Category Archives: Whistleblower

About that GAO Report that Trump Broke the Law

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So, it has reported that President Trump ordered the Office of Management and Budget to hold the funds for Ukraine which was in the NDAA passed by Congress. There was a stopgap provision in the NDAA that the funds would remain available until after September 30, which was after the end of the U.S. fiscal accounting period. The money was released on September 11. President Trump questioned what other countries are stepping up with financial and military support of Ukraine. It is unclear if the White House ever got a succinct report on that question. In fact, a few days before the Zelensky phone call, the OMB the aid was withheld, not after the call. Furthermore, Zelensky was a newly elected President and a new government, an unknown quantity.

The call between President Trump and President Zelensky was the genesis of the whistle-blower complaint. Countless people were on the call which is a procedural condition for all international foreign policy national security calls. Each call between the United States and a foreign entity are outlined, reviewed and prepped in full by those to be on the call.

The OMB is under the Executive Office of the President and it is responsible for measuring the quality of agency programs, policies and procedures. The agency also ensures that reports, rules, testimony and proposed legislation is consistent with administration policies, meaning evaluations and inter-agency reviews.

OMB’s Office of General Counsel provides legal advice and counsel to the Director and the OMB components and staff. In addition, the General Counsel’s Office manages the Executive Order and Presidential Memoranda process for OMB and the Administration; reviews and clears all legal and constitutional comments by the Department of Justice and other agencies on proposed legislation before such comments are conveyed to Congress; participates in the drafting of bill signing statements for the President; reviews all proposed legislative text comprising the President’s Budget and for all budget-related legislative proposals; evaluates legal issues in proposed regulations; convenes meetings of all agency general counsels and coordinates legal issues across agencies; and ensures OMB’s compliance with ethics laws, the Freedom of Information Act, the Federal Records Act, and other statutory requirements.

OMB’s Office of Legislative Affairs works closely with White House Office of Legislative Affairs, Federal Agency Legislative Affairs offices, and congressional offices on current legislative issues. The office conveys information and strategies to the Director to inform decisions on Administration policies. The office, in turn, disseminates budget materials, descriptions of relevant concerns, and statements to Congress to communicate the Administration’s positions. The Office of Legislative Affairs also advises the OMB Director and the organization on legislative issues and developments, provides expertise on the congressional budget process, supplies daily congressional reports to the Director and the OMB staff, oversees correspondence with the Hill, and manages the clearance and transmittal of the President’s Budget and the Administration’s Statements of Administration Policy.

LAWYERS AND MORE LAWYERS

So, now we have the General Accounting Office that publishes a report that President Trump broke the law by placing the aid on hold. The GAO is the congressional ‘go-to’ department that measures, often with bias the cost(s) of proposed legislation along with legal viability and other realities.

Image result for general accounting office

Now, remember that within the two articles of impeachment, neither allege a violation of law that the General Accounting Office report declared at the behest of Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.).

So, a deeper look at the GAO shows that it is represented by the AFL-CIO’s International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, a PAC that gave 100% of political donations to Democrats…no Republicans.

Now, the GAO is is packed full of lawyers that is assigned to legal, accounting, auditing and other financial/legal duties requested by Congress. GAO engages in audits and investigations, but it has negligible enforcement power. Once a legal determination has been made, GAO has exhausted its regulatory authority. Regardless of the adjudicative outcome, GAO has no authority to exact fines, issue injunctions, or pursue further proceedings, criminal or otherwise. Instead, the Comptroller General reports the determination to Congress, to the president, to the offending agency, and to any other relevant agencies (such as the Department of Justice).

Seems that the GAO plotted with the Pelosi/Schiff operation in the House and likley Schumer/Van Hollen in the Senate…who advised the White House immediately that there could be issues legally or otherwise, if that is really the case regarding placing a hold on the Ukraine aid? No one it seems and procedures were not followed.

