Category Archives: government fraud spending collusion

Is Small Business Aware of California’s $21 Billion Surplus?

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A report from the bipartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office says California’s savings account could grow to more than $18 billion by the end of 2021.

California had a record $21.5 billion surplus in the state budget in 2018. Newsom and the Democratic-controlled state Legislature spent more than half of that money on paying down debts and boosting reserves.

About $4 billion of it went to support ongoing programs while the rest was used for one-time projects. Where did it go exactly and where is it going? Small Business owners deserve to know.

As Congress debates more funding, a contentious point was Federal dollars bailing out states…we see now that Pelosi is lying as California does not need a bailout.

Coronavirus crisis could deplete California's $21-billion ...

With a looming recession and possible federal cuts, where will the money go?

By Evan Symon

The California Legislative Analyst’s Office found that the state will have an extra $7 billion that wasn’t spent in the budget. And by 2021 there can be as much as $18 billion in the state’s general fund.

This is a long way away from a decade ago when the state was about that much in the red.

While the number may go down $2 billion if the Trump administration removes the state Medicaid tax, which it has strongly indicated it will do, it still leaves billions of dollars of extra money sitting in California’s coffers. It’s just a matter of deciding what to do with it.

A Rainy Day Fund

The most likely option for state lawmakers would be to save the extra money, put it into a savings account, and let it accumulate money from both interest and additional surpluses until the next major financial crisis.

A recession is likely coming, and a major natural disaster such as an earthquake is always possible. The LAO even made it clear in the report that “This does not necessarily mean a broader economic slowdown is imminent in the near term. Nonetheless, there likely is greater risk in the economic outlook for 2020-21 than in previous budget cycles.”

Nevertheless, an additional $18 billion would get California through a recession with minimal budget cuts. And after what happened to California during the last recession, where the state was cutting back working days of state employees and giving literal IOUs to banks, a rainy day fund would give California a lot of much needed breathing room, not to mention having an advantage over most states.

And with tax revenue expected to level out in the coming years due to a slow down of wage growth, it may be the most percipient option.

Paying Debts

Despite a surplus in the budget, California still has debt. A LOT of debt.

In 2017 it was estimated that California is still in the red somewhere between $26 billion and $1.3 trillion. Much of that comes from state pensions – pensions of which will be draining more soon due to more baby boomers retiring.

This is another popular option, as Governor Newsom spent half of last years surplus of $21.5 billion paying off this debt. While this won’t nearly pay it all off overnight, eating into some of that now could help future debt issues in the future.

Protection against Federal cuts
Currently California is standing to lose $2 billion each year in surplus due to losing the aforementioned state Medicaid tax. If it is lost, the surplus takes care of that lost revenue, right off the bat.

Due to the Trump administration’s dislike of California, and other Federal program cuts that are possible in the upcoming years, a surplus could help fill in the gap of anything taken away. Lawmakers across California have mentioned this being a scenario before, with a federal cut hurting Californians across the board.

“The state is not in this alone,” said Assemblyman Anthony Rendon (D-Lakewood). “Federal actions may hurt our budget in three ways: by damaging the economy as a whole, by hurling fiscal threats at our revenues, and by withholding funds for programs that benefit Californians.”

Like a rainy day fund, this would only be for the worst case scenario. And it’s one where it can’t even be estimated on because of likely shifts in the Presidency, House of Representatives, and Senate next year.

Infrastructure

California currently has about $187 billion in infrastructure needs. Many roads, highways, bridges, rail lines and other transport repairs, upgrades, demolitions, and new constructions are needed across the state. Former Governor Jerry Brown himself had been very adamant about extra money going towards neglected transportation needs.

Like the overall state debt, a few billion a year going to new infrastructure would only put a small dent into what is needed. But with many bridges and other vital facilities possibly failing and causing injury and death if their problems are ignored for too long, infrastructure also makes sense for surplus spending.

A good lesson for the state
A budget surplus is a good problem to have. California has, for now, learned its’ lesson on overspending on immediate budget needs, and has gone from being the butt of national jokes to becoming the budgetary model for the United States.

