Facebook account that showed her looking into a bathroom mirror and saying, according to an FBI account of her charges: “We’re gonna go down and storm the capitol. They’re down there right now and that’s why we came and so that’s what we are going to do. So wish me luck.”

She live-streamed on Facebook. She posted photos to Twitter. She got closer to the Capitol with each post. She stood on the Capitol’s steps. She flashed a peace symbol next to a smashed Capitol window. The FBI also found video of her walking through doors on the west side of the Capitol in the middle of a packed crowd, where she said into a camera, according to the bureau: “Y’all know who to hire for your realtor. Jenna Ryan for your realtor.”

The FBI document does not state how long Ryan spent inside the building. She said it was just a few minutes. She and her new friends eventually walked back to the hotel, she said.

“We just stormed the Capital,” Ryan tweeted that afternoon. “It was one of the best days of my life.”

She said she realized she was in trouble only after returning to Texas. Her phone was blowing up with messages. Her social media posts briefly made her the infamous face of the riots: the smiling real estate agent who flew in a private jet to an insurrection.

Nine days later, she turned herself in to the FBI. She was charged with two federal misdemeanors related to entering the Capitol building and disorderly conduct. Last week, federal authorities filed similar charges against two others on her flight: Jason L. Hyland, 37, of Frisco, who federal authorities said organized the trip, and Katherine S. Schwab, 32, of Colleyville, Texas.

Ryan remained defiant at first. She clashed with people who criticized her online. She told a Dallas TV station that she deserved a presidential pardon.

Then Trump left for Florida. President Biden took office. And Ryan, at home in Texas, was left to wonder what to do with her two mini-goldendoodle dogs if she goes to prison.

“Not one patriot is standing up for me,” Ryan said recently. “I’m a complete villain. I was down there based on what my president said. ‘Stop the steal.’ Now I see that it was all over nothing. He was just having us down there for an ego boost. I was there for him.”

Read the whole story

 

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Michael_Novakhov

2 hours ago
REPLY
EDIT
HTTP://MICHAEL_NOVAKHOV.NEWSBLUR.COM/
1 public comment

acdha

20 hours ago
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Just like their leader
WASHINGTON, DC

nocko

1 hour ago
Most of their acute economic problems seemed to mature under Trump’s admin. How was more Trump going to help them? Very confusing.

Capitol riot defendants shared history of financial probelms: WaPo

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  • Many of the Capitol riot defendants have something in common: a history of financial difficulties. 
  • A Washington Post analysis found that a substantial number of defendants had money woes. 
  • The documented financial problems include bankruptcies, debt, foreclosures, and unpaid taxes. 
  • Visit the Business section of Insider for more stories.

The more than 240 defendants charged in the January 6 insurrection on the Capitol siege came to Washington, D.C. from around the United States and from all walks of life, but something in common: a history of financial difficulties. 

new Washington Post analysis of court records and financial documents found that out of 125 defendants who had publicly available financial information, nearly 60% had filed for bankruptcy, had unpaid tax bills and other debts, been sued for unpaid debts, or faced losing their homes through eviction or foreclosure. 

The Post also found that among that group, the bankruptcy rate was 18%, almost double the national average. 

Read more: How Trump’s Senate trial could end with a vote to ban him from ever holding federal office again and kill any chances of a 2024 run

Among them were some of the most infamous accused rioters who have become faces of the insurrection. Jenna Ryan, the Texas real estate agent charged with two misdemeanors in connection with Capitol insurrection who flew to Washington, D.C. on a private jet, had filed for bankruptcy in 2012, almost lost her home before then, and had a history of unpaid federal taxes.

Ryan, who was also banned from PayPal after trying to raise funds for her legal defense on the platform, told the Post that she now fully regrets her participation in the riots and says she “bought into a lie.” 

Riley June Williams, the 22-year-old Pennsylvania woman accused of being involved in the theft of a laptop from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office, had herself filed for bankruptcy when she was just a child, according to the Post. 

And Ashli Babbit, who was shot and killed by law enforcement during the insurrection, had been hit with a $23,000 judgment from a lender a few years prior. 

Research shows that low-income people with lower levels of education are not necessarily more likely to fall into extremist movements — but being saddled with debt or other struggles can make some feel as if they have nothing left to lose. 

The Capitol insurrection further displays how outwardly successful and educated people in society’s mainstream can fall into anti-government movements. 

Those arrested so far include people associated with extremist groups like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, but also people who had never before been charged with a federal crime or had a connection to those movements.

The rise of domestic right-wing extremism and the QAnon conspiracy theory haven’t just targeted low-income or uneducated people, however, but have swept up many well-off, college-educated professionals, too. 

One researcher interviewed by the Post said that middle-class and educated people may be more likely to be lured into extremism when they feel their position in society being jeopardized or threatened. 

Ryan, for example, told the Post that while she had voted for Trump in 2016, she didn’t become politically engaged until 2020, when she started consuming right-wing media like the Gateway Pundit, Infowars, and Steve Bannon’s “War Room” podcast, and fell down the rabbit hole of the QAnon conspiracy. 

Read the whole story

 

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Dominic Pezzola, Capitol riot defendant, was ‘misled’ and ‘duped’ by Donald Trump: Lawyer

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Dominic Pezzola, a former Marine facing charges for storming the U.S. Capitol, was “duped” by former President Trump into believing it was his duty to act, his lawyer told a federal court Wednesday.

Mr. Pezzola, of Rochester, New York, “acted out of the delusional belief that he was a ‘patriot’ protecting his country,” attorney Jonathan Zucker wrote in a motion seeking his release from custody.

“Defendant is former military who is sworn to protect his country. He was responding to the entreaties of the then commander in chief, President Trump. The President maintained that the election had been stolen and it was the duty of loyal citizens to ‘stop the steal’,” Mr. Zucker argued on behalf of Mr. Pezzola

“Admittedly there was no rational basis for the claim, but it is apparent defendant was one of millions of Americans who were misled by the President’s deception,” Mr. Pezzola‘s lawyer added.

Mr. Pezzola, 43, also known as “Spaz,” is among roughly 200 people facing charges so far in connection with storming the Capitol as Congress met to count electoral votes on the afternoon of Jan. 6.



In charging documents, federal prosecutors included photographs the government alleges to show Mr. Pezzola using a plastic riot shield to break a window on the Capitol Building prior to entering it.

“The only act that seems to distinguish defendant from thousands of other participants is that he used a shield to break a window and he, along with hundreds if not thousands, actually entered the capital,” his lawyer argued in the court filing.

That footage was played during Wednesday’s impeachment trial of Mr. Trump in the Senate. Mr. Pezzola was mentioned by name as well.

Mr. Pezzola described himself on social media as a member of the Proud Boys, the just-for-men group whose members were among the mobs who violently stormed the building, prosecutors said previously.

In a 15-page motion seeking pretrial detention for Mr. Pezzola, Mr. Zucker does not deny his client has connections to the Proud Boys but claims they are “relatively short lived and minimal.”

Mr. Pezzola has been jailed since mid-January. He has since been charged in an 11-count indictment, including with charges he allegedly conspired with another Proud Boys member from New York.

“The object of the conspiracy was to obstruct, influence, impede and interfere with law enforcement officers engaged in their official duties in protecting the U.S. Capitol and its grounds,” the indictment alleges.

Mr. Pezzola pleaded not guilty to all counts Tuesday. A detention hearing was scheduled for later Wednesday afternoon to determine if he should be released pending the outcome of his trial.

 

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AP News in Brief at 12:04 a.m. EST | National

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Trump trial video shows vast scope, danger of Capitol riot

WASHINGTON (AP) — Prosecutors unveiled chilling new security video in Donald Trump’s impeachment trial on Wednesday, showing the mob of rioters breaking into the Capitol, smashing windows and doors and searching menacingly for Vice President Mike Pence and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as overwhelmed police begged on their radios for help.

In the previously unreleased recordings, the House prosecutors displayed gripping scenes of how close the rioters were to the country’s leaders, roaming the halls chanting “Hang Mike Pence,” some equipped with combat gear. Outside, the mob had set up a makeshift gallows.

Videos of the siege have been circulating since the day of the riot, but the graphic compilation amounted to a more complete narrative, a moment-by-moment retelling of one of the nation’s most alarming days. In addition to the evident chaos and danger, it offered fresh details on the attackers, scenes of police heroism and cries of distress. And it showed just how close the country came to a potential breakdown in its seat of democracy as Congress was certifying Trump’s election defeat to Democrat Joe Biden.

“They did it because Donald Trump sent them on this mission,” said House prosecutor Stacey Plaskett, the Democratic delegate representing the U.S. Virgin Islands. “His mob broke into the Capitol to hunt them down.”

The stunning presentation opened the first full day of arguments in the trial as the prosecutors argued Trump was no “innocent bystander” but rather the “inciter in chief” of the deadly Capitol riot, a president who spent months spreading election lies and building a mob of supporters primed for his call to stop Biden’s victory.


Trial highlights: Harrowing footage, focus on Trump’s words

WASHINGTON (AP) — House Democrats opened their first day of arguments in former President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial Wednesday with searing footage of the U.S. Capitol riot as they painted Trump as an “inciter in chief” who systematically riled up his supporters and falsely convinced them the election had been stolen, culminating in the deadly attack.

“He assembled, inflamed and incited his followers to descend upon the Capitol,” said the lead impeachment manager, Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md.

As she presented harrowing footage of the siege, Del. Stacey Plaskett, a Democrat representing the U.S. Virgin Islands and one of the prosecutors, said Trump had “put a target” on the backs of then-Vice President Mike Pence and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who were leading the certification of President Joe Biden’s election victory. “His mob broke into the Capitol to hunt them down,” Plaskett said.

Highlights from the first full day of arguments:

TRUMP’S WORDS COME BACK TO HAUNT HIM


Is one day a week enough? Biden’s school goal draws blowback

President Joe Biden is being accused of backpedaling on his pledge to reopen the nation’s schools after the White House added fine print to his promise and made clear that a full reopening is still far from sight.

