Dominion/SmartMatic, it is a Mess, here are Some Top Details

Posted on November 16, 2020November 16, 2020 by Denise Simon

Trying to sort out the voting systems, hardware and software is crazy. Here is some help for you such that you can work your own answers to questions you may have. There is much much more for sure, but this summary is merely a tip sheet for the reader.

Primer: The Texas Secretary of State letter describing the refusal of the Dominion voting system.

The nation’s three largest voting machine manufacturing vendors — Election Systems & Software (ES&S), Dominion Voting Systems, and Hart InterCivic — have all publicly acknowledged that they place modems in some of their vote tabulators and scanners.

While the vendors claim that their “firewalls” protect computers from outside interference, many of the nation’s leading technical experts say this claim is bogus.

“Once a hacker starts talking to a voting machine through the modem,” says Princeton University Computer Science professor Andrew Appel, “they can hack the software and make it cheat in future elections.” It’s as straightforward as that.

So, what can we do?

“We should be unplugging all of these machines from the internet,” says Kevin Skoglund, the computer scientist who led the 10-expert investigatory team. This means keeping elections technologies disconnected all the time, including on election night.

“We cannot make our computers perfectly secure,” says Andrew Appel. “What we should do is remove all of the unnecessary, hackable pathways, such as modems. We should not connect our voting machines directly to the computer networks. That is just inviting trouble.” More here.

We begin with more details by Sidney Powell (General Flynn’s lawyer and part of the Trump legal team).

The we have this summary from American Oversight, which is a very left leaning group of lawyers but they too have concerns regarding Georgia’s overhaul of the state voting systems.

Last updated: November 16, 2020

In July 2019, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger announced that the state had awarded a $107 million contract to manufacturer Dominion Voting Systems to replace existing voting machines with a new “verified paper ballot system.” As reported by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, both Dominion and the state’s former elections company, Election Systems & Software, had connections with Gov. Brian Kemp’s administration. Dominion lobbyist Jared Thomas had been a longtime political and campaign aide to Kemp, who previously served as secretary of state, and another lobbyist, Barry Herron, had worked for Diebold Election Systems, which had originally sold Georgia its electronic voting machines.

Georgia voters had complained about malfunctioning voting machines after the November 2018 midterm elections, even filing a lawsuit aimed at overhauling the state’s election system, including the electronic machines. But critics worry that the new electronic ballot-printing devices from Dominion won’t be much better, contending that hand-marked paper ballots remain the most secure voting method. In fact, the new devices were given a test run in six Georgia counties during the November 2019 election, and ran into a number of issues. And records we’ve already obtained showed that voter check-in devices used “1234” as their default password — an “exceptionally weak security measure.” (State officials have said the passwords have been changed.)

Elsewhere in the state, voters reported long lines and ballot issues, and concerns remain about the hidden costs of the new voting system, the state’s planned purge of 300,000 names from its voter rolls, and security weaknesses in voting equipment. With the 2020 elections looming and the security of U.S. voting systems less than certain, American Oversight is investigating state officials’ communications with Dominion Voting Systems and its subcontractor KnowInk, and is requesting records that could shed light on how the state is working to ensure secure and accurate elections.

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Dominion Voting Systems used statement, which obscured company’s council membership, to dispute concerns over voting systems

After allegations emerged that called into questioned the integrity of voting machines produced by Dominion Voting Systems, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA)—part of the Department of Homeland Security—issued a statement on Nov. 12 disputing the allegations, saying “the November 3rd election was the most secure in American history.”

What the agency failed to disclose, however, is that Dominion Voting Systems is a member of CISA’s Election Infrastructure Sector Coordinating Council, one of two entities that authored the statement put out by CISA.

A screenshot taken on Nov. 16, 2020, of the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency website shows the members of the Sector Coordinating Council. (Screenshot/The Epoch Times)

In addition, Smartmatic, a separate voting machine company that has been the subject of additional concerns, is also a member.

The agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment on whether Dominion and Smartmatic had input or were otherwise involved in CISA’s Nov. 12 statement.

The joint statement on the integrity of the Nov. 3 election was issued by the Executive Committee of the Election Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council (GCC), an Executive Committee representing a coalition of certain state & local government officials and government agencies, and the Election Infrastructure Sector Coordinating Council (SCC), a coalition primarily composed of voting system manufacturers that also includes Democracy Works, an organization which promotes the use of technology to increase voter participation.

