Category: Corruption

ATF Seeks to Muzzle Gun Owners of America Advocacy Group

In 2021, AmmoLand News disclosed documents that indicated the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) had been using the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) to surveil Americans without proper authorization. Often, these individuals were monitored solely based on associations rather than concrete evidence of misconduct. This revelation prompted the Gun Owners of America (GOA) to seek further details via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

In a 2021 exposé, reporter John Crump unveiled that leaked ATF records showed a secretive surveillance operation targeting numerous legal gun buyers. This was accomplished by monitoring all gun transactions processed through the NICS system, as detailed by GOA.

After facing potential legal actions and a year of persistence, ATF released some information concerning the initiative. However, inconsistencies in redaction led GOA to seek complete versions of these records. Upon realizing their oversight, the ATF pressed GOA to erase all obtained records.

Yet, GOA resisted. They had legally received the documents from ATF and believed they had every entitlement to retain and utilize them for public awareness regarding unauthorized surveillance. In a subsequent move, the ATF sought a legal directive against GOA, demanding the deletion of the records and a commitment to silence.

This situation mirrored a prior incident involving AmmoLand News in the AutoKey Card case. In that instance, backed by GOA-funded legal support from Stephen Stamboulieh, AmmoLand News successfully resisted ATF’s efforts to silence them. Now, with the tables turned, GOA has enlisted Stamboulieh to challenge another ATF attempt at suppression.

GOA firmly maintains that since they legally acquired the documents, they have full rights over them. They are willing to eliminate personal details like social security numbers but will resist a comprehensive deletion mandate. They allege that ATF’s primary intention is to conceal their clandestine surveillance.

GOA’s legal briefing emphasizes the importance of upholding First Amendment rights, highlighting the extraordinary nature of ATF’s request and labeling it as potentially unconstitutional.

While ATF asserts a motive of privacy protection for its subjects, GOA counters this by pointing out the inherent irony. The ATF’s very operation intrudes upon individual privacy. GOA’s intention is to make these records available to Congress, suggesting that ATF might be keen on keeping this information away from its regulators.

GOA’s briefing also notes, “It’s a profound paradox that while ATF claims to safeguard gun owners’ privacy, they are the very entity spying and collecting personal data on these individuals.” GOA has urged the judiciary to uphold their First Amendment rights and dismiss ATF’s claims against public interest.

With the ATF fervently attempting to suppress details about this operation, many are left pondering, “What is the ATF concealing?”

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Amid Damning Wire Transfer Revelations, Let’s Review What the Bidens Said About Chinese Money

By now you’re likely aware that Hunter Biden listed his father’s Delaware home as the ‘beneficiary address’ in the process of receiving two wire transfers, totally more than $250,000, from Beijing in 2019.   Fox News Digital published the scoop on Wednesday, writing that “the first wire sent to Hunter Biden, dated July 26, 2019, was for $10,000 from an individual named Ms. Wang Xin. There is a Ms. Wang Xin listed on the website for BHR Partners. It is unclear if the wire came from that Wang Xin. The second wire transfer sent to Hunter Biden, dated August 2, 2019, was for $250,000 from Li Xiang Sheng—also known as Jonathan Li, the CEO of BHR Partners—and Ms. Tan Ling. The committee is trying to identify Ling’s role.”  We’ll return to the role of Mr. Li below.  There’s also this significant detail: “The beneficiary for the wires is listed as Robert Hunter Biden, with the address “1209 Barley Mill Rd.” In Wilmington, Delaware. That address is the main residence for Joe Biden.”

Would this be even more ‘no evidence‘ of Joe Biden being intertwined with his son’s various overseas business dealings?  The White House, having abandoned previous talking points Biden had dishonestly advanced about his knowledge and involvement in this family enrichment scheme, recently shifted to claiming that the elder and younger Bidens were not “in business” together.  I’ve argued that quite a lot of evidence suggests otherwise.  Much has been made about Joe Biden’s false, categorical denials on this front (eg “I have never discussed with my son, or brother, or anyone else, anything having to do with their business, period”) which have blown up in his face.  But there was also this lie, told to the American people from a 2020 presidential debate stage (Biden also used the 2020 debates to broadcast his false ‘Russian disinformation’ spin about his son’s authentic and damning laptop):

Biden flatly denied that Hunter had made money from China, saying that the ‘only’ person who had done so was Donald Trump. In fact, bank records show that Hunter and Jim (Joe’s brother) Biden had made money from China.  Millions of dollars worth, some of which was allegedly ‘held for the Big Guy,’ according to Biden family emails.  Hunter had even drummed up business in China after flying to that country with his father aboard Air Force Two, when Joe Biden was Vice President.  The Washington Post fact-checker eventually slapped a Four Pinocchios rating on Biden’s debate assertion, albeit nearly three years after he made it.