Biden’s initial pledge in December was to reopen “the majority of our schools” in his first 100 days in office. In January he specified that the goal applied only to schools that teach through eighth grade. And this week the White House said that schools will be considered opened as long as they teach in-person at least one day a week.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki defended the goal Wednesday, calling it part of a “bold ambitious agenda.” But she also said it’s a bar the administration hopes to exceed.

“Certainly, we are not planning to celebrate at 100 days if we reach that goal,” she said. “We certainly hope to build from that.”

The White House had faced increasing pressure to explain the goal as the reopening debate gains urgency. Biden had never detailed what it meant to be reopened or how he would define success. Pressed on the question Tuesday, Psaki clarified that one day a week of in-person learning would meet the mark.


Georgia prosecutor investigates election after Trump call

ATLANTA (AP) — A Georgia prosecutor said Wednesday that she has opened a criminal investigation into “attempts to influence” last year’s general election, including a call in which President Donald Trump asked a top official to find enough votes to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in the state.

In a Jan. 2 telephone conversation with Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, Trump repeatedly argued that Raffensperger could change the certified results of the presidential election, an assertion the secretary of state firmly rejected.

“All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have,” Trump said. “Because we won the state.”

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, a Democrat elected to the job in November, did not specifically mention Trump in the letters she sent to state officials Wednesday announcing her investigation. But the former president has been under intense criticism for the call.

Willis spokesman Jeff DiSantis told The Associated Press that while he could not name the subjects under investigation, he confirmed that Trump’s call to Raffensperger was “part of it” and said “the matters reported on over the last several weeks are the matters being investigated.” In her letters, Willis also remarks that officials “have no reason to believe that any Georgia official is a target of this investigation.”


Countries curb diplomatic ties, weigh sanctions on Myanmar

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A growing number of governments are curbing diplomatic ties with Myanmar and increasing economic pressure on its military over the coup last week that erased the fragile democratic progress in the long-oppressed Southeast Asian nation.

President Joe Biden said Wednesday he was issuing an executive order that will prevent Myanmar’s generals from accessing $1 billion in assets in the United States, and he promised more measures were to come.

The U.S. was among many Western governments that lifted most sanctions in the past decade to encourage democratic change as Myanmar’s military rulers were taking gradual steps toward civilian rule — changes that proved temporary with the ousting of the elected government and detentions of Nobel Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and others.

One of the strongest reactions came from New Zealand, which has suspended all military and high-level political contact with the country and pledged to block any aid that could go to its military government or benefit its leaders. It also placed a travel ban on its military leaders.

“We do not recognize the legitimacy of the military-led government and we call on the military to immediately release all detained political leaders and restore civilian rule,” Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta said Tuesday.


Digital siege: Internet cuts become favored tool of regimes

LONDON (AP) — When army generals in Myanmar staged a coup last week, they briefly cut internet access in an apparent attempt to stymie protests. In Uganda, residents couldn’t use Facebook, Twitter and other social media for weeks after a recent election. And in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region, the internet has been down for months amid a wider conflict.

Around the world, shutting down the internet has become an increasingly popular tactic of repressive and authoritarian regimes and some illiberal democracies. Digital rights groups say governments use them to stifle dissent, silence opposition voices or cover up human rights abuses, raising concerns about restricting freedom of speech.

Regimes often cut online access in response to protests or civil unrest, particularly around elections, as they try to keep their grip on power by restricting the flow of information, researchers say. It’s the digital equivalent of seizing control of the local TV and radio station that was part of the pre-internet playbook for despots and rebels.

“Internet shutdowns have been massively underreported or misreported over the years,” said Alp Toker, founder of internet monitoring organization Netblocks. The world is “starting to realize what’s happening,” as documenting efforts like his expand, he said.

Last year there were 93 major internet shutdowns in 21 countries, according to a report by Top10VPN, a U.K.-based digital privacy and security research group. The list doesn’t include places like China and North Korea, where the government tightly controls or restricts the internet. Shutdowns can range from all-encompassing internet blackouts to blocking social media platforms or severely throttling internet speeds, the report said.


Government investigating massive counterfeit N95 mask scam

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal authorities are investigating a massive counterfeit N95 mask operation in which fake 3M masks were sold in at least five states to hospitals, medical facilities and government agencies. The foreign-made knockoffs are becoming increasingly difficult to spot and could put health care workers at grave risk for the coronavirus.

These masks are giving first responders “a false sense of security,” said Steve Francis, assistant director for global trade investigations with the Homeland Security Department’s principal investigative arm. He added, “We’ve seen a lot of fraud and other illegal activity.”

Officials could not name the states or the company involved because of the active investigation.

Nearly a year into the pandemic, fraud remains a major problem as scammers seek to exploit hospitals and desperate and weary Americans. Federal investigators say they have seen an increase in phony websites purporting to sell vaccines as well as fake medicine produced overseas and scams involving personal protective equipment. The schemes deliver phony products, unlike fraud earlier in the pandemic that focused more on fleecing customers.

3M, based in Maplewood, Minnesota, is among the largest global producers of the N95 mask, which has been approved by the U.S. National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and is considered the gold standard in protection against the coronavirus. The company delivered some 2 billion N95 masks in 2020 as the pandemic soared, but in earlier months of the pandemic, when masks were in short supply, fraudsters starting popped up.


Biden in call with China’s Xi raises human rights, trade

Joe Biden on Wednesday held his first call as president with Xi Jinping, pressing the Chinese leader about trade and Beijing’s crackdown on democracy activists in Hong Kong as well as other human rights concerns.

The two leaders spoke just hours after Biden announced plans for a Pentagon task force to review U.S. national security strategy in China and after the new U.S. president announced he was levying sanctions against Myanmar’s military regime following this month’s coup in the southeast Asian country.

A White House statement said Biden raised concerns about Beijing’s “coercive and unfair economic practices.” Biden also pressed Xi on Hong Kong, human rights abuses against Uighur and ethnic minorities in the western Xinjiang province, and its actions toward Taiwan.

“I told him I will work with China when it benefits the American people,” Biden posted on Twitter after the call.

China’s state broadcaster CCTV struck a mostly positive tone about the conversation, saying Xi acknowledged the two sides had their differences, and those differences should be managed, but urged overall cooperation.


Hustler publisher Larry Flynt dies at 78

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Porn purveyor Larry Flynt, who built Hustler magazine into an adult entertainment juggernaut that included casinos, films, websites and other enterprises as he relentlessly championed First Amendment rights, has died at age 78.

Flynt, who had been in declining health, died Wednesday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, his longtime attorney, Paul Cambria, told The Associated Press. He had been paralyzed and nearly killed in a 1986 assassination attempt.

“He suffered decades of health issues and you can imagine it was pretty difficult,” said his nephew Jimmy Flynt Jr. He added, “I loved him and may he rest in peace.”

From his beginnings as a fledgling Ohio strip club owner to his reign as founder of one of the most outrageously explicit adult-oriented magazines, Flynt constantly challenged the establishment and was intensely disliked by the religious right and feminist groups that said he demeaned women and put them at risk with pictures of bondage and other controversial acts.

Flynt maintained throughout his life that he wasn’t just a pornographer but also a fierce defender of free-speech rights.


Reports: Mori to resign Tokyo Olympics over sexist remarks

TOKYO (AP) — The long saga of Yoshiro Mori appears to be near the end.

Japan’s Kyodo news agency and others reported on Thursday — citing unnamed sources — that Yoshiro Mori will step down on Friday as the president of the Tokyo Olympic organizing committee.

The move follows his sexist comments about women more than a week ago, and an ensuing and rare public debate in Japan about gender equality,

A decision is expected to be announced on Friday when the organizing committee’s executive board meets. The executive board of Tokyo 2020 is overwhelming male, as is the day-to-day leadership.

The 83-year-old Mori, in a meeting of the Japanese Olympic Committee more than a week ago, essentially said that women “talk too much” and are driven by a “strong sense of rivalry.” Mori, a former prime minister, gave a grudging apology a few days later after his opinions were reported, but declined to resign.

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Germany hails Biden’s move to halt Trump-ordered troop cuts

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The German government has welcomed President Joe Biden’s decision to formally halt the planned withdrawal of U.S. troops from Germany

BERLIN — The German government on Friday welcomed President Joe Biden’s decision to formally halt the planned withdrawal of U.S. troops from Germany, arguing that the troops’ stationing there is “in our mutual interest.”

Last year, then-President Donald Trump announced that he was going to pull out about 9,500 of the roughly 34,500 U.S. troops stationed in Germany, but the withdrawal never actually began.

Biden said Thursday that the pullout would be halted until Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin reviews America’s troop presence around the globe.

“The German government welcomes this announcement,” Chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman, Steffen Seibert, told reporters in Berlin. He said that “we will remain in contact with the new American administration on its further plans.”

“We have always been convinced that the stationing of American troops here in Germany serves European and trans-Atlantic security, and so is in our mutual interest,” Seibert said. “We very much value this close, decades-long cooperation with the Americans’ forces that are stationed in Germany.”

Asked whether Germany would make any concrete offers to persuade the U.S. not to withdraw troops, Seibert said that Berlin will follow developments but “how these reviews go is an internal American matter.”

The U.S. has several major military facilities in Germany, including Ramstein Air Base, the headquarters for U.S. European Command and U.S. Africa Command, and Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, the largest American military hospital outside the United States.

Trump’s order met resistance from Congress as well as from within the military, which has long relied on Germany as a key ally and base of operations.

Trump announced the troop cuts after repeatedly accusing Germany of not paying enough for its own defense, calling the longtime NATO ally “delinquent” for failing to spend 2% of its GDP on defense, a benchmark that alliance members have pledged to work toward.

7:39 AM 2/9/2021 – Investigate The Investigators! How many of the current and past FBI agents participated in the organizing, planning, and the execution of the Capitol Riot?

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Feb. 9, 2021 at 5:04 a.m. EST

Alleged Oath Keeper leader Thomas Caldwell was former FBI agent with top-secret clearance, attorney says

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Those details were revealed in a motion filed Monday asking a judge to let Caldwell out of custody, citing his long military career and ability to pass vetting for the high security clearance. His attorney also claimed that Caldwell has disabilities from his military service that would have prevented him from storming the Capitol.

