Category Archives: government fraud spending collusion

The Corrupt Monetary Operations and Investments in the Obama Presidential Library

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There have been numerous lawsuits filed against the construction of the facility and here is one example.

After 5 years, Obamas to break ground on Presidential ...

But it got the go-ahead –>

This is the second time the court has denied an application for an injunction against the Obama Presidential Center, which will be overseen by the nonprofit Obama Foundation.

Chief Justice John Roberts denied an application for relief filed by Protect Our Parks, a Chicago-based nonprofit group “dedicated to keeping public park land open to the public,” according to the website.

The denial of the application was published among a long list of other orders from the court on Monday.

Protect Our Parks named Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg as defendant in their request for an injunction. The group wants his department to stop any construction from taking place in Jackson Park and argue he has the necessary authority to do so.Barack and Michelle Obama Break Ground on Presidential ... source

Source: With great fanfare, the Obama Presidential Center broke ground in late September in Chicago’s Jackson Park. With Barack and Michelle Obama, Mayor Lori Lightfoot, and Illinois Governor J. B. Pritzker among those present, the event garnered fawning national media coverage, including a profile on ABC’s Good Morning America.

But none of the stories on the monument to the Obama presidency mentioned the most important angle: the fact that the man responsible for getting it funded made a fortune as a result of the Obama presidency’s policies.

A longtime friend of Barack Obama, Marty Nesbitt has led the fundraising efforts for the Center, whose price tag is now an estimated $830 million.

In 2017, Nesbitt’s private equity fund Vistria and two other investors purchased the University of Phoenix at a bargain price. This, after Obama administration regulations caused the price of the company to crater. Years earlier, the Obama Department of Education began threatening for-profit universities with regulations which could cause damage to their profitability. In 2015, the Pentagon suspended GI Bill funding eligibility for the school as well.

With the college’s income at risk, stock in the company dropped, allowing Nesbitt’s Vistria Group and the other investors to purchase the University’s parent company for $1.14 billion; before the Obama administration’s actions, the company “had been worth almost nine times that price.”

Some of the Department of Education involved with implementing the original regulations, including Deputy Secretary Tony Miller, would leave the administration and actually join Vistria. Education Secretary Arne Duncan shared office space with Vistria after his tenure as Education Secretary ended.

After the price was set, but before the sale was approved,  Obama’s Pentagon lifted its suspension on federal money for the University of Phoenix, dramatically increasing the value of Vistria’s new acquisition.

The Obama administration also cracked down on cash advance businesses and, coincidentally, Nesbitt was poised to profit there also. Interestingly, one company would benefit from these regulations: ForwardLine Financial, a cash advance business in California. In October 2015, ForwardLine Financial appointed Marty Nesbitt as the company’s new chairman. While all of its competitors suffered under the new regulations, ForwardLine thrived in the wake of the new rules, actually expanding its business.

Nesbitt was also appointed to the boards of American Airlines and Norfolk Southern Railroad while Obama was in office as those industries faced the threat of new federal regulations. Nesbitt made hundreds of thousands of dollars in his role on those boards, and the threatened federal regulations never materialized.

For his part, Nesbitt seemed to return the favor. In 2015, Nesbitt purchased Hawaiian beachfront property, including the Magnum, P.I. locale, for the Obamas’ second (or third) home. Among environmental concerns and regulation “loopholes,” officials approved the property’s sale and seawall construction. However, experts state that seawalls are damaging to beaches and ocean flow, at odds with Obama’s previously strong environmental stance.

Under the Biden administration, Nesbitt seems poised to profit off potential federal intervention into new areas.

Marty Nesbitt is still on the board of American Airline’s and ForwardLine. He is also a trustee of the University of Phoenix, and Vistria is still part owner of its parent group.

In the Biden administration, President Biden’s pick for Treasury Deputy Secretary, Wally Adeyemo, worked with Nesbitt as the Obama Foundation’s President.

Congress also has plans to double the Pell Grant, benefiting colleges, like the University of Phoenix. The University was 2018’s third highest school “with the most Pell grant awards among enrolled students.” President Biden has previously called for an investment, totaling around $85 billion, for the Pell Grant. The American Rescue Plan also distributes funding to universities based on Pell Grant data.

