QAnon Among Others in the FBI Report

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The FBI for the first time has identified fringe conspiracy theories as a domestic terrorist threat, according to a previously unpublicized document obtained by Yahoo News. (Read the document below.)

The FBI intelligence bulletin from the bureau’s Phoenix field office, dated May 30, 2019, describes “conspiracy theory-driven domestic extremists,” as a growing threat, and notes that it is the first such report to do so. It lists a number of arrests, including some that haven’t been publicized, related to violent incidents motivated by fringe beliefs.

The document specifically mentions QAnon, a shadowy network that believes in a deep state conspiracy against President Trump, and Pizzagate, the theory that a pedophile ring including Clinton associates was being run out of the basement of a Washington, D.C., pizza restaurant (which didn’t actually have a basement).

“The FBI assesses these conspiracy theories very likely will emerge, spread, and evolve in the modern information marketplace, occasionally driving both groups and individual extremists to carry out criminal or violent acts,” the document states. It also goes on to say the FBI believes conspiracy theory-driven extremists are likely to increase during the 2020 presidential election cycle.

The FBI said another factor driving the intensity of this threat is “the uncovering of real conspiracies or cover-ups involving illegal, harmful, or unconstitutional activities by government officials or leading political figures.” The FBI does not specify which political leaders or which cover-ups it was referring to.

President Trump is mentioned by name briefly in the latest FBI document, which notes that the origins of QAnon is the conspiratorial belief that “Q,” allegedly a government official, “posts classified information online to reveal a covert effort, led by President Trump, to dismantle a conspiracy involving ‘deep state’ actors and global elites allegedly engaged in an international child sex trafficking ring.”

This recent intelligence bulletin comes as the FBI is facing pressure to explain who it considers an extremist, and how the government prosecutes domestic terrorists. In recent weeks the FBI director has addressed domestic terrorism multiple times but did not publicly mention this new conspiracy theorist threat.

Christopher Wray, Trump’s FBI Director Pick, Is the Anti ...

The FBI is already under fire for its approach to domestic extremism. In a contentious hearing last week before the Senate Judiciary Committee, FBI Director Christopher Wray faced criticism from Democrats who said the bureau was not focusing enough on white supremacist violence. “The term ‘white supremacist,’ ‘white nationalist’ is not included in your statement to the committee when you talk about threats to America,” Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., said. “There is a reference to racism, which I think probably was meant to include that, but nothing more specific.”
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FBI Conspiracy Theory Redacted by Kelli R. Grant on Scribd


Wray told lawmakers the FBI had done away with separate categories for black identity extremists and white supremacists, and said the bureau was instead now focusing on “racially motivated” violence. But he added, “I will say that a majority of the domestic terrorism cases that we’ve investigated are motivated by some version of what you might call white supremacist violence.”

The FBI had faced mounting criticism for the term “black identity extremists,” after its use was revealed by Foreign Policy magazine in 2017. Critics pointed out that the term was an FBI invention based solely on race, since no group or even any specific individuals actually identify as black identity extremists.

In May, Michael C. McGarrity, the FBI’s assistant director of the counterterrorism division, told Congress the bureau now “classifies domestic terrorism threats into four main categories: racially motivated violent extremism, anti-government/anti-authority extremism, animal rights/environmental extremism, and abortion extremism,” a term the bureau uses to classify both pro-choice and anti-abortion extremists.

The new focus on conspiracy theorists appears to fall under the broader category of anti-government extremism. “This is the first FBI product examining the threat from conspiracy theory-driven domestic extremists and provides a baseline for future intelligence products,” the document states.

The new category is different in that it focuses not on racial motivations, but on violence based specifically on beliefs that, in the words of the FBI document, “attempt to explain events or circumstances as the result of a group of actors working in secret to benefit themselves at the expense of others” and are “usually at odds with official or prevailing explanations of events.”

The FBI acknowledges conspiracy theory-driven violence is not new, but says it’s gotten worse with advances in technology combined with an increasingly partisan political landscape in the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election. “The advent of the Internet and social media has enabled promoters of conspiracy theories to produce and share greater volumes of material via online platforms that larger audiences of consumers can quickly and easily access,” the document says.

