Each day at just after midnight Eastern, a post like this one is created for contributors and readers of this site to upload news links and video links on the issues that concern this site. Most notably, Islam and its effects on Classical Civilization, and various forms of leftism from Soviet era communism, to postmodernism and all the flavours of galloping statism and totalitarianism such as Nazism and Fascism which are increasingly snuffing out the classical liberalism which created our near, miraculous civilization the West has been building since the time of Socrates.
This document was written around the time this site was created, for those who wish to understand what this site is about. And while our understanding of the world and events has grown since then, the basic ideas remain sound and true to the purpose.
So please post all links, thoughts and ideas that you feel will benefit the readers of this site to the comments under this post each day. And thank you all for your contributions.
This is the new Samizdat. We must use it while we can.

OK – this looks like a departure from the focus of this site, but, hear me out: it is a glimmer of hope, a tip of a GOOD iceberg. The following ‘reaction’ videos are showing that cracks are forming in educational propaganda machine used to brainwash young people.
I offer just 3 of many, many videos of this type. They serve a double purpose: to warm your heart that young people are indeed beginning to wake up to the disinformation and systemic brainwashing they had been subjected to, and, with the summer vacation time coming up, they are great videos to share with friends and family to introduce them to some of these concepts through the eyes of young people of colour and thus in a way that might not come across as preachy or patronizing but could be more acceptable as a first eye opener.
First video: a clearly really smart Engineering student watches a Prager U video by a black history professor that lays out the facts on the differences between the Republican and Democrat parties. [Aside – this smart kid recently discovered Thomas Sowell and has a lot of good reaction videos to watching his audiobook clips and it is a pleasure to watch the blinders falling off.]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzD0ByU6-XI
Same kid reacts to Ben Shapiro debunking ‘systemic racism’:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FB36Nlf5zxQ
And for a good measure, here is a young man’s reaction video to Judge Joe Brown debunking stories of Donald Trump’s racism:
Feed this cringe directly into my veins. Ukraine is now producing war propaganda in the style of Bollywood dance videos.
https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/1667518772947853312
“Merck emails from 1999 showed company execs complaining about doctors who disliked using Vioxx. One email said: ‘We may need to seek them out and destroy them where they live’”
https://twitter.com/thechiefnerd/status/1667570805570453504?s=46&t=YEcs8gX-WCSlHoUxOLbJvQ
[Full disclosure: I am a Vioxx fan and happily accepted all the dangers of taking it to get the benefits (before turning 50, of course, which is where the curve really changes) because it truly was a drug that gave me my life back, even if for just the little while I could access it. But, my benefits from it do not have anything to do with the tactics of the of Big Pharma, and those are not OK under any circumstances.]
Judicial Watch: Clinton Sock Drawer Audio Tape Case Exonerates Pres. Trump
A decade old legal case that could exonerate former President Donald Trump has been buried by legacy media.
“[Special counsel] Jack Smith is terrified of the only standing legal case decision from a court concerning the Presidential Records Act,” said Chris Farrell, Director of Investigations at Judicial Watch.
The case Farrell is referring to is titled Judicial Watch v. National Archives and Records Administration – also known as the “Clinton sock drawer” case. Former President Bill Clinton created White House audio tapes with historian Taylor Branch and stored them in his sock drawer. Judicial Watch sued to obtain access to the tapes and lost.
“He took them from the White House with him into private life,” said Farrell. “There’s classified material on those tapes and arguably it’s the sort of running stream of consciousness record of Bill Clinton’s presidency. Pretty important stuff.”
Special counsel Jack Smith is currently investigating the 45th president for his handling of classified documents since departing the White House. But Farrell says the ruling in this specific case from 2012 exonerates Trump from any alleged wrongdoing.
“Amy Berman Jackson, the judge presiding on that case, said a couple of very important things,” said Farrell. “That the president had an absolute, unreviewable right to take any records or documents that he wants when he leaves office. “
“No one can come back and second guess or double think or ask questions about what the president elects to take with him,” Farrell continued.
https://www.oann.com/newsroom/judicial-watch-clinton-sock-drawer-audio-tape-case-exonerates-pres-trump/
Dinesh D’souza:
Why I Think the United States Was Behind the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline Blow-Up
Let’s Talk COVID Vaccine Injury – Interview with Dr. William Makis M.D.
Medical Truth Podcast – 26 days ago
https://rumble.com/v2nzxic-lets-talk-covid-vaccine-injury-interview-with-dr.-william-makis-m.d..html
Burning books is bad, but I would burn just one word if I had the chance. This would be the word “STUPID”. I would remove this word from the lexicon so that it could no longer provide plausible deniability to our politicians, doctors, bureaucrats, police, etc.
Understanding the minutiae of what we have experienced over the last few years is impossible at this stage. Understanding the machinery, however, is what we are succeeding in doing with the help of blogs like VTB. Know that you are a menace, dear VTB readership. A beautiful menace.
You are learning that we are in an Aspen forest. Every tree shares the same revolutionary root. Each tree offers a distraction from the thing we are not supposed to comprehend, and each tree is meant to divide us. This may be the most counter-revolutionary concept there is–that the Uke war, the Covid-19 disaster, climate change, transgenderism, CBDCs, all the rest and whatever else is to come, has been planned by clever people over multiple generations.
Few interviews stand out like this one. Dissident professor of propaganda Mark Crispin Miller speaks for a short 1 hr 7 min:
https://usawatchdog.com/cv19-a-propaganda-masterpiece-mark-crispin-miller/
@ Johnnyu
“all the rest and whatever else is to come, has been planned by clever people over multiple generations”
Absolutely.
And they’ve built a sophisticated totalitarian machinery by which they now pretty much run the whole world. But nobody on our side ever described the functionality of that machinery in its entirety. We have no comprehensive and detailed description of their “engine” (only parts of it) — yet its overall structure is much more complex than, say, that of an airplane. We’re just reacting to the latest moves of their “vehicle(s)”, at best — even those of us that are somewhat in the know.
In the meantime 99.9% of the populace don’t have the slightest idea of the takeover that’s been taking place…let alone its machinery / wea_ponry / infrastructure / strategy / tactics/ goals.
Yes, HtG, spot on.
His substack:
https://substack.com/@markcrispinmiller1
Johnny, thank you for posting this. Mark Crispin Miller is just one more person who has been ostracized by the evil bastards like Gates. Why they just don’t publicly tar and feather this man ………. Wake all you brain dead, collaborators. Keep list sports fans, keep lists of all the brainwashed in your communities, show no mercy.
George Soros Hands Over Control To His Son Alexander
https://www.easternherald.com/2023/06/11/george-soros-hands-over-control-of-his-financial-empire-to-his-son-alexander/
… “Soros” was never a person, it was always a front group.
Stabbing of peace in France. Although, apparently the stabby Syrian was a Christian.
June 11, 2023 Children Improving After Stabbing Attack In France, Suspect Charged With Attempted Murder
https://dailycaller.com/2023/06/11/syrian-refugee-attempted-murder-knife-attack-children-france/
The man accused of stabbing four young children at a park in France Thursday is facing multiple charges, including attempted murder, prosecutors stated Saturday.
An unnamed 31-year-old Syrian refugee accused of stabbing four children appeared before judges in France June 10 where he was charged with attempted murder and armed resistance, regional prosecutor Line Bonnet-Mathis told the Associated Press. After the suspect was taken into custody, he reportedly refused to speak with investigators but a psychiatric evaluation determined he was fit to face charges, the outlet stated.
The horrific assault unfolded Thursday at a playground in Lake Annecy, a town located in the French Alps. For reasons still unknown, the suspect entered the playground armed with a knife and began stabbing children and adults until he was chased away from the scene by a 24-year-old man — a Catholic pilgrim named Henri — since lauded by the French media as the “hero with a backpack.”
The children, ranging in age from 22 months to three-years-old, were all critically injured in the attack but have improved after undergoing surgery, the AP reported. One adult, a Portuguese man who was critically injured after attempting to help detain the suspect, is regaining consciousness and believed to be “out of danger,” Portugal’s foreign ministry stated, according to the AP.
Law enforcement officials learned the suspect has permanent residency in Sweden, where his three-year-old daughter is living, but was denied citizenship in there reportedly because he once served in the Syrian Army, the AP reported. The suspect applied for asylum in France in 2022 but that request was denied a few days prior to the attack because he had already been granted asylum in Sweden, the AP reported.
While investigators are still attempting to determine a motive for the attack, witnesses told investigators the suspect mentioned his daughter, his wife and Jesus Christ during the attack, the outlet reported.
VIDEO
June 8, 2023 Knife-Wielding Asylum Seeker Reportedly Injures Four Young Children In Horrific Playground Attack
https://dailycaller.com/2023/06/08/france-annecy-playground-knife-attack/
[..]
Horrific video footage appears to show the attacker holding a large knife and running through the playground stabbing at people as one woman can be heard screaming. Video appears to show the man try to slash a young child in a stroller as a woman attempts to defend the child. He then seemingly begins to walk out of the playground slowly before a bystander appears to start chasing him as the video ends.
[..]
Children who were stabbed in France no longer in life-threatening condition as suspect is charged
https://apnews.com/article/france-stabbing-children-annecy-suspect-charges-5ac90d9659c1ea0786016025edfe9dbb
Four young children stabbed in a playground in the French Alps are no longer in life-threatening condition but remain hospitalized, the regional prosecutor said Saturday, as the suspected attacker was handed preliminary charges of attempted murder.
