Category Archives: DOJ, DC and inside the Beltway

Texas Allowed to use Abandoned Border Wall Material to Build the Border Wall

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Some of them actually…

After the Biden administration halted the construction of former President Donald Trump’s border wall, hundreds of unused wall panels were left at construction sites.

Now 1,700 unused panels — declared surplus property by the federal government — have been shipped from California to help build Gov. Greg Abbott’s state-funded wall, according to spokespeople for the U.S. Department of Defense and the Texas Facilities Commission.

The Biden administration halted virtually all work on the federal wall in January 2021. Lt. Col. Chris Mitchell, a spokesperson for the Department of Defense, which had been in charge of awarding some of the federal wall contracts under Trump, said the 32-foot-tall steel bollard panels were at a storage site in San Diego.

The Texas Facilities Commission, the state office in charge of Texas border wall construction, applied in November to receive the surplus panels through the federal government’s General Service Administration, a program that allows nonprofit organizations and state and local governments to receive property the federal government no longer needs.

A welder straightens out a post in a new section of border wall that is being constructed near Eagle Pass on Nov. 20, 2021.  A welder worked last November on a new section of border wall near Eagle Pass. Credit: Nick Wagner for The Texas Tribune

Francoise Luca, a spokesperson for the Facilities Commission, said the state didn’t have to disclose to the federal government that it planned to use the panels for Texas’ border wall project, adding that the state followed the surplus program’s rules.

In December, the Facilities Commission hired New York-based Posillico Civil Inc. to haul the panels from San Diego to Eagle Pass at a cost of $2 million, according to the contract awarded to the engineering firm. The company finished the job earlier this month.

Luca said the panels are being stored in “a temporary and secured area” in Maverick County under the watch of the Texas National Guard.

With the 1,700 donated panels, the state can erect roughly 1.3 miles of border barrier. Luca said the panels “will be used in the near term” but didn’t say where on the Texas-Mexico border they will be used.

Scott Nicol, a McAllen-based environmental activist, said Biden has broken his pledge not to use taxpayer money to build a wall, pointing to one project in the Rio Grande Valley where crews erected 15-foot concrete panels near the border that the federal government calls levees.

And now “the Biden administration is saying, ‘We won’t build these border walls, but if Abbott wants to build them, we will give him free bollards,’” he said. “The problem with border walls isn’t who is building them, it is the devastation that comes when they are built.”

Nicol said regardless of who is building border barriers, the wall will block the movement of endangered species like ocelots and could cause dangerous flooding.

In June 2021, five months after Biden took office, Abbott announced that the state would build its own wall along the Texas-Mexico border, funding it with state money and private donations. The state has $1.05 billion dedicated to the project — which includes $55 million in private donations as of Feb. 11.

Eight months into the effort, the state has completed 1 mile of barrier in Rio Grande City in Starr County. The Texas General Land Office owned the land, and the Texas Facilities Commission paid $125,000 for it.

In November, the Facilities Commission awarded a $162 million contract to Posillico Civil to build 8 miles of border barrier, including the Starr County section that the Facilities Commission said will total 1.7 miles and cost $34.5 million.

That’s just over $20 million a mile. By comparison, border wall construction under the Trump administration ranged from $6 million to $34 million per mile, according to a Texas Tribune analysis.

The state has said some border residents have offered to donate land to have barriers built on their property. But the state has refused to release the names of those private landowners or the location of those properties, saying that if those details were made public, the properties could be targeted by criminals and owners could drive up the land prices and hurt the Facilities Commission’s negotiations — an indication that the state is also looking to purchase property, although that option hasn’t been publicly discussed.

Durham’s Evidence of Hillary et. al and the Concocted RussiaGate

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It was and for that matter still is an unconventional and unconditional war on a presidential candidate, a president and the American people. It should also be noted that Hillary did not invent the whole fake scandal but she did approve it and paid for it.

When former Attorney General William Barr gave testimony and said in summary that the Trump operation was SPIED on, he was right and more right that we can understand. When Donal Trump said that his team was wire-tapped…while wire tapping is no longer the tactic used…he too was quite right.

This is a very confusion affair but there are several key people that should be not only indicted but surely jailed. The BIG question is will now Attorney General Merrick Garland allow prosecution as it should happen…

https://media.breitbart.com/media/2017/05/John-Brennan-Getty.jpg John Brennan, former Director of the CIA

Remember Peter Strzok and Marc Elias? They both have given testimony to the Grand Jury. But where is Obama, Hillary, Biden, Brennan and Comey in the mix so far? There is nothing yet to report on those players…but there is hope. It is then we need to know and understand the relationship between the various agencies and the media that were willing accomplices. Biden and Sullivan are in the equation too…

Sit back and read on….maybe even take notes.

If you are a detailed kinda person that want to read in full the documents, go –>

here

here

EXCLUSIVE: Former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe met with Special Counsel John Durham on more than one occasion and told him there was evidence in intelligence to support the indictments of “multiple people” in his investigation into the origins of the Trump-Russia probe, sources told Fox News.

Fox News first reported on Durham’s latest filing, which alleged that lawyers from Hillary Clinton‘s presidential campaign in 2016 had paid to “infiltrate” servers belonging to Trump Tower and later the White House, in order to establish an “inference” and “narrative” to bring to federal government agencies linking Donald Trump to Russia.