The statement claims, “There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.”

“While we know there are many unfounded claims and opportunities for misinformation about the process of our elections, we can assure you we have the utmost confidence in the security and integrity of our elections, and you should too,” says the statement.

Some of the allegations surrounding the integrity of the presidential election, including by President Donald Trump’s legal team, have been focused on the voting systems provided by Dominion, and to a lesser extent, Smartmatic. Both Dominion and Smartmatic have dismissed concerns over their systems.

Both companies are listed as members of CISA’s Sector Coordinating Council and appear to be actively involved as they are named as “Organizing Members” of the SCC. Among the key objectives of the SCC is to “serve as the primary liaison between the election subsector and federal, state, and local agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), concerning private election subsector security and emergency preparedness issues.”

The Charter states the primary mission of the Council is to “advance the physical security, cyber security, and emergency preparedness of the nation’s election infrastructure, in accordance with existing U.S. law. This mission will be accomplished through voluntary actions of the infrastructure owners and operators represented in the Council.”

CISA’s Reliance on Commercial Vendors

CISA says that it “works to ensure the physical security and cybersecurity of the systems and assets that supports the Nation’s elections,” including voter registration databases, IT infrastructure and systems to manage elections (including counting, auditing, and validating election results), voting systems, storage facilities for voting system infrastructure, and polling places including early voting locations.

In effect, CISA appears to act as something of an interface between commercial vendors and state & local governments.

“CISA is committed to working collaboratively with those on the front lines of elections—state and local governments, election officials, federal partners, and vendors—to manage risks to the Nation’s election infrastructure,” the agency states on its website.

As CISA notes, they do not have direct oversight or responsibility for the administration of our nation’s elections as that responsibility lies with state and local governments.

“Ultimate responsibility for administering the Nation’s elections rests with state and local governments, CISA offers a variety of free services to help states ensure both the physical security and cybersecurity of their elections infrastructure,” the agency writes on its website.

Dominion Using CISA to Deny Allegations

On Nov. 12, this publication published an article detailing a number of concerns raised about the integrity of Dominion Voting Systems in a sworn Aug. 24 declaration from Harri Hursti, a poll watcher and acknowledged expert on electronic voting security.

Hursti’s observations were made during the June 9 statewide primary election in Georgia and the runoff elections on Aug. 11, 2020, and centered primarily, although not exclusively, around the Dominion systems and equipment.

Hursti summarized his findings as follows:

“The scanner and tabulation software settings being employed to determine which votes to count on hand marked paper ballots are likely causing clearly intentioned votes not to be counted”
“The voting system is being operated in Fulton County in a manner that escalates the security risk to an extreme level.”
“Voters are not reviewing their BMD [Ballot Marking Devices] printed ballots, which causes BMD generated results to be un-auditable due to the untrustworthy audit trail.”

As part of the article, we reached out to Dominion Voting Systems for comment on Nov. 11 about the allegations contained in Hursti’s sworn statement, to which the company did not respond. Our article was published on the morning of Nov. 12. That afternoon CISA published its statement denying any problems with the voting systems.

The next day, Nov. 13, Dominion sent us an email titled “SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT: FACTS & RUMORS,” which cited the joint statement published by the GCC and SCC, of which Dominion is an organizing member.

Nowhere in its email did Dominion disclose that it had any affiliation with CISA, or was an active member of the SCC, one of the issuing councils. The email itself referenced the statement in third-party fashion:

“According to a Joint Statement by the federal government agency that oversees U.S. election security, the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity, & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA): ‘There is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.’ The government & private sector councils that support this mission called the 2020 election ‘the most secure in American history.’”

CISA did not respond to a request for comment by The Epoch Times about whether it has investigated the claims made in the Georgia lawsuit about Dominion.

Concerns Raised in Georgia Lawsuit

While it remains unclear whether CISA and the GCC/SCC have evaluated concerns raised in the Georgia lawsuit, their public statements categorically deny any problems with the systems.

However, in an Oct. 11 order just weeks prior to the presidential elections, U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg agreed with the concerns associated with the new Dominion voting system, writing that the case presented “serious system security vulnerability and operational issues that may place Plaintiffs and other voters at risk of deprivation of their fundamental right to cast an effective vote that is accurately counted.”