The victims came from multiple countries, and the impact from the unusually savage and incomprehensible attack Thursday reverberated across France and beyond. The children who were stabbed, between 22 months and 3 years old, were in hospitals in France and Switzerland.
The suspect, a 31-year-old Syrian refugee with permanent Swedish residency, has a 3-year-old daughter living in Sweden, regional prosecutor Line Bonnet-Mathis told reporters Saturday. Witnesses told investigators that the suspect mentioned his daughter, his wife and Jesus Christ during the attack Thursday targeting a playground in the lakeside town of Annecy.
Police detained the suspect in the park in the town of Annecy after bystanders — notably, a Catholic pilgrim who repeatedly swung at the attacker with his backpack — sought to deter him.
The suspected attacker, whose name was not released, was presented to investigating judges in Annecy on Saturday and given charges of attempted murder and armed resistance, Bonnet-Mathis said. He is in custody pending further investigation.
The suspect refused to talk to investigators, and was examined by a psychiatrist and other doctors who deemed him fit to face charges, the prosecutor said. She said that the motive remained unclear, but it didn’t appear to be terrorism-related.
The suspected attacker wore a cross and carried two Christian images with him at the time of the attack, the prosecutor said. He also had 480 euros in cash with him and a Swedish driver’s license, and had been sleeping in the common area of an Annecy apartment building.
He had traveled from Sweden to Italy and Switzerland before coming to France last October, and French police are coordinating with colleagues in those countries to learn more about his trajectory, said Damien Delaby, director of the regional judicial police.
The child victims were two French 2-year-old cousins, a boy and a girl, who were in the playground with their grandmother when the assailant appeared; a British 3-year-old girl visiting Annecy with her parents; and a 22-month-old Dutch girl, according to the prosecutor.
French President Emmanuel Macron visited the victims and their families, first responders and witnesses Friday. Macron said doctors were “very confident” about the conditions of the two cousins, who were the most critically injured.
The wounded British girl “is awake, she’s watching television,” Macron added. The Dutch girl also has improved, and a critically injured adult — who was both knifed and wounded by a shot that police fired as they detained the suspected attacker — is regaining consciousness, Macron said.
The seriously injured adult, a Portuguese man, was wounded trying to stop the attacker from fleeing police. Portugal’s foreign ministry said he is “now out of danger.”
In a statement Saturday, Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa thanked the man, Manuel Ponte, for his bravery.
The second injured adult was discharged from a hospital, his left elbow bandaged.
The pilgrim dubbed “the hero with the backpack,” a 24-year-old Frenchman named Henri, is on a walking and hitchhiking tour of France’s cathedrals,. He told French broadcaster BFMTV that he’d been setting off to another abbey when the horror unfolded in front of him. The attacker slashed at him, but Henri held his ground and used a weighty backpack he was carrying to swing at the assailant.
Henri’s father told The Associated Press that his son “told me that the Syrian was incoherent, saying lots of strange things in different languages, invoking his father, his mother, all the Gods.”
The suspect’s profile fueled renewed criticism from far-right and conservative politicians about French migration policies. But authorities noted that the suspect entered France legally, because he has permanent residency status in Sweden. Sweden and France are both members of the EU and Europe’s border-free travel zone.
He applied for citizenship in Sweden in 2017 and 2018 but was denied, according to the Swedish Migration Agency. Sweden’s TV4 television, citing the citizenship refusal document, reported that he was denied because he had served in the Syrian army.
He applied for asylum in France last year and was refused a few days before the attack, on the grounds that he had already won asylum in Sweden in 2013, the French interior minister said.
Annecy is planning a public gathering at the site of the attack on Sunday in support of the victims.
‘Hero With A Backpack’: France Lauds Man Who Intervened To Save Children Amidst Stabbing Attack
https://dailycaller.com/2023/06/09/henri-hero-backpack-saved-children-france/
REVEALED: Merrick Garland and Jack Smith Used Linguistic Tricks to Indict President Trump on Junk Documents Charges
By Jim Hoft Jun. 11, 2023 7:45 am256 Comments
The more you learn, the more you detest these lawless thugs.
On Saturday, The Conservative Treehouse disclosed how Merrick Garland and Jack Smith used a linguistic trick to indict President Trump on junk documents charges.
It’s well known that Merrick Garland is a serial liar and has committed perjury in front of the US Congress without consequence.
Jack Smith, the far left partisan who Garland appointed as Special Counsel, has a disturbingly lawless career. Smith had one case overturned by the Supreme Court for lying and withholding evidence. Smith was an instrumental player in the IRS conservative targeting scandal before the 2012 election.
And like in many federal jobs, the more Jack Smith lied and cheated the further he advanced.
And it appears Jack Smith is up to his old tricks.
Via the Conservative Treehouse.
Once you understand how, you then understand one of the most overlooked nonsensical aspects to the insufferable DOJ and FBI case that has been pushed in the media for the past year.
The indictment accuses President Trump of withholding documents containing “classified markings,” a very specifically deployed obtuse wording intended to create the implication of something nefarious where nothing nefarious exists. It is entirely possible for a person, any person, especially a person who follows the news, to possess documents containing “classified markings.”
There is a big difference between a classified document and a document containing classified markings. As an example, anyone who has looked at the Carter Page FISA application, made public in July 2018, has reviewed a document containing “classified markings.” When a document is declassified, they do not remove the markings.
You might think this is a one-off use of the “documents with classification markings” lingo, but it’s not. This language is the underpinning of the entire DOJ/FBI framework that predicated the raid on Mar-a-Lago. Specifically, neither NARA nor the DOJ-NSD requested President Trump or his team to return Classified Documents. The DOJ demanded the return of any documents that contained “classified markings.”
Read the rest here.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/06/revealed-merrick-garland-jack-smith-used-linguistic-trick/
Beef Company CEO: “The Climate Change Argument Against Cows Is Garbage and We Will Not Comply”
The push to replace real beef with other forms of protein has been ramping up in recent weeks. The powers-that-be want us to stop eating steaks and instead eat cricket burgers or lab-grown meat replacements as our protein. Ireland is even considering culling 200,000 cows to meet their climate change virtue signaling goals.
But their climate change argument is patently false. Recent studies have shown growing meat in a lab is actually as much as 25-times worse for the environment than producing the same amount of real beef. Corporate media is barely reporting on it, but they’ve been forced to mention it over the past couple of weeks thanks to the persistence of those championing the truth.
One such champion is Dr. Joseph Mercola who recently noted:
While the fake meat industry is being touted as an environmentally friendly and sustainable way to feed the world, the true intent is to recreate the kind of global control that Monsanto and others achieved through patented GMO seed development. In the end, lab-created meats are worse for the environment than livestock and will undoubtedly deteriorate human health to boot, just like GMO grains have.
Dr. Mercola also said, “Each kilo of cultured meat produces anywhere from 542 pounds (246 kilos) to 3,325 pounds (1,508 kg) of carbon dioxide emissions, making the climate impact of cultured meat four to 25 times greater than that of conventional beef.”
Dr. Peter McCullough: Understand Spike Shedding Before It’s Too Late
Jason Nelson, CEO of freeze-dried food company Whole Cows, has focused his team on producing as much shelf-stable all-American beef as they can have slaughtered. It is his belief that beef cattle will be systematically removed from the American food supply in the coming years and even months with attacks from multiple angles (plus, ordering through this link and the links below benefits Gateway Pundit). The climate change argument is only one of them.
“They prey on the ignorance of the average mainstream media watcher who nods along as they’re being told cow farts will kill them,” Nelson said. “It’s patently ludicrous but they need something shocking in order to get people to comply when they try to outlaw real meat. And they will. They’re already trying to do it.”
Click here to see all that Whole Cows has to offer!
“The day will come when they’ll ask my company to replace our real beef from all-American cows with their version of bovine protein,” Nelson continued. “I’ve already told everyone who works for me that we’ll shut it down before we freeze dry a single sliver of lab-grown fake meat.”
As Dr. Mercola and Nelson have said, the climate change reasoning for going after cows is just an excuse for the powers-that-be to exercise control over the people. As Henry Kissinger famously said, “Who controls the food supply controls the people.”
Beef has been readily available and relatively inexpensive for decades. Villainizing cows as culprits in their climate change hoax is diabolical, but it’s also effective. Cities across the nation, invariably run by Democrats, are looking into limiting the amount of beef that can be sold, bought, and consumed.
“This isn’t just some ideological crusade,” Nelson said. “We launched this company last year because we saw the writing on the wall and knew they’d try to make Americans eat bugs or pseudo-meat or something worse. I didn’t serve this nation to then watch it implode over bald-faced lies.”
Nelson, a former member of both the U.S. Army and U.S. Marines, resigned in 2021 due to the Covid-19 vaccine mandate. He then ran for Congress against RINO Pete Sessions in 2022, losing in the primaries.
“We’re proud of our product,” he said. “As far as we know we’re the only company in America that offers freeze dried Ribeye, NY Strip, Tenderloin, and Sirloin that’s shelf-stable for over a decade. Other prepper food companies sell ‘beef crumbles’ and cow scraps they buy for cheap that barely passes as food. I’d almost rather eat bugs. Almost.”