The FBI did not immediately return an inquiry about Caldwell’s past employment status late Monday.

The claims about Caldwell’s high security clearance and FBI service add to concerns about extremism in the military and law enforcement. The indictments against numerous alleged rioters with military and police ties have led local agencies to launch investigations and the Pentagon to order each military branch to dedicate time to addressing the problem in the coming months.

“The presence of law enforcement officers in the riot reinforces and substantiates the greatest fears many in the public had in the nature of law enforcement in the United States,” Michael German, a former FBI special agent and fellow with the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty and National Security Program, told The Washington Post.

“It’s incumbent on the Justice Department, if it wants to restore that confidence, to act quickly” to hold the most violent Capitol rioters accountable, he added.

Caldwell lives in Berryman, Va., and had been involved in local GOP politics. He was arrested on Jan. 19 in Virginia on charges of conspiracy, destruction of government property, obstruction of an official proceeding, and violent entry or disorderly conduct.

The government alleges that Caldwell, whom an FBI agent identified as having “a leadership role in the Oath Keepers,” sent Facebook messages coordinating with members of the self-styled militia and sharing video from within the Capitol.

“Us storming the castle,” Caldwell allegedly said in one message that accompanied a video that showed a crowd within the Capitol, according to the criminal complaint. “Please share. Sharon was right with me! I am such an instigator!”

His case is one of several prosecutors are building against Oath Keepers and Proud Boys to make the case that the assault on Congress was premeditated and organized by extremists. Federal prosecutors are considering whether to file sedition charges against some of the accused rioters, the Associated Press reported.

In Monday’s motion for bond, Caldwell denied being a member of the Oath Keepers.

“Caldwell is not a member of the organization, nor has he ever been a member of the organization, and if he were, such membership would be protected activity under the First Amendment,” wrote his attorney, Thomas K. Plofchan.

The motion also questioned whether the Facebook messages allegedly posted by Caldwell prove his involvement in the Jan. 6 riot, arguing that he was “merely relaying news that was circulating through the crowd that some people were inside.”

Plofchan identified Caldwell as a retired lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy, and said Caldwell worked as a section chief in the FBI from 2009 to 2010 after retiring from military service. His attorney listed multiple service awards Caldwell earned and also said he has had a “top-secret security clearance” since 1979.

After leaving the FBI, Caldwell founded a consulting firm that has done business with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the U.S. Coast Guard, and the U.S. Army Personnel Command, the motion said.

Caldwell has several service-related injuries and other disabilities, his attorney said, including injuries to both shoulders, degenerative lumbar disc disease, and chronic knee pain. He underwent spinal fusion surgery in 2010 that failed, the filing said, and has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

“Moving, sitting for extended periods of time, lifting, carrying, and other physical activities are extremely painful and Caldwell is limited in his ability to engage in them,” the motion said.

His attorney also claimed that witnesses “will testify that [Caldwell] never entered the U.S. Capitol Building and that his physical limitations would have prevented him from forcibly entering any building or storming past any barrier.”

Plofchan noted that prosecutors did not include photos of Caldwell in the criminal complaint, although two co-defendants in the case are shown in photos.

“The Government has not identified any photo or video that shows Caldwell in the U.S. Capitol Building, on the grounds after overcoming any barrier,” the motion said.

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Alleged Oath Keeper leader Thomas Caldwell was former FBI agent with top-secret clearance, attorney says

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Those details were revealed in a motion filed Monday asking a judge to let Caldwell out of custody, citing his long military career and ability to pass vetting for the high security clearance. His attorney also claimed that Caldwell has disabilities from his military service that would have prevented him from storming the Capitol.

The FBI did not immediately return an inquiry about Caldwell’s past employment status late Monday.

The claims about Caldwell’s high security clearance and FBI service add to concerns about extremism in the military and law enforcement. The indictments against numerous alleged rioters with military and police ties have led local agencies to launch investigations and the Pentagon to order each military branch to dedicate time to addressing the problem in the coming months.

“The presence of law enforcement officers in the riot reinforces and substantiates the greatest fears many in the public had in the nature of law enforcement in the United States,” Michael German, a former FBI special agent and fellow with the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty and National Security Program, told The Washington Post.

“It’s incumbent on the Justice Department, if it wants to restore that confidence, to act quickly” to hold the most violent Capitol rioters accountable, he added.

Caldwell lives in Berryman, Va., and had been involved in local GOP politics. He was arrested on Jan. 19 in Virginia on charges of conspiracy, destruction of government property, obstruction of an official proceeding, and violent entry or disorderly conduct.

The government alleges that Caldwell, whom an FBI agent identified as having “a leadership role in the Oath Keepers,” sent Facebook messages coordinating with members of the self-styled militia and sharing video from within the Capitol.

“Us storming the castle,” Caldwell allegedly said in one message that accompanied a video that showed a crowd within the Capitol, according to the criminal complaint. “Please share. Sharon was right with me! I am such an instigator!”

His case is one of several prosecutors are building against Oath Keepers and Proud Boys to make the case that the assault on Congress was premeditated and organized by extremists. Federal prosecutors are considering whether to file sedition charges against some of the accused rioters, the Associated Press reported.

In Monday’s motion for bond, Caldwell denied being a member of the Oath Keepers.

“Caldwell is not a member of the organization, nor has he ever been a member of the organization, and if he were, such membership would be protected activity under the First Amendment,” wrote his attorney, Thomas K. Plofchan.

The motion also questioned whether the Facebook messages allegedly posted by Caldwell prove his involvement in the Jan. 6 riot, arguing that he was “merely relaying news that was circulating through the crowd that some people were inside.”

Plofchan identified Caldwell as a retired lieutenant commander in the U.S. Navy, and said Caldwell worked as a section chief in the FBI from 2009 to 2010 after retiring from military service. His attorney listed multiple service awards Caldwell earned and also said he has had a “top-secret security clearance” since 1979.

After leaving the FBI, Caldwell founded a consulting firm that has done business with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the U.S. Coast Guard, and the U.S. Army Personnel Command, the motion said.

Caldwell has several service-related injuries and other disabilities, his attorney said, including injuries to both shoulders, degenerative lumbar disc disease, and chronic knee pain. He underwent spinal fusion surgery in 2010 that failed, the filing said, and has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

“Moving, sitting for extended periods of time, lifting, carrying, and other physical activities are extremely painful and Caldwell is limited in his ability to engage in them,” the motion said.

His attorney also claimed that witnesses “will testify that [Caldwell] never entered the U.S. Capitol Building and that his physical limitations would have prevented him from forcibly entering any building or storming past any barrier.”

Plofchan noted that prosecutors did not include photos of Caldwell in the criminal complaint, although two co-defendants in the case are shown in photos.

“The Government has not identified any photo or video that shows Caldwell in the U.S. Capitol Building, on the grounds after overcoming any barrier,” the motion said.

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6:27 PM 2/8/2021 – Michael Novakhov – SharedNewsLinks℠

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6:27 PM 2/8/2021

Michael Novakhov – SharedNewsLinks℠ | In Brief | 

Michael Novakhov – SharedNewsLinks 
Tweets by @mikenov – 6:07 PM 2/8/20
German intelligence warns Capitol riot, Covid lockdown fuel right-wing extremism
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Tweets by ‎@mikenov – 6:07 PM 2/8/20

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    UK insists AstraZeneca vaccine is effective against South African varian… https://youtu.be/vuHGfEW4_sA  via @YouTube  YouTube ‎@YouTube

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    El segundo juicio político a Trump, a punto de empezar en un Senado divi… https://youtu.be/izewCbOQXm8  via @YouTube

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German intelligence warns Capitol riot, Covid lockdown fuel right-wing extremism

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MUNICH — While much of the liberal West watched the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol in horror, right-wing extremism and anti-Semitic ideas are gaining ground in certain corners of the globe.

German officials say the violence in Washington, together with coronavirus skepticism and anti-lockdown sentiment, has emboldened right-wing groups. The rising extremism has prompted the country’s intelligence services to place a number of people under surveillance.

 

“The security services are wide awake and are monitoring all developments,” Alina Vick, a spokeswoman for Germany’s Interior Ministry, said at a news conference Jan. 25 in response to questions from NBC News.

According to provisional police figures released Thursday, the number of crimes committed by right-wing extremists jumped to its highest level in at least four years in 2020.

Suspected coronavirus deniers have attacked a number of people and organizations in recent months. In October, the Robert Koch Institute, Germany’s center for disease control, was the target of an arson attack. The same day, an explosive detonated at the Berlin office of the Leibniz Association, a group of research institutes that has also researched the coronavirus.

Anti-lockdown demonstrations have intensified in recent weeks as Germany has tightened coronavirus restrictions, which are in place until at least mid-February.

Intelligence agencies have taken a particular interest in the group Querdenken 711, whose name loosely translates as “thinking outside the box.” The anti-lockdown group, which was founded in Stuttgart, the capital of the southwestern state of Baden-Württemberg, has inspired similar groups across the country that espouse a mixture of QAnon conspiracy theories, anti-Semitic ideas and frustration at coronavirus restrictions.

 

In December, Baden-Württemberg’s intelligence service placed the group on a watchlist and warned about rising extremism.

“We are dealing with a movement that formed on the occasion of the corona protests and then radicalized further on,” Beate Bube, the president of Baden-Württemberg’s intelligence service, said in a recent interview with a local newspaper. “We see an anti-state attitude at demonstrations and in online activities. Such attitudes are specifically fanned by the organizers.”

She said that the group was not interested in legitimate protest and that it was simply seeking to spread false information about the coronavirus and undermine the rule of law. The riot at the U.S. Capitol has added fuel to those sentiments.

“What we saw in Washington can be a breeding ground for radicalization and violent action in the right-wing scene,” Bube said. “Within the state’s scene, we are currently seeing verbal approval for the violence at the Capitol.”

 

While official national statistics on extremism for 2020 are not yet available, preliminary numbers released by a German lawmaker indicate that police recorded the highest number of far-right crimes since 2016. Police recorded 23,080 crimes with far-right backgrounds, around 700 more than in the previous year.

