Author Archives: Denise Simon

Wall Street to Clinton Foundation: $40 Million

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For what exactly? A question likely to never fully be answered…Unless we get the rest of ‘those’ emails.

Clinton Foundation Discloses $40 Million in Wall Street Donations

Hillary Clinton is facing more questions about her close ties to Wall Street financial institutions. Last week, the New York Times urged Clinton to release transcripts of her highly-compensated speeches to Wall Street firm Goldman Sachs.

Breitbart: The paid speeches are just a slim chapter of her relationship with financial titans. According to Clinton Foundation records, Wall Street financial institutions have donated around $40 million to the eponymous family foundation.

As a non-profit, the Clinton Foundation isn’t legally required to disclose its donors or contributions. The Foundation has publicly disclosed some contributions on its website. It only provides ranges for contributions, e.g. $1-5 million, and doesn’t detail when the contribution was made or for what purpose, if any.

Here’s the chart of contributions from Wall Street to the Clinton Foundation.

Four major Wall Street institutions stand out; Barclays, Barclays Capitol, Goldman Sachs and Citi. Each are listed as given between $1 million and $5 million to the Foundation. Citigroup, UBS, Banc of California and Bank of America are listed as giving up to $1 million to the Foundation.

All together, contributions from readily identifiable Wall Street institutions to the Foundation total somewhere between $11 million and $41 million in contributions. If we assume the donations fall in the middle of the ranges disclosed by the Clinton Foundation, the contributions would total just under $30 million.

As with most things involving the Clintons, the devil is in the details. This total of contributions does not include those made by individuals with strong Wall Street ties. It also does not necessarily represent the total amounts contributed to the Foundation from those donors listed. It only accounts for the donations which the Foundation has chosen to disclose.

The failure of the Foundation to include any information on the timing of the donations is especially worrisome. In terms of donor relationships, there is a real difference between a one-time gift of $1 million and an ongoing gift of $200,000 for 5 straight years. The total dollar amount may be the same, but an ongoing gift usually requires a more substantive relationship between the Foundation and the donor.

There is, of course, an added dimension to the timing issue with the Clintons. During the life of the Foundation, Hillary Clinton has been a US Senator, Secretary of State and two-time candidate for President.

When the Clinton Foundation discloses that the “Friends of Saudi Arabia” contributed $1-5 million, it begs the obvious question of when that donation was made. The specific date of that donation is particularly important, given Clinton’s considerable focus on the Middle East while she was Secretary of State.

It is also important to note that these contributions are completely seperate from the paid speeches made by Bill and Hillary Clinton. In 2013 alone, Hillary earned just over $3 million in paid speeches to financial firms and institutions.

These contributions, obviously, also don’t include direct contributions made by Wall Street institutions and individuals to either of Clinton’s Presidential campaigns.

In a recent Democrat debate, Clinton’s sole challenger, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) challenged her, “Can you really reform Wall Street when they are spending millions and millions of dollars on campaign contributions…And when they are providing speaking fees to individuals?”

He should have added that Wall Street has showered Clinton’s family foundation with millions in contributions.

Wall Street, and the financial industry generally, is not simply a special interest contributing to Clinton’s political ambitions. It is woven into the very fabric of the Clinton’s lives. It fuels her politial ambitions, provides employment to Bill and Hillary through generous speaking fees, and it underwrites a significant amount of the work undertaken by the family’s Clinton Foundation.

If the Clintons were any closer to Wall Street and financial firms, they would probably have to file SEC disclosures. They could very well be the first American family with their own Dodd-Frank regulation.

 

 

al Qaeda Making a Comeback

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Al Qaeda Makes a Comeback

Intelligence analysts paid close attention last month when al Qaeda’s master bombmaker, Ibrahim al Asiri — whose name tops U.S. kill lists — issued an audiotape from his hiding place.

NBC: The content was the usual anti-Saudi Arabian screed, sprinkled with threats against America — but the news was Asiri’s sudden willingness to join the terror group’s PR campaign. For years, the man who tried to take down planes with underwear and parcel bombs had laid low, as al Qaeda’s Yemen affiliate tried to protect him from U.S. drone strikes.

In 2016, however, a resurgent al Qaeda is emerging from the shadows. While ISIS has been soaking up headlines, its older sibling has been launching attacks and grabbing territory too, and U.S. intelligence officials tell NBC News they are increasingly concerned the older terror group is poised to build on its achievements.