Visit Whole Cows by clicking here – use promo code “TGP15” for 15% off your purchase from this veteran-owned, America First company.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/06/beef-company-ceo-climate-change-argument-against-cows/
Southern Poverty Law Center Director Who Added Conservative Parent Organizations to “Hate Group Map” Met With Biden Counterterrorism Officials
By Margaret Flavin Jun. 11, 2023 10:15 am28 Comments
Image: SPLA 2022 “Hate Map”
Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) director Susan Corke recently added conservative parent organizations to the SPLC “hate map.” White House visitor logs reveal Corke met with senior Biden officials earlier this year.
Included alongside neo-Nazis and the KKK as “extremist hate groups” are Moms for Liberty, Parents Defending Education and other parent organizations.
The Washington Free Beacon obtained White House visitor logs showing Corke visited the White House on January 6, 2023, and met with National Security Council counterterrorism director John Picarelli. Researchers from American University, who work with SPLC, were also present.
The Washington Free Beacon reports:
The SPLC, which itself has faced accusations that it harbors a “systemic culture of racism,” classified the pro-parent organizations as “anti-government groups.” Corke asserted that the parents’ groups serve as the “new battlefront vs inclusivity in schools” and “are rooted in age-old white supremacy.”
While it is unclear what Corke discussed in the White House visit, the meeting was held amid growing pressure on the Biden administration to track parents upset by schools’ coronavirus policies and left-wing classroom curricula. Moms for Liberty and Parents Defending Education have emerged as the leading grassroots groups in the movement against mask mandates at schools and curricula that promote critical race theory and transgender issues.
SPLC’s “Year in Hate and Extremism” report claims:
“Schools, especially, have been on the receiving end of ramped-up and coordinated hard-right attacks, frequently through the guise of ‘parents’ rights’ groups.”
“These groups were, in part, spurred by the right-wing backlash to COVID-19 public safety measures in schools. But they have grown into an anti-student inclusion movement that targets any inclusive curriculum that contains discussions of race, discrimination and LGBTQ identities.”
“At the forefront of this mobilization is Moms for Liberty, a Florida-based group with vast connections to the GOP that this year the SPLC designated as an extremist group. They can be spotted at school board meetings across the country wearing shirts and carrying signs that declare, ‘We do NOT CO-PARENT with the GOVERNMENT.’”
The Gateway Pundit previously reported on documents from FBI whistleblowers revealing the FBI targeted parents who protested CRT and Covid rules, including a mom from “Moms for Liberty.”
The coordination between the Biden Administration and organizations targeting parents is nothing new. In 2021, the National School Boards Association sent a letter to Biden begging him to use federal law enforcement agencies against parents and investigate them for “domestic terrorism and hate crime threats.”
Attorney General Merrick Garland admitted his targeting of parents and classifying parent’s as “domestic terrorists” was not based on facts but on the NSBA letter.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/06/southern-poverty-law-center-director-who-added-conservative/
Trump Appointee Will Remain Judge in Documents Case, Clerk Says
June 10, 2023
The criminal case against President Donald J. Trump over his hoarding of classified documents was randomly assigned to Judge Aileen M. Cannon, a court official for the Southern District of Florida said on Saturday.
The chief clerk of the federal court system there, Angela E. Noble, also confirmed that Judge Cannon would continue to oversee the case unless she recused herself The news of Judge Cannon’s assignment raised eyebrows because of her role in an earlier lawsuit filed by Mr. Trump challenging the F.B.I.’s search of his Florida club and estate, Mar-a-Lago. In issuing a series of rulings favorable to him, Judge Cannon, a Trump appointee, effectively disrupted the investigation until a conservative appeals court ruled she never had legitimate legal authority to intervene.
Under the district court’s procedures, new cases are randomly delegated to a judge who sits in the division where the matter arose or a neighboring one, even if it relates to a previous case. That Judge Cannon is handling Mr. Trump’s criminal indictment elicited the question of how that had come to be.
Asked over email whether normal procedures were followed and Judge Cannon’s assignment was random, Ms. Noble wrote: “Normal procedures were followed.”
Mar-a-Lago is in the West Palm Beach division
Germany to ban knives on public transport
https://www.tellerreport.com/news/2023-06-11-nancy-faeser-wants-to-propose-a-ban-on-knives-on-trains-and-buses-to-countries.S1ZooLfQDn.html
It’s easy to see where this goes. How long before the kind of totalitarian “security checks” you have to go through at airports will spread to railway stations and eventually EVERYWHERE? That was one goal of the invasion of Europe with hostile cultures all along. Total surveillance & control. Problem-reaction-solution.
Trump case assigned to judge who faced criticism over her ruling in his favor in Mar-a-Lago search
By MEG KINNARD, CURT ANDERSON and ERIC TUCKER
June 9, 2023 GMT
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — The historic federal criminal case against former President Donald Trump has been assigned to a judge he appointed who faced blistering criticism over her decision to grant his request for an independent arbiter to review documents obtained during an FBI search of his Florida estate.
A person familiar with the development confirmed Friday that the case was assigned to Judge Aileen Cannon, a former federal prosecutor who was nominated to the bench by Trump in 2020 and sits in Fort Pierce, about an hour’s drive north of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence.
The indictment makes Trump the first former president in U.S. history to be charged with federal crimes. Trump said he has been ordered to appear in court in Miami on Tuesday.
Trump is facing 37 felony counts related to the mishandling of classified documents, according to an indictment unsealed Friday that alleges that he improperly shared a Pentagon “plan of attack” and a classified map related to a military operation.
https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fapnews.com%2Farticle%2Fwho-is-aileen-cannon-trump-judge-52964c2098546f8ade989b1555e44aae
TRUMP INDICTMENT
Trump vows to stay in the race even if convicted
“I’ll never leave,” he tells POLITICO.
Donald Trump speaks on stage with the top corner of the American flag to his right.
Donald Trump is not legally prohibited from running for president from prison or as a convicted felon. | John Bazemore/AP Photo
By ALEX ISENSTADT
06/10/2023 06:17 PM EDT
Donald Trump vowed Saturday to continue running for president even if he were to be convicted as part of the 37-count federal felony indictment that was issued against him this week.
“I’ll never leave,” Trump said in an interview aboard his plane. “Look, if I would have left, I would have left prior to the original race in 2016. That was a rough one. In theory that was not doable.”
Trump is not legally prohibited from running for president from prison or as a convicted felon. But such a bid would nevertheless provide a massive stress test for the country’s political and legal systems.
The former president leveled harsh criticisms at special counsel Jack Smith and argued that the case against him was politically motivated and flimsy. “These are thugs and degenerates who are after me,” he said.
Trump predicted he would not be convicted and said he did not anticipate taking a plea deal, though he left open the possibility of doing so “where they pay me some damages.”
He sidestepped the possibility that he would pardon himself should he win the presidency in 2024. “I don’t think I’ll ever have to,” Trump said. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”
While Trump said campaign fundraising had skyrocketed since the indictment was issued, he conceded it was an unwelcome development.
“Nobody wants to be indicted,” said Trump. “I don’t care that my poll numbers went up by a lot. I don’t want to be indicted. I’ve never been indicted. I went through my whole life, now I get indicted every two months. It’s been political.”
He repeatedly invoked the Presidential Records Act to assert he’d done nothing wrong, a vigorously disputed interpretation of law that Trump has offered before.
This image, contained in the indictment against former President Donald Trump, shows boxes of records stored in a bathroom and shower in the Lake Room at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla.
TRUMP INDICTMENT
Trump haphazardly stashed military secrets throughout his home, indictment says
BY KYLE CHENEY AND JOSH GERSTEIN
Trump’s remarks came as he flew between speeches to Republicans in Georgia and North Carolina. The trip came one day after Smith unsealed a 37-count indictment against Trump, including accusations of violating the Espionage Act, retention of classified documents and obstruction of justice. Trump is set to appear in court Tuesday in Miami.
.
Trump’s personal valet, Waltine Nauta, was also charged. Nauta was seen traveling with Trump on Saturday, and the aide followed Trump out of his SUV upon arriving at the Newark, N.J., Airport en route to Georgia.
Trump is also facing an indictment in New York, stemming from allegations that he concealed hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels. He is also under investigation in Georgia over his efforts to pressure officials to overturn the state’s 2020 vote count. Smith is also investigating Trump’s role in instigating the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
‘I’m an innocent man’: Trump responds to classified docs indictment
What role the most recent indictment will play in the GOP presidential primary is not yet clear, though following the New York indictment the former president saw a boost in his poll numbers and fundraising support as Republican voters rallied around him.
Trump’s campaign is looking to replicate the performance, with his team sending out appeals to supporters in hopes of generating small-dollar contributions.
All day Saturday, there were signs that Trump’s staunchest backers were unmoved by the news. Supporters lined the side of the highway running parallel to the runway at the airport in Columbus, Ga., many waving flags and standing atop trucks to get a view of the “Trump”-emblazoned jet touching down. Upon deplaning, he was greeted by a group of supporters on the tarmac, some holding “witch hunt” signs.
At the Georgia state party convention, the crowd was filled with people wearing “Make America Great Again” hats, and some audience members called out “We love you” while the former president was speaking.
In this photo illustration, pages are viewed from the unsealed federal indictment of former U.S. President Donald Trump on June 9, 2023, in Washington, DC.