A report by RIAS Bavaria, a nonprofit organization, documented 46 anti-Semitic incidents related to coronavirus conspiracy theories in the state of Bavaria alone from Jan. 1 to Oct. 31, 2020. Many incidents occurred at demonstrations, while others occurred online or in daily life.

Annette Seidel-Arpaci, the head of RIAS Bavaria, said in an interview that the coronavirus protests have helped promote anti-Semitic beliefs more broadly, raising the possibility of violence.

 

“The danger is that ideas turn into public speech and through that potentially into actions,” Seidel-Arpaci said.

Even before the pandemic, right-wing attacks have shocked Germany in recent years. In 2019, a gunman attacked a synagogue on Yom Kippur, and a man with far-right views shot and killed a politician.

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According to the RIAS Bavaria report, a Jewish pedestrian was accosted in a Munich park last year by a man wearing a T-shirt that read “corona denier” and “anti-vaxxer.” The assailant claimed that Jews had created the coronavirus, according to the report.

In another documented case, a German rapper posted a video to Instagram claiming that the Rothschild family was behind a curfew that had been instituted to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

Seidel-Arpaci said that signs of anti-Semitism were evident in early protests against coronavirus measures last year but that those sentiments have become much more prevalent now.

“Victims are feeling more fear and insecurity,” Seidel-Arpaci said. “Not just because of the coronavirus pandemic, but in general, anti-Semitism is acted out more openly, especially in everyday life.”

Carlo Angerer is a multimedia producer and reporter based in Mainz, Germany. 


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Author Craig Unger makes the revelations in his new book, American Kompromat, How the KGB Cultivated Donald Trump, and Related Tales of Sex, Greed, Power and Treachery: How Russia began ‘grooming’ Donald Trump 40 years ago by saving him from financial ruin, book claims

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The author writes Trump was rescued multiple times from multiple bankruptcies by boatloads of Russian cash laundered through his real estate in the 80s and 90s as well as Russian money picking up the tab for buildings franchised under Trump's name

How Russia began ‘grooming’ Donald Trump 40 years ago by saving him from financial ruin, book claims

Donald Trump was cultivated as a Russian asset more than 40 years ago which exploded into a decades-long ‘relationship’ of mutual benefit to both Russia and Trump, a shocking new book claims.  

Trump was rescued multiple times from multiple bankruptcies by boatloads of Russian cash laundered through his real estate in the 80s and 90s, the author asserts. Russian money also picked up the tab for buildings franchised under Trump’s name.

An invitation to Russia by a high-level KGB official in 1987 under the guise of a preliminary scouting trip to build a Trump hotel in Moscow, was in fact ‘deep development’ by KGB handlers that furthered creating secret back channels and allowed the Russians to influence and damage American democracy, the author claims.

When Trump became President, it was time to pay the piper and Trump gave Putin everything he wanted, the author writes.

Author Craig Unger makes the revelations in his new book, American Kompromat, How the KGB Cultivated Donald Trump, and Related Tales of Sex, Greed, Power and Treachery.  Unger is a journatist and author of six books, including the New York Times bestsellers House of Bush, House of Saud, and House of Trump, House of Putin.

A new book claims Donald Trump was cultivated as a Russian asset more than 40 years ago and that exploded into a decades long 'relationship' of mutual benefit to both Russia and Trump. When Trump became President, it was time to pay the piper and Trump gave  Vladimir Putin everything he wanted, the author writes

A new book claims Donald Trump was cultivated as a Russian asset more than 40 years ago and that exploded into a decades long ‘relationship’ of mutual benefit to both Russia and Trump. When Trump became President, it was time to pay the piper and Trump gave  Vladimir Putin everything he wanted, the author writes

The author writes Trump was rescued multiple times from multiple bankruptcies by boatloads of Russian cash laundered through his real estate in the 80s and 90s as well as Russian money picking up the tab for buildings franchised under Trump's name

The author writes Trump was rescued multiple times from multiple bankruptcies by boatloads of Russian cash laundered through his real estate in the 80s and 90s as well as Russian money picking up the tab for buildings franchised under Trump’s name

Asking if Trump was a Russian asset is the single most important question about the president, the author writes after extensive interviews with high-level sources, Soviets who defected, former CIA officers, FBI counter-intelligent agents, lawyers and more.

‘This is a story of dirty secrets and the most powerful people in the world’ and Unger reveals what went wrong in the numerous congressional investigations into Trump.

Trump and the Russians were also in bed together through Trump’s close friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, who was supplying the Russians and Silicon Valley with underage girls, the author claims. 

American Kompromat How the KGB Cultivated Donald Trump, and Related Tales of Sex, Greed, Power, and Treachery by Craig Unger is out January 26

American Kompromat How the KGB Cultivated Donald Trump, and Related Tales of Sex, Greed, Power, and Treachery by Craig Unger is out January 26

Epstein claimed to have introduced Melania to Donald when Donald was partying with Epstein’s ‘girls’.

Epstein had made videotapes of sexual acts that he could use for blackmail or kompromat – compromising material – and photos of Trump with a bevy of young girls and girls giggling at the semen stains on Trump’s pants when in the company of the under eighteen-year olds and he couldn’t hold back his ‘excitement’.

Trump’s association with Russia began in 1976 when he decided to make his move from developing real estate in Queens to Manhattan.

Under the tutelage of the ‘Mafia lawyer and dark satanic prince of the McCarthy era’, Roy Cohn, who tutored Trump on how to find generous tax abatements, the brash real estate developer paid one thin dollar to buy the old decrepit Commodore Hotel that sat next to Grand Central Station on 42nd and Park Avenue.

The development of that decaying monstrosity into the Grand Hyatt New York offers the key to Trump’s first encounter with the Russians when he went downtown to Joy-Lud Electronics at Fifth Avenue and 23rd Street to buy hundreds of television sets for his new hotel.

Store co-owner Semyon ‘Sam’ Kislin, was a Ukrainian Jew who emigrated to Manhattan from Odessa in 1972 and hung a sign on his store’s front door reading, ‘We speak Russian’.

Kislin co-owned the store with another Soviet émigré Tamir Sapir and sold electronic equipment to Soviet diplomats, KGB officers and Politburo members returning to the Soviet Union because it had all been adapted to PAL, technical standards used in Europe and Russia.

That stood Jud-Lud Electronics apart from the wildly popular 47th Street Photo and Crazy Eddie grabbing the airwaves with their big pitch, discount claims.

Jud-Lud was the only place to buy electronic equipment and consumer goods to take back to the Soviet Union.

Trump picked up the TVs on credit and paid Kislin back in 30 days, an unusual move for the man well known for stiffing his vendors.

Donald Trump and Tamir Sapir at the Trump Soho Launch on September 19, 2007 in New York City. Tamir Sapir owned a store and sold electronic equipment to Soviet diplomats, KGB officers and Politburo members returning to the Soviet Union

Donald Trump and Tamir Sapir at the Trump Soho Launch on September 19, 2007 in New York City. Tamir Sapir owned a store and sold electronic equipment to Soviet diplomats, KGB officers and Politburo members returning to the Soviet Union

Back in the 70s Trump picked up TVs on credit and paid Tussian Semyon Kislin (left) back in 30 days, an unusual move for the man well known for stiffing his vendors
A former KGB officer Yuri Shvets, informed the author that a Jewish guy running a fresh produce store back then would have had to have been recruited by the KGB

Back in the 70s Trump picked up TVs on credit and paid Ukrainian Semyon Kislin (left) back in 30 days, an unusual move for the man well known for stiffing his vendors. Kislin had run a highly celebrated fresh produce store back in Odessa where foodstuffs passed through the black market. A former KGB officer Yuri Shvets (right) said Kislin would have been recruited by the KGB

The author asks the question why the Grand Hyatt needed TVs with dual systems enabling them to receive broadcasts to the Soviet Union – but the answer is lost to the passage of time.

Kislin had run a highly celebrated fresh produce store back in Odessa where foodstuffs passed through the black market.

A former KGB officer Yuri Shvets, informed the author that a Jewish guy running a fresh produce store back then would have had to have been recruited by the KGB.

The deal was if Kislin wanted to emigrate from the Soviet Union, he had to sign a pledge to cooperate with the KGB.

Back in the US, if anyone questioned letting in so many Soviet Jews, they faced being called anti-Semitic.

Kislin’s store, under the KGB seal of approval was ‘used by the KGB to initiate overtures to prospective assets’.

So Trump was under the watchful eye of the KGB. But that had begun years earlier when the ‘young, vain, narcissistic and ruthlessly ambitious real estate developer’ sold multimillion-dollar condos to the Russian Mafia laundering money by buying through anonymous shell companies.

The sale of these condos made Trump rich again after losing billions of dollars when his Atlantic City casinos went belly up.

Surveillance of Trump began even earlier in 1977 when he married Ivana Zelnickova, a Czech national from a district where the secret police force was in league with the KGB and Trump was already talking about wanting to be president one day. 

For sale! Exclusive look inside Trump’s Atlantic City casino in 2017

Trump sold multimillion-dollar condos to the Russian Mafia laundering money by buying through anonymous shell companies. The sale of these condos made Trump rich again after losing billions of dollars when his Atlantic City casinos went belly up

Trump sold multimillion-dollar condos to the Russian Mafia laundering money by buying through anonymous shell companies. The sale of these condos made Trump rich again after losing billions of dollars when his Atlantic City casinos went belly up

The author claims Trump's association with Russia began in 1976 when he decided to make his move from developing real estate in Queens to Manhattan

The author claims Trump’s association with Russia began in 1976 when he decided to make his move from developing real estate in Queens to Manhattan

Trump probably also appealed to the KGB because he was ‘vain, narcissistic, highly susceptible to flattery and greedy’.

‘With Trump it wasn’t just weakness. Everything was excessive. His vanity, excessive, Narcissism, excessive. Greed, excessive. Ignorance, excessive’, writes the author.

‘Deeply insecure intellectually, highly suggestible, exceedingly susceptible to flattery, Trump was anxious to acquire some real intellectual validation – and the KGB would be more than happy to humor him,’ the author added. 

Kislin denied any ties with the Russian Mafia years later but hung in close to Trump and donated more than $40,000 to Rudy Giuliani’s 1993 and 1997 New York mayoral campaigns. 