“President Trump talks a lot about America’s economic growth under his presidency, but when you look behind the numbers, you see it’s California’s growth that has provided the economic rocket fuel for the nation,” Governor Newsom said about the budget surplus. “The federal government would be wise to look to California as a model for how to get its fiscal house in order.”

When it comes to immediate budgeting, California is back on track. How it decides to spend the current surplus would only validate that.

However the surplus is tiny compared to how much California really has in debt, which is well over a trillion dollars when state employee pension and healthcare plans are added in. The Globe will take a look at the other side of the surplus and California’s debt in Part II.

US Companies Riddled with Members of Chinese Communist Party

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Latest CHINESE COMMUNIST PARTY | The Straits Times

Primer:

In his speech just a few days ago at Georgia Tech University: Pompeo called China’s Communist Party “the central threat of our time” and highlighted efforts by Chinese security services to pressure and recruit Chinese academics and students as spies.

“Americans must know how the Chinese Communist Party is poisoning the well of our higher education institutions for its own ends and how those actions degrade our freedoms and American national security,” Pompeo said.

“If we don’t educate ourselves, if we’re not honest about what’s taking place, we’ll get schooled by Beijing.”

NYP: As we try to come to terms with the extent of Chinese influence over the Biden family, a leaked database of registered members of the Chinese Communist Party has exposed a mass infiltration of American companies — with serious national security implications.

Boeing, Qualcomm and Pfizer are just three US companies that have employed dozens of CCP members in their Chinese facilities, the database reveals.

As well, three female employees of the US consulate in Shanghai have been identified in the list of 1.95 million party members that was leaked to an international group of legislators, the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, which includes Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Bob Menendez (D-NJ).

All CCP members swear an oath to “fight for communism throughout my life, be ready at all times to sacrifice my all for the party and the people, and never betray the party [and] guard party secrets, be loyal to the party.”

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), a member of the Homeland Security Committee, said yesterday: “CCP agents have no place in US government facilities, and this report should serve as a much-needed wake-up call to Washington, DC, and corporate executives, who continue to welcome the Chinese government with open arms.

“[It] is just more evidence of the extent to which the CCP has successfully infiltrated American companies and government.”

While none of the people listed in the database have been identified as spies, mounting concerns in the State Department about the CCP have resulted in tightened visa rules for its members earlier this month. CCP members and their immediate families now are limited to one-month, single-entry US permits.

The database was verified by international cybersecurity firm Internet 2.0, which found it was originally leaked on encrypted messaging app Telegram in 2016. It was passed on to IPAC six weeks ago by a third party.

“We have high confidence this list is authentic,” Internet 2.0 co-founder David Robinson, a former Australian army intelligence officer, told me Sunday.

“Someone — an insider, a dissident — managed to get physical access to the server [in Shanghai] from outside the building. They didn’t have to hack it over the internet.”

Each data entry contains the CCP member’s name, ethnicity, place of birth, education level, identification number and, in some cases, a phone number and address.

Robinson has verified the identity of three women who work at the US consulate in Shanghai.

The three, all listed as ethnic Han college graduates, are registered in a 31-strong Communist Party branch listed as Shanghai Foreign Institutional Service Co., which is a state-owned employment agency, which provides local staff for foreign consulates, schools and news media.

A department spokesperson yesterday had no comment about “an allegedly leaked database of Communist Party members” and said “the department does not discuss security protocols or personnel matters.”

However, she said: “Influence and interference operations are fundamental to how the Chinese Communist Party engages with the world.

“China’s role in the world today cannot be understood without reference to the wide array of malign activities that the [CCP] undertakes to influence our societies in ways that are covert, coercive and corrupting.”

The CCP database is split into 79,000 branches.

For example, Boeing has 17 branches, totaling 252 CCP members. Sixteen members are part of Boeing’s Hongqiao Maintenance Base Boeing Line Maintenance Division . . . First Workshop Party Branch; 22 are in the Second Workshop Party Branch; 13 are in the Third Workshop Party Branch, 14 in the Fourth Workshop Party Branch.

There are four subdivisions of the Pudong Maintenance Base Boeing Line Maintenance Branch, totaling 49 members.

Two branches of the Pudong Maintenance Base Boeing Line Maintenance Branch Cargo Aircraft Line Maintenance total 33 members.