TRUMP INDICTMENT
The startling, damning details in the Trump indictment
BY JOSH GERSTEIN
Shortly after, Trump made a pit stop at a Waffle House restaurant where he was mobbed by diehard fans — one of whom offered to give the meatloaf-loving ex-president a copy of her mother’s recipe. Then Trump headed to the airport, where he posed for pictures with police officers.
In an indication of the hold Trump maintains over the congressional wing of his party, the former president was joined on the trail by North Carolina Rep. Richard Hudson, a Trump backer who oversees the House GOP campaign arm. Trump was also joined by Marjorie Taylor Greene, a firebrand Georgia congresswoman and loyal ally.
But the classified documents case — and the detailed, 49-page indictment that came with it — is widely seen as far more serious than the New York one, and the former president’s adversaries are hoping that his legal problems will distract him from the campaign.
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/06/10/trump-vows-to-stay-in-the-race-even-if-convicted-00101403
There’s been a whopping 736 Tesla crashes involving Autopilot mode and 17 deaths since 2019, report finds
A new analysis has discovered a high number of crashes involving Tesla vehicles in Autopilot mode.
The Washington Post says it analyzed data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and found that 736 US crashes of vehicles using the driver-assistance technology had occurred since 2019, a lot more than previously reported.
At least 17 people have died in those crashes, the paper says.
Safety expert Missy Cummings, director of the Mason Autonomy and Robotics Center at George Mason University, told the Post that a likely reason for the increase is the expanded use of Tesla’s so-called Full Self Driving technology, which drivers have been beta-testing on city streets.
Safety experts recently told Insider that Tesla’s $15,000 system is falling far short of delivering on the carmaker’s promise of vehicles that can drive themselves, and that the technology is prone to making mistakes.
Tesla did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment. The automaker has said that its automation technology requires that the human driver monitor the vehicle and remain in control at all times.
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https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-crashes-involving-autopilot-mode-soar-since-2019-report-finds-2023-6
“those who didn’t follow the instructions were subjected to public shame, humiliation and workplace retaliation.” … Reminds me of the rona cult…
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/world-news/orgasm-cult-founder-who-dubbed-30173840
“Benedict Biden’s White House for Easter, Veteran’s Day, Christmas . . . and Pride Month” by J.D. Rucker – June 11, 2023
https://thelibertydaily.com/benedict-bidens-white-house-for-easter-veterans-day-christmas-and-pride-month/
White House During Easter
White House During Veterans Day
White House During Christmas
White House During Pride Month
Matt Wallace – June 10, 2023
https://twitter.com/MattWallace888/status/1667720799363510275
“Joe Biden Says People in America Are Being Thrown Out of Restaurants For Being Gay (VIDEO)” by Cristina Laila – June 10, 2023
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/06/joe-biden-says-people-america-are-being-thrown/
President Biden and the First Lady Host a Pride Celebration with Betty Who
The White House – June 10, 2023
Martin, I miss you. Stay well, stay safe and NEVER Submit to their bullshit.
#MeToo !!
Gutfeld: Biden’s border policies are biting this Dem mayor in the a**
Fox News – June 6, 2023
Dr Zhivago comes home.
“There was living space for thirteen families! In this one house!”
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The never-ending story: A new chapter opens in the epic saga of the “Trump Effect”
Hurtling toward judgment day – for someone.
On 4 June 2023, sundance at Conservative Treehouse posted an excellent article ( https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2023/06/04/big-question-and-a-big-coverup-durham-report-brings-sunlight-on-detail-never-released-by-ig-michael-horowitz-about-fbi-targeting-trump/ ) calling out a very important feature of the sequential efforts to take down Trump in Russiagate, Impeachment 1, and Impeachment 2.
The gist of the matter, linking Russiagate and Impeachment 1, is that after John Carlin left DOJ’s National Security Division just before the first FISA filing for the Carter Page surveillance, his successor was Mary McCord. (I’m assuming these names are familiar to most readers, and for brevity here will not be going into lengthy explanations of who they are. A bit more on Carlin will come in below. CTH has a more extensive summary.)
McCord thus stepped into the FISA request chain of command. Her chief counsel in NSD was Michael Atkison.
And, to keep a long story short, three years later, in 2019, the same Atkison had become the Intelligence Community IG (ICIG), the man who handled the supposed “whistleblower’s” complaint about the Trump-Zelensky phone call that eventually turned into Impeachment 1.
McCord, meanwhile, had ultimately left DOJ, and was working as chief counsel for Adam Schiff and Jerry Nadler, on the Joint House and Judiciary Committee staff formed for the Trump phone call hearings, when Atkison turned the “whistleblower” complaint over to the House.
So the same people at DOJ who handled the FISA request on Page for the DOJ/NSD (signing off on failures to follow procedure and using the bogus Steele dossier, among other misdeeds) were the ones who shopped the Trump-Ukraine complaint into the House impeachment mill in 2019.
Impeachment 1: Democrats walk the articles of impeachment to the Senate in an attempt at pomp, Jan 2020. (Image: YouTube screen grab)
Again, CTH has chapter and verse on all this. Read the original. Go, do it now. I’ll wait.
Here, now, as you’ve just read in the CTH article, is the marker on John Carlin. He was in the U.S. Southern District of New York and one of the principals for the Russian-agents case from 2013 to 2016 in which Carter Page was an “undercover employee” (UCE) for the FBI.
In other words, Carlin knew perfectly well who Page was, and indeed had had an extended law enforcement relationship with him. At sundance says, Carlin had to vacate the FISA chain of command at DOJ to make way for an attempt to misrepresent Page to the FISA Court. If Carlin had had his fingerprints on it and had ever been called to account, that would have taken down not only the request but the whole chain of command as quickly as anything.
Now, hold that thought, along with one more. The McCord-Atkison link, from the Carter Page FISA requests to Impeachment 1 in 2019, clarifies an important point we’ve been seeing in neon all along. But it’s one that doesn’t always get enough emphasis. It’s that this entire thing was the work of the same institutions, and in many cases the same people, and was clearly not a reaction to anything Trump did, but a series of plans developed to simply make up cases against Trump and try to make them stick.
Those two thoughts, held together, remind us that it didn’t all start in May 2016. Carlin, for starters, had to get out of the way for a FISA request on Page in October 2016, at a time when every relevant person in DOJ and FBI knew who Page was because they’d known who he was since at least 2013.
That means they knew who Page was in 2015, before Page joined the Trump campaign.
It also means they knew when Page was in preliminary moves with the Trump campaign, from late December 2015 to early March 2016. The FBI doesn’t just leave a UCE’s extracurricular behavior to chance – especially not a UCE who initially came to the Bureau’s attention as a recruiting target for the Russian agents the FBI was pursuing. Page’s handlers quite certainly knew full well he had an extensive history with Russia and the Russians, that the handlers had had comprehensive insight into it for years, that it had nothing to do with Trump, and that Page was seeking a post with the Trump campaign.
Stefan Halper (L, C-SPAN video and Carter Page (R, YouTube video)
Assuming it’s accurate that New York GOP Chairman Ed Cox is the one who recommended Page to Corey Lewandowski – in the process, forwarding a Page article about improving relations with Russia – the FBI undoubtedly knew about Page’s quest at the same time he launched it. Page got in to see Lewandowski on 12 January 2016, and the FBI would have known about that too. He saw Sam Clovis the same day, and by “early March,” according to the most specific record I can find, Page was accepted as a volunteer advisor to the campaign.
That, and another, more spectacular event in early March, put the DOJ/FBI closure on the Buryakov case on 11 March 2016 (with a guilty plea) in a very interesting light. (See CTH on the Buryakov case; Buryakov was one of the Russian agents Page assisted in the FBI’s investigation of.)
One effect of closing out the Buryakov case with a plea was, signally, ending the need for Page to be in an ongoing UCE relationship with the FBI. Think like DOJ/NSD and the John Carlin issue: you don’t leave red-flag connections lying around for people to ask probing questions about. Get a clean break with Page as soon as feasible.
Target One
Why?
Because you’re going to use Page. But this time, not as a UCE.
Look, in fact, at how quickly an associate of Stefan Halper made contact with Page after Page’s UCE status with the FBI ended. Page was reportedly in UCE status until early May 2016. Shortly thereafter, apparently a matter of just a few weeks, Page was contacted – in late May or early June, by his account – by Halper protégé Steven Schrage about attending the July conference at Cambridge where Page first met Halper. The Russiagate crew put an agent of influence – Halper – on Page just as soon as Page stopped being a UCE. (Signally, again, this occurred within a month of FBI counterintelligence chief Bill Priestap’s hasty visit to London the first week of May 2016.)
But back to that spectacular event in March. It was two days before the 11 March announcement of a guilty plea in the Buryakov case, and alert readers will immediately guess that I refer to the major dust-up at the FBI’s Washington Field Office on 9 March 2016, when NSA chief Vice Admiral Mike Rogers alerted his counterparts and bosses that intelligence contractor employees were gaining unauthorized access to unminimized U.S. person identifying information (USPII).
I’ve observed for years that this was a watershed moment for Russiagate/Spygate. The access that was about to be closed down was of longstanding (I assess it went back to at least 2012, based on intel community records and key IT developments), and was being relied on by a planning group that was already trying to shape ways to “get the goods” on Trump and sabotage his political viability.
The planners instantly knew they’d have to look elsewhere to recreate a form of access that would be similarly useful. As I pointed out in an article back in 2018, 9 March was also just the date on which Rogers forced the break. It’s a virtual certainty there were staffers in multiple agencies – NSA, ODNI, FBI – who knew it was coming, at least some days ahead. So by the period 9-11 March, they’d had some time to think about it.