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Of, course. This is just another avenue of standard D.C, goobermint grifting

Biden Creates New Office to Funnel Taxpayer Funds to Gun Control Advocacy

Professional gun control advocates have always had a seat at the table in the Biden White House. Now, however, they will not only sit at the table but determine its menu, set it, and compile the guest list for it. This comes under a new initiative launched by Joe Biden last Friday to establish an Office of Gun Violence Prevention, to be overseen by none other than Kamala Harris. But while the effort is supposedly being run by the White House “to reduce gun violence,” its real purpose is to employ professional gun control advocates and amplify their propaganda and agenda with taxpayer dollars.

There are different ways to look at this effort.

One is to dismiss it as a publicity stunt and a way to appease the always demanding, never satisfied gun control lobby, which is a key constituency of the Biden-Harris Administration. After all, the new office has no congressional authorization, no dedicated congressional appropriation, no policy-making or enforcement authority, and no clearly defined reason for being, other than a vague mandate to “coordinate” the administration’s efforts on guns.

The appointment of Harris as its nominal head is perhaps telling, as she has a dismal favorability rating (including with Democrats), a reputation for speaking incoherently, and precious little success in shepherding consequential legislation through Congress. Even the administration’s collaborators in the press can’t seem to settle on a consistent narrative about her, sometimes portraying her as a liability to the Biden ticket and the party and sometimes trying to rehabilitate her image. Harris’ “oversite” portfolio also includes “stemming the migration on the southern border,” where the situation has only gotten worse from national sovereignty, human rights, and law enforcement standpoints. Besides unchecked illegal immigration that strains infrastructure and social services (leading even the Democrat mayor of New York City to characterize is as an existential crisis for the city), America’s porous border promotes smuggling of contraband and persons, often with deadly consequences. If there is a more disliked and ineffectual politician in D.C. than Kamala Harris, it’s hard to imagine who it is.

But it would be foolish to dismiss the fact that the office’s creation represents a new milestone in an ever-expanding gun control infrastructure that encompasses the legacy media, academia, the digital technology sector, and significant portions of institutional medicine and the entertainment industry. Meanwhile, the executive branch itself is increasingly being weaponized against gun owners and the gun industry in the form of persecutory rulemakings and enforcement policies. Having a dedicated office of fulltime zealots to interface with this infrastructure could indeed go a long way toward provoking the generational change in hearts and minds necessary to disrupt long-established freedoms, traditions, and legal regimes. The U.S. is currently undergoing its own Cultural Revolution, of sorts, and our Second Amendment rights are not immune to its effects. The newly-created office, if competently administered, could help nudge that process along.

But what is clear is that Biden is determined to use the White House’s own (apparently vast) budget to employ professional gun control advocates at the public’s expense. Previously, the most blatant and egregious example of this was its nomination of a “senior policy advisor” and paid shill for the gun control lobby to head the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which enforces federal firearm laws. The effort to nominate David Chipman to that role fortunately went down in flames, thanks to your NRA’s all-out opposition.

But the deputy directors of the new office include Robert Wilcox, who will also serve as special assistant to the president. Wilcox previously worked as the senior director of federal government affairs at Everytown for Gun Safety. There, his salary was underwritten by billionaire anti-gunner Michael Bloomberg. In his new role, however, it will be paid with YOUR federal taxes. Wilcox as an anti-gun lobbyist pushed such radical policies as banning America’s most popular rifle, the AR-15; banning private firearm transfers; holding law-abiding firearm dealers accountable for the acts of criminals; and limiting the capacity of magazines used in self-defense firearms. Wilcox is not just another policy wonk or expert bureaucrat whose job is to serve the public at large. He is an activist dedicated to the destruction of Americans’ Second Amendment rights. And now money coming out of YOUR pocket will fund his life’s work.