Also listed are 27 members of the Party Branch of Boeing Fourth Branch of the Flight Department of Eastern Airlines Yunnan Co. and 23 members of the China Eastern Airlines Beijing Maintenance Department Party Committee Boeing Maintenance Workshop Party Branch.

Boeing spokesman Bradley Akubuiro said last night the company was satisfied with its security.

“As a global company, we enforce strict security protocols and maintain secure firewalls to protect both our customer and company proprietary data in all countries we operate in.”

According to the database, 96 members in the Qualcomm Wireless Communication Technology (China) Co. Ltd. Party Branch, and 133 additional members spread over six party branches of Qualcomm Enterprise Management (Shanghai) work for semiconductor manufacturer and 5G wireless technology company Qualcomm, a US-based multinational.

Qualcomm was awarded a contract by the Defense Department in 2018 to develop multifactor authentication security systems for US military computers.

Another US company crucial to national security is pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, which began rolling out COVID-19 vaccines Sunday.

The database lists 69 CCP members in four Pfizer branches in Shanghai.

Neither Qualcomm nor Pfizer responded to inquiries yesterday.

New York University also appears with 71 members attached to a branch named East China Normal University Shanghai New York University Faculty and Labor Party Branch.

The database leak comes just days after a number of disturbing revelations involving CCP infiltration of American institutions:

Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe warned that China has targeted members of Congress and poses “the greatest threat to democracy and freedom” since World War II.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned of China’s infiltration of US universities, which are “hooked on Communist cash” and stifle criticism of Beijing.
Media reports identified Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), a member of House Intelligence Committee, as one of several San Francisco politicians courted by Chinese spy Christine Fang.

It was confirmed last week that Joe Biden’s son Hunter is under federal investigation over tax fraud and potential money-laundering over his foreign business dealings, including in China.

“Communist China has been allowed to infiltrate our universities and corporations with people loyal to only the Communist Party,” former Acting Director of National Intelligence Ric Grenell said Sunday.

“Our beloved Chinese American community has been warning us about these tactics for many years, and the political class has ignored those warnings.”

*** Communist party is 'leader of all religions' in China - world news - Hindustan Times

Sensitive data of around two million members of the Communist Party of China (CPC) have been leaked, highlighting their positions in major organizations, including government agencies, throughout the world.

According to reports from The Australian newspaper, featured in the Economic Times, the information includes official records such as party position, birthdate, national ID number and ethnicity. It revealed that members of China’s ruling party hold prominent positions in some of the world’s biggest companies, including in pharmaceutical giants involved in the development of COVID-19 vaccines like Pfizer and financial institutions such as HSBC.

The investigation by The Australian centred around the data leak, which was extracted from a Shanghai server in 2016 by Chinese dissidents.

It noted that CPC members are employed as senior political and government affairs specialists in at least 10 consulates, including the US, UK and Australia, in the eastern Chinese metropolis Shanghai. The paper added that many other members hold positions inside universities and government agencies.

The report emphasized there is no evidence that spying for the Chinese government or other forms of cyber-espionage have taken place.

In her report, The Australian journalist and Sky News host Sharri Markson commented: “What’s amazing about this database is not just that it exposes people who are members of the Communist Party, and who are now living and working all over the world, from Australia to the US to the UK, but it’s amazing because it lifts the lid on how the party operates under President and Chairman Xi Jinping.

“It is also going to embarrass some global companies who appear to have no plan in place to protect their intellectual property from theft, from economic espionage.”

In September, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) and the US Department of Justice issued a joint advisory warning US government agencies and private sector companies to be on high alert for cyber-attacks by threat actors affiliated with the Chinese Ministry of State Security (MSS).

Is Zuckerberg’s $400M U.S. Election Donation Demands Legal?

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Factually, Conservative/Republican votes have been minimized…this is a whole other level of collusion/conspiracy under the guise of free speech…but read on.

Primer: Georgia/The Fulton County Board of Commissioners voted to accept a $6.3 million grant from the Mark-Zuckerberg funded Center for Technology and Civic Life “Safe Elections” project at a September 2, 2020 board meeting. It proceeded without asking a single question about the name of the group providing the funding, the origin of the funding, or the details of what the funding would be used for.

Here is the report on the clawback provisions Zuclerberg demanded if his money was not used as he required.