Fox News first reported in October 2020 that Ratcliffe provided nearly 1,000 pages of material to the Justice Department to support Durham’s investigation.

‘Enough evidence’

But sources told Fox News this week that during his meetings with Durham, Ratcliffe, who served as a congressman and as the former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Texas, said he believed there was “enough evidence” in those materials that he provided to indict “multiple people.”

The sources pointed to one key piece of declassified intelligence, which Fox News first reported in October 2020, revealing that intelligence community officials within the CIA forwarded an investigative referral on Hillary Clinton purportedly approving “a plan concerning U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump and Russian hackers hampering U.S. elections” in order to distract the public from her email scandal to the FBI.

RATCLIFFE SAYS ODNI HAS PROVIDED NEARLY 1,000 DOCUMENTS TO DOJ TO SUPPORT DURHAM PROBE

Sources told Fox News that the CIA memo, also known as a Counterintelligence Operational Lead (CIOL), was properly forwarded to the FBI, and to the attention of then-FBI Director James Comey and then-Deputy Assistant Director of Counterintelligence Peter Strzok.

Fox News first obtained the declassified memo in October 2020.

“The following information is provided for the exclusive use of your bureau for background investigative action or lead purposes as appropriate,” the 2016 CIA memo to Comey and Strzok stated.

“This memorandum contains sensitive information that could be source revealing. It should be handled with particular attention to compartmentation and need-to-know. To avoid the possible compromise of the source, any investigative action taken in response to the information below should be coordinated in advance with Chief Counterintelligence Mission Center, Legal,” the memo read. “It may not be used in any legal proceeding — including FISA applications — without prior approval …”

“Per FBI verbal request, CIA provides the below examples of information the CROSSFIRE HURRICANE fusion cell has gleaned to date,” the memo continued. “”An exchange [REDACTED] discussing US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s approval of a plan concerning US presidential candidate Donald Trump and Russian hackers hampering US elections as a means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server.”

The memo was heavily redacted.

Concerns raised

A source familiar with the matter told Fox News that Ratcliffe, privately, has raised concerns that the CIOL was directed to Comey and Strzok.

DNI DECLASSIFIES BRENNAN NOTES, CIA MEMO ON HILLARY CLINTON ‘STIRRING UP’ SCANDAL BETWEEN TRUMP, RUSSIA

Fox News, at this point, has not obtained evidence to suggest the FBI opened an investigation into Clinton’s plan per the CIA referral.

Meanwhile, Ratcliffe had also declassified documents that revealed former CIA Director John Brennan briefed then-President Obama on Hillary Clinton’s purported “plan” to tie then-candidate Trump to Russia as “a means of distracting the public from her use of a private email server” ahead of the 2016 presidential election.

“We’re getting additional insight into Russian activities from [REDACTED],” Brennan’s declassified notes, which were first obtained by Fox News in October 2020, read. “CITE [summarizing] alleged approved by Hillary Clinton a proposal from one of her foreign policy advisers to vilify Donald Trump by stirring up a scandal claiming interference by the Russian security service.”

Three indictments

At this point, Durham has indicted three people as part of his investigation: Igor Danchenko on Nov. 4, 2021, Kevin Clinesmith in August 2020, and Michael Sussmann in September 2021.

Ratcliffe told Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” on Nov. 8, 2021, that he was expecting “many indictments” out of Durham’s special counsel investigation.

Danchenko was charged with making a false statement and is accused of lying to the FBI about the source of information that he provided to Christopher Steele for the anti-Trump dossier. Kevin Clinesmith was also charged with making a false statement. Clinesmith had been referred for potential prosecution by the Justice Department’s inspector general’s office, which conducted its own review of the Russia investigation.

Specifically, the inspector general accused Clinesmith, though not by name, of altering an email about Page to say that he was “not a source” for another government agency. Page has said he was a source for the CIA. The DOJ relied on that assertion as it submitted a third and final renewal application in 2017 to eavesdrop on Trump campaign aide Carter Page under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

HILLARY CLINTON 2016 TWEETS PUSHED NOW-DEBUNKED CLAIM OF TRUMP USE OF ‘COVERT SERVER’ LINKED TO RUSSIA

Durham also charged former Clinton campaign lawyer Michael Sussmann with making a false statement to a federal agent. Sussmann has pleaded not guilty.

The indictment against Sussmann says he told then-FBI General Counsel James Baker in September 2016, less than two months before the 2016 presidential election, that he was not doing work “for any client” when he requested and held a meeting in which he presented “purported data and ‘white papers’ that allegedly demonstrated a covert communications channel” between the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank, which has ties to the Kremlin.

Fox News, this weekend, first reported on Durham’s filing on Feb. 11. In a section titled “Factual Background,” Durham reveals that Sussmann “had assembled and conveyed the allegations to the FBI on behalf of at least two specific clients, including a technology executive (Tech Executive 1) at a U.S.-based internet company (Internet Company 1) and the Clinton campaign.”

Durham’s filing said Sussmann’s “billing records reflect” that he “repeatedly billed the Clinton Campaign for his work on the Russian Bank-1 allegations.”