“Al Qaeda affiliates are positioned to make gains in 2016,” James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, warned the House Intelligence Committee Thursday.

Because of those far-flung affiliates, al Qaeda “remains a serious threat to U.S. interests worldwide,” Lt. Gen. Vincent Stewart, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told Congress recently.

After seizing a large segment of Iraq and Syria, beheading Western hostages on camera and slaughtering civilians in the heart of Paris, ISIS has eclipsed its extremist rival as the biggest brand in global jihad.

But U.S. officials tell NBC News that al Qaeda — though its core in Pakistan has been degraded by years of CIA drone strikes — is now experiencing renewed strength through its affiliates, led by al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in Yemen and the Nusra Front in Syria. Clapper called the two groups al Qaeda’s “most capable” affiliates in his House testimony Thursday.

Both branches have expanded their territorial holdings over the last year amid civil wars. Russian air strikes against the Nusra Front, and CIA drone attacks on AQAP leaders, have set them back, but have not come close to destroying them.

Al Qaeda has not managed to attack a Western target recently, but it continues to inspire plots. There is no evidence December’s mass shooting in San Bernardino, California was directed by al Qaeda, but Syed Rizwan Farook, who carried out the attack with his wife Tashfeen Malik, appears to have been radicalized by al Qaeda long before the rise of ISIS. He was a consumer of videos by al Qaeda’s Somalia affiliate and the AQAP preacher Anwar al Awlaki, court records show.

Al Qaeda attacks on hotels in Burkina Faso in January and Mali in November, which together killed dozens of people, appeared to affirm the threat posed by the terror group’s Saharan branch, al Qaeda in the Islamic Magreb, or AQIM.

Stewart added that intelligence officials are also “concerned al Qaeda could reestablish a significant presence in Afghanistan and Pakistan, if regional counterterrorism pressure deceases.”

In Yemen, AQAP has benefitted from the power vacuum created by the Houthi rebels’ uprising, and the air war on the Houthis by Saudi Arabia.

AQAP last April seized the city of Mukalla, the capital of Hadramout province and a port city with a population of some 300,000. It looted a bank of more than $1 million in cash, U.S. officials said, and released 300 inmates from jail.

Since then, the group has expanded its territory in the provinces of Abyan and Shabwa, its traditional strongholds.

“AQAP’s expansion is unchecked because there is no one on the ground to put any pressure on the organization,” noted Geoffrey Johnsen, a Yemen expert. “What is left of Yemen’s military is too busy fighting other enemies to engage AQAP, and the Saudis are focused on rolling back the Houthis. In the midst of Yemen’s civil war, AQAP is able to pursue more territory and to plot, plan, and launch attacks.”

The CIA is watching closely. Jalal Bala’idi, a prominent AQAP field commander, was killed in an agency drone strike in February.

AQAP’s seizures of territory have “allowed them to operate more openly, have access to a port, and have access to other kinds of infrastructure that has certainly benefitted them,” a U.S. intelligence official told NBC News. At the same time, he said, the U.S. has “managed to remove many significant figures from the battlefield and keep AQAP somewhat at bay.”

Al Qaida’s Syrian affiliate gets less public attention than others. Western media reporting sometimes refers to the Nusra front as a Syrian rebel group, without mentioning that it’s part of the global terrorism organization.

But Nusra is as well-organized and disciplined as any al Qaeda affiliate, U.S. intelligence officials say. Although it is now focused on defeating Assad, its battle tested fighters could pose a risk to the West in the years ahead.

“Jabhat al Nusra is a core component of the al Qaeda network and probably poses the most dangerous threat to the U.S. from al Qaeda in the coming years,” the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank, said in a recent report. “Al Qaeda is pursuing phased, gradual, and sophisticated strategies that favor letting ISIS attract the attention — and attacks — of the West while it builds the human infrastructure to support and sustain major gains in the future and for the long term.”

U.S. air strikes have set back a group of al Qaeda operatives in Syria known as the Khorasan Group, which embedded with Nusra while plotting attacks against the West, intelligence officials say.

But Nusra has trained a core of elite fighters, the ISW says. Georgetown terrorism expert Bruce Hoffman says Nusra has achieved Osama bin Laden’s goal of rebranding al Qaeda and moving away from a name that had lost its luster.