Chipman’s appointment was subject to Senate approval. Wilcox’s is not. But it is just as clearly a thumb in the eye to hardworking Americans who are struggling to get by in Joe Biden’s economy and who believe in the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.

What can best be hoped for Biden’s new antigun office is what can often best be hoped for other unnecessary and politically-charged appendages to the federal bureaucracy: that it spend money while doing and accomplishing nothing. Your NRA will be monitoring its operations carefully and will report on any noteworthy developments.

Is This the Most Pathetic Defense of Joe Biden’s Impeachable Offenses?

The Democrats and the mainstream media have been tirelessly claiming that there is “no evidence” of wrongdoing by Joe Biden to justify an impeachment inquiry—a blatant denial of the fact that the House Oversight Committee has the receipts, including eyewitness testimony and financial records.

The White House is clearly concerned and instructed the already compliant mainstream media to attack the impeachment inquiry—as if they needed the marching orders in the first place. So far, every attempt by the media to claim the inquiry is based on “no evidence” has resulted in humiliation. Even a CNN fact check was unable to deny the key facts House Speaker McCarthy cited as justifying the inquiry.

Representative James Clyburn (D-S.C.), who is widely credited with saving Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign, didn’t even try to deny the existence of evidence during his appearance on “Meet the Press” on Sunday, and simply argued that—are you ready for this?— Republicans want to impeach Joe Biden  for “being a father to his son.”

“Let me ask you about the impeachment inquiry that is going to unfold this week on Capitol Hill. I know you and your Democrats have called this pure politics,” said host Kristen Welker. “But big picture, they’re trying to see if there’s any link between Hunter Biden and the president and his business dealings. Are you comfortable with a family member profiting off their last name in this town?”

“You know, we all, to some extent, live so that our children can be proud of the name that we’ve given them. I have three daughters, and I want them to feel very comfortable being a Clyburn,” he said, clearly avoiding answering the question. “I do know that that is very, very important for going forward, but that doesn’t mean they want them to do things that are unseemly to the name. I do want them to use the name to their benefit.”

“Yet, President Biden, according to one witness testimony, was on the phone 20 times with Hunter Biden’s business associates and described as pleasantries, but is that appropriate?” she asked.

“I think it’s appropriate to be a father to your son, and if your son is having a problem, and we all know the history of the problem that Hunter has with addiction, and he is being a father to his son,” Clyburn claimed. “You don’t impeach a man for being a father to his children.”

Ahh, so that’s it. Joe Biden wasn’t using his position to help Hunter sell influence, he was being a father to his crackhead son. I can’t help but notice that Clyburn didn’t even try to claim that there is no evidence to justify the impeachment inquiry; he merely sought to downplay Joe Biden’s role by claiming he was doing what a father does—and, at the same time, effectively admitting that Joe Biden was, in fact, knowingly helping Hunter with his business, because, what are fathers for, right?

But does being a father to his son mean using his position as vice [resident of the United States to get millions of dollars funneled to his family and laundering that money via twenty different shell companies? Does being a father to his son mean using a $1 billion loan to Ukraine as leverage to get a prosecutor investigating Burisma fired because Hunter was getting $1 million a year sitting on their board?

That’s not being a father to his son; it’s being a corrupt politician.

Multiple polls have shown Americans are already convinced there was Biden family corruption. An Economist/YouGov poll found that 72% of American adults believe Hunter Biden profited off his father’s position, including 53% of Democrats and 72% of Independents. Another poll from I&I/TIPP found that 56% of U.S. voters say that it is “likely” that Biden took bribes, while only 27% say it was “unlikely.”

 

Question O’ The Day

 

I Can’t Stop Laughing: Biden Thinks He’s Treated Like a Toddler.

Joe Biden is a man who likes his ice cream and routinely needs the White House to clean up his messes. He could be in diapers at this point, too. Who knows? If he is, I’m sure the White House is doing everything possible to keep that under wraps.

But I digress. According to a new book by Franklin Foer, staff writer at The Atlantic and former editor of the New Republic, Joe Biden feels like his White House staff is babying him, and he’s not particularly happy about it.

The book recalls the incident where Biden riffed after the conclusion of a speech about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, making a statement that appeared to call for Putin to be overthrown. “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power,” Biden said. According to Foer’s account, the White House was walking back the statement by the time Biden had reached his motorcade.