The file on Trump with the Soviet/Russian intelligence went from laundering money through Trump luxury condos, to partnering with wealthy Soviet émigrés in franchising scams, to becoming involved in countless financial irregularities, to creating secret back channels with the Russians, to partying with Jeffrey Epstein, and on and on,’ writes Unger.

Epstein, whose father had been a municipal parks department employee in Coney Island, amassed hundreds of millions of dollars, owned fabulous homes around the world and lived two short miles from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach.

Within his house there were scores of women and young girls, dozens in their teens who were passed around like party favors by Epstein with the help of one time girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell — to the world’s most powerful men.

‘All the while, he was secretly recording their activities, the tapes of which provided a hammerlock of kompromat, leverage, and influence’, Unger writes.

It was a world of unimaginable decadence – gorgeous young women, private planes, spectacular residences – and sex with young girls.

Billionaire oligarchs shipped in teenage girls from Russia and the Ukraine.

Russian models and beauty pageant contestants were flown in and manipulated for sexual favors by Epstein with Ghislaine as his fixer, the author claims.

Trump fit in and he reciprocated Jeffrey and Ghislaine’s invites.

The author claims surveillance on Trump began in 1977 when he married Ivana Zelnickova, a Czech national from a district where the secret police force was in league with the KGB and Trump was already talking about wanting to be president one day (pictured in Russia)

The author claims surveillance on Trump began in 1977 when he married Ivana Zelnickova, a Czech national from a district where the secret police force was in league with the KGB and Trump was already talking about wanting to be president one day (pictured in Russia) 

In 1987 Donald and Ivana Trump visited Palace Square in St.Petersburg, Russia. The author says the invitation to Russia by a high-level KGB official in 1987 under the guise of a preliminary scouting trip to build a Trump hotel in Moscow, was in fact 'deep development' by KGB handlers that furthered creating secret back channels and allowed the Russians to influence and damage American democracy

In 1987 Donald and Ivana Trump visited Palace Square in St.Petersburg, Russia. The author says the invitation to Russia by a high-level KGB official in 1987 under the guise of a preliminary scouting trip to build a Trump hotel in Moscow, was in fact ‘deep development’ by KGB handlers that furthered creating secret back channels and allowed the Russians to influence and damage American democracy

Twenty-eight young women were flown in to Mar-a-Lago for a calendar girl competition and the only two males guests were Trump and Epstein.

Trump was known for nonstop groping as well as putting his hands up the skirt of the girlfriend of the organizer of the calendar girl competition – all the way to her crotch.

Christina Oxenberg, daughter of Princess Elizabeth of Yugoslavia and sister of Dynasty star Catherine Oxenberg, met Ghislaine when Ghislane was knitting together a social network that introduced Bill Clinton and Prince Andrew to Epstein.

Christina said her mother had an affair with JFK in 1962 and suggested she was President Kennedy’s love child.

‘Ghislaine was the woman behind the world’s greatest Rolodex – and all about power and money’, stated Oxenberg.

When the FBI raided Epstein’s homes, ‘they found video recording equipment, hard disks and evidence of kompromat – videos of billionaires in the act of pedophilia, raping underage girls, committing crimes that could lead to hard time’.

Trump’s name was in Epstein’s black book with no fewer than 16 phone numbers.

‘Trump Model Management was very much a part of Epstein’s picture and allegedly indulged in many of the dubious practices – violating immigration laws and illegally employing young foreign girls,’ the author writes. 

Epstein took the fifth when asked if he ever socialized with Trump in the presence of females under eighteen.

Epstein claimed he was the one who introduced Melania to Trump.

‘Jeffrey and Ghislaine knew Trump’s secrets, and he knew theirs – secrets were the ultimate currency in the decadent and highly transactional world they lived in,’ the author writes. 

After 17 years of friendship, the close friends permanently fell out in 2004 when Epstein told Trump that he was keen on buying a spectacular mansion in Palm Beach being sold out of a bankruptcy auction.

With his heart set on the property, he wanted to make one change – move the swimming pool. So he brought his pal Trump to the property for advice.

In financial straits with his bankruptcies in Atlantic City, Trump outbid his friend with an offer of more than $41 million.

Trump put the house up for sale shortly thereafter for $125 million.

The author claims Trump was connected to Russians through friend Jeffrey Epstein, who was supplying the Russians and Silicon Valley with underage girls

The author claims Trump was connected to Russians through friend Jeffrey Epstein, who was supplying the Russians and Silicon Valley with underage girls

Trump appealed to the KGB because he was 'vain, narcissistic, highly susceptible to flattery and greedy,' the author writes. Trump and Putin pictured in 2017

Trump appealed to the KGB because he was ‘vain, narcissistic, highly susceptible to flattery and greedy,’ the author writes. Trump and Putin pictured in 2017 

Trump in 2017: What I say to Putin is ‘none of your business’

Enraged, Epstein never spoke to Trump again but showed around photos of Trump with topless young girls and one photo with semen stained pants.

After three years into Trump’s presidency, the curtain was pulled back and revealed ‘Trump was a sociopath who had given false or misleading statements more than 20,000 times while in office and created false narratives that Russia had interfered in the 2016 election on Trump’s behalf.’

When it came to 2020 and the president’s daily briefings on the rapidly expanding Covid-19 pandemic as early as January that Trump never read, ‘He did next to nothing when it came to stopping the spread of the virus’, writes Unger who calls it ‘a death cult’.

He just didn’t care if Americans died.

Deceit was the new norm with Trump’s lies that were anti-science and free of reason – ‘that killed hundreds of thousands of Americans’.

‘The pandemic was being handled by a superstitious, science-defying authoritarian leader who had decided to let the people fend for themselves – and die accordingly,’ the author writes. 

The nation was now in free-fall – thanks to the ‘vulgar and vile, misogynistic, racist firebrand’ – who had mesmerized tens of millions with ‘anti-science based policies that led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans’.

‘The Russians had undermined the US elections in 2016 and Trump had collaborated with them’, writes Unger. And now thanks to the virus, everything wrong with the United States – sex trafficking, racism and greed –  was visible. 

American Kompromat by Craig Unger: 9780593182536 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books


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Capitol assault a more sinister attack than first appeared

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WASHINGTONUnder battle flags bearing Donald Trump’s name, the Capitol’s attackers pinned a bloodied police officer in a doorway, his twisted face and screams captured on video. They mortally wounded another officer with a blunt weapon and body-slammed a third over a railing into the crowd.

“Hang Mike Pence!” the insurrectionists chanted as they pressed inside, beating police with pipes. They demanded House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s whereabouts, too. They hunted any and all lawmakers: “Where are they?” Outside, makeshift gallows stood, complete with sturdy wooden steps and the noose. Guns and pipe bombs had been stashed in the vicinity.

Only days later is the extent of the danger from one of the darkest episodes in American democracy coming into focus. The sinister nature of the assault has become evident, betraying the crowd as a force determined to occupy the inner sanctums of Congress and run down leaders — Trump’s vice president and the Democratic House speaker among them.

This was not just a collection of Trump supporters with MAGA bling caught up in a wave.

That revelation came in real time to Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., who briefly took over proceedings in the House chamber as the mob closed in Wednesday and the speaker, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, was spirited to safer quarters moments before everything went haywire.

“I saw this crowd of people banging on that glass screaming,” McGovern told The Associated Press on Sunday. “Looking at their faces, it occurred to me, these aren’t protesters. These are people who want to do harm.”

“What I saw in front of me,” he said, “was basically home-grown fascism, out of control.”

Pelosi said Sunday “the evidence is that it was a well-planned, organized group with leadership and guidance and direction. And the direction was to go get people.” She did not elaborate on that point in a ”60 Minutes” interview on CBS.

The scenes of rage, violence and agony are so vast that the whole of it may still be beyond comprehension. But with countless smartphone videos emerging from the scene, much of it from gloating insurrectionists themselves, and more lawmakers recounting the chaos that was around them, contours of the uprising are increasingly coming into relief.

 

THE STAGING

The mob got explicit marching orders from Trump and still more encouragement from the president’s men.

“Fight like hell,” Trump exhorted his partisans at the staging rally. “Let’s have trial by combat,” implored his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, whose attempt to throw out election results in trial by courtroom failed. It’s time to “start taking down names and kicking ass,” said Republican Rep. Mo Brooks of Alabama.

Criminals pardoned by Trump, among them Roger Stone and Michael Flynn, came forward at rallies on the eve of the attack to tell the crowds they were fighting a battle between good and evil and they were on the side of good. On Capitol Hill, Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri gave a clenched-fist salute to the hordes outside the Capitol as he pulled up to press his challenge of the election results.

The crowd was pumped. Until a little after 2 p.m., Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was at the helm for the final minutes of decorum in partnership with Pence, who was serving his ceremonial role presiding over the process.

Both men had backed Trump’s agenda and excused or ignored his provocations for four years, but now had no mechanism or will to subvert the election won by Biden. That placed them high among the insurrectionists’ targets, no different in the minds of the mob than the “socialists.”

“If this election were overturned by mere allegations from the losing side, our democracy would enter a death spiral,” McConnell told his chamber, not long before things spiraled out of control in what lawmakers call the “People’s House.”

 

THE ASSAULT

Thousands had swarmed the Capitol. They charged into police and metal barricades outside the building, shoving and hitting officers in their way. The assault quickly pushed through the vastly outnumbered police line; officers ran down one man and pummeled him.

In the melee outside, near the structure built for Joe Biden’s inauguration on Jan. 20, a man threw a red fire extinguisher at the helmeted head of a police officer. Then he picked up a bullhorn and threw it at officers, too.

The identity of the officer could not immediately be confirmed. But Capitol Police officer Brian Sicknick, who was wounded in the chaos, died the next night; officials say he had been hit in the head with a fire extinguisher.

Shortly after 2 p.m., Capitol Police sent an alert telling workers in a House office building to head to underground transportation tunnels that criss-cross the complex. Minutes later, Pence was taken from the Senate chamber to a secret location and police announced the lockdown of the Capitol. “You may move throughout the building(s) but stay away from exterior windows and doors,” said the email blast. “If you are outside, seek cover.”