The group’s leader, Abu Mohammad al Julani, is hardly a household name in the West, but he is respected by his adversaries in American intelligence. He is believed to have been detained by the U.S. military in Iraq and released in 2008.

Hoffman, who served as the CIA’s Scholar-in-Residence for Counterterrorism, calls Nusra “even more dangerous and capable than ISIS.”

Al Qaeda is watching ISIS “take all the heat and absorb all the blows while al Qaeda quietly re-builds its military strength,” he said.

SecDef on Gitmo and Detainees Too Dangerous

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A partial closing? An Executive Order to overrule the law and Congress? There are no more enemy combatants anywhere in the world? Where would a new president send enemy combatants? What about the next Secretary of Defense?

Thoughts?

Ash Carter: There Are Gitmo Detainees so Dangerous That it Is Not Safe to Transfer Them

FreeBeacon: Defense Secretary Ash Carter told reporters on Monday there are detainees at the Guantanamo Bay military prison who are so dangerous that it would not be safe to transfer them outside the care of the United States.

Carter and President Obama have drawn up a plan to move many of the remaining 91 detainees into the custody of foreign governments. Detainees not cleared for transfer overseas—those who Carter describes as too dangerous to go elsewhere—would be moved stateside in an effort to close the detention facility.

Moving Detainees From Gitmo To U.S. Is Reckless and Dangerous

February 23, 2016

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Representative Darrell Issa (R-Ca.) issued the following statement on the President’s plan to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay and relocate some of the most dangerous detainees into the United States:

“President Obama is once again proving his willingness to set aside the rule of law to pursue his own reckless agenda no matter the consequences for the American people. The plan announced today would take detainees deemed too dangerous to transfer to other countries and bring them right into our own backyards. It risks the lives and safety of American citizens and it’s not what the people expect of our commander-in-chief.”

“The administration has already let nearly 150 detainees go free, only to see many of them return to terrorist groups and rejoin the fight against us. Instead of focusing on finding new homes for terrorists, the President should refocus his efforts on winning the War on Terror and bringing an end to the extremist groups seeking to do us harm.”

 

 

Carter made his comment while holding a press briefing at the Pentagon along with Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

A reporter asked Carter if the United States is thinking of transferring the Guantanamo Bay naval base back to the Cuban government, which he denied while drawing a distinction between the naval base and the detention facility.

“The base is separate from the detention facility,” Carter said in response. “The base is in a strategic location. We’ve had it for a long time. It’s important to us, and we intend to hold onto it.”

Carter then turned his attention to the detention center within the naval base, which he said is the specific focus of the Obama administration’ closure plan.

“With respect to the detention facility at [Guantanamo], which is what the president was speaking about last week … there are people in the Guantanamo Bay detention facility whom it is not safe to transfer to any other—they have to stay in U.S. detention,” Carter said. “Safety is the top priority for me, the chairman, and for the president.”

Carter then said that because some detainees are too dangerous to release, there needs to be an alternate facility in the U.S. for these individuals to go if Guantanamo is closed, which is at the heart of Obama’s proposal.

The Pentagon is reportedly looking at send prisoners to either the federal Supermax prison in Florence, Colo., the military prison in Leavenworth, Kansas, or the Naval Consolidated Brig in Charleston, S.C.

One problem for the administration, however, is that it is currently illegal to move Guantanamo detainees to U.S. soil. Carter said at Monday’s briefing that Congress must change the law for the closure plan to go into effect.

“[Obama’s Guantanamo plan] can’t be done unless Congress acts, which means Congress has to support the idea that it would be good to move this facility and the detainees to the United States … it’s good if it can be done, but it can’t be done under current law. The law would have to be changed. That’s the reason we would put the proposal in front of Congress,” Carter said.

This may prove difficult for the administration, as a bipartisan majority in both houses of Congress disapprove of closing Guantanamo and transferring detainees to the U.S.

Carter reaffirmed his support for the president’s plan, citing its fiscal benefits—U.S. officials say it would save the government between $65 million and $85 million per year—and benefits for U.S. military personnel charged with duty at Guantanamo. He said the plan is good “on balance” and that he does not want to pass the Guantanamo issue to the next president and Defense Secretary if possible.