Despite the court’s misgivings, Totenberg ruled against replacing the Dominion system right before the presidential election, noting that “Implementation of such a sudden systemic change under these circumstances cannot but cause voter confusion and some real measure of electoral disruption.”

Given the recent timing of Judge Totenberg’s order, it does not appear that any of these issues were addressed by Dominion, CISC, or any of its affiliated organizations or Councils, despite their later statements claiming there were no such issues.

When Abu Muhammad al-Masri, was Killed in Tehran

Posted on November 16, 2020November 16, 2020 by Denise Simon

al-Masri, who was about 58, was one of Al Qaeda’s founding leaders and was thought to be first in line to lead the organization after its current leader, Ayman al-Zawahri.

Long featured on the F.B.I.’s Most Wanted Terrorist list, he had been indicted in the United States for crimes related to the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed 224 people and wounded hundreds. The F.B.I. offered a $10 million reward for information leading to his capture, and as of Friday, his picture was still on the Most Wanted list.

The F.B.I. wanted poster for Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, who went by the nom de guerre Abu Muhammad al-Masri. American intelligence officials say that Mr. al-Masri had been in Iran’s “custody” since 2003, but that he had been living freely in the Pasdaran district of Tehran, an upscale suburb, since at least 2015. Source

WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States and Israel worked together to track and kill a senior al-Qaida operative in Iran earlier this year, a bold intelligence operation by the two allied nations that came as the Trump administration was ramping up pressure on Tehran.

Four current and former U.S. officials said Abu Mohammed al-Masri, al-Qaida’s No. 2, was killed by assassins in the Iranian capital in August. The U.S. provided intelligence to the Israelis on where they could find al-Masri and the alias he was using at the time, while Israeli agents carried out the killing, according to two of the officials. The two other officials confirmed al-Masri’s killing but could not provide specific details.

1998 file photo of Nairobi

Al-Masri was gunned down in a Tehran alley on Aug. 7, the anniversary of the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Al-Masri was widely believed to have participated in the planning of those attacks and was wanted on terrorism charges by the FBI.

Al-Masri’s death is a blow to al-Qaida, the terror network that orchestrated the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the U.S, and comes amid rumors in the Middle East about the fate of the group’s leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri. The officials could not confirm those reports but said the U.S. intelligence community was trying to determine their credibility.

Two of the officials — one within the intelligence community and with direct knowledge of the operation and another former CIA officer briefed on the matter — said al-Masri was killed by Kidon, a unit within the secretive Israeli spy organization Mossad allegedly responsible for the assassination of high-value targets. In Hebrew, Kidon means bayonet or “tip of the spear.”

The official in the intelligence community said al-Masri’s daughter, Maryam, was also a target of the operation. The U.S. believed she was being groomed for a leadership role in al-Qaida and intelligence suggested she was involved in operational planning, according to the official, who like the others, spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence.

Al-Masri’s daughter was the widow of Hamza bin Laden, the son of al-Qaida mastermind Osama bin Laden. He was killed last year in a U.S. counterterrorism operation in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region.

The news of al-Masri’s death was first reported by The New York Times.

Both the CIA and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office, which oversees the Mossad intelligence agency, declined to comment.

Israel and Iran are bitter enemies, with the Iranian nuclear program Israel’s top security concern. Israel has welcomed the Trump administration’s withdrawal from the 2015 Iranian nuclear accord and the U.S. pressure campaign on Tehran.

At the time of the killings, the Trump administration was in the advanced stages of trying to push through the U.N. Security Council the reinstatement of all international sanctions on Iran that were lifted under the nuclear agreement. None of the other Security Council members went along with the U.S., which has vowed to punish countries that do not enforce the sanctions as part of its “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran.

Israeli officials are concerned the incoming administration of President-elect Joe Biden could return to the nuclear accord. It is likely that if Biden does engage with the Iranians, Israel will press for the accord to be modified to address Iran’s long-range missile program and its military activity across the region, specifically in Syria and its support for groups like Hezbollah, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad.

The revelations that Iran was harboring an al-Qaida leader could help Israel bolster its case with the new U.S. administration.