The bulletin says it is intended to provide guidance and “inform discussions within law enforcement as they relate to potentially harmful conspiracy theories and domestic extremism.”

The FBI Phoenix field office referred Yahoo News to the bureau’s national press office, which provided a written statement.

“While our standard practice is to not comment on specific intelligence products, the FBI routinely shares information with our law enforcement partners in order to assist in protecting the communities they serve,” the FBI said.

In its statement, the FBI also said it can “never initiate an investigation based solely on First Amendment protected activity. As with all of our investigations, the FBI can never monitor a website or a social media platform without probable cause.”

The Department of Homeland Security, which has also been involved in monitoring domestic extremism, did not return or acknowledge emails and phone requests for comment.

While not all conspiracy theories are deadly, those identified in the FBI’s 15-page report led to either attempted or successfully carried-out violent attacks. For example, the Pizzagate conspiracy led a 28-year-old man to invade a Washington, D.C., restaurant to rescue the children he believed were being kept there, and fire an assault-style weapon inside.

The FBI document also cites an unnamed California man who was arrested on Dec. 19, 2018, after being found with what appeared to be bomb-making materials in his car. The man allegedly was planning “blow up a satanic temple monument” in the Capitol rotunda in Springfield, Ill., to “make Americans aware of Pizzagate and the New World Order, who were dismantling society,” the document says.

Historian David Garrow, the author of a Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Martin Luther King Jr. who has worked extensively with FBI archives, raised doubts to Yahoo News about the memo. He says the FBI’s default assumption is that violence is motivated by ideological beliefs rather than mental illness. “The guy who shot up the pizza place in D.C.: Do we think of him as a right-wing activist, or insane?” Garrow asked.

Garrow was similarly critical of the FBI’s use of the term “black identity extremists” and related attempts to ascribe incidents like the 2016 shooting of six police officers in Baton Rouge, La., to black radicalism. He said the shooter, Gavin Long, had a history of mental health problems. “The bureau’s presumption — the mindset — is to see ideological motives where most of the rest of us see individual nuttiness,” he said.

Identifying conspiracy theories as a threat could be a political lightning rod, since President Trump has been accused of promulgating some of them, with his frequent references to a deep state and his praise in 2015 for Alex Jones, who runs the conspiracy site InfoWars. While the FBI intelligence bulletin does not mention Jones or InfoWars by name, it does mention some of the conspiracy theories frequently associated with the far-right radio host, in particular the concept of the New World Order.

Jones claimed the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, in which 26 children were killed, was a hoax, a false flag operation intended as a pretext for the government to seize or outlaw firearms. The families of a number of victims have sued Jones for defamation, saying his conspiracy-mongering contributed to death threats and online abuse they have received.

While Trump has never endorsed Sandy Hook denialism, he was almost up until the 2016 election the most high-profile promoter of the birther conspiracy that claimed former President Barack Obama was not born in the United States. He later dropped his claim, and deflected criticism by pointing the finger at Hillary Clinton. He said her campaign had given birth to the conspiracy, and Trump “finished it.”

There is no evidence that Clinton started the birther conspiracy.

Joe Uscinski, an associate professor of political science at the University of Miami, whose work on conspiracy theories is cited in the intelligence bulletin, said there’s no data suggesting conspiracy theories are any more widespread now than in the past. “There is absolutely no evidence that people are more conspiratorial now,” says Uscinski, after Yahoo News described the bulletin to him. “They may be, but there is not strong evidence showing this.”

It’s not that people are becoming more conspiratorial, says Uscinski, but conspiracies are simply getting more media attention.

“We are looking back at the past with very rosy hindsight to forget our beliefs, pre-internet, in JFK [assassination] conspiracy theories and Red scares. My gosh, we have conspiracy theories about the king [of England] written into the Declaration of Independence,” he said, referencing claims that the king was planning to establish tyranny over the American colonies.

It’s not that conspiracy theorists are growing in number, Uscinski argues, but that media coverage of those conspiracies has grown. “For most of the last 50 years, 60 to 80 percent of the country believe in some form of JFK conspiracy theory,” he said. “They’re obviously not all extremist.”