At 2:15 p.m., the Senate recessed its Electoral College debate and a voice was heard over the chamber’s audio system: “The protesters are in the building.” The doors of the House chamber were barricaded and lawmakers inside it were told they may need to duck under their chairs or relocate to cloakrooms off the House floor because the mob has breached the Capitol Rotunda.

Even before the mob reached sealed doors of the House chamber, Capitol Police pulled Pelosi away from the podium, she told “60 Minutes.”

“I said, ‘No, I want to be here,’”she said. “And they said, ‘Well, no, you have to leave.’ I said, ‘No, I’m not leaving.’ They said, ‘No, you must leave.’” So she did.

At 2:44 p.m., as lawmakers inside the House chamber prepared to be evacuated, a gunshot was heard from right outside, in the Speaker’s Lobby on the other side of the barricaded doors. That’s when Ashli Babbit, wearing a Trump flag like a cape, was shot to death on camera as insurrectionists railed, her blood pooling on the white marble floor.

The Air Force veteran from California had climbed through a broken window into the Speaker’s Lobby before a police officer’s gunshot felled her.

Back in the House chamber, a woman in the balcony was seen and heard screaming. Why she was doing that only became clear later when video circulated. She was screaming a prayer.

Within about 10 minutes of the shooting, House lawmakers and staff members who had been cowering during the onslaught, terror etched into their faces, had been taken from the chamber and gallery to a secure room. The mob broke into Pelosi’s offices while members of her staff hid in one of the rooms of her suite.

“The staff went under the table barricaded the door, turned out the lights, and were silent in the dark,” she said. “Under the table for two and a half hours.”

On the Senate side, Capitol Police had circled the chamber and ordered all staff and reporters and any nearby senators into the chamber and locked it down. At one point about 200 people were inside; an officer armed with what appeared to be a semi-automatic weapon stood between McConnell and the Democratic leader, Sen. Chuck Schumer.

Authorities then ordered an evacuation and rushed everyone inside to a secure location, the Senate parliamentary staff scooping up the boxes holding the Electoral Collage certificates.

Although the Capitol’s attackers had been sent with Trump’s exhortation to fight, they appeared in some cases to be surprised that they had actually made it in.

When they breached the abandoned Senate chamber, they milled around, rummaged through papers, sat at desks and took videos and pictures. One of them climbed to the dais and yelled, “Trump won that election!” Two others were photographed carrying flex cuffs typically used for mass arrests.

But outside the chamber, the mob’s hunt was still on for lawmakers. “Where are they?” people could be heard yelling.

That question could have also applied to reinforcements — where were they?

At about 5:30 p.m., once the National Guard had arrived to supplement the overwhelmed Capitol Police force, a full-on effort began to get the attackers out.

Heavily armed officers brought in as reinforcements started using tear gas in a coordinated fashion to get people moving toward the door, then combed the halls for stragglers. As darkness fell, they pushed the mob farther out onto the plaza and lawn, using officers in riot gear in full shields and clouds of tear gas, flash-bangs and percussion grenades.

At 7:23 p.m., officials announced that people hunkered down in two nearby congressional office buildings could leave “if anyone must.”

Within the hour, the Senate had resumed its work and the House followed, returning the People’s House to the control of the people’s representatives. Lawmakers affirmed Biden’s election victory early the next morning, shell-shocked by the catastrophic failure of security.

Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Ca., told AP on Sunday it was as if Capitol Police “were naked” against the attackers. “It turns out it was the worst kind of non-security anybody could ever imagine.”

Said McGovern: “I was in such disbelief this could possibly happen. These domestic terrorists were in the People’s House, desecrating the People’s House, destroying the People’s House.”

 

Associated Press writers Dustin Weaver in Washington and Michael Casey in Concord, New Hampshire, contributed to this report. Reeves reported from Birmingham, Alabama.

Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.


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Carter Page files $75M lawsuit against DOJ, FBI, Comey claiming ‘unlawful surveillance’ during Russia probe

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Carter Page on Friday sued the Justice Department, the FBI and former FBI Director James Comey for $75 million

Carter Page, a former Trump aide whom the FBI surveilled during the Russia probe, has filed a $75 million lawsuit against the bureau, Justice Department and former FBI Director James Comey.

The lawsuit filed Friday accuses the FBI, DOJ and Comey of violating Page’s constitutional “and other legal rights in connection with unlawful surveillance and investigation of him by the United States Government.”

“This case is about holding accountable the entities and individuals who are responsible for the most egregious violation and abuse of the [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] FISA statute since it was enacted over forty years ago,” the complaint states.

Former FBI Director James Comey speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill Washington. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

The FBI had relied on information from former English spy Christopher Steele’s since-debunked dossier in an effort to obtain FISA warrants against Page, whom Steele alleged had ties to a Russian influence campaign during the 2016 presidential election.

The lawsuit cites four requests the FBI filed to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in an effort to obtain more information on Page as part of its “Crossfire Hurricane” investigation. A 2019 Justice Department inspector general report found that the FBI made a number of significant errors in its applications.

Niether the FBI nor DOJ immediately responded to inquiries from Fox News.

BIDEN NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER DEFENDED STEELE DOSSIER AS ‘PERFECTLY APPROPRIATE’

“The facts of this case … have been relatively well-briefed,” attorney Tim Parlatore, who is representing Page, told Fox News on Saturday.

“Between the Horowitz report and various congressional [investigations] on this subject, there are no bombshell revelations in this lawsuit other than Page is seeking to be made whole from the individuals who have completely destroyed his life.”

The lawsuit opens with November testimony from former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who said during a November hearing before the Senate Judiciary Commitee that “any material misrepresentation or error in a FISA application is unacceptable,” and admitted that the FBI is “responsible for the work that went into that FISA.”

Former Trump adviser Carter Page. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

McCabe, however, also defended the investigation in his opening testimony.

“We didn’t open a case because we liked one candidate or didn’t like the other one,” he said at the time. “…We opened a case to find out how the Russians might be undermining our elections. We opened a case because it was our obligation — our duty — to do so. We did our job.”

The 2019 IG report, while noting errors in the FBI’s FISA application process, also found no intentional misconduct or political bias surrounding the probe’s launch and efforts to file for FISA warrants to spy on Page.

The DOJ said in June that at least two of the FBI’s four surveillance applications against Page mentioned in the complaint were invalid, according to a declassified summary of a DOJ assessment released by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

BIDEN NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER PICK TIED TRUMP CAMPAIGN TO RUSSIA IN 2016 BRIEFINGS WITH REPORTERS

Parlatore said Page is “feeling pretty good” about the lawsuit.

“We have four firms working on this,” Parlatore said. “[Page] has been beaten up for the past four years. Now is his opportunity to get accountability and justice.”

The lawyer added that the case, “although politically charged,” is “about the law, the facts and what they’ve done to Carter.” The firms representing Page “intentionally waited to file” the lawsuit until after the 2016 presidential election in order to avoid politicization.

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Here Are the Various Ways Donald Trump Could Be Prosecuted – Mother Jones

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Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, James Comey, Christopher Steele, John Bolton, a Time journalist, flag burners—this is just a partial list of the people Donald Trump has wanted to see imprisoned during his ignominious presidency. Yet the moment he steps out of the White House, shedding the sheath of immunity that enshrines all presidents, it is Trump who should be most concerned about a legal reckoning. His list of alleged offenses, committed both during and before his presidency, includes tax and bank fraud, obstruction of justice, bribery, defamation, and more. Legal experts have even debated whether Trump could face criminal charges connected to his woeful response to the coronavirus pandemic.

In its 244-year history, the United States has never prosecuted a president (that is, outside the specialized judicial theater of impeachment). Not that some didn’t deserve it. The reticence is understandable. Locking up a former commander in chief would be politically divisive and potentially set a dangerous precedent. Would holding him accountable restore faith in the justice system or further erode it? But for Trump, whose antics and incompetence contributed to the deaths of tens of thousands, who attacked the very foundation of the democratic institutions that made the United States a beacon, and who pushed the nation to the threshold of autocracy, the American people might be willing, even eager, to take the risk.

Trump has offered state and federal prosecutors a buffet of options for criminal and civil charges. On the federal level, one of the most plausible crimes Trump could be charged with is obstruction of justice. In his two-part report on his Russia investigation, special counsel Robert Mueller all but laid out the case, chronicling Trump’s assorted efforts to stymie the probe. The report also includes evidence suggesting that Trump may have perjured himself in written responses to questions from Mueller’s team, though this claim is more difficult to prove. Mueller stopped short of concluding that Trump had committed a crime, but mostly because, as a sitting president, he was arguably immune from prosecution. But that protection no longer applies once he leaves office.

Barbara McQuade, a former US attorney in Michigan who led the corruption case against Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, argues an obstruction conviction would be easy to obtain and is the most likely route for federal prosecutors. (McQuade spoke to Mother Jones before joining Biden’s transition team; she stressed that she was not speaking on the new administration’s behalf.) But the body of evidence is only one consideration when it comes to placing Trump, or any former president, on trial. “The second question a federal prosecutor must ask is, ‘Would a prosecution advance a substantial federal interest?’” she says. “When a president is involved, that’s a much harder question. I’m sure there is some sentiment that the country should move on, but perhaps some sentiment that we should not let a president get away with crimes with impunity just because they’re the president.”

Renato Mariotti, a former federal prosecutor in Chicago who specialized in busting white-collar criminals, is less sure about convicting Trump of obstruction or other crimes—and not because there isn’t a bounty of evidence. “How would the fact that it’s Donald Trump impact a jury?” he wonders. Nevertheless, he thinks an obstruction prosecution is warranted if only for the message it sends. “To me the best argument for taking action is a future deterrence argument,” he says. “Trump is somebody who was focused on defeating the lawful functions of the Justice Department, so taking action sends a signal that presidents should not do that again.”