In 2021, the University of Phoenix lobbied Congress on the American Rescue Plan. One of the University’s owners, Apollo Global Management, spent more than any other education group on lobbying, totaling $1.08 million by June, lobbying various parts of the American Rescue Plan.

American Airlines has also benefited in the Biden administration. The U.S. government chose the airline, one of eight, for the 2022 City Pairs Program, a contract worth $1.1 billion. The program helps government workers with flights. Airlines must have certain authorizations, including Department of Defense approval, for eligibility.

[1] Secret Empires, pg. 146-147

[2] Secret Empires, pg. 150

[3] Secret Empires, pg. 151

[4] Secret Empires, pg. 152

[5] Secret Empires, pg. 151-152

[6] Secret Empires, pg. 151

[7] Secret Empires, pg. 154-155

[8] Secret Empires, pg. 157-158

[9] Secret Empires, pg. 158-161

Details of the Parole Status of Illegals in the Biden Administration

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Primer: The Biden Administration is legislating ignoring Congress.

What is Parole? 

 

FNC:

EXCLUSIVE: At least 160,000 illegal immigrants have been released into the U.S., often with little to no supervision, by the Biden administration since March – including a broad use of limited parole authorities to make more than 30,000 eligible for work permits since August, Border Patrol documents obtained by Fox News show.

The documents give a partial snapshot into how the Biden administration has been releasing enormous numbers of migrants into the U.S., often with little to no oversight, supervision or immediate risk of deportation.

Since March 20, at least 94,570 illegal immigrants have been released into the U.S. with Notices to Report. Those who receive such a notice are only required to check in with an ICE office when they get to their final destination – which could be anywhere across the country. Those who check in are not deported or detained as their immigration proceedings move forward.

Meanwhile, since Aug 6th, the administration has released roughly 32,000 immigrants into the U.S. via parole – which gives migrants a form of legal status and the ability to apply for work permits.

Federal law says parole authority is to be used on a case-by-case basis for “urgent humanitarian purposes” and “significant public benefit.” Typically only a handful of parole cases are granted by officials, but the Biden administration has been using it more broadly, including in its parole of tens of thousands of Afghans into the United States as part of Operation Allies Welcome.

Former Border Patrol Chief Rodney Scott, who served under President Biden, reviewed the documents and told Fox News that he believes the administration is abusing its parole authority.

“By law and regulation a parole shall only be granted on a case by case basis and only for significant humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit. Neither of these appear to apply to the current situation,” he said, adding that the number of paroles brings into question the review and approval process.

“As a field chief, I don’t believe I ever approved more than 5 or 10 paroles in a year,” he said. “When I did, I ensured that the alien was monitored continuously and was detained or removed as soon as the circumstances allowed.”

The documents also show that since Aug 6, the administration has released an additional 40,000 illegal immigrants on their own recognizance. The documents also show that on one single day in Del Rio sector, 128 single adult illegal immigrants were released into the U.S. without ATD – which typically includes tracking by an ankle monitor or phone.

Texas braces for the arrival of 60,000 migrants at the borderVideo

A Customs and Border Protection (CBP) official told Fox that mechanisms like paroling, the use of NTRs and enrolling migrants in Alternatives to Detention (ATD) “provides mechanisms to require family units released from CBP custody to report to ICE within a specified time.”

The official also cited figures that show that between 2014 and 2020, 81% of those released into the U.S. did report in for their immigration proceedings.

The agency has not released its numbers for September, but in both July and August there were more than 200,000 migrant encounters, marking some of the highest numbers in two decades. Since then, migrants have kept coming in large numbers. According to the documents, Rio Grande Valley encountered 5,900 migrants in one week, while Del Rio encountered more than 2,900 in the same period.

DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who has repeatedly claimed that the border is not open, reportedly warned officials of a worst case scenario of up to 400,000 encounters if Title 42 public health protections were ended.

Republicans have blamed the Biden administration’s rapid rollback of Trump-era border protections for the ongoing crisis at the border. The administration however has focused on an explanation emphasizing “root causes” like poverty, corruption and violence in Central America.

“The downturn in economies, the attendant rise in violence, the downturn in economies made more acute by reason of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, the suppression of any humanitarian relief over the past number of years, and the pent-up thirst for relief among many different populations,” Mayorkas told Yahoo News this week. “I think an accumulation of factors contributes to the rise in migration that we’ve seen.”

