Inspector General report on FBI’s FISA abuse tells us one thing: We need radical reform.

BLUF:
“Ironically, the FISA court was created in 1978 to prevent Nixon-style political spying.”

As my section CWO often said when a plan went over like a lead balloon:
“It briefed well.”

Yesterday’s IG report was only the latest in a long series of revelations about FBI misconduct at the FISA court:

*In 2002, the FISA court revealed that FBI agents had false or misleading claims in 75 cases and a top FBI counterterrorism official was prohibited from ever appearing before the court again.

*In 2005, FISA chief judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly proposed requiring FBI agents to swear to the accuracy of the information they presented; that never happened because it could have “slowed such investigations drastically,” the Washington Post reported. So FBI agents continued to have a license to exploit FISA secrecy to lie to the judges.

*In 2017, a FISA court decision included a 10-page litany of FBI violations, which “ranged from illegally sharing raw intelligence with unauthorized third parties to accessing intercepted attorney-client privileged communications without proper oversight.”

* In October, a secret FISA court ruling was released documenting the FBI’s illegal conducted warrantless searches of vast numbers of Americans’ emails despite congressional legislation seeking to curb FBI data roundups.

FBI machinations at the FISA court are especially perilous to American democracy because that court is extremely docile to federal agencies. The FISA court “created a secret body of law giving the National Security Agency the power to amass vast collections of data on Americans,” the New York Times reported in 2013 after Edward Snowden leaked court decisions. FISA decisions have “quietly become almost a parallel Supreme Court…regularly assessing broad constitutional questions and establishing important judicial precedents, with almost no public scrutiny.” The court’s servility can boggle the imagination, such as its rubber-stamping FBI requests that bizarrely claimed that the telephone records of all Americans were “relevant” to a terrorism investigation under the Patriot Act, thereby enabling N.S.A. data seizures later denounced by a federal judge as “almost Orwellian.”

Ironically, the FISA court was created in 1978 to prevent Nixon-style political spying.

Trump on IG Report: ‘This Was an Attempted Overthrow… We Caught ‘em Red-Handed.’

He’s not wrong.

And a lot of people were in on it and they got caught. They got caught red-handed. And I look forward to the Durham report, which is coming out in the not-too-distant future. He’s got his own information, which is this information plus, plus, plus. It’s an incredible thing that happened and we’re lucky we caught them.

Man shot while attempting to burglarize Fayette County home; now in police custody at hospital

And some crap for brains Federal gubbermint congresscritters and presidential candidiates, want laws passed that make it illegal for a teenager to even possess a gun.

REDSTONE TOWNSHIP, Pa. —
Pennsylvania State Police said a man was sent to an area hospital after being shot while trying to burglarize a home in Fayette County Friday night.

State police said the suspect has been identified as 39-year-old Adam Earl Morgan. Police said he is also responsible for two other burglaries, along National Pike, in Redstone Township, that happened on Friday night.

“He climbed up a table and some chairs,” said neighbor Joe Shashura.

The back window to Joe and Sue Shashura’s home had been broken and several items stolen, minutes before police said Morgan walked into their neighbor’s home and was shot.

“I guess it doesn’t take more than five or 1o minutes. He grabbed a pillowcase, filled it with jewelry, anything he could find, cash money and all that,” said Joe Shashura.

The Shashuras said they are typically home, but each was invited out by their daughters on the night of the break-in.

“Relieved that I wasn’t here. I was going to come home earlier, but my daughter asked me to go out to eat dinner,” said Sue Shashura. “I was very tired, I didn’t want to go, but things happen for a reason.”

Morgan was flown to a Pittsburgh-area hospital where he was charged with three counts of burglary.

Police said Morgan was shot by a teenager who was home alone at the time he broke in.

Police said Morgan ran away after being shot, but was later found lying along the road and taken to the hospital.

From the vid commentary:

Virginia’s 2A: Section 13. Militia; standing armies; military subordinate to civil power.
That a well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state, therefore, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.

44-1. Composition of militia.
The militia of the Commonwealth of Virginia shall consist of all able-bodied residents of the Commonwealth who are citizens of the United States and all other able-bodied persons resident in the Commonwealth who have declared their intention to become citizens of the United States, who are at least 16 years of age and, except as hereinafter provided, not more than 55 years of age.
The militia shall be divided into three classes: the National Guard, which includes the Army National Guard and the Air National Guard; the Virginia Defense Force; and the unorganized militia.

I do not think that it can be any more clear, on how much of a violation SB16-18-64 will be.