“Suddenly, the press wasn’t marveling at his rhetoric or his diplomatic triumphs; it was back to describing him as a blowhard lacking in self-control,” Foer writes in his book, and Biden was deeply upset over the media coverage of the gaffe and “left for home, ending his triumphalist tour, feeling sorry for himself.” The president “resented his aides for creating the impression that they had cleaned up his mess.”

“Rather than owning his failure, he fumed to his friends about how he was treated like a toddler,” Foer writes.

Naturally, the White House disputed this story when Fox News White House correspondent Peter Doocy asked about it.

“President Biden is the oldest president in U.S. history. Why does White House staff treat him like a baby?” Doocy asked.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre might have needed a diaper of her own when she got that question, as she was none too pleased by it.

Doocy then quoted the book and asked, “Was John [F.] Kennedy ever babied like that?”

“So, look, I’ll say this,” she began. “There’s going to be a range — always — a range of books that are — about every administration, as you know — that’s going to have a variety of claims. That is not unusual. That happens all the time. And we’re not going to litigate those here. That’s something that we’re not going to speak to.”

Cute story. I wonder if Jean-Pierre would dismiss all the outlandish claims made about Trump in various books the same way.

IRS Backdating Of Documents Highlights Festering Cultural Rot: ‘If The IRS Doesn’t Play By The Rules, They’re The Mob.’

Bloomberg, IRS Backdating Court Order Spotlights Culture, Attorneys Say:

An unusual Tax Court order requiring the IRS to report what it knew and when about misstatements in a conservation easement case, as well as mounting claims of backdating forms at the agency, are highlighting what some tax attorneys said are festering IRS cultural problems, years in the making.

The Tax Court this week ordered the IRS to identify when agency personnel found out about misstatements to the court about the date that a $15.2 million penalty against conservation easement donor LakePoint was approved. …

Rod Rosenstein, former deputy attorney general under President Donald Trump, is representing LakePoint in a FOIA lawsuit against the IRS and told Bloomberg Tax he’s reached out to the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.

He plans to refer to the watchdog claims made by three other partnerships—Arden Row Assets LLC, Basswood Aggregates LLC, and Delwood Resources LLC—who are asking the IRS to admit its staff backdated penalty approval forms in their cases as well.

“The question is whether we’re seeing one isolated case or whether were seeing evidence of a pattern of misconduct in IRS,” Rosenstein said. “I think if you’ve looked at these other three cases, it does suggest that there is a pattern.” …

Tax attorneys say it’s the latest chapter highlighting festering issues of IRS culture being taken over by adversarial us-versus-them attitudes at the agency. Conservation easement cases have been especially contentious [Michelle Abroms Levin, a former Justice Department Tax Division attorney,] said.

“What they have now is a win-at-all-costs culture, and I hope we can shift back to a ‘Let’s find a right answer. Let’s find the correct amount,’” she said.

[Frank Agostino, a former IRS lawyer and Department of Justice criminal prosecutor] … said this attitude is eroding much-needed trust in the institution and fueling attitudes among taxpayers that the agency is breaking the rules to extract as much money from them as it can.

“We’re not the mob, but that’s the worry,” he said of the agency. “The IRS, if they don’t play by the rules, gets the perception of being the mob.”

At this point in our national politics, it’s believable.

Gingrich Makes Bombshell Allegation About Latest Trump Indictment.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich revealed on Thursday that a reliable source told him that a request was made from Washington, D.C., to Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis that she had to bring charges against former President Donald Trump because they needed a distraction from the “screw up” with recently appointed Special Counsel David Weiss.

“I am told—this is hearsay—but I am told by a reliable source, that Friday evening, somebody from Washington called the district attorney in Atlanta and said, ‘You have to indict on Monday. We have to cover up all of the mistakes we just made with Weiss,’” Gingrich told Charlie Kirk in an interview. “And she said, apparently, ‘My jurors aren’t coming back till Tuesday,’ and they said, ‘You didn’t hear me. You have to indict on Monday,’ And she said, ‘Well, they’re not gonna get here before noon.’ They said, ‘That doesn’t matter.’ She says, ‘This means it’s going to be eight or nine or 10 o’clock at night.’ They said, ‘It doesn’t matter.”

“Who made that phone call?” asked Kirk.

