Lawsuit Alleges Violations of Media Matters and Hillary in 2016

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Primer:

Media Matters raked in as much as $2 million in coronavirus relief loans as the left-wing blog slammed the Trump administration’s coronavirus response, according to federal records released on Monday.

Records show that Media Matters, the progressive activist group founded by Clinton loyalist David Brock in 2004, received between $1 million and $2 million from the government’s Paycheck Protection Program. The loan represents a significant portion of the group’s annual income, which was listed as $11 million in 2017, according to tax records. Media Matters is bankrolled by the Democracy Alliance, one of the largest progressive donor groups in the country. The deep-pocketed philanthropy network has steered hundreds of millions of dollars to liberal groups since it was founded in 2005—and pledged to distribute $100 million in 2020 alone. More here.

*** David Brock it appears needed (needs) the funds to fight of one of many lawsuits and not for keeping his employees on the payroll.

How David Brock Built an Empire to Put Hillary in the ...

RCI:

David Brock, the onetime anti-Clinton journalist turned Hillary Clinton ally and aggressive promoter of Democratic media narratives in recent decades, faces legal actions and disclosures portraying his organizations as working so closely with the Clinton campaign in 2016 that they broke the law.

The conservative Patriots Foundation alleges in a lawsuit being filed today in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia that an improperly porous relationship among four Brock-founded organizations amounted to illegal coordination with the Clinton campaign in violation of Federal Election Commission regulations. The best known of the four groups is Media Matters for America, which highlights what it calls media bias from the right. The other three are the American Bridge 21st Century PAC; the American Bridge 21st Century Foundation; and the Correct the Record PAC.

“American Bridge 21st Century PAC claimed that it was independent of the Clinton campaign so that it could make independent expenditures,” the Patriots Foundation said in a statement provided to RealClearInvestigations. “American Bridge is run by the same people who run Media Matters and Correct the Record, however, which we know coordinated with the Clinton campaign.

“They all work from the same offices,” the statement continued, “Brock was paid by all of them, American Bridge and Correct the Record shared at least 6 employees, and Correct the Record made in-kind contributions to American Bridge PAC. American Bridge’s supposedly independent activity was just as coordinated as Media Matters’ and Correct the Record’s activity – meaning that American Bridge’s [expenditures] were really excessive and illegal contributions to Hillary Clinton’s campaign.”

Representatives for the organizations did not respond to requests for comment (Correct the Record is now inactive).  Nor did Brock himself or the Clinton campaign.

This past April, the Patriots Foundation filed an FEC complaint against Brock’s organizations. Since the agency hasn’t acted on it within a requisite 120 days, the Patriots Foundation is now suing the FEC as allowed under campaign finance laws. The Patriots Foundation also filed complaints with the IRS last spring regarding Media Matters and the American Bridge Foundation, but there is no legal remedy to force the IRS’s hand in court as with the FEC.

The tactics of Media Matters are generally acknowledged as politically aggressive in a way many see at odds with the organization’s 501(c)(3) nonprofit tax status, which stipulates nonpartisanship. In 2008, The New York Times described Media Matters as a “nonprofit, highly partisan research organization.” The Patriots Foundation alleges that in 2016 Media Matters ceased merely appearing to be partisan — it acted openly as an arm of the Hillary Clinton campaign. A December 2016 report in the liberal-leaning magazine the New Republic, highlighted by the group, substantiates this assessment:

The organization [Media Matters] had long ceased to be a mere watchdog, having positioned itself at the center of a group of public relations and advocacy outfits whose mission was to help put Clinton in the White House. … In our numerous conversations with past Media Matters staff, there was a consensus that in the lead-up to Clinton’s announcement of her candidacy in 2015, the organization’s priority shifted away from the mission stated on its website — “comprehensively monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation” — and towards running defense for Clinton. The former staffers we spoke to largely felt that this damaged Media Matters’ credibility and hurt the work it did in other areas. “The closer we got to the 2016 election the less it became about actually debunking conservative misinformation and more it became about just defending Hillary Clinton from every blogger in their mother’s basement,” one former staffer told us. This was, moreover, a repeat of what Media Matters did in 2008, when there was a rift between staffers and management over the favoring of Clinton in her race against then-Senator Barack Obama.