It begins with the Center for Technology and Civic Life (CTCL), which received nearly $400 million from Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg began the sizeable donations is September boost resources for local election officials, such as additional polling places and ballot drop boxes. Four federal lawsuits were filed in late September by Michigan’s Election Integrity Fund, by the Wisconsin Voters’ Alliance, by the Minnesota Voters’ Alliance, and by two Pennsylvania congressional candidates and several state house members. The lawsuits contend federal law prohibits local governments from accepting private federal election grants. Zuckerberg won the lawsuits in each case, so far.

The lawsuits focus on the Center for Tech and Civic Life spending about $26 million in grants across 12 cities in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Minnesota and Wisconsin, which combined cast over 75% off their two million votes in favor of Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election, according to the plaintiffs.

The suits contend the federal Right to Vote Act and the Help America Vote Act require states provide resources fairly and equally, thus should not allow cities to accept private donations in election processes — particularly if the donation appears results oriented. The suits state private parties and individuals are free to spend money directly on get-out-the-vote efforts but not seek a desired outcome through government election administration.

About the Organization   Skoll | Center for Tech and Civic Life

According to Influence Watch, the Center for Technology and Civic Life (CTCL) is: “a Chicago, Illinois-based center-left election reform advocacy group formed in 2012. The organization pushes for left-of-center voting policies and election administration. It has a wide reach into local elections offices across the nation and is funded by many left-of-center funding organizations such as the Skoll Foundation, the Democracy Fund, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and the Rockefeller Brothers Foundation.

The organization boasts that more than 250 million voters have accessed its data and that CTCL acts as a major supplier of ballot data for tech giants Facebook and Google. Additionally, Rock the Vote, the Women Donors Network, and the Voting Information Project have all used data provided by CTCL

In August, 2020, CTCL announced that it had donated $6.3 million to five cities in Wisconsin, a swing state in the upcoming election. The organization explained that the funds are meant to ensure Wisconsin has a “safe, inclusive, and secure election.” CTCL recommended the recipient cities to “Encourage and Increase Absentee Voting,” “Dramatically Expand Strategic Voter Education & Outreach Efforts, Particularly to Historically Disenfranchised Residents,” “Launch Poll Worker Recruitment, Training and Safety Efforts,” and “Ensure Safe and Efficient Election Day Administration.”

***  https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSt_isw3MaJu7EeY7Kqww5cJHnQf9OTySC_Wg&usqp=CAU

Voting is a fundamental lever for engaging in U.S. democracy—a key mechanism for the public to have their voices heard, hold officials accountable, and shape the future of their communities. However, the U.S. is facing a crisis in participation, with voter turnout rates among the lowest of comparable democracies and persistent inequities between those who are engaged in the voting process and those who are not. At the same time, the responsibilities of election officials are more complex than ever—the administration of U.S. elections is decentralized, with over 8,000 different entities at the state, county, and municipal levels with independent election roles.

Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL) is a team of civic technologists, trainers, researchers, and election administration and data experts working to foster a more informed and engaged democracy fit for the 21st century. It works to make voting more inclusive and secure, increase public confidence in the electoral process, and to ensure that voters are better informed. CTCL provides free and low-cost trainings and implementation tools for local election administrators to help modernize the voting process and better engage with voters—its trainings and professional development reach more election officials that any other organization. It publishes free, open-source civic datasets that are used in some of the most powerful tools that drive civic participation.

CTCL harnesses the promise of technology to modernize the American voting experience and believes that a civically engaged electorate creates thriving communities. CTCL sees a future where elected officials are more reflective of their constituents, government is more responsive to community needs, and citizens advocate effectively.