These points have always made the John Brennan trip to consult with the Russian FSB in Moscow, reported out on 28 March 2016, appear extremely interesting. The trip was never said to have actually occurred on 14 March (although it could have); that was speculation by Russia media. The CIA responded to questions about it on 28 March, but based on known events in Brennan’s schedule, the trip could have been as much as seven days earlier than 14 March.
The brain trust, briefing Congress in 2014. (Image: Defense Intelligence Agency)
What stands out in relief from sundance’s connected dots, however, is the very strong likelihood, based on timing in multiple threads of Russiagate/Spygate, that the FBI was tracking Carter Page and George Papadopoulos (and presumably Michael Flynn as well) from well before their formal debuts with the Trump campaign.
March-April 2016 is looking more and more like the period in which the Russiagate plan, as it was executed over the next year, coalesced.
Target Two
Let’s take a moment to review the timeline on Papadopoulos. Where was he in early March?
He was at the London Center of International Law Practice (LCILP), having recently departed the short-lived Ben Carson campaign and seeking a post with the Trump campaign. According to Sam Clovis’s testimony to the House in 2017, Papadopoulos and the campaign staff had their first direct contact (remotely) on 6 March 2016. That would have been just about the time Carter Page – still a UCE for the FBI – was accepted as a campaign advisor.
In his book Deep State Target, Papadopoulos records hostility and anger that surprised him from his LCILP colleagues, when he told them he was to advise the Trump campaign. One of the colleagues who reacted poorly was Nagi Khalid Idris, LCILP’s founder, whom we’ve met before as a secondary link to the notorious FIFA bribery case to which a number of Spygate characters were connected. (See Deep State Target, first edition hardback of 2019, pp. 35-36 for the summary below.)
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But in spite of his revulsion over Papadopoulos’s prospects with Trump, Idris on 12 March 2016 suddenly invited Papadopoulos to a conference at Link Campus University in Rome on 14 March 2016. Idris also, out of the blue, wanted him to meet British attorney Arvinder Sambei in that interval – the woman who turned out to be a Crown solicitor and the UK liaison to the DOJ and FBI staff at the U.S. embassy.
Papadopoulos accompanied Idris to the conference in Rome on 14 March, and there met Joseph Mifsud, the “Maltese Professor,” for the first time. Mifsud had a professional connection with the LCILP, though he was not an employee.
Ten days later, on 24 March 2016, Mifsud showed up in London with the Russian woman purporting to be Vladimir Putin’s niece. The “Hillary emails” bait was dangled before Papadopoulos on 26 April 2016, and by 10 May 2016 he had been maneuvered into a social outing with Australian High Commissioner Alexander Downer, from which a garbled tale of loose talk about “Hillary emails” later emerged.
Media allegations about that discussion eventually fell apart entirely, but not until after the Papadopoulos-Downer session had been “established” as the supposed basis for opening Crossfire Hurricane in July 2016. We’ve found out since those early days of reconstructing events that this take was way off-base.
Notably, Papadopoulos was approached by Downer (through embassy connections) at the same time Page was leaving his UCE role, and about three or four weeks before Stefan Halper’s academic associate Schrage contacted Page to invite him to the conference at Cambridge. (That Page was apparently still a UCE for the FBI in April places a curious incident in an interesting light. In his book, pp. 52-53, Papadopoulos recounts a call from Page on 5 April – when both of them were on the Trump foreign policy team – in which Page discouraged him from trying to take too far his efforts to arrange a meeting between the campaign and some Russians.)
Even more notably, however, Papadopoulos was hooked up with Mifsud barely a week after joining the Trump campaign, and was confronted with the Russian “niece” of Putin only 10 days after that. That’s some quick action, for an unalerted spy agency from anyone’s stable of thoroughbreds.
As developed in earlier articles, meanwhile, the Mifsud connection crosses paths at multiple points with actors who keep mapping back not to Russia, but through Russia, to Hillary and Bill Clinton. One of those connections, Swiss lawyer Stephan Roh, was linked at fascinating times to a whole saga of uranium geopolitics of which the Clinton connection to Uranium One was just a part. The same uranium-themed connection sprawls all over Russia and Central Asia, involving high-profile Russian oligarchs (see here, here, here, and here).
But the Mifsud connection also has direct relevance to the Link Campus invite for Papadopoulos in March 2016. Just about three weeks before Nagi Idris urged the trip on Papadopoulos, Stephan Roh launched two UK-based companies using a name (“ILS”) connected to some of his other enterprises. They were created as shell companies in the Marshall Islands, and one of them was used to purchase a controlling interest in Link Campus University.
On the same day, 16 February 2016, Roh created another shell company in the Marshall Islands, also registering it in the UK, which eventually changed its name to one almost identical to London Center of International Law Practice. The purpose of the company seemed to be related to an LCILP-linked firm that Joseph Mifsud did have a paid connection with, the London Academy of Diplomacy. That company lay dormant for a while, never increasing or decreasing its capitalization, and ultimately dissolved.
The courtyard entry to Link Campus University’s main building at the Casale San Pio V in Rome. Link Campus video
The odds are overwhelmingly against all these events in and around March 2016 being unconnected. It’s worth noting, of course, that March 2016 is also reportedly when Fusion GPS’s Glenn Simpson made the first overture to Perkins Coie about performing opposition research work on Trump for the 2016 campaign.
But April is the month when another major muscle in the Russiagate plan had its first big, structural jerk.
To summarize the survey so far: the identification of human targets in Carter Page and George Papadopoulos is one principal Russiagate/Spygate thread. Another is the ongoing effort to keep electronic surveillance going, in spite of the 9 March 2016 setback. Those two threads intertwine at Carter Page; Page became the remedy to the surveillance data loss when the USPII spigot was turned off by Admiral Rogers on 18 April 2016.
Readers are welcome to think no one foresaw using Page for that purpose – i.e., FISA bait – as early as March 2016. But that’s really misreading the situation and the pattern the Russiagate crew demonstrated at every step along the wayb>. At no point have we ever uncovered fresh information and discovered that Russiagate was less centrally planned, less prior-envisioned, less persistently thematic, less foreseen or linked to all the same actors than we had imagined.
There’s no way to argue that there aren’t good reasons to proceed analytically as if this was all being centrally developed, from the standpoint of a unified objective. Rather, that analytical approach makes more sense than any other.
The Alfa and the money pot
The other major thread I have in mind is the somewhat sudden announcement (as mused on by industry press), on 22 April 2016, of the DARPA grant that would eventually end up paying for and giving cover to “Alfagate.” This was the “Enhanced Attribution” solicitation that was to fund the Georgia Tech-based group participating in the cyber-narrative attack on Trump, shopped by Rodney Joffe through Michael Sussmann to the federal spy agencies.
Getting that aspect of Alfagate paid for wasn’t a slam-dunk. Money would have to come from somewhere, and it wasn’t going to be the DNC or Hillary. Their fingerprints couldn’t be on it at all. Moving money around for the enterprise would create detection vulnerabilities for the various private actors involved. The DARPA grant was the obvious solution, something controlled by the Obama administration and cloaked in the anodyne appearance of mere institutional research.
Tatooine satellite location in Augusta, Georgia. Image: Georgia Cyber Center (a research partner of Georgia Tech)
And yes, the Enhanced Attribution grant solicitation went up on 22 April 2016. (Which was a heavily freighted time of its own for Russiagate principals like Shawn Henry, Perkins Coie and Marc Elias, Michael Sussmann, and CrowdStrike, among others. See the last link above.)
At a certain point, it becomes not just fatuous but ridiculous to refuse to see a timeline telling us what it’s telling us. With everything confirmed to have links to Russiagate and Spygate, including the use of that DARPA grant, the odds are much better that the grant solicitation was rushed out as one facet of the overall campaign than that it was all just coincidence.
The prior company stake taken by CrowdStrike and Dmitry Alperovitch in the “Enhanced Attribution” concept of cyber-attack analysis makes it even more probable that the DARPA grant, announced about six weeks before Perkins Coie called in CrowdStrike to analyze a Russian cyber-attack on the DNC, was intended to serve a purpose related to Russiagate. (Again, see the last link.)
The DARPA grant appears to have started moving money to the “researchers” of Alfagate in about November 2016. That was after the election, but grant-funded activity is frequently compensated when the funds come in, even if it took place beforehand – and establishing a baseline for such “research” was probably also intended to enable related activity to continue into the next presidential administration. The intrusive harvesting of sensitive IT metadata, in a research setting outside of government spy and law enforcement agencies, would be useful for an invested permanent state no matter who was in the Oval Office.
Even if it was Hillary Clinton.
Motive
The Grand Shenanigans of 2016 were about Trump, yes. But it has become increasingly apparent that they were even more about establishing a toolset for the permanent state that would enable it to intimidate and influence all future elected officeholders.
When the Obama Oval Office had the White House communication systems modernized in 2013-2014, for the first time since the 1970s, and the private company Neustar was contracted to perform DNS resolutions for Oval Office communications, Obama didn’t intend for that arrangement to be ended by the next president. The point was for it to remain in place.