Al-Masri had been on a kill or capture list for years. but his presence in Iran, which has a long history of hostility toward al-Qaida, presented significant obstacles to either apprehending or killing him.

Iran denied the reports, saying the government is not harboring any al-Qaida leaders and blaming the U.S. and Israel for trying to foment anti-Iranian sentiment. U.S. officials have long believed a number of al-Qaida leaders have been living quietly in Iran for years and publicly released intelligence assessments have made that case.

Al-Masri’s death, albeit under an assumed name, was reported in Iranian media on Aug. 8. Reports identified him as a Lebanese history professor potentially affiliated with Lebanon’s Iranian-linked Hezbollah movement and said he had been killed by motorcycle gunmen along with his daughter.

Lebanese media, citing Iranian reports, said that those killed were Lebanese citizen Habib Daoud and his daughter Maraym.

The deaths of al-Masri and his daughter occurred three days after the catastrophic Aug. 4 explosion at the port of Beirut and did not get much attention. Hezbollah never commented on reports and Lebanese security officials did not report that any citizens were killed in Tehran.

A Hezbollah official on Saturday would not comment on al-Masri’s death, saying Iran’s foreign ministry had already denied it.

The alleged killings seem to fit a pattern of behavior attributed to Israel in the past.

In 1995, the founder of the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad was killed by a gunman on a motorcycle in Malta, in an assassination widely attributed to the Mossad. The Mossad also reportedly carried out a string of similar killings of Iranian nuclear scientists in Iran early last decade. Iran has accused Israel of being behind those killings.

Yoel Guzansky, a senior fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies and former analyst on Iranian affairs in the prime minister’s office, said it has been known for some time that Iran is hiding top al-Qaeda figures. While he had no direct knowledge of al-Masri’s death, he said a joint operation between the U.S. and Israel would reflect the two nations’ close intelligence cooperation, with the U.S. typically stronger in the technical aspects of intelligence gathering and Israel adept at operating agents behind enemy lines.

When Institutions Fail, Consequences are Deadly

Posted on November 6, 2020November 6, 2020 by Denise Simon

We know this to be the case in the United States as a result of sanctuary city policy. Politicians have sovereign immunity, meaning they are not accountable for their policy or legislative action when there are victims including death.

Intelligence agencies in the United States cooperate with each other with intelligence and detentions except when they don’t in hundreds of cities across America. U.S. intelligence agencies also collaborate with foreign services on warnings and cases of criminals and the associated backgrounds including judicial decisions.

While the United States was in the whirlwind of the election, very little was reporting was done on the terror attacks in Europe. Terror and militants are still out there, the war is not over. But for some additional details, read on.

AUSTRIAN GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS SIGNALED on Thursday the beginning of a major overhaul of the country’s intelligence community, in response to this week’s terrorist attack in Vienna, which killed four people. Another 20 people were wounded by a lone gunman, who used an automatic weapon to spread panic in the Austrian capital before he was shot dead by Austrian police.

Armed with an assault rifle, a pistol and a machete, he injured 22 people on Monday night before being shot dead by police. He was named as Kujtim Fejzulai, 20, who had previously been jailed for attempting to join Islamic State in Syria.

Before his early release in December he had taken part in a deradicalisation course but “deceived” his handlers about his true intentions, Karl Nehammer, the interior minister, said.

The gunman was later identified as Kujtim Fejzulai, an Austrian citizen of Albanian extraction, who was born in North Macedonia and held citizenship there too. The shooter was known to Austrian authorities, as he had been previously convicted of trying to travel to Syria to join the Islamic State. He had been imprisoned as an Islamic radical, but had been released after allegedly duping Austrian judges, who believed he had reformed.

In the days following the attack, it emerged that Slovakian authorities had notified Austrian security agencies in July that Fejzulai had tried to purchase ammunition in Slovakia. On Wednesday, Austria’s Director General for Public Security, Franz Ruf, said that Austrian intelligence authorities “sent questions back to Bratislava”, but then there had been a “breakdown” in the system. Austrian Minister of the Interior Karl Nehammer added that “something apparently went wrong with the communication in the next steps”.

