Category Archives: Terror

Gowdy Prevents Cummings From Leaking Benghazi Testimony

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Sheesh…. leaking purposely? To save Hillary? Permission granted for Cummings to leak testimony? Has Cummings considered the impact of leaks to media to other witnesses?

Judge for yourself.

Benghazi Republicans limit Democrats’ access to witness records

WaPo: Republicans on the House Select Committee on Benghazi are placing new restrictions on Democrats’ access to key documents out of fear they could be made public before the panel concludes its investigation.

The move arrives amid growing speculation about when Republicans will release their final report about the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attacks and what conclusions it will draw about former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who is solidifying her position as the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Under new rules communicated Wednesday by Republicans, Democratic lawmakers and staff will no longer be given their own physical and digital copies of witness interview transcripts. Instead, they will only be able to access to hard copies of the transcripts inside GOP offices during business hours.

Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) argued the arrangement became necessary after panel Democrats led by ranking member Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) threatened to unilaterally release transcripts from interviews with key witnesses, including White House National Security Adviser Susan Rice, Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes, former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and former CIA director David Petraeus.

“Democrats have threatened to leak more transcripts and therefore I have no choice but to protect past witnesses, future witnesses, confidential material and the integrity of the investigation by allowing the Democrats equitable access but not control,” Gowdy said in a statement.

“Once they stated their intention to misuse transcripts, I could not in good faith allow them to do so. Mr. Cummings likes to frequently lecture people how ‘we’re better than this,’ but his actions and the actions of his staff with regards to this investigation unfortunately prove otherwise.”

Cummings accused Republicans of breaking House rules and working to time disclosures in order to maximize harm to Clinton in the election.

“Democrats on the Select Committee will not agree to conditions that prevent us from putting out the facts that witnesses have told the Committee in order to rebut the conspiracy theories about Benghazi,” Cummings said in a statement.

“Republicans are so desperate to keep us from sharing these facts with the public, they denied Democrats any access to some of these witness transcripts for weeks.  Republicans are writing a secret, partisan report that they plan to make public shortly before the election – and they are violating House Rules in order to try to silence Democrats from putting out the facts before then.”

The conflict represents yet another stalemate for the dysfunctional select committee and its leaders, Gowdy and Cummings. And the rancor is only expected to build as the investigation approaches its two-year anniversary in May.

Republicans would not provide a deadline for their final report, arguing the Obama administration would merely stonewall on further document and interview requests until that date. Instead, Gowdy has said he hopes for completion as soon as possible “before summer.”

The question remains whether that timetable includes a window for the CIA to complete a classification review of the report, which could take several months. Democrats argue that, adding time for the review, the schedule would put the release of the report just before the general election in November.

Cummings said his side must have full access to the transcripts in order to conduct its work, including efforts to counteract what Democrats see as a Republican campaign to unfairly target Clinton. Aides described the limits on their access to documents as unprecedented and another sign of the GOP’s desire to manipulate the investigation.

“By limiting Democratic access to these transcripts, you impair our ability to share the evidence supporting our fact-based analysis with the public, essentially quieting any dissent from your report from the start,” Cummings wrote to Gowdy on Tuesday.

Gowdy defended his decision.

“I have consulted with the House Parliamentarian and I am confident this arrangement complies with the letter and intent of House rules,” he wrote back on Wednesday.

The process for sharing documents in a congressional investigation is usually straightforward.

Under normal circumstances, the stenographer recording the closed-door interviews would pass along transcripts to the majority — in this case, the Republicans — who would then pass them to Democrats.

This is how the panel functioned until mid-February, when Democrats threatened in a comment to the Washington Post to release transcripts in order to rebut the GOP’s claims of “significant breakthroughs” in the investigation. After that, according to aides from both sides, Republicans withheld transcripts from interviews as they took place.

The new rules for access were not communicated until Republican and Democratic staffers spoke on Wednesday. Aides to Gowdy said he spoke to Cummings on the House floor, offering free access to transcripts if Cummings promised not to release them.

“He would not give me that assurance,” Gowdy said in a statement.

It’s Bad when the UK Tells Obama to Butt Out

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Petitions

UK Government and Parliament

Petition Prevent Obama From Speaking In Westminster Regarding The In/Out Referendum..

Stop President Obama from speaking inside OUR Westminster Parliament concerning Britain staying inside the European Union..

Five Members of the British Parliament and a Member of the European Parliament have written to U.S. President Barack Obama urging him to stay out of Britain’s referendum on the country’s membership of the European Union (EU).

BretibartUK: Peter Bone (Conservative), Kate Hoey (Labour), Kelvin Hopkins (Labour), Tom Pursglove (Conservative), Sammy Wilson (Democratic Unionist Party), and UKIP leader Nigel Farage have co-authored a letter to President Obama warning him that an intervention by a foreign leader could have the opposite effect than intended.