Media Matters staffers recounted internal fights over the group’s devotion to Clinton. Employees were ordered to critique NPR’s Terry Gross for asking Clinton some questions about why it took her so long to support same-sex marriage.

But the staff reportedly felt Gross’ questions were fair, and according to the New Republic, “nearly everyone we spoke to who worked there at the time felt that a similar article would not have been written about a different politician.” Media Matters’ research director, Jeremy Holden ended up writing the story because other staffers were unwilling to put their name on it. Holden did not respond to a request for comment.

Media Matters employees were also reportedly frustrated by the organization’s obsession with defending Clinton at the expense of other liberal causes. “Former staffers pointed out several stories that fell within Media Matters’ ambit that should have been better covered. … On the site, there are 1,468 posts tagged with ‘Hillary Clinton’ as opposed to just 26 tagged ‘Bernie Sanders,’” according to the New Republic.

In addition to media reports, internal communications at the Clinton campaign further reveal that it was treating Media Matters as a campaign surrogate and coordinating with the group.

Internal communications at the Clinton campaign released by WikiLeaks reveal that the Brock groups Media Matters (MMFA) and Correct the Record (CTR) were treated as campaign surrogates.
WikiLeaks

A campaign strategy memo released by WikiLeaks notes that the Clinton campaign reported using the Brock group to “muddy the waters” when it came to issues where Clinton was vulnerable by “working with MMFA to highlight examples of when the press won’t cover the same issues with Republicans.” Another email released by WikiLeaks has Clinton’s press secretary, Nick Merrill, planning to push back on a Vanity Fair story about Clinton campaign vice chair Huma Abedin, which hadn’t been published yet, saying, “We have MMFA, CtR, and core surrogates lined up, which we can expand on tomorrow.” Media Matters published a piece criticizing the Vanity Fair story the following day.

“CtR” in Merrill’s email refers to the Correct the Record PAC. The PAC has been dormant since the 2016 election cycle, but “coordinat[ed] directly with Clinton’s campaign,” Politico reported. The CTR PAC even took money directly from the Clinton campaign – during the 2016 election cycle CTR took in $8.5 million in donations, including a donation of $275,615 in 2015 from Hillary for America. From its inception, the PAC skirted rules that prevent such entities and campaigns from directly coordinating with campaigns by claiming all its activities were covered by an FEC exemption regarding public communications.

“Correct the Record believes it can avoid the coordination ban by relying on a 2006 Federal Election Commission regulation that declared that content posted online for free, such as blogs, is off limits from regulation,” notes a 2015 Washington Post report. “The ‘Internet exemption’ said that such free postings do not constitute campaign expenditures, allowing independent groups to consult with candidates about the content they post on their sites.” The Patriots Foundation FEC complaint strongly disputes that the operations of the CTR PAC were defensible under this interpretation, noting that the PAC spent money on polling and other activities that don’t constitute communications.

Organizationally, there also appears to have been not much separation between CTR and Brock’s other PAC, American Bridge. “During the 2016 election, Brock claimed that AB PAC remained independent of both the Clinton campaign and CTR PAC so that it could make independent expenditures in support of Clinton,” notes the Patriots Foundation FEC complaint. “However, he continued to collect a salary from both PACs, and disclosure reports show that the committees shared at least seven overlapping staff members at various times during 2016. Moreover, AB PAC reported making in-kind disbursements to CTR PAC in 2016.” (In addition to getting paid by both PACs, Brock drew a salary of $278,566 from Media Matters as well, 2017 tax records show.

Overall, the American Bridge Foundation was the largest donor to the AB PAC in the 2016 and 2018 election cycles. As a 501(c)4 nonprofit, the AB Foundation is not required to disclose its own donors. Other notable donors to the AB PAC include George Soros, who gave AB PAC $2 million between 2015 and 2016. Some of America’s biggest unions – the SEIU, AFL-CIO, NEA, AFT, and AFSCME – all made six-figure donations in the 2016 election cycle. And Win McCormack, the owner and publisher of the New Republic, gave $100,000 to the AB PAC five months before his publication ran the story on Media Matters’ troubles.