Just as the point of John Brennan’s company TAC (The Analysis Corporation) obtaining database maintenance and analysis contracts at both the FBI and the National Counterterrorism Center in 2008 and 2009 was for the contracts to remain in place. (See also here.) Those contracts (10 years in both cases) made TAC the single employer of a cadre of contract analysts with the same system access to massive amounts of surveillance information on Americans, at both agencies. (As I’ve observed before, the FBI Washington Field Office’s roles would have made it a principal interface with the NCTC on domestic security and counterterrorism intelligence.)
It reaches untenable levels of absurdity to insist that these developments were all coincidence. What their history reveals, rather, is the implementation of a “surveillance state,” one that was largely in place before the 2016 election, and for which some methods were ready to use against Trump at the time, while others were a rush job to set in motion. Getting a DARPA grant that covered the “Alfa Bank-Trump Tower” caper as a “research” effort was one of the latter.
And it was done in April 2016, in the same seven-week period when the surveillance data stream at the FBI became imperiled; Carter Page’s eligibility for FISA exploitation was made possible; first Russiagate contact was made with George Papadopoulos; and Perkins Coie and Fusion GPS set alight the glimmer of the Steele dossier.
Bill Clinton; YouTube. John Brennan, MSNBC video
It has always been important that all of these things happened before the actual contracting of the Steele dossier. We can look further back as well, to, say, January 2016, and the Alexandra Chalupa-Eric Ciaramella thread on Paul Manafort. Quite a few events indicate that it didn’t all start with Hillary and the dossier in May-June 2016. (I continue to estimate with high confidence that the probable meeting of Bill Clinton and John Brennan in Jackson Hole, Wyoming in August 2015 was a key event. The timing and the participants would indicate a consultation on a larger scale than just oppo research for 2016, however.)
One more relatively minor clean-up item before a final sprint through the new Trump indictment.
The Snook factor
The CTH article on 4 June pointed out that Mary McCord’s husband is Sheldon Snook, who from 2014 to 2020 was the special assistant to Chief Justice John Roberts’s counselor, whose office advises the chief justice on, among other things, the management and budget of the Supreme Court. As CTH notes, management of the FISA Court is one of the other things.
Snook’s duties there caused me to wonder exactly when he went to the Supreme Court job, partly because of the timing of Judge Tanya Chutkan’s very unusual appointment by Obama to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The Chutkan appointment sequence was effectively overseen, because of its extraordinary nature, by the office Snook went to at the Supreme Court.
Chutkan assumed her seat in 2014, and readers will be aware that she has been involved in sentencing for numerous J6 defendants, but has also been assigned a startling number of high-profile cases surrounding Russiagate/Spygate, some of which she’s had to be recused from (e.g., two of Fusion GPS’s). She also handled the Maria Butina case, and the Imran Awan case in which Awan got a light slap on the wrist and the whole bizarre Awan episode with the Democrats’ IT system on Capitol Hill went quietly away.
It turns out that from 2002 to 2014, Sheldon Snook performed basically the same functions for the D.C. District Court that he went on to perform for Roberts at the Supreme Court. He made that move at the end of October 2014. Judge Chutkan was nominated by Obama to the D.C. District Court in December 2013, and was seated there after her 4 June 2014 Senate confirmation.
That doesn’t carry any specific meaning about what Sheldon Snook may have been involved in with regard to Chutkan. But it’s informative in light of the intricate, wholly unique administrative maneuvering it took to put Chutkan on that particular court – as well as from the standpoint of the kind of information Mary McCord would have had access to at the D.C. District Court.
Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Wikipedia
One more data point on Snook’s time at the D.C. District Court is worth filing.
This is the AllGov.com description of Snook’s background in the website’s Mary McCord entry: “McCord is married to Sheldon Snook, who also worked for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia [he worked there before he went to the U.S. District Court in 2002. – JE]. In fact, it was McCord who got her husband his job as administrative assistant and court liaison to the public and news media by recommending him to Judge Hogan [the chief of the U.S. District Court for D.C. at the time Snook took the job there. – J.E.]. Snook also served as spokesman for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. He currently works in a similar capacity for the U.S. Supreme Court.”
Note that the FISA Court, while it draws its bench from multiple U.S. district courts, gets most of them from the D.C. District Court, and has a particular relationship with the latter.
Snook had a special and unique role with the FISA Court between 2002 and 2020, and (separately) was at the D.C. District Court when Tanya Chutkan was placed there. There’d be a lot of situational awareness for McCord to have in her back pocket in Snook’s years of service at the D.C. Court.
Again with the assault on Trump
CTH’s article at the beginning of the week was a reminder of the continuity – people, themes, attack profile – of the years-long assault on Donald Trump by a consortium of media and government agencies.
B>The timing of key elements of that ongoing assault, events of unique importance that were concentrated in March (and April) 2016, is a reminder that the precursors of those events take us back even further. When we are looking for the “grand motive” behind Russiagate and Spygate, March is a month in which some illuminating decision wickets give us pointers.
But I don’t think any month in 2016 is our month of months, as regards the grand motive. The theory at this point is ever more solidly that preserving a “surveillance state” capable of overriding the electoral will of the people – a motive that preceded the candidate-sorting of 2015 – is where we have to start. (A very long treatment on that, from 2019, is here. It has held up remarkably well.)
The new indictment of Trump by Special Counsel Jack Smith, a Merrick Garland appointee in DOJ, is a reminder that the same assault is still underway.
On Friday, Paul Sperry reupped an eye-popping article at Real Clear Investigations from August 2022, outlining the number of people with Russiagate/Spygate connections who are not only still at the FBI and DOJ, but have been involved in the “Mar-a-Lago documents” operation. Most of the big-name seniors have moved on. But men like Brian Auten, Alan Kohler (who replaced Bill Priestap at FBI Counterintelligence, and who had worked with British intelligence and Stefan Halper in London), and Jay Bratt, an associate of Russiagate personality David Laufman at DOJ, have figured in the Mar-a-Lago operation.
The Mar-a-Lago op was being run out of the Washington Field Office at the time of last summer’s raid, and Sperry recounts that besides Brian Auten, an agent with connections to both Russiagate and the repression of action on the Hunter Biden laptop, another agent connected with the laptop, Timothy Thibault, was also in the group at the WFO until Christopher Wray moved him, shortly before the raid.
Kash Patel speculated to Sperry at the time that DOJ and FBI could be motivated by Trump’s order in 2020 to declassify documents relating to Crossfire Hurricane, so the American people as well as Congress could see the full scope of what the “justice” agencies had done. Patel is probably right.
Just a few days ago, meanwhile, Lee Smith published an interview with Ambassador Ric Grenell on the tactics used by Jack Smith, now Garland’s special prosecutor, back when he was investigating an alleged Serbian war criminal at The Hague.
Richard Grenell. EWTN News video, YouTube
Lee Smith has done a real service with this interview. Grenell’s account highlights two important aspects of the story: that Jack Smith trumped up charges he could not actually bring in court, much less prove, and that he effectively sabotaged an agreement the U.S. brokered between Serbia and Kosovo by finding a way to keep the alleged war criminal in prison (in the Netherlands) with the threat of new charges.
The new charges didn’t pan out either. But Jack Smith was able to manipulate the system to prevent the Trump administration’s Serb-Kosovar agreement from taking effect, and keep the Serb official in jail.
There have been a number of other dings on Jack Smith’s record. But Lee Smith’s findings highlight Jack Smith’s apparent utility for weaponizing legal proceedings to target individuals and stymie policy outcomes.
Using U.S. government tools to attempt that against Trump has been the pattern since 2016, whether campaign personnel are being put under surveillance, fictional “oppo” research is being injected into law enforcement agencies, special counsels are being appointed when there’s “no there there,” highly classified material is being leaked to the media, specious process crimes are being prosecuted, $700-an-hour lawyer’s briefs are being presented as “whistleblower” complaints, DARPA-funded “research” projects are retroactively giving cover to literal fake-data cyber-capers targeting Trump, the Democratic chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, is spying on the comms activity of the ranking member, Devin Nunes, or all the law enforcement agencies in the Washington National Capital Region are running at least 40 informants inside groups making plans for the 6 January 2021 rally on the Mall, while refusing to accept thousands of National Guard troops offered for security by the Trump Oval Office, and failing – inexplicably – to interdict the J6 riot they clearly had informants on in advance.
Jack Smith’s indictment of Trump has the same thinly-based nature as the other attempts against Trump. I made the point on Twitter several times Friday that success in court would depend on establishing that Trump had some yet-unspecified criminal intent – mens rea – under the 1917 Espionage Act, to accompany his use of “national defense” material; otherwise the whole thing is smoke and mirrors.
Special Counsel Jack Smith, June 2023. ABC News video
Yet the president is the one person within the jurisdiction of the United States who has the constitutional authority to exercise policy by doing whatever Trump did, up to and including holding classified material at Mar-a-Lago. If Congress doesn’t like what the president is doing, that’s one thing. It’s a policy difference. But this truly is a case in which the president is performing his Article II duties, and no statute imposes prior limitations on how he can do that. (The classifications and subject matter of the Mar-a-Lago documents listed in the indictment make that clear.)
If the legal process is run honestly, it will be virtually impossible to make a case that Trump’s intent was something punishable under the Espionage Act statute. It’s hard enough, because it’s a very poorly-conceived statute, to prove intent for someone other than the president. But a president can, in fact, declassify material on his own say-so, including national defense information with no agency-assigned classification, and even show it to representatives of a foreign government – though there’s no evidence that happened – and merely be doing what we pay him to do under the U.S. Constitution.