DOJ Considering Parents vs. School Boards as Terrorists

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The National School Boards Association wrote a 6 page letter to President Biden. The full letter is here. In part:

As these threats and acts of violence have become more prevalent – during public
school board meetings, via documented threats transmitted through the U.S. Postal Service, through
social media and other online platforms, and around personal properties – NSBA respectfully asks
that a joint collaboration among federal law enforcement agencies, state and local law enforcement,
and with public school officials be undertaken to focus on these threats. NSBA specifically solicits
the expertise and resources of the U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI),
U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Secret Service, and its National Threat Assessment
Center regarding the level of risk to public schoolchildren, educators, board members, and
facilities/campuses. We also request the assistance of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service to intervene
against threatening letters and cyberbullying attacks that have been transmitted to students, school
board members, district administrators, and other educators.

As these acts of malice, violence, and threats against public school officials have increased, the
classification of these heinous actions could be the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and
hate crimes. As such, NSBA requests a joint expedited review by the U.S. Departments of Justice,
Education, and Homeland Security, along with the appropriate training, coordination,
investigations, and enforcement mechanisms from the FBI, including any technical assistance
necessary from, and state and local coordination with, its National Security Branch and
Counterterrorism Division, as well as any other federal agency with relevant jurisdictional authority
and oversight. Additionally, NSBA requests that such review examine appropriate enforceable
actions against these crimes and acts of violence under the Gun–Free School Zones Act, the
PATRIOT Act in regards to domestic terrorism, the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate
Crimes Prevention Act, the Violent Interference with Federally Protected Rights statute, the
Conspiracy Against Rights statute, an Executive Order to enforce all applicable federal laws for the(…)

UPDATE: Cape school board meeting ends in protest | Cape Gazette

In another part of the letter:

These threats or actual acts of violence against our school districts are impacting the delivery of
educational services to students and families, as many districts receive federal funds and subsidies
for services to millions of students with disabilities, health screenings and supplemental supports for
disadvantaged students, child nutrition, broadband connectivity, educator development, school
safety activities, career and technical education, and more. School board meetings have been
disrupted in California, Florida, Georgia, and other states because of local directives for mask
coverings to protect students and educators from COVID–19.

An individual was arrested in Illinois for aggravated battery and disorderly conduct during a school
board meeting. During two separate school board meetings in Michigan9, an individual yelled a
Nazi salute in protest to masking requirements, and another individual prompted the board to call
a recess because of opposition to critical race theory.

Virginia's Loudoun County School Board silences public comment after raucous meeting, 2 men arrested | Fox News

Who do you think will win in this battle? Just a few days ago in a debate of candidates for the governors race in Virginia, Terry McAuliffe –>

Terry McAuliffe and Glenn Youngkin sparred during the second and final debate of Virginia’s governor’s race on Tuesday, but it was one comment on schools by McAuliffe, the Democratic candidate, that drew the ire of conservatives. 

“I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach,” McAuliffe, who previously served as governor of Virginia from 2014 to 2018, said during the debate in Alexandria, Virginia.

McAuliffe made the remarks in response to Youngkin, the Republican candidate, who argued that parents should be more involved in the decisions of local school districts. Conservative social media responded. 

Just how long before the public school systems across the country collapse and homeowners challenge in court their property tax dollars that pay for the public school systems and teachers? The Biden administration is fully devoted to unions and will continue to side with the teacher’s unions as has already been proven with regard to financial bailouts and masks mandates.

Take caution parents, this is a tailspin that has no end until the parents declare an end to the entire corrupt system.

 

Is the U.S. Post Office Slow Service Because it is Becoming a Real Bank?

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Slow mail service is on purpose.

WASHINGTON — Americans across the country could start seeing slowdowns in mail delivery as early as Friday, when the US Postal Service implements its new service standards.

The changes, which include longer first-class mail delivery times and cuts to post office hours, are part of embattled Postmaster General Louis DeJoy’s 10-year plan for the agency that he unveiled earlier this year.

'Tis the Season to Renew and Expand the US Postal Service ...
According to USPS spokesperson Kim Frum, the service changes won’t affect about 60% of first-class mail and nearly all periodicals. Within a local area, standard delivery time for single-piece, first-class mail will remain at two days.

However, mail traveling longer distances will take longer to arrive in some cases, due to the USPS increasing transit time.