Not the First Time

The Patriots Foundation alleges that the legally required separation between the groups did not exist. The two organizations shared staff, office space, and equipment, but the AB Foundation stated in IRS filings the “two entities have entered into a cost-sharing agreement to allocate shared overhead costs so that neither entity is financially supporting the activities of the other.”

But other audited financial statements from the AB Foundation note they did “not have a formal agreement relating to the allocation of expenses between the two entities” and “allocations were made based on management and budget estimates.” Those estimates varied wildly. The AB Foundation gave the PAC some $2.9 million “for salary, rent, and expenses” in 2015; $720,000 in 2016; $4.5 million in 2017; and $3.3 million in 2018. In many of those years, the AB Foundation also claimed to owe AB PAC more than it paid, also by varying amounts.

This is not the first time one of Brock’s organizations has been challenged for running afoul of FEC regulations. Last year, the Campaign Legal Center filed a complaint regarding the Correct the Record PAC’s claim that it could coordinate with the Clinton campaign under the public Internet communications exemption. FEC attorneys agreed with the Campaign Legal Center but the FEC, which has been understaffed during the Trump administration, only had four of six members on the commission. The complaint was dismissed when the two GOP commissioners sided with the CTR PAC, leaving the commission deadlocked. The Campaign Legal Center is still litigating the matter.

The Patriots Foundation complaint is different in that it addresses the coordination across all of the Brock organizations, as well as the allegations American Bridge PAC inaccurately reported the operational costs it shares with the American Bridge Foundation.

The Patriots Foundation told RealClearInvestigations it is not seeking remedies from the FEC beyond what was outlined in its original complaint. That complaint asks the FEC to “elicit admission of the violations from each of the respondents, conduct a robust investigation to determine the scope of the alleged violations, bar respondents from continuing violative activities, and collect civil penalties in amounts commensurate with the gravity of these serious ongoing violations.”

The IRS action filed by the Patriots Foundation seeks to revoke the tax-exempt status of Media Matters and the AB PAC, and calls for both to be compelled to pay applicable taxes while improperly operating as tax exempt, plus applicable financial penalties, while referring both to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution.

 

Looming Military Conflict in S China Sea?

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Chinese military journalists are publicly urging the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to prepare immediately for an attack by U.S. forces in the South China Sea. One expert at Zhejiang University’s National Institute for South China Sea Studies, Shi Xiaoqin, claims that the U.S. is deliberately trying to provoke China. They also suggest the regime reinforce Chinese installations on reefs claimed by China.

If this analysis gains traction by Chinese political and military leaders, U.S. military commanders in the South China Sea should plan for the possibility that China might initiate hostilities in keeping with its doctrine of preemptive retaliation, a seeming attempt falsely to claim “self-defense.”

One writer suggests that the PLA should immediately move fighter aircraft to Chinese air bases in the Spratly Islands at Fiery Cross, Subi Reef, and Mischief Reef. He also boldly claims that the augmented presence of U.S. naval and air assets in the South China Sea is no longer just a show of force by America.

Chen Hu, a Chinese military journalist, also asserts that the U.S. is now intent on provoking a conflict and is preparing for battle. Chen claims that the return of B1 bombers to Guam and continued deployment of two U.S. aircraft carrier groups in the South China Sea, despite the conclusion of military exercises, is supposedly a sign of Washington’s aggressive intent. Chen suggests that recent U.S. “Freedom of Navigation” maneuvers and the high number of U.S. surveillance collection missions along the Chinese coast is additional proof of American attack planning. Former PLA officer Wang Yunfei and naval equipment expert suggests that flights by American RC-135, E-8c, and RC-12X surveillance aircraft equate to “pre-battle strategic technical surveillance.” As the joke goes from the children’s playground: “It all started when he hit me back.”

Wang further warns that U.S. President Donald J. Trump is likely to initiate a military conflict in the South China Sea region before the November 3 U.S. presidential election, speculating that “stirring up external frictions, especially military conflicts with China, will help the incumbent president for his re-election campaign.”