The letter states: “With so much at stake, it is imperative that the question of exiting the European Union is not one answered by foreign politicians or outside interests, but rather by the British people who must ultimately live with change or the status quo.

The British politicians declare: “issues of national sovereignty must be decided exclusively by the people of the United Kingdom”. They state: “even a passive diplomatic recommendation in the matter of our national decision will receive the opposite of the intended effect.”

“The referendum vote is an act of democracy in its most direct form, and the question of whether or not to leave the EU is a rare political topic that is not owned by any one political party. This is a chance for the British people to choose the path of their country. Interfering in our debate over national sovereignty would be an unfortunate milestone at the end of your term as President.”

The open letter is being circulated to U.S. politicians of all stripes, running in Politico magazine, the Weekly Standard and Roll Call – with hard copies delivered to all Members of Congress in the Senate and House of Representatives as well as to the White House itself and Cabinet Offices located within the administrative Beltway of Washington, D.C.

Kate Hoey MP said of the warning: “We felt it is important the President of the United States is aware that feelings will run high in the UK if he chooses to make an intervention. We have chosen to respectfully request he recognises matters of sovereignty are best left to the citizens directly affected. We would certainly never think of visiting the United States and telling the US public how to vote in an election or the amendment of their constitution.”

Peter Bone MP said: “Whatever the President perceives the interests of the US to be it would be better for the relationship between our countries and his reputation with the British people if he kept his counsel to himself.”

The warning comes as nearly 25,000 Britons have signed a petition looking to ban U.S. President Barack Obama from making an intervention in the referendum. If the petition receives over 100,000 signatures, it is likely to be debate in the House of Commons.

**** Then to make matters even worse for Barack Obama and his foreign policy failures, there is Egypt.

TheBlaze: In a preview clip of a Fox News special called “Rising Threats — Shrinking Military,” former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates told Bret Baier that the president went against the advice of the “entire national security team” during the Egyptian coup that ousted the country’s president, Hosni Mubarak, in 2013.

According to Gates, Obama called for Mubarak’s immediate removal despite his national security team urging him to be cautious.

“Literally, the entire national security team recommended unanimously handling Mubarak differently than we did,” Gates said. “And the president took the advice of three junior backbenchers in terms of how to treat Mubarak. One of them saying, ‘Mr. President, you gotta be on the right side of the history.’ And I would be sitting there at the table, and I’d say, ‘Yeah, if we could just figure that out, we’d be a long way ahead.’”

 

Corruption at the Doorstep, London

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Given the investigation and model defined, perhaps we should look inward here at home as the United States, especially a handful of cities are precisely the same.

Corruption On Your Doorstep: How Corrupt Capital Is Used to Buy Property in the UK

Corruption on your Doorstep looks at how corrupt money is used to buy property in the UK by analysing data from the Land Registry and Metropolitan Police Proceeds of Corruption Unit.  Findings in the report include the fact that 36342 London properties totalling 2.25 sq miles are held by offshore haven companies.

The research – analysing data from the Land Registry and Metropolitan Police Proceeds of Corruption Unit – found that 75%of properties whose owners are under investigation for corruption made use of offshore corporate secrecy to hide their identities.

Key statistics

  • £180m+ worth of property in UK have been brought under criminal investigation as the suspected proceeds of corruption since 2004. This is believed to be only the tip of the iceberg of the scale of proceeds of corruption invested in UK property. Over 75% of the properties under criminal investigation use offshore corporate secrecy
  • The average price of a property under criminal investigation in the UK is £1.5m. The minimum is £130,000, the maximum is £9m and the median is £910,000. 48% of properties investigated were valued at over £1m
  • 36,342 London properties totalling 2.25 sq miles are held by offshore haven companies. Of these, 38% in the British Virgin Islands, 16% in Jersey, 9.5% in Isle of Man, and 9% in Guernsey
  • Almost one in ten properties in the City of Westminster (9.3 per cent), 7.3 per cent of properties in Kensington & Chelsea, and 4.5 per cent in the City of London are owned by companies registered in an offshore secrecy jurisdiction. TI-UK has launched an interactive map of London which reveals the statistics for each borough – ukunmaskthecorrupt.org
  • In 2011 alone £3.8bn worth of UK property was bought by British Virgin Islands–registered companies
  • According to the latest figures, which cover October 2013 to September 2014, estate agents contributed to only 0.05% of all Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) submitted. This figure does not match the risks posed by money launderers to the UK property market

Transparency International makes 10 recommendations for reform, calling for buy in from the UK Government, lawyers, and estate agents to ensure that the UK property market is no longer a safe haven for corrupt funds. Action from the British Overseas Territories is also necessary to end this crisis.