“These changes would position us to leverage more cost-effective means to transport First-Class packages via ground rather than using costly air transportation, which is also less reliable due to weather, flight traffic, availability constraints, competition for space, and the added hand-offs involved,” Frum said.

Many Democrats have called for the ouster of DeJoy, a major donor to the GOP and former President Donald Trump.

But as there is Federal government scrutiny on the private banking system(s), crypto-currency and all alternate forms of monetary exchange such as PayPal, Facebook, Venmo, Zelle or ApplePay…now it is the US. Postal System that is entering the industry.

The Postal Service Should Not Offer Banking Services | Op ...

The U.S. Postal Service has launched a pilot program to offer customers financial services, an unexpected first step toward realizing a longstanding progressive goal of postal banking.

USPS is testing the program at just four post offices on the East Coast. It will enable individuals to deposit payroll or business checks of up to $500 onto a single-use debit card for a flat fee of $5.95. The offering is far short of the much more comprehensive suite of financial services many advocates and left-leaning lawmakers have sought for years, but still takes USPS in a surprising direction under the leadership of embattled Postmaster General Louis DeJoy.

Postal management worked with the American Postal Workers Union to set up the pilot. APWU has also long advocated for postal banking, including by negotiating it into a previous collective bargaining agreement.

The four sites, located in Washington, D.C.; Falls Church, Virginia; Baltimore; and the Bronx, New York, will not accept any checks larger than $500. The debit cards, to which USPS is referring as “gift cards,” will allow users to withdraw cash from an ATM for a fee or purchase goods online or at retail stores. The American Prospect first reported the pilot.

The initial sites and services are meant to be a “proof-of-concept” test for the Postal Service, APWU officials said. The union is hopeful that USPS will expand the pilot in early 2022, both in terms of services offered and locations where they are available. The easiest areas for expansion would be to allow for gift cards for checks of more than $500. Thousands of post offices already offer Visa gift cards, and management concluded there would be few legal hurdles to simply accepting another form of payment for them. The cards USPS currently has in stock are capped at $500, hence the current maximum. Management is looking to both raise the cap on those and allow for the bundling of multiple cards.

Other services in discussion are a bill pay product, making the cards branded to the Postal Service and reloadable, and wire transfers from one post office to another. USPS has expressed an openness to setting up its own ATMs, though that may require additional statutory authority and is therefore only expected much further down the road. USPS offered banking services for more than 50 years, but stopped in 1967.

Tatiana Roy, a USPS spokeswoman, said that offering “affordable, convenient and secure” services was aligned with DeJoy’s 10-year plan to fix the mailing agency’s finances. The Postal Service this month implemented another key element of DeJoy’s plan, slowing down delivery times for about 40% of First-Class mail while also raising prices above the normal inflation-based rate.

The banking pilot “is an example of how the Postal Service is leveraging its vast retail footprint and resources to innovate,” Roy said.

APWU renewed its push for banking services earlier this year and management took a serious interest. While the union sought a wider array of services in more locations, management told the labor group that “the best way to get started was to get started.”

“It’s a baby step but we’re thrilled to be moving in the right direction,” one union official said.

USPS and APWU have not set specific figures for the number of sites to which the pilot could expand, but those discussions are ongoing. Before Monday when the program gained attention in national media outlets, USPS only announced the availability of the check cashing service through signs in the four affected post offices. The Postal Service is in the midst of soliciting proposals from the private sector for check verification services.

Research from the University of Michigan has found that one-in-four U.S. Census tracts, which are home to 21 million people, do not have any banks within their borders. Advocates for postal banking have highlighted that the private sector often charges high fees for check cashing services and that historically disadvantaged communities are disproportionately impacted by them. APWU has suggested expanding the pilot to all of the Bronx, all of Puerto Rico or to an entire rural county.

Postal management has put together a training session for impacted employees to get them up to speed on the pilot. An APWU official said its members were excited by the new task and recognized it could play a vital role in the future of the Postal Service.

The push for postal banking has gained steam in recent years, even becoming a part of the official platform of the Democratic Party. A House-backed funding bill for fiscal 2022 would require USPS to implement a banking pilot in five rural and five urban ZIP codes. Democratic lawmakers have also put forward legislation to create a public banking system backed by the Federal Reserve, which users would access at post offices. Porter McConnell, co-founder of the Save the Post Office Coalition, praised USPS for launching the pilot but said it was “not enough.”