The leaders of China’s Communist Party (CCP) also see that nothing was done by anyone, including the U.S., to stop China’s grab of Hong Kong this year — 27 years early. This paralysis of the West must have looked to the CCP like a green light to keep on grabbing.

Wang even lays out his analysis on particular avenues of approach by which U.S. bombers might attack their Chinese targets. Wang, now a Chinese naval specialist, writes that the U.S. will probably ship-launch Tomahawk Cruise against Chinese bases in the South China Sea. He further specifies that the PLA should deploy China’s own aircraft carriers in the south central region of the sea, as the best strategy to counter any U.S. assault. He adds that China must also deploy fighter jets and air defense missiles on various Chinese reefs.

Scarborough Shoal could become a flashpoint for a South ...

Wang singled out the Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea’s Paracel Island Chain as the most likely initial piece of real estate that the U.S. might seek to seize. The Scarborough (Huangyan) Shoal/Reef is claimed by both China and the Republic of the Philippines. Perhaps one reason why China might expect that Scarborough Shoal is a likely target is that the U.S. wants to re-cement military agreements with the Philippines that would allow American military assets access to Clark Air Force Base, Subic Bay Naval Base and other newer facilities. U.S. support for Manila’s claim to the Scarborough Shoal against China’s might be sufficient to convince the mercurial president of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, to patch up relations with the U.S.

Chinese writer Zheng Hao, who assesses that it is possible that U.S.-Chinese tensions in the South China Sea could escalate into a “hot war,” cites U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s July 13 statement that the South China Sea is “not China’s maritime empire” as indicative of the Trump Administration’s hostile intent. Zheng appears to be especially concerned about the July 7 U.S.-Japan naval exercise, which included an operation by the U.S. aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan and two warships of the Japanese Maritime Defense Forces. Zheng laments that the 2018 draft of the Code of Conduct in the South China Sea has not yet been signed by the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and China.

One hope to avoid or at least postpone an imminent clash in the South China Sea is for China and the U.S. to activate the crisis prevention apparatus established in November 2014. This diplomatic device includes a Memorandum of Understanding on notification of military activities and rules of behavior designed to keep air and naval encounters peaceful. So far, there is no public acknowledgement that either China or the U.S. is employing the crisis prevention mechanism. One recent sign of efforts by both sides to avoid a military incident was the Pentagon’s August 7 announcement that U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper and his Chinese counterpart, Minister of Defense Wei Fenghe, held a 90-minute teleconference last week.

China, however, has been the party with the hostile intent, not only with Hong Kong, but also with an attack on northern India, an extensive military base build-up in the South China Sea, an attempted appropriation of the Japan-administered Senkaku Islands and a “fishing fleet” of 250 vessels showing up near the Galapagos Islands, off Ecuador. Another recent move from Beijing was to conduct live-fire targeting drills in the South China Sea from July 25 through August 2. The announcement of this exercise was promulgated by the PLA and not, as is usual, by the Chinese government’s maritime administration. If China continues its aggressive posture toward the U.S.-allied free states of Asia, especially Taiwan, a direct confrontation between the Chinese and U.S. militaries in the South China may indeed be necessary.

Author: Dr. Lawrence A. Franklin was the Iran Desk Officer for Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld. He also served on active duty with the U.S. Army and as a Colonel in the Air Force Reserve.

Protests in Beirut over Possible Stolen Millions?

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238 people injured in Beirut protests » Breaking News ...

It is beginning to sound like some oligarch corruption out of Ukraine but read on.

Salamé became Governor of Lebanon’s central bank, on August 1, 1993. He was subsequently reappointed for four consecutive terms in 1999, 2005, 2011 and 2017. Salamé chairs the BDL Central Council, the Higher Banking Commission, the AML/CFT Special Investigation Commission and the Capital Markets Authority.

He is a member of the board of governors at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and at the Arab Monetary Fund (AMF).

Le Commerce du Levant magazine économique libanais ...