Nehammer and others, including Austrian Vice Chancellor Werner Kogler, called for the establishment of an independent commission to examine the Fejzulai case and “clarify whether the process went optimally and in line with the law”. The Austrian Chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, said on Thursday that the country did not have “all the legal means necessary to monitor and sanction extremists”, adding that he would initiate the creation of a panel that would supervise a “realignment” of the intelligence agencies. He was referring to the Office for the Protection of the Constitution and Counterterrorism, known by the initials BVT. He did not provide details.

Devin Archer, Hunter and Another Company: Mbloom

Posted on November 5, 2020November 5, 2020 by Denise Simon

Primer: Devon Archer, whose conviction was reinstated a ruling, had partnered with Hunter Biden in Rosemont Seneca, a Washington-based investment firm. Starting in 2014, the pair served together on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian natural gas company accused of corruption, at the same time that his father oversaw U.S. policy towards Ukraine. Hunter Biden has called his decision to take the board seat “a mistake,” while Joe Biden has defended the decision, saying, “my son did nothing wrong.”

KAHULUI, HI–(Marketwired – Jan 21, 2014) – mbloom LLC, a Maui-based technology fund for Hawaii startups, today announced the close of a $10 million early-stage venture capital fund.

The investment, mbloom Fund 1, is a public-private partnership with Hawaii State Development Corporation (HSDC) and Rosemont Seneca Technology Partners, an East Coast hedge fund.

“We are excited to use mbloom Fund 1 to create economic growth for Hawaii,” says mbloom co-founder Arben Kryeziu. “Innovation happens in Hawaii, but many companies leave the island for growth opportunities on the mainland. We want to keep Hawaii startups here, giving them opportunities to develop, connect, and make a mark just like the startups in Silicon Valley.”

Tech fund for Hawaii startups mbloom LLC closes $10M early ...

Hat tip source:

A businessman with alleged ties to Russian organized crime and Syria’s ruling regime paid nearly US$3 million into a failed investment fund backed by a longtime business partner of the son of the U.S. presidential candidate Joe Biden, leaked bank records show.

Hares Youssef, who holds both Ukrainian and Syrian citizenship, invested $2.98 million in late 2015 into mbloom, a now-defunct tech startup fund that was jointly financed by Hawaii’s Strategic State Development Corporation and Rosemont Seneca Technology Partners (RSTP). RSTP was run by Devon Archer, then a close business partner of Hunter Biden.

Mbloom was shuttered after Archer was arrested in an unrelated fraud case.

While the younger Biden had previously been involved with RSTP, there is no evidence that he played a role in the mbloom deal. An archived version of RSTP’s website from 2014 listed Biden as a Washington, D.C.-based managing director of the company, but his name had been removed from the site by September 2015, when Youssef made his investment.
“Mr. Biden severed his relationship with Rosemont Seneca Technology Partners prior to this transaction,” said George Mesires, a spokesman for Hunter Biden.

Financial records examined by reporters show that money from mbloom was paid into another of Archer’s accounts, which was at the time making regular payments to Biden. Mesires did not respond to questions about whether any of these payments were connected to mbloom.

The details of Youssef’s investment are contained in the FinCEN Files, a series of suspicious activity reports (SARs), secret alerts issued by bank compliance officers when there are suspicions that a transaction may be linked to crime or money laundering. The existence of a SAR is not itself evidence of wrongdoing.
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About This Investigation

The FinCEN Files is a 16-month-long investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, BuzzFeed News and more than 400 international journalists in 88 countries, including those from OCCRP and its network of member centers.

The investigation is based on more than 2,100 secret bank reports filed to the U.S. Treasury Department’s intelligence unit, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, other documents, and dozens of interviews.

The documents show that City National Bank in Los Angeles flagged as suspicious two payments sent in September and November 2015 to mbloom, which was based on the Hawaiian island of Maui.

The bank flagged the transaction based on reports tying Youssef to international arms trafficking and to Semion Mogilevich, a Russian organized crime boss dubbed “The Brainy Don.” Given these alleged links, the bank was “unable to validate whether the source of the wires derived are from Mr. YOUSSEF’s legitimate businesses or from his alleged ties to Russian and Ukrainian criminal elements,” the SAR said.

The SAR also cited allegations that Youssef had ties to Maher al-Assad, a senior Syrian general who is the brother of the country’s president.
Graham Barrow, a U.K.-based anti-money laundering expert, told OCCRP that the link between Youssef and mbloom was sure to raise a red flag for compliance officers at the bank.