The filing revealed that Sussmann and the Tech Executive had met and communicated with another law partner, who was serving as General Counsel to the Clinton campaign. Sources told Fox News that lawyer is Marc Elias, who worked at the law firm Perkins Coie.

Elias’s law firm, Perkins Coie, is the firm that the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign funded the anti-Trump dossier through. The unverified dossier was authored by ex-British Intelligence agent Christopher Steele and commissioned by opposition research firm Fusion GPS.

‘Large amounts of Internet data’

Meanwhile, Durham’s latest filing states that in July 2016, the tech executive worked with Sussmann, a U.S. investigative firm retained by Law Firm 1 on behalf of the Clinton campaign, numerous cyber researchers and employees at multiple internet companies to “assemble the purported data and white papers.”

“In connection with these efforts, Tech Executive-1 exploited his access to non-public and/or proprietary Internet data,” the filing states. “Tech Executive-1 also enlisted the assistance of researchers at a U.S.-based university who were receiving and analyzing large amounts of Internet data in connection with a pending federal government cybersecurity research contract.”

“Tech Executive-1 tasked these researchers to mine Internet data to establish ‘an inference’ and ‘narrative’ tying then-candidate Trump to Russia,” Durham states. “In doing so, Tech Executive-1 indicated that he was seeking to please certain ‘VIPs,’ referring to individuals at Law Firm-1 and the Clinton campaign.”

Durham also writes that during Sussmann’s trial, the government will establish that among the Internet data Tech Executive-1 and his associates exploited was domain name system (DNS) internet traffic pertaining to “(i) a particular healthcare provider, (ii) Trump Tower, (iii) Donald Trump’s Central Park West apartment building, and (iv) the Executive Office of the President of the United States (EOP).”

Durham states that the internet company that Tech Executive-1 worked for “had come to access and maintain dedicated servers” for the Executive Office of the President as “part of a sensitive arrangement whereby it provided DNS resolution services to the EOP.”

“Tech Executive-1 and his associates exploited this arrangement by mining the EOP’s DNS traffic and other data for the purpose of gathering derogatory information about Donald Trump,” Durham states.

The filing also reveals that Sussmann provided “an updated set of allegations” including the Russian bank data, and additional allegations relating to Trump “to a second agency of the U.S. government” in 2017.

Durham says the allegations “relied, in part, on the purported DNS traffic” that Tech Executive-1 and others “had assembled pertaining to Trump Tower, Donald Trump’s New York City apartment building, the EOP, and the aforementioned healthcare provider.”

In Sussmann’s meeting with the second U.S. government agency, Durham says he “provided data which he claimed reflected purportedly suspicious DNS lookups by these entities of internet protocol (IP) addresses affiliated with a Russian mobile phone provider,” and claimed that the lookups “demonstrated Trump and/or his associates were using supposedly rare, Russian-made wireless phones in the vicinity of the White House and other locations.”

“The Special Counsel’s Office has identified no support for these allegations,” Durham wrote, adding that the “lookups were far from rare in the United States.”

“For example, the more complete data that Tech Executive-1 and his associates gathered–but did not provide to Agency 2–reflected that between approximately 2014 and 2017, there were a total of more than 3 million lookups of Russian Phone-Prover 1 IP addresses that originated with U.S.-based IP addresses,” Durham wrote. “Fewer than 1,000 of these lookups originated with IP addresses affiliated with Trump Tower.”

Durham added that data collected by Tech Executive-1 also found that lookups began as early as 2014, during the Obama administration and years before Trump took office, which he said, is “another fact which the allegations omitted.”

“In his meeting with Agency-2 employees, the defendant also made a substantially similar false statement as he made to the FBI General Counsel,” Durham wrote. “In particular, the defendant asserted that he was not representing a particular client in conveying the above allegations.”

“In truth and in fact, the defendant was representing Tech Executive-1–a fact the defendant subsequently acknowledged under oath in December 2017 testimony before Congress, without identifying the client by name,” Durham wrote.

Trump’s reaction

Former President Trump reacted to the filing on Saturday evening, saying Durham’s filing “provides indisputable evidence that my campaign and presidency were spied on by operatives paid by the Hillary Clinton Campaign in an effort to develop a completely fabricated connection to Russia.”

“This is a scandal far greater in scope and magnitude than Watergate and those who were involved in and knew about this spying operation should be subject to criminal prosecution,” Trump said. “In a stronger period of time in our country, this crime would have been punishable by death.”

“In a stronger period of time in our country, this crime would have been punishable by death.”

— Former President Trump

Then-President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, Oct. 31, 2017.

Then-President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, Oct. 31, 2017. (Associated Press)

Trump added: “In addition, reparations should be paid to those in our country who have been damaged by this.”

Former chief investigator of the Trump-Russia probe for the House Intelligence Committee under then-Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., Kash Patel, said the filing “definitively shows that the Hillary Clinton campaign directly funded and ordered its lawyers at Perkins Coie to orchestrate a criminal enterprise to fabricate a connection between President Trump and Russia.”

“Per Durham, this arrangement was put in motion in July of 2016, meaning the Hillary Clinton campaign and her lawyers masterminded the most intricate and coordinated conspiracy against Trump when he was both a candidate and later President of the United States while simultaneously perpetuating the bogus Steele Dossier hoax,” Patel told Fox News, adding that the lawyers worked to “infiltrate” Trump Tower and White House servers.

