Showing posts with label shadow_government. Show all posts
Showing posts with label shadow_government. Show all posts

Friday, October 27, 2017

Hillary Clinton, Obama Administration, and Democratic Party Scandals Resurfacing in October 2017

Summary of scandals involving Hillary Clinton, officials of the Obama administration and the Democratic Party:

Uranium One

  • The Obama administration allowed a Russian company to purchase a firm that mined Uranium in the US despite an on going FBI investigation into illegal activities by the Russian company. FBI and Obama administration officials including James Comey, Robert Mueller, Hillary Clinton, Eric Holder, Rod Rosenstein, and Andrew McCabe are implicated in allowing the sale despite the investigation and failing to inform other government officials about the investigation. At the same time large sums of money from Russia were paid to the Clinton Foundation. Allowing the sale of a company mining uranium in the US to Russia is contrary to the national security of the US, and doing so when it is known that the Russian firm was engaged in illegal activities is hard to explain except as a service in return for the payments to the Clinton Foundation made while Hillary Clinton was Secretary of State.
  • FBI officials implicated in covering up the Uranium One scandal are now supervising the investigation into Russian influence in the Trump presidential campaign. There are obvious conflicts of interest and they should be removed from the investigation.
  • Despite promises to the contrary, uranium was exported from the United States.[Solomon]
  • "... there was a series of decisions made by the Obama administration time and time again, between 2010 and 2012 that are incredibly favorable to Russia’s ROSATOM, the state owned nuclear energy industry, time and again these decisions are being made while the FBI knowns that there criminality going on by that company’s executives"[Solomon]

Fake Russian Dossier on Donald Trump

  • : Foreign agents were paid by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic party for false information which if true would be embarrassing for Donald Trump. This was done to influence the 2016 election in Hillary Clinton's favor. The false information supposedly about Trump was provided by Russian officials. This is the type of collusion with Russia to influence the election that Trump is accused of but for which there is no actual evidence. All the collusion with Russians to influence the election is by the Democratic Party and the Hillary Clinton Campaign for the purpose of helping Clinton win.
  • FBI director James Comey knowingly used the fake Dossier to argue for a special prosecutor to investigate the Trump campaign.
  • The Fake Russian Dossier was used as evidence by the FBI to obtain warrants for electronic surveillance on the Trump campaign.[BattleSwarmBlog]

Other Scandals

  • Hillary Clinton private email server.
  • Hillary Clinton took control of the Democratic Party before she won the primary, which allowed her to steal the primary from Bernie Sanders.[Brazile] According to Greg Jarrett of Fox News, and BattleSwarmBlog Clinton may have broken laws that limit donations to a political campaign and laws against money laundering.

FBI uncovered Russian bribery plot before Obama administration approved controversial nuclear deal with Moscow By John Solomon and Alison Spann - 10/17/17
http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/355749-fbi-uncovered-russian-bribery-plot-before-obama-administration

Before the Obama administration approved a controversial deal in 2010 giving Moscow control of a large swath of American uranium, the FBI had gathered substantial evidence that Russian nuclear industry officials were engaged in bribery, kickbacks, extortion and money laundering designed to grow Vladimir Putin’s atomic energy business inside the United States, according to government documents and interviews.

...

Russian nuclear officials had routed millions of dollars to the U.S. designed to benefit former President Bill Clinton’s charitable foundation during the time Secretary of State Hillary Clinton served on a government body that provided a favorable decision to Moscow, sources told The Hill.

...

Rather than bring immediate charges in 2010, however, the Department of Justice (DOJ) continued investigating the matter for nearly four more years, essentially leaving the American public and Congress in the dark about Russian nuclear corruption on U.S. soil during a period when the Obama administration made two major decisions benefiting Putin’s commercial nuclear ambitions.

...

Then-Attorney General Eric Holder was among the Obama administration officials joining Hillary Clinton on the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States at the time the Uranium One deal was approved.

...

The investigation was ultimately supervised by then-U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein, an Obama appointee who now serves as President Trump’s deputy attorney general, and then-Assistant FBI Director Andrew McCabe, now the deputy FBI director under Trump, Justice Department documents show.

Both men now play a key role in the current investigation into possible, but still unproven, collusion between Russia and Donald Trump’s campaign during the 2016 election cycle. The Mikerin probe began in 2009 when Robert Mueller, now the special counsel in charge of the Trump case, was still FBI director. And it ended in late 2015 under the direction of then-FBI Director James Comey, whom Trump fired earlier this year.

...

Former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), who chaired the House Intelligence Committee during the time the FBI probe was being conducted, told The Hill that he had never been told anything about the Russian nuclear corruption case even though many fellow lawmakers had serious concerns about the Obama administration’s approval of the Uranium One deal.

“Not providing information on a corruption scheme before the Russian uranium deal was approved by U.S. regulators and engage appropriate congressional committees has served to undermine U.S. national security interests by the very people charged with protecting them,” he said. “The Russian efforts to manipulate our American political enterprise is breathtaking.”


A Russian nuclear firm under FBI investigation was allowed to purchase US uranium supply By Sara A. Carter 27 October 17, 2017
https://www.circa.com/story/2017/10/17/national-security/the-fbi-uncovered-russian-nuclear-kickback-scheme-months-before-the-obama-administration-passed-uranium-one-deal-with-moscow

Fifteen months before the 13 members of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, known as CFIUS, approved the sale of the Canadian company Uranium One to Russia’s nuclear arm giant Rosatom, the FBI began investigating persons who were connected to the Russian state corporation. The FBI said in court documents and in interviews conducted by Circa that by 2010 they had gathered enough evidence to prove that Rosatom-connected officials were engaged in a global bribery scheme that included kickbacks and money laundering. FBI officials said the investigation could have prevented the sale of Uranium One, which controlled 20 percent of U.S. uranium supply under U.S. law.

The deal which required approval by CFIUS, an inter-agency committee who reviews transactions that leads to a change of control of a U.S. business to a foreign person or entity that may have an impact on the national security of the United States. At the time of the Uranium One deal the panel was chaired by then-Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and included then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and then-Attorney General Eric Holder.

...

In a 2015 affidavit, FBI officials said Mikerin, “with the consent of higher level officials at Tenex and Rosatom (both Russian state-owned entities), would offer no-bid contracts to U.S. businesses in exchange for kickbacks in the form of money...” made to offshore accounts, stated the affidavit in support of a search warrant. Mikerin pled guilty to the allegations.