In 2012, Salamé chaired the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank Group in Tokyo. So he is well connected and maybe a Middle East swamper,,,,but could something else be revealed?

***

(Reuters) – Offshore companies linked to Lebanon’s central bank governor own assets worth nearly $100 million, a media group said in a report, as his role in Lebanon’s economic turmoil is under intense scrutiny.

The companies tied to Riad Salameh invested in real estate in Britain, Germany and Belgium over the past decade according to a report by a collective of European news outlets called the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), a nonprofit media organisation, and its Lebanese partner, Daraj.com.

The report by the Sarajevo-based OCCRP does not allege any wrongdoing by Salameh and Reuters has not reviewed any of the documents on which the report is based.

Responding to the report, Salemeh told Reuters he had declared during a TV interview in April his net worth prior to becoming a governor in 1993 and it was $23 million dollars.

“I have shown the supporting documents as a proof. This to eliminate doubts on the origin of my net worth and that it was prior to holding office,” he said.

He said he had previously stated that he asked professionals and trustees to manage his net worth. “The origin of my net worth is clear, this is the important matter,” he said.

Salameh, previously seen as a guarantor of financial stability in the country, has become a focus of anger for street protesters since Lebanon’s financial system collapsed earlier this year under the weight of one of the world’s biggest public debt burdens.

The report into his personal wealth comes at a sensitive time as Lebanon grapples with the aftermath of an enormous chemicals explosion that devastated the capital Beirut, fuelling public anger with the country’s leadership.

The OCCRP report also comes after central bank accounts seen by Reuters last month revealed that Lebanon’s central bank governor inflated the institution’s assets by over $6 billion in 2018, showing the extent of financial engineering used to help prop up the Lebanese economy.

The governor told Reuters last month that the central bank accounting was in line with policies approved by the board.

A Lebanese judge last month ordered a protective freeze on some assets held by the governor after ruling in favour of a complaint that he had allegedly undermined the financial standing of the state.

By the end of 2018, Salameh’s assets were worth more than $94 million, the report said, citing balance sheets of Luxembourg companies controlled by the governor.

Salameh said his declaration on his net worth demonstrated he was not trying to escape public scrutiny and was the proof he has “nothing to hide.” (Reporting by Davide Barbuscia and Laila Bassam; Editing by Tom Perry and Jon Boyle)

Warnings of Ransomware Affecting Elections

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According to an intelligence report issued by the Department of Homeland Security, one of the top 2020 election security concerns is ransomware. A report entitled “Cybercriminals and Criminal Hackers Capable of Disrupting Election Infrastructure”, echos concerns CISA head Chris Krebs articulate at the Black Hat security conference in early August.

Department of Homeland Security fears 'ransomware' attacks ... source

The FBI and Department of Homeland Security have issued advisories to local governments, including recommendations for preventing attacks.
“From the standpoint of confidence in the system, I think it is much easier to disrupt a network and prevent it from operating than it is to change votes,” Adam Hickey, a Justice Department deputy assistant attorney general, said in an interview.

US officials state that election interference will not be tolerated. They are proactively working with social media companies, among other groups, to help safeguard the elections.

In addition, the US Department of State’s “Rewards for Justice” program is offering a 10M to anyone who can provide information about foreign interference. The Department of State has reached out to targeted individuals in Iran soliciting information.

US officials are interested in identifying individuals who aim to disrupt campaigns, meddle with election infrastructure, and who pose threats to election officials. This is the third major “Rewards for Justice” initiative this year. More here.

***

“We’re seeing state and local entities targeted with ransomware on a near daily basis,” said Geoff Hale, a top election security official with Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

Steps taken to improve security of voter registration systems after the 2016 election could help governments fend off election-related ransomware attacks. They’ve also acted to ensure they can recover quickly in the event of an attack.

Colorado, for example, stores redundant versions of its voter registration data at two separate secure locations so officials can easily shift operations. Backups are regular so the system can be quickly rebuilt if needed.

Even so, ransomware is an added concern for local election officials already confronting staffing and budget constraints while preparing for a shift from in-person voting to absentee balloting because of the pandemic.