Meanwhile, unearthed Hillary Clinton tweets from days before the 2016 presidential election show the candidate pushing now-debunked information that Donald Trump was using a “covert server” linking him to Russia.

Clinton, on Oct. 31, 2016, tweeted: “Computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank,” and shared a statement from her campaign’s senior policy advisor Jake Sullivan, who now serves as President Biden’s White House National Security advisor.

“This could be the most direct link yet between Donald Trump and Moscow,” Sullivan said in the October 2016 statement. “Computer scientists have uncovered a covert server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank.”

Sullivan said the “secret hotline may be the key to unlocking the mystery of Trump’s ties to Russia.”

“This line of communication may help explain Trump’s bizarre adoration of Vladimir Putin and endorsement of so many pro-Kremlin positions throughout this campaign,” he continued. “It raises even more troubling questions in light of Russia’s masterminding of hacking efforts that are clearly intended to hurt Hillary Clinton’s campaign.”

Sullivan added that they “can only assume federal authorities will now explore this direct connection between Trump and Russia as part of their existing probe into Russia’s meddling in our elections.”

A second Clinton tweet from that day stated it was “time for Trump to answer serious questions about his ties to Russia.”

Clinton tweeted an image that states that Trump had “a secret server” to “communicate privately with a Putin-tied Russian bank called Alfa Bank.”

 

U.S. Military’s Frustration with White House, Diplomats over Afghanistan Evacuation

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Crazy when documents eventually surface that tell a very different story than we were told by so many within the Biden administration. Hat tip to the Washington Post for this…hardly believe I can even write that.

Note that some State Department personnel were intoxicate….drunk. And also note what is not in this report….all things CIA that had a huge footprint in country.Passport control - Kabul Airport style - CONTACT magazine source

Senior White House and State Department officials failed to grasp the Taliban’s steady advance on Afghanistan’s capital and resisted efforts by U.S. military leaders to prepare the evacuation of embassy personnel and Afghan allies weeks before Kabul’s fall, placing American troops ordered to carry out the withdrawal in greater danger, according to sworn testimony from multiple commanders involved in the operation.

An Army investigative report, numbering 2,000 pages and released to The Washington Post through a Freedom of Information Act request, details the life-or-death decisions made daily by U.S. soldiers and Marines sent to secure Hamid Karzai International Airport as thousands converged on the airfield in a frantic bid to escape.

Beyond the bleak, blunt assessments of top military commanders, the documents contain previously unreported disclosures about the violence American personnel experienced, including one exchange of gunfire that left two Taliban fighters dead after they allegedly menaced a group of U.S. Marines and Afghan civilians. In a separate incident a few days later, U.S. troops killed a member of an elite Afghan strike unit that had joined the operation and wounded six others after they fired on the Americans.

The investigation was launched in response to an Aug. 26 suicide bombing just outside the airport that killed an estimated 170 Afghan civilians and 13 U.S. service members. But it is much broader, providing perhaps the fullest official account yet of the evacuation operation, which spanned 17 nightmarish days and has become one of the Biden administration’s defining moments — drawing scrutiny from Republicans and Democrats for the haphazard nature in which the United States ended its longest war.

Military personnel would have been “much better prepared to conduct a more orderly” evacuation, Navy Rear Adm. Peter Vasely, the top U.S. commander on the ground during the operation, told Army investigators, “if policymakers had paid attention to the indicators of what was happening on the ground.” He did not identify any administration officials by name, but said inattention to the Taliban’s determination to complete a swift and total military takeover undermined commanders’ ability to ready their forces.

Vasely could not be reached for comment.

The report includes witness statements from dozens of people interviewed after an Islamic State-Khorasan operative detonated a suicide vest at the airport’s Abbey Gate. Senior defense officials announced Friday that the investigation had determined that a single bomb packed with ball bearings caused “disturbing lethality” in the tightly packed outdoor corridor leading to the airfield.

The operation evacuated 124,000 people before concluding about midnight Aug. 31. It required U.S. commanders to strike an unusual security pact with the Taliban and rapidly deploy nearly 6,000 troops to assist a skeleton force of about 600 left behind under Vasely’s command to protect U.S. Embassy personnel. U.S. officials have lauded the effort, but critics have said that although U.S. troops performed heroically, the evacuation was flawed and incomplete, leaving behind hundreds of Americans and tens of thousands of Afghans who supported the war effort and were promised a way out.

John Kirby, the Pentagon’s chief spokesman, said in response to questions about the report that while the airlift was a “historic achievement,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has acknowledged it was “not perfect.”

“We are committed to, and are intensely engaged in, an ongoing review of our efforts during the evacuation, the assessments and strategy during the conflict, and the planning in the months before the end of the war,” Kirby said. “We will take those lessons learned, and apply them, as we always do, clearly and professionally.”

Marine Gen. Kenneth “Frank” McKenzie, chief of U.S. Central Command, said in an interview Tuesday that he was “not surprised” commanders had different opinions about how the evacuation could have gone better.

“But remember,” he said, “what did happen is we came together and executed a plan. There are profound frustrations; commanders, particularly subordinate commanders, they see very clearly the advantages of other courses of action. However, we had a decision, and we had an allocation of forces. You proceed based on that.”