The president has long maintained that Guantanamo should be closed because the detention facility is not in keeping with American values and serves as a recruiting tool for terrorists.

Those who want Guantanamo to remain open argue that the facility is necessary to hold enemy combatants who are members of jihadist groups like al Qaeda to keep them off the battlefield and gather intelligence. They cite the reportedly exceptional treatment detainees receive at the facility, which military leaders have detailed to reporters, as well as experts who say that Guantanamo plays a minimal role in jihadist propaganda.

The recidivism rate for Guantanamo detainees who are released and return to terrorist activity is about 30 percent, according to experts.

A recent example that garnered attention was Ibrahim al Qosi, a former aide to Osama bin Laden who was sent to Guantanamo in 2002 and released 10 years later. Al Qosi resurfaced this month as a senior member of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the terror group’s most dangerous branch.

When asked about al Qosi’s return to jihadist activity at a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing last week, Secretary of State John Kerry lamented that “he’s not supposed to be doing that.”

It is important to understand the term enemy combatant, lawful and unlawful as defined the Geneva Convention. You can read the 10 items here.

 

 

 

CAIR -1 FBI-0

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Go to the FBI website and see for yourself.  Violent extremism is a politically correct phrase…..a dangerous one.

New FBI Counter Extremism Site Fails to Mention Islamism

The FBI altered its website ‘Don’t Be a Puppet’ after pressure from the Muslim-Brotherhood-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

ClarionProject: The FBI has launched a new website to counter extremism, but it has been stripped of references to Islamist extremism or Islam.

Titled “Don’t be a Puppet,” the site tries to deconstruct some of the motivating factors that lead people into extremism. It’s aimed for use in high schools or other programs for teenagers.

The website was originally slated to launch in November 2015, but did not, following criticisms from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). At the time, CAIR expressed concerns about a new FBI “countering violent extremism” (CVE) online program that would make teachers an extension of law enforcement and may stigmatize and increase bullying of Muslim students.”

Several community organizations told The New York Times they thought the website “focuses almost entirely on Islamic extremism.”

The site was then put on hold, eventually launching in February 2016.

There is no reason why a site that targets the specific roots of Islamist terrorism and tackles the ideology openly should increase the bullying of Muslim students. On the contrary, if the site’s explanation properly separates the theocratic totalitarian political ideology of Islamism

IslamismGlossary Item

The interpretation of Islam as a governmental system in which strict Sharia law must be enforced; synonymous with Political Islam.

from the religion of Islam in general, then it should have the opposite impact – calming fears about Muslims by painting an accurate picture about what is going on.

The updated version of the site includes only vague generalities about different types of “violent extremism.” CAIR had lobbied the FBI to change the content of the game, which the agency seems to have done.

The types of extremism listed incude:

  • White Supremacy Extremists
  • Environmental Extremists
  • Militia Extremists
  • Religious Extremists
  • Anarchist Extremists

“It’s the FBI’s primary responsibility—working with its many partners—to protect the nation from attacks by violent extremists,” the website’s introduction states. “One important way to do that is to keep young people—the future of our country—from embracing violent extremist ideologies in the first place.”

“This website is designed to help do just that. Built by the FBI in consultation with community leaders and other partners, it uses a series of interactive materials to educate teens on the destructive nature of violent extremism and to encourage them to think critically about its messages and goals.”

Although the website mentions specific terrorist attacks including 9/11 as being carried out by al-Qaeda, it failed to name the specific ideology driving Islamist terrorist attacks worldwide.

Without a clear explanation of the ideology behind Islamist terrorism, the FBI presents the problem as solely one of violence, in sharp contrast to the reality of the many non-violent Islamist groups which are working towards their ambitions of a global Islamist caliphate

CaliphateGlossary Item

An Islamic State where Sharia is the basis of governance; usually used in reference to past Islamic empires in the Middle East.

through political means. Foremost among these is the Muslim Brotherhood, one branch of which is the terrorist organization Hamas.

The Council on American Islamic Relations is facing a possible ban in the U.S. after legislation to ban Muslim Brotherhood

Muslim BrotherhoodGlossary Item

A worldwide Islamist organization founded in Egypt in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna that seeks to implement Sharia-based governance globally.

entities in America as terrorist organizations passed the House Judiciary Committee. CAIR is listed as one of three US Muslim Brotherhood entities.