The key recommendation is thattransparency should be established over who owns the companies that own so much property in the UK through making such transparency a Land Registry requirement. Sign our petition to UK political party leaders here.

A visual story of this journey and interactive map detailing the number of offshore-owned homes per London borough can be viewed at ukunmaskthecorrupt.org

 

I took a “Kleptocracy tour” around London and discovered the corruption capital

A sightseeing trip around central London properties revealed just how much dirty money there is swimming around the city.

In part, NewStatesmen: London is a globally leading city, bustling with culture and educational capital, a booming economy, and abiding by the rule of law. But, combined with regulations allowing for the anonymous purchase of real estate, it’s for these reasons that the UK’s capital is one of the world’s largest laundromats, a city where money from corruption is being poured into property.

The scale of money laundering

The amount of money laundered through the UK is estimated to be at £48bn, or two per cent of GDP, while it estimated £120bn worth of UK property is owned by offshore entities and up to 36,000 properties in London exist where offshore havens were used to hide the true buyers’ identities.

How they get away with it

“This is a real problem,” Simon Farrell QC, an expert in money laundering and corruption, says. “The only reason for corporate ownership is to disguise the true ownership and for those with dubious funds and who have avoided tax to shelter profits in London, a safe haven where the rule of law prevails. It’s a disgrace.”

So now, “London is now the premier location worldwide for corruption-based money laundering,” says Ben Judah, author of a book about Russia called Fragile Empire (2013).

 

Flaws, Ooops, Bad Address, Green Cards?

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How US green cards ended up being sent to the wrong people…..

A system implemented by US Customs and Immigration Services in 2012 failed on several levels, a report has concluded.

WaPo: Green cards sent to wrong places, even after change-of-address requests

A green card is like a green light for foreigners living in the United States.

Officially called “permanent resident” cards, they authorize holders to live and work here. Given the millions of people who reside here illegally, the documents are a valuable commodity among those who can’t get them through proper channels.

So when the government sends cards to the wrong address, it’s a big problem for those who should have them but don’t and for government officials who wince at the thought of the cards in the wrong hands.

Now comes word that since U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (CIS) installed its Electronic Immigration System (ELIS) in 2012, the number of cards going to the wrong places has only increased.

By how much, no one seems to know.

In this age of terror, this can be more serious than an employee working without proper papers.

A new report from the office of John Roth, the inspector general in the Department of Homeland Security, which includes CIS, says officials acknowledge there is “no accurate means of identifying the exact number of potentially hundreds of cards sent to incorrect addresses for cases processed in ELIS.”

As seems to be the case repeatedly in government lately, the blame goes to the computer systems, as if they are beyond the control of chief information officers. But that’s apparently the case at CIS.

The report says the cards were sent erroneously “due to a system limitation” that prevented humans from changing the addresses. Even when green-card holders requested a change of address, employees could not update the system.

“Further,” the report continued, “the system did not always accurately display address information, often eliminating or cutting off critical elements such as apartment numbers.”

The report said CIS officials told investigators the “only option for addressing the problem of incorrect addresses was to manually send out notices with instructions on how to mail the cards back.”

Not surprisingly, that strategy didn’t work.

When the Federal Insider asked the CIS public affairs office about the report’s green-card findings, it did not take long for the agency to respond with a lengthy statement from CIS Director León Rodríguez.

Unfortunately, his statement said nothing about green cards.

Rodríguez was critical of the report, however, saying it “does not fully recognize the extent of USCIS’ efforts to implement new technology and the extraordinary impact that these changes have had on the effectiveness of the system.” Several of the findings “do not reflect the drastically improved approaches put into place as we rebuilt our Electronic Immigration System,” he said, adding that the report did not “fully acknowledge” improvements made after an inspector general’s audit period, which ended in July.

Roth’s office sought comment on the report from CIS management before publication. The document said Rodríguez “did not understand our ‘report’s assertion that national security was impacted based on address changes by applicants.’ ”

Roth’s office did not understand that misunderstanding.

“It is intuitive,” the report said, “that sending official USCIS credentials to unauthorized individuals poses potential national security risks.”

It certainly is intuitive for Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

Not only is ELIS “years behind schedule and billions over budget, its continued shortcomings put our nation at risk,” he said. “With ISIS and other terrorist groups active around the world and committed to attacks on our country, our national security depends on our systems for screening visa and immigration applications working effectively.”

At a minimum, that means fixing a system that sends green cards to the wrong place even after a change of address was requested.

Bowe Bergdahl Mental Issues or a Cover?

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He does not appear to be affected here.

Bergdahl Explains His Reasoning in Newly Released Documents

ABC: Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl said he left a post in Afghanistan in 2009 to draw attention to what he saw as bad decisions by officers above him, according to documents released Wednesday that also show he was diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder.

Attorneys for Bergdahl, who faces charges including desertion, said they released the documents to help counteract negative publicity over the case.

Bergdahl told a general who investigated the case that he hoped to cause an alarm by leaving his post, then walk to a larger base in Afghanistan so he could have an audience with a top commander.

“So, the idea was to — it was— literally, it was a sacrificial — it was a self-sacrifice thing,” Bergdahl said, according to the transcript of a 2014 interview with Maj. Gen. Kenneth Dahl.

Another newly released document from July 2015 shows that an Army Sanity Board Evaluation concluded that Bergdahl suffered from schizotypal personality disorder when he left the post. A Mayo Clinic website says people with the disorder have trouble interpreting social cues and can develop significant distrust of others.

Bergdahl faces charges of desertion and misbehavior before the enemy, the latter of which carries up to a life sentence. He was held five years by the Taliban and its allies before a swap involving five Guantanamo Bay detainees, prompting criticism from some in Congress that the move threatened national security.

His military trial had been tentatively scheduled to begin over the summer, but it has been delayed by disagreements over access to classified materials.

Bergdahl’s attorney Eugene Fidell said the decision to release the documents was made to fight negative publicity and because prosecutors have already entered part of the interview into the court record.

“The more Americans know about this case, the better,” Fidell said in an email.

An Army spokesman didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking comment about the new documents after hours Wednesday.

In the interview, Bergdahl expressed misgivings about how he and other soldiers were sent to help retrieve a disabled armored vehicle before encountering explosives and enemy fire that turned a six-hour mission into one lasting several days. None of the men was killed, but Bergdahl said an officer complained they were unshaven upon their return to base.

He said he began to worry that if he didn’t say anything, a future bad order could get someone in his platoon killed.

He described coming up with a plan to leave the observation post his platoon was manning: “The only thing that I could see was, I needed to get somebody’s attention.”

He ruled out going to the media and instead decided to trigger an alarm by sneaking off and then walking to a larger base nearby. He described his thought process, referring to himself in the third-person: “That guy disappears. No one knows what happened to him. That call goes out. It hits every command. Everybody goes, what has happened?”

Within a couple days, he planned to show up at the base: “the Soldier shows up … People recognize him. They ID him. They go, ‘What did you just do?’ And that Soldier says, ‘I am not saying anything about what I did until I am talking to a general.'”

Instead, he wound up in enemy captivity.

**** The Bergdahl case is delayed indefinitely.

Military: A military appeals court halted proceedings against U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl on Tuesday while it considers a dispute over how much leeway the defense should have in accessing classified information.

The order delaying the case against Bergdahl, who walked off an outpost in Afghanistan in 2009, was issued by the U.S. Army Court of Criminal Appeals. Prosecutors asked the appeals court to consider overturning a decision by the trial judge regarding thousands of pages of classified documents. The defense has argued that prosecutors want them to follow a cumbersome process of seeking classified information while it prepares for trial.

The issue had been debated for weeks in pretrial motions and emails between the sides. It wasn’t clear how long the trial tentatively scheduled for this summer could be held up while the prosecution’s appeal unfolds.

The judge overseeing Bergdahl’s military trial, Col. Jeffery Nance, ordered prosecutors last week to turn over many of the classified documents they had gathered, subject to certain rules.

“All CI which the government may offer into evidence at trial will immediately be provided to the defense” within the specified constraints, he wrote in his Feb. 2 order, using an abbreviation for classified information.

The judge also disagreed with prosecutors’ arguments that Bergdahl’s attorneys needed an extra layer of approval when they did their own research from the officials who initially restricted a given document — referred to as original classification authorities.

Within days, the prosecutors asked the appeals court to overturn the judge’s decision, adding in their written appeal that “no session of the court should be held or rulings should be issued until conclusion of the appeal.”

A defense attorney for Bergdahl, Eugene Fidell, issued a statement describing the timeline of events leading up to the appeal but declined further comment when reached by phone.

Bergdahl faces charges of desertion and misbehavior before the enemy, a relatively rare charge that carries a punishment of up to life in prison. He was held by the Taliban and its allies for five years after he left the base in Afghanistan.

Bergdahl, of Hailey, Idaho, walked off his post in eastern Afghanistan’s Paktika province on June 30, 2009, and was released in late May 2014 as part of a prisoner swap, in exchange for five detainees in Guantanamo Bay. The move prompted harsh criticism, with some in Congress accusing President Barack Obama of jeopardizing the safety of the country.

He was arraigned in December but has yet to enter a plea.

Walter Huffman, a retired major general who served as the Army’s top lawyer, said the appeals court should move swiftly to resolve the issue because of rules giving the matter priority, but the case could be delayed further if either side were to appeal again.

“It will be resolved as speedily as it can, but if it’s appealed to another court the clock starts ticking again,” he said.