The IG **Admits** DOJ/FBI Attempted A Putsch

The IG report, after reading through a good part of it, states that seventeen “errors” were made by the FBI. May I remind you of an indisputable fact: Errors are randomly distributed.

That is, let’s assume you intend to drive at 40mph.  If you make an error you will operate your car some of the time at 38mph, and some of the time at 42mph.  The errors, if they are actual errors, will be randomly distributed around the correct action.  Some of the errors will place you inside the correct action and some of them will be place you outside of the correct action.  Approximately an equal number of errors will fall on each side of the correct action; some will help you, some hurt, but given enough errors there should be an approximately equal number in each direction.

If your speed, as measured at 1 minute intervals, is 40, 42, 45, 43, 41, 40, 46, 50, 42 and 45 mph that is not “error.”  You are instead driving with a floor of 40mph; your intent is to drive at no slower than 40mph.

The probability of an error is 50% in each direction.  Therefore half the errors should have been to Trump’s benefit.

However, exactly zero of them were to Trump’s benefit.

The odds of this being random chance can be computed.

The probability of the first error being to Trump’s detriment is 0.5 (50%.)

Each successive “error” is also equally probable to be of either benefit or detriment.  So when the second error occurs for them to both be to Trump’s detriment by random chance — that is, if it’s an actual error without motivation or bias, is 0.50 * 0.50, or 1 in 4.

For seventeen “errors” to be all in the same direction is 0.5 ^ 17, or exactly 1 in 131,072.

This is not quite as bad of odds as winning the Powerball but it clowns the claim that such were errors and not intentional acts that evince a predetermined goal or desire.

Indeed in a criminal trial should odds of 1 in 131,072 be established that is almost certainly enough for you to be convicted and sent to prison.  Remember that the standard in a criminal trial is not “beyond question” or “with absolute proof” — it is beyond a reasonable doubt.

1 in 131,072 does not admit reasonable doubt.

The FBI and Department of Justice did, beyond reasonable doubt, intentionally target Donald Trump and his associates as a candidate and as President for surveillance and did, with corrupt intent beyond said reasonable doubt, intend to harm both him and his associates.

This did not occur due to error.  The manifest weight of the evidence as proved by fundamental, middle-school mathematics, is that this campaign was intentional, it was malicious, and given that it involved knowingly false statements to a court by means of omission it was criminal.

To refuse to prosecute everyone so-involved is for the United States Department of Justice and FBI to declare themselves above the law and to declare the Constitution of the United States, as a contract between the citizens and its government, null and void due to the intentional refusal to enforce same for political reasons.

It does not matter whether or not the scheme ultimately did or does in the future (e.g. impeachment) succeed.

The IG report establishes that the FBI and DOJ attempted to conduct a putsch in the United States to overthrow a democratically-elected President, along with imprisoning his associates and staff members by concocting knowingly-false pretense for surveillance and entrapment.

The IG report, in an attempt to claim that there was no “wrongdoing” but simple mistakes has mathematically proved that in fact the campaign to overthrow the President of the United States was intentional with a sufficient level of probability to secure convictions under criminal law for virtually any crime in the US.

It is important to note that the prosecutions and convictions obtained since the beginning with this process have been for obstructing an illegally-initiated investigation, as is, I note, the currently pending prosecution of Stone.  That people in this nation believe that citizens have an obligation to comply and cooperate with an unlawfully-initiated investigation is exactly the sort of premise that the Politburo of Russia used to present, or the Communist Chinese Party presents today.

You decide what your response to this outright admission of wrongdoing by the IG shall be America.

You did pass middle-school math, right?

KCPD officer on leave after shooting at intruder while off duty in his own home

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (WDAF) — Officials placed a Kansas City, Missouri police officer on leave Monday morning as they investigate a shooting near Bales and St. John Avenue.

KCPD Sgt. Jake Becchina said in a news release that around 2:30 a.m. the officer, who was off duty, used his radio to ask for help at his home.

“He told officers he had fired shots at an intruder,” Becchina added.

The off-duty officer told responding officers that he was home alone and walked down the stairs at his home when he heard the sounds of an intruder and found a strange man inside, the news release said.

“Fearing for his safety, he fired multiple shots at the intruder,” Becchina said in the release. “He (the intruder) then ran from the scene.”

Police said they are still looking for the intruder. They are not sure whether any of the shots injured the intruder.

Suspect shot during attempted robbery at Yulee arcade

YULEE, Fla. — Four people are in custody after deputies say a robbery turned to a shooting at an arcade in Yulee Sunday evening.