A mountain of documentation shows that CAIR’s role in the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestine Committee. Two of CAIR’s founders were present at a secret meeting in 1993 that was wiretapped by the FBI where they were instructed to deceive American audiences.

“War is deception,” they said at the meeting.

 

Hey Hilary and Cheryl, it is a Felony

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Hoorah for Senator Grassley and..today February 29, 2016, the last official court ordered email document dump by the State Department is expected.

It is important to remember that a chain of email discussions included drone strikes.

Senior Clinton aide maintained top secret clearance amid email probe, letters show

FNC:

EXCLUSIVE: A senior Hillary Clinton aide has maintained her top secret security clearance despite sending information now deemed classified to the Clinton Foundation and to then-Secretary of State Clinton’s private unsecured email account, according to congressional letters obtained by Fox News.

Pictured left, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Pictured right, her former chief of staff Cheryl Mills.

Current and former intelligence officials say it is standard practice to suspend a clearance pending the outcome of an investigation. Yet in the case of Cheryl Mills, Clinton’s former chief of staff at the State Department, two letters indicate this practice is not being followed — even as the Clinton email system remains the subject of an FBI investigation.

In an Oct. 30, 2015, letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa — who has been aggressively investigating the Clinton email case — Mills’ lawyer Beth A. Wilkinson confirmed that her client “has an active Top Secret clearance.” The letter said previous reporting from the State Department that the clearance was no longer active was wrong and due to “an administrative error.”

A second letter dated Feb. 18, 2016, from the State Department’s assistant secretary for legislative affairs, Julia Frifield, provided additional details to Grassley about the “administrative error.” It, too, confirmed Mills maintained the top secret clearance.

The letters come amid multiple congressional investigations, as well as an FBI probe focused on the possible gross mishandling of classified information and Clinton’s use of an unsecured personal account exclusively for government business. The State Department is conducting its own administrative review.

Under normal circumstances, Mills would have had her clearance terminated when she left the department. But in January 2014, according to the State Department letter, Clinton designated Mills “to assist in her research.” Mills was the one who reviewed Clinton’s emails before select documents were handed over to the State Department, and others were deleted.

Dan Maguire, a former strategic planner with Africom who has 46 years combined service, told Fox News his current and former colleagues are deeply concerned a double standard is at play.

A sample of the emails released from last week, lots of gossip.

“Had this happened to someone serving in the government, their clearance would have already been pulled, and certainly they would be under investigation. And depending on the level of disclosure, it’s entirely possible they would be under pretrial confinement for that matter,” Maguire explained. “There is a feeling the administration may want to sweep this under the rug.”

On Monday, the State Department was scheduled to release the final batch of Clinton emails as part of a federal court-mandated timetable.

So far, more than 1,800 have been deemed to contain classified information, and another 22 “top secret” emails have been considered too damaging to national security to release even with heavy redactions.

As Clinton’s chief of staff, Mills was a gatekeeper and routinely forwarded emails to Clinton’s personal account. As one example, a Jan. 23, ‎2011 email forwarded from Mills to Clinton, called “Update on DR meeting,” contained classified information, as well as foreign government information which is “born classified.”

The 2011 email can be declassified 15 years after it was sent — indicating it contained classified information when it was sent.

Fox News was first to report that sworn declarations from the CIA notified the intelligence community inspector general and Congress there were “several dozen emails” containing classified information up to the most closely guarded government programs known as “Special Access Programs.”

Clinton has maintained all along that she did not knowingly transmit information considered classified at the time.

The U.S. Department of State Foreign Affairs Manual lays out the penalties for taking classified information out of secure government channels – such as an unsecured email system. While the incidents are handled on a “case by case” basis, the manual suggests the suspension of a clearance is routine while “derogatory information” is reviewed.

The manual says the director of the Diplomatic Security Service, “based on a recommendation from the Senior Coordinator for Security Infrastructure (DS/SI), will determine whether, considering all facts available upon receipt of the initial information, it is in the interests of the national security to suspend the employee’s access to classified information on an interim basis. A suspension is an independent administrative procedure that does not represent a final determination …”

Fox News has asked the State Department to explain why Mills maintains her clearance while multiple federal and congressional investigations are ongoing. Fox News also asked whether the department was instructed by the FBI or another entity to keep the clearance in place. Fox News has not yet received a response.