There “might have been other plans that we would have preferred,” the general added, “but when the president makes a decision, it’s time for us to execute the president’s decision.”

Military officials told investigators that although the evacuation was in many ways cobbled together on the fly, planning within the Defense Department began months earlier. Initial discussions presumed the possible use of Bagram air base, a sprawling U.S. military installation 30 miles north of Kabul, and assistance from Afghan government forces to help secure the path there, Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Farrell J. Sullivan, who was involved in planning and oversaw the Marines sent into the capital, told investigators. Those plans evolved from incorporating both airfields to “just HKIA,” the Marine general said, using the military’s shorthand for Hamid Karzai International Airport.

U.S. officials have said previously that the decision to turn over Bagram to the Afghan government was made because it was deemed too far outside Kabul, where the majority of evacuees were expected to be, and because it would have required a significant number of U.S. troops.

“Everyone clearly saw some of the advantage of holding Bagram,” McKenzie said Tuesday, “but you cannot hold Bagram with the force level that was decided.”

Brig. Gen. Farrell J. Sullivan oversaw Marines involved in the chaotic U.S. evacuation effort from Afghanistan in August. (Sgt. Benjamin McDonald/U.S. Marine Corps)

Disagreement between U.S. military officials and American diplomats in Kabul about when to press forward with an evacuation appears to have gone back months. Vasely, who took command as the top officer in Afghanistan in July, said he was told by the departing four-star commander, Army Gen. Austin “Scott” Miller, that there would be opposition among senior officials at the embassy to shrinking its footprint in Kabul.

Ross Wilson, the acting U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, was focused on maintaining a diplomatic presence there, Vasely said, and questioned how the United States was supposed to preserve its influence without an embassy, the admiral added.

Wilson did not respond to requests for comment.

Vasely told investigators that he was advised by embassy staff that he should provide those close to the acting ambassador with data illustrating the country’s rapid collapse to the Taliban, “so it could be sold as a collective approach and not a power grab by DoD.”

Wilson wanted two weeks to evacuate the embassy and leave a skeleton staff at the airport, military officials said. But by Aug. 12, three days before Kabul’s fall, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan called Wilson and instructed him to move more quickly, Vasely told investigators.

Vasely “was trying to get the Ambassador to see the security threat for what it really was,” said another military official, whose name is redacted from the report. As many as 10 government-controlled districts were falling to the Taliban daily, this official noted, adding, “The embassy needed to position for withdrawal, and the Ambassador didn’t get it.”

By mid-July, Sullivan, the senior Marine officer involved in planning the evacuation, wanted to stage supplies to host 5,000 evacuees at the airport, but his effort was complicated because he was not permitted to discuss the possibility of a full-scale evacuation with anyone other than British officials, he told investigators. Other U.S. military leaders, whose names were redacted from the report, said there were fears among administration officials that if the United States, by raising alarm, inspired other governments to quickly leave Afghanistan, it would accelerate the central government’s demise.

President Biden on July 8 said that the United States’ military mission in Afghanistan would end on Aug. 31. (The Washington Post)

The Marine general told investigators that trying to engage the embassy in discussions about an evacuation was “like pulling teeth” until early August. “After that,” he said, “it became more collaborative.”

A spokesman for Sullivan referred questions to McKenzie.

During an Aug. 6 meeting, a National Security Council official, who is not identified in the report, appeared to lack a sense of urgency and told others involved that if the United States had to execute an evacuation, it would signal “we have failed,” Brig Gen. Sullivan recalled. “In my opinion, the NSC was not seriously planning for an evacuation,” he said.

The White House declined to comment.

National security adviser Jake Sullivan speaks during a news briefing at the White House in January. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

National Security Council officials convened meetings in July and early August to discuss embassy security in Kabul and assess whether the Taliban’s advance met previously identified benchmarks for taking further action, a person familiar with the situation said. Like some others who discussed the investigation’s findings with The Post, this person spoke on the condition of anonymity because the issue remains highly sensitive.

On Aug. 9, three days after the first provincial capital fell to the Taliban, Biden’s advisers convened meetings to discuss whether to begin closing the embassy, but senior officials unanimously decided it was still premature, the person said.

Another senior administration official on Monday defended how the State and Defense departments coordinated to execute Biden’s decisions. The State Department “steadily drew down our diplomatic presence in Kabul starting in April 2021, nearly four months before the fall of Kabul, when the Embassy went on ‘Ordered Departure’ status,” the official said.

The official declined to address criticism from senior military officials that the State Department showed a lack of urgency initially, but said the U.S. government “swiftly and nimbly” assembled a network of nearly two dozen overseas locations that hosted tens of thousands of Afghans, while also working to ensure “they’d pose no security or health threat” to American communities before being resettled in the United States.

By Aug. 14, Vasely believed Afghan President Ashraf Ghani’s government would collapse, he told investigators. The United States carried out 10 airstrikes against the Taliban that day 10 miles south of Kabul, killing about 100 fighters, but it did not halt its advance.

“We were killing them in bunches, destroying tactical vehicles, and they kept coming,” he said.

After word spread the next day that Ghani had fled the country, the airfield in Kabul descended into chaos, as thousands of desperate people sought a flight out. One medical officer interviewed by investigators compared the atmosphere that week to “Lord of the Flies,” the classic book in which teenagers stranded on an island fail to govern themselves. Several military officials recalled U.S. Marines coming under fire that night by Taliban fighters, and the Marines, in turn, killing two.