One of the top 3 leaders of the CTCL/Skoll based in Chicago is Whitney May. Her resume reads as follows:

Whitney May is Co-founder and Director of Government Services with the Center for Technology and Civic Life. She leads a team that’s building the best professional development network for election officials who want to learn about new ways to engage the public and keep up with changing technology. Prior to founding CTCL, Whitney served the Durham County Board of Elections in North Carolina from 2007 to 2012 then joined the New Organizing Institute to work on the Voting Information Project. Whitney holds a BA in Business Administration from Belmont University. Tiana Epps-Johnson is the Executive Director of the Center for Technology and Civic Life. She is leading a team that is doing groundbreaking work to make US elections more inclusive and secure. Prior to CTCL, she was the New Organizing Institute’s Election Administration Director from 2012 to 2015. She previously worked on the Voting Rights Project for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights. In 2015, Tiana joined the inaugural class of Technology and Democracy Fellows at the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the Harvard Kennedy School. In 2018, she was selected to join the inaugural class of Obama Foundation Fellows. Tiana earned a MSc in Politics and Communication from the London School of Economics and a BA in Political Science from Stanford University. Donny Bridges is Co-founder and Director of Civic Data of the Center for Technology and Civic Life. He leads a team that’s helping to make information about government and elections accessible to all Americans nationwide and developing the data infrastructure that civic engagement organizations need in order to have maximum impact. Prior to founding CTCL, Donny was the Election Administration Research Director at the New Organizing Institute from 2012 to 2015, where he developed his obsession with local government and its data. Donny holds BAs in Political Science and Philosophy from Stanford University.

***

More detail: The Skoll Foundation is a private foundation based in Palo Alto, California.

The foundation makes grants and investments (pursuing its “invest” strategy) in social entrepreneurs through its Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship, and through partnerships with and support of organizations and agencies important to social entrepreneurship networks and ecosystems. It provides opportunities for social entrepreneurs to meet with each other (its “connect” strategy) through support of events including the annual Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship at Oxford University, convenings, and online content platforms. It also conducts media campaigns (the “celebrate” strategy) to publicize the work of social entrepreneurs through projects such as short films and partnerships with other media outlets, including The Sundance Institute, NPR, PBS, Public Radio International, and HarperCollins. Its founder is Jeffrey Skoll who was the first employee and first president of eBay.

The total assets of the foundation (including its affiliated funds) are $1,127,000,000 as of the end of 2018. The foundation, which moved to its Palo Alto headquarters in 2004, also collaborated closely with the Skoll Global Threats Fund, established in 2009, to address climate change, pandemics, water security, nuclear proliferation, and conflict in the Middle East.

The partnership between the Obama Foundation and Skoll is resolute. David Simas seeks to “carry on the great, unfinished project of renewal and global progress” and oversee the construction of the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago, Illinois. Simas spoke at a panel discussion at the Skoll World Forum titled “Democracy in Crisis? Populism, Polarization, and Civic Engagement,” on ways to prevent and combat attacks from populist political entities or politicized media.

David Simas is the Chief Executive Officer of the Obama Foundation. A native of Taunton, Massachusetts, he was appointed Deputy Chief of Staff to Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick in 2007. Simas then joined President Obama’s administration in 2009 as a Deputy Assistant to the President, working with senior advisors David Axelrod and David Plouffe. In 2012, he served as Director of Opinion Research for President Obama’s reelection campaign. Following the reelection, Simas returned to the White House as Assistant to the President and Director of the Office of Political Strategy and Outreach. Simas holds a B.A. in political science from Stonehill College and a J.D. from Boston College Law School. He serves on the national board of directors of OneGoal and lives in Chicago with his wife, Shauna, and their two daughters.

Canadian Armed Forces and China’s People’s Liberation Army

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The United States raised serious concerns about having the People’s Liberation Army conduct military exercises just north of the U.S. border with a U.S. ally.

“A senior government official said Gen. Vance, on the urgings of the U.S., cancelled winter exercises with the PLA and later all military interactions,” the publication added. “Gen. Vance did allow Canadian Armed Forces personnel to compete at the 2019 Military World Games held in Wuhan, China, that October.”

Michael Chong, the Conservatives’ foreign affairs critic, and James Bezan, the defense critic, slammed leftist Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in a statement for his “stunning lack of leadership.”

“That cold weather warfare that you’re referring to was just one of 18 different joint projects the Canadian armed forces had with the People’s Liberation Army in 2019 alone,” Levant said. “Canada is training one and two star Chinese generals in our war colleges; we’re training lieutenants, and majors, commanders; we’re sending Canadians over to China; we’re bringing Chinese — I think they’re not just soldiers, I think they’re spies as well — to Canada, and I don’t know a single person in this country who knew about it, but it’s been happening, and we found out about it really by accident when the government sent me freedom of information documents and forgot to black them out or maybe, frankly, someone inside the government wanted to blow the whistle on this incredibly upside down relationship.”

“…In these memos, you can see that the Trump Administration warned Canada that this winter warfare training would transfer knowledge to China that could be used. Now, they don’t explain, would it be used to take on Uyghurs in Xinjiang, Tibetans to fight India in the Himalayas, or even to fight us? And when the military, the Canadian military, said our American allies, or our allies are concerned about this, Trudeau’s staff pushed back and said, is it just the Trump Administration, or is anyone else worried about it? So, there’s an antipathy toward America that seeps through all these secret documents, and the overarching goal is to let China’s president Xi Jinping save face.” More here from DW.

Other revelations include:

  • Disgraced cabinet minister Catherine McKenna jetted to China for a three-day conference just months after the two Michaels were taken hostage
  • Trudeau sent nearly 200 CAF personnel to Wuhan in October of 2019 to participate in the Military World Games, a propaganda bonanza for China diplomatic reports that China is using its “belt and road” negotiations to demand that countries drop human rights complaints if they want trade deals
  • Chinese censorship of Twitter use
  • Chinese use of a smartphone app to track Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang
  • Bureaucrats bizarre protocol of referring to accused fraudster and Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou as “Ms. Meng”, but refusing to even mention the two Michaels by name
  • Bureaucrats deriding concerns about military knowledge transfer to China as figments of the “Trump Administration”

 

Sexual Misconduct Shakes FBI’s Senior Ranks

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Zero tolerance but avoiding prosecution or consequence is an art it seems at the FBI.

Washington — FBI

WASHINGTON (AP) — An assistant FBI director retired after he was accused of drunkenly groping a female subordinate in a stairwell. Another senior FBI official left after he was found to have sexually harassed eight employees. Yet another high-ranking FBI agent retired after he was accused of blackmailing a young employee into sexual encounters.

An Associated Press investigation has identified at least six sexual misconduct allegations involving senior FBI officials over the past five years, including two new claims brought this week by women who say they were sexually assaulted by ranking agents.

Each of the accused FBI officials appears to have avoided discipline, the AP found, and several were quietly transferred or retired, keeping their full pensions and benefits even when probes substantiated the sexual misconduct claims against them.

Beyond that, federal law enforcement officials are afforded anonymity even after the disciplinary process runs its course, allowing them to land on their feet in the private sector or even remain in law enforcement.

“They’re sweeping it under the rug,” said a former FBI analyst who alleges in a new federal lawsuit that a supervisory special agent licked her face and groped her at a colleague’s farewell party in 2017. She ended up leaving the FBI and has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

“As the premier law enforcement organization that the FBI holds itself out to be, it’s very disheartening when they allow people they know are criminals to retire and pursue careers in law enforcement-related fields,” said the woman, who asked to be identified in this story only by her first name, Becky.

The AP’s count does not include the growing number of high-level FBI supervisors who have failed to report romantic relationships with subordinates in recent years — a pattern that has alarmed investigators with the Office of Inspector General and raised questions about bureau policy.

FBI launches investigation of Jackson County Utility ...

The recurring sexual misconduct has drawn the attention of Congress and advocacy groups, which have called for whistleblower protections for rank-and-file FBI employees and for an outside entity to review the bureau’s disciplinary cases.

“They need a #MeToo moment,” said U.S. Rep. Jackie Speier, a California Democrat who has been critical of the treatment of women in the male-dominated FBI.

“It’s repugnant, and it underscores the fact that the FBI and many of our institutions are still good ol’-boy networks,” Speier said. “It doesn’t surprise me that, in terms of sexual assault and sexual harassment, they are still in the Dark Ages.”

In a statement, the FBI said it “maintains a zero-tolerance policy toward sexual harassment” and that claims against supervisors have resulted in them being removed from their positions while cases are investigated and adjudicated.

It added that severe cases can result in criminal charges and that the FBI’s internal disciplinary process assesses, among other factors, “the credibility of the allegations, the severity of the conduct, and the rank and position of the individuals involved.”

The AP review of court records, Office of Inspector General reports and interviews with federal law enforcement officials identified at least six allegations against senior officials, including an assistant director and special agents in charge of entire field offices, that ranged from unwanted touching and sexual advances to coercion.

None appears to have been disciplined, but another sexual misconduct allegation identified in the AP review of a rank-and-file agent resulted in him losing his security clearance.

The FBI, with more than 35,000 employees, keeps a notoriously tight lid on such allegations. The last time the Office of Inspector General did an extensive probe of sexual misconduct within the FBI, it tallied 343 “offenses” from fiscal years 2009 to 2012, including three instances of “videotaping undressed women without consent.”

The latest claims come months after a 17th woman joined a federal lawsuit alleging systemic sexual harassment at the FBI’s training academy in Quantico, Virginia. That class-action case claims male FBI instructors made “sexually charged” comments about women needing to “take their birth control to control their moods,” inviting women trainees over to their homes and openly disparaging them.

In one of the new lawsuits filed Wednesday, a former FBI employee identified only as “Jane Doe” alleged a special agent in charge in 2016 retired without discipline and opened a law firm even after he “imprisoned, tortured, harassed, blackmailed, stalked and manipulated” her into having several “non-consensual sexual encounters,” including one in which he forced himself on her in a car. The AP is withholding the name and location of the accused special agent to protect the woman’s identity.

“It is the policy and practice of the FBI and its OIG to allow senior executives accused of sexual assault to quietly retire with full benefits without prosecution,” the woman’s attorney, David J. Shaffer, alleges in the lawsuit.

One such case involved Roger C. Stanton, who before his abrupt retirement served as assistant director of the Insider Threat Office, a division at Washington headquarters tasked with rooting out leakers and safeguarding national security information.

According to an Inspector General’s report concluded this year and obtained by AP through a public records request, Stanton was accused of drunkenly driving a female subordinate home following an after-work happy hour. The woman told investigators that once inside a stairwell of her apartment building, Stanton wrapped his arm around her waist and “moved his hand down onto her bottom” before she was able to get away and hustle up the stairs.

After Stanton left, he called the woman 15 times on her FBI phone and sent her what investigators described as “garbled text” complaining that he could not find his vehicle. The heavily redacted report does not say when the incident happened.

Stanton disputed the woman’s account and told investigators he “did not intend to do anything” and only placed his arm around her because of the “narrowness” of the stairs. But Stanton acknowledged he was “very embarrassed by this event” and “assistant directors should not be putting themselves in these situations.”

Stanton retired in late 2018 after the investigation determined he sexually harassed the woman and sought an improper relationship. He did not respond to requests for comment from AP.

Earlier this year, the Inspector General found that the special agent in charge of the Albany, New York, office, James N. Hendricks, sexually harassed eight subordinates at the FBI.

Hendricks also was not named in the OIG report despite its findings. He was first identified in September by the Albany Times Union. One current and one former colleague of Hendricks confirmed his role in the case to AP.

Hendricks now writes a law enforcement blog in which he touts his FBI accolades but makes no mention of the misconduct allegations. He did not respond to requests for comment.

Becky, the former analyst, told AP she once believed FBI’s “organizational values and mission aligned with how I was raised.” But she was disabused of that notion after reporting to management that Charles Dick, a supervisory special agent at the FBI Training Academy at the time, sexually assaulted her at a farewell party.

Becky told AP her assailant had threatened her at least two times before. “Once while we were waiting for the director he said, ‘I’m going to touch your ass. You know it’s going to happen.’”

“His boorish behavior was well known,” she added. “He was getting away with everything.”

In a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday, Becky accused the former agent of wrapping his arm around her chest while posing for a photograph and “reaching under her and simulating” penetration of her “with his fingers through her jeans.”

Dick denied the charges and was acquitted in state court in Virginia by a judge who ruled it “wholly incredible” that Becky would “stand there and take it and not say anything,” according to a transcript of the proceeding. Dick retired from the FBI months before the Inspector General followed up on Becky’s internal complaint, Becky alleged in her lawsuit, adding she faced retaliation for coming forward.

“It’s much easier to suffer in isolation than it is to go public,” she told AP. “But if I don’t report it, I’m complicit in the cultural and institutionalized cover-up of this sort of behavior.”