As for the accusations of withholding the money to force a Ukraine public statement to investigate all things Biden(s), hold on. On July 14, several days before the infamous phone call, the polls had Trump trailing Biden, Warren and Sanders. Sanders was 1 percentage point at the time behind Biden and Warren was a mere 2 percentage points behind Biden. Kamala Harris was 5 percentage points behind Biden. This was hardly a reason for President Trump to go full attack on Biden as is alleged. On the other hand, there as investigations continue, there are reasons for sure to question those aiding the whistle-blower, the continued corruption timelines of Ukraine and where Hunter Biden and his wide range of associates did some unsavory things still being determined.

Iran is Leading Protests in Iraq

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In part: Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, led Friday prayers in Tehran for the first time in eight years and delivered a sermon in which he excoriated U.S. leaders as “clowns” and accused European countries of negotiating in bad faith over the foundering nuclear deal.

Khamenei also indicated that Iran might retaliate further for the U.S. drone strike that killed top Iranian commander Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, saying a missile attack on U.S. assets in Iraq had been a blow to America’s dignity and its status as a superpower.

The address comes at a delicate time for the ayatollah. Iran’s leaders are locked in a contentious dispute with the U.S., and they’re facing public criticism at home after admitting that Iran accidentally shot down a Ukrainian passenger jet, killing 176 people, most of whom were Iranian.

Taking aim at recent statements by President Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in which they pledged their support for Iran’s regular citizens, Khamenei said, “These American clowns lie in utter viciousness that they stand with the Iranian people.”

Khamenei added, “They lie. If you are standing by the Iranian [people], it is only to stab them in the heart with your venomous daggers.”

Despite the ayatollah’s colorful language, as NPR’s Jane Arraf reports, his overall speech was “perhaps a little bit less fiery than many would have expected.” While the Iranian leader did criticize the U.S. and its allies, she says, “he did not make specific threats.”

In his sermon, the ayatollah also addressed a recent maneuver that could lead to the reinstatement of U.N. sanctions on Iran: the complaint filed Tuesday by foreign ministers of the U.K., France and Germany. Their formal accusation that Iran violated its commitments under the 2015 nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, triggers a dispute resolution process — and if that fails, U.N. sanctions on Iran, including an arms embargo, will likely return.

“The threat of the French and German governments and the vicious British government to send Iran’s case to the Security Council proved once again that they are the footmen of the U.S.,” Khamenei said.

So, what is planned and what should our forces and civilian government employees be prepared for?

*** ISW: Iran is preparing to increase political pressure against the U.S. presence in Iraq by generating significant anti-American protests on Friday, January 24 with support from nationalist Shi’a cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. Iran seeks to integrate Sadr into a new “resistance front” that aligns Iranian proxy groups with Sadr’s popular influence to expel U.S. forces. Sadr has thus far supported this effort but retains freedom of action and will continue to support popular protests against the Iraqi state, which Iran views as a severe threat.

 

Sadr’s new resistance front (as he enhances relations with Tehran) includes a million man march against US forces in Iraq. Further, he condemned the Iraqi Parliament resolution as a weak response calling for the cancellation of the security agreement with the United States. Last Sadr held meetings with the PMF/Hashd al Shaabi and with Kataib Hezbollah, Asaib Ahl al Haq, led by terrorist Qais al Khazali and Hezbollah al Naujabas Brigades in Qom where he listed a number of demands of the Baghdad government and calls to action.

Image result for Muqtada al-Sadr Coordination, mobilization and locations are still being determined. It could happen in just Baghdad or throughout the country with Iran Shiite support and funding.

The Not so Pure Comey Being Investigated AGAIN

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Voters would all be rich if we had a dollar for every leak, lie and scandal coming out of Washington DC.

So, Comey is back in the news…he did a no no.

Department of Justice prosecutors are reportedly investigating the possibility that former FBI director James Comey leaked a classified Russian intelligence document to the media during the Hillary Clinton email investigation, according to a Thursday report from the New York Times.

Per the Times, the investigation is centered around two 2017 articles from the Times and the Washington Post describing the Russian document, which played a key role in Comey’s unilateral decision to announce the FBI would not pursue charges against Clinton for using a private email server to conduct official business during her time as secretary of state.

The document, which was shared with the U.S. by Dutch intelligence, includes an analysis of an email exchange between Representative Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D., Fla.), who was then chairing the Democratic National Committee, and Leonard Bernardo, an official with the Soros-backed non-profit Open Society Foundations. Wasserman-Schultz assures Bernardo in the email that then-attorney general Loretta Lynch will make sure Clinton wasn’t charged in the email probe.

Comey has long taken criticism for his handling of the Clinton investigation from Republicans and President Trump, who suggested in December that Comey could get jail time.
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Well now, the plot thickens with new names in the equation.
We cannot forget this little item either.Former FBI Director James Comey violated official policy in the way he handled his memos describing his exchanges with President Trump, an investigation concluded — but Comey won’t be charged.

Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz conducted the investigation into Comey’s actions and then referred his results to prosecutors.

“After reviewing the matter, the DOJ declined prosecution.”

Investigators concluded that Comey broke several rules.

One involved the former director’s decision to arrange for a friend to disclose the contents of a memo to a New York Times reporter. Another involved Comey’s decision to keep memos at home and discuss them with his lawyers but not reveal to the FBI their contents or what he was doing.

***

In part from RedState: Now this new investigation involves leaks relating to two articles including one in the Washington Post and another in the NY Times (now we see why the spinning) about a Russian intelligence document, which the Times says was highly classified.

Now this part is fascinating:

The document played a key role in Mr. Comey’s decision to sideline the Justice Department and announce in July 2016 that the F.B.I. would not recommend that Hillary Clinton face charges in her use of a private email server to conduct government business while secretary of state.

Wait, what? What would a Russian intelligence document have to do with Comey stepping in and taking the power away from the DOJ, which he could not properly do anyway? At the time, Comey implied in his reasoning that there was classified information with regard to Attorney General Loretta Lynch.

The document is mentioned in a book published last fall, “Deep State: Trump, the F.B.I., and the Rule of Law” by James B. Stewart, a Times reporter.

Here’s the money paragraph, hidden down in the story.

The latest investigation involves material that Dutch intelligence operatives siphoned off Russian computers and provided to the United States government. The information included a Russian analysis of what appeared to be an email exchange during the 2016 presidential campaign between Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Democrat of Florida who was also the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee at the time, and Leonard Benardo, an official with the Open Society Foundations, a democracy-promoting organization whose founder, George Soros, has long been a target of the far right.

In the email, Ms. Wasserman Schultz suggested that then-Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch would make sure that Mrs. Clinton would not be prosecuted in the email case. Both Ms. Wasserman Schultz and Mr. Benardo have denied being in contact, suggesting the document was meant to be Russian disinformation.

That document was one of the key factors that drove Mr. Comey to hold a news conference in July 2016 announcing that investigators would recommend no charges against Mrs. Clinton. Typically, senior Justice Department officials would decide how to proceed in such a high-profile case, but Mr. Comey was concerned that if Ms. Lynch played a central role in deciding whether to charge Mrs. Clinton, Russia could leak the email.

Whoa, so strip everything away and what the document says is that Debbie Wasserman Schultz was guaranteeing that Lynch would get Hillary Clinton off.

So where is the investigation of this?

The Times does the best it can, suggesting it’s disinformation. They literally accuse Trump of trying to pressure the DOJ to investigate his enemies despite no such thing ever occurring.

But American officials at the time did not believe that Ms. Lynch would hinder the Clinton email investigation, and neither Ms. Wasserman Schultz nor Mr. Benardo had any inside information about it. Still, if the Russians had released the information after the inquiry was closed, it could have tainted the outcome, hurt public confidence in the Justice Department and sowed discord.

Prosecutors are also looking at whether Mr. Richman might have played a role in providing the information to reporters about the Russia document and how it figured into Mr. Comey’s rationale about the news conference, according to the people familiar with the investigation. Mr. Comey hired Mr. Richman at one point to consult for the F.B.I. about encryption and other complex legal issues, and investigators have expressed interest in how he operated.

Mr. Richman was quoted in the April 2017 article in The Times that revealed the document’s existence. A month later, The Post named Ms. Wasserman Schultz and Mr. Benardo as subjects of the document in a detailed article. A lawyer for Mr. Richman declined to comment.

This is going to be interesting to see it when the information ultimately comes out without the New York Times spin on it. But this is pretty huge.

U.S. Killed AQ Leader in a Taliban Stronghold

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Asim Umar (1974/1976 – 23 September 2019) was an Indian militant and the leader of al–Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent. al–Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri announced the creation of AQIS and introduced Asim Umar as its leader in a video posted online in September 2014.

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Though the Taliban or al-Qaeda has not given an official confirmation of their own, the Afghan government has released pictures and confirmed his death alongside six other AQIS operatives in a joint U.S.-Afghan operation (Al Jazeera, October 8).

Umar was killed in an Afghan Taliban hideout in Musa Qila district, a known Taliban stronghold in Helmand province. The circumstances are indicative of long-running Afghan Taliban and al-Qaeda ties and their collaboration in the Afghan insurgency. The idea that the Taliban would deny a safe haven to foreign fighters in Afghanistan after reaching a peace deal with the United States, as was suggested during negotiations, has been proven unlikely following Umar’s discovery in Taliban-held territory. More details here.

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The U.S. Department of Defense suppressed a press release that would have announced the death of Asim Umar, the emir of Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent, because it “would complicate future negotiations with the Taliban,” military officials have told FDD’s Long War Journal.

The U.S. military killed Umar in the Taliban stronghold of Musa Qala in Helmand province, Afghanistan on Sept. 23, 2019. Umar was killed just two weeks after President Donald Trump canceled a possible deal between the U.S. and the Taliban. As part of that accord, the U.S. was willing to accept the Taliban’s supposed counterterrorism assurances.

The Sept. 23 raid exposed the ongoing ties between the Taliban and al Qaeda’s branch in South Asia. Among the 17 people killed was Haji Mahmood, the Taliban’s military commander for the neighboring district of Naw Zad, which is also controlled by the Taliban.

Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation, has claimed throughout “peace” negotiations that the Taliban would sever ties with al Qaeda. But Umar’s presence with the Taliban cast further doubt Khalilzad’s claim that the Taliban is truly willing to split with its longtime battlefield allies.

Umar was not the only al Qaeda operative killed in the raid. Raihan, Umar’s courier to Zawahiri; Faizani, the AQIS chief for Helmand and an ‘explosives expert;’ and Madani, Faizani’s deputy, also perished during the raid, which including intense airstrikes that killed more than a dozen civilians.

Umar’s wife was identified as one of six Pakistani women detained during the operation. Fourteen other “terrorists” were also captured, according to Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security.

The NDS confirmed Umar’s death on Oct. 8, 2019, and released photographs of Umar, both dead and alive. AQIS itself had previously obscured images of Umar, likely due to its concerns over operational security.

Al Qaeda and AQIS have not released a martyrdom statement confirming his death, but have not denied that he was killed. The Taliban, which has a vested interest in hiding its ties with al Qaeda (although it occasionally slips up) called the reports of his death “a part of enemy fabricated propaganda.”

Umar’s presence with the Taliban was “inconvenient”

The U.S. military was aware of Umar’s death and the Department of Defense was prepared to announce it a week after the statement by the NDS, military officials and officers who are familiar with the events told FDD’s Long War Journal on condition of anonymity.

A press release announcing Umar’s death was drafted and currently resides at the Office of the Secretary of Defense, military officials have confirmed. Yet, three months after OSD drafted the press release, it remains hidden from the public.

FDD’s Long War Journal has contacted the OSD several times over the past three months requesting comment on the press release, but has not received a response.

The U.S. military has suppressed the report of Umar’s death as “his presence with the Taliban during the late stage of talks would complicate future negotiations with the Taliban,” one defense official said.

“Asim Umar, his staff, his courier to [Al Qaeda emir Ayman] Zawahiri, and even his wife, were embedded with the Taliban, in the Taliban’s heartland,” a military officer said. “When you want to sell a split between the Taliban and Al Qaeda, these facts become inconvenient.”

Hey Trump, Declassify the Secret Letters Obama Sent to Iran

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Now is the time Mr. President to blow the system, deep state right out of the water….in fact time it with the post impeachment operation….

Remember ladies and gentlemen there were these side deals that Barack Obama and John Kerry negotiated with Iran which are hardly fully known today? How about the side deal that Obama gave terror amnesty to Qassim Soleimani and in fact to all terror operations to Iran?

Imagine the articles of impeachment on Obama had we known…well it is time to know it now.

Iran FM Javad Zaif: I Admit that I Made a Mistake to Put ...

Not only were there secret letters to General Soleimani, but there were secret letters to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Back in 2014: The contents of the letter to the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei weren’t disclosed, and State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki declined to discuss it Thursday. The Wall Street Journal, which first reported its existence, quoted people it said had been briefed on the letter as saying the letter was sent last month and that it outlined a shared interest in fighting ISIS militants in Iraq and Syria.

Kerry will travel to Muscat, Oman, for trilateral meetings Sunday and Monday with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and Catherine Ashton, the E.U.’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy. That’s two weeks before a Nov. 24 deadline for Iran to reach a comprehensive deal with U.N. negotiators on an agreement to dismantle most of its nuclear centrifuges. Psaki said there was no link between the nuclear agreement and possible future coordination on the fight against ISIS.

Really lil miss Psaki? C’mon. Imagine what others do know about details back then….

Try this:

Reported in part by Bizpacreview: “I must become a whistleblower,” Doran, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute specializing in Middle East security issues, tweeted Friday in response to a self-serving opinion piece by Kerry published by The New York Times. Doran called out Kerry for his op-ed and the “ludicrous and reckless contention” that “diplomacy” with Iran and the nuclear deal negotiated under former President Obama’s watch was working until Trump ruined everything.

 

 

“He put his disdain for anything done by the last administration ahead of his duty to keep the country safe,” Kerry wrote, arguing that Trump’s actions empowered Soleimani while the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action actually restrained Iran while protecting America.

“There were no missile attacks on United States facilities. No ships were being detained or sabotaged in the Persian Gulf,” Kerry claimed.

“There were no protesters breaching our embassy in Baghdad. Iraq welcomed our presence fighting ISIS,” he wrote, touting the “foundation of diplomacy” laid by the Obama administration.

Doran called for the media and Congress to “excavate” the Soleimani messages and get on the task of declassifying them as well as “presidential correspondence” to Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei and its president Hassan Rouhani.

 

 


“Our diplomacy should not be defined by bluster, threats and brinkmanship, tweets or temper tantrums, but by a vision for peace and security addressing multiple interests of the region,” Kerry wrote in his op-ed, accusing Trump of acting “recklessly” without a strategy while alienating American allies in the Middle East.

Trump contends that Iran’s missile attack on a U.S. military base in Iraq was made possible by the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, otherwise known as the Iran nuclear deal. The president, in his briefing Wednesday, leveled stinging criticism of the Obama administration which he said laid the groundwork for Iran to fund its actions.

“Iran’s hostilities substantially increased after the foolish Iran nuclear deal was signed in 2013 and they were given $150 billion, not to mention $1.8 billion in cash,” he said.

Doran added another tongue-in-cheek tweet about his “patriotic duty to be a whistleblower” while maintaining that he “must remain anonymous.” Keep reading here.

Now we cannot forget that the JCPOA was in fact a treaty that required Senate ratification, yet in a political coup, the Obama administration finessed the whole Constitutional system and went directly to the United Nations….where was the sanctimonious Nancy Pelosi then? Is CNN or the Washington Post reporting any of this? Wonder if NetFlix will release a documentary on this while the Obama’s are so heavily invested over there…..nah