Conspiracy theories, including Russia’s role in creating and promoting them, attracted widespread attention during the 2016 presidential election when they crossed over from Internet chat groups to mainstream news coverage. Yahoo News’s “Conspiracyland” podcast recently revealed that Russia’s foreign intelligence service was the origin of a hoax report that tied the murder of Seth Rich, a Democratic National Committee staffer, to Hillary Clinton.

Washington police believe that Rich was killed in a botched robbery, and there is no proof that his murder had any political connections.

Among the violent conspiracy theories cited in the May FBI document is one involving a man who thought Transportation Security Administration agents were part of a New World Order. Another focused on the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP), a government-funded facility in Alaska that has been linked to everything from death beams to mind control. The two men arrested in connection with HAARP were “stockpiling weapons, ammunition and other tactical gear in preparation to attack” the facility, believing it was being used “to control the weather and prevent humans from talking to God.”

Nate Snyder, who served as a Department of Homeland Security counterterrorism official during the Obama administration, said that the FBI appears to be applying the same radicalization analysis it employs against foreign terrorism, like the Islamic State group, which has recruited followers in the United States.

“The domestic violent extremists cited in the bulletin are using the same playbook that groups like ISIS and al-Qaida have used to inspire, recruit and carry out attacks,” said Snyder, after reviewing a copy of the bulletin provided by Yahoo News. “You put out a bulletin and say this is the content they’re looking at — and it’s some guy saying he’s a religious cleric or philosopher — and then you look at the content, videos on YouTube, etc., that they are pushing and show how people in the U.S. might be radicalized by that content.”

Though the FBI document focuses on ideological motivations, FBI Director Wray, in his testimony last week, asserted that the FBI is concerned only with violence, not people’s beliefs. The FBI doesn’t “investigate ideology, no matter how repugnant,” he told lawmakers. “We investigate violence. And any extremist ideology, when it turns to violence, we are all over it. … In the first three quarters of this year, we’ve had more domestic terrorism arrests than the prior year, and it’s about the same number of arrests as we have on the international terrorism side.”

Yet the proliferation of the extremist categories concerns Michael German, a former FBI agent and now a fellow with the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty & National Security program. “It’s part of the radicalization theory the FBI has promoted despite empirical studies that show it’s bogus,” he said.

German says this new category is a continuing part of FBI overreach. “They like the radicalization theory because it justifies mass surveillance,” he said. “If we know everyone who will do harm is coming from this particular community, mass surveillance is important. We keep broadening the number of communities we include in extremist categories.”

For Garrow, the historian, the FBI’s expansive definition has its roots in bureau paranoia that dates back decades. “I think it’s their starting point,” he said. “This goes all the way back to the Hoover era without question. They see ideology as a central motivating factor in human life, and they don’t see mental health issues as a major factor.”

Yet trying to label a specific belief system as prone to violence is problematic, he said.

“I don’t think most of us would do a good job in predicting what sort of wacky information could lead someone to violence, or not lead anyone to violence,” Garrow said. “Pizzagate would be a great example of that.”

 

When Russia Helps N Korea Cheat on Sanctions, What to Do

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Primer: Do you wonder what Russia’s votes on the UNSC really do to help North Korea? Do you wonder about the 40,000+ North Korean slave laborers in Russia add to the North Korean economy each year? About $200 million. How about the Russian oil pipeline that goes through North Korea? What about the rail system between the two countries and how that helps North Korea skirt sanctions with illicit goods transportation? Then there is the alleged legitimate navy and fishing fleets between Russia and North Korea. Money? Or the weekly air flight service from Vladivostok to Pyongyang. Or how Russia provides internet service to North Korea in addition to China, known as SatGate and the fiber optic lines that run along the rail system. Check front companies in China, Singapore and the banking system known as Dalcombank or just flying cash twice a week.

Rajin, North Korea Image result for rajin north korea  Image result for rajin north korea

FDD: The Treasury Department on Monday sanctioned a North Korean trading company official for helping Pyongyang evade U.S. and UN sanctions through illicit activity in Vietnam. The designation, which arrived in the brief interval between two North Korean missile tests in less than a week, suggests that Washington understands the importance of investigating and disrupting North Korea’s extensive overseas illicit networks.