Both prosecutors warn that any case against Trump must be as free of politics as possible, not just to convince a judge or jury to convict but also to restore confidence in the Justice Department and avoid weakening democracy in the process. One way to buffer the case from political calculations would be for the new attorney general to appoint a special counsel who could pursue the investigation independently. “I think we’ve learned a lesson, hopefully, from, let’s say, the mistakes of James Comey and his handling of the Clinton matter,” Mariotti says, recalling the FBI’s infamous investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email server before the 2016 election. “The best way to do it is to have an insulation from political appointees, and to essentially not have press conferences or anything like that—just make decisions about whether or not there’s anything worthy of prosecution and do it with as little fanfare as possible.”

Eager to turn the page on the Trump era, Biden, for his part, has expressed reservations about a federal prosecution targeting his predecessor. He has described such an effort as “probably not very…good for democracy,” though he’s also said he would not “interfere with the Justice Department’s judgment.” Kamala Harris took a different position on the campaign trail, saying the DOJ “would have no choice” but to pursue obstruction-of-justice charges against Trump.

According to the New York Times and other news outlets, Trump is keenly aware of the legal jeopardy he confronts as a private citizen and, as a result, was particularly fearful of losing the election. In fact, the possibility that he might be charged with a crime has been on Trump’s mind for much of his presidency. After the 2017 appointment of Mueller to oversee the Russia investigation, Trump declared in a tweet that he had the right to pardon himself. Some legal experts have speculated he might attempt such a gambit prior to leaving office.

However, says Philip Bobbitt, a professor at Columbia University who specializes in constitutional law, presidential pardon power is not unlimited. He raises what he says is a more likely scenario, similar to what occurred in 1974 when Richard Nixon resigned and was promptly pardoned by Gerald Ford. In the waning days or hours of his presidency, Bobbitt speculates, Trump could invoke the 25th Amendment and briefly surrender presidential authority to allow Mike Pence to pardon him. Alternatively, Trump could resign on the final day of his term, leaving Pence to momentarily assume the presidency and absolve his former boss of all federal crimes.

But a federal pardon will not help Trump at the state level, and it’s there where he and his company, the Trump Organization, may face the most legal peril. Two investigations targeting his company are underway in New York. Since 2019, New York Attorney General Letitia James has been probing the Trump Organization for bank, tax, and insurance fraud. One of the matters she is scrutinizing is whether Trump paid taxes on $50 million in forgiven debt related to his Chicago hotel and tower project. This aspect of her inquiry appears based in part on my reporting in Mother Jones, which revealed that Trump claims to hold a loan connected to a venture that may not exist. This potentially contrived liability may in fact be a scheme to dodge taxes on a debt, deeply discounted by a lender, that Trump paid off in 2012. (A loan is not taxable; forgiven debt is considered income.)

James’ case is civil, but it could nevertheless lead to steep fines, back taxes, and penalties. Moreover, her inquiry could provide fodder for criminal investigators, such as those in the office of Manhattan District Attorney Cy Vance. In 2019, following revelations that Trump had engineered a payoff of former adult film star Stormy Daniels to keep their alleged affair quiet during the 2016 election, Vance impaneled a grand jury to examine potential financial misconduct by Trump and his company. Since then, Vance has sought a variety of records from Trump’s accounting firm. Trump has battled the DA’s subpoena all the way to the Supreme Court, arguing that he was unfairly targeted. The court, however, cleared the way for Vance’s investigation to go forward. Court filings suggest Vance’s probe now goes well beyond the hush-money payment and may overlap with some of the issues James is investigating. Legal experts say that state-led cases may offer the best opportunity to hold Trump accountable while avoiding the polarizing debate that a federal prosecution could ignite. The investigations in New York also focus on matters that predate Trump’s presidency, unlike obstruction charges related to the Mueller probe.

In both New York cases, Trump and his lawyers have used delay tactics, deploying arguments that had little success in court but that substantially slowed the investigations. But soon Trump will no longer be able to use his office to stave off probes by claiming they are either politically driven or too time-consuming for a sitting president.

That may be just the start of his legal concerns. Media reports, and in particular the series of explosive New York Times articles based on copies of Trump’s tax records, may have left other breadcrumbs for investigators to follow in pursuit of Trump, his close associates, and his children. There’s also the possibility of yet-unrevealed investigations by state or local authorities, still lurking in sealed court filings.

And we’re just talking about the United States. In Scotland, where Trump has invested more than $200 million in his golf courses, lawmakers are pushing for their government to request an Unexplained Wealth Order to peer into Trump’s finances. This type of court order—invoked in the past against suspected money launderers—authorizes investigators to probe politically prominent individuals whose public spending does not match what’s publicly known about their finances.

Throughout his life, as he’s faced off against angry creditors or jilted business partners, Trump has honed a tried-and-true legal tactic of “punching back” at his antagonists—launching furious counterattacks that mired the other side in court filings and legal bills. Yet this strategy, as effective as it was when Trump was a private businessman, is unlikely to slow down prosecutors. “I think that when you are a private entity there are other equities you have to think about besides the outcome of the case,” McQuade says. “You have to think about your reputational risk, if he’s going to slam you in the press, and there’s a worry there’s going to be negative impact on your bottom line.” To a prosecutor, a defendant who blusters and threatens isn’t much of a deterrent. “Getting criticized is part of the job,” she says.

Attempts to hold Trump accountable in office were almost entirely unsuccessful. His loss in November was the first true check on his conduct. The next—which seems all but inevitable—may come in a courtroom.


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Opinion | Should Trump Be Prosecuted?

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His potential criminal liability goes further, to actions before taking office. The Manhattan district attorney is by all appearances conducting a classic white-collar investigation into tax and bank fraud, and the New York attorney general is engaged in a civil investigation into similar allegations, which could quickly turn into a criminal inquiry.

These state matters may well reveal evidence warranting additional federal charges. Such potential financial crimes were not explored by the special counsel investigation and could reveal criminal evidence. Any evidence that was not produced to Congress in its inquiries, like internal State Department and White House communications, is another potential trove to which the new administration should have access.

The matters already set out by the special counsel and under investigation are not trivial; they should not raise concerns that Mr. Trump is being singled out for something that would not be investigated or prosecuted if committed by anyone else.

Because some of the activities in question predated his presidency, it would be untenable to permit Mr. Trump’s winning a federal election to immunize him from consequences for earlier crimes. We would not countenance that result if a former president was found to have committed a serious violent crime.

Sweeping under the rug Mr. Trump’s federal obstruction would be worse still. The precedent set for not deterring a president’s obstruction of a special counsel investigation would be too costly: It would make any future special counsel investigation toothless and set the presidency de facto above the law. For those who point to the pardon of Richard Nixon by Gerald Ford as precedent for simply looking forward, that is not analogous: Mr. Nixon paid a very heavy price by resigning from the presidency in disgrace for his conduct.

Mr. Trump may very well choose to pardon not just his family and friends before leaving office but also himself in order to avoid federal criminal liability. This historic turn of events would have no affect on his potential criminal exposure at the state level. If Mr. Trump bestows such pardons, states like New York should take up the mantle to see that the rule of law is upheld. And pardons would not preclude the new attorney general challenging a self-pardon or the state calling the pardoned friends and family before the grand jury to advance its investigation of Mr. Trump after he leaves office (where, if they lied, they would still risk charges of perjury and obstruction).

In short, being president should mean you are more accountable, not less, to the rule of law.

Andrew Weissmann, a senior prosecutor in Robert Mueller’s special counsel investigation, is a senior fellow at the New York University School of Law and the author of “Where Law Ends: Inside the Mueller Investigation.”


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Opinion | Trump Wars II: The Loser Strikes Back

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Credit…Andres Kudacki

We all knew that Donald Trump would react badly to defeat. But his refusal to concede, the destructiveness of his temper tantrum and the willingness of almost the entire Republican Party to indulge him have surpassed even pessimists’ expectations.

Even so, it’s very unlikely that Trump will manage to overturn the election results. But he’s doing all he can to wreck America on his way out, in ways large and small. Among other things, his officials are already trying to sabotage the economy, setting the stage for a possible financial crisis on Joe Biden’s watch.

To the uninitiated, the sudden announcement by Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, that he’s terminating support for several emergency lending programs created back in March might not seem like that big a deal. After all, the financial markets aren’t currently in crisis. In fact, defying Trump’s prediction that “your 401(k)s will go to hell” if he were to lose, stocks have risen substantially since Biden’s win.

Furthermore, much of the money allocated to those programs was never actually used. So what’s the problem?

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Well, the Federal Reserve, which administers the programs, has objected strenuously — for good reason. You see, the Fed knows a lot about financial crises and what it takes to stop them — and Mnuchin is depriving the nation of tools that could be crucial in the months or years ahead.

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In the old days, what we now call financial crises were generally referred to as “panics” — like the Panic of 1907, which was the event that led to the Fed’s creation. The causes of panics vary widely; some have no visible cause at all. Nonetheless, they have a lot in common. They all involve a loss of confidence that freezes the flow of money through the economy, often with dire effects on growth and jobs.

 

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Credit…Andres Kudacki

Why do such things happen? Panics don’t necessarily reflect mob psychology, although that sometimes plays a role. More often we’re talking about self-fulfilling prophecy, in which individually rational actions produce a collectively disastrous result.

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In a classic bank run, for example, depositors rush to get their money out, even if they believe that the bank is fundamentally sound, because they know that the run itself can cause the institution to collapse.

Which is where public agencies like the Fed come in. We’ve known since the 19th century that such agencies can and should lend to cash-starved players during a financial panic, stopping the death spiral.

How much lending does it take to stop a panic? Often, not much at all. In fact, panics are often ended simply by the promise that cash will be provided if needed, with no need to actually write any checks.

Back in 2012 there was a runaway financial crisis in much of southern Europe. Countries like Spain saw their ability to borrow collapse and the interest rates on their debt soar. Yet these countries weren’t actually insolvent; Spain’s fiscal position was no worse than that of Britain, which was able to borrow at very low interest rates.

But Spain, which doesn’t have its own currency — it uses the euro — was the subject of a self-fulfilling panic attack, as investors fearing that it would run out of cash threatened to provoke the very outcome they feared. Britain, which can print its own money, was immune to such a crisis.

In July 2012, however, Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank — the Fed’s counterpart — promised to do “whatever it takes” to save the euro, which everyone interpreted as a commitment to lend money to crisis countries if necessary. And suddenly the crisis was over, even though the bank never did end up doing any lending.