The Nassau County Sheriff’s Office told First Coast News four suspects tried to rob The Tracks Arcade on State Road 200 just west of U.S. 17. A security guard intervened and shot one of the suspects in the arm and buttock, according to the sheriff’s office. All four suspects then got in a car and sped off but were later caught by deputies on Interstate-95 and SR-200.

No other injuries were reported and the injured suspect is expected to be OK.

The Pensacola Jihadi’s Victims Would Be Alive Today
If we were honest about the threat we face.

In a tweet he appears to have sent out before he embarked upon his killing spree at the Naval Air Station Pensacola on Friday, jihadi Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani included a succinct refutation of George W. Bush’s explanation for jihad terrorism, “They hate us because of our freedom”: “O American people – I’m not against you for being American, I don’t hate you because your freedoms.” He also showed why our current approach to the jihad threat is not just wrong, but dangerous.

Alshamrani, a second Lieutenant in the Saudi Air Force, also gave a jihadi’s explanation for why he had decided to kill Americans at the base that was giving him aviation training: , I hate you because every day you supporting, funding and committing crimes not only against Muslims but against humanity.” Alshamrani went on to elucidate exactly what those crimes were: “What I see from America is the supporting of Israel which is invasion of Muslim countrie (sic), I see invasion of many countries by it’s [sic] troops, I see Guantanamo Bay. I see cruise missiles, cluster bombs and UAV.” He added: “I’m against evil, and America as a whole has turned into a nation of evil.”

This statement, if it did indeed come from Alshamrani, as appears likely, makes clear that he was a jihad terrorist. He was killing because of America’s supposed crimes against Muslims; that rules out the alternative explanation for his acts, that he was lashing out after some negative incident or mistreatment at the Naval Air Station.

Alshamrani has shown yet again that the prevailing politically correct obfuscation and denial regarding the jihad threat is actually deadly. If we had a realistic approach to the jihad threat, Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani’s victims would be alive today.

Of course, many credulous Americans will believe his list of grievances, and think that if we just stop committing these supposed “crimes,” that the jihad will disappear. Actually grievance lists such as Alshamrani’s are common from jihadis, who have to couch their jihads as defensive in the absence of a caliphate. In Sunni law, only the caliph can declare offensive jihad. So when there is no caliph, all jihad must be defensive.The enumerated grievances are pretexts that enable a jihadi lawfully to kill in accordance with Islamic law.

Alshamrani was in the country to get aviation training. No one flagged him as a potential jihadi. No one would even have dared to question him to try to ascertain his thoughts about the United States and the global jihad. Any effort to have done so would have been denounced as “Islamophobic,” and would have been career suicide for whoever did the questioning.

We saw this with the Fort Hood jihad mass murderer, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, who was praised and promoted despite alarming his colleagues with his talk of violent jihad. None of his superiors dared do anything except promote him; they knew that if they questioned him about his loyalties, they would be the subject of a CNN feature story the next week on “Islamophobia in the Military,” and they would be looking at a dishonorable discharge.

Thirteen people died at Fort Hood because of the politically correct assumption that Islam is a religion of peace and that to raise suspicions about any Muslim is “Islamophobic” and evidence of nothing more than bigotry and racism. Four more people have now died at the Naval Air Station Pensacola because in the ten years since the Fort Hood jihad attack, we have learned nothing. All the same taboos are still firmly in place. To point out that there is no reliable way to distinguish genuine friend from concealed foe among our “allies” from Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan or anywhere else will do nothing but invite scorn and derision, and earn one a place on the Southern Poverty Law Center’s “hate” list.

How many more Americans must die before law enforcement and intelligence officials dare to examine and discard the comforting falsehoods and fantasies they have embraced regarding Islam and jihad? How many more Mohammed Saeed Alshamranis must there be before our government and military authorities recognize that Islam is not actually a religion of peace at all, but one that teaches warfare against unbelievers in its core texts, and consequently that any devout and knowledgeable Muslim may believe that it is a good and even holy thing under certain circumstances to kill those unbelievers?

This is an unpleasant but readily demonstrable fact. It does not mean that every devout Muslim is or ever will be a jihadist. It does mean that we must be realistic and careful regarding the sentiments of the personnel we train from countries where the teachings of Islam are well known and revered. If we aren’t, nothing is more certain than the fact that there will be more massacres in America like the one in Pensacola on Friday.

Fate of the Unarmed & U.S. Military’s Continued Support for Gun-Free Death Zones

I can neither confirm, not deny, that someone who shall remain nameless to protect the guilty carried a gun for self defense purposes on several military installations in flagrant violation of military regulations.