“The transaction looks every bit as bad as you might presume,” he said. “The bank would be very concerned as to the source of these funds and a lack of detailed narrative as to the business purpose only compounds those concerns.”

Youssef told OCCRP via WhatsApp that the allegations he was linked to organized crime and arms smuggling were “bull shit”.

The investment fund, mbloom, was embroiled in controversy shortly after its founding in 2014 by Kane – also known as Arben Kane Kryreziu – and his business partner, Nick Bicanic. The fund was seeded with $5 million each from Archer’s RSTP and the Hawaiian Strategic Development Corporation, a state government-backed fund intended to create entrepreneurial growth and high wage jobs.

Almost immediately, mbloom attracted controversy after reportedly investing in two startups run by Bicanic and Kane. The fund was shut down in mid-2016 after Archer was arrested for defrauding the Oglala Sioux tribe of tens of millions of dollars. The Hawaii Strategic Development Corporation then withdrew.

In interviews, both Youssef and mbloom’s former manager, Kane, said the investment was the initiative of Archer, who served with Biden at the time on the board of Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings. Archer has since been convicted of fraud in the U.S. in the Oglala Sioux case.
Both men characterized Archer as the driving force behind the deal, and said that the younger Biden was not involved.

“Youssef was introduced through Devon Archer as an investor,” Kane told OCCRP, adding that he trusted Archer because he came from a “prestige network” that included his other business partner, Christopher Heinz, the stepson of the then-US Secretary of State John Kerry.

Youssef said he met both Archer and Kane, but never met Biden.

Youssef was indicted in Spain in 2017 for allegedly laundering money for Dmytro Firtash, a Kremlin-linked Ukrainian oligarch currently fighting extradition to the U.S. to face corruption charges. By a strange twist of fate, Firtash last year joined efforts by U.S. President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, to generate unfounded, politically damaging allegations of corruption against the Bidens.

Archer’s lawyer, Matthew Schwartz, did not respond to questions sent by email.
Return to Sender

Youssef told OCCRP he traveled to New York in 2015 to meet Archer and Kane, and that the investment was intended to help create a gold-backed virtual currency named Golden Hearts.

Kane gave a different account, saying the money was intended to finance a planned attempt to take mbloom public.
the-fincen-files/Arben-Kane.jpg
Credit: arbenkane.com
Arben Kane

Whatever the reason for the investment, things quickly turned sour. In its SAR, City National Bank said it had contacted mbloom about its concerns over Youssef’s alleged ties to organized crime. The investment fund told the bank it would return Youssef’s money.

In January 2016, mbloom refunded Youssef $277,000 according to the SAR.

Youssef said he would like to get his remaining millions back, adding, “I wish one day [but] I don’t think it will happen.”

In fact, the SAR shows that most of this money was transferred to another firm related to mbloom called Mbloom BDC Advisor LLC, from which it was disbursed “mostly for legal services, taxes, insurance premiums, etc.”

Just days after Youssef made his investment, Mbloom BDC Advisor LLC transferred $275,000 to the account of Rosemont Seneca Bohai LLC, another company owned by Archer, according to bank documents posted online by New York Times reporter Kenneth Vogel. It is unclear if this money originated with Youssef.

Set up by Archer in Delaware in 2014, Rosemont Seneca Bohai was an “apparent shell entity” that also received nearly $3.5 million in payments from Burisma, the Ukrainian gas company where Archer and Biden sat on the board, according to a U.S. Senate report.

Among other destinations, Rosemont Seneca Bohai sent hundreds of thousands of dollars in regular transfers to Biden in 2014 and 2015.

Biden’s spokesman, Mesires, didn’t comment on those transfers other than to say, “Mr. Biden has had no ownership interest in Rosemont Seneca Bohai at any time.”

No Strategic Break Between the Taliban and al Qaeda

Posted on October 26, 2020October 26, 2020 by Denise Simon

Beginning with the trade during the Obama administration of Bowe Bergdahl for 5 Taliban commanders from Gitmo, the United States is still in peace negotiations with the Taliban and a peace framework has been signed and violated several times of no consequence.

However, there is news to report with confirmation.

The United States has confirmed that Husam Abd-al-Ra’uf, a senior al Qaeda leader also known as Abu Muhsin al-Masri, was killed by Afghan forces during a raid in Ghazni province earlier this month.