In West Virginia, state officials are more concerned about the cyberthreat confronting its 55 county election offices than a direct attack on the statewide voter registration system. One click from a county employee falling victim to a spearphishing attack could grant a hacker access to the county network and eventually to election systems.

“I’m more worried that those people who are working extra hours and working more days, the temporary staff that may be brought in to help process the paperwork, that all this may create a certain malaise or fatigue when they are using tools like email,” said David Tackett, chief information officer for the secretary of state.

In states that rely heavily on in-person voting and use electronic systems to check in voters, a well-timed attack particularly during early voting could prevent officials from immediately verifying a voter’s eligibility, making paper backups critical.

For states conducting elections entirely by mail, including Colorado, an attack near Election Day may have little effect on voting because ballots are sent early to all voters, with few votes cast in-person. But it could disrupt vote-tallying, forcing officials to process ballots by hand.

In many states, local officials will face an influx of new ballot requests. That means they’ll need constant access to voter data as they handle these requests. An attack could cause major disruptions.

Hickey said he was unaware of ransomware attacks directly targeting election infrastructure. But local election offices are often connected to larger county networks and not properly insulated or protected.

A criminal targeting a county or state “may not even know what parts of the network they got into,” Hickey said. But as the malware creeps along and spreads, “what gets bricked is the entire network — and that includes but is not limited to election infrastructure.”

Even if election infrastructure isn’t directly targeted, there would likely be immediate assumptions it was, said Ron Bushar of the FireEye cybersecurity company.

A February advisory issued by the FBI and obtained by The Associated Press recommends local governments separate election-related systems from county and state systems to ensure they aren’t affected in an unrelated attack.

NASA Prepares to Launch Contact Tracing Program

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As the COVID-19 pandemic continues its spread in the U.S., NASA is tapping commercial software to start an internal contact tracing program.

Why NASA Needs a New Logo | Space

According to an information collection notice posted Tuesday in the Federal Register, the voluntary program “will be used to determine whether NASA personnel have been exposed to the COVID-19 virus and to track and trace their interactions across the NASA community for identifying possible points of exposure.”

Once the program is stood up, NASA plans to designate a health care-focused employee to act as the NASA Contact Tracer to lead the effort.

When a NASA employee or contractor agrees to sign up for the program, the Contact Tracer will start by going through the privacy considerations so the employee understands their rights and how their personal information will be used, after which the employee “will be asked, orally, to confirm if they have symptoms or not,” by replying “yes” or “no.”

That information—along with the employee’s contact information and the names, phone numbers and email addresses of those they have been in close contact with—will be entered into the new tracking app.

“While participation is voluntary, it is strongly encouraged as failure to provide the requested information may result in potential increased exposure of personnel to the virus,” the notice states.

The “newly developed tracking and tracing digital application” was built on NASA’s Salesforce platform. Salesforce’s workforce management platform has been used by a variety of organizations to start internal contact tracing programs, including some 35 state governments, according to company CEO Marc Benioff.

Interested parties have until October 4 to submit comments.

Specifically, under the Federal Register notice, the agency wants feedback on “whether the proposed collection of information is necessary for the proper performance of the functions of NASA, including whether the information collected has practical utility;” “ways to enhance the quality, utility and clarity of the information to be collected;” and “ways to minimize the burden of the collection of information on respondents, including automated collection techniques or the use of other forms of information technology.”

*** The Flawed World of Contact Tracing: Where’s Carol The Tester? source

“While participation is voluntary, it is strongly encouraged as failure to provide the requested information may result in potential increased exposure of personnel to the virus,” NASA wrote in the notice.

The information collected through NASA’s contact tracing program may also be shared with private or government healthcare providers and other entities with access to all NASA systems of records. By keeping the contact tracing records in a digital format, NASA wrote that it hopes to “ensure higher rate of inclusion and assist in the efficiency of the stages of report processing by human subject matter analysts.”

NASA is estimating that the contact tracing program will cost about $1.9 million per year. The agency is accepting comments on its contact tracing program – such as ways to enhance the quality of its data and ways to minimize the burden of information collection on personnel – through October 4.