Army Maj. Gen. Christopher Donahue, who arrived after the collapse and oversaw airfield security, recalled that early discussions with the Taliban were tense.

“We told them that we would control the gates and they would push people out,” said Donahue, commanding general of the 82nd Airborne Division. “We expressed that they will comply, because if they fight us on this we would be able to kill more of them than they would ever hope to kill of us. After that their tone changed.”

At the embassy, U.S. troops went room to room on Aug. 15, pressing people to meet deadlines and get ready to go, an Army officer from the 10th Mountain Division told investigators. Some State Department personnel were “intoxicated and cowering in rooms,” and others were “operating like it was day-to-day operations with absolutely no sense of urgency or recognition of the situation,” the officer said.

An administration official said they had not previously heard that allegation. “Were there any truth to it, we presumably would not be learning of it six months after the fact,” the official said.

The mission eventually hit a rhythm in which thousands of people were screened and allowed to enter the airport each day to board outbound flights. But it remained dangerous.

>>>

Video shows Marines at Abbey Gate entrance to Kabul airport before attack
The Defense Department released video footage of Marines at Abbey Gate before the Kabul airport attack in August 2021. (Department of Defense)

Four Afghans were crushed to death in the first four days, and U.S. troops remained concerned that crowds could break open a gate and riot, service members recalled to investigators. A Marine officer reported that a stun grenade used for crowd control killed a civilian, an incident that should be further examined, the report says.

Between 40 and 50 people were detained each night after jumping fences, the report says.

Sullivan, the Marine general, told investigators that there were changing expectations about how many people associated with Afghan paramilitary units aiding the evacuation needed to be taken out of the country. He initially thought it was 6,000 people — including strike unit members and their families — but later learned the correct number was about 38,800, and advised that it would be wise for the military to request commercial airline help through the Civil Reserve Air Fleet to increase overall flights.

Additionally, U.S. troops were overwhelmed with thousands of requests from the White House, Congress and as far as the Vatican to locate and rescue specific people in the crowd, including some who would not otherwise have been eligible for the evacuation.

The bombing on Aug. 26 set off a scramble to save as many people as possible, but there was little the on-site medical personnel could do for those who died, they told investigators. The survivors relied on tourniquets and other first-aid equipment to help anyone they could, the report says.

Officials said on Friday that, in addition to the 13 service members who died, another 45 were wounded in the blast, with some suffering brain injuries that surfaced later.

On Aug. 29, an errant U.S. drone strike killed 10 Afghan civilians, including seven children. Top Pentagon officials initially justified the attack, saying they believed it had targeted another would-be suicide bomber. The victims included an aid worker and several members of his family.

Sullivan, the Marine general, suggested that those tense final days of the war in Afghanistan would have a lasting impact on those exposed to danger. Commanders, he suggested, should stay vigilant and watch for any further fallout.

“I am not particularly soft, as adversity comes with our duties,” he said, “but this was an extremely challenging situation.”

$30 Million in Grants for Kits of Crack, Cocaine and Meth, no Really

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Update –> There is a BIG mess going on in DC about how ‘crack pipes’ are part of the ‘safe smoking kits’….HHS Secretary and the White House are saying that crack pipes are not included in the distribution…yeah okay…but hold on fact checkers….upon doing more checking seems our own government was funding a crack pipe study in Mexico….you know that Dr. Fauci agency….now we may know where this all started.

This is the page regarding the crack pipe study we paid for in 2019 in Mexico. 

This is the screenshot in case it goes away…giggles: 

When government become an illicit drug distributor….a bridge too far?

Source: In the name of harm reduction, the substance abuse arm of the Health and Human Services Agency will begin providing funds to help distribute “safe smoking kits” for the consumption of various illicit drugs like crack cocaine and crystal meth.

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Agency (SAMHSA) has allocated roughly $30 million for a Harm Reduction Program Grant, which includes funding for syringe exchange programs, the opioid reversal drug naloxone, test kits to detect fentanyl and “safe smoking kits/supplies,” among other more traditional measures, like HIV testing and safer sex resources.

A grant program funded by the Biden administration will furnish syringes and “safe smoking kits” among other items as a means to advancing equity.

The deadline for the $30 million program is Monday, with the Department of Health and Human Services distributing funds to nonprofit groups and local governments. Among the items the grant will pay for are syringes and “safe smoking kits/supplies.”The kits will allow users to smoke crack cocaine, crystal methamphetamine, and other illicit substances. source

*** Per the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) website, the top paragraph reads –>

Drug Enforcement Administration

The Drug Enforcement Administration enforces the United States’ controlled substance laws and regulations and aims to reduce the supply of and demand for such substances.

Support for drug demand reduction and prevention programs through educational and other campaigns and initiatives including the Red Ribbon Campaign, National Takeback Day, Operation Engage and One Pill Can Kill.

How does the Department of Justice of which the DEA is the authority square with this exactly? We now have local, state and the Federal governments contributing to the drug epidemic problem plaguing the whole country. Policymakers are just nuts and exactly how is this objective contributing to a positive outcome?

Article continues (…)

'Crack pipes is where we draw the line': Safe smoking kits ...