Of course, we all know why there is a general regulation against carrying weapons on post. The military uses a ‘lowest common denominator’ mentality where it is considered what probable mayhem would ensue if the newly minted, minimally trained and barely proficient E-1 grade service members were permitted to carry and applies it to everyone no matter their experience or rank. That goes hand in hand with the joke about the difference between the Army and the Boy Scouts being that the Boy Scouts have ‘Adult Supervision’.

Ft Collins, CO –-(Ammoland.com)- “‘’Terrorists are coming! ‘Turn-in your weapons and go immediately to the nearest gun-free zone!’… said no human with a functioning brain in the history of our planet!” ~ Anon

Another sad, yet inevitable, result of “gun-free Zones”

In his lame excuse, a continuation of the tiresome DOD “no-guns dance,” the commander of the Pensacola Air Station where Friday’s terrorist attack took place said:

“… no sailors nor Marines, other than MPs on duty, may possess weapons on-base”

Well once again, Islamic terrorists just can’t seem to follow instructions. Imagine that!

Our military bases are all gigantic “gun-free zones,” where our defenseless “unarmed forces,” wait around to be murdered by armed terrorists, and where professing “commanders” are petrified by the thought of deploying competently-armed warriors during an “in- extremis” incident.

The terrorist in this incident was ultimately shot to death, not by highly-touted Base MPs (who knows where they were) whom commanders love to talk about, but by audacious Escambia County Deputies, who entered the Base with guns, probably in violation of the “rules!”

The question needs to be asked loudly and openly:

“What is it exactly within the mission of our military that apparently prevented armed sailors and armed Marines from promptly confronting, with deadly force, a single armed enemy of the United States, who was in the process of actively murdering innocent persons on a domestic US military installation?”

One can see clearly the way Democrat-promoted anti-2A sentiment has saddled us with this obviously self-destructive philosophy.

  • No matter what they say, liberals, along with their promoters and supporters (in and out of uniform), do not trust American citizens (in or out of uniform) with guns.
  • No matter what they say, liberals do not trust American police (whom they not-so-silently regard as potential killers of members of their voting base), to possess guns while not actually working. They now even support disarming police while they are on watch.
  • No matter what they say, liberals do not trust American military personnel (whom they not-so-silently regard as war criminals) to possess guns when not actually deployed a combat zone. Even then, they want our soldiers and Marines disarmed most of the time.
  • No matter what they say, liberals do not trust even their own heavily-armed praetorian guards to be armed, when not actually protecting them.

Some history:

Likewise, both Lenin and Stalin, and their elite Communist cadres cynically viewed their own praetorian guards as only in-place to serve the short-term purpose of protecting them.

All were eventually shipped off to gulags, or liquidated, then casually replaced with naive new recruits.

In the “class-free” Soviet Union, nearness to Communist despots brought with it neither job security, nor life security.

Nearness to liberals (their spiritual ascendants) is no different, which is surprising only to the naive.

“Not every crisis can be ‘managed.’ As much as we want to keep ourselves ‘safe,’ we cannot be protected from everything. When we want to embrace life, we also have to embrace chaos!” ~ Susan Phillips

Supreme Court Declines to Hear Kentucky Abortion Ultrasound Law

I’m a bit surprised. It only takes 4 justices to decide to hear a case and there are 4 definitely proabortion proggie justices on the court. I’ll bet they figured to cut bait due to the possibility that there were 5 justices that just might take the opportunity to gut Roe v Wade some more.

The Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal to the Kentucky Ultrasound Informed Consent Act, which requires “doctors to perform ultrasounds and show and describe fetal images to patients before abortions, as well as play an audible heartbeat of the fetus.”

Their decision means the law will stay in place.

The ACLU challenged the law on behalf of EMW Women’s Surgical Center in Louisville, KY, which is the state’s last abortion clinic.

The 6th US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the law:

“As a First Amendment matter, there is nothing suspect with a State’s requiring a doctor, before performing an abortion, to make truthful, non-misleading factual disclosures, relevant to informed consent, even if those disclosures relate to unborn life and have the effect of persuading the patient not to have an abortion,” the appeals court held in its ruling.

AG Barr: IG Report Makes Clear the FBI Launched an Invasive Investigation on Thinnest of Suspicions

The long awaited Department of Justice Inspector General report on FISA abuse against the Trump campaign was finally released Monday afternoon.