Treasury’s latest target is Kim Su Il, who works for a Vietnam-based trading company on behalf of North Korea’s Munitions Industry Department, which the U.S. and UN have both sanctioned. According to Treasury, Kim helped export UN-sanctioned goods such as anthracite coal, titanium ore concentrate, and other raw materials from North Korea to Vietnam. Both anthracite coal and titanium ore are among the top exports that fund the regime’s illicit activities. Treasury also found that Kim Su Il helped charter ships and export Vietnamese products to North Korea, as well as to China and other undisclosed countries.

Kim Su Il’s designation is a reminder that North Korea’s overseas networks continue to thrive despite sanctions. In January, The Wall Street Journalreported that up to six Chinese-owned vessels transported North Korean coal between North Korea and Vietnam throughout 2018. In March 2018, the UN Panel of Experts also found that North Korean coal shipments to Vietnam go as far back as January 2017 – eight months before the UN Security Council’s comprehensive coal ban on North Korea went into effect. This persistent trade affirms Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Marshall Billingslea’s assessment in 2017 that coal “has been the center of North Korea’s revenue generation” for many years.

In March 2019, the same UN Panel of Experts exposed North Korea’s numerous overseas illicit money-making schemes, which employ networks of front companies, North Korean government workers, and local banks. For example, in Malaysia, North Korea’s intelligence agency, the Reconnaissance General Bureau, operated two companies that provided revenue to Pyongyang: the Malaysia-Korea Partners Group and Global Communications.

The UN Panel also found that foreign governments were applying “insufficient scrutiny” on the activities of North Korea’s overseas banking and government representatives, thereby enabling these company networks to thrive. The lax monitoring has ultimately allowed Pyongyang’s representatives to conduct financial transactions across numerous borders. Chinese banks in particular have been key enablers of North Korea’s actions.

Treasury provided robust evidence of this lax oversight last month when it sanctioned the Russian Financial Society (RFS) for helping North Korea evade sanctions. This designation revealed how a U.S.-sanctioned North Korean banking representative in Moscow exploited local financial service providers, specifically RFS, to conduct business for sanctioned North Korean companies. The incident showed that designating only the North Korean nationals working abroad is not enough. Rather, Washington also should target the banks and financial institutions that allow North Korean government officials based overseas to thrive.

Treasury’s next steps therefore should focus on investigating Kim Su Il’s local network of companies, individuals, and banks. Closing these gaps in enforcement is an indispensable step for maximizing the impact of U.S. sanctions on North Korea.

The Other College Tuition Scandal, Give up Custody

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Parents give up legal custody…what? Well, perhaps there is a silver lining in this…no more student loan debt….

Hat tip to ProPublica for great work and continued investigations.

In part:

Parents are giving up legal guardianship of their children during their junior or senior year in high school to someone else — a friend, aunt, cousin or grandparent. The guardianship status then allows the students to declare themselves financially independent of their families so they can qualify for federal, state and university aid, a ProPublica Illinois investigation found.

“It’s a scam,” said Andy Borst, director of undergraduate admissions at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “Wealthy families are manipulating the financial aid process to be eligible for financial aid they would not be otherwise eligible for. They are taking away opportunities from families that really need it.”

While ProPublica Illinois uncovered this practice in north suburban Lake County, where almost four dozen such guardianships were filed in the past 18 months, similar petitions have been filed in at least five other counties and the practice may be happening throughout the country. ProPublica Illinois is still investigating.

Borst said he first became suspicious when a high school counselor from an affluent Chicago suburb called him about a year ago to ask why a particular student had been invited to an orientation program for low-income students. Borst checked the student’s financial aid application and saw she had obtained a legal guardian, making her eligible to qualify for financial aid independently.

The University of Illinois has since identified 14 applicants who did the same: three who just completed their freshman year and 11 who plan to enroll this fall, Borst said.

ProPublica Illinois found more than 40 guardianship cases fitting this profile filed between January 2018 and June 2019 in the Chicago suburbs of Lake County alone.

The process starts in the courthouse.

Nearly all the cases identified by ProPublica Illinois were handled by one of two law firms: The Rogers Law Group in Deerfield, which handled most of them, and the Kabbe Law Group in Naperville. The only case filed by a different firm involved the family of Rick Rogers, of the Rogers Law Group.