Something similar happened here this past spring. For a few weeks in March and April, as investors panicked over the pandemic, America teetered on the edge of a major financial crisis. But the Fed, backstopped by the Treasury, stepped up with new programs offering to buy assets like corporate bonds and municipal debt. In the end, not much of the money was used — but the assurance that the money was there if needed stabilized the markets, and the crisis faded away.

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So far, so good. But in case you haven’t noticed, the pandemic is back with a vengeance; hospitalizations are already much higher than they were in the spring, and rising fast.

Maybe the new coronavirus surge won’t provoke a second financial crisis — after all, we now know that a vaccine is on the way. But the risk of crisis hasn’t gone away, and it’s just foolish to take away the tools we might need to fight such a crisis.

Mnuchin’s claim that the money is no longer needed makes no sense, and it’s not clear whether his successor will be easily able to undo his actions. Given everything else that’s happening, it’s hard to see Mnuchin’s move as anything but an act of vandalism, an attempt to increase the odds of disaster under Trump’s successor.

The thing is, until this latest move, it looked as if Mnuchin might be one of the few officials who managed to emerge from their service under Trump without completely destroying their reputations. Well, scratch that: He’s joined the ranks of Trump loyalists determined to trash the nation on their way out the door.


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1:04 PM 11/16/2020 – My Comment: The main issue is the Counterintelligence investigations of Donald Trump and his circles which are not even mentioned in this op-ed. We have to think and talk about it, it is too big to be ignored or omitted. M.N.

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from The Trump Investigations – Review Of News And Opinions – Blog by Michael Novakhov.


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Michelle Goldberg: The post-presidency of a con man

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Mike Nova 2 · Michelle Goldberg: The post-presidency of a con man

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My Comment: The main issue is the Counterintelligence investigations of Donald Trump and his circles which are not even mentioned in this op-ed. 

We have to think and talk about it, it is too big to be ignored or omitted. M.N.


Michael_Novakhov
shared this story
.

 

 

It’s hard to tell whether Donald Trump is attempting a coup or throwing a tantrum.

Crying voter fraud, his administration has refused to begin a presidential transition despite his decisive electoral defeat. Some Republicans have floated the idea of getting legislatures in states that Joe Biden won to disregard vote totals and instead appoint pro-Trump electors to the Electoral College. The president has decapitated the Pentagon, putting fanatical loyalists in some of its highest ranks. Anthony Tata, who called Barack Obama a “terrorist leader” and tweeted a lurid fantasy about the execution of former CIA Director John Brennan, is now the Pentagon’s policy chief. This is all supremely alarming.

But there’s cause for comfort, of a sort, in signs that the president is preparing for life outside the White House in exactly the way one would expect — by initiating new grifts. Trump has been sending out frantic fundraising requests to “defend the election,” but as The New York Times reports, most of the money is actually going to a political action committee, Save America, that “will be used to underwrite Trump’s post-presidential activities.” Axios reports that Trump is considering starting a digital media company to undermine Fox News, which he now regards as disloyal.

These moves suggest that while Trump may be willing to torch American democracy to salve his wounded ego, at least part of him is getting ready to leave office.

When he finally does, some political observers and Republican professionals assume he’ll remain a political kingmaker, and will be a favorite for the party’s nomination in 2024. The Times reported, “Allies imagined other Republicans making a pilgrimage to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida seeking his blessing.” Sen. Marco Rubio told The Daily Beast’s Sam Brodey, “If he runs in 2024, he’ll certainly be the front-runner, and then he’ll probably be the nominee.”

Maybe. There’s no doubt that Trump has a cultlike hold on his millions of worshippers, and a unique ability to command public attention. But there are reasons to think that when he is finally ejected from the White House, he will become a significantly diminished figure.

Once Trump is no longer president, he is likely to be consumed by lawsuits and criminal investigations. Hundreds of millions of dollars in debt will come due. Lobbyists and foreign dignitaries won’t have much of a reason to patronize Mar-a-Lago or his Washington hotel. Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch could complete the transition from Trump’s enabler to his enemy. And, after four years of cartoonish self-abasement, Republicans with presidential aspirations will have an incentive to help take him down.

“His whole life he’s been involved in a bunch of litigation,” said superstar liberal attorney Roberta Kaplan. But post-presidency, “I have to assume that, given the amount of civil litigation and potential criminal exposure, it’s going to be at a completely new dimension.”

Kaplan is pursuing three high-profile lawsuits against Trump, including writer E. Jean Carroll’s defamation case. Carroll, you might remember, accused Trump of raping her in a department store dressing room during the 1990s. Trump called her a liar, and she’s suing him for damaging her reputation.

Under Attorney General Bill Barr, the Department of Justice has tried to shut down the suit, arguing that Trump was acting in his official capacity when he said Carroll had made up the story to sell books. In October a judge rejected the department’s theory, but had Trump been reelected, Kaplan expected an appeal.

Once Biden is president, Kaplan told me, “It’s hard for me to imagine that the DOJ won’t change its position.” So the case is likely to proceed. Kaplan expects it to go into discovery shortly after Biden’s inauguration. She anticipates deposing Trump and collecting his DNA to compare with male DNA found on the dress Carroll was wearing at the time of the alleged attack.

If Kaplan and Carroll prevail at trial, it would be a high-profile legal validation of Carroll’s claims. Her suit has not, so far, been a major news story — there’s too much else going on. But a verdict in her favor could be the #MeToo version of the civil judgment against O.J. Simpson — not justice, exactly, but a powerful rejection of impunity.

Carroll’s suit is not the only one that could force Trump to answer for his predatory history with women. The former “Apprentice” contestant Summer Zervos, who says Trump groped and kissed her against her will, is, like Carroll, suing for defamation because Trump called her a liar. (Her lawyer is Beth Wilkinson, who defended Brett Kavanaugh when he was accused of sexual assault during his Supreme Court confirmation fight.)

In addition to Carroll, Kaplan is representing Mary Trump, the president’s niece, who is suing Trump, his sister and his late brother Robert’s estate for fraud and civil conspiracy, saying they cheated her out of an inheritance. And she’s representing a group of people who are suing Trump and his three oldest children for enticing them to invest in an alleged pyramid scheme, run by a telecommunications company called ACN, which sold clunky videophones.

The plaintiffs are poor and working class, including a hospice caregiver who paid thousands of dollars to ACN because she trusted Trump’s fulsome endorsements, having no idea that ACN was paying Trump millions. As with the other suits, there is obviously no guarantee of success. But Trump’s alleged involvement in a multilevel marketing scheme that traded on a false image of his business acumen will be a minor subplot over the next few years.

It’s too much to expect any sudden exposure of Trump. There will be no cathartic moment when everyone realizes that the emperor was always naked. But the question isn’t whether Trump’s support will evaporate. It’s whether it will erode, especially once he loses the ability to make Republican dreams come true.

Besides, the threats to Trump are not only to his reputation, such as it is. In Bob Woodward’s book “Fear,” he wrote that Trump’s former lawyer John Dowd implored the president not to testify in Robert Mueller’s probe because he believed him to be an inveterate liar. (Dowd has denied this.) Should Trump face depositions in these civil cases, however, he’ll have no choice about submitting to interviews.

Andrew Weissmann, Mueller’s former deputy, told me he expects Trump to pardon himself for any federal crimes he might have committed. That would mean that even if a Biden Department of Justice wanted to take the extraordinary step of prosecuting a former president, it would also have to litigate the constitutionality of self-pardons, a complicated, time-consuming process.

But he might face state charges that he can’t pardon his way out of. New York state Attorney General Letitia James has a civil investigation into possible financial chicanery by the Trump Organization. Trump is under criminal investigation by Manhattan’s district attorney, Cyrus Vance. While the scope of the inquiry is unknown, his office’s filings suggest Vance could be looking at tax fraud, insurance fraud and falsification of business records.

The “Manhattan DA’s office is a really good office, and they’ve done a lot of white-collar cases,” said Weissmann. “If they were to prove — this is now hypothetical — but if they were to prove tens of millions of dollars in tax fraud or bank fraud, people go to jail for that.”

Let’s say Trump, ever the escape artist, avoids prison, setting himself up as the warlord of MAGA-world at Mar-a-Lago. His post-presidency still won’t be easy. As The Times has reported, he’s personally on the hook for $421 million in debt, most of it coming due in the next four years. If a long fight with the IRS goes against him, he could owe at least $100 million more.

“Trump still has assets to sell,” The Times reported. “But doing so could take its own toll, both financial and to Trump’s desire to always be seen as a winner.”

Trump is already trying to profit off his avid base, and he will surely continue. But it’s an open question whether, without the intoxicating aura of presidential power, he can sustain their devotion. There are several examples of once-formidable right-wing leaders reduced to footnotes after leaving office.

As Republican House majority leader, Tom DeLay was frequently described as the most powerful man in Congress. Then, in 2005, he was indicted on a charge of campaign money laundering. Though his 2010 conviction was eventually overturned on appeal, the last time he had any significant public profile was when he appeared on “Dancing With the Stars” in 2009.

Sarah Palin, too, was once a Republican icon; in many ways she presaged Trump. “Win or Lose, Many See Palin as Future of Party,” said a New York Times headline just before the 2008 election. It quoted right-wing activist Brent Bozell: “Conservatives have been looking for leadership, and she has proved that she can electrify the grassroots like few people have in the last 20 years.”

But since resigning as Alaska’s governor in 2009, Palin has lost her luster. Once a likely presidential prospect, she recently made headlines for wearing a pink and purple bear costume on the Fox reality show “The Masked Singer.”

Trump is in for years of scandals and humiliations. We will doubtlessly find out more about official misdeeds he tried to keep secret as president. Republicans who hope to succeed him will have reason to start painting him as a loser instead of a savior. He’ll have to devote much of his energy to trying to stay out of prison.

After all that, could he be back in 2024? Of course. Trump is, if nothing else, relentless. But this election was just the latest reminder that he is far from invincible. When he is no longer in office, there will be many more.

Michelle Goldberg is an Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times.


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