Moreover, even if Trump declassified the material before he left office, but didn’t show it to anyone until after he left office, it would still be necessary to prove there was some criminal error in his declassification sequence. That’s not going to be the slam-dunk the indictment is misleading people to think it would be. There’s no agency regulation for declassification procedures that the president can’t override.
It will be nice to hear from agency declassification experts at trial – they’re good folks – but it will be meaningless. They work for the sitting president, who owns and can override the agency regulations they will cite. Classification policy for specific instances related to national security information belongs to the president, in his capacity as both the foreign policy chief and the commander in chief of the armed forces.
The only statutory constraint on the president – U.S. law passed by Congress and signed by a president – has to do with the very limited category of U.S. nuclear secrets. And none of the documents in the indictment list had the relevant markings for that.
Congress can try to change all that with a new statute, if it wants. Perhaps it should. But the first 45 presidents could not be charged under a new statute passed in 2023.
Boxes from Trump’s presidency stored at Mar-a-Lago. U.S. Dept of Justice image
Boxes from Trump’s presidency stored at Mar-a-Lago. U.S. Dept of Justice image
As for the Presidential Records Act, it outlines only potential civil violations by a departing president. Its provisions can’t be the predicate for a criminal case, including obstruction. And its provisions, not the Espionage Act, are the controlling ones for the Mar-a-Lago situation, a point clarified in the last 48 hours by numerous former U.S. prosecutors and prominent legal experts.
I don’t doubt Jonathan Turley’s assessment, laid out by Ed Morrissey at Hot Air, that there may still be difficulties at trial for Trump. A good lawyer can make anything sound plausible and much worse than it is. But at the end of the day, emotion about how nefarious the Espionage Act makes things sound doesn’t (or shouldn’t) trump the reality that no intent under the Espionage Act fits the circumstances at issue.
The indictment on the Mar-a-Lago documents looks instead like the same kind of tenuous bootstrapping as that attempted by the state of New York in the “falsification of records” case against Trump’s organization.
No judge should allow Jack Smith to criminalize an already tenuous case under the civil Presidential Records Act, by linking it with laughably thin evidence to an even more tenuous suggestion of intent under the ill-defined provisions of the Espionage Act.
Not that Smith won’t try, however. Destroying Trump’s political chances for 2024 is evidently the objective here, and Smith has proved on a world stage that he can achieve such political objectives by weaponizing the legal apparatus — even if his case doesn’t hold water.
The Trump Effect
From the beginning, what I refer to as the “Trump Effect” has been to expose the true nature and intent of the legacy media and the institutions of the permanent state, an exposure that results from their demented pursuit of Trump.
In Russiagate, they went after Trump for nearly four years (I calculate it from mid-2015 to Mueller’s report in 2019), and with each passing month, especially in the final two years, they revealed – by their own hand, through a sequence of their own tactics – more and more of what they were doing. They couldn’t help blurting out for all the world to see that they were abusing and leaking classified information, making up lies to attack Trump and a list of innocent people with, abusing the tools of law enforcement and administration, shredding the Constitution, colluding across the lines of government and civic institutions, colluding across national boundaries, and lying to the public unceasingly about every bit of it.
Sadly, this history has also revealed the number of prominent people who apparently think any unsavory characteristics in Trump justify overlooking, or even going along with, that train of abuses. The same people, we now see, are mostly willing to overlook actual evidence of long-running foreign influence and bribery in the case of Trump’s successor. They are even more willing to overlook the abuse of government that produces a selective and blinkered approach to that evidence – the very definition of unequal justice – at DOJ and FBI.
Trump, Destroyer of Worlds
The Trump Effect has been to show us not only the permanent state, or “Deep State,” in flagrante delicto, but its handmaidens in the complacent political class, who’d rather ignore the abuses of the Deep State and focus their wrath on Trump.
Against whom, whatever his manifest human faults, nothing has been proven. The painful spectacle before the American people is an epic one: the institutional head of their civilization – the Deep State and its accessory organizations; the aggregate keeper of ethics and authority – crazed with corruption, committing acts of evil in the glare of sunlight, and unable to stop itself from exposing that reality more and more comprehensively with each passing day.
In the terms of ordinary context, as if all things were equal, I don’t and wouldn’t excuse Trump for his own excesses of personality and speech, without which it’s possible we wouldn’t have seen as much of the melodrama we’ve been subjected to over the last eight years.
But all things are not equal. We’re not in any ordinary context.
Everything we’ve seen exposed about the Deep State and its henchmen was already there, already true, before Trump came down the escalator at Trump Tower almost eight years ago. There was no way to move forward into a viable future for America and the world with that level of corruption and vision for malfeasance embedded in our institutions.
It’s a lie clung to by deluded consciences that that institutional authority has been behaving as it was supposed to. In every aspect of the series of attack campaigns on Trump, it had to lie and cheat to create the conditions it needed, whether it was plotting to defame and exploit two blameless bit players in the Trump campaign, cheating the Steele dossier into a FISA application on a train of lies, loosening rules for handling USPII inside a cone of silence as the Obama administration was on the way out the door, or changing whistleblower rules in a dark closet just in time to use the new rules to cheat with a “whistleblower” complaint that didn’t conform with the old ones.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. This is not lawful, ethical, moral behavior. It’s systematically vicious, and it could be turned against the American people at any time, with the full weight of the armed state behind it. Indeed, with the Biden administration’s vilification of America’s millions of school parents as “domestic violent extremists,” and the stated intention of federal law enforcement to treat them as such, that process has already begun en masse. The shoe has already dropped.
That’s what the Trump Effect has exposed. There’s no reason to think the same thing won’t happen with the Jack Smith prosecution. The reputation of both DOJ and FBI is already in tatters, and by the agencies’ own hands. The paroxysm of indictment attempts against Trump in 2023, with potentially more in the offing, could well produce the appalling denouement in which the Deep State turns a Drake Stalker Mk-15 .50-cal on its own foot, and pulls the trigger.
https://theoptimisticconservative.wordpress.com/2023/06/10/the-never-ending-story-a-new-chapter-opens-in-the-epic-saga-of-the-trump-effect/#more-8189
In the terms of ordinary context, as if all things were equal, I don’t and wouldn’t excuse Trump for his own excesses of personality and speech, without which it’s possible we wouldn’t have seen as much of the melodrama we’ve been subjected to over the last eight years.
But all things are not equal. We’re not in any ordinary context.
……
Yes, I know. And I agree. Sadly.
That doesn’t mean I won’t call out PT’s egregious “excesses” that put wind in the enemy’s sails. The “melodrama” will persist; it will continue to waste our time and emotional energy.
{sigh.}I still think it’s important for our side
{the Good Guys}to stay anchored in reality. The cult demands absolute loyalty for an immaculate persona that’s patently ridiculous. That’s not healthy, the damage to our discernment will outlast this particular administration.I do confine my criticism to within the “home”. No airing soiled linen in “public”. No giving the enemy an inch.
* * *
Back in the day J.E. Dyer was an enthusiastic supporter of Ted Cruz. She’s the one who convinced me to take a closer look at him. That was on a farrr-rrright Israeli defense blog.
I like Ted, after Rick Perry dropped out I supported him.
In the terms of ordinary context, as if all things were equal, I don’t and wouldn’t excuse Trump for his own excesses of personality and speech, without which it’s possible we wouldn’t have seen as much of the melodrama we’ve been subjected to over the last eight years.
But all things are not equal. We’re not in any ordinary context.
……
Yes, I know. And I agree. Sadly.
That doesn’t mean I won’t call out PT’s egregious “excesses” that put wind in the enemy’s sails. The “melodrama” will persist; it will continue to waste our time and emotional energy.
{sigh.}I still think it’s important for our side
{the Good Guys}to stay anchored in reality. The cult demands absolute loyalty for an immaculate persona that’s patently ridiculous. That’s not healthy, the damage to our discernment will outlast this particular administration.I do confine my criticism to within the “home”. No airing soiled linen in “public”. No giving the enemy an inch.
* * *
Back in the day J.E. Dyer was an enthusiastic supporter of Ted Cruz. She’s the one who convinced me to take a closer look at him. That was on a farrr-rrright Israeli defense blog.
Hunter Biden’s Burisma Suspected of Funding Terrorist Killings in Russia
By Richard Abelson Jun. 11, 2023 11:00 am227 Comments
TruthGettrGab
As Rudy Giuliani announced he has a witness willing to testify the Bidens were receiving millions from corrupt Burisma gas company, bombshell new reports from Ukraine indicate kickbacks from Hunter Biden’s Ukrainian employers may have gone to fund terrorist attacks inside Russia.
Hunter Biden’s former employers at Burisma have been plagued by legal troubles since 2015, when UK authorities froze their accounts. Joe Biden famously bragged about using $1 billion in US loan guarantees to get the prosecutor Viktor Shokin fired, who was investigating Hunter’s company.
In summer of 2020, Burisma was again involved in a major corruption scandal when Burisma’s director of legal affairs Andriy Kicha and two high-ranking employees of the Ukrainian Tax Service were busted trying to give investigators a bribe of $5 million in cash, as political scientist Sergei Shevchuk writes: “The purpose of the bribe was to close criminal proceedings against the owner of the company Burisma Mykola Zlochevsky.”