*** The college consultant is named Lora Georgieva.

Georgieva runs a Lincolnshire-based college consulting company, Destination College, which offers “strategies to lower tuition expenses.” The company’s logo is a graduation cap with dollar bills spilling out of it. In video testimonials, clients praise the company for saving them money.

She is tied to at least several of the families, as well as to Rogers, the attorney, who is also featured in the video.

The description for the company’s “premier” services includes a “College Financial Plan, Using Income and Asset Shifting Strategies to Increase Your Financial and Merit Aid and Lower Out of Pocket Tuition Expenses.”

Read the full summary here.

*** Is this happening in other states? We will soon know, questions are now being asked in Missouri.

Tlaib’s Campaign Donor has Been Dead for 10 Years

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Dinesh D’Souza was sentenced for a a felony count that was hardly as bad as what you are about to know. He also paid a $30,000 fine.

Just this week, President Trump gave a speech in Jamestown on the 400th anniversary of the first meeting of elected legislators in America. What was hardly covered is his speech was interrupted by a Virginia legislator named Ibraheem Samirah.

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Virginia Lawmaker Connected to Anti-Semitic Groups ...

As reported:

Democratic freshman representative Rashida Tlaib (Mich.) received a generous donation during the second quarter in the name of a man who died more than 10 years ago, a review of campaign and online records shows.

Tlaib’s campaign committee, Rashida Tlaib for Congress, hauled in donations of at least $2,000 from dozens of individuals between April 1 and June 30. One of those contributions was from George S. Farah Sr., a Michigan businessman, real estate developer, and community leader who made his way from Palestine to the United States in the mid-1950s. Farah passed away on Feb. 1, 2009, from heart failure, according to a Michigan Live article published at the time of his death.

On June 22, Tlaib’s campaign received a $2,500 donation in his name, Federal Election Commission filings show. A search of public records, which also state that he is deceased, provides an address identical to the one written on the contribution to Tlaib’s campaign committee. Grand Blanc Township property records also show that the residence located at that address is registered in Farah’s name along with that of his widow.

Tlaib is the sole federal politician to receive a donation in Farah’s name for the 2020 election cycle. In the past, Rep. Dan Kildee (D., Mich.) has also received contributions from Farah following his passing. Kildee, who first ran for the House of Representatives during the 2012 election cycle, was given $1,400 in total contributions in Farah’s name between 2011 and 2017. The two Democratic Michigan representatives are the only federal politicians who received money in Farah’s name for the past 10 years.

Federal law prohibits making campaign contributions in the name of another individual.

“It is illegal to make a campaign contribution in the name of another person and a campaign must ensure all donor information is reported accurately,” said Kendra Arnold, executive director of the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust. “The requirement of accurate disclosure of campaign contributors is important to inform voters of the source of campaign funds, prevent corruption, and ensure individuals are contributing within the legal limits.”

Tlaib’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment before publication. A spokesman for Rep. Kildee’s campaign, however, did.

“Gisele Farah is the sole beneficiary of a trust in her late husband’s name, George S. Farah Sr., who passed away in 2009,” the Kildee campaign spokesman said. “Since his death, Gisele Farah, as the sole beneficiary in control of the trust, has contributed to the campaign with funds from her trust. Our campaign’s records have been amended to clarify that the campaign contributions were from Gisele Farah and should be designated under her name.”

Inquiries sent to West Second Street Associates, a real estate investment and development company founded by Farah and run by members of the Farah family, were not returned.

Donations in the names of deceased individuals have occurred in the past. Between Jan. 2009 and Aug. 2013, 32 contributions totaling $586,000 from people marked as “deceased” in campaign records made their way to political candidates and parties, according to a 2013 report from USA Today.

In some circumstances, individuals make political candidates and committees part of their estates. If, for example, a trust is set up before someone’s death, that individual can leave specific instructions for where they would like the funds to go.

George S. Farah Sr. did not appear to give donations to any federal politicians prior to passing, based on a search of records.

