Donald J Trump and those who promote his brand of white supremacist, racist hate and bigotry, like the Fox News pundits such as Laura Ingraham, Sean Hannity et al? Are also accomplices in this mass murder by this white supremacist in El Paso and each and every act of terrorism and murder committed by White Supremacist scum.They should be labeled domestic terrorists and treated as such.
We assess domestic terrorists pose a persistent and evolving threat of violence and economic harm to the United States; in fact, there have been more domestic terrorism subjects disrupted by arrest and more deaths caused by domestic terrorists than international terrorists in recent years. We are most concerned about lone offenders, primarily using firearms, as these lone offenders represent the dominant trend for lethal domestic terrorists. Frequently, these individuals act without a clear group affiliation or guidance, making them challenging to identify, investigate, and disrupt.
We understand that your request for today’s hearing arises from a concern about racially motivated violent extremism, which may result in the commission of hate crimes. We appreciate your interest in this issue. Individuals adhering to racially motivated violent extremism ideology have been responsible for the most lethal incidents among domestic terrorists in recent years, and the FBI assesses the threat of violence and lethality posed by racially motivated violent extremists will continue. The current racially motivated violent extremist threat is decentralized and primarily characterized by lone actors. These actors tend to be radicalized online and target minorities and soft targets using easily accessible weapons.
Violent extremists are increasingly using social media for the distribution of propaganda, recruitment, target selection, and incitement to violence. Through the Internet, violent extremists around the world have access to our local communities to target and recruit like-minded individuals and spread their messages of hate on a global scale. The recent attack at the Chabad of Poway Synagogue in Poway, California, not only highlights the enduring threat of violence posed by domestic terrorists, but also demonstrates the danger presented by the propagation of these violent acts on the Internet. The attacker in Poway referenced the recent mosque attacks in Christchurch, New Zealand, and we remain concerned that online sharing of livestreamed attack footage could amplify viewer reaction to attacks and provide ideological and tactical inspiration to other domestic terrorists in the homeland.
Statement Before the House Oversight and Reform Committee, Subcommittee on Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Washington, D.C. June 4, 2019
Donald Trump tweeted, “If a Democrat becomes President and the Republicans win the House, even by a tiny margin, they can impeach the President, without due process or fairness or any legal rights. All Republicans must remember what they are witnessing here—a lynching. But we will WIN!”
The word lynching conjures the imagery of the 4,000 killed in racial terror lynchings by the 1960s, what Billie Holiday sang as “Black bodies swinging in the Southern breeze.” By definition, to be lynched is to be punished or killed (often by a group) without due process or a trial. The president’s claim is facially absurd because he is not being punished without process. His own tweet even indicates that impeachment is the process. If the House of Representatives formally recognizes his wrongdoing after an inquiry, then the Senate will start a trial and reach a verdict.
It is tempting to delve into the distinctions between Trump’s farcical claim and actual horrors of lynching. It is tempting to talk about the Black and brown people who had limbs, genitalia, and even babies cut from their bodies. It is tempting to describe the fetor of burning flesh, or the sight of Emmett Till’s body tied to an industrial fan, or the smiling faces of white women, men, and children as they rejoiced in Black bodies’ last gasps for air. And, to refute politicians of both parties who now suggest lynching is confined to a dark chapter in American history, it is tempting to point to modern-day lynchings perpetuated by white men who assert “stand your ground” defenses after killing Black people, or police officers who rehearse the “I feared for my life” script following their violent acts.
Fortunately, activists, politicians, and scholars condemned Trump’s comparison and his Republican backers. But it’s also important to read Trump’s outrageous claim as a common and dangerous tactic: Powerful people steal the language of those they oppress to signal to others that they themselves are victims. This carefully crafted narrative of victimhood has perpetuated its own lynchings.
Dylann Roof announced, “I have to do this because you are raping our women and taking over the world,” as he murdered nine Black people at the Mother Emanuel church in South Carolina, six of them women. He lynched them. False and mischaracterized assertions of white women’s victimhood inspired thousands of Black beatings, lynchings, and prosecutions. Trump knows this well: He paid for an advertisement in the New York Times to call for the torture and execution of angry “young men,” a reference to the black teens known as the Central Park Five, who were accused—and ultimately exonerated—of raping a jogger.
Justice Clarence Thomas claimed to be a victim of a “high-tech lynching” after his former employee, Anita Hill, a black woman, testified during his Supreme Court confirmation hearings that he sexually harassed her for years. “Lynched, destroyed, caricatured by a committee of the U. S. Senate, rather than hung from a tree,” he said. Pulling a page from Thomas’ testimony, Bill Cosby and singer R. Kelly borrowed the lynching language to dismiss sexual assault claims against them.
Police officers have also used the language of victimization since coming under more widespread criticism by the Black Lives Matter movement. Under the rallying cry “Blue Lives Matter,” states have passed laws and sentencing enhancements that criminalize protest and provide additional protection for any kind of action that could be interpreted as violence against police officers. But law enforcement is actually far less dangerous than many other jobs; police officer deaths have declined by more than half over the past 40 years. Meanwhile, the number of police shooting victims still hovers at about 1,000 people per year.
The false portrayal of powerful people as victims can inspire vigilantes to identify with and defend them by any means. White supremacists patrol the border to defend their country. Militias showed up to help police arrest anti-fascist protesters in Portland, Oregon, while law enforcement sympathizers have repeatedlyrammed their cars into peaceful protests against police violence and ICE.
And Trump’s imaginary victimhood is especially dangerous. He has encouraged the perception of victimhood among white nationalists in particular. He famously called white nationalist protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, “very fine people” after one murdered counterprotester Heather Heyer. Online, in the press room, and at rallies, he frequently fuels the imaginary fears of an immigrant “invasion.” His campaign ran thousands of online advertisements that warned people like Patrick Crusius that they were under attack from an outside, illegal enemy. Crusius opened fire on dozens of people at a Texas Walmart on an August morning this year. Twenty died. Crusius ignored the massive policing apparatus that exists to surveil and police immigrants and decided it was up to him to stop the “Hispanic invasion of Texas.” He imagined he was the victim.
This was a mass lynching. And Trump roused the rope.
As long as he continues to feign victimhood, people will defend him by attacking people of color, immigrants, poor people, and people of faith. Hate crimes have already risen astronomically since his election. But there is no strange fruit at the White House. Just rotten ones.
Donald J Trump and the new Republican Party.
Trump Will Not Apologize for Calling for Death Penalty Over Central Park Five
“You have people on both sides of that,” the president said when asked about the wrongly convicted defendants.
Why yes, many of us have come to realize that racists, religious extremists, bigots and white supremacists have all aligned themselves with the Racist Bigoted White Supremacist in Chief, Donald J Trump and the Republican party.
Hate group count hits 20-year high amid rise in white supremacy, report says
The number of hate groups active in the USA rose to its highest level in two decades last year, according to an annual survey released Wednesday by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The count of active groups that the civil rights organization labels as espousing hate climbed to 1,020, up from 784 four years ago, and was propelled by a rise in extremism, the center said. From 2017 to 2018 alone, the tally rose 7 percent.
The groups range from white supremacists to black nationalists, neo-Nazis to neo-Confederates.
The most significant growth was in the number of white nationalist organizations, up from 100 in 2017 to 148 in 2018, said Beirich, who wrote the report. It marks a resurgence in the aftermath of the massive rally in 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia, that focused attention on the movement.
“Much of the energy on the radical right this year was concentrated in the white supremacist milieu,” the report says. “After a lull that followed the violence in Charlottesville, which brought criminal charges and civil suits that temporarily dampened the radical right’s activism and organizing, newer groups gathered momentum.”
In its annual hate crime report in November, the FBI listed 7,775 criminal incidents for 2017, up from 6,121 in 2016.
While many groups are adding members, the SPLC found one of the best known hate groups, the Ku Klux Klan, appears to be in decline. The group, despite a history that stretches back more than a century, has been marked by infighting and difficulty connecting to a younger generation.
“The KKK has not been able to appeal to younger racists, with its antiquated traditions, odd dress and lack of digital savvy. Younger extremists prefer … polo shirts and khakis to Klan robes,” the report says.
But there is no shortage of hate-filled alternatives, whether they are neo-Nazis, racist skinheads or others who direct their anger at immigrants; lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender individuals; Muslims or others.
At least one of the outfits added to the SPLC list didn’t seem to mind.
A leader of the American Freedom Party, a New York-based group that says on its website that the “core European American population” is being overwhelmed by “tens of millions of legal and illegal immigrants,” was pleased.
“I am flattered,” Chairman William Johnson told USA TODAY. “It really helps elevate our reputation” when the party is lumped with groups close to the mainstream supporting Trump and those linked to Catholicism. He said the list is so broad that it becomes meaningless.
“I don’t know any organization that says I’m a hate group. I’m a love group,” Johnson said. He said the American Freedom Party has “nationalists of many stripes and races” among its members, and “white people are becoming comfortable with being proud of their heritage.”
Adolph Hitler and his Nazis? Would put each and every one of these mental midget morons, who all think they are the “Master Race”? In his ovens and gas showers, because they sure the hell do not fit or even come close to fitting his idea of the Aryan Super-race.
Murders by white supremacists in US more than doubled in 2017
Far right linked to 20 of 34 extremist murders last year, says Anti-Defamation League report
Murders committed by white supremacists more than doubled in the US last year, accounting for the majority of extremist killings, according to a report.
Far-right radicals were responsible for 20 of the 34 extremist murders in 2017, said the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).
Eighteen of those were carried out by white supremacists, who killed twice as many people as Islamic fundamentalists, the civil rights group’s Centre on Extremism said.
Last year was the fifth deadliest for extremist violence in America since 1970, according to research by the ADL.
White supremacists were responsible for 59 per cent of all extremist killings last year. That compares to a fifth the previous year, when six people were murdered by white supremacists, although the ADL acknowledged that figure was “uncharacteristically low”.
Seventy-one per cent of all extremist murders in the past decade were linked to domestic right-wing extremism.
“These findings are a stark reminder that domestic extremism is a serious threat to our safety and security,” said ADL chief executive Jonathan Greenblatt.
He added: “When white supremacists and other extremists are emboldened and find new audiences for their hate-filled views, violence is usually not far behind.
“We cannot ignore the fact that white supremacists are emboldened, and as a society we need to keep a close watch on recruitment and rallies such as Charlottesville, which have the greatest potential to provoke and inspire violence.”
The death of Heather Heyer, an anti-fascist demonstrator killed in August when James Alex Fields rammed into a crowd opposing the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Viriginia, was among the 18 white supremacist murders counted by the ADL.
Following the rally, the ADL condemned US President Donald Trump for defending the far-right and claiming the “alt-left” counter-demonstrators were equally to blame for the violence.
The report also cites Jeremy Christian, an alleged extremist accused of fatally stabbing two strangers in Portland, Oregon, when they intervened in his anti-Muslim rant.
“The white supremacist murders included several killings linked to the alt right as that movement expanded its operations in 2017 from the internet into the physical world—raising the likely possibility of more such violent acts in the future,” the ADL’s report warns.
The deadliest extremist attack of 2016, however, was linked to Islamic extremism. Sayfullo Saipov, the man accused of killing eight people with a truck in New York in November, is said to have had connections to Isis.
The ADL said five murders were also carried out by black nationalists.
“Combined with other violent acts by black nationalists in recent years, these murders suggest the possibility of an emerging problem,” the report adds.
Mr Greenblatt said: “The bottom line is we cannot ignore one form of extremism over another. We must tackle them all.”
Critics have blamed the billionaire Republican’s rhetoric during the election campaign and since becoming President for the re-emergence of white supremacist groups.
Here’s a bunch of white nationalists from Orange County flashing the hand sign for “White Power”, which incidentally? Also the American Sign Language sign for Asshole.
Charlottesville: Donald Trump quietly slashed funds to groups fighting white supremacy months ago
US President’s decision to freeze funds facing fresh scrutiny in wake of deadly nationalist violence in Virginia
Donald Trump’s decision to slash funding to counter right-wing extremism in the US is facing fresh scrutiny in the wake of the Charlottesville violence that left three people dead.
The US President froze $10 million (£7.7m) of grants destined to fight violent extremism in the US back in May.
More than 30 organisations had been pegged by former President Barack Obama’s office to receive the funding, but the White House put the grants on hold pending review soon after Mr Trump took office.
Among those approved were local governments, city police departments, universities and non-profit organisations fighting all forms of violent extremism in the US.
Former white supremacist Chuck Leek, who has since become a volunteer with Life After Hate – one of the organisations that was due to receive government funding – warned at the time that white supremacy in the US was becoming more active.
His prediction came true at the weekend when deadly violence broke out between those opposed to the removal of a statue from a local park of Civil War Confederate General Robert E Lee and counter-protesters.
The rally was the largest assembly of white nationalist groups in over a decade and saw brawls between people holding KKK banners and confederate flags, and groups of anti-fascist counter protestors spill onto the streets.
Critics pointed to the US President’s campaign rhetoric for enabling far-right extremist groups in the country to regain a foothold.
Mr Trump’s slow response to the demonstrations was also condemned, after he spoke out against “violence on many sides” in the wake of the attacks – despite white nationalist James Fields allegedly ploughing a car into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer.
“We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides,” he said. “On many sides.”
More than 30 people were injured in the car ramming and Fields has been charged with second-degree murder.
Neo-nazis applauded Mr Trump’s first response to the violent clashes, saying that it was “really, really good” that the President did not condemn them.
Two troopers also died when a Virginia State Police helicopter monitoring the violence crashed near the city.
The White House released a statement on Monday following a second press conference by Mr Trump, saying: “The President said very strongly in his statement yesterday that he condemns all forms of violence, bigotry and hatred and of course that includes white supremacists, KKK, neo-nazi and all extremist groups.”
The US leader eventually condemned those groups directly, in a spoken statement on Monday night – in which he labelled them “evil”.
But earlier this year, the Trump administration was pushing to downplay the threat of white extremism by erasing neo-Nazis and white supremacists from the US government’s counter-extremism programme and moving it to focus exclusively on Islamist terrorism.
American officials briefed on the proposed changes said the Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) initiative could be renamed “Countering Radical Islamic Extremism”.
The reclassification would remove its work combatting far-right attacks and mass shootings, such as the massacre of black churchgoers in Charleston, which are rarely classified as terrorism by American authorities.
Good question for the mental midget moron white supremacist Trumpanzee supporters.
NOW? LETS SEE SOME OF THE RESULTS OF THESE RACIST PIG SHITSTAINS ON THE UNDERWEAR OF HUMANITY TRUMPANZEES.
Aug. 19, 2015: In Boston, after he and his brother beat a sleeping homeless man of Mexican descent with a metal pole, Steven Leader, 30, told police “Donald Trump was right, all these illegals need to be deported.” The victim, however, was not in the United States illegally. The brothers, who are white, ultimately pleaded guilty to several assault-related charges and were each sentenced to at least two years in prison.
Dec. 5, 2015: After Penn State University student Nicholas Tavella, 19, was charged with “ethnic intimidation” and other crimes for threatening to “put a bullet” in a young Indian man on campus, his attorney argued in court that Tavella was just motivated by “a love of country,” not “hate.” “Donald Trump is running for President of the United States saying that, ‘We’ve got to check people out more closely,'” Tavella’s attorney argued in his defense. Tavella, who is white, ultimately pleaded guilty to ethnic intimidation and was sentenced to up to two years in prison.
April 28, 2016: When FBI agents arrested 61-year-old John Martin Roos in White City, Oregon, for threatening federal officials, including then-President Barack Obama, they found several pipe bombs and guns in his home. In the three months before his arrest, Roos posted at least 34 messages to Twitter about Trump, repeatedly threatening African Americans, Muslims, Mexican immigrants and the “liberal media,” and in court documents, prosecutors noted that the avowed Trump supporter posted this threatening message to Facebook a month earlier: “The establishment is trying to steal the election from Trump. … Obama is already on a kill list … Your [name] can be there too.” Roos, who is white, has since pleaded guilty to possessing an unregistered explosive device and posting internet threats against federal officials. He was sentenced to more than five years in prison.
Medford Man Receives Federal Prison Sentence for Threatening Former President Obama
On May 12, 2017, United States District Court Judge Michael J. McShane sentenced John Martin Roos, 62, of Medford, to 63 months in federal prison after he pleaded guilty to possessing an unregistered explosive device and posting Internet threats to kill then-President of the United States Barack Obama and FBI agents. After his release from prison, Roos will be on supervised release for three years.
June 3, 2016: After 54-year-old Henry Slapnik attacked his African-American neighbors with a knife in Cleveland, he told police “Donald Trump will fix them because they are scared of Donald Trump,” according to police reports. Slapnik, who is white, ultimately pleaded guilty to “ethnic intimidation” and other charges. It’s unclear what sentence he received.
Cleveland man threatens black neighbors with slur, says ‘Donald Trump will fix them,’ police say
Aug. 16, 2016: In Olympia, Washington, 32-year-old Daniel Rowe attacked a white woman and a black man with a knife after seeing them kiss on a popular street. When police arrived on the scene, Rowe professed to being “a white supremacist” and said “he planned on heading down to the next Donald Trump rally and stomping out more of the Black Lives Matter group,” according to court documents filed in the case. Rowe, who is white, ultimately pleaded guilty to charges of assault and malicious harassment, and he was sentenced to more than four years in prison.
Man to serve 4 years in downtown Olympia hate crime stabbing
Sept. 1, 2016: The then-chief of the Bordentown, New Jersey, police department, Frank Nucera, allegedly assaulted an African American teenager who was handcuffed. Federal prosecutors said the attack was part of Nucera’s “intense racial animus,” noting in federal court that “within hours” of the assault, Nucera was secretly recorded saying “Donald Trump is the last hope for white people.” The 60-year-old Nucera has been indicted by a federal grand jury on three charges, including committing a federal hate crime. Nucera, who is white, has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial. He retired two years ago.
Former Bordentown Township Police Chief Charged With Hate Crime And Use Of Excessive Force During Arrest
September 2016: After 40-year-old Mark Feigin of Los Angeles was arrested for posting anti-Muslim and allegedly threatening statements to a mosque’s Facebook page, his attorney argued in court that the comments were protected by the First Amendment because Feigin was “using similar language and expressing similar views” to “campaign statements from then-candidate Donald Trump.” Noting that his client “supported Donald Trump,” attorney Caleb Mason added that “Mr. Feigin’s comments were directed toward a pressing issue of public concern that was a central theme of the Trump campaign and the 2016 election generally: the Islamic roots of many international and U.S. terrorist acts.” Feigin, who is white, ultimately pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of sending harassing communications electronically. He was sentenced to probation.
Oct. 13, 2016: After the FBI arrested three white Kansas men for plotting to bomb an apartment complex in Garden City, Kansas, where many Somali immigrants lived, one of the men’s attorneys insisted to a federal judge that the plot was “self-defensive” because the three men believed “that if Donald Trump won the election, President Obama would not recognize the validity of those results, that he would declare martial law, and that at that point militias all over the country would have to step in.” Then, after a federal grand jury convicted 47-year-old Patrick Stein and the two other men of conspiracy-related charges, Stein’s attorney argued for a lighter sentence based on “the backdrop” of Stein’s actions: Trump had become “the voice of a lost and ignored white, working-class set of voters” like Stein, and the “climate” at the time could propel someone like Stein to “go to 11,” attorney Jim Pratt said in court. Stein and his two accomplices were each sentenced to at least 25 years in prison.
hree Southwest Kansas Men Convicted of Plotting to Bomb Somali Immigrants in Garden City
Nov. 3, 2016: In Tampa, Florida, David Howard threatened to burn down the house next to his “simply because” it was being purchased by a Muslim family, according to the Justice Department. He later said under oath that while he harbored a years-long dislike for Muslims, the circumstances around the home sale were “the match that lit the wick.” He cited Trump’s warnings about immigrants from majority-Muslim countries. “[With] the fact that the president wants these six countries vetted, everybody vetted before they come over, there’s a concern about Muslims,” Howard said. Howard, who is white, ultimately pleaded guilty to a federal civil rights violation, and the 59-year-old was sentenced to eight months in prison.
Tampa Man Sentenced for Threatening to Burn Down a Home Being Purchased by Muslim Family
Nov. 12, 2016: In Grand Rapids, Michigan, while attacking a cab driver from East Africa, 23-year-old Jacob Holtzlander shouted racial epithets and repeatedly yelled the word, “Trump,” according to law enforcement records. Holtzlander, who is white, ultimately pleaded guilty to a charge of ethnic intimidation, and he was sentenced to 30 days in jail.
Jacob Holtzlander sentenced for ethnic intimidation
Jan. 25, 2017: At JFK International Airport in New York, a female Delta employee, wearing a hijab in accordance with her Muslim faith, was “physically and verbally” attacked by 57-year-old Robin Rhodes of Worcester, Mass., “for no apparent reason,” prosecutors said at the time. When the victim asked Brown what she did to him, he replied: “You did nothing, but … [Expletive] Islam. [Expletive] ISIS. Trump is here now. He will get rid of all of you.” Rhodes ultimately pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of “menacing,” and he was sentenced to probation.
Feb. 19, 2017: After 35-year-old Gerald Wallace called a mosque in Miami Gardens, Florida, and threatened to “shoot all y’all,” he told the FBI and police that he made the call because he “got angry” from a local TV news report about a terrorist act.
At a rally in Florida the day before, Trump falsely claimed that Muslim refugees had just launched a terrorist attack in Sweden.
Wallace’s attorney, Katie Carmon, later tried to convince a federal judge that the threat to kill worshippers could be “protected speech” due to the “very distinctly political climate” at the time.
“There are courts considering President Trump’s travel ban … and the president himself has made some very pointed statements about what he thinks about people of this descent,” Carmon argued in court. Wallace, who is African American, ultimately pleaded guilty to obstructing the free exercise of his victims’ religious beliefs, and he was sentenced to one year in prison.
Florida Man Sentenced to Prison for Making Telephonic Threat to Shoot Congregants at The Islamic Center of Greater Miami
Feb. 23, 2017: Kevin Seymour and his partner Kevin price were riding their bicycles in Key West, Florida, when a man on a moped, 30-year-old Brandon Davis of North Carolina, hurled anti-gay slurs at them and “intentionally” ran into Seymour’s bike, shouting, “You live in Trump country now,” according to police reports and Davis’ attorney. Davis ultimately pleaded guilty to a charge of battery evidencing prejudice, but in court, he expressed remorse and was sentenced to four years of probation.
Gay-basher who yelled ‘You’re in Trump country now’ offers to hug his victims
August 12, 2017: On August 12, 2017, a car was deliberately driven into a crowd of people who had been peacefully protesting the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, killing one and injuring 28. The driver of the car, 20-year-old James Alex Fields Jr., had driven from Ohio to attend the rally. Fields previously espoused neo-Nazi and white supremacist beliefs. He was convicted in a state court of hit and run, the first-degree murder of 32-year-old Heather Heyer, and eight counts of malicious wounding, and sentenced to life in prison with an additional 419 years in July 2019
Oct. 22, 2017: A 44-year-old California man threatened to kill Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., for her frequent criticism of Trump and her promise to “take out” the president. Anthony Scott Lloyd left a voicemail at the congresswoman’s Washington office, declaring: “If you continue to make threats towards the president, you’re going to wind up dead, Maxine. Cause we’ll kill you.” After pleading guilty to one count of threatening a U.S. official, Lloyd asked the judge for leniency, saying he suffered from addiction-inducing mental illness and became “far too immersed in listening to polarizing political commentators and engaging in heated political debates online.” His lawyer put it this way to the judge: “Mr. Lloyd was a voracious consumer of political news online, on television and on radio … [that are] commonly viewed as ‘right wing,’ unconditionally supportive of President Trump, and fiercely critical of anyone who opposed President Trump’s policies.” The judge sentenced Lloyd to six months of house arrest and three years of probation.
San Pedro Man Pleads Guilty in Federal Court to Making Death Threat Against United States Congresswoman Maxine Waters
August 2018: After the Boston Globe called on news outlets around the country to resist what it called “Trump’s assault on journalism,” the Boston Globe received more than a dozen threatening phone calls. “You are the enemy of the people,” the alleged caller, 68-year-old Robert Chain of Encino, California, told a Boston Globe employee on Aug. 22. “As long as you keep attacking the President, the duly elected President of the United States … I will continue to threat[en], harass, and annoy the Boston Globe.” A week later, authorities arrested Chain on threat-related charges. After a hearing in his case, he told reporters, “America was saved when Donald J. Trump was elected president.” Chain has pleaded guilty to seven threat-related charges, and he is awaiting sentencing.
California Man Charged with Making Violent Threats Against Boston Globe Employees
Oct. 4, 2018: The Polk County Sheriff’s Office in Florida arrested 53-year-old James Patrick of Winter Haven, Florida, for allegedly threatening “to kill Democratic office holders, members of their families and members of both local and federal law enforcement agencies,” according to a police report. In messages posted online, Patrick detailed a “plan” for his attacks, which he said he would launch if then-nominee Brett Kavanaugh was not confirmed as a Supreme Court justice, the police report said. Seeking Patrick’s release from jail after his arrest, Patrick’s attorney, Terri Stewart, told a judge that her client’s “rantings” were akin to comments from “a certain high-ranking official” — Trump. The president had “threatened the North Korean people — to blow them all up. It was on Twitter,” Stewart said, according to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. Patrick has been charged with making a written threat to kill or injure, and he has pleaded not guilty. His trial is pending.
Polk man arrested for threatening to kill members of Congress if Kavanaugh not confirmed
Late October 2018: Over the course of a week, Florida man Cesar Sayoc allegedly mailed at least 15 potential bombs to prominent critics of Trump and members of the media. Sayoc had been living in a van plastered with pro-Trump stickers, and he had posted several pro-Trump messages on social media. Federal prosecutors have accused him of “domestic terrorism,” and Sayoc has since pleaded guilty to 65 counts, including use of a weapon of mass destruction. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison. “We believe the president’s rhetoric contributed to Mr. Sayoc’s behavior,” Sayoc’s attorney told the judge at sentencing.
Cesar Sayoc sentenced to 20 years in prison for mailing pipe bombs to prominent Democrats, CNN
Dec. 4, 2018: Michael Brogan, 51, of Brooklyn, New York, left a voicemail at an unidentified U.S. Senator’s office in Washington insisting, “I’m going to put a bullet in ya. … You and your constant lambasting of President Trump. Oh, reproductive rights, reproductive rights.” He later told an FBI agent that before leaving the voicemail he became “very angry” by “an internet video of the Senator, including the Senator’s criticism of the President of the United States as well as the Senator’s views on reproductive rights.” “The threats were made to discourage the Senator from criticizing the President,” the Justice Department said in a later press release. Brogan has since pleaded guilty to one count of threatening a U.S. official, and he is awaiting sentencing.
Brooklyn Man Pleads Guilty to Threatening to Assault and Murder a United States SenatorDefendant Left a Threatening Voice-Message in Retaliation for the Senator’s Criticism of the President of the United States and the Senator’s Position on Reproductive Rights
Jan. 17, 2019: Stephen Taubert of Syracuse, New York, was arrested by the U.S. Capitol Police for threatening to kill Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., and for threatening to “hang” former President Barack Obama. Taubert used “overtly bigoted, hateful language” in his threats, according to federal prosecutors. On July 20, 2018, Taubert called the congresswoman’s Los Angeles office to say he would find her at public events and kill her and her entire staff. In a letter to the judge just days before Taubert’s trial began, his defense attorney, Courtenay McKeon, noted: “During that time period, Congresswoman Waters was embroiled in a public feud with the Trump administration. … On June 25, 2018, in response to Congresswoman Waters’ public statements, President Trump tweeted: ‘Congresswoman Maxine Waters, an extraordinarily low IQ person, has … just called for harm to supporters … of the Make America Great Again movement. Be careful what you wish for Max!'” As McKeon insisted to the judge: “This context is relevant to the case.” A federal jury ultimately convicted Taubert on three federal charges, including retaliating against a federal official and making a threat over state lines. He was sentenced to nearly four years in prison.
A jury today convicted Stephen J. Taubert, age 61, of Syracuse, of making death threats toward former President of the United States Barack Obama and Congresswoman Maxine Waters. The verdict was announced by United States Attorney Grant C. Jaquith, Chief Matthew R. Verderosa, United States Capitol Police, and Special Agent in Charge Lewis Robinson, United States Secret Service, Buffalo, New York Field Office.
Jan. 22, 2019: David Boileau of Holiday, Florida, was arrested by the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office for allegedly burglarizing an Iraqi family’s home and “going through” their mailbox, according to a police report. After officers arrived at the home, Boileau “made several statements of his dislike for people of Middle Eastern descent,” the report said. “He also stated if he doesn’t get rid of them, Trump will handle it.” The police report noted that a day before, Boileau threw screws at a vehicle outside the family’s house. On that day, Boileau allegedly told police, “We’ll get rid of them one way or another.” Boileau, 58, has since pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of trespassing, and he was sentenced to 90 days in jail.
Feb. 15, 2019: The FBI in Maryland arrested a Marine veteran and U.S. Coast Guard lieutenant, Christopher Paul Hasson, who they said was stockpiling weapons and “espoused” racist and anti-immigrant views for years as he sought to “murder innocent civilians on a scale rarely seen in this country.” In court documents, prosecutors said the 49-year-old “domestic terrorist” compiled a “hit list” of prominent Democrats. Two months later, while seeking Hasson’s release from jail before trial, his public defender, Elizabeth Oyer, told a federal judge: “This looks like the sort of list that our commander-in-chief might have compiled while watching Fox News in the morning. … Is it legitimately frustrating that offensive language and ideology has now become part of our national vocabulary? Yes, it is very frustrating. But … it is hard to differentiate it from the random musings of someone like Donald Trump who uses similar epithets in his everyday language and tweets.” Hasson faces weapons-related charges and was being detained as he awaits trial. He has pleaded not guilty.