Harm reduction efforts, like testing for infectious diseases, needle exchanges and naloxone distribution programs, are nothing new, but providing federal taxpayer funds for paraphernalia used to smoke drugs is.

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An HHS spokesperson reportedly confirmed to The Washington Free Beacon these “safe smoking kits” will provide pipes for the consumption of “any illicit substance” to reduce the risk of infection, which can potentially occur through cuts and sores.

Seattle previously distributed meth pipes to residents in 2015, according to Reuters, but it’s reportedly hard to tell the benefit such a program can have.

“It is plausible the intervention could be effective,” said Matthew Golden, a Seattle and King County disease control official and a University of Washington medical professor, when the program was launched. “It’s simply an unstudied idea.”

One nonprofit said it had conducted research which determined meth users would be less likely to inject the drug if given access to pipes, but there is little evidence to back up such a claim, Reuters reported.

San Francisco has handed out crack pipes as well, according to local reporting, where allegedly an estimated 25,000 people actively inject drugs.

The SAMHSA grant’s $30 million will be spread across three years, and the money will be prioritized for “underserved communities that are greatly impacted by substance use disorder (SUD).”

Other measures funded by the grant include harm reduction vending machines – including the contents to stock them, infectious disease test kits and medicines, vaccination services and wound care supplies.

The National Desk reached out to SAMHSA to see if the “safe smoking kits” will also be available at harm reduction vending machines across the country but did not receive an immediate response in time for publication. This story will be updated if a response is obtained.

China has Fully Loyalty of Much of America

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It does not begin and end with zero consequence of China for all things pandemic….it is much much worse. Consider all the items below and then apply critical thinking on why America is so subservient to the Chinese Communist Party.

The list is hardly complete but here is a good start:

  1. Dr. Fauci –>Source: Adam Hott, who works on the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Clinical Sequencing Evidence-Generating Research group, is also affiliated with the United States Heartland China Association (USHCA). He serves on the controversial group’s education committee, which seeks to “brings together resources in K12 and higher education to apply research, expertise, and new entrants to the workforce to US-China collaboration.”

    The unearthing of the United States Heartland China Association (USHCA) ties to Chinese foreign influence groups follow reports of Chinese Communist Party members and firms buying up American farmland, raising national security concerns among lawmakers.

    In addition to partnering with various branches of the Chinese regime, the USHCA also is “proudly working with” the China-United States Exchange Foundation (CUSEF).

    The organization is an integral component of the Chinese Communist Party’s “United Front,” an effort that seeks to “co-opt and neutralize sources of potential opposition to the policies and authority of its ruling Chinese Communist Party” and “influence foreign governments to take actions or adopt positions supportive of Beijing’s preferred policies,” according to the U.S. government.

  2. Then there is Hunter Biden and the whole Biden family.Source: A grand jury subpoena was issued 17 months before the 2020 election for Hunter Biden’s bank transactions involving the Bank of China, a corruption watchdog has found, raising concerns that damaging material about then-candidate Joe Biden was hidden from voters.

    The order sent by the Department of Justice to JP Morgan Chase bank asked for the records of any international financial transactions for the past five years involving Hunter, his uncle James Biden and former business partners Devon Archer and Eric Schwerin, according to federal documents.

    The anti-corruption nonprofit Marco Polo, founded by former Trump administration official Garrett Ziegler, obtained the filing, which targets the financial ties between the four men and the Bank of China.

    The subpoena was issued by Delaware’s US Attorney David Weiss on May 15, 2019. At the time, Hunter’s father, Joe Biden, was a presidential candidate.

  3. President Joe Biden meets virtually with Chinese President Xi Jinping from the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, Nov. 15, 2021..  source
  4. Perhaps the worst of it all –> and it is a long one…sit back and process as you read it. Source: A new, comprehensive report by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, titled “Corporate Complicity Scorecard,” reveals what these companies have traded away and how much their Faustian bargain with the CCP has endangered all of us.The report, produced jointly by VOC and Horizon Advisory, evaluates eight well-known American corporations — Amazon, Apple, Dell, Facebook, GE, Google, Intel, and Microsoft. It presents “broad-ranging assessments of the nature of American corporations’ involvement in China” based on a set of indicators, including compliance with Chinese data regimes and supply chain exposure to forced labor risk. The report assigns a letter grade between A to F to the companies, with Facebook and Google receiving the highest score of “B,” while GE, Intel, and Microsoft got the lowest score of “F.”

    According to the VOC report, these American companies’ complicity endangers everyone else for several reasons. It exposes U.S. indus­trial supply chains to China’s forced labor and other human rights atrocities. It empowers a strategic competitor while hollowing out U.S. industrial capacity. It also makes U.S. industry a conduit for the Chinese gov­ernment’s vast information collection (i.e., surveillance programs). Lastly, it makes U.S. industry a channel for Chinese influence and pro­paganda abroad.

    All eight companies’ complicity is also endangering their long-term survival because through the “Made in China 2025” initiative, the Chinese government has been developing domestic competitors, intending to become “self-reliant” in strategically essential technologies. Shockingly, these American companies seem to fail to recognize that their technology transfers and billions of dollar investment in China will end up creating their own eventual replacements in this market.