UPDATE 2:40 P.M.: After publication, a spokesperson for the Rashida Tlaib campaign returned the following statement, strikingly similar to the comment received from the campaign of Rep. Kildee prior to publication:

“Gisele Farah is the sole beneficiary of a trust in her late husband’s name, George S. Farah Sr., who as you noted passed away in 2009. Gisele Farah, as the sole beneficiary in control of the trust, contributed to our campaign with funds from her trust. We will amend our campaign records and filings to clarify that the campaign contribution was from Gisele Farah and should be designated under her name.”

 

 

bin Ladin’s Son Hamza is Dead

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U.S. has intel that Osama bin Laden’s son and heir, Hamza, is dead, officials say

The officials would not provide details of how Hamza bin Laden died or if the U.S. played a role. It is unclear if Washington has confirmed his death.

WASHINGTON — The United States has obtained intelligence that the son and potential successor of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, Hamza bin Laden, is dead, according to three U.S. officials.

The officials would not provide details of where or when Hamza bin Laden died or if the U.S. played a role in his death. It is unclear if the U.S. has confirmed his death.

Hamza bin Laden’s last known public statement was released by al Qaeda’s media arm in 2018. In that, he threatened Saudi Arabia and called on the people of the Arabian peninsula to revolt.

Hamza bin Laden is believed to have been born around 1989. His father moved to Afghanistan in 1996 and declared war against the U.S. Hamza went with him and appeared in al Qaeda propaganda videos. As leader of al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden oversaw operations against Western targets that culminated in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York’s World Trade Center and on the Pentagon.

Navy SEALS killed Osama bin Laden in 2011 during a raid on his Abbottabad, Pakistan, compound. Hamza was not found at the compound. Letters seized from the compound suggested the elder bin Laden wanted his son to join him in Abbottabad and was grooming him as a leader.

Hamza is one of 11 sons of Osama bin Ladin. Hamza bin Laden, the son of the late al-Qaida leader, has married the daughter of Mohammed Atta, the lead hijacker in the 9/11 terror attacks, according to his family. Bin Laden’s wives and surviving children have returned to Saudi Arabia, where they were given refuge by the former crown prince Mohammed bin Nayef. The women and children remain in close contact with Bin Laden’s mother, Alia Ghanem, who told the Guardian in an interview that she remained in regular touch with surviving family members.

Osama bin laden son Hamza bin Laden emerges as new al ...

In part from CTC in 2017:

Despite al-Qa`ida’s generally dim view of women, it appears that Usama bin Ladin respected and valued each of his wives. But he was surely familiar with the Qur’an’s warning that, “Try as you may, you cannot treat all your wives impartially.” It was well known that bin Ladin had a favorite. This was Hamza bin Ladin’s mother, Khairia Sabar, a child psychologist from the respected al-Hindi family of Saudi Arabia. The pair had been introduced when Saad, one of bin Ladin’s sons by his first wife, Najwa al-Ghanem, had attended Khairia’s clinic to receive therapy for a mental disorder.3 Khairia was single, in her mid-30s, and in fragile health—an unpropitious situation for a woman in a conservative kingdom where teenage brides are far from uncommon. Bin Ladin, by contrast, was seven years younger, the son of a billionaire, and already making a name for himself as a fundraiser for the mujahideen struggle against the Soviets in Afghanistan. Moreover, by this time, bin Ladin already had two wives. But Najwa, the first of them, encouraged him to pursue Khairia, believing that having someone with her training permanently on hand would help her son Saad and his brothers and sisters, some of whom also suffered from developmental disorders.4

Not surprisingly given Khairia’s age and state of health, she and bin Ladin struggled to conceive. Over the first three years of their marriage, as bin Ladin moved back and forth between Saudi Arabia and the theater of war in Afghanistan, she endured miscarriage after miscarriage. During this time, bin Ladin added a fourth wife to the family—another highly educated Saudi woman, Siham Sabar.5 Then, in 1989, both Siham and Khairia bore him sons. Siham’s was called Khalid, a name that in Arabic means “eternal.” Khairia’s boy was named Hamza, meaning “steadfast.” Thenceforward, in accordance with ancient Arab custom, Khairia became known by the honorific Umm Hamza, the Mother of Hamza. The boy would remain her only child by bin Ladin, but that fact has by no means diminished either Hamza’s importance or Khairia’s.