US Coast Guard lieutenant accused of plotting ‘to kill almost every last person on the earth’
April 5, 2019: The FBI arrested a 55-year-old man from upstate New York for allegedly threatening to kill Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., one of the first two Muslim women elected to the U.S. Congress. She is an outspoken critic of Trump, and Trump has frequently launched public attacks against her and three other female lawmakers of color. Two weeks before his arrest, Patrick Carlineo Jr. allegedly called Omar’s office in Washington labeling the congresswoman a “terrorist” and declaring: “I’ll put a bullet in her f—-ing skull.” When an FBI agent then traced the call to Carlineo and interviewed him, Carlineo “stated that he was a patriot, that he loves the President, and that he hates radical Muslims in our government,” according to the FBI agent’s summary of the interview. Federal prosecutors charged Carlineo with threatening to assault and murder a United States official. Carlineo is awaiting trial, although his defense attorney and federal prosecutors are working on what his attorney called another “possible resolution” of the case.
April 18, 2019: The FBI arrested John Joseph Kless of Tamarac, Florida, for calling the Washington offices of three prominent Democrats and threatening to kill each of them. At his home, authorities found a loaded handgun in a backpack, an AR-15 rifle and hundreds of rounds of ammunition. In later pleading guilty to one charge of transmitting threats over state lines, Kless admitted that in a threatening voicemail targeting Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., he stated: “You won’t f—ing tell Americans what to say, and you definitely don’t tell our president, Donald Trump, what to say.” Tlaib, a vocal critic of Trump, was scheduled to speak in Florida four days later. Kless was awaiting sentencing. In a letter to the federal judge, he said he “made a very big mistake,” never meant to hurt anyone, and “was way out of line with my language and attitude.”
Tamarac Resident Pleads Guilty to Making Multiple Threats to Congress
April 24, 2019: The FBI arrested 30-year-old Matthew Haviland of North Kingstown, Rhode Island, for allegedly sending a series of violent and threatening emails to a college professor in Massachusetts who publicly expressed support for abortion rights and strongly criticized Trump. In one of 28 emails sent to the professor on March 10, 2019, Haviland allegedly called the professor “pure evil” and said “all Democrats must be eradicated,” insisting the country now has “a president who’s taking our country in a place of more freedom rather than less.” In another email the same day, Haviland allegedly wrote the professor: “I will rip every limb from your body and … I will kill every member of your family.” According to court documents, Haviland’s longtime friend later told the FBI that “within the last year, Haviland’s views regarding abortion and politics have become more extreme … at least in part because of the way the news media portrays President Trump.” Haviland has been charged with cyberstalking and transmitting a threat in interstate commerce. His trial is pending.
June 5, 2019: The FBI arrested a Utah man for allegedly calling the U.S. Capitol more than 2,000 times over several months and threatening to kill Democratic lawmakers, whom he said were “trying to destroy Trump’s presidency.” “I am going to take up my second amendment right, and shoot you liberals in the head,” 54-year-old Scott Brian Haven allegedly stated in one of the calls on Oct. 18, 2018, according to charging documents. When an FBI agent later interviewed Haven, he “explained the phone calls were made during periods of frustration with the way Democrats were treating President Trump,” the charging documents said. The FBI visit, however, didn’t stop Haven from making more threats, including: On March 21, 2019, he called an unidentified U.S. senator’s office to say that if Democrats refer to Trump as Hitler again he will shoot them, and two days later he called an unidentified congressman’s office to say he “was going to take [the congressman] out … because he is trying to remove a duly elected President.” A federal grand jury has since charged Haven with one count of transmitting a threat over state lines. Haven pleaded not guilty and was awaiting trial.
Aug. 3, 2019: A gunman opened fire at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, killing 22 people and injuring 24 others. The FBI labeled the massacre an act of “domestic terrorism,” and police determined that the alleged shooter, 21-year-old Patrick Crusius, posted a lengthy anti-immigrant diatribe online before the attack. “We attribute that manifesto directly to him,” according to El Paso police chief Greg Allen. Describing the coming assault as “a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas,” the screed’s writer said “the media” would “blame Trump’s rhetoric” for the attack but insisted his anti-immigrant views “predate Trump” — an apparent acknowledgement that at least some of his views align with some of Trump’s public statements. The writer began his online essay by stating that he generally “support[s]” the previous writings of the man who killed 51 Muslim worshippers in New Zealand earlier this year. In that case, the shooter in New Zealand said he absolutely did not support Trump as “a policy maker and leader” — but “[a]s a symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose? Sure.” Crusius has been charged with capital murder by the state of Texas.
Traitor Trump, Moscow Mitch, Leningrad Lindsey, and the rest of the Treasonous GOP, who care more about their party and keeping power than they do about the oath of office they all placed their hands on a bible and swore to? Have committed High Treason Against the United States and as such? Deserve to be taken to Gitmo, waterboarded until they give up all their dirt they sold us out to Putin and Russia, Un, Erdogran and al the rest of the dicktaters they sold us out to, before we give them all one last Happy Meal and then? Execute these fuckers in front of a firing squad.
The minute Traitor Donald J Trump withheld the Congressional approved funds and military weapons to the Ukraine, in order to use as a carrot to dangle in front of the President of the Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, to do his bidding and dig up dirt on the Bidens, Burimsa and find out about the bogus claims of Crowd Strike and the DNC server and it being the Ukraine that interfered in his election to the Presidency, not the proven fact it was Russia and Putin and their troll bots who did so? He committed High Treason Against the United States. And ANY Republican who defends and supports the actions of Donald J Trump? Have also committed High Treason Against the United States.
I shall reveal his and the Republicans High Treason Against the United States by posting three news stories and nine video links that back up my assertions and my own comments after posting those stories and videos.
Donald J Trump and the Republicans who support and defend him? Have in fact? Given aid and comfort to Putin and the Russians in the Ukrainian fight against the Russian and Putin’s invasion of and annexation of Crimea and their proxy war against the Ukraine. The U.S. is in a “proxy war” with Putin and Russia in our support and defense of the Ukraine. By Traitor Trump withholding the money and weapons the Ukrainians need to fight Putin and Russia’s illegal invasion of the Ukraine and the annexation of Crimea? He gave aid and comfort to Putin and Russia and adhered to the will of Putin, and his own interests, not the intersts of the United States national security, or even Ukraines security against Russia.If President Barack Obama or Bill Clinton or any other Democrat did any of this? The Republicans would be not only demanding their impeachment and removal from office, but their arrest and prosecution for High Treason Against the United States. But seeing it is their own Donald J Trump who did all of this? Why he gets a pass.
Story One: Impeachment Day 3: Republicans Continue Their Attack on Reason and Reality
Lt. Colonel Alexander Vindman’s testimony was devastating. So GOP lawmakers resorted to spin and conspiracy theories.
By David Corn, Washington DC Bureau Chief, Mother Jones
On Tuesday, the third day of the House impeachment hearings, the Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee were confronted by witnesses, particularly Lt. Colonel Alexander Vindman, a National Security Council official, who presented unambiguous evidence that President Donald Trump used his office to pressure Ukrainian officials to launch investigations to produce dirt on Joe Biden and prove a debunked conspiracy theory that absolved the Russians of hacking the 2016 US election.Vindman and Jennifer Williams, a State Department official assigned to Vice President Mike Pence’s office, each told the committee that Trump, during his July 25 phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, pressed the Ukrainian to initiate these two inquiries and that Burisma—the Ukrainian energy company that Hunter Biden, the former vice president’s son, worked for—was referenced by name.(The reconstructed transcript of the call released by the White House, for some not-yet-explained reason, did not mention “Burisma.”) Vindman also testified about a July 10 White House meeting with Ukrainian officials in which Ambassador Gordon Sondland, who was working with the private channel overseen by Rudy Giuliani, piped up and said that before Zelensky could get a much-desired meeting with Trump, the Ukrainians had to “deliver specific investigations.” Other witnesses have told the committee that the release of nearly $400 million in security assistance that Trump put a hold on was also tied to Ukraine pursuing investigations of the Bidens and the conspiracy theory that holds that Ukraine, not Russia, intervened in the US election.
So it’s as clear as the sky is blue: Trump was muscling the Ukrainians to help him influence the 2020 election and to clear Moscow. The quasi-transcript of the July 25 call even shows Trump saying that if Zelensky wants more Javelin anti-tank weapons, he will have to do Trump the “favor” of kicking off these investigations.(And as Vindman said, considering the power disparity between the two men, this was not a polite request that could be turned down—it was a “demand.”)Yet when Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the pro-Trump bulldog recently placed on the intelligence committee by the GOP leadership, had his chance to ask questions of Vindman and Williams, he seized his moment in the sun to declare the sky is green. Or purple. Or whatever. There is no evidence of “linkage,” he thundered. “The transcript shows no linkage…to an investigation.”
But that’s exactly what the transcript shows. You want Javelins? Then we have this favor for you to do—investigations. This is brazen linkage. And there’s now a mountain of testimony linking a White House meeting and the release of the security assistance to Ukraine opening the political investigations Trump craved. But…still…nevertheless, the Republicans on the committee won’t accept this basic reality.
Instead, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), the top Republican on the committee, Jordan, and their party-mates have forged an alternative reality in which this controversy is no more than a “hoax” concocted by Democrats and the media and that the focus should be not on Trump’s action but on the whistleblower who initiated the Trump-Ukraine scandal and on the involvement of Hunter Biden in Burisma and the fact-free allegation that his dad took action to thwart an investigation of the firm.
Traitor Congressman Devin Nunes, defending Traitor Trump at all costs during the Impeachment Investigation of Donald J Trump.
In his opening statement, Nunes depicted a wide-ranging conspiracy of Democrats and mainstream media outlets that first cooked up “the Russia hoax” and then, when that scandal did not lead to Trump’s ouster, devised a whole new bogus Ukraine scandal. In this world, Russia’s attack on the 2016 election (which was mounted partly to help Trump win) does not exist. Rather, Ukraine was somehow the true meddler. (Republicans have repeatedly cited the public anti-Trump statements of a few Ukrainian officials who in 2016 were worried about Trump—and justifiably so, after Trump had said that perhaps Russia should be allowed to keep Crimea, the chunk of Ukraine that Vladimir Putin seized in 2014.) The Republicans were hardly slowed by Vindman’s reality-based statement that the Ukraine-meddled accusation “is a Russian narrative that President Putin has promoted.”
Nunes even exclaimed that the Democratic media conspiracy against Trump included “a concerted campaign” of journalistic organizations “smearing” John Solomon, the writer for The Hill who published a series of stories that disseminated unfounded allegations about the Bidens and former ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch. In a bizarre twist, Nunes pointed to the fact that The Hill is now reviewing Solomon’s articles as proof of this sub-conspiracy and an indication this despicable cabal would go to any lengths to prosecute its evil plan.
Nunes declared that what most needed exposing was the whistleblower’s contacts with the media and the Democrats on the committee. He did not explain the relevance of this. But Nunes was suggesting that the whole Ukraine business was manufactured by the Ds and the press—and the whistleblower is the key to uncovering this diabolical plot. The whistleblower’s lawyers have denied on the record that their client has been talking to the media or coordinating with Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), chair of the intelligence committee, or other Democrats.
Nunes also promoted the never-will-die innuendo that Joe Biden pushed for the dismissal of a corrupt Ukrainian prosecutor to protect his son and Burisma. And there were other insinuations hurled by the Republicans. At one point, they dwelled on an anecdote—a Ukrainian official once asked Vindman if he wanted to serve as defense minister for Ukraine, and Vindman dismissed the offer as a joke—to hint that Vindman, who was born in Ukraine when it was part of the Soviet Union, possessed dual loyalties.
The Rs have concocted a dark world in which Trump is an innocent victim. In their view, he was the target of foreign intervention in 2016, not the beneficiary; there was nothing to the Russia investigation. (Don’t mention the convictions of his campaign manager, his national security adviser, his longtime political adviser, and others.) And the Ukraine scandal—based on a suspect whistleblower (disregard all the testimony from known officials)—is merely another front in the unrelenting war the Democrats have been waging against Trump because, as Jordan yelled on Tuesday, “the Democrats have never accepted the will of the American people.”
Toward the end of Vindman’s and Williams’ time before the panel, Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.) asked Vindman to read aloud the last paragraph of the prepared testimony he delivered at the start of the hearing: “Dad, [that] I’m sitting here today in the US Capitol talking to our elected officials is proof that you made the right decision forty years ago to leave the Soviet Union and come here to the United States of America in search of a better life for our family. Do not worry, I will be fine for telling the truth.” Maloney asked why he reported Trump’s phone call to lawyers at the National Security Council. “Because that was my duty,” Vindman replied.
With his testimony, Maloney told Vindman, “You were putting yourself up against the president of the United States.” (Trump and his henchmen have viciously attacked Vindman.) Maloney asked the colonel, “Why did you have confidence you can do that?” Vindman, a recipient of the Purple Heart, answered, “Because, Congressman, this is America. This is the country I have served and defended…And here right matters.” The audience responded with loud applause. The Republicans on the panel looked glum. Moments later, when Nunes had the chance to make a concluding statement, he snorted, “Act One of today’s circus is over.”
Story Two: Impeachment hearings reveal the extent of the damage Trump’s inflicted on our national security
The GOP is trying to use the broken national security system to discredit and undermine the officials who are testifying, rather than fix it.
By Brett Bruen, former director of global engagement in the Obama White House. Brett Bruen was the director of global engagement in the Obama White House and a career American diplomat. He currently runs crisis communications agency the Global Situation Room and teaches crisis management at Georgetown.
We are in real danger. There are certainly many conclusions to be drawn from the recent days of detailed testimony by officials on the National Security Council and at the State Department in the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump. But beyond the political points scored and the possibility of removing a president, there’s an even more unsettling feeling that I can’t shake. These hearings have laid bare just how crippled the staff, systems and structures designed to protect our country really are.
This troubling state of insecurity ought to jolt even the most jaded member of Congress into sitting up straight and starting to think about how to straighten it out really fast. But instead of trying to address the damage to our defenses, Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee, which is conducting the inquiry, opt to exacerbate matters. They are trying to use this broken system to discredit and undermine the witnesses who are testifying to Trump’s bad behavior.
Repeatedly, these members of Congress have asked the public servants testifying— who have information about Trump allegedly pressuring Ukraine into investigating a major political rival, Vice President Joe Biden, and his son in exchange for aid and a White House visit — whether they themselves had ever met the president. The implication they hope will be drawn from their answers that they never once met him is that these individuals lack the stature and direct knowledge to be credible.
Trump himself cast the same aspersion Tuesday, specifically about the top National Security Council expert on Ukraine, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who that day provided devastating testimony about the president’s impropriety in a now-infamous July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Vindman and other staff had listened in on that call from a separate room.
“I don’t know him,” Trump said at Tuesday’s Cabinet meeting
in response to a question about whether Vindman was credible. “I never
saw the man.” It’s worth bearing in mind he said the same thing about Brett McGurk, the former presidential envoy
to counter the Islamic State militant group when he left. It just seems
to be standard practice for the commander in chief not to meet his most
senior advisers.
At the hearing, Ohio Rep. Michael Turner asked Vindman directly: “You’ve never met the president of the United States, right?” And then followed up with, “So you’ve never advised the president of the United States on Ukraine?”
Republican Congressman Michael Turner, standing up for Traitor Trump while attacking a real hero, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman. Michael Turner and the rest of the Treasonous Repugnants standing up for Traitor Trump and attacking the witnesses and whistleblower? Do not even have the right to tie his or any of the other witnesses shoes.
While
Vindman said he advised him “indirectly,” through preparing calls and
materials for him without having met him, Walked rejoined: “But you’ve
never spoken to the president of the United States and told him advice
on Ukraine?” Vindman conceded, “That is correct.”
The problem with putting down Vindman and other witnesses because they never met Trump is that it shows the president’s gross negligence in handling national security rather than the inadequacy of those testifying on impeachment. The lack of contact and communications between the National Security Council and the Oval Office, especially on critical issues such as Ukraine and ISIS, should set off alarm bells; we are precariously close to a catastrophic crash.
When I was on the National Security Council under President Barack Obama, the staff interacted fairly regularly with the big boss. Depending on the portfolio, someone at Vinman’s level could see him every week.
It was our job, as advisers on the White House
body devoted to gathering information and forming policy on
international and security issues, to brief President Barack Obama
before key calls and meetings. So even though I wasn’t particularly
senior, I occasionally spent up to two and a half hours meeting with
him, where there would be opportunities to both present and answer his
questions. Obama was notorious for calling on those sitting on the back
benches to get different views on key issues.
This president is flying blind. I was struck in listening to the testimony over the past week how few of his advisers are consulted on major policy decisions. Sure, we have long known about his tendency to freelance. Yet, there’s a difference between dismissing or discounting advice and never getting it in the first place. I was shocked that Trump had never spoken to either of our top diplomats in Ukraine prior to halting aid and endangering the country.
There are two primary effects of this
disconnect. First, as we have clearly seen in the testimony, our people
have no clue what they are supposed to do. They play an elaborate and
elusive game of telephone, trying to figure out how the heck they should
steer the ship through rough waters. Messages get relayed through
multiple layers in the Trump administration, often passed by external,
self-interested actors.
The second effect is that those who know national security best are unable to warn the president about potential risks or unintended consequences. Trump’s sudden decision to pull our troops out of northern Syria is a prime example of such impulsive and ill-informed decisions. Without the benefit of GPS, we regularly find ourselves driving far off course, as has been the case with North Korea. There is then the challenge of the president taking counsel directly from unscrupulous actors who often drive him into minefields, such as Rudy Giulliani and Lev Parnas, as they did on Ukraine.
And
Trump has gone even further. The president and the White House have
tweeted against Vindman and Vice President Mike Pence’s aide on Ukraine,
Jennifer Williams. During Vindman’s testimony, Trump tweeted that his boss “had concerns about Vindman’s judgment.” And he slammed Williams
as a Never Trumper “who I don’t know.” Attacks like these don’t just
shatter the confidence of Williams and Vindaman but also shake the
confidence of everyone working on the National Security Council.
Our
country is endangered when those responsible for the most serious
threats we face have to worry about personal threats from our leaders.
And the number of those interested in taking on this difficult if
important work will only decrease. Service on this National Security
Council was already fairly unpopular these days. I know from speaking
with friends that many are already shunning the previously prestigious
positions at the White House. The developments of the last few weeks
will make it untenable for many of those who are best qualified for
those positions.
We will end up in a
situation where the most important jobs for protecting our country are
going to be occupied by second- and third-string players. Again, this
creates massive vulnerabilities that should alarm lawmakers and those
responsible for the defense of our country.
What happens when the next person sees
something of concern? After having witnessed the fierce political
attacks to which we now subject whistleblowers and those such as
Williams and Vindman who reluctantly speak up publicly, many will be
simply too afraid to come forward. Instead, they will allow problems to
fester and dangerous decisions to go unchallenged. This again places our
nation in a very serious situation. Fraud, waste and abuse will spread,
eating away at the pillars of stability and security on which our way
of life has depended for so long.
Some may argue that I’m overdramatizing the risks. But the testimony has brought to light some of the dark developments of the last several years. Our national security officials now have little contact with an isolated and erratic president. They don’t have clear guidance or even a basic plan for how to execute our foreign policy. Many of them are overly afraid for their jobs, their colleagues and even their safety. It is exceptionally hard to keep America safe when you’re in the dark, alone and afraid.
Isn’t it amazing how at one time, Republican Congressman Kevin McCarthy said that he thought Putin paid Trump. Now he got his nose buried so deep up inside of Traitor Trump’s asshole? His breath smells like a well used outhouse every time he opens it to defend the treasonous actions of Donald J Trump.
Story Three: Does Ukraine have the DNC server like Trump says? We fact checked that.
President Donald Trump, hitting back after a marathon week of public impeachment hearings, continued Friday to promote the debunked conspiracy that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election, falsely claiming that “a Ukrainian company” is harboring a hacked server belonging to the Democratic National Committee.
During a nearly
hourlong phone interview with “Fox & Friends,” Trump defended his
administration’s freeze on military aid to Ukraine this year as well as
his July 25 call with the Ukrainian president that prompted a whistleblower complaint, saying he was simply trying to root out corruption in the country.
“A
lot of it had to do, they say, with Ukraine,” he began, before alleging
that the country has the DNC server that was hacked in 2016.
“The FBI went in and they told them get out of here, we’re not giving it to you. They gave the server to CrowdStrike … which is a company owned by a very wealthy Ukrainian, and I still want to see that server,” Trump said of the DNC’s actions upon learning that it had been hacked in the run-up to the election. “You know, the FBI has never gotten that server. That’s a big part of this whole thing. Why did they give it to a Ukrainian company?”
Almost none of these claims are remotely true.
CrowdStrike is the California-based cybersecurity firm hired by the DNC to investigate a breach that turned out to be a Russian hack aimed at sowing discord and disrupting the U.S. election. It’s not owned by a wealthy Ukrainian — it’s publicly traded on the Nasdaq. Its largest shareholder is Warburg Pincus, a private equity firm with ties to Trump himself. One of CrowdStrike’s founders, Dmitri Alperovitch, is a Russian-born American citizen, which may be what Trump is getting at. But Alperovitch frequently consults with the U.S. government on cybersecurity, Esquire reported.
It is true that the FBI was not given the DNC’s physical computer equipment, but there’s no evidence that the Democratic Party held anything back from U.S. law enforcement investigating the breach. During investigations, it’s common for physical servers to be digitally copied and preserved as evidence, as Robert Johnston, a cybersecurity expert who led the investigation into the DNC hack in 2016, explained to NBC News earlier this year.
There’s also not just one server, as Trump seems to think. The DNC has said they decommissioned 140 servers and rebuilt 11, to be specific, related to 2016. One of them is on display at the DNC’s office in Washington, next to a filing cabinet broken into by Watergate burglars, according to this 2016 photo in The New York Times.
With those claims, Trump made clear Friday
that he is holding fast to the broader, debunked conspiracy that Ukraine
was responsible for interfering in the 2016 election. Republicans on
the House Intelligence Committee, which is leading the impeachment
inquiry, framed much of their questioning around this idea, so much so
that Trump’s former Russia expert, Fiona Hill, targeted it in her
testimony Thursday for a thorough dismantling.
“Some of you on this committee appear to believe that Russia and its security services did not conduct a campaign against our country — and that perhaps, somehow, for some reason, Ukraine did. This is a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves,” Hill said. “In the course of this investigation, I would ask that you please not promote politically driven falsehoods that so clearly advance Russian interests.”
Hill, one of the foremost U.S. experts on Russian President Vladimir Putin, reiterated in public — as she had in her closed-door testimony — that she would refuse to be a part of “an alternative narrative” that Ukraine was the country that attacked the U.S. in 2016, because it boosts Russian and not American interests.
“These fictions are harmful even if they are deployed for purely domestic political purposes,” she said.
The broader conspiracy of Ukraine election
interference Trump hints at in his interview purports that the
Democratic Party orchestrated, with that nation’s help, the hacking of
their own systems and framed Russia in order to discredit a Trump
presidency.
The president has for years been alluding to this baseless theory — the origins of which NBC News’ Ben Collins traced back
to far-right message boards as early as March 2017 — though he does not
spell it out, perhaps because it’s quite a stretch to suggest that
Democrats ran a massive, international conspiracy to lose the election.
Behind closed doors, Trump has claimed Ukraine tried to stop him from winning.
Ukraine “tried to take me down,” Trump said in a meeting with his advisers, according to the impeachment inquiry testimony of U.S. ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, and Kurt Volker, then-U.S. special envoy to Ukraine.
Despite being repeatedly
dismissed by Trump’s own intelligence community and advisers, the theory
appears to have been a motivating factor behind the efforts of his
personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, to run a highly unusual shadow policy
team with the goal of pressuring the Ukrainian government to announce
investigations into the 2016 election and Burisma Holdings — the
Ukrainian gas company that Hunter Biden joined as a board member in
2014.
Fox News’ Steve Doocy on Friday pressed the president on whether he was “sure” about the claims.
“Are you sure they did that? Are you sure they gave it to Ukraine?” he asked of the DNC server.
“Well, that’s what the word is,” Trump said.
“That’s
what I asked actually in my phone call, if you know. I mean I asked it
very point blank, because we’re looking for corruption. There’s
tremendous corruption. We’re looking for — why should we be giving
hundreds of millions of dollars to countries when there’s this kind of
corruption?”
The foreign aid to Ukraine
that the Trump administration held up for 55 days is one aspect of the
Democratic-led impeachment inquiry, as witnesses have alleged that there was an effort
to condition the release of that aid on public assurances that Ukraine
would launch the politically advantageous investigations Giuliani and
Trump desired
Video One: Ukrainian forces at risk as Trump admin. withheld military aid
The lives of Ukrainian troops fighting a hot war against Russian forces were on the line as the Trump administration withheld aid now at the center of the Trump impeachment inquiry. Retired U.S. Navy Adm. James Stavridis reacts.
Video Two: Jordan interrupts Holmes while answering his question
Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, frequently interrupted David Holmes as he tried to answer his question about a call he overheard between President Trump and Amb. Gordon Sondland.
Republican Congressman Jim Jordan, who protected a pedo doctor, is now protecting a traitor to the United States: Donald J Trump.
Video Three: It doesn’t matter if Trump committed a crime. He should still be impeached.
With impeachment depositions set to begin soon, Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats have narrowed the focus of the impeachment inquiry to Trump’s Ukraine call and the subsequent whistleblower complaint. Corey Brettschneider, professor of political science and policy at Brown University, joined THINK to explain why he thinks that’s a mistake.
Video Four: Trump calls impeachment proceedings an ‘overthrow attempt’ during interview
President Trump dismissed the impeachment proceedings as an “overthrow attempt” during a phone interview with Fox News. NBC News’ Hans Nichols details how this plays into the White House’s strategy.
Video Five: Day 1,037: Trump floats Russian conspiracy theory on Ukraine on FOX News
After Fiona Hill blasted lawmakers on the Hill for sharing a Russian-created conspiracy theory about Ukraine hacking the 2016 U.S. election, Trump went on FOX News and again repeated the bogus allegation.
Video Six: Russia expert Fiona Hill blasts ‘fictional narrative’ of Ukraine election interference
President Trump’s former top Russia advisor Fiona Hill testified on the fifth day of public impeachment hearings, blasting Republicans for unfounded theories of Ukrainian election interference and taking aim at the president’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani. Embassy aide David Holmes also testified, detailing a cell phone conversation he says he overheard between Ambassador Gordon Sondland and Trump.
Video Seven: Hill and Holmes: Everyone knew Burisma investigation was about the Bidens
After Gordon Sondland and Kurt Volker testified they did not realize talk of a Burisma investigation was about the Bidens, Fiona Hill and David Holmes tore that claim apart in their testimony.
Video Nine: ‘I don’t know what the hell Jim Jordan is doing’: Congressman says
Rep. Adam Smith discusses the impeachment inquiry hearings this week and the Republican defense of President Trump. Smith says about Rep. Jim Jordan, “I don’t know what the hell he is doing. He is obviously sticking to this narrative that is untrue.”
House Republicans make it clear they feel Trump has done nothing wrong
House
Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., talking to reporters at the
GOP House leadership press conference, was asked by a reporter if he
would say Trump has done nothing wrong.
“A very clear
yes,” he responded. The cadre of House GOP leaders standing behind him
yelled in affirmation as McCarthy responded.
Responding
to a subsequent question, McCarthy claimed Republicans in Congress will
vote on impeachment — if and when articles are formally introduced —
“based on the facts.”
“Show us the truth. We always vote based on the facts,” he said.
Rep. Jim Jordan: Americans ‘will not tolerate this’
Republican
House leaders, speaking at their post-vote press conference, continued
their criticism of House Democrats, accusing their rival party’s leaders
of going against the wishes of the American people
“The
American people see this for what it is,” Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, the
ranking Republican on the House Oversight and Reform Committee, said.
“They will not tolerate this.”
Rep. Michael McCaul, a
member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, claimed the Democrats’
procedural approach to the impeachment inquiry “defies historic
precedent.”
Rep. Dingell ‘very disturbed by the undue influence’ being put on Republicans
Rep. Debbie Dingell, R-Mich., said Friday that she was “very
disturbed” by the pressure she said is being put on Republican
lawmakers to toe the line during the House impeachment inquiry.
Asked
on Fox News whether Democrats should move forward with impeachment
without GOP backing, Dingell responded, “First of all, I don’t know that
there is no Republican support. I have talked to a number of people who
are deeply disturbed, and they’re being very cautious in their words.
Their arms are being broken, and I’m very disturbed by the undue
influence I’m seeing put on Republicans too.”
Dingell
said what she heard in testimony over the last two weeks “deeply
disturbed” her and would accurately be described as bribery.
“It
is very clear that the Ukrainian president was — the word ‘bribe’ does
work with being told you are not going to get this aid that you need
unless you agree to do this investigation, and you do it publicly,” she
said. “And we do have evidence that money was held up.”
The
congresswoman added that the Intelligence Committee was already
drafting its report, after which the Judiciary Committee will make its
recommendations, and she would wait to see those before coming to any
conclusions about impeachment.
Dingell also weighed in on
the debunked conspiracy theory Trump and his allies have been chasing
that it was really Ukraine, not Russia, that interfered in the 2016
election — which former top Russia expert Fiona Hill called a “fictional narrative” that echoed Russian propaganda during her testimony on Thursday.
“One
of the things we do know and one of the reasons why I have been fearful
about impeachment, but I am getting madder and madder … is that we do
know, there were Republican Cabinet members that testified that Russia
interfered in our last elections. Russia is trying to divide us as a
country. That’s documented in the Mueller report. Intelligence agency
after intelligence agency around the world is saying that they’re trying
to destabilize democracy.
“We need a president that’s
going to protect the United States of America, not help destabilize
democracies around the world,” she said.
DONALD J TRUMP, RUDY GUILIANI, WILLIAM BARR, RICK PERRY, MIKE POMPEO, MITCH MCCONNELL, LINDSEY GRAHAM, MICK MULVANEY, DEVIN NUNES, JIM JORDAN, AND THE REST OF THE REPUBLICANS WHO SUPPORT AND DEFEND DONALD J TRUMP? HAVE ALL COMMITTED HIGH TREASON AGAINST THE UNITED STATES.
18 U.S. Code § 2381. Treason
Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States. (June 25, 1948, ch. 645, 62 Stat. 807; Pub. L. 103–322, title XXXIII, § 330016(2)(J), Sept. 13, 1994, 108 Stat. 2148.)
Treason is an act of disloyalty or betrayal of trust to a person’s own government. Examples include assassination of a state figure, fighting against his or her own nation in a war, assisting enemy combatants, or passing vital government information to the enemy. Historically, this crime has been severely punished, because an act of treason can destroy a nation. In the modern day, a conviction is accompanied at a minimum by a long jail sentence and a heavy fine, and may merit the death penaltyunder certain circumstances.
18 U.S. Code § 2384. Seditious conspiracy
If two or more persons in any State or Territory, or in any place subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof, they shall each be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both. (June 25, 1948, ch. 645, 62 Stat. 808; July 24, 1956, ch. 678, § 1, 70 Stat. 623; Pub. L. 103–322, title XXXIII, § 330016(1)(N), Sept. 13, 1994, 108 Stat. 2148.)
Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States and having knowledge of the commission of any treason against them, conceals and does not, as soon as may be, disclose and make known the same to the President or to some judge of the United States, or to the governor or to some judge or justice of a particular State, is guilty of misprision of treason and shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than seven years, or both. (June 25, 1948, ch. 645, 62 Stat. 807; Pub. L. 103–322, title XXXIII, § 330016(1)(H), Sept. 13, 1994, 108 Stat. 2147.)
While we may not be officially at war with Russia and Putin, we are in a proxy war with them through the Ukraine. The Ukraine is an ally of ours. We are supporting and helping them because of the Russian invasion and annexation of Crimea and their proxy war, using Russians, to overtake the Ukraine. We are in essence? In a proxy war, defending the Ukraine against Russia and Putin against their invasion of the Ukraine.
This would be similar to what Traitor Trump just did in helping his disgusting, dicktater buddy Erdogan in Turkey and Syria and his now allowing the Kurds to be slaughtered by the Russian backed and supported Turkish government.
By Traitor Trump withholding the funds and the military weapons that were to go to the Ukraine, under the rules and laws of Congress, that approved these funds and military weapons for the Ukraine to fight the Russian invasion and Putin? All so he could have the Ukrainians dig up dirt on Biden and all the bullshit con of the DNC server? He immediately gave aid and comfort to his Puppet Master, Putin and Russia and by his actions? Caused Ukrainians to be killed. This again? Is giving aid and comfort to our enemy Russia and Putin.
Russia’s Crimea plan detailed, secret and successful
The annexation of Crimea was the
smoothest invasion of modern times. It was over before the outside world
realised it had even started.
And until Tuesday 18 March, when a
group of pro-Russian gunmen attacked a small Ukrainian army base in
Simferopol, killing one officer and injuring another, it was entirely
bloodless.
For much of February, thousands of extra soldiers were
quietly sent in to the bases which Russia was permitted by treaty to
own in Crimea. Civilian “volunteers” moved in too. The plan was carried
out secretly and with complete success.
The first obvious sign that Crimea was being taken over was on Friday 28 February, when checkpoints were established at Armyansk and Chongar – the two main road crossings from mainland Ukraine to the Crimean peninsula.
These
cut-off points were controlled by men wearing a variety of uniforms:
Ukrainian army, Ukrainian police, as well as camouflage without national
insignia. Several wore civilian clothes.
When I tried to get
through the Armyansk checkpoint on Saturday 1 March, together with a BBC
cameraman, these men were hostile and threatening.
They stole the
bags containing our body armour from the boot of our taxi, and went
through our suitcases aggressively, pulling out the things inside and
dropping some of them on the road. They took our camera away and filched
the expensive electronic recording cards from it, together with the
camera battery.
They knew exactly what they were looking for.
There were more bags containing body armour piled up at the side of the
road, where other journalists had tried to get through before us.
The
men at the checkpoint were stopping everyone except local people from
passing through. I found it hard to work out what was going on.
It was only when one of them, wearing a police uniform, called out “Welcome to Russia!” that I understood – their uniforms might be Ukrainian, but they were sealing off Crimea on behalf of Moscow.
By the next day, Sunday 2 March, it was all over. The outside world
was still expecting Russian ships to arrive and capture Crimea. But it
had already happened by stealth.
On Sunday and Monday the
Ukrainian military bases were taken over by tough-looking soldiers. They
carried the latest Russian military weapons, but their uniforms had
neither national or unit markings, nor badges of rank.
Alongside
them were the “volunteers” – usually older men, many of whom had
apparently come in from Russia itself. Some wore bits and pieces of
uniform, others plain clothes. They lined up outside the Ukrainian bases
and prevented anyone getting too close.
Presumably they were
Russian reservists. They were tough and aggressive, but they obeyed the
orders of their superiors. Many were obviously heavy drinkers, and at
night a few were openly drunk.
Yet their discipline held. There was no looting, and although their behaviour was threatening they did not attack civilians.
In the days that followed, other groups appeared. These were genuine volunteers, who had come from Moscow to join what they saw as the liberation of Crimea. I spoke to three members of an ultra-nationalist group whose uniforms bore the colours of an extreme royalist organisation.
They were all from Moscow, and they all planned to move on from Crimea to the mainly Russian-speaking cities of Kharkiv and Donetsk. Why? To show solidarity, they said.
Later I came across a
group of seven or eight bikers wearing leathers with badges of rank on
them – president, vice-president and so on. They had also come down from
Moscow, and were planning to head off to Kharkiv and Donetsk. “It’s a
great day,” the “president” said.
But these were
Johnny-come-latelys – amateurs who just wanted to join the fun. There
was absolutely no sign the Russian government had sent them.
In
modern times, Moscow has staged three major invasions: Hungary in
November 1956 and Czechoslovakia in August 1968, when the Communist
governments there began showing dangerously Western tendencies; and
Afghanistan in December 1979, when the pro-Communist regime was on the
point of collapse.
These were huge and brutal operations, involving large numbers of tanks, and sometimes great bloodshed.
The
takeover of Crimea has been completely different. This was an
infiltration, not an invasion. And unlike in Hungary, Czechoslovakia and
Afghanistan it was welcomed by a large proportion of the local
population.
According to a well-known opponent of Mr Putin’s, the
vote in Crimea to join the Russian Federation was “a referendum under
the Kalashnikov”. But it wasn’t. The outcome was what the vast majority
of Russian-speakers in Crimea really wanted, and there was little need
for Kalashnikovs in the streets.
Those who wanted to keep Crimea a part of Ukraine were far too shocked and intimidated to resist.
The
entire operation was very cleverly planned and carried out. But there
is absolutely no doubt what it was – a remarkable, quick and mostly
bloodless coup d’etat.
How U.S. military aid became a lifeline for Ukraine
The U.S. provided about $1.5 billion in military aid to Kiev between 2014 and this past June, according to a Congressional Research Service analysis.
The military aid scandal that spawned
the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump has a very different
significance for Ukraine, where years of U.S. assistance have just
begun to turn a ragtag army into a better-armed and professional force to counter Russian aggression.
The U.S. has provided about $1.5 billion in military support to Kiev between 2014 and this past June, according to an updated analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. And Trump’s temporary cut off of the aid represented a significant setback for the country.
“Ukraine would never be where it is without that support from the United States,” said Ash Carter, who served as President Barack Obama’s defense secretary from 2015 to 2017. “Everything we were doing there to train their military forces, their National Guard, to improve the professionalism and reduce corruption in the defense ministry … all that was critical.”
Before the aid influx, “the
Ukrainian military was in woeful shape,” said Mariya Omelicheva, a
professor of national security strategy at the Pentagon’s National
Defense University who specializes in the region.
“There has been a tangible, measurable impact,” added Omelicheva, who visited the Ukrainian training center in March. And beyond that, she said, the help created “an immeasurable, psychological impact — that the U.S. has our back.”
Now Trump’s aborted aid cutoff — first reported by POLITICO in late August
— has mushroomed into a titanic political fight, centered on
allegations that the president was using the military assistance as
leverage to push Ukraine’s government to investigate former Vice
President Joe Biden and his son Hunter. House oversight committees are
demanding more data from the White House Office of Management and Budget
on when and how the decision to sever the aid arose, including
requesting that some documentation be delivered to Capitol Hill by
Tuesday.
The military aid program has steadily
shifted American support in recent years much more heavily toward
security after economic development, loan guarantees and anti-corruption
programs defined much of the support following Ukraine’s independence
from the Soviet Union in 1991.
The U.S. bumped up its military support in 2014, soon after a popular uprising ousted President Viktor Yanukovych, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Russian troops annexed the Crimean peninsula while fomenting a separatist uprising in eastern Ukraine’s Donbass region.
The vast majority of the funds, approved with bipartisan support in Congress, has financed items such as sniper rifles; rocket-propelled grenade launchers; counter-artillery radars; command and control and communications systems; night vision goggles; medical equipment; as well training and logistical support.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is especially interested in buying more Javelin anti-tank missiles to combat Russian tanks and other armored vehicles — a topic he broached during his July 25 telephone call with Trump that is at the center of the impeachment inquiry .
“Mr. Trump brought up American aid to
that country — without explicitly mentioning that he had just frozen a
military aid package of hundreds of millions of dollars — and then
pressed the Ukrainian leader to investigate Mr. Biden,” says the unclassified
copy of the whistleblower complaint that the Trump administration
released last week. “White House officials believed they had witnessed
Trump abuse his power for personal political gain.”
The call came a week after Trump ordered his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, to instruct OMB to halt the remainder of $390 million in military aid appropriated by Congress this year in the Pentagon and State Department budgets. The administration released the aid earlier this month after demands from Congress.
Even before the current furor,
questions of how much or how little to help Ukraine’s military counter
Russian aggression have embroiled Washington for years.
Nowhere was it more pointed than the Ukrainians’ request, as far back as 2014, to purchase the advanced Javelin anti-tank missiles.
The Javelin issue “became fetishized
and it became a litmus test: ‘Will you stand up to Putin or will you
kowtow to him?’” said Samuel Charap, a former senior adviser at the
State Department specializing in Russia and Eurasia. “It was like a
Rorschach test.
“It had nothing to do with the merits
of the Javelin or the question of what would actually be most effective
and important for helping Ukraine,” added Charap, who is now a senior
political scientist at the government-funded Rand Corp.
The Obama administration agonized over
the issue but never approved the sale out of fear of escalating the
conflict — despite entreaties from Carter, who served in several top
Pentagon positions at the time.
The aim was to “do everything we could within the boundaries of what was wise without baiting the Russians into doing something worse,” recalled Chuck Hagel, the former Republican senator who was Obama’s secretary of defense from 2013 to 2015.
The Javelins also helped spur a controversy over the Republican Party’s platform in 2016, after Trump’s campaign succeeded in watering down anti-Russia language and ensuring it would not call for “providing lethal defensive weapons” to Ukraine.
Yet once Trump was in office , the Ukrainian government and its allies in Congress kept pushing the request.
Finally, in 2018, long after the
Russian tanks pulled back from the front, the State Department finally
approved a foreign military sale of 210 Javelin missiles, along with
launchers and training, for $47 million.
Charap said the missiles’ military value was limited — they “ended up on the other side of the country from where the conflict is and under lock and key.” But they held significant value in eastern Ukraine, where retired U.S. Army Maj. Gen. John Gronski credits the missiles with helping to stabilize the military crisis by “deterring the separatists from bringing armor into the region.”
The Ukrainians “really appreciate the
Javelins,” said Gronski, who served as the deputy commanding general of
U.S. Army Europe until June of this year.
Michael Kofman, a senior research
scientist at CNA, a government-funded think tank, also called the
Javelins an “insurance policy” against Russian escalation.
But in Carter’s view, “its political significance was greater than its military significance.”
However, the less controversial military aid — including some of the $390 million dollars slated to go to Ukraine this year from the Pentagon and State Department — has come to represent a lifeline for the Ukrainian military, which has achieved key milestones in recent months.
And Trump’s recent assertion that the
aid initiated under Obama has merely provided “sheets and pillows” is
directly refuted by those who oversaw it.
The Pentagon, which opposed cutting off the
aid this summer, told Congress in May that efforts to help reform the
country’s military and armaments industry, which has historically been
notoriously corrupt, have paid major dividends.
“Through these engagements, the United
States has effectively helped Ukraine advance institutional reforms
through a number of substantial actions to align Ukraine’s defense
enterprise more closely with NATO standards and principles,” John Rood,
the undersecretary of Defense for policy, told oversight committees.
He certified that Ukraine’s military
“has taken substantial actions” to tackle corruption, improve
accountability and is “sustaining improvements to combat capability
enabled by U.S. assistance.”
That applies especially to the
U.S.-financed military training, which takes place at the Yavoriv
training center in western Ukraine near the border with Poland.
Initially, American, Polish,
Lithuanian and Canadian troops conducted the training of Ukrainian
forces — first for smaller, company-sized units of several hundred
soldiers and then up to the level of a brigade, which can include
thousands of troops.
But now, battle-experienced Ukrainian troops are conducting most of the training, Gronski said, leaving the U.S. forces “in more of an observer role.”
And U.S. instruction in combat
medicine has had a direct impact on the battlefield in the east, Gronski
said. “Several times, across several visits, Ukrainian battalion
commanders told me that those kits and that training absolutely saved
lives.”
So here we see that Traitor Trump, in his actions, gave aid and comfort to our enemy Russia and his Puppet Master Putin, in his withholding the funds and military weapons to the Ukraine to fight the Russians annexation of Crimea and their proxy war against the Ukraine. And this costed Ukrainians lives by his actions.
And by Traitor Trump and the Republicans spreading the bullshit story that it was the Ukraine and not the Russians and Putin who interfered in the election of Traitor Donald J Trump? They are all giving aid and comfort to the enemy Russia and Putin.They are spreading the bullshit propoganda of Putin and Russia on Ukraine everywhere to defend the actions of this treasonous scumbag Donald J Trump.
While we are in essence a peacetime and not at officially declared war with Putin and Russia? Historical prosecution of people who have been arrested, tried and convicted and executed for Treason against the United States during peacetime? Is the case of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg.
Julius Rosenberg and Ethel Rosenberg, Ethel Rosenberg née Ethel Greenglass, (respectively, born May 12, 1918, New York, New York, U.S.—died June 19, 1953, Ossining, New York; born September 28, 1915, New York City—died June 19, 1953, Ossining), the first American civilians to be executed for espionage and the first to suffer that penalty during peacetime.
The Rosenbergs were charged with espionage and brought to trial on March 6, 1951; Greenglass was the chief witness for the prosecution. On March 29 they were found guilty, and on April 5 the couple was sentenced to death. (Sobell and Gold received 30-year prison terms, and Greenglass, who was tried separately, was sentenced to 15 years in prison.) For two years the Rosenberg case was appealed through the courts and before world opinion. The constitutionality and applicability of the Espionage Act of 1917, under which the Rosenbergs were tried, as well as the impartiality of the trial judge, Irving R. Kaufman—who in pronouncing sentence had accused them of a crime “worse than murder”—were key issues during the appeals process. Seven different appeals reached the Supreme Court of the United States and were denied, and pleas for executive clemency were dismissed by Pres. Harry Truman in 1952 and Pres. Dwight Eisenhower in 1953. A worldwide campaign for mercy failed, and the Rosenbergs were executed in the electric chair at Sing Sing Prison in Ossining, New York. Ethel became the first woman executed by the U.S. government since Mary Surratt was hanged in 1865 for her alleged role in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
If Julius and Ethel Rosenberg can be prosecuted for High Treason against the United States, during peacetime? Then the same rules and laws can be used that prosecuted them, 18 U.S. Code § 2381. Treason , and sedition: 18 U.S. Code § 2384. Seditious conspiracy for the treasonous actions on the crimes of Donald J Trump, Rudy Guiliani, William Barr, Mick Mulvaney, et al and their withholding Congressionally approved funds and military weapons to go to the Ukraine, to fight the Russians and Putin’s invasion of and annexation of Crimea and their war against Ukraine, who are our ally. This gave aid and comfort to our enemy, Russia and Putin.
Any Republican Senator or Congressperson who stands up and defends Traitor Trump and spreads the bullshit lies that it was the Ukraine that interfered in our elections and not the Russians, as has been proven? Then they are in fact? Guilty of 18 U.S. Code § 2382. Misprision of treason. Such as Senators Lindsey Graham, Mitch McConnell, and Congressmen Devin Nunes, Jim Jordan and many others.
Moscow Mitch, Putin Puppet and Treasonous Russian Republican Traitor to the United States.
This is a great read on the disaster that is Donald J Trump.
Anti Trump Meme Slideshow
Yeah, I can admit I hate Donald J Trump and many of these memes exposes this scumbag piece of shit, this Putin Puppet Traitor, this sell out to our country, this racist bigot, this misogynist pig, this pervert pedophile, this incestual prick, this disgusting low life sub human troglodyte, this pathological liar.
And if you do not hate his ass? Then I call you a Traitor to this Country.
If President Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, George W Bush, or any other President has done what Traitor Trump has done? I would also call it High Treason and demand he face the music for his crimes.
Donald J Trump committed High Treason against the United States by withholding the funds a bipartisan Congress passed to help the Ukraine fight against our enemy, Putin and Russia, that invaded the Ukraine, annexed Crimea and is fighting a proxy war against the Ukraine, who happens to be one of the most strategic security allies we have in Europe. He has also stalled the Ukrainians from receiving much needed arms, ammo and secure communications equipment they so desperately need to fight against Putin and Russia from taking over their country in their proxy war. By doing so? Traitor Trump aided and comforted our enemy, Russia and Putin, and because he did so so he could get dirt on Joe Biden Jr and his son for his election campaign? Well? He should get sent to Gitmo to get the full penalty of death.
Because Traitor Donald J Trump decided it was more important to get dirt on Joe Biden Jr and his son so he could maybe win the re-election? He did in fact? Commit High Treason against the United States. And his little lawyer troll Ghouliani? Is also guilty of committing High Treason against the United States. And? Attorney General William Barr? Is guilty of being an accessory to the crime of High Treason against the United States. Any member of Trump’s cabinet who participated in this? Or helped in the cover-up of it? Are guilty of the crime of being accessories to, or accessories after the fact, to the crime of High Treason against the United States.
ANY Republican Senator or House Member, who stands up and defends Traitor Trump and his actions? Are in fact? Guilty of obstruction of justice and being accessories to the crime of Treason Against the United States. From Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Rick Santorum, Joni Earnst, to any other Republican who has betrayed their oath of office and sides with these treasonous and traitous actions against this country perpetrated by Donald J Trump or his administration or Rudy Giuliani.
ANY PUNDIT from Fox News, Breibart or anywhere else, including Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, et al? Who stands up and defends Donald J Trump and his treasonous actions against the United States? Are guilty of the crimes of being accessories to Treason against the United States. If they push the bullshit proven lies about Biden etc? Then they are guilty of obstruction of justice and other crimes.
When Traitor Trump, #MoscowMitchMcConnell and the treasous Republicans were voted into office? That is when we started electing traitors to our political offices.
LET’S SEE THE TRUTH AND THE FACTS HERE SHALL WE THAT PROVES THAT TRUMP AND THE REST HAVE COMMITTED HIGH TREASON AGAINST THE UNITED STATES.
The whistleblower complaint at the center of Congress’ impeachment inquiry alleges that President Donald Trump abused the power of his office to “solicit interference from a foreign country” in next year’s U.S. election. The White House then tried to “lock down” the information to cover it up, the complaint says.
The 9-page document released Thursday fleshes out the circumstances of a summertime phone call in which Trump encouraged his Ukraine counterpart to help investigate a political rival, alleges a central role for one of the president’s personal lawyers and a suggests a concerted White House effort to suppress the exact transcript, including by relocating it to a separate computer system.
From: Whistleblower: White House tried to ‘lock down’ call details
Trump’s impeachment is the only option after Ukraine call transcript
Laurence H. Tribe, Opinion contributor
Let us count the ways. The White House readout of President Donald Trump’s phone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky
shows that the American president has committed a multitude of high
crimes and misdemeanors, all of them impeachable. Even without
considering the many prior offenses that were surfaced in the Mueller
report and in the special counsel’s prosecutions
of numerous Trump allies and associates, including in the Southern
District of New York, this readout — which must be the least
incriminating version the White House could compose despite its
remarkable skills at shading the truth or falsifying it altogether — is
utterly devastating.
The “high crimes and misdemeanors” that the readout reveals — to use the Constitution’s term for impeachable offenses beyond “treason” and “bribery” (both of which the readout comes close to establishing) — begin with Trump abusing the foreign policy powers entrusted to the president by Article II in order to serve his own political interests rather than the interests of the American people.
Ukraine pressed by Trump, Russia
Those interests were defined here by a bipartisan decision of the Congress we elected to represent us in world affairs using its Article I spending power: Congress decided that it was in our nation’s security interest to provide nearly $400 million in aid to the beleaguered patriots of an American ally fighting a bloody battle with an American adversary. The ally was Ukraine. The adversary was Russia, which had — not so coincidentally — tried to help Trump win office in 2016.
Even if this action weren’t payback to Russian President Vladimir Putin and yet another indication of how beholden Trump is to that brutal dictator — which it may well have been — it was a blatant usurpation of Congress’ Appropriation Clause authority for Trump to withhold the aid the Ukranians needed. When asked by Ukraine’s president in this July 25 phone call to purchase more Javelin missiles from the United States for defense purposes, Trump responded that he would gladly do so, although — he actually used the word “though” — he would greatly appreciate that foreign president’s aid in, among other things, gathering evidence to effectively help prosecute Trump’s main rival for the presidency in the forthcoming election.
Putin’s Puppet Donald J Trump.
Imagine the outrage, not to mention the judicial rebuke, that would have followed if Congress had overtly conditioned aid to a country being overrun by Russia
upon that country’s agreement to apparently advance the political
ambitions of the incumbent president! That this plainly unconstitutional
condition was instead subtly interposed by Trump himself only makes the
matter more egregious.
Campaign finance law is clear
In addition, despite the Department of Justice’s conclusion to the contrary, the campaign assistance that Trump sought in implicit exchange for his releasing the funds Congress had appropriated and Ukraine desperately needed clearly violates the same federal laws governing our elections that the president arguably violated to get himself elected in the first place — namely, the statutes making it illegal for a candidate in an American election to solicit or accept anything “of value” from a foreign source.
Making Trump’s lawlessness all the more egregious was his enlisting William
Barr, the nation’s attorney general, to work with Trump’s own
consigliere, Rudy Giuliani, in digging up dirt in Ukraine on former Vice
President Joe Biden, a leading candidate for the opposing party’s
presidential nomination, and Biden’s surviving son, Hunter.
Never mind the cruelty and vindictiveness of selecting this particular target for his rage. Sadism is not an impeachable offense. Never mind the odds that the president’s hatred for his predecessor, President Barack Obama, probably drove his obsession with hurting Obama’s handpicked vice president. Envy isn’t impeachable either.
And never mind that there is no credible evidence that Biden or his son violated any law. Even if they had, for a president to conscript the highest law enforcement official in the land, one paid by and legally bound to serve the American people, to do his personal and political bidding in an effort not only to smear but to also criminally prosecute a political foe is the stuff of novels about banana republics, not of the America I know and whose Constitution and laws I have spent a lifetime defending.
Remember when we had a REAL President? Barack Obama was one. He had such dignity, grace, intelligence. He rose above it all, despite all the shit that white supremacist assholes threw at him, all the crap that #MoscowMitch and the treasonous #Republicans did to him.
And now look who the hell we got. Asshole in Chief and First Slut.
The least of it is that using personnel paid by American taxpayers, whether civilians like Barr or military personnel like the pilots involved in landing at the Scottish airfield near Trump’s failing golf course, is a way of supplementing his congressionally fixed compensation in violation of the Domestic Emoluments Clause of Article II.
Worse than that is any president’s very decision to turn the Department of Justice into his personal law firm and weaponizing it against his political opponents, one of many violations of the president’s Oath of Office.
Whatever other evidence the House impeachment inquiry launched by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday might uncover, we already know enough to say:
Donald J. Trump has committed high crimes and misdemeanors against the United States and must be impeached.
From Trump’s impeachment is the only option after Ukraine call transcript Opinion piece by Professor Laurence H. Tribe.
Campaign Finance Law: When “Collusion” with a Foreign Government Becomes a Crime by Bob Bauer.
Former White House Counsel to President Obama (2010-2011). Professor of Practice and Distinguished Scholar in Residence at New York University School of Law.
*Bloggers note. This is just the first part, in a three part series essay written by Bob Bauer. This one I posted so you can get an idea of what kinds of violations Traitor Trump did during the 2016 campaign with Russia and Putin and gives the backdrop to what he has now done in the Ukrainian scandal and treasonous actions.
You can find part two and three if you follow the link and then the sub links there.
(ii) An
individual who is not a citizen of the United States and who is not
lawfully admitted for permanent residence, as defined in 8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(20); however,
(iii)Foreign national
shall not include any individual who is a citizen of the United States,
or who is a national of the United States as defined in 8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(22).
(4)Knowingly means that a person must:
(i) Have actual knowledge that the source of the funds solicited, accepted or received is a foreign national;
(ii) Be aware of facts that would lead a reasonable person to conclude that there is a substantial probability that the source of the funds solicited, accepted or received is a foreign national; or
(iii) Be aware of facts that would lead a reasonable person to inquire whether the source of the funds solicited, accepted or received is a foreign national, but the person failed to conduct a reasonable inquiry.
(5) For purposes of paragraph (a)(4) of this section, pertinent facts include, but are not limited to:
(i) The contributor or donor uses a foreign passport or passport number for identification purposes;
(ii) The contributor or donor provides a foreign address;
(iii) The contributor or donor makes a contribution or donation by means of a check or other written instrument drawn on a foreign bank or by a wire transfer from a foreign bank; or
(iv) The contributor or donor resides abroad.
(6)Solicit has the same meaning as in 11 CFR 300.2(m).
(7)Safe Harbor. For purposes of paragraph (a)(4)(iii)
of this section, a person shall be deemed to have conducted a
reasonable inquiry if he or she seeks and obtains copies of current and
valid U.S. passport papers for U.S. citizens who are contributors or
donors described in paragraphs (a)(5)(i) through (iv) of this section.
No person may rely on this safe harbor if he or she has actual knowledge
that the source of the funds solicited, accepted, or received is a
foreign national.
(b)Contributions and donations by foreign nationals in connection with elections.
A foreign national shall not, directly or indirectly, make a
contribution or a donation of money or other thing of value, or
expressly or impliedly promise to make a contribution or a donation, in
connection with any Federal, State, or local election.
(c)Contributions and donations by foreign nationals to political committees and organizations of political parties. A foreign national shall not, directly or indirectly, make a contribution or donation to:
(1) A political committee of a political party, including a national party committee, a national congressional campaign committee, or a State, district, or local party committee, including a non-Federal account of a State, district, or local party committee, or
(2) An organization of a political party whether or not the organization is a political committee under 11 CFR 100.5.
(d)Contributions and donations by foreign nationals for office buildings. A foreign national shall not, directly or indirectly, make a contribution or donation to a committee of a political party for the purchase or construction of an office building. See11 CFR 300.10 and 300.35.
(e)Disbursements by foreign nationals for electioneering communications. A foreign national shall not, directly or indirectly, make any disbursement for an electioneering communication as defined in 11 CFR 100.29.
(f)Expenditures, independent expenditures, or disbursements by foreign nationals in connection with elections.
A foreign national shall not, directly or indirectly, make any
expenditure, independent expenditure, or disbursement in connection with
any Federal, State, or local election.
(g)Solicitation, acceptance, or receipt of contributions and donations from foreign nationals.
No person shall knowingly solicit, accept, or receive from a foreign
national any contribution or donation prohibited by paragraphs (b)
through (d) of this section.
(h)Providing substantial assistance.
(1) No person shall knowingly provide substantial assistance in the solicitation, making, acceptance, or receipt of a contribution or donation prohibited by paragraphs (b) through (d), and (g) of this section.
(2) No
person shall knowingly provide substantial assistance in the making of
an expenditure, independent expenditure, or disbursement prohibited by
paragraphs (e) and (f) of this section.
(i)Participation by foreign nationals in decisions involving election-related activities.
A foreign national shall not direct, dictate, control, or directly or
indirectly participate in the decision-making process of any person,
such as a corporation, labor organization, political committee, or
political organization with regard to such person’s Federal or
non-Federal election-related activities, such as decisions concerning
the making of contributions, donations, expenditures, or disbursements
in connection with elections for any Federal, State, or local office or
decisions concerning the administration of a political committee.
(j)Donations by foreign nationals to inaugural committees. A foreign national shall not, directly or indirectly, make a donation to an inaugural committee, as defined in 11 CFR 104.21(a)(1). No person shall knowingly accept from a foreign national any donation to an inaugural committee. [67 FR 69950, Nov. 19, 2002, as amended at 69 FR 59780, Oct. 6, 2004]
I sure the hell call it treason. Of course Moscow Mitch, Lindsey Graham and many Repugnant traitors will stand with this kind of treason, as long as it benefits them.
Now onto the story:
Commentary on Russian intervention in the 2016 elections has included
one confidently expressed and perhaps growing view: that there may be a
scandal there, but no conceivable crime. It is claimed that the Trump
campaign could wink and nod at Russian hacking, and derive the full
benefit, but that without considerably more evidence of direct
involvement, there is no role for criminal law enforcement. The matter
is then left to Congress to consider whether new laws are needed, and
the public, of course, will render its judgment in opinion polls and in
elections still to come.
This view is flawed. It fails to consider the potential campaign
finance violations, as suggested by the facts so far known, under
existing law. These violations are criminally enforceable.
It would not be the first time Congress wrestled with these questions
of foreign interference with the US electoral process. Following the
1996 elections, the Republican Party concluded that the victorious Bill
Clinton had benefited from foreign intervention in his election. Its
Senate majority organized hearings, chaired by the late Senator Fred
Thompson, who opened them with the declaration
that high-level Chinese officials had committed substantial sums of
money to influence the presidential election. The ensuing investigation,
which included a parallel criminal inquiry, did not live up to Senator
Thompson’s most dramatic claims, but Congress later amended the law to
tighten the long-standing prohibition against foreign national spending
in federal elections. On this point, there was bipartisan unity: that
the law should stand clearly and without gaping loopholes against
foreign interference in American elections.
Then the issue made a dramatic return in this last presidential
election, but with a major difference. This time, there is no doubt
that a foreign state, Russia, devoted resources to influence the outcome
of the 2016 election. But unlike 1996, the manner of this
intervention—the hacking of emails, the dissemination of fake news—has
directed much of the legal discussion to computer security and espionage
statutes. The controversy has not had the “feel” of a classic case
about political spending. It has come across in press reporting and
public discussion as a tale of 21st century cyber-crime and foreign
intelligence service skullduggery—more sophisticated international
intrigue than Watergate’s “third-rate burglary” and associated cover-up.
“Unlike the Watergate investigation, which began with a break-in,” the
New Yorker’s and CNN’s Jeffrey Toobin has written,
“it is not immediately clear what crimes may have been committed.” And
even if there might be criminal wrongdoing somewhere in this Trump
campaign-Russia relationship, commentators have tended to doubt that there is yet sufficient hard evidence of it.
Yet even on the information so far available, there are solid grounds
for paying close attention to the potential campaign finance
violations. The case is more or less hiding in plain sight.
The law
prohibits foreign nationals from providing “anything of value … in
connection with” an election. The hacking of the Podesta emails, which
were then transmitted to Wikileaks for posting, clearly had value, and
its connection to the election is not disputed. None other than the
Republican nominee said so publicly, egging on the Russians to locate
and publish Clinton emails to aid his campaign. He famously declared:
“I will tell you this, Russia: If you’re listening, I hope you’re able
to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.” One well known Trump
confidante, Roger Stone, is among those backing the President’s
candidacy who offered similar contemporaneous statements
about the value placed on these disclosures (and who, having intimated
that he had inside information about when the materials would be
released, now faces inquiries from the Congress (and from the Special
Counsel’s investigation)).
There is a fair question of what sort of involvement beyond vocalized
glee would subject Americans to liability for these foreign
intelligence activities. The relevant regulation
suggests that something more is required: at least “substantial
assistance” to the foreign spender in providing this “thing of value.”
Does a presidential campaign render this substantial assistance to a
foreign national engaged in influencing an election by endorsing the
specific activity and confirming its strategic utility? When the
Federal Election Commission (FEC) promulgated this ban on “substantial
assistance,” it said little about its scope. It did make clear
that the term was to be broadly construed. It offered the concrete
example of a U.S. citizen acting as a “conduit or intermediary” for
foreign spending, but noted that this was provided as only one example.
It expressly left open other possibilities.
The President and others associated with the campaign made no bones
about the value to them of the purloined email communications. The
President told a rally of supporters he “loved” Wikileaks and read from the hacked communication to support his attack
on his opponent for “a degree of corruption at the highest levels of
our government like nothing we have ever seen as a country before.” He
drew on the emails in the debates
with Secretary Clinton. Notably, when he was asked during the debates
to acknowledge the Russian program of interference and given the
opportunity to openly oppose the actions, he wouldn’t do so. He also
mentioned Wikileaks 124 times
in the last month of the campaign. The Russians could only have been
strengthened in the conviction that their efforts were welcome and had
value. That covers the evidence in plain sight.
Of course, investigators will examine whether there were Trump
campaign communications or private assurances to foreign
nationals—including Russians and associates of Wikileaks acting as their
“agents”—to encourage them or help coordinate the dissemination of
these materials. Coordination at this level could well trigger the
application of other provisions of the rules directed at the political
campaign’s acceptance or receipt of the Russian assistance, or even its
direct solicitation of it. But the “substantial assistance” prong would
cover the more indirect of the Trump campaign activities—including
public statements—that were conducted at more of a distance, and yet
still intended to signal the Russians that help was needed and of
“value.”
A Trump defense may include the claim that he and his campaign cannot
be constitutionally subjected to legal liability for any public
statements on the campaign trail. They may try to frame their statements
as rough-and-tumble political commentary on Russian behavior that,
while helpful to the Republican nominee, neither Trump nor his
associates clearly requested or for which they can be held responsible.
This First Amendment defense is at least at the mercy of whatever facts
are still uncovered about the extent of any “collusion.” But even with
just a little more in the way of fact, with the addition of detail to an
already well-established outline, the Trump campaign’s position is
precarious. How strongly does the First Amendment protect a presidential
nominee’s mobilization of foreign government support for his
candidacy—support achieved through illegal activities?
A test of this constitutional defense is whether it relies somehow on
the fact that Trump and his campaign were open and notorious in
courting Russian assistance. Presumably, had they pursued this
assistance behind closed doors, few would question the legal
significance of the understanding reached with a foreign government
supporter. It would be remarkable to maintain that this appeal for help
is converted into constitutionally protected speech because the speaker
has chosen to have much or all of the conversation in public.
Recent developments in the law speak clearly to the strength of the
government’s interest in an expansive enforcement of the ban on foreign
national involvement in U.S. elections. In 2012, in Bluman v. Federal Election Commission,
a federal appellate court ruled, and the Supreme Court affirmed, that
lawful resident aliens had no First Amendment right to contribute to
American candidates and political committees. More importantly, the
court emphasized that foreign national political intervention implicated
a principle “fundamental to the definition of our national political
community,” which is that “foreign citizens do not have a constitutional
right to participate in, and thus may be excluded from, activities of
democratic self-government.” At stake was “part of the sovereign’s
obligation to preserve the basic conception of a political community.”
It will be no minor feat for Trump campaign lawyers, relying on Donald
Trump’s free speech rights, to overcome what the court called this
“foundational” interest.
The law as written already treats speech as a factor in potential
violations of the ban on foreign national political spending. A foreign
national may not “participate,” or “control” or “direct” decisions on
contributions or expenditures. This is a speech-centered restriction. So
a foreign national working for the foreign parent of a US corporation
(let alone a foreign national resident in the United States) may not
discuss with an American PAC Director plans for making contributions or
expenditures, and it is immaterial for this purpose that the revenues on
which the PAC will draw for the contribution was generated within the
United States. And it is not only a question of the foreign national’s
speech (to which, of course, no First Amendment protection attaches).
The American PAC Director’s own speech is relevant to a finding of
illegal “participation,” if the conversation indicates that the PAC
Director is seeking permission, yielding control over the decision, or
merely soliciting the foreign national’s opinion on how to spend the
money. A statement like Donald Trump’s that he “loves WikiLeaks,” or
that he hopes that more will be done to bring to light Clinton emails,
would be evidence in such a conversation that his foreign national
interlocutor was “participating” in a decision on political spending in
connection with the election.
Trump and his campaign might argue that the hacking and dissemination
of the emails were not political spending—not, in a technical sense,
“contributions” nor “expenditures”—covered by the federal campaign
finance law. Perhaps so, but they were something of value, and the
statute and related regulations of the FEC separately prohibit any
value given by a foreign national. Of course, the Trump campaign might
take up the fight on this issue and litigate it. It would then have
the thankless task of persuading a court that a presidential candidate
can invite, then warmly accept and exploit, the activities of a foreign
intelligence service because it is a particular kind of “value,” not a
conventional contribution or expenditure. The campaign will have an
even harder time if it is established that Russians distributed
information through online bots, the creation of DC Leaks in the United
States, or the payment for online advertising.
What is also exceptional about the Trump case, distinguishing it from
other forms of national electioneering, is the absence of any question
about intent, or state of mind. In the most recent round of revisions to
its rules, the FEC went to some lengths to allow a candidate or
political committee to establish that it did not reasonably know about
the foreign source of the contribution or expenditure or other value
received. (11 C.F.R. § 110.20 (a)(4),(7)). This is no help to the Trump campaign which certainly had every reason to know that, as widely reported and declared officially
by the US government, Russia was behind the hacking. Trump, on the
campaign trail, said as much in inviting Russia to release more. At
other times he suggested that perhaps Russia was not behind these
activities, that no one could know: but, remarkably, he allowed for the
possibility that another foreign power, China, might have been
responsible. And once again, there are other parts of the public record
bearing on intent that will receive close investigative scrutiny, like
Trump’s close confidante Roger Stone’s repeated statements about his communications with Wikileaks and Julian Assange.
Whether prosecutors choose to interpret the law aggressively in these
circumstances is bound to be affected, and not to Trump’s advantage, by
the well-established identity of the foreign actor: a state, operating
through its own intelligence services. This is not the typical foreign
national case. In recent years, after Citizens United, the FEC
has been preoccupied with debates over political spending by
corporations. It has pondered how expansively the regulations should
treat campaign activities of the USA subsidiary of a foreign
corporation, or by a corporation with a significant percentage of
foreign national shareholders. The Commission could not agree on
tightening the rules, and the reason, in part, was the difficulty that
three of the Commissioners perceived in defining when a business could
be deemed to represent “foreign” interests. These complications are not
present in a case involving a foreign government.
And, at the same time, it is because of this clear involvement of a
foreign state actor that the Trump case will be pivotal in determining
the efficacy of the ban on foreign national electioneering. The campaign
finance laws have as their core purpose preventing corruption of
government, or its appearance, but the provision prohibiting foreign
political spending is uniquely concerned with corruption of a different,
even higher order, that strikes at national security. The Bluman
court cited the high importance of preserving of the “basic conception
of a political community” in holding that two individuals—one a Canadian
and the other holding dual Canadian and Israeli citizenship—could not
make simple, every-day contributions to political organizations. In the
Trump case, which involves active foreign intervention in a political
campaign that is welcomed and encouraged by one of the candidates, this
“basic conception” is even more—it is fair to say, acutely—at stake.
As the case unfolds, other instances of Russian support for the
campaign might still surface, as I have indicated. The investigators
will look into unconfirmed reports that the Russians may have attempted
through intermediaries to buy ads placed for the benefit of Trump on
social media platforms. Should there be any evidence that the Trump
campaign colluded in this advertising activity, a straightforward
campaign finance violation—a massive illegal contribution to the
campaign—would be added to the one built on hacking and WikiLeaks
distribution. The same holds true for any collusion over use of microtargeting techniques, which congressional investigations are reportedly now also probing.
But, as a major issue of foreign national involvement under the
campaign finance law, the hacking episode may prove more than sufficient
to sustain the current criminal investigation, and it could wind up
being central to it.
The Iceberg’s Tip: Ukraine Phone Call and the Months-Long Conspiracy to Violate Federal Campaign Finance Laws
The absurdity of the Justice Department’s refusal to investigate
Essay By Paul Seamus Ryan: Vice President of Policy & Litigation at Common Cause.
Earlier this week the White House released a rough transcript
of President Donald Trump’s July 25 phone conversation with Ukraine’s
President Volodymyr Zelensky. Understandably, there’s been much scrutiny
of the transcript. Is the transcript complete? What exactly did Trump
ask Zelensky for? Was there a “quid pro quo” exchange? To be clear, the
transcript is incriminating on its face. But this narrow and granular
analysis on one conversation risks missing the big picture.
The most important takeaway from the call transcript and the now-public whistleblower complaint
is that President Trump seemingly orchestrated a months-long conspiracy
to obtain Ukrainian government assistance in his 2020 reelection
campaign—in violation of federal campaign finance laws and, perhaps,
other statutes. The Department of Justice (DOJ) decision not to
investigate these violations has no basis in law. And it turns out
Attorney General William Barr had no business being involved in the
matter, as he is implicated both in the whistleblower complaint and by
the transcript of President Trump’s call with the Ukrainian president.
July 25 Phone Call Only the Tip of the Iceberg
To be certain, President Trump solicited a political contribution
from President Zelensky during the July 25 call—asking President
Zelensky to “look into” Joe Biden—but that was neither the first nor the
last time President Trump, either directly or through his agents,
solicited a political contribution from the Ukraine government. Trump’s
illegal efforts to gain Ukraine’s assistance in his 2020 reelection
campaign date back at least to January and continued after his July 25
call with Zelensky.
On September 23, Common Cause filed a complaint
with DOJ and the Federal Election Commission (FEC) alleging reason to
believe that President Trump, Rudy Giuliani and at least three other
Trump allies (Victoria Toensing, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman) violated
the federal law ban on soliciting, or substantially assisting the
solicitation of, a political “contribution” from a foreign national
through numerous meetings and phone calls with Ukrainian officials.
Back in May, the New York Times reported
that Giuliani was planning a trip to Ukraine to meet with
recently-elected President Zelensky “to urge him to pursue inquiries
that allies of the White House contend could yield new information about
two matters of intense interest to Mr. Trump”: the “origin of the
special counsel’s investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016
election” and the “involvement of former Vice President Joseph R. Biden
Jr.’s son in a gas company owned by a Ukrainian oligarch.”
Giuliani’s planned trip was reportedly
“part of a monthslong effort” by Giuliani and “a small group of Trump
allies working to build interest in the Ukrainian inquiries. Their
motivation is to try to discredit the special counsel’s investigation;
undermine the case against Paul Manafort …; and potentially to damage
Mr. Biden.” Over the course of several months, Giuliani and his allies
had numerous telephonic and in-person meetings with Ukrainian officials to advance President Trump’s personal political agenda.
The New York Times’ report was followed by a late July BuzzFeed News deep dive
into the months-long effort by Giuliani and “[t]wo unofficial envoys
reporting directly” to him to obtain Ukraine’s assistance in Trump’s
2020 reelection efforts. BuzzFeed News wrote:
In a whirlwind of private meetings, Lev Parnas and Igor
Fruman—who pumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into Republican
campaigns and dined with the president—gathered repeatedly with top
officials in Ukraine and set up meetings for Trump’s attorney Rudy
Giuliani as they turned up information that could be weaponized in the
2020 presidential race.
Parnas and Fruman reportedly
“helped arrange meetings in New York between the [Ukraine’s top
prosecutor Lutsenko] and Giuliani in January” and in “February, Giuliani
and Parnas met privately again with Lutsenko” on the sidelines of a
meeting “that included US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the Russian
President Vladimir Putin.” Then in May, Parnas and Fruman “flew to
Paris, where they joined Giuliani in talks with” another Ukrainian
prosecutor, Nazar Kholodnytsky.
In April, within hours of President Zelensky’s election, President
Trump called him and, according to several sources, urged him to
coordinate with Giuliani and “pursue investigations of ‘corruption,’” as
revealed this week by the New York Times.
Days after President Trump’s July 25 call with President Zelensky, on or about August 2 according to the whistleblower complaint,
Giuliani “met with an aide to the Ukrainian president in Madrid and
spelled out two specific cases he believed Ukraine should pursue,” an
investigation of Joe Biden and his son, and an investigation of whether
Democrats colluded with Ukraine to release information on Paul Manafort
during the 2016 election. The complaint notes that Giuliani had
“privately reached out to a variety of other Zelenskyy advisers” and
that some of these advisors “intended to travel to Washington in
mid-August.” The whistleblower complaint goes on to note many of these
meetings.
Rudy Giuliani is referenced five times in the rough transcript
of the July 25 call, with President Zelensky first bringing up Giuliani
and mentioning that one of his assistants “spoke with Mr. Giuliani
recently” and that he hoped “very much that Mr. Giuliani will be able to
travel to Ukraine and we will meet once he comes to Ukraine.” President
Trump then noted three times that he would have Giuliani call President
Zelensky, saying: “If you could speak to him, that would be great.”
Giuliani is Trump’s personal attorney, not a diplomat. Giuliani has stated: “My only client is the president of the United States[.] He’s the one I have an obligation to report to, tell him what happened.” He has also said that his Ukraine efforts have the full support of Trump, and that Trump “knows what I’m doing, sure, as his lawyer.” Giuliani also made clear that his work with Ukrainian officials “isn’t foreign policy” and that he’s urging investigations of Biden “because that information will be very, very helpful to my client, and may turn out to be helpful to my government.”
Giuliani was representing the interests of candidate Trump, not the
interests of the American people. Giuliani was taking direction from his
client, President Trump, and keeping Trump fully informed of his
actions. Together, they conspired for months to violate federal campaign
finance laws by soliciting Ukrainian support for Trump’s 2020
reelection campaign.
DOJ Decision Not to Investigate Campaign Finance Violations Has No Basis in Law
In the complaint Common Cause filed Monday with the DOJ and FEC, and in a piece I wrote earlier this week for Just Security,
I explained in detail how Trump and Giuliani seemingly violated the
campaign finance law prohibition on soliciting, or substantially
assisting solicitation of, a “contribution” from a foreign national in
connection with a U.S. election.
We now know that the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community reached the same conclusion
in August, when considering the whistleblower complaint. And we know
that some White House lawyers recognized the implications of the July 25
call because they soon thereafter took steps to severely restrict
access to the transcript of the call by moving it from the computer
system where it would typically be stored to a separate system reserved
for certain types of classified materials of “an especially sensitive
nature.”
Remarkably, the DOJ said this week
that the Department “explored whether the July call merited opening a
criminal investigation into potential campaign finance violations by the
president” and “concluded it did not—that the information discussed on
the call didn’t amount to a ‘thing of value’ that could be quantified,
which is what the campaign finance laws require.” This determination by
the DOJ flies in the face of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s
interpretation of the same provision of law.
As I explained in a summary of a section of the Mueller Report that I wrote for Just Security,
Special Counsel Mueller considered charging Donald Trump Jr., Paul
Manafort and Jared Kushner with violating ban on soliciting a
contribution from a foreign national for their June 2016 meeting with
Russians at Trump Tower to receive opposition research on Hillary
Clinton.
Mueller began an overview of the ban on soliciting a contribution
from foreign nationals by quoting now-Supreme Court Justice Brett
Kavanaugh’s lower court decision in Bluman v. FEC,
upholding the foreign contribution ban against First Amendment
challenge: “[T]he United States has a compelling interest … in limiting
the participation of foreign citizens in activities of democratic
self-government, and in thereby preventing foreign influence over the
U.S. political process.”
In explaining the “threshold legal question” of whether providing
“documents and information” to a campaign would constitute a
“contribution,” Mueller noted the “foreign contribution ban is not
limited to contributions of money.” It includes a contribution of “money
or other thing of value.’” According to Mueller, “[t]he
phrases ‘thing of value’ and ‘anything of value’ are broad and inclusive
enough to encompass at least some forms of valuable information.”
Mueller concluded:
[C]andidate-related opposition research given to a
campaign for the purpose of influencing an election could constitute a
contribution to which the foreign-source ban could apply. A campaign can
be assisted not only by the provision of funds, but also by the
provision of derogatory information about an opponent. Political
campaigns frequently conduct and pay for opposition research. A foreign
entity that engaged in such research and provided resulting information
to a campaign could exert a greater effect on an election, and a greater
tendency to ingratiate the donor to the candidate, than a gift of money
or tangible things of value.
Mueller’s conclusion that opposition research “could constitute a contribution” under campaign finance law was consistent with my analysis in July 2017, when the Trump Tower story broke and Common Cause filed a complaint with Mueller and the DOJ.
In the end, however, Mueller decided not to prosecute Trump Jr.,
Manafort and Kushner because of the difficulty he believed he would have
proving beyond a reasonable doubt that (1) they knew that solicitation
of a contribution from a foreign national was illegal; and (2) the
information they solicited was worth at least $2,000 (for a federal
misdemeanor) or $25,000 for a felony.
Mueller concluded that opposition research could constitute a “thing
of value” for the purposes of campaign finance law, but the DOJ
concluded in Ukrainegate it could not. What might explain these
conflicting interpretations of the law?
We don’t yet know. But one very troubling aspect of the DOJ’s
handling of the whistleblower complaint is Attorney General Barr’s
involvement. Barr is named on the first page of the complaint as
“involved,” yet reportedly was briefed
on the matter as soon as the DOJ learned of the complaint. In President
Trump’s July 25 phone call with President Zelensky, Trump asked
Zelensky to work with both Barr and Giuliani to investigate Joe Biden.
Trump referred to Barr being the point person, alongside Giuliani, four
times in the thirty-minute conversation. Barr is implicated in Trump’s
campaign finance violations—at a minimum, Barr is a witness. Barr should
have recused himself entirely from the DOJ’s handling of the
whistleblower complaint and the ensuing conflict between the White
House, DOJ and Congress over this matter. Instead, Barr is at the center
of it all.
Representative Jerrold Nadler, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, has called on Barr to recuse himself from the matter going forward. Ultimately, the investigation may lead to Barr’s impeachment and potentially the impeachment of others complicit in these campaign finance violations, their coverup, and other abuses of the office of the President.
For now, DOJ should reverse its decision not to investigate Trump,
Giuliani and others implicated in the whistleblower complaint. If Barr
and the DOJ will not do so, Congressional impeachment proceedings are
the last hope for the rule of law. The whistleblower complaint provides a
roadmap for the congressional impeachment investigation as it seeks to
uncover the full extent of the criminal violations that have occurred.
The phone call between President Trump and President Zelensky is only
one action in a systematic plan to manufacture opposition information
from Ukraine to influence the outcome of the 2020 election.
Timeline: Trump, Giuliani, Biden, and Ukrainegate
From Timeline: Trump, Giuliani, Biden, and Ukrainegate (updated)
By Viola Geinger and Ryan Goodman Updated on Sept 26,2019.
Russian forces invade Crimea and stage an illegal and dubious
referendum and declare their annexation of the peninsula. That month,
the United Nations General Assembly votes to condemn Russian actions, including the referendum.
April 2014 – Russian and pro-Russian forces invade
the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine and take control,
starting a war that continues today and has killed more than 13,000
people.
April 2014 – Hunter Biden joins Ukrainian firm Burisma
Joe Biden’s younger son, Hunter Biden, joins the board of Burisma Holdings, the largest
private oil and gas extracting company in Ukraine, controlled by
founder Mykola Zlochevskiy, who had served as a Cabinet minister under
former pro-Russian Presidents Leonid Kuchma and Yanukovych. Both
administrations had been suspected of corruption, and once they were
ousted, successor administrations pledging reforms targeted previous
officials, including Zlochevskiy, for investigation. Allegations against
Zlochevskiy center on the funding schemes he used to form the company
in 2002. But cases against him stall in each instance.
An American business partner of Hunter Biden, Devon Archer, also
joins the board. The company issues a press release about the Biden
appointment in May (see below). The appointment draws criticism for the potential perception of a conflict of interest with Vice President Biden’s role as the White House’s point man on Ukraine. News reports
later in 2014 reveal that Hunter Biden had been discharged from the
Navy in February for testing positive for cocaine (clearly just months
before the Burisma board appointment).
April 16, 2014 – U.K. investigates Burisma owner Mykola Zlochevskiy
The U.K.’s Serious Fraud Office blocks accounts
of Burisma’s majority shareholder, Mykola Zlochevskiy. A British court
conducts a hearing on Dec. 3-5, 2014, and unblocks the accounts in a
Jan. 21, 2015 judgment, (full text),
finding that none of the evidence “establishes reasonable grounds for a
belief that his assets were unlawfully acquired as a result of
misconduct in public office.” (In September 2015, U.S. Ambassador to
Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt heavily criticizes the Office of Prosecutor
General Viktor Shokin in a public speech for not cooperating
sufficiently with and even undermining the British investigation. See
below.)
May 12, 2014 – Burisma Holdings issues a press release
saying Hunter Biden has joined its board, and that he will be “in
charge of the Holdings’ legal unit and will provide support for the
company among international organizations.” The release cites his
then-current positions as counsel to New York-based law firm Boies,
Schiller & Flexner LLP and co-founder and a managing partner of
investment advisory firm Rosemont Seneca Partners, where he also served
as board chairman.
Aug. 5, 2014 – Ukraine investigation of Burisma
Ukrainian Prosecutor General Vitaly Yarema opens an investigation of Burisma owner Mykola Zlochevskiy on suspicion of “unlawful enrichment.” (The investigation is referenced in the January 2015 U.K. court judgment, which concludes that the Ukrainian probe might have been started as a result of a misinterpretation of the British account freeze.) Zlochevskiy’s American lawyer, John Buretta, a former U.S. deputy assistant attorney general, says in a 2017 Q&A on the Burisma website that a court in Kyiv ordered the case closed in September 2016 because no evidence of wrongdoing had been presented. While suspicions remain over how Zlochevskiy obtained his wealth and what happened to taxpayer money while he held public office, the British judge in the January 2015 U.K. judgment observed, “Allegations of corruption against political opponents appear to have been a feature of Ukrainian political life at this time.”
Oct. 14, 2014 – Ramping up Ukraine anti-corruption forces
Ukraine’s Parliament passes a law establishing the National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU), a priority of anti-corruption campaigners who’d helped lead the revolution and of the U.S. government (led by Biden) and other international backers of Ukraine. The bureau, which is to include a special prosecutor for certain corruption cases, was created in part because of the recognized ineffectiveness and corruption of the Prosecutor General’s Office and the country’s judiciary. The country’s anti-corruption plans also include a special High Anti-Corruption Court, which Poroshenko and Parliament slow-rolled until domestic and foreign advocates again exerted pressure over the past year. In fact, the U.S. and Europe required the Ukrainian government to fund NABU in exchange for financial aid. NABU’s early years are an uphill battle in the face of documented efforts by Parliament and the Prosecutor General’s Office to undermine its work.
NABU later becomes a target of Giuliani’s (see Aug. 14, 2016 item below).
Feb. 10, 2015 –Viktor Shokin takes office as Ukraine’s prosecutor general, replacing Yarema.
Sept. 24, 2015 – U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt excoriates Prosecutor General Shokin’s office for stymying anti-corruption investigations, including those involving Burisma
Pyatt’s speech was part of a regular drumbeat by U.S. and other
Western leaders, including Vice President Biden, and a swath of
Ukrainian civil society seeking to pressure President Poroshenko to
force his officials, especially in the Prosecutor General’s Office (PGO)
to crack down more, not less, on corruption. “Corruption
kills,” Pyatt said in the address to the Odesa Financial Forum for
business leaders. “It kills productivity and smothers inspiration. Ideas
are lost in its shadow. Innovation and entrepreneurship lag under the
weight of bribery, back room dealing, and bullying.”
While giving Shokin a last chance to shape up (Pyatt says, “We want
to work with Prosecutor General Shokin so the PGO is leading the fight
against corruption.”), the ambassador criticizes “officials at the PGO’s
office” for not providing documents that were needed for the British
investigation of Burisma owner Zlochevskiy and effectively allowing
Zlochevskiy to transfer $23 million of what Pyatt says were Ukrainian
taxpayer assets to Cyprus. In other words, Pyatt is critical of the
prosecutor’s office for not aiding in investigations of
Burisma’s owner, which was in line with Biden’s criticism that the
office was blocking corruption investigations. Pyatt
specifically called for the investigation and removal of officials who
were involved in the failure to help the British authorities investigate
Zlochevskiy:
“We have learned that there have been times that the PGO not only did not support investigations into corruption, but rather undermined prosecutors working on legitimate corruption cases.
For example, in the case of former Ecology Minister Mykola Zlochevsky, the U.K. authorities had seized 23 million dollars in illicit assets that belonged to the Ukrainian people. Officials at the PGO’s office were asked by the U.K to send documents supporting the seizure.
Instead they sent letters to Zlochevsky’s attorneys attesting that
there was no case against him. As a result, the money was freed by the
U.K. court and shortly thereafter the money was moved to Cyprus.
The misconduct by the PGO officials who wrote those letters should be
investigated, and those responsible for subverting the case by
authorizing those letters should – at a minimum – be summarily
terminated.”
Fall 2015 – Biden, along with the EU, publicly calls for ouster of Prosecutor General Shokin for failure to work on anti-corruption efforts.
John E. Herbst, U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine under George W. Bush, later testified before Congress:
“By late fall of 2015, the EU and the United States joined the chorus of those seeking Mr. Shokin’s removal as the start of an overall reform of the Procurator General’s Office. U.S. Vice President Joe Biden spoke publicly about this before and during his December visit to Kyiv.”
Dec. 8, 2015 – Vice President Biden makes a speech to Ukraine’s Parliament urging the country to step up anti-corruption measures.
In a speech covered widely in news media,
Biden implores Ukrainian lawmakers to move more quickly to fight the
country’s “historic battle against corruption” and “make real the
Revolution of Dignity.” (Many of the lawmakers themselves were former
businessmen and suspected of corruption and therefore that much less
interested in fighting graft.) He says, “The only thing worse than
having no hope at all is having hopes rise and see them dashed
repeatedly on the shoals of corruption…Not enough has been done yet.”
Specifically citing Shokin’s Office of the General Prosecutor for
lagging on corruption investigations, he continues:
“It’s not enough to set up a new anti-corruption bureau and establish a special prosecutor fighting corruption. The Office of the General Prosecutor desperately needs reform. The judiciary should be overhauled. The energy sector needs to be competitive, ruled by market principles — not sweetheart deals. It’s not enough to push through laws to increase transparency with regard to official sources of income. Senior elected officials have to remove all conflicts between their business interest and their government responsibilities. Every other democracy in the world — that system pertains.
Oligarchs and non-oligarchs must play by the same rules. They have to pay their taxes, settle their disputes in court — not by bullying judges. That’s basic. That’s how nations succeed in the 21st century.
Corruption siphons away resources from the people. It blunts the economic growth, and it affronts the human dignity. We know that. You know that. The Ukrainian people know that. When Russia seeks to use corruption as a tool of coercion, reform isn’t just good governance, it’s self-preservation. It’s in the national security interest of the nation ….
The United States is with you in this fight…We’ve stepped up with official assistance to help backstop the Ukrainian economy. We’ve rallied the international community to commit a total of $25 billion in bilateral and multilateral financing to support Ukraine. It includes $2 billion in U.S. loan guarantees and the possibility of more.
Yesterday I announced almost $190 million in new American assistance to help Ukraine fight corruption, strengthen the rule of law, implement critical reform, bolster civil society, advance energy security. That brings our total of direct aid to almost $760 million in direct assistance, in addition to loan guarantees since this crisis broke out. And that is not the end of what we’re prepared to do if you keep moving.
But for Ukraine to continue to make progress and to keep the support of the international community you have to do more, as well. The big part of moving forward with your IMF program — it requires difficult reforms.”
Jan. 21, 2016 – Vice President Biden meets with
Ukrainian President Poroshenko and discusses “the need to continue to
move forward on Ukraine’s anti-corruption agenda,” according to a readout on the website of the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv.
Feb. 11, 2016 – Vice President Biden speaks with Poroshenko by phone. A U.S. Embassy statement said the two agreed “that it is essential for Ukraine to continue to take action to root out corruption and implement reforms.”
Biden later boasts about the pressure he exerted on Ukraine during that time to address corruption. In a Jan. 23, 2018, Q&A following a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) in Washington, Biden touts his tough stance with Ukraine in 2016. He says he told Ukrainian leaders that the U.S. would withhold $1 billion in loan guarantees unless they fired Prosecutor General Shokin.
President Trump and Rudy Giuliani have cited that boast repeatedly as proof that Biden admitted pushing for Shokin’s firing, even though Biden was calling for the prosecutor to be fired because he wasn’t pursuing corruption cases vigorously enough.
In the CFR appearance, Biden makes the comments in the context of expressing his concern that Ukraine still was not getting tough enough on corruption. “I looked at them and said: I’m leaving in six hours. If the prosecutor is not fired, you’re not getting the money. Well, son of a bitch. (Laughter.) He got fired. And they put in place someone who was solid at the time.” Biden continued, “So they made some genuine substantial changes institutionally and with people. But … there’s now some backsliding.”
“The United States and other Western nations had for months called
for the ousting of Mr. Shokin, who was widely criticized for turning a
blind eye to corrupt practice,” the New York Timesreported at the time.
Steven Pifer is a career foreign service officer who was ambassador to Ukraine under President Bill Clinton and deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian Affairs under President George W. Bush. He told PolitiFact that “virtually everyone” he knew in the U.S. government “felt that Shokin was not doing his job and should be fired. As far as I can recall, they all concurred with the vice president telling Poroshenko that the U.S. government would not extend the $1 billion loan guarantee to Ukraine until Shokin was removed from office.”
Note: Investigation of Burisma laid dormant at the time
Vitaliy Kasko, a former deputy prosecutor general who had worked
under Shokin and resigned in frustration at his stymying of corruption
investigations, told Bloomberg News (in a May 2019 interview) that the
office’s probe into Burisma Holdings had been long dormant
by the time Joe Biden issued his ultimatum in 2016. “There was no
pressure from anyone from the U.S. to close cases against” Burisma owner
Zlochevskiy, Bloomberg quoted Kasko as saying. “It was shelved by
Ukrainian prosecutors in 2014 and through 2015,” Kasko said.
“Shokin was not investigating. He didn’t want to investigate
Burisma,” Daria Kaleniuk a leading Ukrainian anti-corruption advocate, told the Washington Post.
“And Shokin was fired not because he wanted to do that investigation,
but quite to the contrary, because he failed that investigation.”
Feb. 16, 2016 – Prosecutor General Viktor Shokin resigns, then returns to office before finally being ousted
Ukrainian news media report on Feb. 16 that Viktor Shokin resigned
as Prosecutor General after months of intense criticism for failing to
adequately pursue any major corruption cases. But wait … despite
President Poroshenko’s public call that day that Shokin resign and the
apparent submission of a resignation letter on Feb. 19, media
cited a prosecutor in Shokin’s office on March 16 saying the chief
prosecutor was back after a “long leave.” Finally, on March 29, the
Parliament voted overwhelmingly to approve Poroshenko’s recommendation to dismiss Shokin.
The European Union issued a statement hailing his departure. The respected English-language Kyiv Postwrites,
“By the end of his term, he was likely one of the most unpopular
figures in Ukraine, having earned a bad reputation for inaction and
obstructing top cases.” The paper also says it “wasn’t able to find any
public comments that Shokin made about [Burisma] during his 14 months in
office.”
Feb. 18 and 19, 2016 – Vice President Biden speaks by phone with Ukrainian President Poroshenko. The Feb. 19 U.S. Embassy statement
says Biden again urged the Ukrainian leader to “to accelerate Ukraine’s
efforts to fight corruption, strengthen justice and the rule of law,
and fulfill its IMF requirements.”
April 14, 2016 – Vice President Biden speaks with Ukrainian President Poroshenko by phone, emphasizing
“the urgency of putting in place a new Prosecutor General who would
bolster the agency’s anti-corruption efforts and strongly support the
work of its reformers.” Biden does the same in a call the same day with newly elected Prime Minister Volodymyr Groysman.
Aug. 14, 2016 – Evidence surfaces of payments to Paul Manafort
Paul Manafort by this time was Trump’s campaign chairman, and the
evidence appeared to show off-the-books payments by the discredited,
pro-Russian former Ukrainian President Yanukovych when Manafort served
as his political consultant. The payments were recorded in a “black
ledger” of Yanukovych’s political party that was turned over to
Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU). On Aug. 19, 2016, days
after the New York Times
reported the story, Serhiy Leshchenko, a member of Ukraine’s Parliament
who had been swept into office with the 2014 revolution, holds a news
conference to discuss the ledger and criticize the payments to Manafort.
Rudy Giuliani has cited the revelations as evidence that certain Ukrainians, supported by the Obama administration at the time, were colluding with Hillary Clinton’s campaign to reveal information tainting Manafort and, by association, Trump, in order to influence the election. Giuliani in May 2019 accused Leshchenko personally on Fox News of colluding with Democrats.
Sept. 2016 – Case against Burisma closed
In a 2017 Q&A on the Burisma website,
Zlochevskiy’s American lawyer, John Buretta, a former U.S. deputy
assistant attorney general, says that a court in Kyiv ordered a case
closed in September 2016 because no evidence of wrongdoing had been
presented.
June 8, 2017 – Giuliani meets with Ukrainian leaders
Giuliani, who has had business of his own in Ukraine in the past,
meets with President Petro Poroshenko and Prosecutor General Lutsenko,
among other officials, during a visit to Kyiv, hosted by the foundation of billionaire Ukrainian metals magnate Victor Pinchuk, for a lecture on democracy and the rule of law. The meetings are cited
in the joint U.S. House committee investigation launched later in
September 2019 (see below) into Trump and Giuliani’s efforts to pressure
Ukraine.
July 25, 2017 – President Trump issues a public call for an investigation of the 2016 Manafort revelations in Ukraine
Trump tweets
a reference to what he calls “Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump
campaign — `quietly working to boost Clinton.’ So where is the
investigation A.G.,” he writes, referencing then-Attorney General Jeff
Sessions and tagging Fox News host Sean Hannity. The tweet was referenced
in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report on possible obstruction of
justice by the U.S. president to block the investigation into Trump
campaign collusion with Russia’s 2016 election interference. It also is
cited in the September 2019 joint U.S. House committee letter (see
below) on the investigation into Trump and Giuliani’s pressure campaign
against Ukraine.
Late 2018 —
Two Soviet-born Florida businessmen, Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman,
arrange a Skype call between Giuliani and Shokin, according to an investigation by the nonprofit Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) published in BuzzFeed News.
The two businessmen also connect Giuliani with then-Prosecutor General
Lutsenko. Giuliani invites Lutsenko to his office in New York, a meeting
they arrange for January.
January 2019 — Giuliani and Lutsenko meet in New York over the space of two days. They discuss “the Ukrainian political situation and the fight against corruption,” Bloomberg News reports,
paraphrasing Lutsenko. “Giuliani asked him about investigations into
the owner of Burisma, Mykola Zlochevsky, as well as whether the U.S.
Ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, was `not loyal to President
Trump,’” the article says.
Mid-February 2019 — Giuliani meets with Lutsenko again in Warsaw, according to the OCCRP/BuzzFeed report.
March 20, 2019 – The Hill’s conservative opinion writer John Solomon publishes an interview with Ukrainian Prosecutor General Lutsenko, who by this point has been widely criticized as ineffective and likely corrupt.
Note: Solomon and Fox News’s Sean Hannity
are among a constellation of conservative media figures who regularly
help spread Trump and Giuliani’s Biden and Manafort theories as well as
other right-wingconspiracytheories, such as Uranium One, which have been debunked and shown to exclude vital information. Solomon was moved to the opinion section at The Hill, and announced Sept. 18, 2019, that he was leaving the publication.
The full video wasn’t available at this publication, but the text
accompanying it says Lutsenko alleged that U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine
Marie Yovanovitch, who took office in August 2016, gave him a “do not
prosecute” list at their first meeting. The State Department says the
claim was “an outright fabrication.” The article says Lutsenko was
examining Ukrainian civil society activists who he suspected were
misusing U.S. aid funding they had received, but he says Yovanovitch
told him the U.S. Embassy is confident the funding was secure.
Lutsenko also reportedly says he would investigate the head of NABU
for the 2016 Manafort disclosure. Ukraine expert Melinda Haring of the
Atlantic Council says Lutsenko is “woefully unqualified (he doesn’t have a law degree), has dragged his feet on
every serious anti-corruption case since being installed, and protected
his friends, including Poroshenko.” She continues, “Sean Hannity made
Solomon the star of his prime-time show that evening. Trump watches
Hannity, reportedly speaks with him multiple times daily, and tweeted the title of Solomon’s story. More than 25,000 retweets later, the Ukrainian collusion narrative went viral.”
March 24, 2019 – Donald Trump Jr. tweets criticism of U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Yovanovitch,
calling her a “joker” and linking to a conservative media outlet’s
article about calls for her ouster. The two incidents are part of a
pattern of conservative attacks against the ambassador. Within less than
two months, Yovanovitch is recalled to Washington.
March 31, 2019 —
First round of Ukraine’s presidential election, which results in runoff
between Zelenskyy and Poroshenko scheduled for April 21.
April 1, 2019 – The Hill newspaper publishes another article online by the same conservative investigative columnist John Solomon that advances the Trump-Giuliani story about Biden.
(See entry on March 20 about Solomon and conspiracy theories.) The
article reports that Shokin had said in written answers to questions
that he had planned an investigation of Burisma before he was fired,
including questioning all executive board members. The article says
Lutsenko, Shokin’s successor, and “a case file” indicate that the
Prosecutor General’s Office had handled three cases related to Burisma,
and that the “most prominent” case was transferred to the National
Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), which Solomon describes
suggestively as “closely aligned with the U.S. Embassy in Kiev,” even
though it had long been public knowledge that Western supporters of
Ukraine and Ukrainian anti-corruption activists strongly backed the
bureau. The article says NABU closed that case.
April 2019 – Hunter Biden leaves the board of Burisma Holdings, as his father announces his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination.
April 21, 2019 – New Ukrainian President elected on anti-corruption agenda
Volodymyr Zelenskyy is elected president of Ukraine, to succeed Petro Poroshenko. He ran on a “zero tolerance” anti-corruption agenda.
April 21, 2019 – First Trump-Zelenskyy Phone Call
President Trump calls to congratulate him, their first known direct communication. Trump “urged Mr. Zelensky to coordinate with Mr. Giuliani and to pursue investigations of ‘corruption,’” the New York Timesreports (on Sept. 25, 2019).
April 25, 2019 – Joe Biden formally announces campaign for President.
April 25, 2019 – President Trump tells Fox News’s
Sean Hannity that Attorney General Bill Barr is considering allegations
that Ukrainians sought to help Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential
campaign by revealing damaging information about Paul Manafort. “I would
imagine [Barr] would want to see this. … I would certainly defer to the
attorney general, and we’ll see what he says about it,” Trump said. “He
calls ’em straight” (transcript). Fox Newsreports
that “Trump echoed his personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, who wrote on
Twitter on Wednesday [April 24]: `Keep your eye on Ukraine.’”
On or about April 29, 2019 — “U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the situation” told the whistleblower that U.S. Ambassador Yovanovitch was being “suddenly recalled” to Washington for “consultations” and “would most likely be removed from her position.” The State Department announced on May 6 that she would be ending her assignment.
They said it was “as planned,” but in fact, her assignment had been
curtailed because of Lutsenko’s allegations. Giuliani told a Ukrainian
journalist in an interview published May 14 that Yovanovitch was
“removed…because she was part of the efforts against the President,” the
whistleblower wrote.
Around the same time, the whistleblower
writes that he “learned from a U.S. official that `associates’ of Mr.
Giuliani were trying to make contact with the incoming Zelenskyy team.”
He didn’t know whether the associates were the same two businessmen
(Parnas and Fruman (see entry under “late 2018”) who connected Giuliani
with Shokin and Lutsenko.
May 1, 2019 —
Attorney General William Barr stumbles and appears to try to avoid
answering U.S. Senator Kamala Harris during a Senate Judiciary Committee
hearing when she asks,
“Has the President or anyone at the White House ever asked or suggested
that you open an investigation of anyone?” He finally states in his
answer, “I don’t know.”
May 9, 2019 – Giuliani plans trip to Kyiv as part of pressure campaign
Giuliani tells the New York Times
he plans to travel to Kyiv and meet with President-elect Zelenskyy to
urge him to investigate the Bidens as well as Ukrainians who might have
worked with Hillary Clinton’s campaign to reveal the Manafort
information. “We’re not meddling in an election, we’re meddling in an
investigation, which we have a right to do,” Giuliani tells the
newspaper. “There’s nothing illegal about it,” he said. “Somebody could
say it’s improper.”
The newspaper notes the trip is “part of a months-long effort
by the former New York mayor and a small group of Trump allies working
to build interest in the Ukrainian inquiries. Their motivation is to try
to discredit the special counsel’s investigation; undermine the case
against Paul Manafort, Mr. Trump’s imprisoned former campaign chairman;
and potentially to damage Mr. Biden, the early front-runner for the 2020
Democratic presidential nomination.” The news ignites a firestorm of bipartisan condemnation that Giuliani is improperly seeking the help of a foreign government to benefit Trump’s re-election campaign.
In a later editorial for the Washington Post (on Sept. 21, 2019), former Ukrainian anti-corruption activist and member of Parliament Serhiy Leshchenko writes:
“Giuliani attempted to visit Ukraine in May 2019 with the
express purpose of involving Zelensky [cq] in this process. His aim was
quite clear: He was planning to ask Zelensky to intervene in an
American election on the side of Trump.
…
I had been helping Zelenksy’s team since January
…
As a person who has had direct experience of many of these events, I
express my readiness to testify to the U.S. Congress about what has been
happening for the past six months.”
May 9, 2019 – Giuliani, in an interview with Fox News,
raises his theory of Ukrainian collusion with Hillary Clinton’s
campaign in 2016 to smear Trump with Manafort payments allegations.
Giuliani says he received such information “about three or four months ago.” Giuliani also discusses his theory about the Bidens in Ukraine, and he tries to implicate the U.S. Embassy in both.
May 10, 2019 – President Trump says in an interview with Politico,
“Certainly it would be an appropriate thing” for him to ask Attorney
General Barr to open an investigation on Biden. “I have not spoken to
him about it. Would I speak to him about it? I haven’t thought of that,”
he adds. Trump says he sees Biden as the
clear front-runner in the Democratic race and likens it to his own surge
toward the Republican nomination in 2016. He also says he will speak
with Giuliani about the former mayor’s planned trip to Ukraine and that
they hadn’t discussed it “at any great length.”
May 11, 2019 – Giuliani cancels trip to Ukraine
Giuliani tells Fox News
he called off his trip to Ukraine because he believes he would be
“walking into a group of people that are enemies of the president, and
in some cases, enemies of the United States,” a particularly harsh
reference that sounds like it is meant for Ukrainian anti-corruption
reformers who are rejecting his and Trump’s conspiracy theories. The
decision follows bipartisan backlash in the United States over
Giuliani’s seeking foreign support for Trump’s re-election (see May 2
above).
Former Ukrainian member of Parliament Serhiy Leshchenko
and former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst say Zelenskyy
actually had declined Giuliani’s request for a meeting, which could
explain Giuliani’s tone of rejection. Herbst commented,
“My understanding is that the president-elect’s party and his group
said that the President-elect [Zelenskyy] sees no reason to have a
meeting about an issue which is so transparently an American domestic
political issue.”
On or about May 14, 2019 —
President Trump instructs Vice President Mike Pence “to cancel his
planned trip to Ukraine to attend President Zelenskyy’s inauguration.
Secretary of Energy Rick Perry led the U.S. delegation instead,” writes
the whistleblower, who cites unnamed “U.S. officials.” “According to
these officials, it was also `made clear’ to them that the President did
not want to meet with Mr. Zelenskyy until he saw how Zelenskyy `chose
to act,’” the whistleblower wrote.
May 14, 2019 – Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Lutsenko tells Bloomberg News that he has “no evidence of wrongdoing” by either of the Bidens
and that neither Hunter Biden nor Burisma were the focus of any current
investigation. He said he planned to give U.S. authorities information
about Burisma board payments, so that the U.S. could check whether
Hunter Biden had paid taxes on his income, though there were no
restrictions in Ukraine on how much a company could pay to its board
members.
May 20-24, 2019 – Zelenskyy is inaugurated as president, taking over from Poroshenko. Shortly
afterwards, the whistleblower writes, “it was publicly reported that
Mr. Giuliani met with two other Ukrainian officials: Ukraine’s Special
Anticorruption Prosecutor, Mr. Nazar Kholodnytskyy, and a former
Ukrainian diplomat named Andriy Telizhenko.” (Public reports of these
meetings included Ukrainian and US media
outlets.) Both, the whistleblower continues, “are allies of Mr.
Lutsenko and made similar allegations” in a series of articles in The Hill. The two businessmen Parnas and Fruman who connected Giuliani with Shokin and Lutsenko (see entry for “late 2018”) reportedly join the meeting with Giuliani and Kholodnytskyy in Paris.
Mid May to early July – According
to the whistleblower’s complaint, in this period, “multiple U.S.
officials told me that the Ukrainian leadership was led to believe that a
meeting or phone call between the President and President Zelenskyy
would depend on whether Zelenskyy showed willingness to ‘play ball’ on
the issues that had been publicly aired by Mr. Lutsenko and Mr.
Giuliani.”
June 11, 2019 – Zelenskyy sends a motion to Parliament asking that it dismiss sitting Prosecutor General Lutsenko.
June 13, 2019 –– President Trump says he would accept dirt on his political rivals from a foreign government, a statement noted by the whistleblower, whose complaint references the relevant interview of the president with ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos.
June 21, 2019 — Giuliani tweets,
“New Pres of Ukraine still silent on investigation of Ukrainian
interference in 2016 election and alleged Biden bribery of Pres
Poroshenko. Time for leadership and investigate both if you want to
purge how Ukraine was abused by Hillary and Obama people.”
Early to mid-July – Trump orders suspension and review of U.S. aid to Ukraine
President Trump tells his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, to hold back almost $400 million in aid to Ukraine at least a week before his phone call with Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy, the Washington Postreports. The decision was communicated by OMB to State and Defense department officials on July 18. The Post includes details of internal processes, including that “besides Bolton, several other administration officials said they did not know why the aid was being canceled or why a meeting was not being scheduled.”
About July 19, 2019 — Andriy Yermak, a top aide to Zelenskyy, reportedly
requests assistance from the State Department’s special representative
for Ukraine negotiations, Kurt Volker, to be put in touch with Giuliani.
On July 19, Volker sends a text message to Giuliani saying, “Mr.
Mayor—really enjoyed breakfast this morning. As discussed, connecting
you here with Andrey Yermak, who is very close to President Zelensky.”
Yermak speaks with Giuliani
for the first time by phone. They discuss the Trump-Giuliani demands
for investigations and the new Ukrainian leader’s desire for a White
House meeting to affirm continued U.S. support for Ukraine. “Mr.
Giuliani in television appearances over the summer had repeatedly
singled out Ukraine over corruption, putting pressure on Mr. Zelensky’s
new administration. Yermak called Mr. Giuliani to ask him to tone it
down, according to a person familiar with the call. Mr. Giuliani in
response suggested that Ukraine investigate Hunter Biden’s relationship
with Burisma,” the Wall Street Journalreports (on Sept. 26).
July 23-26, 2019 —
“During interagency meetings on 23 July and 26 July, OMB officials
again stated explicitly that the instruction to suspend this assistance
had come directly from the President, but they still were unaware of a policy rationale,” the whistleblower wrote.
July 25, 2019 — Trump and Zelenskyy speak by phone for the first time since the call on May 20.
The two presidents have their second conversation. An English-language press release issued by Zelenskyy’s office about the call says:
“Donald Trump is convinced that the new Ukrainian government will be able to quickly improve [the] image of Ukraine, complete investigation of corruption cases, which inhibited the interaction between Ukraine and the USA. He also confirmed continued support of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine by the United States and the readiness of the American side to fully contribute to the implementation of a Large-Scale Reform Program in our country.”
The two presidents “agreed to substantively discuss practical issues
of Ukrainian-American cooperation during the visit of the Ukrainian head
of state to the United States,” the release continued.
Zelenskyy had been hoping for a warm reception from the U.S.
president and a White House meeting as an important signal to affirm
continued American support for Ukraine’s war against Russian forces
controlling the country’s east and for comprehensive reform and economic
development efforts. Ukraine advocates in the U.S. also had thought a
White House invitation would be forthcoming any day, but it was never
scheduled.
An intelligence community whistleblower complaint revealed in
September that reportedly involves the Trump-Zelenskyy July 25 call
prompts a flurry of revelations about the conversation until the
declassification of a transcript of the call.
Before the release of the transcript, Trump admits he discussed Biden
on the call (see Sept. 22 below) and says U.S. funding for Ukraine is
at stake (see Sept. 22-23 below).
July 26, 2019 — U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations Kurt Volker meets with Zelenskyy in Kyiv.
Volker
was accompanied by U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon
Sondland. The two advised the Ukrainian leader on “how to `navigate’ the
demands that the President had made of Mr. Zelenskyy,” according to the
whistleblower’s complaint.
July 28, 2019 – Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats submits his resignation, effective Aug. 15.
One of President Trump’s longest-serving Cabinet members, Coats also
stirred his boss’s ire at times with his policy disagreements and
lukewarm endorsements of the President’s positions.
July 31, 2019 – Giuliani meets
in New York with Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko, who is in a power
struggle with Zelenskyy over a second title he holds as head of the
city’s administration. Giuliani and Klitschko have known each other for years
– the former Ukrainian boxing champion hired the former New York mayor
as a consultant on his Kyiv mayoral campaign in 2008. On Sept. 4,
Zelenskyy stripped Klitschko of the head of administration post, apparently in a move to restore checks-and-balances in the capital.
On or about Aug. 2, 2019 – Giuliani meets in Madrid with Andriy Yermak, a top aide to Zelenskyy.
Having been rebuffed in June for a meeting in Kyiv with Zelenskyy
personally, Giuliani flies to Madrid to press the new Ukrainian
president’s aide, Yermak, for an investigation of the Bidens as well as a
probe of the allegation that Ukrainians conspired with Hillary
Clinton’s campaign in 2016 to release damaging information about Paul
Manafort. The Madrid meeting was a
“`direct followup’” to the July 25 Trump-Zelenskyy phone call and
specifically to their discussion of the cases the U.S. president raised
in that conversation, according to the whistleblower’s complaint. From Madrid, Giuliani resurfaces his allegations against the Bidens in a tweet on Aug. 3.
Giuliani has said Yermak seemed open to considering the
investigations, but also pressed for a Trump-Zelenskyy meeting as a sign
of continued U.S. support to Ukraine in its war against Russia and its
economic development and internal reform efforts. “I talked to him about the whole package,” Giuliani told the Washington Post.
The Post reported that “U.S. officials and members of the Trump
administration wanted the meeting [between the two Presidents] to go
ahead, but Trump personally rejected efforts to set it up, according to
three people familiar with the discussions.”
Aug. 12, 2019 – A whistleblower files a complaint to Intelligence Community Inspector General (ICIG) Michael Atkinson related to an alleged “urgent concern” that
news reports later reveal likely centers on activities involving
President Trump and Ukraine. The ICIG determines the complaint meets the
definition of an “urgent concern” and is credible, and forwards it on
Aug. 26 to Acting Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Joseph
Maguire, who under the law was required to transmit the complaint to the
congressional intelligence committees within seven days. The Justice Department,
however, takes the position that the statute does not apply on the
ground that the complaint does not involve “an intelligence activity
within the responsibility and authority of the Director of National
Intelligence.” The complaint remains under wraps until House
Intelligence Committee Chairman reveals its existence on Sept. 13 (see
below).
Aug. 15, 2019 – DNI Coats leaves office. Principal Deputy Director Sue Gordon resigns too, after it became clear that Trump would not select her to succeed Coats.
Aug. 26, 2019 – The Inspector General forwards the intelligence community whistleblower complaint to Acting DNI Maguire.
Aug. 28, 2019 – Then-U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton becomes the first high-level Trump administration official to visit Kyiv since President Zelenskyy’s inauguration. Bolton says the two discussed a possible meeting between the two presidents during a trip Trump planned at the time to Poland.
Aug. 28, 2019 – Politico breaks the news
that President Trump was delaying the distribution of $250 million of
fiscal 2019 security assistance that Ukraine needs to fight its war with
Russia on its eastern flank, by asking his administration to
review how it was being spent. The hold on the aid package at the same
time as Trump and Giuliani were agitating publicly for Ukraine to
investigate Biden raises the specter that the U.S. president was using
congressionally appropriated taxpayer dollars as leverage to coerce a
foreign government to investigate his potential rival in the 2020
election. The hold also constitutes a reversal of the Trump
administration’s stance toward Ukraine, after having approved lethal
defensive weapons sales in 2017, a move the Obama administration had
resisted. It is unclear exactly when the review was ordered, but the
suspension pending review was in place during the July 25 call. The
Department of Defense determined that the support should continue and
informed the White House of its recommendation, according to Politico and CNN.
National Security Adviser John Bolton also wanted to release the funds
to help Ukraine curtail Russian aggression, the Washington Post reports.
Aug. 29, 2019 – Zelenskyy appoints
lawyer and former Deputy Minister of Justice Ruslan Riaboshapka as the
new prosecutor general, replacing Yuriy Lutsenko, who steps down the
same day.
Sept. 2019 – The Wall Street Journalreports,
“Ukrainian officials earlier this month expressed concern to U.S.
senators that the aid had been held up as a penalty for resisting that
pressure.”
Sept. 2, 2019 – Vice President Mike Pence, a day after meeting with the new Ukrainian president, doesn’t directly answer a reporter’s question
about whether he can assure Ukrainians that the delay in $250 million
of U.S. security assistance for Ukraine is unrelated to President
Trump’s and Rudy Giuliani’s pressure on Ukraine to investigate the
Bidens.
Sept. 5, 2019 — New Prosecutor General Ruslan Riaboshapka brings Vitaliy Kasko back to the office as First Deputy Prosecutor General, a move that promises to help restore integrity to the office. Kasko is the former deputy of Shokin’s who had quit out of frustration.
Sept. 9, 2019 Inspector General for the Intelligence
Community Michael Atkinson informs House Intelligence Committee Chair
Adam Schiff and Ranking Member Devin Nunes of the whistleblower
complaint’s existence (full text of the Inspector General’s letter)
Sept. 9, 2019 – Three U.S. House committees launch probe into Trump and Giuliani pressure campaign
The House Foreign Affairs, Intelligence and Oversight and Reform
committees announce a joint investigation of Trump and Giuliani’s
alleged efforts to strongarm Ukraine into pursuing two investigations
for the president’s political gain, including by threatening to withhold
$250 million in security assistance. The joint press release says public records show the efforts have continued “for nearlytwo years” and were conducted “under the guise of anti-corruption activity.”
Sept. 11, 2019 – Trump releases the hold on U.S. security assistance to Ukraine
State Department notifies
Congress that it will provide Ukraine with $141.5 million of military
equipment and other assistance under its “Foreign Military Financing”
program that is available for a number of countries. The news emerges
the next day, Sept. 12, at the same time that U.S. Senator Lindsey
Graham says the administration has released its hold on the separate
$250 million of military assistance for Ukraine from the Defense
Department under a program known as the Ukraine Security Assistance
Initiative. President Trump gave permission
to the OMB’s acting director, Russell Vought, to release the funds. The
timing of the news on both aid packages leads to speculation that the
Trump administration was topping up its bribe/extortion of Ukraine, but
the Foreign Military Financing likely had been in the works for months, possibly a year.
Sept. 13, 2019 – Intelligence community whistleblower complaint revealed
House Intelligence Committee Chair Schiff announces
that he has issued a subpoena to Acting DNI Maguire to obtain a
complaint from a whistleblower filed under the Intelligence Community
Whistleblower Protection Act (ICWPA) that, under the law,
should have been provided to the congressional intelligence committees.
Schiff says he is concerned the complaint is being withheld “to cover
up serious misconduct” and “to protect the President or other
Administration officials.”
Sept. 17, 2019 – The Inspector General for the Intelligence Community sends letter
to House Intelligence Chairman Schiff and Ranking Member Nunes
outlining his disagreement with the administration’s decision to
withhold the whistleblower’s complaint from the congressional
intelligence committees. The Inspector General’s letter states, “the
subject matter involved in the complainant’s disclosure not only falls
within the DNI’s jurisdiction, but relates to one of the most significant and important of the DNI’s responsibilities to the American people.”
Sept. 18, 2019 – Vice President Pence speaks with
Ukrainian President Zelenskyy by phone, discussing a scheduled meeting
between the two presidents during the United Nations General Assembly
meetings in New York the following week. Pence “commended President
Zelenskyy’s administration for its bold action to tackle corruption
through legislative reforms, and offered full U.S. support for those
efforts,” according to a U.S. Embassy statement.
Sept. 20, 2019 – A senior advisor to Ukraine’s
Interior Minister challenges Trump to make official U.S. government
request if he wants an investigation of Biden. The adviser, Anton
Geraschenko, told The Daily Beast
that “currently there is no open investigation.” He adds, “Clearly,
Trump is now looking for kompromat to discredit his opponent Biden, to
take revenge for his friend Paul Manafort, who is serving seven years in
prison.”
Sept. 22, 2019 – After days of insisting there was nothing inappropriate about his telephone call with Zelenskyy, President Trump acknowledges
discussing Joe Biden with the Ukrainian leader during their July 25
phone call. “The conversation I had was largely congratulatory, with
largely corruption, all of the corruption taking place and largely the
fact that we don’t want our people like Vice President Biden and his son
creating to the corruption already in the Ukraine,” Mr. Trump told reporters.
Sept. 22 and 23, 2019 – Trump himself connects phone call on Biden to US aid to Ukraine
President Trump, in two sets of remarks to reporters asking about his July 25 phone call with Zelenskyy, appears to confirm a connection between U.S. financial assistance for Ukraine and his pressure for the country’s leaders to pursue the investigations he wants.
On Sept. 22 Trump says, “Certainly I’d have every right to [raise
Biden with the Ukrainian President] if there’s corruption and we are
paying lots of money to a country.”
Trump has repeatedly referred to what he falsely claims the Bidens to
have done as “corruption.” “It’s very important to talk about
corruption,” Trump tells the
reporters on Sept. 23. “If you don’t talk about corruption, why would
you give money to a country that you think is corrupt?…It’s very
important that on occasion you speak to somebody about corruption.”
Sept. 23, 2019 – The chairmen of the three House
committees conducting the joint investigation into Trump and Giuliani’s
efforts to pressure the Ukrainian government write Secretary of State Pompeo demanding he turn over the documents the committees had requested on Sept. 9. The letter
characterizes Trump’s actions as “seeking to enlist a foreign actor to
interfere with an American election,” and says, “if press reports are
accurate, such corrupt use of presidential power for the President’s
personal political interest – and not for the national interest – is a
betrayal of the President’s oath of office and cannot go unchecked.” The
chairmen note the earlier deadline of Sept. 16 to produce the material
had passed and give a new deadline of Sept. 26 to notify the committees
whether the State Department intends to comply.
Sept. 25, 2019 – Trump and Zelenskyy are scheduled to meet for the first time
The two presidents are scheduled to meet on the sidelines of the
opening sessions of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. The
meeting between the presidents has been delayed since
the Ukrainians began requesting it in early summer, and still doesn’t
equate to an invitation for a formal meeting at the White House that
Zelenskyy has sought as an important signal of continued U.S. support
for Ukraine’s war against Russia and its battle against corruption.
SO IN CONCLUSION TO ALL OF THE ABOVE INFORMATION
Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani again went and asked a foreign government to interfere in our elections, knowing this was against the law.
Trump withheld financial, military and security funds and equipment to our ally the Ukraine, that was already approved by Congress. He states it was because of corruption, but we all know better.
Trump then used this to hang over the head of the President of the Ukraine as a tool to get him to conduct an illegal investigation against Joe Biden, his political opponent and to find out who ratted out his criminal conspirator Manafort. This would have been used to his political advantage in smear campaigns to further his chances of getting re-elected.
Trump even admits he made this phone call.
Giuliani has been doing the same in aiding him in furtherance of this.
Attorney General William Barr is a co-conspirator in covering up these crimes and protecting this criminal and treasonous president.
Trump has also threatened the whistleblower and the people who gave the information to the whistleblower, which is intimidation of witnesses, and obstruction of justice.
TREASONOUS ACTS BY TRUMP:
Traitor Trump withheld the funds, approved by Congress for the Ukraine to fight against Putin and Russian invasion and proxy war to hold over the head of the President of the Ukraine as a stick to get him to investigate Biden, Biden Jr and find out who leaked the info about Manafort.
Trump has stalled the release of weapons, ammo, secure communications to the Ukraine.
Trump did all this to hold over the President of the Ukraine to do his bidding in investigating Biden and the Manafort deal.
In doing so? Trump gave aid and comfort to our enemy Putin and Russia. By denying the Ukranians the funds and weapons and ammo and communications they need to fight Russia? He has in fact? Given aid and comfort to our enemy Putin and Russia.
Giving aid and comfort to our enemy? Is called Treason.
The penalty for Treason is death.
Traitor Trump even stated in his threat against the whistleblower and those who gave them the information? Were spies and traitors and he wishes that we could do to traitors what we used to do to them.
Trump is a traitor and I agree, we should do to Traitors what we used to do to them.
Trump and Giuliani should be arrested and prosecuted for Treason against the United States. Their actions sure prove this.
Attorney General William Barr at the very least? Should be impeached. At the most? He should be charged with crimes of this cover up, obstruction of justice and being an accessory to the crime of High Treason against the United States.
Any of Trump’s circle who had a hand in this, or in the cover up? Should be arrested and prosecuted.
ANYONE WHO STANDS UP AND DEFENDS THESE ACTIONS? SHOULD BE PUT IN PRISON BECAUSE THEY BELIEVE THAT TREASON AGAINST THE US? IS ALRIGHT.
Firing Squad chair for our Treasonous Traitors Donald J Trump, Rudy Giuliani and William Barr. And any other treasonous Repugnants who want to defend these scumbags who sold us out to Russia and Putin.
Handjob Hannity the leader of the Fascist murderers and haters who loves to spread lies on Faux Nitwit NewslessAnd Tomi Lahrens breath smells just like the well used shithole she spews her shit from.
Fox News, the Turd Reich Propoganda Channel for their Hitler wanna-be dicktaker, and Putin Puppet, Donald J Trump pundits Sean “Handjob Hannity” Hannity, Tomi “Blonde Bimbo” Lahren, Tucker “Traitor” Carlson, Laura “White Trash Slut” Ingraham, Laura “Psychotic Liar” Ingle, Steven “The Pedophile Defender” Doocy, Jeanine “Hitler Wanna Be” Pirro, Brian “Dumbass” Kilmeade and many other Faux Nitwit Newsless personalities are responsible for promoting hate, bigotry, misogyny and outright lies that have gotten people murdered, attacked, terrorized and even an act of mass murder, but they sure the hell do not give a flying fuck they got blood on their hands and heads.
Steve Doocy, Gretchen Carlson and Brian Kilmeade of Faux Nitwit Newsless Propoganda Channel for Traitor Trump failed to realize that if in fact? President Barack Obama was the tyrant they claimed him to be? Their asses would have been dragged out of the Faux studio, taken into an alley and shot in the head. Didn’t happen though now did it?
The constant lies that Handjob Hannity and the rest has spewed from their well used outhouse pieholes? Has caused people to be murdered, people to be attacked and many terroristic threats. Let’s take a look at just some of the results of these scumbag Treasonous Traitors to the United States and their lies and hate has caused shall we?
29 CRIMES COMMITTED BY PSYCHOTIC TRUMPANZEES WHITE SUPREMACIST, MENTAL MIDGET MORONS, INCLUDING MASS MURDER, MURDER, TERRORISTIC ACTS AND OTHER CRIMES.
Aug. 19, 2015: In Boston, after he and his brother beat
a sleeping homeless man of Mexican descent with a metal pole, Steven
Leader, 30, told police “Donald Trump was right, all these illegals need
to be deported.” The victim, however, was not in the United States
illegally. The brothers, who are white, ultimately pleaded guilty to several assault-related charges and were each sentenced to at least two years in prison.
Dec. 5, 2015: After Penn State University student
Nicholas Tavella, 19, was charged with “ethnic intimidation” and other
crimes for threatening to “put a bullet” in a young Indian man on
campus, his attorney argued in court that Tavella was just motivated by
“a love of country,” not “hate.” “Donald Trump is running for President
of the United States saying that, ‘We’ve got to check people out more
closely,'” Tavella’s attorney argued in his defense. Tavella, who is
white, ultimately pleaded guilty to ethnic intimidation and was sentenced to up to two years in prison.
SEAN “HANDJOB” HANNITY, RACIST, BIGOT, WHITE SUPREMACIST. SHITSTAIN ON THE UNDERWEAR OF HUMANITY. TREASONOUS TRAITOR. PUTIN PUPPET. HITLER DICK SUCKER. FAKE ASSED CHRISTOFASCIST PIG.
WHAT SEAN HANNITY AND THE OTHER WHITE SUPREMACIST SHITSTAINS ON THE UNDERWEAR OF HUMANITY LIKE HIM DO NOT REALIZE IS? HITLER WOULD HAVE SENT THIS PUNK TO HIS CAMPS TO TAKE A GAS SHOWER. CAUSE THIS TWISTED TROGLODYTE FOR FAUX NITWIT NEWSLESS? SURE THE FUCK DOES NOT FIT HITLERS IDEA OF HIS ARYIAN RACE.
SEAN HANNITY SHOULD FOLLOW IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF HIS HERO HITLER, TAKE A GUN SHOVE IT INTO HIS PATHOLOGICAL LYING, WELL USED OUTHOUSE PIEHOLE, PULL THE TRIGGER, AND BLOW HIS TREASONOUS BRAINS OUT.
April 28, 2016: When FBI agents arrested 61-year-old John Martin Roos in White City, Oregon, for threatening federal officials, including then-President Barack Obama,
they found several pipe bombs and guns in his home. In the three months
before his arrest, Roos posted at least 34 messages to Twitter about
Trump, repeatedly threatening African Americans, Muslims, Mexican
immigrants and the “liberal media,” and in court documents, prosecutors
noted that the avowed Trump supporter posted this threatening message to
Facebook a month earlier: “The establishment is trying to steal the
election from Trump. … Obama is already on a kill list … Your [name]
can be there too.” Roos, who is white, has since pleaded guilty to
possessing an unregistered explosive device and posting internet threats
against federal officials. He was sentenced to more than five years in prison.
June 3, 2016: After 54-year-old Henry Slapnik
attacked his African-American neighbors with a knife in Cleveland, he
told police “Donald Trump will fix them because they are scared of
Donald Trump,” according to police reports. Slapnik, who is white,
ultimately pleaded guilty to “ethnic intimidation” and other charges.
It’s unclear what sentence he received.
I’ve heard some dumb ass bleached blondes in my lifetime, but never have I encountered such a mental midget moron, white supremacist, trailer park trash reject, piece of shit than this Trailer Park Trash Reject Psycho Tomi Lahren.
I mean the ameobas, eating the shit from the other ameobas asses, in this psychotic freakshows outhouse Tomi Lahren crawled out from after her mommy shit her out while taking a dump? Has more fucking intelligence than she does.
Aug. 16, 2016: In Olympia, Washington, 32-year-old
Daniel Rowe attacked a white woman and a black man with a knife after
seeing them kiss on a popular street. When police arrived on the scene,
Rowe professed to being “a white supremacist” and said “he planned on
heading down to the next Donald Trump rally and stomping out more of the
Black Lives Matter group,” according to court documents filed in the case. Rowe, who is white, ultimately pleaded guilty to charges of assault and malicious harassment, and he was sentenced to more than four years in prison.
September 2016: After 40-year-old Mark Feigin of Los
Angeles was arrested for posting anti-Muslim and allegedly threatening
statements to a mosque’s Facebook page, his attorney argued in court
that the comments were protected by the First Amendment because Feigin
was “using similar language and expressing similar views” to “campaign
statements from then-candidate Donald Trump.” Noting that his client
“supported Donald Trump,” attorney Caleb Mason added that “Mr. Feigin’s
comments were directed toward a pressing issue of public concern that
was a central theme of the Trump campaign and the 2016 election
generally: the Islamic roots of many international and U.S. terrorist
acts.” Feigin, who is white, ultimately pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of sending harassing communications electronically. He was sentenced to probation.
Oct. 13, 2016: After the FBI arrested three white
Kansas men for plotting to bomb an apartment complex in Garden City,
Kansas, where many Somali immigrants lived, one of the men’s attorneys
insisted to a federal judge that the plot was “self-defensive” because
the three men believed “that if Donald Trump won the election, President
Obama would not recognize the validity of those results, that he would
declare martial law, and that at that point militias all over the
country would have to step in.” Then, after a federal grand jury convicted 47-year-old Patrick Stein and the two other men of conspiracy-related charges, Stein’s attorney argued
for a lighter sentence based on “the backdrop” of Stein’s actions:
Trump had become “the voice of a lost and ignored white, working-class
set of voters” like Stein, and the “climate” at the time could propel
someone like Stein to “go to 11,” attorney Jim Pratt said in court.
Stein and his two accomplices were each sentenced to at least 25 years
in prison.
Look at this Hitler saluting troglodyte Fascist pig Laura Ingraham. She fucking thinks she is oh so special cause she is white. The trouble is with this bleached blonde bimbo? Hitler would have sent her? To his concentration camp for a gas shower.
Nov. 3, 2016: In Tampa, Florida, David Howard
threatened to burn down the house next to his “simply because” it was
being purchased by a Muslim family, according to the Justice Department.
He later said under oath that while he harbored a years-long dislike
for Muslims, the circumstances around the home sale were “the match that
lit the wick.” He cited Trump’s warnings about immigrants from
majority-Muslim countries. “[With] the fact that the president wants
these six countries vetted, everybody vetted before they come over,
there’s a concern about Muslims,” Howard said. Howard, who is white,
ultimately pleaded guilty to a federal civil rights violation, and the
59-year-old was sentenced to eight months in prison
Nov. 10, 2016: A 23-year-old man from High Springs,
Florida, allegedly assaulted an unsuspecting Hispanic man who was
cleaning a parking lot outside of a local food store. “[H]e was suddenly
struck in the back of the head,” a police report said of the victim.
“[The victim] asked the suspect why he hit him, to which the suspect
replied, ‘This is for Donald Trump.’ The suspect then grabbed [the
victim] by the jacket and proceeded to strike him several more times,”
according to the report. Surveillance video of the incident “completely
corroborated [the victim’s] account of events,” police said. The suspect
was arrested on battery charges, but the case was dropped after the
victim decided not to pursue the matter, police said. Efforts by ABC
News to reach the victim for further explanation were not successful.
Nov. 12, 2016: In Grand Rapids, Michigan, while attacking a cab driver
from East Africa, 23-year-old Jacob Holtzlander shouted racial epithets
and repeatedly yelled the word, “Trump,” according to law enforcement
records. Holtzlander, who is white, ultimately pleaded guilty to a charge of ethnic intimidation, and he was sentenced to 30 days in jail.
an. 25, 2017: At JFK
International Airport in New York, a female Delta employee, wearing a
hijab in accordance with her Muslim faith, was “physically and verbally”
attacked by 57-year-old Robin Rhodes of Worcester, Mass., “for no
apparent reason,” prosecutors said
at the time. When the victim asked Brown what she did to him, he
replied: “You did nothing, but … [Expletive] Islam. [Expletive] ISIS.
Trump is here now. He will get rid of all of you.” Rhodes ultimately
pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of “menacing,” and he was
sentenced to probation.
Feb. 19, 2017: After 35-year-old Gerald Wallace called a
mosque in Miami Gardens, Florida, and threatened to “shoot all y’all,”
he told the FBI and police that he made the call because he “got angry”
from a local TV news report about a terrorist act. At a rally in Florida
the day before, Trump falsely claimed that Muslim refugees had just launched a terrorist attack in Sweden.
Wallace’s attorney, Katie Carmon, later tried to convince a federal
judge that the threat to kill worshippers could be “protected speech”
due to the “very distinctly political climate” at the time. “There are
courts considering President Trump’s travel ban … and the president
himself has made some very pointed statements about what he thinks about
people of this descent,” Carmon argued in court.
Wallace, who is African American, ultimately pleaded guilty to
obstructing the free exercise of his victims’ religious beliefs, and he
was sentenced to one year in prison.
Feb. 23, 2017: Kevin Seymour and his partner Kevin
price were riding their bicycles in Key West, Florida, when a man on a
moped, 30-year-old Brandon Davis of North Carolina, hurled anti-gay
slurs at them and “intentionally” ran into Seymour’s bike, shouting,
“You live in Trump country now,” according to police reports and Davis’
attorney. Davis ultimately pleaded guilty to a charge of battery
evidencing prejudice, but in court, he expressed remorse and was sentenced to four years of probation.
May 3, 2017: In South Padre Island, Texas, 35-year-old Alexander Jennes Downing of Waterford, Connecticut, was captured on cellphone video
taunting and aggressively approaching a Muslim family, repeatedly
shouting, “Donald Trump will stop you!” and other Trump-related remarks.
Police arrested downing, of Waterford, Connecticut, for public
intoxication. It’s unclear what came of the charge.
Oct. 22, 2017: A 44-year-old California man threatened
to kill Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., for her frequent criticism of
Trump and her promise to “take out” the president. Anthony Scott Lloyd
left a voicemail at the congresswoman’s Washington office, declaring:
“If you continue to make threats towards the president, you’re going to
wind up dead, Maxine. Cause we’ll kill you.” After pleading guilty
to one count of threatening a U.S. official, Lloyd asked the judge for
leniency, saying he suffered from addiction-inducing mental illness and
became “far too immersed in listening to polarizing political
commentators and engaging in heated political debates online.” His
lawyer put it this way to the judge: “Mr. Lloyd was a voracious consumer
of political news online, on television and on radio … [that are]
commonly viewed as ‘right wing,’ unconditionally supportive of President
Trump, and fiercely critical of anyone who opposed President Trump’s
policies.” The judge sentenced Lloyd to six months of house arrest and
three years of probation.
August 2018: After the Boston Globe called on news
outlets around the country to resist what it called “Trump’s assault on
journalism,” the Boston Globe received more than a dozen threatening
phone calls. “You are the enemy of the people,” the alleged caller,
68-year-old Robert Chain of Encino, California, told a Boston Globe
employee on Aug. 22. “As long as you keep attacking the President, the
duly elected President of the United States … I will continue to
threat[en], harass, and annoy the Boston Globe.” A week later,
authorities arrested Chain
on threat-related charges. After a hearing in his case, he told
reporters, “America was saved when Donald J. Trump was elected
president.” Chain has pleaded guilty to seven threat-related charges,
and he is awaiting sentencing.
Oct. 4, 2018: The Polk County Sheriff’s Office in Florida arrested
53-year-old James Patrick of Winter Haven, Florida, for allegedly
threatening “to kill Democratic office holders, members of their
families and members of both local and federal law enforcement
agencies,” according to a police report. In messages posted online,
Patrick detailed a “plan” for his attacks, which he said he would launch
if then-nominee Brett Kavanaugh was not confirmed as a Supreme Court
justice, the police report said. Seeking Patrick’s release from jail
after his arrest, Patrick’s attorney, Terri Stewart, told a judge that
her client’s “rantings” were akin to comments from “a certain
high-ranking official” — Trump. The president had “threatened the North
Korean people — to blow them all up. It was on Twitter,” Stewart said,
according to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. Patrick has been charged with
making a written threat to kill or injure, and he has pleaded not
guilty. His trial is pending.
Late October 2018: Over the course of a week, Florida
man Cesar Sayoc allegedly mailed at least 15 potential bombs to
prominent critics of Trump and members of the media. Sayoc had been
living in a van plastered with pro-Trump stickers, and he had posted
several pro-Trump messages on social media. Federal prosecutors have
accused him of “domestic terrorism,” and Sayoc has since pleaded guilty
to 65 counts, including use of a weapon of mass destruction. He was sentenced
to 20 years in prison. “We believe the president’s rhetoric contributed
to Mr. Sayoc’s behavior,” Sayoc’s attorney told the judge at
sentencing.
Dec. 4, 2018: Michael Brogan, 51, of Brooklyn, New
York, left a voicemail at an unidentified U.S. Senator’s office in
Washington insisting, “I’m going to put a bullet in ya. … You and your
constant lambasting of President Trump. Oh, reproductive rights,
reproductive rights.” He later told an FBI agent that before leaving the
voicemail he became “very angry” by “an internet video of the Senator,
including the Senator’s criticism of the President of the United States
as well as the Senator’s views on reproductive rights.” “The threats
were made to discourage the Senator from criticizing the President,” the
Justice Department said in a later press release. Brogan has since pleaded guilty to one count of threatening a U.S. official, and he is awaiting sentencing.
Jan. 17, 2019: Stephen Taubert of Syracuse, New York,
was arrested by the U.S. Capitol Police for threatening to kill Rep.
Maxine Waters, D-Calif., and for threatening to “hang” former President
Barack Obama. Taubert used “overtly bigoted, hateful language” in his
threats, according to federal prosecutors. On July 20, 2018, Taubert
called the congresswoman’s Los Angeles office to say he would find her
at public events and kill her and her entire staff. In a letter to the
judge just days before Taubert’s trial began, his defense attorney,
Courtenay McKeon, noted: “During that time period, Congresswoman Waters
was embroiled in a public feud with the Trump administration. … On June
25, 2018, in response to Congresswoman Waters’ public statements,
President Trump tweeted: ‘Congresswoman Maxine Waters, an
extraordinarily low IQ person, has … just called for harm to supporters …
of the Make America Great Again movement. Be careful what you wish for
Max!'” As McKeon insisted to the judge: “This context is relevant to the
case.” A federal jury ultimately convicted
Taubert on three federal charges, including retaliating against a
federal official and making a threat over state lines. He was sentenced
to nearly four years in prison.
Jan. 22, 2019: David Boileau of Holiday, Florida, was arrested
by the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office for allegedly burglarizing an
Iraqi family’s home and “going through” their mailbox, according to a
police report. After officers arrived at the home, Boileau “made several
statements of his dislike for people of Middle Eastern descent,” the
report said. “He also stated if he doesn’t get rid of them, Trump will
handle it.” The police report noted that a day before, Boileau threw
screws at a vehicle outside the family’s house. On that day, Boileau
allegedly told police, “We’ll get rid of them one way or another.”
Boileau, 58, has since pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of
trespassing, and he was sentenced to 90 days in jail.
Feb. 15, 2019: The FBI in Maryland arrested
a Marine veteran and U.S. Coast Guard lieutenant, Christopher Paul
Hasson, who they said was stockpiling weapons and “espoused” racist and
anti-immigrant views for years as he sought to “murder innocent
civilians on a scale rarely seen in this country.” In court documents,
prosecutors said the 49-year-old “domestic terrorist” compiled a “hit
list” of prominent Democrats. Two months later, while seeking Hasson’s
release from jail before trial, his public defender, Elizabeth Oyer,
told a federal judge: “This looks like the sort of list that our
commander-in-chief might have compiled while watching Fox News in the
morning. … Is it legitimately frustrating that offensive language and
ideology has now become part of our national vocabulary? Yes, it is very
frustrating. But … it is hard to differentiate it from the random
musings of someone like Donald Trump who uses similar epithets in his
everyday language and tweets.” Hasson faces weapons-related charges and
was being detained as he awaits trial. He has pleaded not guilty.
March 16, 2019: Anthony Comello, 24, of Staten Island,
New York, was taken into custody for allegedly killing Francesco “Franky
Boy” Cali, the reputed head of the infamous Gambino crime family. It
marked the first mob boss murder in New York in 30 years, law
enforcement officials told ABC News the murder may have stemmed from
Comello’s romantic relationship with a Cali family member. Court
documents since filed in state court by Comello’s defense attorney,
Robert Gottlieb, said Comello suffers from mental defect and was a
believer in the “conspiratorial fringe right-wing political group”
QAnon. In addition, Gottlieb wrote:
“Beginning with the election of President Trump in November 2016,
Anthony Comello’s family began to notice changes to his personality. …
Mr. Comello became certain that he was enjoying the protection of
President Trump himself, and that he had the president’s full support.
Mr. Comello grew to believe that several well-known politicians and
celebrities were actually members of the Deep State, and were actively
trying to bring about the destruction of America.” Comello has been
charged with one count of murder and two counts of criminal possession
of a weapon. His trial is pending, and he has pleaded not guilty.
April 5, 2019: The FBI arrested a 55-year-old man
from upstate New York for allegedly threatening to kill Rep. Ilhan
Omar, D-Minn., one of the first two Muslim women elected to the U.S.
Congress. She is an outspoken critic of Trump, and Trump has frequently
launched public attacks against her and three other female lawmakers of
color. Two weeks before his arrest, Patrick Carlineo Jr. allegedly
called Omar’s office in Washington labeling the congresswoman a
“terrorist” and declaring: “I’ll put a bullet in her f—-ing skull.”
When an FBI agent then traced the call to Carlineo and interviewed him,
Carlineo “stated that he was a patriot, that he loves the President, and
that he hates radical Muslims in our government,” according to the FBI
agent’s summary of the interview. Federal prosecutors charged Carlineo
with threatening to assault and murder a United States official.
Carlineo is awaiting trial, although his defense attorney and federal
prosecutors are working on what his attorney called another “possible
resolution” of the case.
April 18, 2019: The FBI arrested John Joseph Kless of
Tamarac, Florida, for calling the Washington offices of three prominent
Democrats and threatening to kill each of them. At his home, authorities
found a loaded handgun in a backpack, an AR-15 rifle and hundreds of
rounds of ammunition. In later pleading guilty
to one charge of transmitting threats over state lines, Kless admitted
that in a threatening voicemail targeting Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich.,
he stated: “You won’t f—ing tell Americans what to say, and you
definitely don’t tell our president, Donald Trump, what to say.” Tlaib, a
vocal critic of Trump, was scheduled to speak in Florida four days
later. Kless was awaiting sentencing. In a letter to the federal judge,
he said he “made a very big mistake,” never meant to hurt anyone, and
“was way out of line with my language and attitude.”
April 24, 2019: The FBI arrested 30-year-old
Matthew Haviland of North Kingstown, Rhode Island, for allegedly
sending a series of violent and threatening emails to a college
professor in Massachusetts who publicly expressed support for abortion
rights and strongly criticized Trump. In one of 28 emails sent to the
professor on March 10, 2019, Haviland allegedly called the professor
“pure evil” and said “all Democrats must be eradicated,” insisting the
country now has “a president who’s taking our country in a place of more
freedom rather than less.” In another email the same day, Haviland
allegedly wrote the professor: “I will rip every limb from your body and
… I will kill every member of your family.” According to court
documents, Haviland’s longtime friend later told the FBI that “within
the last year, Haviland’s views regarding abortion and politics have
become more extreme … at least in part because of the way the news media
portrays President Trump.” Haviland has been charged with cyberstalking
and transmitting a threat in interstate commerce. His trial is pending.
June 5, 2019: The FBI arrested a Utah man for allegedly
calling the U.S. Capitol more than 2,000 times over several months and
threatening to kill Democratic lawmakers, whom he said were “trying to
destroy Trump’s presidency.” “I am going to take up my second amendment
right, and shoot you liberals in the head,” 54-year-old Scott Brian
Haven allegedly stated in one of the calls on Oct. 18, 2018, according
to charging documents. When an FBI agent later interviewed Haven, he
“explained the phone calls were made during periods of frustration with
the way Democrats were treating President Trump,” the charging documents
said. The FBI visit, however, didn’t stop Haven from making more
threats, including: On March 21, 2019, he called an unidentified U.S.
senator’s office to say that if Democrats refer to Trump as Hitler again
he will shoot them, and two days later he called an unidentified
congressman’s office to say he “was going to take [the congressman] out …
because he is trying to remove a duly elected President.” A federal
grand jury has since charged Haven with one count of transmitting a
threat over state lines. Haven pleaded not guilty and was awaiting trial.
Aug. 3, 2019: A gunman opened fire
at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, killing 22 people and injuring 24
others. The FBI labeled the massacre an act of “domestic terrorism,” and
police determined that the alleged shooter, 21-year-old Patrick
Crusius, posted a lengthy anti-immigrant diatribe online before the
attack. “We attribute that manifesto directly to him,” according to El
Paso police chief Greg Allen. Describing the coming assault as “a
response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas,” the screed’s writer said
“the media” would “blame Trump’s rhetoric” for the attack but insisted
his anti-immigrant views “predate Trump” — an apparent acknowledgement
that at least some of his views align with some of Trump’s public
statements. The writer began his online essay by stating that he
generally “support[s]” the previous writings of the man who killed 51
Muslim worshippers in New Zealand earlier this year. In that case, the
shooter in New Zealand said he absolutely did not support Trump as “a
policy maker and leader” — but “[a]s a symbol of renewed white identity
and common purpose? Sure.” Crusius has been charged with capital murder
by the state of Texas.
A Twitter
employee who works on machine learning believes that a proactive,
algorithmic solution to white supremacy would also catch Republican
politicians.
With every sort of content filter, there is a tradeoff, he explained.
When a platform aggressively enforces against ISIS content, for
instance, it can also flag innocent accounts as well, such as Arabic
language broadcasters. Society, in general, accepts the benefit of
banning ISIS for inconveniencing some others, he said.
CEO OF TWITTER, JACK DORSEY, WHO PROMOTES WHITE SUPREMACISTS, RACIST BIGOTS, AND OF COURSE, TRAITOR TRUMP AND HIS HATE HE SPEWS ON TWITTER. JACK DORSEY IS RESPONSIBLE AND SHOULD BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR ALL THE ACTS OF MASSACRES, AND MURDERS COMMITTED BY TRUMPANZEES BECAUSE THIS FUCKING SCUMBAG JACK DORSEY SUPPORTS AND DEFENDS THEM ON TWITTER JUST SO JACK AND HIS BOARD OF DIRECTORS AND STOCKHOLDERS CAN KEEP RAKING IN THE BILLIONS THEY GET FROM PROMOTING AND IS IN FACT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE ACTS OF VIOLENCE CONTAINED IN THIS BLOG POSTING BELOW.
MATTER OF FACT? CEO JACK DORSEY SHOULD REAP ALL HE HAS SOWN AND HAVE DONE UNTO HIM AS HE HAS PROMOTED TO BE DONE UNTO OTHERS.
In
separate discussions verified by Motherboard, that employee said Twitter
hasn’t taken the same aggressive approach to white supremacist content
because the collateral accounts that are impacted can, in some
instances, be Republican politicians.
The employee argued that,
on a technical level, content from Republican politicians could get
swept up by algorithms aggressively removing white supremacist material.
Banning politicians wouldn’t be accepted by society as a trade-off for
flagging all of the white supremacist propaganda, he argued.
Congresswoman received death threats following video Trump posted – but he didn’t technically violate the rules
The rules just aren’t the same for Donald Trump as they are for the rest of us. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey apparently admitted as much this week on a phone call with Minnesota representative Ilhan Omar.
As reported by the Washington Post,
Dorsey, often criticized for his inaction when it comes removing
hateful and threatening content from the platform, was asked by Omar why
he hadn’t taken down a video posted by Trump earlier in the month. The
video, which spliced together misleading and out of context comments
from Omar about the issue of Islamophobia with footage of the 9/11
attacks, was clearly targeted harassment to anyone who saw it.
Indeed Omar said she saw a sharp uptick in death threats after it was posted.
But since it came from Trump, and not an average Twitter user, there
was nothing Dorsey could do, he said. The tweet didn’t technically
violate the rules in any case, he added.
Dorsey has said in the past that the public interest
value of Trump’s tweets outweigh the harm of his occasional calls for
violence or threats against foreign governments or members of the media
“Blocking a world leader from Twitter or removing their controversial tweets would hide important information people should be able to see and debate,” the company explained in statement last year. “It would also not silence that leader, but it would certainly hamper necessary discussion around their words and actions.”
More recently Dorsey declined to say whether a hypothetical direct call from Trump to murder a journalist would be grounds for his banishment.
Though Twitter has rules against “abuse and hateful conduct,” civil
rights experts, government organizations, and Twitter users say the
platform hasn’t done enough to curb white supremacy and neo-Nazis on the platform, and its competitor Facebook recently explicitly banned white nationalism. Wednesday, during a parliamentary committee hearing on social media content moderation, UK MP Yvette Cooper asked Twitter why it hasn’t yet banned former KKK leader David Duke, and “Jack, ban the Nazis” has become a common reply to many of Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s tweets. During a recent interview with TED
that allowed the public to tweet in questions, the feed was overtaken
by people asking Dorsey why the platform hadn’t banned Nazis. Dorsey
said “we have policies around violent extremist groups,” but did not
give a straightforward answer to the question. Dorsey did not respond to
two requests for comment sent via Twitter DM.
“Most people can agree a beheading video or some kind of ISIS content
should be proactively removed, but when we try to talk about the
alt-right or white nationalism, we get into dangerous territory, where
we’re talking about [Iowa Rep.] Steve King or maybe even some of Trump’s
tweets, so it becomes hard for social media companies to say all of
this ‘this content should be removed,’” Amarasingam said.
In March, King promoted an open white nationalist on Twitter for the third time. King quote tweeted Faith Goldy, a Canadian white nationalist. Earlier this month, Facebook banned Goldy
under the site’s new policy banning white nationalism; Goldy has
122,000 followers on Twitter and has not been banned at the time of
writing. Last year, Twitter banned Republican politician
and white nationalist Paul Nehlen for a racist tweet he sent about
actress and princess Meghan Markle, but prior to the ban, Nehlen gained a
wide following on the platform while tweeting openly white nationalist
content about, for example, the “Jewish media.”
JM Berger, author of Extremism and a number of reports on ISIS and far-right extremists on Twitter, told Motherboard that in his own research, he has found that “a very large number of white nationalists identify themselves as avid Trump supporters.”
“Cracking
down on white nationalists will therefore involve removing a lot of
people who identify to a greater or lesser extent as Trump supporters,
and some people in Trump circles and pro-Trump media will certainly
seize on this to complain they are being persecuted,” Berger said.
“There’s going to be controversy here that we didn’t see with ISIS,
because there are more white nationalists than there are ISIS
supporters, and white nationalists are closer to the levers of political
power in the US and Europe than ISIS ever was.”
Twitter hasn’t done a particularly good job of removing white
supremacist content and has shown a reluctance to take any action of any
kind against “world leaders”
even when their tweets violate Twitter’s rules. But Berger agrees with
Twitter in that the problem the company is facing with white supremacy
is fundamentally different than the one it faced with ISIS on a
practical level.
“With
ISIS, the group’s obsessive branding, tight social networks and small
numbers made it easier to avoid collateral damage when the companies
cracked down (although there was some),” he said. “White nationalists,
in contrast, have inconsistent branding, diffuse social networks and a
large body of sympathetic people in the population, so the risk of
collateral damage might be perceived as being higher, but it really
depends on where the company draws its lines around content.”
But
just because eradicating white supremacy on Twitter is a hard problem
doesn’t mean the company should get a pass. After Facebook explicitly
banned white supremacy and white nationalism, Motherboard asked YouTube
and Twitter whether they would make similar changes. Neither company would commit to making that explicit change, and referred us to their existing rules.
“Twitter
has a responsibility to stomp out all voices of hate on its platform,”
Brandi Collins-Dexter, senior campaign director at activist group Color
Of Change told Motherboard in a statement. “Instead, the company is
giving a free ride to conservative politicians whose dangerous rhetoric
enables the growth of the white supremacist movement into the mainstream
and the rise of hate, online and off.”
NOW LETS SEE THE RESULTS OF TWITTERS CEO JACK DORSEY AND THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS AND THE EMPLOYEES REFUSAL TO STAND UP TO TRUMP AND THE WHITE SUPREMACISTS HAS CAUSED SHALL WE?
‘No Blame?’ ABC News finds 36 cases invoking ‘Trump’ in connection with violence, threats, alleged assaults.
A nationwide review conducted by ABC News has identified at least 36 criminal cases where Trump was invoked in direct connection with violent acts, threats of violence or allegations of assault.
In nine cases, perpetrators hailed Trump in the midst or immediate
aftermath of physically attacking innocent victims. In another 10 cases,
perpetrators cheered or defended Trump while taunting or threatening
others. And in another 10 cases, Trump and his rhetoric were cited in
court to explain a defendant’s violent or threatening behavior.
ABC News could not find a single criminal case filed in federal or state
court where an act of violence or threat was made in the name of
President Barack Obama or President George W. Bush.
The 36 cases identified by ABC News are remarkable in that a link to the
president is captured in court documents and police statements, under
the penalty of perjury or contempt.
In many cases of assault or threat, charges are never filed,
perpetrators are never identified or the incident is never even reported
to authorities. And most criminal acts committed by Trump supporters or
his detractors have nothing to do with the president. But in 36 cases,
court records and police reports indicated some sort of link.
The perpetrators and suspects identified in the 36 cases are mostly
white men — as young as teenagers and as old as 75 — while the victims
largely represent an array of minority groups — African-Americans,
Latinos, Muslims and gay men.
Federal law enforcement authorities have privately told ABC News they
worry that — even with Trump’s public denunciations of violence — Trump’s style
could inspire violence-prone individuals to take action against
minorities or others they perceive to be against the president’s agenda.
Aug. 19, 2015:In Boston, after he and his brother beat a sleeping homeless man of Mexican descent with a metal pole, Steven Leader, 30, told police “Donald Trump was right, all these illegals need to be deported.” The victim, however, was not in the United States illegally. The brothers, who are white, ultimately pleaded guilty to several assault-related charges and were each sentenced to at least two years in prison.
Dec. 5, 2015: After Penn State University student Nicholas Tavella, 19, was charged with “ethnic intimidation” and other crimes for threatening to “put a bullet” in a young Indian man on campus, his attorney argued in court that Tavella was just motivated by “a love of country,” not “hate.” “Donald Trump is running for President of the United States saying that, ‘We’ve got to check people out more closely,'” Tavella’s attorney argued in his defense. Tavella, who is white, ultimately pleaded guilty to ethnic intimidation and was sentenced to up to two years in prison.
April 28, 2016:When FBI agents arrested 61-year-old John Martin Roos in White City, Oregon, for threatening federal officials, including then-President Barack Obama, they found several pipe bombs and guns in his home. In the three months before his arrest, Roos posted at least 34 messages to Twitter about Trump, repeatedly threatening African Americans, Muslims, Mexican immigrants and the “liberal media,” and in court documents, prosecutors noted that the avowed Trump supporter posted this threatening message to Facebook a month earlier: “The establishment is trying to steal the election from Trump. … Obama is already on a kill list … Your [name] can be there too.” Roos, who is white, has since pleaded guilty to possessing an unregistered explosive device and posting internet threats against federal officials. He was sentenced to more than five years in prison.
Funny thing is? Hitler and the Nazis would have sent each and every one of these generational inbred pig fuckers to his concentration camps to take a gas shower. These fucking mental midget morons sure do not fit the description of Hitler’s Aryian Race let me tell ya. These troglodytes ought to remember their history, about how we put these rabid, foaming at the mouth dogs down in the Civil War, WWI and WWII and I guess? They just want to repeat history and get their asses stomped again like the cockroaches they are. Only this time? We of AntiFa? Will wipe these motherfuckers off the face of the earth when it comes time for these traitorous shitstains on the underwear of humanity of the US finally drop their micro nuts and pop off. We of AntiFa will not start it, but we damn sure will finish it.
June 3, 2016:After 54-year-old Henry Slapnik attacked his African-American neighbors with a knife in Cleveland, he told police “Donald Trump will fix them because they are scared of Donald Trump,” according to police reports. Slapnik, who is white, ultimately pleaded guilty to “ethnic intimidation” and other charges. It’s unclear what sentence he received.
Aug. 16, 2016:In Olympia, Washington, 32-year-old Daniel Rowe attacked a white woman and a black man with a knife after seeing them kiss on a popular street. When police arrived on the scene, Rowe professed to being “a white supremacist” and said “he planned on heading down to the next Donald Trump rally and stomping out more of the Black Lives Matter group,” according to court documents filed in the case. Rowe, who is white, ultimately pleaded guilty to charges of assault and malicious harassment, and he was sentenced to more than four years in prison.
Sept. 1, 2016:The then-chief of the Bordentown, New Jersey, police department, Frank Nucera, allegedly assaulted an African American teenager who was handcuffed. Federal prosecutors said the attack was part of Nucera’s “intense racial animus,” noting in federal court that “within hours” of the assault, Nucera was secretly recorded saying “Donald Trump is the last hope for white people.” The 60-year-old Nucera has been indicted by a federal grand jury on three charges, including committing a federal hate crime. Nucera, who is white, has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial. He retired two years ago.
September 2016: After 40-year-old Mark Feigin of Los Angeles was arrested for posting anti-Muslim and allegedly threatening statements to a mosque’s Facebook page, his attorney argued in court that the comments were protected by the First Amendment because Feigin was “using similar language and expressing similar views” to “campaign statements from then-candidate Donald Trump.” Noting that his client “supported Donald Trump,” attorney Caleb Mason added that “Mr. Feigin’s comments were directed toward a pressing issue of public concern that was a central theme of the Trump campaign and the 2016 election generally: the Islamic roots of many international and U.S. terrorist acts.” Feigin, who is white, ultimately pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of sending harassing communications electronically. He was sentenced to probation.
Oct. 13, 2016:After the FBI arrested three white Kansas men for plotting to bomb an apartment complex in Garden City, Kansas, where many Somali immigrants lived, one of the men’s attorneys insisted to a federal judge that the plot was “self-defensive” because the three men believed “that if Donald Trump won the election, President Obama would not recognize the validity of those results, that he would declare martial law, and that at that point militias all over the country would have to step in.” Then, after a federal grand jury convicted 47-year-old Patrick Stein and the two other men of conspiracy-related charges, Stein’s attorney argued for a lighter sentence based on “the backdrop” of Stein’s actions: Trump had become “the voice of a lost and ignored white, working-class set of voters” like Stein, and the “climate” at the time could propel someone like Stein to “go to 11,” attorney Jim Pratt said in court. Stein and his two accomplices were each sentenced to at least 25 years in prison.
Nov. 3, 2016:In Tampa, Florida, David Howard threatened to burn down the house next to his “simply because” it was being purchased by a Muslim family, according to the Justice Department. He later said under oath that while he harbored a years-long dislike for Muslims, the circumstances around the home sale were “the match that lit the wick.” He cited Trump’s warnings about immigrants from majority-Muslim countries. “[With] the fact that the president wants these six countries vetted, everybody vetted before they come over, there’s a concern about Muslims,” Howard said. Howard, who is white, ultimately pleaded guilty to a federal civil rights violation, and the 59-year-old was sentenced to eight months in prison.
Nov. 10, 2016:A 23-year-old man from High Springs, Florida, allegedly assaulted an unsuspecting Hispanic man who was cleaning a parking lot outside of a local food store. “[H]e was suddenly struck in the back of the head,” a police report said of the victim. “[The victim] asked the suspect why he hit him, to which the suspect replied, ‘This is for Donald Trump.’ The suspect then grabbed [the victim] by the jacket and proceeded to strike him several more times,” according to the report. Surveillance video of the incident “completely corroborated [the victim’s] account of events,” police said. The suspect was arrested on battery charges, but the case was dropped after the victim decided not to pursue the matter, police said. Efforts by ABC News to reach the victim for further explanation were not successful.
Nov. 12, 2016:In Grand Rapids, Michigan, while attacking a cab driver from East Africa, 23-year-old Jacob Holtzlander shouted racial epithets and repeatedly yelled the word, “Trump,” according to law enforcement records. Holtzlander, who is white, ultimately pleaded guilty to a charge of ethnic intimidation, and he was sentenced to 30 days in jail.
Jan. 25, 2017:At JFK International Airport in New York, a female Delta employee, wearing a hijab in accordance with her Muslim faith, was “physically and verbally” attacked by 57-year-old Robin Rhodes of Worcester, Mass., “for no apparent reason,” prosecutors said at the time. When the victim asked Brown what she did to him, he replied: “You did nothing, but … [Expletive] Islam. [Expletive] ISIS. Trump is here now. He will get rid of all of you.” Rhodes ultimately pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of “menacing,” and he was sentenced to probation.
Feb. 19, 2017:After 35-year-old Gerald Wallace called a mosque in Miami Gardens, Florida, and threatened to “shoot all y’all,” he told the FBI and police that he made the call because he “got angry” from a local TV news report about a terrorist act. At a rally in Florida the day before, Trump falsely claimed that Muslim refugees had just launched a terrorist attack in Sweden.
Wallace’s attorney, Katie Carmon, later tried to convince a federal judge that the threat to kill worshippers could be “protected speech” due to the “very distinctly political climate” at the time. “There are courts considering President Trump’s travel ban … and the president himself has made some very pointed statements about what he thinks about people of this descent,” Carmon argued in court.
Wallace, who is African American, ultimately pleaded guilty to obstructing the free exercise of his victims’ religious beliefs, and he was sentenced to one year in prison.
Feb. 23, 2017: Kevin Seymour and his partner Kevin price were riding their bicycles in Key West, Florida, when a man on a moped, 30-year-old Brandon Davis of North Carolina, hurled anti-gay slurs at them and “intentionally” ran into Seymour’s bike, shouting, “You live in Trump country now,” according to police reports and Davis’ attorney. Davis ultimately pleaded guilty to a charge of battery evidencing prejudice, but in court, he expressed remorse and was sentenced to four years of probation.
May 3, 2017:In South Padre Island, Texas, 35-year-old Alexander Jennes Downing of Waterford, Connecticut, was captured on cellphone video taunting and aggressively approaching a Muslim family, repeatedly shouting, “Donald Trump will stop you!” and other Trump-related remarks. Police arrested Downing, of Waterford, Connecticut, for public intoxication. It’s unclear what came of the charge.
May 11, 2017:Authorities arrested Steven Martan of Tucson, Arizona, after he left three threatening messages at the office Rep. Martha McSally, R-Ariz. In one message, he told McSally he was going to “blow your brains out,” and in another he told her that her “days are numbered.” He later told FBI agents “that he was venting frustrations with Congresswoman McSally’s congressional votes in support of the President of the United States,” according to charging documents. Martan’s attorney, Walter Goncalves Jr., later told a judge that Martan had “an alcohol problem” and left the messages “after becoming intoxicated” and “greatly upset” by news that McSally “agreed with decisions by President Donald Trump.” Martan, 58, has since pleaded guilty to three counts of retaliating against a federal official and was sentenced to more than one year in prison.
Oct. 22, 2017: A 44-year-old California man threatened to kill Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., for her frequent criticism of Trump and her promise to “take out” the president. Anthony Scott Lloyd left a voicemail at the congresswoman’s Washington office, declaring: “If you continue to make threats towards the president, you’re going to wind up dead, Maxine. Cause we’ll kill you.” After pleading guilty to one count of threatening a U.S. official, Lloyd asked the judge for leniency, saying he suffered from addiction-inducing mental illness and became “far too immersed in listening to polarizing political commentators and engaging in heated political debates online.” His lawyer put it this way to the judge: “Mr. Lloyd was a voracious consumer of political news online, on television and on radio … [that are] commonly viewed as ‘right wing,’ unconditionally supportive of President Trump, and fiercely critical of anyone who opposed President Trump’s policies.” The judge sentenced Lloyd to six months of house arrest and three years of probation.
August 2018:After the Boston Globe called on news outlets around the country to resist what it called “Trump’s assault on journalism,” the Boston Globe received more than a dozen threatening phone calls. “You are the enemy of the people,” the alleged caller, 68-year-old Robert Chain of Encino, California, told a Boston Globe employee on Aug. 22. “As long as you keep attacking the President, the duly elected President of the United States … I will continue to threat[en], harass, and annoy the Boston Globe.” A week later, authorities arrested Chain on threat-related charges. After a hearing in his case, he told reporters, “America was saved when Donald J. Trump was elected president.” Chain has pleaded guilty to seven threat-related charges, and he is awaiting sentencing.
Oct. 4, 2018:The Polk County Sheriff’s Office in Florida arrested 53-year-old James Patrick of Winter Haven, Florida, for allegedly threatening “to kill Democratic office holders, members of their families and members of both local and federal law enforcement agencies,” according to a police report. In messages posted online, Patrick detailed a “plan” for his attacks, which he said he would launch if then-nominee Brett Kavanaugh was not confirmed as a Supreme Court justice, the police report said. Seeking Patrick’s release from jail after his arrest, Patrick’s attorney, Terri Stewart, told a judge that her client’s “rantings” were akin to comments from “a certain high-ranking official” — Trump. The president had “threatened the North Korean people — to blow them all up. It was on Twitter,” Stewart said, according to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. Patrick has been charged with making a written threat to kill or injure, and he has pleaded not guilty. His trial is pending.
Late October 2018:Over the course of a week, Florida man Cesar Sayoc allegedly mailed at least 15 potential bombs to prominent critics of Trump and members of the media. Sayoc had been living in a van plastered with pro-Trump stickers, and he had posted several pro-Trump messages on social media. Federal prosecutors have accused him of “domestic terrorism,” and Sayoc has since pleaded guilty to 65 counts, including use of a weapon of mass destruction. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison. “We believe the president’s rhetoric contributed to Mr. Sayoc’s behavior,” Sayoc’s attorney told the judge at sentencing.
Dec. 4, 2018:Michael Brogan, 51, of Brooklyn, New York, left a voicemail at an unidentified U.S. Senator’s office in Washington insisting, “I’m going to put a bullet in ya. … You and your constant lambasting of President Trump. Oh, reproductive rights, reproductive rights.” He later told an FBI agent that before leaving the voicemail he became “very angry” by “an internet video of the Senator, including the Senator’s criticism of the President of the United States as well as the Senator’s views on reproductive rights.” “The threats were made to discourage the Senator from criticizing the President,” the Justice Department said in a later press release. Brogan has since pleaded guilty to one count of threatening a U.S. official, and he is awaiting sentencing.
Jan. 17, 2019:Stephen Taubert of Syracuse, New York, was arrested by the U.S. Capitol Police for threatening to kill Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., and for threatening to “hang” former President Barack Obama. Taubert used “overtly bigoted, hateful language” in his threats, according to federal prosecutors. On July 20, 2018, Taubert called the congresswoman’s Los Angeles office to say he would find her at public events and kill her and her entire staff. In a letter to the judge just days before Taubert’s trial began, his defense attorney, Courtenay McKeon, noted: “During that time period, Congresswoman Waters was embroiled in a public feud with the Trump administration. … On June 25, 2018, in response to Congresswoman Waters’ public statements, President Trump tweeted: ‘Congresswoman Maxine Waters, an extraordinarily low IQ person, has … just called for harm to supporters … of the Make America Great Again movement. Be careful what you wish for Max!'” As McKeon insisted to the judge: “This context is relevant to the case.” A federal jury ultimately convicted Taubert on three federal charges, including retaliating against a federal official and making a threat over state lines. He was sentenced to nearly four years in prison.
Jan. 22, 2019:David Boileau of Holiday, Florida, was arrested by the Pasco County Sheriff’s Office for allegedly burglarizing an Iraqi family’s home and “going through” their mailbox, according to a police report. After officers arrived at the home, Boileau “made several statements of his dislike for people of Middle Eastern descent,” the report said. “He also stated if he doesn’t get rid of them, Trump will handle it.” The police report noted that a day before, Boileau threw screws at a vehicle outside the family’s house. On that day, Boileau allegedly told police, “We’ll get rid of them one way or another.” Boileau, 58, has since pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of trespassing, and he was sentenced to 90 days in jail.
Feb. 15, 2019:The FBI in Maryland arrested a Marine veteran and U.S. Coast Guard lieutenant, Christopher Paul Hasson, who they said was stockpiling weapons and “espoused” racist and anti-immigrant views for years as he sought to “murder innocent civilians on a scale rarely seen in this country.” In court documents, prosecutors said the 49-year-old “domestic terrorist” compiled a “hit list” of prominent Democrats. Two months later, while seeking Hasson’s release from jail before trial, his public defender, Elizabeth Oyer, told a federal judge: “This looks like the sort of list that our commander-in-chief might have compiled while watching Fox News in the morning. … Is it legitimately frustrating that offensive language and ideology has now become part of our national vocabulary? Yes, it is very frustrating. But … it is hard to differentiate it from the random musings of someone like Donald Trump who uses similar epithets in his everyday language and tweets.” Hasson faces weapons-related charges and was being detained as he awaits trial. He has pleaded not guilty.
March 16, 2019:Anthony Comello, 24, of Staten Island, New York, was taken into custody for allegedly killing Francesco “Franky Boy” Cali, the reputed head of the infamous Gambino crime family. It marked the first mob boss murder in New York in 30 years, law enforcement officials told ABC News the murder may have stemmed from Comello’s romantic relationship with a Cali family member. Court documents since filed in state court by Comello’s defense attorney, Robert Gottlieb, said Comello suffers from mental defect and was a believer in the “conspiratorial fringe right-wing political group” QAnon. In addition, Gottlieb wrote: “Beginning with the election of President Trump in November 2016, Anthony Comello’s family began to notice changes to his personality. … Mr. Comello became certain that he was enjoying the protection of President Trump himself, and that he had the president’s full support. Mr. Comello grew to believe that several well-known politicians and celebrities were actually members of the Deep State, and were actively trying to bring about the destruction of America.” Comello has been charged with one count of murder and two counts of criminal possession of a weapon. His trial is pending, and he has pleaded not guilty.
April 5, 2019:The FBI arrested a 55-year-old man from upstate New York for allegedly threatening to kill Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., one of the first two Muslim women elected to the U.S. Congress. She is an outspoken critic of Trump, and Trump has frequently launched public attacks against her and three other female lawmakers of color. Two weeks before his arrest, Patrick Carlineo Jr. allegedly called Omar’s office in Washington labeling the congresswoman a “terrorist” and declaring: “I’ll put a bullet in her f—-ing skull.” When an FBI agent then traced the call to Carlineo and interviewed him, Carlineo “stated that he was a patriot, that he loves the President, and that he hates radical Muslims in our government,” according to the FBI agent’s summary of the interview. Federal prosecutors charged Carlineo with threatening to assault and murder a United States official. Carlineo is awaiting trial, although his defense attorney and federal prosecutors are working on what his attorney called another “possible resolution” of the case.
April 18, 2019:The FBI arrested John Joseph Kless of Tamarac, Florida, for calling the Washington offices of three prominent Democrats and threatening to kill each of them. At his home, authorities found a loaded handgun in a backpack, an AR-15 rifle and hundreds of rounds of ammunition. In later pleading guilty to one charge of transmitting threats over state lines, Kless admitted that in a threatening voicemail targeting Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., he stated: “You won’t f—ing tell Americans what to say, and you definitely don’t tell our president, Donald Trump, what to say.” Tlaib, a vocal critic of Trump, was scheduled to speak in Florida four days later. Kless was awaiting sentencing. In a letter to the federal judge, he said he “made a very big mistake,” never meant to hurt anyone, and “was way out of line with my language and attitude.”
April 24, 2019:The FBI arrested 30-year-old Matthew Haviland of North Kingstown, Rhode Island, for allegedly sending a series of violent and threatening emails to a college professor in Massachusetts who publicly expressed support for abortion rights and strongly criticized Trump. In one of 28 emails sent to the professor on March 10, 2019, Haviland allegedly called the professor “pure evil” and said “all Democrats must be eradicated,” insisting the country now has “a president who’s taking our country in a place of more freedom rather than less.” In another email the same day, Haviland allegedly wrote the professor: “I will rip every limb from your body and … I will kill every member of your family.” According to court documents, Haviland’s longtime friend later told the FBI that “within the last year, Haviland’s views regarding abortion and politics have become more extreme … at least in part because of the way the news media portrays President Trump.” Haviland has been charged with cyberstalking and transmitting a threat in interstate commerce. His trial is pending.
June 5, 2019:The FBI arrested a Utah man for allegedly calling the U.S. Capitol more than 2,000 times over several months and threatening to kill Democratic lawmakers, whom he said were “trying to destroy Trump’s presidency.” “I am going to take up my second amendment right, and shoot you liberals in the head,” 54-year-old Scott Brian Haven allegedly stated in one of the calls on Oct. 18, 2018, according to charging documents. When an FBI agent later interviewed Haven, he “explained the phone calls were made during periods of frustration with the way Democrats were treating President Trump,” the charging documents said. The FBI visit, however, didn’t stop Haven from making more threats, including: On March 21, 2019, he called an unidentified U.S. senator’s office to say that if Democrats refer to Trump as Hitler again he will shoot them, and two days later he called an unidentified congressman’s office to say he “was going to take [the congressman] out … because he is trying to remove a duly elected President.” A federal grand jury has since charged Haven with one count of transmitting a threat over state lines. Haven pleaded not guilty and was awaiting trial.
Aug. 3, 2019:A gunman opened fire at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, killing 22 people and injuring 24 others. The FBI labeled the massacre an act of “domestic terrorism,” and police determined that the alleged shooter, 21-year-old Patrick Crusius, posted a lengthy anti-immigrant diatribe online before the attack. “We attribute that manifesto directly to him,” according to El Paso police chief Greg Allen. Describing the coming assault as “a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas,” the screed’s writer said “the media” would “blame Trump’s rhetoric” for the attack but insisted his anti-immigrant views “predate Trump” — an apparent acknowledgement that at least some of his views align with some of Trump’s public statements. The writer began his online essay by stating that he generally “support[s]” the previous writings of the man who killed 51 Muslim worshippers in New Zealand earlier this year. In that case, the shooter in New Zealand said he absolutely did not support Trump as “a policy maker and leader” — but “[a]s a symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose? Sure.” Crusius has been charged with capital murder by the state of Texas.
Dorsey has said in the past that the public interest value of Trump’s tweets outweigh the harm of his occasional calls for violence or threats against foreign governments or members of the media
Well Jack Dorsey, your promotion of Trump has in fact? Caused people to be murdered. Has caused people to be massacred. Has caused people to be beaten. Has caused terroristic acts against Democrats, Liberals, Muslims LGBTS, blacks, and many others.
BUT YOU DO NOT GIVE ONE FLYING FUCK ABOUT THAT NOW DO YOU JACK DORSEY?
THEIR BLOOD AND DEATHS ARE ON YOUR HANDS JACK DORSEY. THEIR BLOOD AND DEATHS ARE ON THE HANDS OF ALL YOUR BOARD OF DIRECTORS: OMID KORDESTANI: EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN OF TWITTER, PATRICK PICHETTE: LEAD INDEPENDENT DIRECTOR; FORMER SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT AND CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER, GOOGLE, MARTHA LANE FOX: FOUNDER AND CHAIRPERSON, LUCKY VOICE GROUP; CHAIR PERSON, MAKIEWORLD; CROSS BENCH PEER, HOUSE OF LORDS, , NGOZI OKONJO-IWEALA: SENIOUR ADVISOR, LAZARD LTD , DAVID ROSENBLATT: CEO, 1STDIBS.COM INC , BRET TAYLOR: PRESIDENT AND CHIEF PRODUCT OFFICER SALESFORCE, ROBERT ZOELLICK: FORMER PRESIDENT OF WORLD BANK GROUP.
AND ALL OF THESE WORKERS OF TWITTER: NICK PICKLES TWITTERS DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC POLICY, PARAG AGRAWAL; TECHNOLOGY LEAD, LESLIE BERLAND: PEOPLE AND MARKETING LEAD, KAYVON BEYKPOUR: PRODUCT LEAD, DANTLEY DAVIS: HEAD OF DESIGN AND RESEARCH, MATT DERELLA: CUSTOMERS LEAD, BRUCE FALCK: REVENUE PRODUCT LEAD, VIJAYA GADDE: LEAD COUNCIL, MICHAEL MONTANO: ENGINEERING LEAD, NED SEGAL: CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER, AND ALL THE EMPLOYEES OF TWITTER.
Each and every one of these employees of Twitter from their CEO Jack Dorsey, to all their Board of Directors, to their Main Employees? Should all be arrested and charged with promotion of terrorist actions by Trump and his Trumpsters and be charged with being accessories to first degree murder and terrorist acts because they just do not give a flying fuck that people are being murdered, threatened, terrorized, attacked, beaten and shit upon because these fucking scumbags of Twitter believe that it is perfectly alright for Trump and his Trumpsters and White Supremacists and Nazis and KKK scumbag shitstains on the underwear of humanity have a right to promote their hatred, their bigotry, their misogyny and their Fascism on Twitter and so the fuck what if it causes violence, murder and mass shootings.
These scumbags of Twitter are putting money over the safety of other human beings all to promote this agenda of white supremacy and hate and bigotry of Donald J Trump his Trumpanzees and others.
And upon conviction? Each and every one of these motherfucking promoters and purveyors of white supremacy, bigotry and racism, should be given the death penalty, because they have far fucking proven that they put money and hate over the lives of other human beings and by their actions? Have in fact? committed murder of others.
Fox News and their attorneys show that they have no problem spreading their propoganda lies of the treasonous Donald J Trump or the Repugnant party. And the Faux Nitwit Newsless viewers suck up all their lies and bullshit like they are smoking off their meth pipes.
So let’s take Handjob Hannity, who proclaims himself a Christian but even Jesus Christ himself would walk up to this pathological lying, false witness bearing, Pharisee for ChristoTalibans and ChristoFascist pig fuckers, and of course pathological lying, adulterous, rapist, pedo pervert, thief and con-artist and Putin Puppet Donald J Trump everywhere and punch him in his Cocksuckers for Traitor Trump well used outhouse piehole.
Though Sean Hannity and Adolph Hitler’s Propoganda Minister Joseph Goebbels have a whole lot in common, just like Traitor Trump and Adolph Hitler have a lot in common? The one thing none of these four Fascist pig fuckers have in common with a True Christian is the fact? They are not Christians at all. Even though they proclaimed themselves Christians.
A True Christian, Sean Hannity follows ALL the teachings of Jesus Christ. Most especially? The two greatest commandments, which rise above all the rest and even the Prophets. Those two commandments are actually the basis for all the other teachings of Jesus Christ and the New Testament. Teachings such as helping the poor, feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, and yeah, you fucking piece of shit assclown for ChristoFascists, treating immigrants as if they were members of your own family. They also do not lie or bear false witness, nor defend and support pathological lying adulterers who sold us out to Russia.
But Sean, I know damn well you and your fellow supposed ChristoFascist scumbag shitstains on the underwear of humanity at Fox News have never really read your bibles. You basically cherry-pick what you want to use from the bible to justify your hatred and your bigotry and your misogyny and your lies and your bearing false witness, but you are nothing more than the money changers, the Pharisees and Saduccees that Jesus himself condemned so much.
Matter of fact? Your version of Jesus? Is nothing like the real version of Jesus. The version of your ChristoFascist White Supremacist Jesus? Should actually be declared the real Satan of Christianity. And you and the rest of your disgusting fellow ChristoFascist scumbags should be called the demonic ones.
But here? I am going to violate one of the biblical NT rules and throw some bible verses on how you are supposed to treat immigrants, like I am throwing pearls before pig swines like you.
Fucking Fascist Pig Fucker Sean Hannity running his well used outhouse piehole and spewing some more shit from it in his lies against immigrants.
So let me teach you Sean Hannity, and all the rest of your lying Fox News pundits how the bible tells you, you are supposed to treat foreigners and immigrants.
Leviticus 19:33,34 : ‘When a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not do him wrong.’The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt; I am the LORD your God.
Leviticus 24:22: ‘There shall be one standard for you; it shall be for the stranger as well as the native, for I am the LORD your God.'”
Exodus 22: 21: You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.
Exodus 23: 9: “You shall not oppress a stranger, since you yourselves know the feelings of a stranger, for you also were strangers in the land of Egypt.
Deuteronomy 10:18-19: He executes justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the sojourner, giving him food and clothing. Love the sojourner, therefore, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt.
Deuteronomy 24:17: “You shall not pervert the justice due an alien or an orphan, nor take a widow’s garment in pledge.
Deuteronomy 27:19: ‘Cursed is he who distorts the justice due an alien, orphan, and widow.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.
Malachi 3:5: “Then I will draw near to you for judgment. I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired worker in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, against those who thrust aside the sojourner, and do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts.
Hebrews 13:2: Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.
Psalms 146:9: The Lord watches over the sojourners; he upholds the widow and the fatherless, but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.
So Sean Hannity, what about this illegal immigrant, who came to the US with a busted “genius visa” who has posed for nude and lesbian nude photos, etc? I guess she should not be sent back to her country of origin, along with her anchor baby and family…because why? Mr Hypocrite? Mr Handjob Hannity?
Matthew 25:35: For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me,
Jeremiah 7:5-7: “For if you truly amend your ways and your deeds, if you truly execute justice one with another, if you do not oppress the sojourner, the fatherless, or the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own harm, then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your fathers forever.
Jeremiah 22:3-5: Thus says the Lord: Do justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor him who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the resident alien, the fatherless, and the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place. For if you will indeed obey this word, then there shall enter the gates of this house kings who sit on the throne of David, riding in chariots and on horses, they and their servants and their people. But if you will not obey these words, I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that this house shall become a desolation.
Ezekiel 47: 21-23: “So you shall divide this land among you according to the tribes of Israel. You shall allot it as an inheritance for yourselves and for the sojourners who reside among you and have had children among you. They shall be to you as native-born children of Israel. With you they shall be allotted an inheritance among the tribes of Israel. In whatever tribe the sojourner resides, there you shall assign him his inheritance, declares the Lord God.
1 Kings 8:41-43: “Likewise, when a foreigner, who is not of your people Israel, comes from a far country for your name’s sake (for they shall hear of your great name and your mighty hand, and of your outstretched arm), when he comes and prays toward this house, hear in heaven your dwelling place and do according to all for which the foreigner calls to you, in order that all the peoples of the earth may know your name and fear you, as do your people Israel, and that they may know that this house that I have built is called by your name.
Zechariah 7:10: Do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner, or the poor, and let none of you devise evil against another in your heart.”
Numbers 15:15,16: For the assembly, there shall be one statute for you and for the stranger who sojourns with you, a statute forever throughout your generations. You and the sojourner shall be alike before the Lord. One law and one rule shall be for you and for the stranger who sojourns with you.”
When will the Christian Right like Sean Hannity do anything Christian? Let alone anything right?
I expect Traitor Donald J Trump to play pretend at being a Christian. He has in fact proved many times by his actions, words and deeds he is no Christian. But you Sean? YOU proclaim how you are a Christian all the time. And we especially love your ChristoFascist bullshit lies and false witness against the supposed attacks on Christmas. Hey asshole, fuck you and your Christmas.
Here are a few examples of Sean Hannity’s ChristoFascist Christianity and his constantly disgusting bullshit on the supposed Fake War on Christmas.
Sean Hannity Says ‘CHRISTMAS IS UNDER SIEGE’ as Twitter Users Have a Field Day at His Expense
But day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, we have heard Sean Hannity of Fox News proclaim he is a Christian and each and every damn day? Sean Hannity? Proves, by his words, actions and deeds? He is no Christian.
Sean Hannity, you sold out your Jesus, your God, and your religion. You are noTrue Christian, because above all else? A True Christian follows the two greatest commandments of their Jesus, the Lord and Savior they proclaim to follow, especially the one where they are to love ALL their neighbors, as they are supposed to love their god, with all of their hearts all of their souls, all of their minds and all of their bodies and as they love themselves. Whether those neighbors happen to be an immigrant, an lgbt, an atheist, a Democrat, a liberal, or any one else for that matter. Which, with all the hate and bigotry and misogyny you have spewed out of your piehole, along with all the bearing false witness, and outright fucking lies you have shot out of your disgusting mouth? Proves you are no adherant to Jesus Christ or any of his teachings.
So how can Sean Hannity, the hate spreading, bigotry spreading, misogynist shit spreading, racists and bigots of Fox New call himself a True Christian, with all the hate in his heart he have spewed from his well used outhouse shithole he call his mouth, against lgbts, atheists, Pagans Muslims, and of course? Immigrants and still call himself a Christian? Even Jesus would reject him and his brand of Reich-Wing, White Supremacist, ChristoTaliban Christianity and any one like him who spews the same shit from their mouths that he does.
The difference between the teachings of Jesus Christ and the Repugnant, Donald J Trump and Sean Hannity’s version of Jesus.
This is not being a Christian in the least bit. This is in fact? Anti-Christ actions and actions of the one Christians call Satan. These people are not Christ-like but Satan-like, especially in all the deceptions and pathological lies they spew on a daily basis.
Christians spewing hate, like Sean Hannity, or any of the other Fox News “Christians” is not Christian or Christ-like in the least. And puts these mental midget moron hater ChristoFascist Taliban in their own hell they always love to tell others are going to. For even their own Jesus will reject them and send them to hell, giving them exactly what they have judged upon others.
Now here is a prime example of Sean Hannity of FOX News spewing lies and bearing false witness againstLGBTS and the AIDS epidemic, spewing homophopic comments that actually got old Sean fired from his job at UCSB. This is part of showing just how much Sean Hannity is no Christian. That Time Sean Hannity Got Fired for Homophobic Comments… and Went to the ACLU for Help (Podcast)
Fox News host Sean Hannity’s career began the last place you might expect: on the liberal campus of UC Santa Barbara, where he hosted a shock-jock radio show in which he tore into the news media and offered up flatly wrong theories about AIDS.
It was 1989. Hannity was a 27-year-old college dropout from Long
Island when he scored a job at UCSB’s radio station. But, as the Washington Post
reported, he was soon fired for offenses that included egging on a
guest “who claimed that AIDS was spreading among gay men because they
consumed each other’s feces,” and telling a lesbian mother he felt sorry
for her child. The details — and what he did next — are the subject of
our new “Shoot This Now” podcast, which you can listen on Apple or Spotify or here:
Now here is just one of the many lies and false witness that Sean Hannity has spewed just against immigrants, using Politifacts page about him:
Four years ago, then-Gov. Rick Perry misrepresented state-posted numbers and inaccurately claimed that thousands of Texas murders had lately been committed by unauthorized immigrants.
More recently, Fox News commentator Sean Hannity drew our attention when he dipped into the same pool of figures on his March 7, 2018 program, saying to a guest: “I went down to the border–I’ll give you facts–because I was on horseback, all-terrain vehicle, I was in helicopters, I was in boats and I sat through a security briefing in Texas with Rick Perry — 642,000 crimes committed by illegal immigrants against Texans alone.
“Here’s my question: Putting all those issues aside,” Hannity said,
“those that commit crimes in America, including some violent crimes,
even murder, those criminal aliens, do you support having them removed
from this country?”
“Absolutely, I have no problem with that,” news broadcaster Jorge Ramos replied. “I’m not here to defend real criminals.”
Hannity then showed a video clip from a July 2014 Texas presentation
on 642,000 “criminal offenses” committed by “criminal immigrants” that
Hannity saw alongside Perry during a visit to McAllen on the
Texas-Mexico border.
Hannity said next to Ramos: “Are you literally saying to me that
they’re lying? Because they’re not.” Hannity subsequently asked: “You
sound like you don’t care about the Americans who are victims of crime. …
You’re not answering my question; 642,000 crimes committed against
Texans alone in a seven-year period; that’s not your family, Jorge.
Where’s your sympathy for those victims of crime and why shouldn’t we
take those that are committing crimes and get rid of them tomorrow?”
Hannity closed the segment by asking Ramos to come to Texas for a
program devoted to the 642,000 crime victims.
We decided to fact-check Hannity’s claim that criminal immigrants committed 642,000 crimes against Texans in recent years.
Hannity relies on 2014 presentation
In the portion of the Texas presentation shown by Hannity, two state
officials and Hannity face a slide headlined “Criminal Alien Offenses,
October 2008 to July 2014,” as an unidentified presenter says that more
than 200,000 criminal immigrants are responsible for about 642,000
criminal offenses. Perry then tells Hannity: “That’s the cost of not
securing the border.”
More recently, Fox News commentator Sean Hannity drew our attention when he dipped into the same pool of figures on his March 7, 2018 program, saying to a guest: “I went down to the border–I’ll give you facts–because I was on horseback, all-terrain vehicle, I was in helicopters, I was in boats and I sat through a security briefing in Texas with Rick Perry — 642,000 crimes committed by illegal immigrants against Texans alone.
“Here’s my question: Putting all those issues aside,” Hannity said, “those that commit crimes in America, including some violent crimes, even murder, those criminal aliens, do you support having them removed from this country?”
“Absolutely, I have no problem with that,” news broadcaster Jorge Ramos replied. “I’m not here to defend real criminals.”
Hannity then showed a video clip from a July 2014 Texas presentation
on 642,000 “criminal offenses” committed by “criminal immigrants” that
Hannity saw alongside Perry during a visit to McAllen on the
Texas-Mexico border.
Hannity said next to Ramos: “Are you literally saying to me that
they’re lying? Because they’re not.” Hannity subsequently asked: “You
sound like you don’t care about the Americans who are victims of crime. …
You’re not answering my question; 642,000 crimes committed against
Texans alone in a seven-year period; that’s not your family, Jorge.
Where’s your sympathy for those victims of crime and why shouldn’t we
take those that are committing crimes and get rid of them tomorrow?”
Hannity closed the segment by asking Ramos to come to Texas for a
program devoted to the 642,000 crime victims.
We decided to fact-check Hannity’s claim that criminal immigrants committed 642,000 crimes against Texans in recent years.
SOURCE: Excerpt from YouTube video showing Sean Hannity interview of Jorge Ramos, Hannity, Fox News Network, March 7, 2018 (3:30 mark)
To our inquiry, Carly Shanahan, a Fox News spokeswoman, said by email
that Hannity relied on the presentation for his claim. Shanahan
provided this transcript of the excerpted presentation:
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: “Criminal aliens have
been responsible for about 642,000 offenses, criminal offenses. You look
up there in the top left, sexual assaults, there’s close to 8,000
victims.”
HANNITY: “Six hundred and forty-two thousand crimes since –“
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: “In 2008.”
HANNITY: “In Texas alone?”
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: “Yes.”
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: “Over 200,000 individuals with a criminal history, they committed over 642,000 crimes.”
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: “That’s the cost of not securing the border.”
Fact-checking Perry in 2014
In gauging Hannity’s tally, it’s worth revisiting our 2014 fact-check
of Perry. Perry, we found, had recapped arrests, not convictions,
encompassing the lifetimes of individuals arrested over a recent period.
Also, it looked to us like not all the arrested people were necessarily
living here illegally.
When we inquired into the figures aired by Perry, Tom Vinger of the
Texas Department of Public Safety pointed us to an agency web page,
“Texas Criminal Alien Arrest Data,” that said: “From October 2008
through July 1, 2014, Texas has identified a total of 203,685 unique
criminal alien defendants booked into Texas county jails. Over their
criminal careers, these defendants are responsible for at least 642,564
individual criminal charges mostly consisting of Class B misdemeanors or
higher, including 3,070 homicides and 7,964 sexual assaults.” We didn’t
spot any breakout of convictions. Vinger told us generally that the
agency didn’t have additional information.
Criminologists commented
A couple of outside criminologists who reviewed the DPS-posted
information at our request told us the presented tally of charges–not
convictions–did not support Perry’s attribution of homicides to
immigrants.
Michael Walker, an adjunct professor at the John Jay College of
Criminal Justice in New York and an expert in how the FBI gathers crime
statistics, said by phone that the DPS presentation telescoped the
arrest histories of the 203,685 individuals put in county jails in the
69 months that were reviewed. “Where did they offend–Texas? Oklahoma?
Mississippi?” Walker said, his point being that such information wasn’t
on the web page.
Walker and Ramiro Martinez, Jr., a Northeastern University professor,
each noted another weakness; the DPS presentation mixed together recent
charges with those that might have been leveled decades before.
Checking afresh in 2018
So, what of Hannity’s statement attributing 642,000 crimes against Texans to immigrants over a recent period?
After Hannity spoke, we reached out afresh to the DPS. By email, Vinger pointed us to an updated agency web page
stating that some 245,000 “criminal aliens” booked into local Texas
jails from June 2011 through February 2018 had together through their
“criminal careers” been charged with more than 650,000 offenses.
Those charges, the department says, resulted in more than 291,000
convictions “including 566 homicide convictions; 29,164 assault
convictions; 9,060 burglary convictions; 38,287 drug convictions; 274
kidnapping convictions; 20,082 theft convictions; 24,451 obstructing
police convictions; 2,202 robbery convictions; 3,244 sexual assault
convictions; and 4,036 weapon convictions.” Also, according to the
agency’s post, some 66 percent of the convictions–over 193,000–were
associated with individuals identified by their Homeland Security status
as being in the U.S. illegally at the time of their latest arrest.
Upshot: The DPS says that some 245,000 “criminal aliens” booked into
Texas jails over 81 recent months had in their lifetimes accumulated
291,000-plus convictions with nearly 7 in 10 of the convictions tied to
193,000 individuals identified as living in the country without legal
permission at their latest arrest.
These tallies, we otherwise noticed, roll in many nonviolent offenses. An accompanying chart
shows that 358,996 of the criminal-career charges (66 percent of them)
and 159,951 of the convictions (55 percent) were for offenses other than
the agency’s specific listed categories of homicide, assault, burglary,
kidnapping, drug or weapons violations, sexual assault, robbery,
obstructing police or theft. The web page doesn’t say what those other
offenses are.
Criminologists revisited
We also circled back to the criminologists who helped us analyze
Perry’s claim. Neither saw substance to Hannity’s claim attributing
642,000 crimes to criminal immigrants over recent years.
Walker noted that the Texas chart cited by Hannity tallies
“offenses,” not “crimes.” Offenses, Walker said, refer to misdeeds
drawing no more than six months in jail meaning the 642,000 figure aired
by Hannity conflates crimes and lesser offenses.
A finer sort of the DPS-posted counts might deliver meaningful
information, Walker suggested. As it is, he said by phone, the tallied
“drug offenses could be for having a joint or trafficking heroin. Weapon
offenses” could involve a knife or gun or other weapon. Walker added by
email that the category titled “All Other Offenses” on the DPS chart
could refer to “such low-level acts as being a runaway, public
intoxication and minor drug use charges.” Also, the inclusion of many
lesser offenses might leave a misimpression, Walker said. “A person
could conceivably be a lifetime serial shoplifter,” Walker speculated,
or repeatedly charged with vagrancy.
By email, Martinez similarly advised that it’s hard to discern what
the DPS figures mean without specific definitions of each listed crime
category. Martinez said: “What is ‘obstructing police?’ ‘Weapons?’”
Generally, he wrote, the DPS tallies reflect what’s known about most
U.S. crime–a “sea of minor drug and property crimes.”
Our ruling
Hannity told Ramos that 642,000 crimes were committed against Texans by criminal immigrants in a recent seven-year period.
This claim misrepresents a 2014 state presentation indicating that more than 200,000 immigrants jailed in the state over a recent 69-month period had accumulated in their lifetimes 642,000 charges–not convictions. Not all the immigrants were living in the state illegally at the time of their latest arrest.
We rate the claim False.
So lets see what the bible has to say about this supposed Christian, Sean Hannity’s actions of bearing false witness and lying:
Proverbs 19:5: A false witness will not go unpunished, and he who breathes out lies will not escape.
Proverbs 6:16-19: There are six things that the Lord hates, seven that are an abomination to him: haughty eyes, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that devises wicked plans, feet that make haste to run to evil, a false witness who breathes out lies, and one who sows discord among brothers.
Exodus 20:16: You shall not bear false witness against your neighbors.
John 8:44: You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
Revelations 21:8: But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”
Exodus 23:1-2: “You shall not spread a false report. You shall not join hands with a wicked man to be a malicious witness. You shall not fall in with the many to do evil, nor shall you bear witness in a lawsuit, siding with the many, so as to pervert justice,
Deuteronomy 19:15-21: “A single witness shall not suffice against a person for any crime or for any wrong in connection with any offense that he has committed. Only on the evidence of two witnesses or of three witnesses shall a charge be established. If a malicious witness arises to accuse a person of wrongdoing, then both parties to the dispute shall appear before the Lord, before the priests and the judges who are in office in those days. The judges shall inquire diligently, and if the witness is a false witness and has accused his brother falsely, then you shall do to him as he had meant to do to his brother. So you shall purge the evil from your midst. And the rest shall hear and fear, and shall never again commit any such evil among you.
Matthew 7:21-23: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.
Well Sean, it looks like, from all the verses of the Bible I have posted? 1. YOU are not a Christian. 2. Even your own Jesus whom you proclaim to follow would reject you. 3. Looks like it is yourself who is going to be spending an eternity in hell.
YES, SEAN HANNITY, YOU CERTAINLY ARE NO CHRISTIAN, LET ALONE SHOULD YOU EVER CALL YOURSELF A HUMAN BEING. YOU ARE A PATHOLOGICAL LIAR LIKE YOUR HERO TRUMP. YOU ARE A BIGOT, RACIST, WHITE SUPREMACIST CUNT WHO WOULD HAVE BEEN SENT TO HITLERS OWN DEATH CAMPS BECAUSE YOU CERTAINLY DO NOT FIT HIS IDEA OF WHAT AN ARYIAN SUPERIOR HUMAN IS. JUST LIKE HITLER WOULD SEND TRAITOR TRUMP, ALL HIS TRUMPANZEES, MUCH OF THE GOP AND MUCH OF THE CHRISTOFASCIST PIG FUCKERS LIKE YOU? TO HIS NAZI CONCENTRATION CAMPS, BECAUSE AGAIN, NOT ONE SINGLE ONE OF YOU FIT HIS ARYIAN NATION SUPERHUMAN OF BLOND HAIR, BLUE EYED GENIUSES.
NO SEAN, YOU ARE A SCUMBAG PIECE OF SHIT ONE WHO SPEWS WELL PROVEN LIES AND FALSEHOODS FROM YOUR WELL USED OUTHOUSE SHITHOLE YOU CALL A MOUTH.
NO SEAN, YOU ARE NOT GOING TO GO TO HEAVEN, YOU ARE GOING TO BURN FOR ALL ETERNITY IN THAT CHRISTIAN HELL YOU OH SO LOVE TO SPEAK ABOUT.
NOW SHUT THE FUCK UP SEAN HANNITY AND DO THE WORLD A FAVOR. TAKE A GUN, SHOVE IT UP YOUR FAT, PATHOLOGICAL LYING, PEVERTED, TREASONOUS ASS, PULL THE TRIGGER AND BLOW YOUR FUCKING BRAINS OUT.
Well, here is one way that Traitor, Pathological lying, rapist, pedophile, misogynist pig, thief and conartist, and of course, Putin dick sucking, ass fucked Puppet, Donald J Trump can Make America Great Again.
What can I say about that Hitler-wanna be, that Dicktaker of Putin in Chief, Bone Spurs wish he was a President, let alone human being, Donald J Trump, his fellow Fascist pig fucking scumbag shit stains of the #GOP who sold us out to Russia, like #MoscowMitchMcConnell? Or that closeted Queen bitch Lindsey Graham? Or all the other traitorous Republicans who also sold us out to Russia and the RussianNRA? Like Ted Cruz, Paul Ryan, and others?
WHEN DID WE GO FROM HANGING OUR TRAITORS TO ELECTING THEM TO OFFICE?
Then? You have the Trumpanzee Propoganda Channels like Fox News, Breibart and many other Reich-Wing, ChristoFascist pig fucking stations and websites, all supporting and defending this Turd Reich Hitler wanna be Donald J Trump.
Real shitstains on the underwear of humanity, like Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, Andrew Napolitano, Laura Ingraham, Megyn Kelly, Tucker Carlson, Lisa “Kennedy” Montgomery, and many others, spew all kinds of lies out of their well used outhouse shitholes they use as mouths, to spread the pathological lies and treasonous actions of Donald J. Trump and his cronies.
Oh and these are the same assholes who dare to also call themselves? Christians. Yeah they are as much a Christian as Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin, Mussolini and many other Fascist pig fuckers of humanity were. Because Sean, Ann, Andrew, Megyn, Laura, Tucker, Lisa and all the rest? You are nothing more than treasonous scumbag fuckers, selling us out to Russia and Trump, all for the sake of making a buck, and you cunts should be brought to Gitmo, along with Traitor Trump and the rest of the Treasonous GOPigs, and waterboarded on a ten minute cycle, before being tortured some more and then lined up against a wall, given a last cigarette, and then executed for High Treason before a firing squad. Hell, I would even volunteer to be on that firing squad.
Yeah, I do not watch Fox News for the same reason I don’t eat out of the toilet.Handjob Hannity of Fox News is about a corrupt fake news pundit, and treasonous dick sucking shitstain on the underwear of humanity, running his propoganda for his Hitler-wanna-be Donald J Trump. Well Hannity, you should be lined up against a wall right besides your fellow Traitors at Fox News and executed by a firing squad for High Treason against the People of the United States.
Now? For Moscow Mitch McConnell, the white supremacist, racist pig fucking, treasonous traitor, Russian Putin Puppet. Sure he might be married to a Chinese cunt….notice how all of our traitors like Moscow Mitch and Dotard Trump are married to whores and sluts and trailer park trash cunts who are from nations that are our enemies?
There is nothing worse in my book, to be the head of the Senate, and sell your country out for some pieces of silver from the Russian NRA and a cunt like Donald J Trump.
Mitch McCuntall, you will eventually pay for all your shit. For all those innocent children and teens shot down in massacres because you refuse to do something to stop the madness.
But worst of all McCuntall? If Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, James Monroe, James Madison, Thomas Paine or the others were around today? They would drag you and each and every one of your Treasonous, Traitorous, scumbag assed Repugnant brethren out of the Senate and House chambers, whipping and beating you towards the front of the White House, and along with Traitor Trump and Pence and his cabinet already lined up, put you fucking cunts on the gallows and hang you all for High Treason Against the United States.
Too bad they are not alive to do so. But I would not bet people who are just like them? Are alive today and just waiting to hang all you fucking Putin Dick Sucking, Russian Treasonous shitstains.
Yes you Putin Dick Sucking Hillbilly Traitor Moscow Mitch McConnell, you are an insult to the dignity of the office you hold. YOU should be dragged out of the Senate and hung for Treason against the United States, along with the rest of your Traitorous Trump supporting GOPigs.
AND LAST, BUT CERTAINLY NOT LEAST, THIS IS FOR THE TREASONOUS, RAPIST, PEDOPHILE, PATHOLOGICAL LYING, THIEF, CON-ARTIST, PUTIN DICK SUCKING PUPPET, DONALD J TRUMP.
Donald J Trump, you are in fact? GUILTY OF HIGH TREASON AGAINST THE UNITED STATES BY GIVING AID AND COMFORT TO OUR ENEMY, RUSSIA AND TO PUTIN.
Hey Donnie, you may have your mental midget moron Trumpanzees fooled. You may even have Faux Nitwit Newsless, Breibart, Facebook and Twitter under your Commander Bone Spurs command. You might be that wanna-be dicktater Hitler you love oh so much in your own fucking twisted, shit mind.
You have in fact? Sold us out to Vlad Putin and Russia. That is no doubt a truth and a fact. You obstructed justice. You can lie all you want and trash the Bob Mueller report, the FBI, the Democrats, etc all you want to, but your dumb ass is only fooling your brain dead loser followers.
You are a racist pig. You are a white supremacist cunt. You think you are supreme and a super stable genius and etc. Well all you are? Is a turd that was flushed the day your mom shit you out of her blown out asshole and you crawled out of the fucking sewers and back into her asshole to wait a few more months. And the day you were truly born? All the demons of hell fucked you in the ass and let loose a stream of demon sperm into your shithole. That is why you got such a small set of hands and a tiny little dick there Donnie.
About the only thing that Dotard Donnies mouth is good for. Isn’t that right? Well just ask those Russian hookers who pissed on him.I know I would be one of the first ones in line.
Then you got that skank of a turd wife of yours Melania. What a fucking treasure to have a fucking stripper and porn queen for a first lady huh? Such classy trash from a Ukrainian hooker and whore huh?
And then? You got the fucking nerve to bitch about immigrants coming in from Central America and Muslim countries, while you got this Russian slut a “genius” visa, knocked the skank up and married her? Yeah, that cunt and her family and that brain dead piece of shit off spring of hell you both produced need to go back to the Russian countries they came from.
The First Whore Melania Trump…even her own son knows she is a whore.Oh Melania Trump, you inspire trailer park trash sluts and whores for Traitor Trump each and every day.Hey if your husband can be a misogynist pig, a rapist and a pedophile? Then I got a right to trash both him and you for it.
Then you sick and twisted, disgusting pervert, you pedophile piece of shit, you rapist cunt. YOU go and perv on your daughters? Especially Ivana? You talk about how she has a great ass and how if she wasn’t your daughter you would date her? You probably raped that girl, considering all the pictures I have seen of the two of you together. And then you also perved on your daughter Tiffany when she was only one year old during a People Magazine interview? For that alone? You should be fucking skinned alive.
You perv on 2-14 yr old girls singing Xmas carols in Rockerfeller Plaza? You perv on naked teen underage girls in the dressing room of your Miss Teen USA pagent? You brutally rape a 14 yr old girl at your buddy Jerry Epstein’s NY sex palace? You hit upon a 12 yr old girl going up an escalator? You perv on 12 yr old Paris Hilton?
Too bad Donnie we cannot bring back the old Roman Catholic Inquisitional Tortures, especially the Rat Torture, cause if any scumbag shitstain pedophile pervert, rapist and scumbag like you deserve to deal with the Rat Torture as punishment? It would be you. Along with your buddies Roy Moore and Brett Kavanaugh. Oh and what is the rat torture?
That is where we strip your fat fucking ass, bind you to a table, place a rat on your little crotch dick place a cage over the rat, then a bowl of hot coals on top of the cage, and let the rat eat your junk. Though in your case? We could probably get away with using a baby mouse.
Yes, Pedo Pervert and Rapist in Chief Donald J Trump, Roy Moore, Brett Kavanaugh and any other misogynist pig GOP who stands up and defends rapists and pedophiles like Trump, Moore, Kavanaugh or others? Should be tortured using the Rat Torture.
Well Dotard Donnie…again, the best way you can make America great again? Is to take a gun, stick it up your fat fucking ass, pull the trigger and blow what little brains you got out.
But really? I would love it Donald J Trump, if you were arrested for all your Crimes and then convicted and sentenced to death. Then you and Moscow Mitch and all the rest of your Treasonous GOPigs can be brought right on down to your favorite place called GITMO, and waterboarded on an hourly basis. Oh yeah, and stripped and stomped on, and your heads smashed into bars and bricks, and all kinds of manner of torture and treatment given to you scum fucking treasonous pieces of shit traitors, before you are all lined up against a wall given a last cigarette and then executed by firing squad for High Treason.
Atheist Militants Rising