The Justice Department didn’t move forward an indictment with prosecution of bribery by people tied to Rosatom, through subsidies and other entities, until 2014 after CFIUS approved the sale of Uranium One, leaving the American public without knowledge of the Russian company’s allegedly illegal actives as it went to procure one-fifth of U.S. uranium supply.

...

The case being built against Mikerin in 2010 was under the supervision of Maryland U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein, then an Obama appointee who now serves as President Trump’s deputy attorney general. According to court documents, the case was also handled by then Assistant FBI Director Andrew McCabe, who is currently the deputy FBI director under Trump.


Clinton campaign, DNC paid for research that led to Russia dossier By Adam Entous, Devlin Barrett and Rosalind S. Helderman October 24
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/clinton-campaign-dnc-paid-for-research-that-led-to-russia-dossier/2017/10/24/226fabf0-b8e4-11e7-a908-a3470754bbb9_story.html


Mueller Now Investigating Democratic Lobbyist Tony Podesta by TOM WINTER and JULIA AINSLEY, OCT 24 2017
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/mueller-now-investigating-democratic-lobbyist-tony-podesta-n812776

WASHINGTON — Tony Podesta and the Podesta Group are now the subjects of a federal investigation being led by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, three sources with knowledge of the matter told NBC News.

10/24/17

Tucker Carlson: Last night on this show we told you about how the Podesta Group, a lobbying firm co founded by Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman John Podesta and his brother Tony had been sucked into independent counsul Robert Mueller's investigation of alleged Russian interference in American politics. Before last night's show was even over we got an e-mail from a man with direct personal knowledge of that story. The man who's name we can't reveal for the time being is a former senior employee of the Podesta Group. He worked there for years. He said he was motivated to contact us by the disgust he felt watching media coverage of the Russia story. Not only were most reporters getting it wrong he said they were getting it backwards. The Russians were in fact deeply involved in American politics but the real story had almost nothing to do with the 2016 presidential campaign.

...

Now the source we spoke to has been interviewed extesnsively by Robert Muller's independent investigators. In press accounts Muller's investigation is still framed as a hunt for collusion between Donald Trump's presidential campaign and the government of Russia. Our source says investigators are in fact very interested in Manaforts behavior while he ran the Trump campaign but otherwise that discription is mostly bogus. The investigation has broadened now to determine which people and which organizations in Washington have spent years working secretly as de facto operatives on behalf of Russian government and business interests. The Podesta group is chief among these. Quote they are more focused on facilitators of influence in this country says our source than they are on election collusion. The Podesta group he says quote is in their crosshairs.


We Need an Investigation of the Entire Justice Department Now BY ROGER L SIMON OCTOBER 25, 2017
https://pjmedia.com/rogerlsimon/need-investigation-entire-justice-department-now/

Bravo, Charles Grassley! The Iowa senator has turned into something of an aging Mr. Smith taking on corruption in the Obama administration (and its Justice Department) and calling for a special investigator for the metastasizing Uranium One Scandal.

...

Or should we now call this the Podesta, Podesta & Manafort Scandal, because an ongoing and related report on Tucker Carlson's cable show is unmasking a series of connections that make the most paranoid conspiracy theorist seem rational?

...

Meanwhile, over at the also related (phony) Trump Dossier Scandal:...

...

More disturbingly, indications are that the FBI itself relied on this execrable pack of nauseating lies to jump-start the Trump-Russia collusion investigation. They may even have made additional payments to Fusion GPS themselves.

...

... we also have the unanswered questions about Deborah Wasserman Schultz and her Pakistani computer expert who had access to the data of dozens of congressional Democrats, not to mention the unsolved mystery of the murder of Seth Rich and the hacking of the DNC server

...

And then's there's the Unmasking Scandal with its attendant mysteries. Who was ordering Samantha Powers to do hundreds of unprecedented unmaskings of U.S. citizens in foreign intelligence surveillances?

...

We have a systemic problem within the DOJ and FBI that has been going on for some years and has grown to the extent these organizations act like mini-states, impervious to supervision by anyone, especially the very people they are supposed to serve -- you and me. They are the Deep State taken to the tenth power.

...

The time has come for a thorough airing to renew the trust of the citizenry. That means a special investigator, but one with a wide berth to look into the entire DOJ and FBI, its patterns and practices, and, let's be honest, our intelligence agencies as well. We're living in a bureaucratic nightmare. As Mark Steyn put it so succinctly on Tucker Carlson's show Wednesday night, "Everyone is colluding with Russia except Trump!"


Hannity: 10/24/17

Tucker Carlson: 10/25/17

Hannity: 10/25/17

Hannity: 10/26/17

1:45 - Clips of prominent Democrats saying there is no actual evidence of the Trump campaign colluding with Russia to influence the election. (Hannity pointed out that the mainstream media gave a huge amount of coverage despite there being no evidence of it.)

16:05

Laws Potentially Broken in Uranium One Deal (According to Gregg Jarrett)

  • 18 USC 201-B: Federal Bribery Statute
  • 18 USC 201-C: Federal Gratuity Statute
  • 18 USC 1341: Mail Fraud Statute
  • 18 USC 1343: Wire Fraud Statute
  • 18 USC 666: Program Bribery Statute
  • 18 USC 1952: Travel Act
  • 18 USC 1961-1968: Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (Clinton Foundation)

Laws Potentially Broken in Dossier Scandal (According to Gregg Jarrett. Criminal penalties apply)

  • 52 USC 30101 Et Seq.: Federal Election Campaign Act: Filing a false or milseading campaign report.
  • 52 USC 30121: Federal election Campaign Act: Prohibits foreign nationals & governments in U.S. campaigns.

Laws Potentially Broken in Clinton EMail Scandal (According to Gregg Jarrett)

  • 18 USC 798: Espionage Act: Knowingly and willfully mishandling classified information.
  • 18 USC 793(f): Espinoge Act:Mishandling classified information through gross negligence.
  • 18 USC 1924: Public Officers Law: Unauthorized removal and retention of classified material.
  • 18 USC 2017: Federal Records Act: Removal and destruction of government records.

33:16
Sean Hannity: Everything that they tried to say about Donald Trump and his campaign, they're guilt of, I'll add on steroids... That they sold out America's security in this case.

34:18

Sebastian Gorka: There's the Uranium One deal. That's treasonous.... There's the dodgy Dossier which is about Russian disinformation being used to slander Donald Trump. ... There's James Comey using that disinformation to create a special prosecutor to trigger that is used to investigate the president. ... There's Fusion GPS. How many stories are out there that are fake that came from Moscow and are peddled by Fusion GPS into the left wing media?

Sean Hannity: The Russians lied to impact the election. The Russians infiltrated our national security to corner the uranium market.



Inside Hillary Clinton’s Secret Takeover of the DNC: When I was asked to run the Democratic Party after the Russians hacked our emails, I stumbled onto a shocking truth about the Clinton campaign. By DONNA BRAZILE | November 02, 2017
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/11/02/clinton-brazile-hacks-2016-215774

...

I had promised Bernie when I took the helm of the Democratic National Committee after the convention that I would get to the bottom of whether Hillary Clinton’s team had rigged the nomination process...

...

I had to keep my promise to Bernie. I was in agony as I dialed him. Keeping this secret was against everything that I stood for, all that I valued as a woman and as a public servant.

“Hello, senator. I’ve completed my review of the DNC and I did find the cancer,” I said. “But I will not kill the patient.”

I discussed the fundraising agreement that each of the candidates had signed. Bernie was familiar with it, but he and his staff ignored it. They had their own way of raising money through small donations. I described how Hillary’s campaign had taken it another step.

I told Bernie I had found Hillary’s Joint Fundraising Agreement. I explained that the cancer was that she had exerted this control of the party long before she became its nominee. Had I known this, I never would have accepted the interim chair position, but here we were with only weeks before the election.

...

The agreement—signed by Amy Dacey, the former CEO of the DNC, and Robby Mook with a copy to Marc Elias—specified that in exchange for raising money and investing in the DNC, Hillary would control the party’s finances, strategy, and all the money raised. Her campaign had the right of refusal of who would be the party communications director, and it would make final decisions on all the other staff. The DNC also was required to consult with the campaign about all other staffing, budgeting, data, analytics, and mailings.


HANNITY’S “TICK TOCK” REVEALED: Obama Ensured Uranium Exportation — Ignored Glaring National Security Fears (VIDEO) November 2, 2017 by Joshua Caplan
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2017/11/hannitys-tick-tock-revealed-obama-ensured-uranium-export-approval-ignored-glaring-national-security-fears-video/

HANNITY: “Barack Obama purposely manipulated the process to allow this trucking company to be the conduit by which they got the uranium out of the country. Tell us what you found.”

SOLOMON: “Yeah, there wasn’t just one decision, we look at Uranium One and say we let them buy the mine and 20% of the ore that was being mined at that time under there control. But there was a series of decisions made by the Obama administration time and time again, between 2010 and 2012 that are incredibly favorable to Russia’s ROSATOM, the state owned nuclear energy industry, time and again these decisions are being made while the FBI knowns that there criminality going on by that company’s executives”

HANNITY: “The bribery, exhortation, money laundering, the racketeering, and so on.”

SOLOMON: “Yeah, Kickbacks. And theres a second thing that i’m just starting to report on now. There we concerns in the Obama administration that where very specific concerns that Russia was engaged in a Uranium scheme that it was going to get enough control of uranium, dump it on the market, drive all the prices down –“

HANNITY: “Wow!

SOLOMON: “And put all the other people out of business. Those are two legitimate national security concerns that don’t seem to have had an effect on all these give aways.”


Uranium One deal led to some exports to Europe, memos show BY JOHN SOLOMON AND ALISON SPANN - 11/02/17
http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/358339-uranium-one-deal-led-to-some-exports-to-europe-memos-show



Clinton Corruption Update For November 12, 2017 BattleSwarmBlog
http://www.battleswarmblog.com/?p=34162

  • The Wall Street Journal thinks Mueller is too compromised and should step down.

    ...

  • And remember: The FBI used the Fusion GPS Steele dossier to get a FISA warrant for Trump’s campaign.

    ...

  • “Clinton Emails, Trump Dossier, Russian Nukes: All Point To Corruption In Obama’s Justice Department.” Including Uranium One and the unmasking scandal.

    ...

  • For all Brazile’s “not illegal” blather, there’s a good chance Hillary’s team broke campaign finance laws paying for the Fusion GPS dossier and listing the line item as “legal fees.”

  • You know what else broke the law? The Clinton campaign shoving its hand into the puppet DNC to bypass campaign contribution limits:

    ...

  • Former FBI Director: Hillary Clinton’s crimes 20 times worse than Watergate.

  • “New Documents Show FBI Deputy Director McCabe Did Not Recuse Himself from the Clinton Email Scandal Investigation until Week Before Presidential Election.” Despite the fact his wife’s campaign received $700,000 from Clinton “friends.”

  • Attorney General Jeff Sessions: Why we've made restoring the rule of law our top priority By Jeff Sessions 11/13/17
    http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/11/13/attorney-general-jeff-sessions-why-weve-made-restoring-rule-law-our-top-priority.html

    The rule of law is the foundation of our system of government. In the vision of our Founders, we have “a government of laws—and not of men.”

    Under President Trump’s strong leadership, the Department of Justice has made restoring the rule of law our top priority. Everything we do is guided by this principle.


    Sessions directs prosecutors to 'evaluate certain issues' involving Uranium One and Clinton, leaves door open on special counsel By Brooke Singman 11/13/17
    http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/11/13/justice-dept-won-t-rule-out-another-special-counsel-to-investigate-uranium-one-and-clinton.html

    Attorney General Jeff Sessions directed senior federal prosecutors to evaluate “certain issues” requested by congressional Republicans, involving the sale of Uranium One and alleged unlawful dealings related to the Clinton Foundation, leaving the door open for an appointment of another special counsel.

    ...

    The Justice Department’s letter specifically said that some of the topics requested by Goodlatte and other committee members were already being investigated by the department’s Inspector General’s office.

    I hope there will be an impartial investigation but many people are afraid that officials in the Justice Department who remain loyal to Democrats will whitewash these "matters" the way James Comey whitewashed the Clinton E-mail scandal.


    I am not endorsing or denying Imperator's conclusions and inferences. I am referencing the facts he cites because they are relevant to the topic of this post.

    Imperator_Rex‏ @Imperator_Rex3
    Replying to @Imperator_Rex3 @CharlesOrtel Imperator_Rex Retweeted Imperator_Rex

    28. You'll recall my thread noting the appointment of Christopher Wray, the new FBI Director. He's been appointed by Trump to lead a massive anti-corruption drive.

    29. The new IRS Director is David Kautter. He was nominated by Trump on May 10 & designated as acting Commissioner on 26 October, effectively removing Obama prateorian & hack John Koskinen.

    30. Kautter's a tax (avoidance) expert. It's highly probable that Wray knows Kautter and may well have worked with him professionally. There's a fair chance Kautter was engaged by Wray as an expert witness in the many white collar crime cases he ran as an attorney.

    31. In June, 2017, Don Fort was appointed as the new head of the IRS Criminal Investigation Division. The CI is massive, employing some 3,100 employees across the world with a budget of $500 million. Speciality? Fraud, tax evasion & money laundering.

    32. Hey, guess who came knocking on Don Fort's door just weeks after he was appointed? Why, Robert Mueller, SC, apparently. That's odd, given we're supposed to believe he's taking down the evil Drumpf (he's not):


    Five new revelations in the Russian uranium case BY JOHN SOLOMON - 11/20/17
    http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/361290-five-new-revelations-in-the-russian-uranium-case

    The FBI did have evidence that Rosatom officials were engaged in criminality well before the Obama administration approved Rosatom's purchase of Uranium One.

    ...

    Russia saw its purchase of Uranium One as part of a strategy to dominate global uranium markets, including making the United States more dependent on Moscow's nuclear fuel.

    ...

    Uranium One did export some of its U.S. uranium ore.


    Congressional referrals sparked DOJ investigations like Uranium One and Clinton Foundation Sara A Carter 11/14/17
    https://saraacarter.com/2017/11/14/congressional-referrals-sparked-doj-investigations-like-uranium-one-and-clinton-foundation/

    The Department of Justice (DOJ) has confirmed it has received multiple congressional referrals for investigations over the past year regarding the sale of twenty percent of the American uranium supply to Russia’s nuclear arm, as well as calls for investigations into allegations of pay-for-play regarding the Clinton Foundation, Circa has learned.

    Multiple sources, including congressional officials, tell Circa that the requests sent to the Department of Justice over the past year have led to ongoing investigations, which they say also include investigations into the alleged leaking of classified information to the media and the improper unmasking of Americans.


    The article below, critical of Robert Mueller, comes from a surprising source: the LA Times. Is it possible that Democrats are turning against Mueller because his indictment of Paul Manafort implicated the Podesta Group and now Democrats are afraid Mueller may indict Democrats in his investigation into Russian influence in the 2016 presidential election? Democrats have been praising Mueller for many months hoping his investigation will result in the removal from office of President Trump. They would have a hard time denying wrongdoing by Democrats indicted by Mueller after heaping such high praise on him for so long a time.
    http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-mueller-record-20171122-story.html

    As he investigates Trump's aides, Robert Mueller's record shows surprising flaws

    What the Flynn Plea Means by ANDREW C. MCCARTHY December 1, 2017
    http://www.nationalreview.com/article/454269/michael-flynn-plea-no-breakthrough-russia-investigation

    Nevertheless, as I explained in connection with George Papadopoulos (who also pled guilty in Mueller’s investigation for lying to the FBI), when a prosecutor has a cooperator who was an accomplice in a major criminal scheme, the cooperator is made to plead guilty to the scheme. This is critical because it proves the existence of the scheme. In his guilty-plea allocution (the part of a plea proceeding in which the defendant admits what he did that makes him guilty), the accomplice explains the scheme and the actions taken by himself and his co-conspirators to carry it out. This goes a long way toward proving the case against all of the subjects of the investigation.

    That is not happening in Flynn’s situation. Instead, like Papadopoulos, he is being permitted to plead guilty to a mere process crime. A breaking report from ABC News indicates that Flynn is prepared to testify that Trump directed him to make contact with the Russians — initially to lay the groundwork for mutual efforts against ISIS in Syria. That, however, is exactly the sort of thing the incoming national-security adviser is supposed to do in a transition phase between administrations. If it were part of the basis for a “collusion” case arising out of Russia’s election meddling, then Flynn would not be pleading guilty to a process crime — he’d be pleading guilty to an espionage conspiracy.


    The Flynn Plea: A Quick and Dirty Analysis By Susan Hennessey, Matthew Kahn, Vanessa Sauter, Shannon Togawa Mercer, Benjamin Wittes Friday, December 1, 2017
    https://lawfareblog.com/flynn-plea-quick-and-dirty-analysis

    In early February, the Washington Post broke the story that, contrary to the White House’s multiple assertions, Flynn had discussed sanctions in calls with Kislyak. Not only that, but the contents of the communications had been picked up in intelligence intercepts (presumably targeting Kislyak) and the substance of the conversations was sufficiently concerning that Flynn was the subject of a counterintelligence investigation.

    National security adviser Flynn discussed sanctions with Russian ambassador, despite denials, officials say By Greg Miller, Adam Entous and Ellen Nakashima February 9, 2017
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/national-security-adviser-flynn-discussed-sanctions-with-russian-ambassador-despite-denials-officials-say/2017/02/09/f85b29d6-ee11-11e6-b4ff-ac2cf509efe5_story.html


    FBI reviewed Flynn’s calls with Russian ambassador but found nothing illicit By Ellen Nakashima and Greg Miller January 23, 2017
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/fbi-reviewed-flynns-calls-with-russian-ambassador-but-found-nothing-illicit/2017/01/23/aa83879a-e1ae-11e6-a547-5fb9411d332c_story.html

    The FBI in late December reviewed intercepts of communications between the Russian ambassador to the United States and retired Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn — national security adviser to then-President-elect Trump — but has not found any evidence of wrongdoing or illicit ties to the Russian government, U.S. officials said.

    The calls were picked up as part of routine electronic surveillance of Russian officials and agents in the United States, which is one of the FBI’s responsibilities, according to the U.S. officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss counterintelligence operations.


    CNN: White House claims Obama admin approved Flynn calls with Russian ambassador BY MAX GREENWOOD - 12/01/17
    http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/362856-cnn-white-house-claims-obama-admin-approved-flynn-calls-with-russian

    The White House said on Friday that it was the Obama administration that authorized former national security adviser Michael Flynn's contacts with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during President Trump's transition, according to CNN.

    ...

    According to court documents, Flynn lied to investigators when he told them that he did not ask Kislyak to refrain from retaliating against U.S. sanctions imposed by the Obama administration in response to the Russian meddling.

    Flynn also lied when he told the FBI that he did not lobby Kislyak to oppose or delay a United Nations Security Council vote condemning Israeli settlements, a resolution strongly condemned by Trump.


    See the Charges: U.S. v. Michael T. Flynn DEC. 1, 2017
    https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/12/01/us/document-Flynn-FBI-Russia.html


    State Department has 'no problem' with Trump team's Russia contacts by Joel Gehrke Jan 13, 2017
    http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/state-department-has-no-problem-with-trump-teams-russia-contacts/article/2611810


    Catherine Herridge: The FBI had concluded Michael Flynn was NOT lying to them… DEC. 1, 2017
    http://therightscoop.com/catherine-herridge-the-fbi-had-concluded-michael-flynn-was-not-lying-to-them/

    Bret Baier received some information earlier today from a source who has knowledge of FBI Director Comey’s testimony to Congress earlier this year, that his agents felt that Flynn hadn’t deliberately mislead them, but that he was somehow mistaken in his conversations.

    Friday, October 6, 2017

    Information About Terrorist Attacks Is Kept Secret to Help the Democratic Party at the Expense of National Security

    In the Wake of the Las Vegas Terrorist Attack on October 1, 2017 we are hearing more and more about why information about terrorist attacks is often kept secret: To prevent copycat attacks, to deny terrorist organizations recruiting opportunities, to prevent other terrorist cells from receiving instructions, to keep terrorists from learning how much law enforcement and intelligence agencies know about them, etc, etc.

    However, there are a couple of significant problem caused by this type of secrecy. When the public is not fully informed, they will not know which policies to support and they will be easer for demagogues to fool. For example, hiding information about Islamist terrorism can prevent the public from understanding why a travel ban from terrorist supporting countries is a good idea. Hiding the fact that a mass shooting is a terrorist attack can prevent the public from understanding why stricter gun control laws will not prevent future attacks. When people do not have full information, they will lack the facts they need to refute lies used by opportunistic politicians who want to fool them and manipulate them.

    We are told secrecy is necessary for reasons of national security. However that is not entirely correct. The secrecy exists for partisan political purposes that favor the Democratic party. The secrecy ensures unhindered immigration of people who will vote for the Democratic party, it lends support for stricter gun control laws, and it lends support for other partisan political purposes that favor the Democratic party and its political agenda. Secrecy makes it easier for Democrats to advance these policy objectives because the public lacks information that would show these policies are not in their interest.

    Most government employees support the Democratic party because that party supports expanding the scope of the government and that gives government employees job security. When government employees decide what information should be kept secret, their political bias will induce them to withhold or release information in ways that are beneficial to the Democratic party even if those decisions harm the national interests of the United States. For example, sometimes terrorist organizations have goals which Democrats support. Antifa is one such organization, they want President Trump removed from office. Democrats have been saying Antifa's violence was justified. However, if Antifa is involved in a mass shooting like 1 October, the Democrats will no longer be able to portray Antifa's violence as justified and they will lose an ally in their efforts to have President Trump removed from office and they will be embarassed by their previous support for a terrorist organization. This would motivate government employees to keep secret any involvement by Antifa in the 1 October terrorist attack.

    Related Articles

    Evidence the authorities are not telling everything about the 1 October attack.

    There are three independent forms of evidence that contradict what the authorities are saying about the 1 October attack: acoustic analysis of the gunfire, eyewitness accounts, and police radio communications.

    The following video provides acoustic proof there were at least two shooters at the 1 October attack on the concert. It confirms what eye witnesses have said and contradicts the authorities' assertions there was only one shooter. According to the video above, in the recordings of the gunfire from the 1 October shooting, higher pitched sounds are bullets hitting the pavement, and lower pitched sounds are the gun firing. By measuring the lag between the two sounds the distance from the shooter can be determined. Analysis of videos from the concert identify shooters at two different distances ie. it confirms what eye witness have said: there were two shooters. One of the shooters is calculated to be at the distance to the hotel which helps to confirm the validity of the calculations. Another is much closer about half the distance. Both are recorded at the same time on some recordings so it cannot be due to recordings at different locations on the ground.

    The next video shows an interview with Rene, a woman staying at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas which is about 1.5 miles away from the Mandalay Bay Hotel. Rene describes a shooting at the Bellagio Hotel on 1 October at about 11:15 pm, about an hour after the shooting at the Mandalay Bay Hotel stopped. She says she and her husband were in the lounge when they heard shooting. Her husband was in the Marines and he recognzied the sound of automatic weapons fire. They dived under their table and security guards rushed in ordering everyone to "run". After she posted a video of the aftermath of the shooting at the Bellagio Hotel, other people who were there contacted her to affirm what she was saying. For example, one person said she heard on a taxi's radio that there were shots fired at the Bellagio Hotel. The authorities have said nothing about this second shooting that occurred about an hour after the shooting at the Mandalay Bay Hotel.

    Below is her video from the Bellagio Hotel taken after the shooting there on 1 October.

    This recording of police radio communications confirms the shooting at the Bellagio Hotel. At 1:19:32 you can hear, "Now we're getting shots fired at Caesars and the Bellagio".

    18:51: ... "Confirmed there are at least 2 shooters with fully automtic weapons"

    45:05: "Confirming, the Mandalay bay and Alibaba/Giles are the 2 shooting locations!"

    The next video was made by a taxi driver at the Mandalay Bay Hotel. At the beginning of the video you can hear shooting. At about 45 seconds, there is more shooting and the driver says, "Now it sounds like its coming from farther away". It sounds to the driver of the car like there are two shooters, not one as the authorities maintain.

    Rene's Facebook page

    A Post at Rikki Raulerson's face book page.

    Aria Hotel, Las Vegas, 1 October, 11 pm.

    Cassie Harrison: "We were in Caesars Palace tonight and there was a shooting in there too. For some reason the news hasn't even mentioned this... We were in the food court and all of a sudden you see everyone running for their lives from the casino area right next to the food court. We took off and then I hear about 20 gun shots behind me.

    Laura Loomer Interviews two Las Vegas shooting eyewitnesses who say there were multiple shooters.

    Rocky Palermo (below) was shot during the 1 October attack. He is 100% certain there were shooters in the crowd at the concert.

    This eyewitness says there was shooting near Planet Hollywood which is also near the Belagio Hotel. She thinks what she heard is probably the same shooting that witnesses at the Belagio heard.

    38:01

    People who want to try to make this a racial or political situation, it may very well be, but I will tell you this, when I was in that basement with people of all colors of all political parties, races, nationalities, and countries - I was with three Austrialians, 2 Canadians, a guy from Kansas, and two other Americans from elsewhere, and I'm originally from Detroit, okay? - we weren't thinking about any of that. Okay? We were helping each other. We were concerned about one another. And in that moment we were just human beings. And we were just all fighting for the same thing. And to come back out of that situation and see everybody fighting, over what? It's ridiculous. To me it's just utterly ridiculous. Because honestly I know for a fact if any of you were in the same situation and you had to survive and some Democrat or Republican was standing next to you, ... you'd drop all that stuff. So please just try to be a little bit nicer to one another.

    Compilation of eyewitness videos by InfoWars:

    Las Vegas air traffic control 10/1/17.

    2:00

    There's active shooters on the runway. The 19s are closed, we are in the process of trying to round them up. They're on the airport property.

    Intellihub "Las Vegas" search results:
    https://www.intellihub.com/?s=las+vegas

    Intellihub has many articles you won't see anywhere else. I can't vouch for unreferenced articles but I will say that the author, Shepard Ambellas, seems to present facts and leaves evaluating the implications to the reader.

    Monday, August 28, 2017

    Rex Tillerson and Gary Cohn should follow the examples of Steven Mnuchin and Ben Carson. They should put their job responsibilities ahead of their personal reputations and defend President Trump against media lies.

    When President Trump selected his department heads and advisors, he wanted the best person for each job. But he missed a very important consideration. He might have realized that he would be smeared with false statements by the media and he should have considered whether his picks would stand up to the media or if they would put their own reputations first and squirm to avoid being smeared by association.

    Silencing opposition through political correctness, and shadow government control over the media are two tactics being used against America in Higgins' War. President Trump is practically the only politician fighting against political correctness and against the controlled media. His willingness to stand up and fight is one of the reasons he was elected President. His department heads and advisors should be willing to stand up and fight with him.

    Unfortunately, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and director of the U.S. National Economic Council Gary Cohn, instead of fighting, are squirming. They both have criticized President Trump for his remarks following the Charlottesville riots. President Trump condemned the hate and violence on all sides saying in part, "We all must be united and condemn all that hate stands for. There is no place for this kind of violence in America. Let's come together as one." But the media misrepresented his remarks as support for racist groups. Tillerson and Cohn have failed to resist the media smear, they have both made statements to the press accepting the lies as truth to protect themselves from the smear.

    http://www.politico.com/story/2017/08/27/tillerson-trump-fox-charlottesville-gorka-242073
    "Tillerson on Charlottesville: 'The president speaks for himself'"
    https://secure.marketwatch.com/story/cohn-said-to-have-drafted-resignation-letter-after-charlottesville-report-2017-08-25
    Cohn, who is Jewish, told the FT that “citizens standing up for equality and freedom can never be equated with white supremacists, neo-Nazis and the K.K.K.” He said the administration “can and must do better” in condemning such groups.
    In contrast, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin defended President Trump against the smear:

    https://higginswar.blogspot.com/search/label/steven_mnuchin

    Instapundit: STANDING UP TO THE SHAME MOB: Steven Mnuchin fires defiant message back at Yale classmates pressuring him to resign over Trump’s Charlottesville comments.
    Mnuchin said:
    https://twitter.com/jonathanvswan/status/899046274971914240
    As the President said in his very first comment on the events that were unfolding in Charlottesville, "We all must be united and condemn all that hate stands for. There is no place for this kind of violence in America. Let's come together as one."

    Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson also defended President Trump from the media lies:
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/08/16/ben-carson-calls-criticism-of-trumps-charlottesville-response-little-squabbles-being-blown-out-of-proportion/
    “When he talks about the fact that hatred and bigotry and these things are unacceptable,” Carson said of Trump, “he’s talking about everybody. … You’d think he was saying that hatred and bigotry are unacceptable except by neo-Nazis. We really have got to begin to think more logically and stop trying to stir up controversy and start concentrating on the issues that threaten us and threaten our children.”

    Media Collusion: DNC Chair and CNN Analyst Donna Barzile Told Hillary Clinton Questions She Would be Asked During the CNN Presidential Debates.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/07/donna-brazile-is-totally-not-sorry-for-leaking-cnn-debate-questions-to-hillary-clinton/

    Media Collusion: Maggie Haberman at the New York Times and Other Journalists Wrote Stories to Order for the Clinton Campaign.

    Saturday, August 26, 2017

    The intelligence agencies and the military industrial intelligence complex control the elected government of the United States.

    The power to classify information has given the intelligence agencies the power to do whatever they want. They can classify anything they choose so no one can find out what they are doing or question the need for their activities or secrecy. They gain influence over defense contractors by awarding government contracts. The money from those contracts, which comes from the tax payers - you and me - is then used to get control over the government through campaign donations by the defense contractors and through job offers to politicians and aides when they leave government service. After the intelligence agencies commit a few crimes they realize they can never give up power or they will be prosecuted and they then commit more crimes protecting themselves (killing, intimidating, financially ruining, smearing the character of whistle blowers and anyone who opposes them or their projects) and because once you are committed to a pattern of crime and have no risk of punishment, there is no incentive to limit yourself to legal means.

    What may have started as a justified concern about national security and public order has blown up into an extra-constitutional network that has usurped the power of elected officials and thus the power of the voters, the people, and democracy. It might have seemed like a good idea at the time. In hindsight it was a horrible mistake.






    In this video, former CIA officer Kevin Shipp explains the relationship between the shadow government and the deep state.

    The shadow government he says consists of the 17 intelligence agencies and is led by the CIA.

    The deep state he says is the military industrial intelligence complex which is a group of corporations that receives $1 trillion a year in tax revenues spent by the government on military and intelligence contracts.

    The owners of media corporations cooperate with the CIA and publish stories to influence public opinion.

    This web of corporations and intelligence agencies controls the elected government in the US.

    The shadow government can do whatever it wants because it can hide its activities by classifying any information about its activities it chooses. There is no way for the elected government to control it. Its budget is secret.

     The military industrial intelligence complex controls congress through

    • Campaign donations.
    • Lobbying.
    • Providing jobs when senators and staffers leave congress.​
     The shadow government influences
    • The President by
    1. Providing false information.
    2. Influencing elections​.
    • Congress by
    1. Manipulating congressional hearings.
    2. Withholding clearances from representatives and senators.
    3. Classifying documents to conceal illegal activity.
    • The judiciary by
    1. State secrets privilege - they can shut down any court case against them by classifying any information they choose.
    • Everyone
    1. Through the cooperation of media corporations that publish stories to influence public opinion.
     ​
    There is much much more information in the video above.

    Catherine Austin Fitts has written extensively on how the deep state and shadow government have been illegally appropriating money from the US taxpayers.
    https://missingmoney.solari.com/

    $21 Trillion dollars is missing from the US government. That is $65,000 for every person in America. That is more than our entire national debt!
    ...
    This means the Fed and their member banks are transacting government money outside the law. So are the corporate contractors that run the payment systems. So are the Wall Street firms who are selling government securities without full disclosure.
    ...
    This is the reason that there is such a strong push to change or tear up the US Constitution. This is why members of the establishment say it is 'old,' 'outdated!'

    Next is a video from July 2015 of Catherine Austin Fitts describing her own observations of how the deep state controls the elected government with blackmail, threats of violence, or simply threats of false accusations which will ruin a person's life as they try to prove their innocence. The Trump "dossier" is an example of what they do to someone who can't be blackmailed or frightened:

    https://solari.com/blog/solari-stories-scandals-control-files-and-blackmail/

    In the excerpt below, Catherine Austin Fitts describes how a top level official was blackmailed with "sexual dirt" in 1989, and how she was harassed with fake accusations:

    So, it was several days later, I got called into the Secretary's office and he said, "Have you found a way to do this?" And I said, "No. There's no legal way to do this. You can't"

    And he was, litterally - I have never seen a man that frightened in my life - he was scared to death. And I was sure just from watching him that he was under extreme political pressure and I believe blackmail. And he just looked scared to death. And I went back up to my office and one of my deputies pulled me aside and he said, "You know you have to be very very careful" he said, "because you know there's real sexual dirt on the Secretary. So you have to be real careful."

    ...

    That was the same time the Franklin scandal hit the Washington Times headlines.

    ...

    Even if you don't have a control file, you know I always encourage all of our subscribers to watch the movie Enemy of the State because it's a perfect example of, you know, Will Smith plays a totally clean lawyer in Washington and so he's got nothing in, his control file is empty, and yet the intellegence agencies are able to persuade his own family that he's corrupt when he's not, his own partners he's corrupt when he's not.

    I went through a similar process and so people are not only afraid of what's in their control file, but they're afraid of spending eleven years in litigation proving that there's nothing in their control file.

    You have a situation where, I always get very frustrated with citizens who think, oh lets just go talk to our senator. Well your senator is subject to these kinds of powers and controls that are very invisible but are very real.

    ...

    We're literally watching a government that is being run by coercion whether it's the blackmail or control file or physical violence. If you don't do what you're told, there's really issues of physical violence now.​

    Catherine Austin Fitts' Blog is here:
    https://solari.com/blog/

    This video contains an interview with Catherine Austin Fitts by Alex Jones. It starts at 44:55:

    Here is another very good video in which the federal bureaucracies are referred to as the deep state:

    Senator Chuck Schumer, "If you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday of getting back at you."

    Phil Mudd, former CIA agent, "The government is going to kill this guy [President Trump]".

    Related Articles

    THE CIA AND THE MEDIA: How Americas Most Powerful News Media Worked Hand in Glove with the Central Intelligence Agency and Why the Church Committee Covered It Up BY CARL BERNSTEIN, October 20, 1977
    http://carlbernstein.com/magazine_cia_and_media.php

    The Hillary Clinton Scandals Break October 2017
    http://higginswar.blogspot.com/2017/10/the-hillary-clinton-scandals-break.html

    Carr: Scandal-ridden FBI must be abolished Howie Carr Wednesday, January 24, 2018
    http://www.bostonherald.com/news/columnists/howie_carr/2018/01/carr_scandal_ridden_fbi_must_be_abolished

    Report: Felons, people under foreign influence got national security clearances by JULIA AINSLEY, JAN 24 2018 NBC reports people granted security clearance during the Obama administration are being rejected under Trump for reasons that include pedophilia. This is consistent with the view that only people who can be controlled were given positions of authority under the previous administration.
    https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/report-felons-people-under-foreign-influence-got-national-security-clearances-n840226

    FBI’s Unsavory History Casts Shadow Over Debate About Political Meddling: The FBI has a long history of playing at politics, and many of the officials complaining the loudest keep handing the feds more tools to do just that. By J.D. Tuccille, January 30, 2018
    http://reason.com/archives/2018/01/30/fbis-unsavory-history-casts-shadow-over

    Congressman Took 67 Seconds to Explain the Intelligence Memo — It’s a Jaw-Dropper VICTORIA TAFT | FEB 2, 2018
    https://ijr.com/the-declaration/2018/02/1060364-congressman-used-67-seconds-explain-intelligence-memo-jaw-dropper/

    Gaetz said:

    "Well, Harris, we now know the facts of what happened. The Democratic Party hired the Perkins [Coie] law firm. The Perkins law firm hired Fusion GPS. Fusion GPS hired Christopher Steele to go and dig up the dossier, and then they hired Nelly Ohr, the wife of Bruce Ohr to get the fake dossier from a political environment into the bloodstream of the intelligence community and to convert it into an intelligence document.

    And what’s most outrageous to me is that this fake dossier was so unreliable that the way that it was validated to the FISA Court was a Yahoo News article written by Michael Isikoff, planted by Christopher Steele.

    So Christopher Steele wrote the fake dossier, and then he went and planted fake news stories to validate the dossier.

    The FBI was going to pay Christopher Steele. They had authorized payment, but then when they found out he was talking to the media and that he was unreliable, they canceled payment to him. But even after canceling payment to Christopher Steele, the FBI and the Department of Justice re-authorized the FISA warrant to spy on American citizens based on a political document that had its origins at the Democratic National Committee.

    Harris, I’ve been waiting a long time to stitch together that fact pattern for the American people."

    Former CIA counterterrorism official Phil Mudd (2/2/2018): The FBI people, I’m going to tell you, “are ticked” and they’re going to be saying, I guarantee you, “You think you can push this off this?”… You better think again, Mr. President. You’ve been around for 13 months. We’ve been around since 1908. I know how this game is going to be played. We’re going to win. http://cnn.it/2GEPZD3
    Gregg Jarrett (2/3/2018): A 2nd source has now confirmed to me that, in a meeting on January 10, Deputy A-G Rosenstein used the power of his office to threaten to subpoena the calls & texts of the Intel Committee to get it to stop it’s investigation of DOJ and FBI. Likely an Abuse of Power & Obstruction.

    Exceptional Work by Sharyl Attkisson – Did FBI Violate Woods Procedures?… February 4, 2018 by sundance
    https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/02/04/exceptional-work-by-sharyl-attkisson-did-fbi-violate-woods-procedures/

    Nunes memo raises question: Did FBI violate Woods Procedures? BY SHARYL ATTKISSON, 02/04/18
    http://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/372233-nunes-memo-raises-question-did-fbi-violate-woods-procedures

    The point is: There are strict rules requiring that each and every fact presented in an FBI request to electronically spy on a U.S. citizen be extreme-vetted for accuracy — and presented to the court only if verified.

    There’s no dispute that at least some, if not a great deal, of information in the anti-Trump “Steele dossier” was unverified or false. Former FBI director James Comey testified as much himself before a Senate committee in June 2017. Comey repeatedly referred to “salacious” and “unverified” material in the dossier, which turned out to be paid political opposition research against Donald Trump funded first by Republicans, then by the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign.

    Presentation of any such unverified material to the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court to justify a wiretap would appear to violate crucial procedural rules, called “Woods Procedures,” designed to protect U.S. citizens.

    Yet Comey allegedly signed three of the FISA applications on behalf of the FBI. Deputy Director Andrew McCabe reportedly signed one and former Attorney General Sally Yates, then-Acting Deputy Attorney General Dana Boente and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein each reportedly signed one or more.

    House memo states disputed dossier was key to FBI’s FISA warrant to surveil members of Team Trump By Alex Pappas, Catherine Herridge, and Brooke Singman, February 2nd
    http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2018/02/02/house-memo-states-disputed-dossier-was-key-to-fbi-s-fisa-warrant-to-surveil-members-team-trump.html

    Page’s FISA application “cited extensively” a September 23, 2016 Yahoo News article, which focused on Page’s trip to Moscow.
    The FISC Judge would know, "I read it on Yahoo News" does not meet the legal standard for verifying facts presented in a FISA application. It seems probable the judge was complicit.

    Why We Cannot Trust the FBI By Pamela Geller, October 10, 2017.
    https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2017/10/why_we_cannot_trust_the_fbi.html

    The FBI was in on the planning of the jihad attack against the Garland Muhammad art expo in Garland, Texas. They did nothing to stop it, not even giving us a warning that my event was targeted by devout Muslims who meant to kill us Charlie Hebdo-style. We killed those jihadis. It was the security team I hired to protect my event that saved numerous lives, nothing the FBI did. We survived despite the FBI.

    ...

    It’s hard to escape the conclusion that the Obama FBI wanted me and the other speakers at the event dead. Dutch freedom fighter Geert Wilders was the keynote speaker; he has been living with armed guards for years for supposedly “insulting Islam.” My colleague Robert Spencer has received numerous death threats from Muslims. Cartoon contest winner Bosch Fawstin drew Muhammad. Did Obama’s pro-Islam FBI want us all dead?

    Is The FBI A Racketeering Organization? Harvey Silverglate, JUL 31, 2013
    https://www.forbes.com/sites/harveysilverglate/2013/07/31/is-the-fbi-a-racketeering-organization/#766e8973f421

    There are the historical outrages, like the FBI’s spying on homosexuals to create rap sheets that J. Edgar Hoover could use against his political enemies, or the FBI’s round-the-clock surveillance of the highest levels of the civil rights movement (a Memphis undercover cop who was a regular FBI informant was present during the assassination of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.). Even earlier in the organization’s history, when it was still known as the Bureau of Investigations, an ascendant Hoover earned his chops overseeing the trumped up prosecutions of leftists, foreigners and other such “undesirables” in cases so egregious that they led concerned citizens to form the ACLU.

    ...

    According to the New York Times, FBI agents fatally shot 70 people and wounded another 80 between 1993 and 2011.

    ...

    like any good racketeering organization, the FBI hates conducting its business on the record. Its official rules ban the recording of interrogations and witness interviews, which are instead typically conducted by two agents, one of whom asks questions and the other of whom takes the notes that will eventually become the official report of the interview. Any witness or defendant who dares contradict this official report is subject to prosecution under a statute that provides for a five-year sentence for lying to a federal agent. This scheme of extorting (or, more politely, creating) testimony that aligns with what the FBI wants to hear largely explains the fact that a staggering 97% of federal cases end in guilty pleas.

    FBI admits flaws in hair analysis over decades By Spencer S. Hsu April 18, 2015
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/crime/fbi-overstated-forensic-hair-matches-in-nearly-all-criminal-trials-for-decades/2015/04/18/39c8d8c6-e515-11e4-b510-962fcfabc310_story.html

    The Justice Department and FBI have formally acknowledged that nearly every examiner in an elite FBI forensic unit gave flawed testimony in almost all trials in which they offered evidence against criminal defendants over more than a two-decade period before 2000.

    ...

    Of 28 examiners with the FBI Laboratory’s microscopic hair comparison unit, 26 overstated forensic matches in ways that favored prosecutors in more than 95 percent of the 268 trials reviewed so far, according to the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) and the Innocence Project, which are assisting the government with the country’s largest post-conviction review of questioned forensic evidence.

    ...

    The cases include those of 32 defendants sentenced to death. Of those, 14 have been executed or died in prison, the groups said under an agreement with the government to release results after the review of the first 200 convictions.

    ...

    The admissions mark a watershed in one of the country’s largest forensic scandals, highlighting the failure of the nation’s courts for decades to keep bogus scientific information from juries, legal analysts said. The question now, they said, is how state authorities and the courts will respond to findings that confirm long-suspected problems with subjective, pattern-based forensic techniques — like hair and bite-mark comparisons — that have contributed to wrongful convictions in more than one-quarter of 329 DNA-exoneration cases since 1989.