Chris Miller, the head of the National Counterterrorism Center, described Abd-al-Ra’uf’s “removal…from the battlefield” as “a major setback to a terrorist organization that is consistently experiencing strategic losses facilitated by the United States and its partners,” according to Reuters. Miller touted the raid further, saying it “highlights the diminishing effectiveness of the terrorist organization.”

However, Miller implied just last month that characters such as Abd-al-Ra’uf were either unimportant, or didn’t even exist. In an op-ed published by the Washington Post on Sept. 10, Miller claimed that Ayman al Zawahiri was al Qaeda’s “sole remaining ideological leader.” As FDD’s Long War Journal pointed out, that isn’t true. Zawahiri’s role was never purely ideological, and he isn’t the sole remaining al Qaeda leader, ideological or otherwise. A number of al Qaeda veterans remain active in the network’s hierarchy, including, until recently, Abd-al-Ra’uf.

Abd-al-Ra’uf’s demise is undoubtedly significant. He was a veteran jihadist, whose career began in the 1980s. He was a trusted subordinate for Zawahiri and served al Qaeda in senior roles, including in its propaganda arm, As Sahab. But it is debatable whether his death, as well as other setbacks, add up to “strategic losses” for al Qaeda in Afghanistan or elsewhere, as Miller claims. It is likely that Abd-al-Ra’uf trained and oversaw many other al Qaeda men throughout his lengthy career. And the U.S. has been unable to produce consistent, reliable estimates of al Qaeda’s strength inside Afghanistan.

Al Qaeda fights for the Taliban in Ghazni and elsewhere

There has been no strategic break between the Taliban and al Qaeda. Abd-al-Ra’uf was reportedly killed in the village of Kunsaf, which is controlled by the Taliban. If the Taliban’s men did not betray the Egyptian, and there is no evidence that they did, then yet again a senior al Qaeda leader was found in Taliban country. This is an apparent violation of the Feb. 29 withdrawal agreement between the U.S. State Department and the Taliban. The State Department has repeatedly vouched for the Taliban’s supposed counterterrorism assurances, including that al Qaeda wouldn’t be allowed to operate on Afghan soil. But nearly eight months after that deal was signed, Abd-al-Ra’uf was located in a Taliban-controlled area.

Al Qaeda has a long-established presence in Ghazni. FDD’s Long War Journal can trace al Qaeda operations in Ghazni back to 2008.

Aafia Siddiqui, dubbed “Lady al Qaeda” in the press, was among the al Qaeda figures captured or killed during raids in Ghazni in 2008. There have been multiple operations targeting al Qaeda in Ghazni since then.

Al Qaeda’s role in the fighting in Ghazni is referenced in the files recovered in Osama bin Laden’s compound. In a June 19, 2010 memo to bin Laden, Atiyah Abd al Rahman wrote that al Qaeda had “very strong military activity in Afghanistan.” Rahman, who served as bin Laden’s key lieutenant, listed Ghazni was one of eight provinces in which al Qaeda “groups” had been “the same for every season for many years now.” Rahman was killed in a drone strike the following year.

In subsequent letters that were also written in 2010, bin Laden ordered his operatives in northern Pakistan to relocate into Afghanistan. Ghazni was one of several provinces that the al Qaeda founder considered hospitable for his men. Operational evidence confirms that al Qaeda was still operating in Ghazni years later.

In Feb. 2017, Afghan troops killed Qari Saifullah Akhtar, a senior al Qaeda leader who also doubled as the emir for Harakat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI), a Pakistan-based terror group. Later that year, in Dec. 2017, the U.S. killed Omar Khetab (a.k.a. Omar Mansour), the “second senior leader” in AQIS, al Qaeda’s regional branch. In Mar. of 2019, the Afghan military claimed it killed 31 AQIS fighters in the district of Giro. In Sept. 2019, Afghan forces raided a warehouse that Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) used to house explosives for operations jointly conducted with Taliban.

Should al Qaeda help the Taliban recapture much of Afghanistan after America’s planned withdrawal from Afghanistan in the spring of 2021, and there is no real break between the two, then that could be considered a strategic victory for the group.

Thomas Joscelyn is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Senior Editor for FDD’s Long War Journal.