“We don’t know,” Gingrich said. “And that’s why I’m telling you upfront, this is hearsay, but it’s from a person who has remarkably good sources.”

“I totally believe it, though,” Kirk replied. “Because that would explain why they leaked and they messed up on the clerk document. Why she was exhausted and why they had the 11 pm press conference.”

DA Willis held a late-night press conference to announce that a grand jury had indicted former President Donald Trump and 18 associates on multiple charges, including violating the Georgia RICO Act, solicitation of oath violation, and various conspiracy and false statement offenses. The charges had been suspiciously leaked online before the grand jury’s decision.

While Gingrich was adamant in pointing out the story is merely hearsay, it not only fits with the circumstances surrounding the indictment, but with the past indictments as well. As we’ve previously reported here at PJ Media, each of Trump’s prior federal indictments immediately followed bad news days for Joe Biden.

This even raises the question as to whether Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s indictment of Trump was ordered by Washington for similar reasons. On the same day that Trump was indicted in April, Kathy Chung, a former aide to Biden, testified before the House Oversight Committee, contradicting the White House’s account of Biden’s handling of classified documents. Chung testified that the documents Biden kept were not stored in a secured closet at the Penn Biden Center.

It may be hearsay, but everything fits.

Okay, this tells us that they know SloJoe is such a liability that if he can’t be stopped, he’s going to lose.

Jake Tapper Stuns CNN’s Audience: “Trump Was Right and Joe Biden Was Wrong”

CNN’s Jake Tapper came clean and admitted that Trump was right and Joe Biden was wrong about Hunter Biden’s shady dealings in China.

TAPPER: Let’s turn to the Biden administration because Jeff you have some new reporting that President Biden might have a blind spot, according to people around him when it comes to his son Hunter Biden’s legal troubles and concerns about how this might impact his desire to be reelected. What do you got? What are you hearing?

ZELENY: Well, look, this is something that the President was hoping to put behind him. They were hoping that the plea agreement would go through, et cetera. Now there is very likely to be a trial unfolding at the same time as a presidential campaign. Even worse, a second special counsel’s investigation on top of the one that’s already investigating the President for classified documents.

So the point talking to a bunch of advisors is that this is something that is not discussed around the President in his orbit because they do not think voters care about it.

They think voters care about the economy, other matters. They’re probably right about that. However, we know that this is going to be a central piece of the Republican debate and Republican talking points next week and beyond, the Hunter Biden situation.

So what do swing voters think of Hunter Biden? As of now, they’ve never sort of drawn a correlation or blamed the President for his son’s conduct. They feel sympathy for him, et cetera.

But is there a blind spot directly around him and the campaign by not talking about this? It’s verboten. You can’t talk about Hunter Biden. We’ll see.

This is definitely going to be a topic on the debate stage this week.

TAPPER: Yes. And Kristen, Glenn Kessler from “The Washington Post” had a fact check about Joe Biden from earlier this month noting that Hunter Biden admitted in court in July that he was, in fact, paid substantial sums from Chinese companies.

Kessler wrote, Hunter Biden reported nearly $2.4 million income in 2017 and 2.2 million income in 2018, most of which came from Chinese or Ukrainian interests.

But this — and this directly goes against what Joe Biden said in the debate in 2020 with Donald Trump.

BLUF
Well, I generally believe that when government officials don’t want us to know something, it’s because they fear we would think or act in ways they wouldn’t like if we knew it.

It’s democracy in the dark without Nashville shooter manifesto’s release.

“Democracy Dies in Darkness” is the (sometimes ironic) slogan of The Washington Post.

But it’s also a fair description of what’s happening in Tennessee, as the state Legislature is being called to a special session even as local and federal officials withhold information that might be critical to its decision-making.

Gov. Bill Lee ordered the special session to begin Aug. 21 in response to a March 27 mass shooting in which three adults and three children at the Covenant School, a Christian school in Nashville’s Green Hills neighborhood, were killed.

The Nashville Tennessean article refers only to “a shooter.”

The shooter was a female-to-male transgender shooter named Audrey Hale, aged 28, who left a manifesto before being killed by police.

Hale had chosen to identify as a man, using the pronouns he/him.

The manifesto included detailed plans put together over months to shoot up the school, according to reports just after the shooting from police who had seen it.