“Given that experts and elected officials have been calling on the USPS to pilot postal banking for years, these pilots are long overdue,” said McConnell, the daughter of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. “They are late to this party, but they have at least rung the doorbell.”

The Pandora Papers are Exposing Corruption of World Leaders

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A HUGE hat tip to the investigative journalists over the intensive and dedicated work on exposing tax evaders and money laundering across the globe.The Big Picture: Real estate in some of the world’s most coveted neighborhoods is owned by anonymous companies registered in notoriously secretive jurisdictions, like the British Virgin Islands (BVI).

Behind many of these offshore firms are political elites — including heads of state — who are often trying to avoid taxes or, in some cases, launder money.

?? Dictator’s Family in London: Family and close associates of Azerbaijan’s president — including his teenage children — secretly purchased $700 million worth of London real estate. Read more.

?? Czech PM in France: Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš set up a British Virgin Islands company in 2009 that secretly loaned €15 million to other shell companies he owned in the U.S. and Monaco. The money was eventually used to buy luxury French real estate. Read More.

?? Zelensky’s Offshore Network: Comedian Volodymyr Zelensky, who won Ukraine’s presidency on an anti-corruption platform, was co-owner of an offshore network. Even now, his family appears to still be able to profit from one of the companies. Read More.

?? Russian Money in Croatia: The family of a wealthy Croatian tycoon with ties to Vladimir Putin secretly took over a real estate developer. The family then funnelled suspicious funds from a Russian pipeline company to this real estate firm, using an opaque trust. Read More.

?? Kazakh Oligarchs and a ‘Tokal’: Two oligarchs are linked to $30 million worth of transfers to the alleged unofficial third wife (or tokal) of Kazakhstan’s former president, who remains arguably the most powerful man in the country. Read More.

?? Serbian PEP’s Properties: When our Serbian colleagues reported that Siniša Mali, then the mayor of Belgrade, had bought 24 properties on Bulgaria’s coast, he denied the allegations and offered a challenge: “If you determine I’m the owner of these apartments, they’re all yours…”

Well, the Pandora Papers prove he is the properties’ owner, without a shadow of doubt. We’re still waiting for the keys. Read More.

Other finds in the data: ?? A Slovenian cosmetics fraudster.

PANDORA PAPERS FROM PARTNERS

OCCRP was one of 150 media outlets to investigate leaked documents from 14 service providers. Here are some highlights from our colleagues outside of the OCCRP network. 

?? Tony Blair’s Taxes: Former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair and his wife saved hundreds of thousands of pounds in property taxes when acquiring a London office building from an offshore company. Read more in the Guardian.

?? Kenyan Dynasty: The family of Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta secretly owned a web of offshore companies in Panama and the BVI. Read more in Finance Uncovered. 

?? Pakistan PM’s Inner Circle: Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan has surrounded himself with people who have secret holdings hidden offshore. Read more in ICIJ. 

?? King of Jordan in the U.S. and U.K.: Jordan’s long-ruling monarch King Abdullah II has secretly owned 14 luxury homes in the U.K and the U.S., which he purchased through front companies registered in notorious tax havens. Read more in ICIJ.

? Latin American PEPs: One of Central America’s most prestigious law firms, Alcogal, set up offshore companies for 160 politicians and public officials — including some accused of looting their own countries. Read more at ICIJ.

IMPACT & RESPONSES

?? Pakistan: Prime Minister Khan welcomed the Pandora Papers in a tweet, vowing to investigate citizens named in the investigation.

?? Czech Republic: The Czech national police announced they will “act upon” the Pandora Papers’ revelations into the prime minister, who is up for reelection this week.

?? Sri Lanka: Sri Lanka’s anti-corruption commission will reportedly investigate the assets of any politician named in the Pandora Papers, which includes ex-minister Nirupama Rajapaksa.

Find more impact at ICIJ

The U.S. government has long condemned prominent offshore financial centers, where liberal rules and guarantees of discretion have drawn oligarchs, business tycoons and politicians.

But a burgeoning American trust industry is increasingly sheltering the assets of international millionaires and billionaires by promising levels of protection and secrecy that rival or surpass those offered in overseas tax havens. That shield, which is near-absolute, has insulated the industry from meaningful oversight and allowed it to forge new footholds in U.S. states.

Explore the latest stories in our groundbreaking Pandora Papers investigation: