FISA, Horowitz v. FBI

Posted on December 19, 2019December 19, 2019 by Denise Simon

The second hearing in the Senate where Inspector General Horowitz delivered more testimony to the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee was quite chilling and revealing.
There was a particular exchange between Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) and Horowitz that explains the bias or perhaps even the plotting.

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., was blunt in trying to get to the bottom of what happened during Wednesday’s Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hearing.

“Were they just all incompetent?” he asked. Hawley then noted that due to the complexities involved, “it doesn’t sound like they’re very stupid to me.”

Hawley ultimately asked why the members of the FBI would commit such failures to mislead a court multiple times.

“That was precisely the concern we had,” Horowitz said. The inspector general made clear that he did not reach any conclusions regarding intent, but he did not necessarily accept the reasons people gave him during his investigation.

“There are so many errors, we couldn’t reach a conclusion or make a determination on what motivated those failures other than we did not credit what we lay out here were the explanations we got,” Horowitz said.

This echoed what Horowitz said in his opening statement, where he made clear that “although we did not find documentary or testimonial evidence of intentional misconduct, we also did not receive satisfactory explanations for the errors or the missing information and the failures that occurred.”

Horowitz previously appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee in the aftermath of his report on the subject, but Wednesday’s hearing before the Senate homeland security panel comes a day after the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) sharply criticized the FBI in a rare public order that referenced his findings.

Horowitz said that both Justice Department attorneys and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court “should have been given complete and accurate information,” adding, “that did not occur and as a result, the surveillance of Carter Page continued even as the FBI gathered evidence and information that weakened the assessment of probable cause and made the FISA applications less accurate.”

So, the Democrats along with the media prepackaged the headlines prior to the Horowitz testimony that the IG report found NO bias. We are now getting more concise and factual information that says otherwise. Seems those on the top floor of the J. Edgar Hoover building opened some old history books on the former Director of the FBI and used several of Hoover’s tactics for all things Crossfire Hurricane and the 4 FISA warrants.

Image result for fisa court The IG report is teeming with deceit and clandestine maneuvers at the hands of the SSA’s (Special Agents) on the top floor and not those of 7 levels down from the Director level as Comey and McCabe have declared.

The first FISA application: “contained seven significant inaccuracies and omissions.”. None of these were corrected with an addendum or with the 3 renewals. Contrary to Comey’s constant testimony, the dossier played the largest role in the warrant application and the FBI knew that Carter Page worked as an agent for the CIA to collect and share information on his Russian interactions, yet that was stripped out of the hundreds of pages in the warrant applications. By the way, both the FBI and the CIA as a matter of practice use civilian informants and even top leaders of global corporations to gather intelligence during foreign travels and interactions.

Now, where is the outrage of the pesky now very loyal and dedicated pro-Constitutional Democrats and where is the media on all this? In fact, with the top judge, Rosemary Collyer at the FISA court issuing a demand letter after the IG report and testimony to the FBI, what will the all the clean up measures include and will there be legal consequences for those who lied, cheated and deceived the court? Beware, much of our media, TV and print operates with wild abandon by applying propaganda….the Kremlin would be proud.

GOP War Room v. Pelosi’s Impeachment?

Posted on December 5, 2019December 5, 2019 by Denise Simon

Do the Republicans in both Houses of Congress need to collaborate with the Department of Justice to create a war room to counter the Democrat’s impeachment operation? Yes, and there are several legal and factual avenues to explore. But one in particular is already in play. In fact, it has been in play since at least 2016, long before Former Vice President Joe Biden announced his candidacy for President of the United States.

The Democrats for months have been not only alleging President Trump for inviting a foreign power into our 2020 election process by asking a favor of the Ukraine President. They additionally charge President Trump for publicly asking China for the same thing. Remember, President Trump said in the phone call: can you do US a favor, OUR COUNTRY has been through a lot. That is not a personal favor for President Trump but rather a service to our nation as a whole. Given the decades of rampant corruption in Ukraine and frankly in our own country, you would think the Democrats would want the same favor right when it comes to money-laundering and interference into our election(s).

So, let us go back to that one avenue already in play since 2016 and that is Rosemont Seneca and Bohai Capital.

For example, one of the companies involved in the Henniges transaction was a billion dollar private investment fund called Bohai Harvest RST (BHR). BHR was formed in November of 2013 by a merger between the Chinese-government linked firm, Bohai Capital, and a company named Rosemont Seneca Partners. Rosemont Seneca was reportedly formed in 2009 by Hunter Biden, the son of then-Vice President Joe Biden, Chris Heinz, the stepson of former Secretary of State John Kerry, and others.3The direct involvement of Mr. Hunter Biden and Mr. Heinz in the acquisition of Henniges by the Chinese government creates a potential conflict of interest. Both are directly related to high-ranking Obama administration officials. The Department of State, then under Mr. Kerry’s leadership, is also a CFIUS member and played a direct role in the decision to approve the Henniges transaction. The appearance of potential conflicts in this case is particularly troubling given Mr. Biden’s and Mr. Heinz’s history of investing in and collaborating with Chinese companies, including at least one posing significant national security concerns. This history with China pre and post-dates the 2015 Henniges transaction. For example, in December of 2013, one month after Rosemont Seneca’s merger with Bohai Capital to form BHR, Hunter Biden reportedly flew aboard Air Force Two with his father, then-Vice President Biden to China.4 While in China, he helped arrange for Jonathan Li, CEO of Bohai Capital, to “shake hands” with Vice-President Biden.5 Afterward, Hunter Biden met with Li for reportedly a “social meeting.”6 After the China trip, BHR’s business license was approved.7 In December of 2014, BHR also reportedly became an investor in China General Nuclear Power Corp (CGN), a state-owned energy company involved in building nuclear reactors.8 In April of 2016, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) charged CGN with conspiracy to unlawfully engage and participate in the production and development of special nuclear material outside the United States which could cause “significant damage to our national security.”9 Then, in August of 2015, Gemini Investments Limited, another Chinese-government linked entity, purchased 75 percent of Rosemont Reality, a sister company of Rosemont 3 Seneca.10 Rosemont Realty became Gemini Rosemont and it reportedly focused on purchasing American real estate.11In September 2015, BHR joined with a subsidiary of the Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC) to acquire Henniges for $600 million. AVIC acquired 51 percent of the company, and BHR acquired 49 percent.12 According to reports, the acquisition of Henniges by BHR and AVIC was the “biggest Chinese investment into US automotive manufacturing assets to date.”13 Because the acquisition gave Chinese companies direct control of Henniges’ anti-vibration technologies, the transaction was reviewed by CFIUS. CFIUS approved the transaction despite reports that in 2007, years before BHR teamed up with AVIC’s subsidiary, AVIC was reportedly involved in stealing sensitive data regarding the Joint Strike Fighter program. AVIClater reportedly incorporated the stolen data into China’s J-20 and J-31 aircraft.14

You will notice numbered footnotes in the text above. That text is in part of a letter sent by Senator Grassley (Senate Finance Committee) to Treasury Secretary Mnuchin this past August. It is uncertain if Treasury did respond to the letter. But hold on there is more.

In May of 2016, the Wall Street Journal had an interesting piece regarding the sale of fake Indian tribal bonds. 7 people were charged of this fraud. Among them was a former campaign adviser to Secretary of State John Kerry and a second man once dubbed by the media “porn’s new king” along with five others. Devon Archer, an advisor to Mr. Kerry’s presidential campaign in 2004 and Jason Galanis a former investor in the adult entertainment business allegedly duped clients into investing more than $43 million in sham bonds in 2014 and 2015.

Image result for Rosemont Seneca Bohai, LLC

Now Devon Archer and Hunter Biden were best of buddies. In 2014, there was a lot of money flowing into a Morgan Stanley account under the name of Rosemont Seneca Bohai, LLC c/o Devon Archer.

Rosemont Seneca Partners Co… by JohnSolomon on Scribd

Now, we must remember that the United States has a ‘Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty’ (MLAT) with several countries.

Click here for the presentation of the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty

This is an agreement between two or more countries for the purpose of gather and exchanging information in a effort to enforce laws and prosecute public or criminal cases that include witness statements, service of documents, forfeiture, illicit assets, terrorism, sanctions, freezing accounts, restraining orders, judgement, subpoenas, transfers of financial instruments, security, regulations and disclosures. Most of the time these cases are a result of transnational organized crime, tax evasions or money-laundering. Other cooperative international agencies include Europol, Interpol repatriation organizations including the FBI and the United Nations.

So Nancy, with assistance of some in the Senate, the Treasury Department and the Trump White House, Trump is doing the right thing by following the law, draining the swamp and asking for continued foreign cooperation in fraud cases. Hold your powder everyone, this will get very interesting.

Did Pelosi, Schiff and Nadler Read Federalist No. 65?

Posted on December 3, 2019December 3, 2019 by Denise Simon

While Nancy Pelosi has been ‘prayerful’ during this impeachment inquiry process, Congressman Adam Schiff, HPSCI Chairman has been touting the Constitution and poor old Congressman Jerry Nadler, Chairman of the House Judiciary remains lost as he was forced to give up control of the impeachment process after the stupid hearing with Corey Lewandowski. Meanwhile.

Whitaker will testify before House panel after tense back ...

Nadler, a lawyer himself has previously railed against impeachment during the Clinton scandal, has invited 3 Constitutional lawyers as witnesses for his first impeachment hearing and the Republicans were only granted 1 witness. Seems Nadler needs several law classes and he and the others meaning Pelosi and Schiff should actually read Federalist No. 66. More on that later.

Nadler has called: Noah Feldman, a Harvard Law professor. His position on impeachment and argument is that President Trump can be impeached even without evidence of a crime. He published an article in The New Yorker in May of 2017 stating his argument which is all the actions of the president are a pattern and can be collectively be used in sum as impeachable. Feldman has also called for Special Counsel to be assigned to investigate Rudy Giuliani and AG William Barr.

Another Nadler witness is Pamela Karlan, a law professor at Stanford. Her concentration including being on the faculty at Stanford is voting rights and political processes. Karlan was on the Obama short list to be a Supreme Court Justice while her resume includes being an attorney for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and was a commissioner on the California Fair Political Practices Commission. Outside of being known as snarky, she often quotes poetry in her classes. Karlan was one of the 42 legal scholars that signed a letter before Trump took office urging him to change his views on several issues and was very critical of his rhetoric.

The last Nadler witness is Michael Gerhardt, a law professor at the University of North Carolina. Gerhardt penned an article in the Atlantic stating that impeachment proceedings are fully legitimate. Gerhardt is also a CNN legal analyst and was once the deputy media director for Al Gore’s senate campaign. Further, Gerhardt counseled Clinton on judicial selections and was special counsel to Senator Patrick Leahy on the nominations to the Supreme Court of Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor.

The only witness the Republicans were allowed to invite was Democrat and George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley. Turley appears to be an okay feller when it comes to Constitutional law. He has provided testimony often on The Hill. He is often the ‘go-to’ person for being a Constitutional originalist and protector of separation of powers within government. Turley has called out the Democrats several times including over the Russia investigation. In a recent interview, Turley had this summary on the impeachment:

The fact is I think that this is the – well certainly the shortest investigation, it’s certainly the thinnest evidentiary record, and it’s the narrowest impeachment ever to go to the Senate, if they were to go on this record….did they prove something was contemptible or impeachable? Contemptible is not synonymous with impeachable. The President does set policy. They have three conversations, two of them directly, one with Senator Johnson, one with Ambassador Sondland, where Trump denies a quid pro quo….so you have a conflicted record. And the question is what do you need to remove a sitting president?…

Whether this is intentional or not, it seems designed to fail in the Senate.

Meanwhile back to Federalist No. 65:

Hamilton argued that the Senate was the body to hold the impeachment trial and not the Supreme Court where evidence of misconduct of public men was a violation of public trust, meaning that society is a victim of that violation. That misconduct would contain injuries to society itself. In Federalist No. 66, Hamilton went on to further argue that the impeachment proceedings would seldom fail to agitate the passion of the whole community and divide parties into less friendly factions stating it would become a condition and test of political strengths between warring political tribes.

It is no wonder that President Trump reminds the nation often of his accomplishments as they are hardly injurious to society, in fact just the opposite.

Gov. Newsom Takes Control of California Pension Fund

Posted on December 3, 2019December 3, 2019 by Denise Simon

$700 billion….the California governor wants full control of that for climate change programs, for road/transportation programs and to reduce vehicle miles traveled. Remember, the largest California boondoggle is the high speed rail system that is likely the worst and most corrupt program across America.

Earlier this year, President Trump pulled nearly a $1 billion of Federal money for the high speed rail project in California that was to connect Los Angeles to San Francisco and be completed by 2033. This rail system was to only cost $77 billion and now the project construction has been reduced substantially in size where the estimated costs are in the $20 billion range. The estimated costs have jumped from $77 billion to as much as $98.1 billion.

High-speed rail taking shape even as opponents seek to ...

The California Governor is still on the hook and he wants to have financial management over the State’s pension fund.

California Pension Fund Urged to Divest from Gun Sellers ...

In part: Newsom’s order directs the state’s Transportation Agency, pension funds and the department that manages government contracts to reconsider how they spend the public’s money with an eye toward investing in projects that could help Californians prepare for climate change.

The executive order “is the governor saying ‘I am prioritizing this in a mainstream way across the government. The state as a major investor and asset owner needs to take climate change really seriously,’” said Kate Gordon, director of the governor’s Office of Planning and Research.

The order references funds that taxpayers typically think of as restricted, such as money earmarked for road improvements and for pension systems that have a financial obligation to earn as much as cash as possible to provide retirement security for millions government employees.

Newsom’s order happened to follow Caltrans’ release of a report describing decisions to adjust funding for highway projects that had been pledged to the Central Valley. The timing created an impression that the Newsom administration was tinkering with taxpayer-approved transportation plans.

Newsom’s executive order won’t change the restrictions lawmakers placed in the 2017 law that levied new taxes and fees on fuel and vehicle registrations to pay for road repairs, according to the state transportation agency. That law is projected to raise about $5 billion a year for roadwork.

But, the executive order could lead the California agency to adjust its plans for other funds, steering money to public transportation and other projects in dense communities near jobs to “reduce vehicle miles traveled.”

Newsom’s administration estimates the state has about $5 billion a year in transportation funds that could be redirected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. More details here.

Meanwhile, The Institute for Energy Research this past August took a hard look at the Green New Deal. After a careful study of the GND, there would be a required $10 tax increase on a single gallon of gas. Additionally, in order to eliminate gas powered vehicles in favor or electric vehicles, gasoline prices would have to increase to $13 per gallon.

Consider the financial consequences to the nation’s economy and the cost of moving goods in the transportation sector…

The Green New Deal would cripple the U.S. economy by requiring carbon taxes ranging from $200 to $1000 per metric ton to spur replacement of current technologies in the transportation and electric generating sectors. If the United States were to implement carbon taxes of this nature, Americans would be devastated financially. And, given that the United States emits about 15 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions compared to China which emits 28 percent of the world total, U.S. reductions would have little impact on global atmospheric concentrations. According to China’s commitment to the Paris Climate agreement, the country will not begin to reduce carbon dioxide emissions until after the year 2030.

Most Americans would find $13 per gallon gasoline unacceptable. The impacts on households and businesses of all kinds would be enormous. A quadrupling of gasoline prices would plunge the U.S. economy into a deep recession. Policymakers should understand the consequences of their proposals.

While the impeachment process is going on in the House of Representatives, Speaker Pelosi was attending a UN climate change summit in Madrid. While there she declared that the United States was still in the Paris Agreement, in spite of President Trump exiting the United States from the non-binding agreement.

Gotta wonder where this is all going and where the collaboration is in the Pelosi orbit or that of Governor Newsom. Better ask some harder questions to those Democrat presidential candidates in Iowa, New Hampshire or South Carolina and beyond.

London Terror Attack Outrage

Posted on December 2, 2019December 2, 2019 by Denise Simon

In part: Usman Khan, 28, was jailed in 2012 for his role in an al Qaeda-inspired terror group that plotted to bomb the London Stock Exchange and the US Embassy and kill Boris Johnson.

The members of Usman Khan’s Al Qaeda-inspired gang who plotted to blow up the London Stock Exchange and kill Boris Johnson. From left to right: Mohammed Moksudur Chowdhury, Mohammed Shahjahan, Shah Mohammed Rahman. Middle row: Mohibur Rahman, Gurukanth Desai, Abdul Malik Miah. Bottom row: Nazam Hussain, Usman Khan, Omar Sharif Latif

Giving a statement outside Scotland Yard, Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu said Usman Khan was subject to an ‘extensive list of licence conditions’ on his release from prison and that ‘to the best of my knowledge he was complying with those conditions’.

A furious political row began today after it was revealed that Khan was released automatically from prison last year – though he was still tagged and monitored.

Khan, born and raised in Stoke-on-Trent, originally received an indeterminate sentence for public protection with a minimum of eight years behind bars after his 2012 arrest, meaning he would remain locked up for as long as necessary, to protect the public.

Passing judgment at the time, Mr Justice Wilkie said: ‘In my judgment, these offenders would remain, even after a lengthy term of imprisonment, of such a significant risk that the public could not be adequately protected by their being managed on licence in the community, subject to conditions, by reference to a preordained release date.’

But this sentence was quashed at the Court of Appeal in April 2013 and he was given a determinate 16-year jail term instead, meaning he would be automatically released after eight years.

It has been speculated that the attack may have been revenge for the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

It has also emerged today that he was a student and ‘personal friend’ of hate preacher Anjem Choudary. Khan spent years preaching on stalls that were linked to al-Muhajiroun, the banned terror group once led by Choudary.

As part of the plotting which led to his 2012 arrest, Khan’s group planned to set up a training camp in Kashmir, where his family had land.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said that it was a ‘mistake’ to release Khan from prison and has vowed to crack down on early releases for inmates. The PM visited the scene of the attack today with Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick, and Home Secretary Priti Patel.

When first sentenced, yesterday’s attacker Khan was handed an Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) with a minimum term of eight years by Mr Justice Wilkie in February 2012.

This was overturned by the Court of Appeal in April 2013, when the indeterminate sentence was quashed. Instead, he was handed 16 years in jail with an extended licence period of five years.

At the time he was jailed, Khan had spent 408 days on remand and this was taken into account when considering his release date.

He was eligible for release after serving half of his 16-year jail term, less the time he had already spent on remand.

Khan was obliged to adhere to the notification provisions of the 2008 Counter Terrorism Act for a total of 30 years.

He was released from prison after agreeing to wear an electronic tag and be monitored by authorities.

Speaking before chairing a meeting of the Government’s emergency committee Cobra on Friday night, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he had ‘long argued’ that it is a ‘mistake to allow serious and violent criminals to come out of prison early and it is very important that we get out of that habit and that we enforce the appropriate sentences for dangerous criminals, especially for terrorists, that I think the public will want to see’.

Chris Phillips, a former head of the UK National Counter Terrorism Security Office, said today: ‘The criminal justice system needs to look at itself.

‘We’re letting people out of prison, we’re convicting people for very, very serious offences and then they are releasing them back into society when they are still radicalised. Much more here.

*** Just for consideration, there are an estimate 74 more cases of those just like Khan walking the streets of Britain. With the numbers of returning ISIS fighters to Europe….well it is easy to predict more attacks. ISIS may no longer have caliphate territory but the internet is for sure the headquarters for continued and successful militant Islamic fighters. Europe….hear the clarion call.