Unfortunately, they’re the only ones who have seen it.

Local and federal authorities with access to the manifesto have refused to make its contents public.

Though Hale sent an Instagram message to a friend just before the shooting, saying, “One day this will make more sense. I’ve left more than enough evidence behind,” we haven’t seen that evidence.

Vivek Ramaswamy, running third in the GOP presidential primary, recently called for the manifesto’s release. He characterizes the government position as “stonewalled silence.”

Well, I generally believe that when government officials don’t want us to know something, it’s because they fear we would think or act in ways they wouldn’t like if we knew it.

They seldom keep things secret that would make them look good.

Instead it’s usually something that would reflect badly on them or someone they’re protecting.

What could that be in this case? I don’t know, and they seem determined to keep it that way.

But beyond that, the Legislature is in a curious position.

Lawmakers are being asked to debate and vote on legislative proposals being made only because of the March shooting, even as some of the most important facts are kept secret.

Gov. Lee’s office says he’s called for the release of the manifesto, and it’s the Metro Nashville Police and the FBI keeping the lid on.

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So a guy pushing the Trump Russian collusion story was actually colluding with the Russians. You literally can’t make this up.

Former F.B.I. Spy Hunter Pleads Guilty to Aiding Russian Oligarch

The plea by the former agent, Charles F. McGonigal, represented a remarkable turn for a man who once occupied one of the most sensitive and trusted positions in the American intelligence community, placing him among the highest-ranking F.B.I. officials ever to be convicted of a crime.

Appearing before Judge Jennifer H. Rearden of Federal District Court on Tuesday, an emotional Mr. McGonigal stood up and said that he had broken the law after his retirement in 2018 from the bureau, where he had been an expert in Russian counterintelligence, by aiding an effort by Oleg V. Deripaska, a Russian billionaire under U.S. sanctions, to investigate a rival.

“I have understood what my actions have resulted in, and I’m deeply remorseful,” Mr. McGonigal said, his voice breaking. “My actions were never intended to hurt the United States, the F.B.I. and my family and friends.”

The conspiracy charge he pleaded guilty to was newly filed by prosecutors on Tuesday, replacing the original indictment handed up by a grand jury in January that had included more serious charges of violating U.S. sanctions and laundering money. Under the plea deal, the maximum prison term Mr. McGonigal could serve is five years, instead of the sentence of up to 20 years he might otherwise have faced.

In court, Mr. McGonigal, 55, told the judge that he had known he could not legally perform services for Mr. Deripaska, who was placed on a U.S. sanctions list in 2018. He said he had understood that his work in the second half of 2021 to collect “open source” negative information on Vladimir Potanin, an oligarch who was a business competitor of Mr. Deripaska, was likely to be used in an effort to get Mr. Potanin placed on the sanctions list as well.

He admitted knowingly arranging for payments to be routed from a Russian bank through a company in Cyprus, and then to a corporation in New Jersey, to conceal that the source of the money was Mr. Deripaska.

Judge Rearden scheduled Mr. McGonigal’s sentencing for Dec. 4.

In the initial charging document, prosecutors from the U.S. attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York said that Mr. McGonigal and an associate had received payments totaling more than $200,000 for their work investigating Mr. Potanin under a contract with an aide to Mr. Deripaska. They also hired subcontractors for the investigation, the indictment said.

But on Tuesday, Mr. McGonigal told the judge that in the end he had netted only $17,500, and he agreed to forfeit that amount.

The plea brings the prosecution of Mr. McGonigal in New York to a relatively speedy conclusion after fewer than seven months. He had been arrested by F.B.I. agents in January at John F. Kennedy Airport upon his return from an overseas business trip.

Mr. McGonigal still faces a second indictment brought by federal prosecutors in Washington on charges that accuse him of concealing his acceptance of $225,000 from a businessman and of hiding dealings in Eastern Europe while working for the bureau. Mr. McGonigal has pleaded not guilty to those charges but is in talks to resolve them; his lawyer, Seth D. DuCharme, told the judge overseeing the Washington case that he expected to provide an update on the talks after Labor Day.

Although Mr. McGonigal was privy to highly classified information, a three-year investigation found no evidence that he had passed secrets to foreign adversaries, according to people with knowledge of the case who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing matter. The F.B.I. concluded that Mr. McGonigal’s misconduct was limited to corruption, the people said.