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/06/hunter-bidens-burisma-suspected-funding-terrorist-killings-russia/
Major Philadelphia Highway Collapses Following Fiery Tanker Truck Explosion (VIDEO)
By Jim Hoft Jun. 11, 2023 10:45 am347 Comments
A portion of the northbound lanes on Interstate-95 (I-95) collapsed early Sunday morning following an explosion caused by a burning tanker truck, Philadelphia city officials announced.
The tanker truck reportedly caught fire underneath the I-95 overpass in a shocking incident that led to a portion of the busy highway crumbling. No fatalities or injuries have been reported.
“All lanes of I95 closed in both directions between Woodhaven and Aramingo exits due to fire/road collapse. Other streets closed for the response. Avoid area. Plan and seek alternative travel routes,” said Philadelphia Office of Emergency Management.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/06/major-philadelphia-highway-collapses-following-fiery-tanker-truck/
Parents of kids at Edison High School in Huntington Beach, California say this video was played to their kids in math class. The kids clearly didn’t want to watch this pride video so the teacher threatened them with Saturday school to get them to watch it.
https://twitter.com/robbystarbuck/status/1667760341357297665
Robby Starbuck
@robbystarbuck
This video should open some eyes. This teacher is basically saying they need to shut up and watch the L_G._B.T_Q kissing video or they get detention/Saturday school.
Here We Go: FBI Agents on the Hunt for ‘Domestic Terror Threats’ Ahead of Trump’s Florida Court Appearance (VIDEO)
By Jim Hoft Jun. 11, 2023 3:00 pm140 Comments
As former President Donald Trump prepares for his upcoming court appearance in Florida on Tuesday, FBI agents across the country are actively looking for possible ‘domestic terror threats,’ according to a CNN report citing law enforcement sources.
This follows reports that pro-Trump groups are making plans to travel to Miami to show their support for the former President as he faces bogus federal charges in the classified documents case.
The Biden regime announced they were going to indict the leading Republican candidate in the 2024 election, President Donald Trump, on Tuesday. The radical left Marxists are terrified of President Trump saving America from their reign of terror in 2024.
Kari Lake is reportedly headed to Miami for President Trump’s arraignment on Tuesday to support him in his fight against the radical Marxist Biden regime.
“We know that these extremist groups, they’re not going to target the former President, their adherence of his message. But the question comes down to what about everyone else? What about the people who work in that courthouse? What about members of the prosecutorial team who we know have faced threats? CNN reporter Josh Campbell, a former Comey lackey, told anchor Wolf Blitzer.
The Surprising #1 Reason People Are Asking A Faith-Based Company To Help Them Back Their Retirement Accounts With Gold
Five law enforcement sources have allegedly confirmed to CNN that so-called domestic terrorism agents and analysts are actively working to identify any potential threats surrounding Trump’s court appearance. The monitoring reportedly extends to online platforms and includes confidential human informants reporting on these groups’ activities.
“That’s why this work by federal law enforcement is so important across
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/06/here-we-go-fbi-agents-hunt-domestic-terror/
(Richard: Translation, who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes.)
Biden 2024 Campaign Co-Chair Says There’s “No Evidence” DOJ Has Been Weaponized Against Trump Following Federal Indictment (VIDEO)
By Cristina Laila Jun. 11, 2023 2:40 pm209 Comments
Joe Biden’s 2024 campaign co-chair, Democrat Senator Chris Coons, told ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that there is “no evidence” the DOJ has been weaponized against Trump following the federal indictment.
“There’s no evidence that the federal Department of Justice has been weaponized,” Chris Coons said during an appearance on ABC’s “This Week.”
WATCH:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/06/biden-2024-campaign-co-chair-says-theres-no/
Asian-American Student Has Near-Perfect SAT Score and a 4.65 GPA, Gets Ugly Shock After Applications to Elite Universities
By Bryan Chai, The Western Journal Jun. 11, 2023 12:40 pm570 Comments
TruthGettr
Ask Asian children who their harshest critics are, and you will invariably get some answer involving mom, dad, or both.
Bad news for Asian-Americans across the United States — they won’t be finding much reprieve from school administrators and staff at the university level.
Look no further than the curious case of 18-year-old Jon Wang, a Florida native sporting some impressive academic marks.
According to Fox News, Wang scored a sterling 1590 out of 1600 on his SAT exam (many Asian parents would probably be mad about him being 10 points short of a perfect score) and earned an eye-popping 4.65 high school GPA, thanks to advanced classes that enable students to achieve GPAs higher than the 4.0 associated with straight A’s.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/06/asian-american-student-near-perfect-sat-score-4/
U.S. citizen and musician Michael Travis Leake has been detained in Russia
June 11, 202312:26 PM ET
A U.S. musician who helped produce music for Russian bands has been arrested in Moscow on suspicion of drug trafficking, according to reports by Russian state media on Saturday.
The Khamovniki District Court of Moscow accused Travis Michael Leek of organizing a drug trafficking business “involving young people,” according to Russia’s Interfax news agency. Russian media reported that he is suspected of selling the drug mephedrone — an offense for which he could face as much as 20 years in prison.
Social media accounts associated with the singer refers to him as “Travis Leake,” and his mother told CNN that his name was Michael Travis Leake. CNN reported that Leake appeared in court on June 10 and will remain in custody until Aug. 6 in pre-trial detention.
https://www.npr.org/2023/06/11/1181552258/russia-detains-american-citizen-michael-travis-leake
Anti-LGBTQ backlash rattles US pride events
Daniel FUNKE
Sat, June 10, 2023 at 8:37 PM CDT·4 min read
In this article:
A spike in anti-LGBTQ rhetoric and threats has taken a heavy toll on pride celebrations in the United States this year, organizers say — especially in states where politicians want to curtail rights.
This month’s celebrations in Houston, the largest pride event in conservative Texas, have been scaled back due to rising insurance and security costs, as well as concerns over soaring temperatures and capacity.
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We made the decision to cancel the festival this year,” said Kendra Walker, president of Pride Houston 365, downgrading the plans to a parade.
The change was first announced in January as Texas lawmakers prepared bills restricting gender-affirming health care and drag performances. Now, pride planners across the US and Canada say they are facing higher bills because of anti-LGBTQ disinformation and hate.
“It only takes a few (people) that can’t decipher reality from fantasy, and that’s when the danger comes in,” Walker said, calling it “a formidable threat” and pointing to white supremacists who planned to riot at a pride event in Idaho last year.
– ‘A real shake-up’ –
https://news.yahoo.com/anti-lgbtq-backlash-rattles-us-013708405.html
Tom Fitton Sues DOJ to Release Names of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s Team – Garland’s DOJ Is Hiding These Angry Leftists from the American Public
By Jim Hoft Jun. 11, 2023 4:00 pm
It’s clear who the real criminals are.
And it’s clear that the Department of Justice has been taken over by radical, lawless Marxists.
In 2017 a compromised Jeff Sessions effectively stepped away from his role as Attorney General days after he was sworn in and turned it over to corrupt Rod Rosenstein, a DC lifer to set up a Special Counsel into the Trump-Russia collusion hoax – something all of the top brass in the DOJ knew was completely fabricated before the Special Counsel was even formed.
Rosenstein hired a dementia-sufferer Robert Mueller to run the Special Counsel but due to his diminishing skills the investigation was turned over to vicious corrupt prosecutor Andrew Weissmann.
Dr. Peter McCullough: Understand Spike Shedding Before It’s Too Late
Weissmann and Mueller immediately hired 13 angry Democrats inside the DOJ to run the attempted coup of President Trump.
The Mueller team of 13 angry Democrats withheld evidence, lied under oath to the court, jailed and indicted innocent men in their quest to oust President Trump. They interfered in the 2018 and 2020 election. They lied to the American public. And they are all walking free today.
Fast forward to today – and the second lawless Special Counsel investigating President Trump.
The Jack Smith Special Counsel refuses to release the names of his team members. Why is that? We know they are most certainly ALL Democrats. We know they lack integrity and honor. But are any of them retreads from the Mueller days?
Tom Fitton and Judicial Watch sued Joe Biden’s DOJ to obtain the names of the radical Democrats who are members of Jack Smith’s Special Counsel.
Via Just The News.
Conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch on Monday announced that it had filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Department of Justice over its refusal to disclose the names of staffers working with special counsel Jack Smith on his investigation of former President Donald Trump.
Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Smith in November of last year to handle the DOJ’s Trump-related investigations, which include his alleged mishandling of classified materials. Reports emerged in May of this year that Smith is near the end of his investigation.
The DOJ previously rejected a FOIA request from Judicial Watch in December 2022 seeking the rosters of Smith’s office. The agency insisted that honoring such a request would constitute a “clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy” and that releasing the records “could reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings.”
Smith’s investigation has remained relatively out of the news, with few details leaking as to its progress. Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton asserted the need for transparency in the wake of special counsel John Durham’s report revealing that the FBI opened its own investigation into Trump without any predicating evidence.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/06/tom-fitton-sues-doj-release-names-special-counsel/
Whatsherface:
https://youtu.be/AQItM55A2cw
Republic Fighting For Its Life: Biden Regime Using Justice System to Preemptively Steal 2024 Election — Emergency Sunday Broadcast! Guest: Robert Barnes
The Alex Jones Show – June 11, 2023
https://www.banned.video/watch?id=64866fe7492826dd9d5c0c0b