    Furthermore, some of these companies have engaged “in political lobbying in the U.S. in ways that ultimately serves Beijing’s interests while potentially undermining the values and principles that undergird the western democratic order.”

    Intel Gets an ‘F’

    Intel sent a letter earlier this year to suppliers advising them not to source from Xinjiang, without mentioning either forced labor or genocide committed by the CCP against Uyghur Muslims and other minorities in the region. Still, the company promptly apologized to China after its letter drew backlash from state media and Chinese nationalists.

    The VOC report provides insights into Intel’s engagement in China. The company has a prominent presence in the country, including 17 campuses, at least two production sites, and “a series of innovation and R&D centers across China.” The company has built extensive ties to Chinese government agencies. For instance, the company has partnered with the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Automation (CASIA), a “core contributor to China’s military and military-civil fusion programs.”

    Intel also collaborated with China’s Ministry of Industry and Information (MIIT), a “leading state entity charged with implementing China’s military-civil fusion national strategy.” The report finds “Intel executives continue to engage with MIIT rep­resentatives in fields relevant to military-civil fusion, even as tensions between the US government and China escalate and risks posed by Beijing’s military-civil fusion strategy become more evident.”

    Intel’s partnership with Chinese companies is also problematic. The company is a long-time major supplier to Hikvision, a Chinese state-owned manufacturer and sup­plier of surveillance equipment. The two companies launched a com­prehensive partnership in artificial intelligence in 2017.

    After the Trump administration added Hikvision to the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Entity List and barred it from buying restricted components from the United States in 2019, former Intel Chief Executive Officer Bob Swan reportedly vowed to use “Intel’s global operating capabilities to reduce the impact on customers.” Later that year, several U.S. technology firms, including Intel and Microsoft, issued a joint statement “calling for then-President Trump not to impose tariffs on Chinese lap­tops and tablets.”

    The VOC report also finds that “Intel technology was being used in surveillance systems in Xinjiang” and “Intel had invested in and provided technologies to a company embedded in Xinjiang and supported by the Chinese Ministry of Public Security.” Intel essentially plays a critical role in enabling the Chinese government to build a digital prison in Xinjiang and monitor every move by millions of Uyghur Muslims.

    Microsoft Also Gets an ‘F’

    Microsoft also received a grade of “F.” The VOC report finds that “Microsoft has a significant, and growing, network of innovation centers, data centers, joint laboratories, and other technology hubs in China. Many of these have been established in partnership with the Chinese government or gov­ernment-tied entities.”

    For example, Microsoft has built at least 10 data centers in China, all operated by a local Chinese partner, 21Vianet. In compliance with China’s data security laws, all data collected at these centers are accessible to the Chinese government.

    Microsoft has also partnered with Chinese companies to tailor its products to meet the Chinese government’s needs. A 2021 report from Top10VPN found that many Chinese government surveillance and censorship organs “use Windows prod­ucts in their security and surveillance systems.”

    Like Intel, Microsoft has established strategic cooperation agreements with Chinese companies that “the US government has identified as tied to the Chinese military or as an export restriction concern.” For example, one of Microsoft’s strategic partners is Dajing Innovations (DJI), a leader in civilian drones and imaging technology. The Trump administration put DJI on the Department of Commerce’s sanctioned Entity List in 2020. Microsoft has yet to sever its business ties with DJI.

    At least three Chinese suppliers of Microsoft were found to involve forced labor in Xinjiang. However, Microsoft has maintained business relationships with these suppliers. In addition, the company continues to invest in R&D in China “even as tensions between the US and China escalate—and Beijing’s technological ambi­tions have become broadly recognized as posing risks for global human rights and security.”

    Why GE Received an ‘F’

    GE is the third company that receives an “F.” Similar to Intel and Microsoft, GE’s many partnerships in China “appear to involve technology-sharing, including with core players in China’s military, military-civil fusion, and surveillance system. Those partnerships have also granted military-tied Chinese players positions of leverage in GE’s supply chains, critical to both America’s national security and its manufac­turing base.”

    Since GE is also a key contractor for the U.S. Department of Defense, these partnerships and technology-sharing agreements are especially troubling.

    Losing Strategy

    The VOC report gave the other five companies slightly better scores than “F.” But make no mistake, all of these companies have similarly “supported Beijing’s military modernization, the surveillance state, and human rights violations in exchange for access to China’s market.”

    As the great power competition between the U.S. and China intensifies, corporations cannot pretend this is business as usual. Whether they like it or not, corporations are increasingly at the center of the Sino-U.S. geopolitical conflict. These American companies should never forget what made them successful in the first place.

    In the words of former Attorney General William Barr, American companies are beneficiaries of “the American free enterprise system, the rule of law, and the security afforded by America’s economic, technological, and military strength.” China’s authoritarian regime is not a “hospitable one for institutions that depend on free markets, free trade, or the free exchange of ideas,” Barr said.

    The VOC scorecard reminds these American companies that acquiescing to Beijing is a lose-lose strategy and will endanger all of us in the long run.

    Microsoft in ChinaBack in 2007, Bill Gates told Fortune that he expected China to be Microsoft’s biggest market, “though it might take 10 years.”. Those comments were made during a visit to Beijing when Gates was awarded an honorary degree from Tsinghua University and met with four members of China’s ruling Politburo. More detail