Mr. Deripaska, who has been called “Putin’s oligarch” because of his close relationship with the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, is among the best known of the businessmen who became rich as Russian state resources were doled out to friends of the Kremlin after the fall of the Soviet Union. Mr. Deripaska and others were also accused last year by federal prosecutors in New York of violating U.S. sanctions through real-estate deals and other actions, including trying to arrange for the oligarch’s girlfriend to give birth to their two children in the United States. Mr. Deripaska, a Russian citizen, is unlikely to be extradited to face the charges in the near future.

The prosecutors in Mr. McGonigal’s New York case have said that before the U.S. government expanded sanctions in 2018, following Russia’s interference in the 2016 American presidential election, Mr. McGonigal had reviewed a preliminary sanctions list with Mr. Deripaska’s name on it. Around the same time, they suggested, Mr. McGonigal was seeking a connection with Mr. Deripaska by arranging a New York Police Department internship for the daughter of one of the oligarch’s aides. (A senior police official has said it was actually a “V.I.P.-type tour.”)

After Mr. McGonigal retired, he and his co-defendant in the New York case, a court interpreter and former Russian diplomat named Sergey Shestakov, referred the same Deripaska aide to a law firm for help getting sanctions removed, according to the original charges in New York.

While negotiating the law firm agreement, Mr. McGonigal met with Mr. Deripaska in Vienna and London, referring to him in electronic communications as “the Vienna client,” prosecutors have said. Mr. Deripaska paid the law firm $175,000 a month; the firm passed $25,000 on to Mr. McGonigal as a consultant and investigator, the prosecutors said.

Mr. Shestakov has pleaded not guilty to violating U.S. sanctions, money laundering, conspiracy and making false statements to the F.B.I. His lawyer, Rita M. Glavin, did not respond to a request for comment.

The deal to investigate Mr. Potanin was made with an aide to Mr. Deripaska in the spring of 2021, prosecutors said.

In November of that year, Mr. McGonigal and Mr. Shestakov were trying to obtain “dark web” files, purportedly about $500 million in hidden assets held by Mr. Potanin, in exchange for a payment of up to $3 million, Rebecca Talia Dell, an assistant U.S. attorney, said in court Tuesday. Before that transaction could be completed, F.B.I. agents seized Mr. McGonigal and Mr. Shestakov’s electronic devices, bringing their work for Mr. Deripaska to an end, prosecutors have said.

There’s too much money in geoengineering for “climate change” not to turn into a business. The Biden administration is already studying blocking the sunlight. Now Ocean Alkalinity Enhancement joins Solar Radiation Modification.
-Richard Fernandez

Meta’s former CTO has a new $50 million project: ocean-based carbon removal

A nonprofit formed by Mike Schroepfer, Meta’s former chief technology officer, has spun out a new organization dedicated to accelerating research into ocean alkalinity enhancement—one potential means of using the seas to suck up and store away even more carbon dioxide.

Additional Ventures, cofounded by Schroepfer, and a group of other foundations have committed $50 million over five years to the nonprofit research program, dubbed the Carbon to Sea Initiative. The goals of the effort include evaluating potential approaches; eventually conducting small-scale field trials in the ocean; advancing policies that could streamline permitting for those experiments and provide more public funding for research; and developing the technology necessary to carry out and assess these interventions if they prove to work well and safely.

The seas already act as a powerful buffer against the worst dangers of climate change, drawing down about a quarter of human-driven carbon dioxide emissions and absorbing the vast majority of global warming. Carbon dioxide dissolves naturally into seawater where the air and ocean meet.

But scientists and startups are exploring whether these global commons can do even more to ease climate change, as a growing body of research finds that nations now need to both slash emissions and pull vast amounts of additional greenhouse gas out of the atmosphere to keep warming in check.

Ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE) refers to various ways of adding alkaline substances, like olivine, basalt, or lime, into seawater. These basic materials bind with dissolved inorganic carbon dioxide in the water to form bicarbonates and carbonates, ions that can persist for tens of thousands of years in the ocean. As those CO2-depleted waters reach the surface, they can pull down additional carbon dioxide from the air to return to a state of equilibrium.

The ground-up materials could be added directly to ocean waters from vessels, placed along the coastline, or used in onshore devices that help trigger reactions with seawater.

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