After looking at the findings, Attorney General Bill Barr is slamming the FBI for using “thin suspicions” to justify an invasive investigation into the Trump campaign.

“The Inspector General’s report now makes clear that the FBI launched an intrusive investigation of a U.S. presidential campaign on the thinnest of suspicions that, in my view, were insufficient to justify the steps taken.  It is also clear that, from its inception, the evidence produced by the investigation was consistently exculpatory.  Nevertheless, the investigation and surveillance was pushed forward for the duration of the campaign and deep into President Trump’s administration.  In the rush to obtain and maintain FISA surveillance of Trump campaign associates, FBI officials misled the FISA court, omitted critical exculpatory facts from their filings, and suppressed or ignored information negating the reliability of their principal source,” Barr said. “The Inspector General found the explanations given for these actions unsatisfactory.  While most of the misconduct identified by the Inspector General was committed in 2016 and 2017 by a small group of now-former FBI officials, the malfeasance and misfeasance detailed in the Inspector General’s report reflects a clear abuse of the FISA process.”

Barr then explained reform of the FISA system and how agents use it is important to FBI Director Christopher Wray, who will be working to fix the problems found by the Inspector General.

“FISA is an essential tool for the protection of the safety of the American people.  The Department of Justice and the FBI are committed to taking whatever steps are necessary to rectify the abuses that occurred and to ensure the integrity of the FISA process going forward,” he continued. “No one is more dismayed about the handling of these FISA applications than Director Wray.  I have full confidence in Director Wray and his team at the FBI, as well as the thousands of dedicated line agents who work tirelessly to protect our country.  I thank the Director for the comprehensive set of proposed reforms he is announcing today, and I look forward to working with him to implement these and any other appropriate measures.”

St. Louis aldermen try to ban guns from parks by calling them child care facilities

ST. LOUIS — Aldermen on Friday voted to designate city parks as child care facilities so they’re exempt from a Missouri state law allowing people to carry concealed firearms without permits and training.

The sponsor, Alderman Cara Spencer, D-20th Ward, called the bill “a creative way of pushing the limits of our gun laws.”

“We need to give our police department the tools they need to intervene in situations that are very dangerous and ones that involve our children,” she said. “At the very least our parks should be gun-free zones.”

But Alderman Bret Narayan, D-24th Ward, warned that the measure — which passed on a 16-2 vote — is likely to be successfully challenged by gun rights advocates in the courts.

Narayan said he shares Spencer’s goal but that a child care facility “doesn’t meet our common-sense definitions of a park.” He said a separate pending bill to allow private groups to ban guns when they get permits to use a portion of a park has a better chance of withstanding a legal challenge.

Spencer in response said the vast majority of activity in parks isn’t organized by groups. Her measure requires signs explaining the prohibition to be posted at all park entrances, parking areas, playgrounds and athletic fields.

Joining Narayan in voting against the bill was Alderman Brandon Bosley, D-3rd Ward. He said he worried that a police stop of a park visitor carrying a weapon simply to protect his family could escalate because of “miscommunication.”

“We have an environment where the police don’t trust the community and the community doesn’t trust the police,” he said.

Alderman Joe Vaccaro, D-23rd Ward, said he voted for the bill “because it seems like the thing to do” but questioned if would really make the parks any safer.

He predicted that many law-abiding citizens who might otherwise carry guns for protection would obey the no-gun signs but people who commit crimes won’t.

Jacob Long, a spokesman for Mayor Lyda Krewson, said she intends to sign the bill.

The city now has its own open-carry ban that applies citywide but Public Safety Director Jimmie Edwards said police don’t enforce it because another state law preempts most local restrictions.

In 2017, a St. Louis circuit judge upheld a ban on guns imposed by the St. Louis Zoo in Forest Park, saying it’s OK because it is both an educational facility and a gated amusement park. Those are among the places where guns can be barred under Missouri law.

But last year, an appeals court said the ruling was flawed and ordered the judge to hold a new round of hearings on the case, which is still pending.

Man shot twice by Macomb County gas station clerk after hitting employee with bottle

MACOMB TOWNSHIP, Mich. – A man was rushed to the hospital Saturday night after being shot two times at a Macomb County gas station.

It happened just before 8:15 p.m. at the Mobil gas station near the intersection of Hall and Heydenreich roads.

According to authorities, a man entered the gas station and struck the clerk over the head with a bottle. The employee shot the man twice in the abdomen.

Police said the man was conscious when he was taken to the hospital to be treated for his injuries. The clerk was also checked out medically.

The Macomb County Sheriff’s Office is reviewing surveillance footage and other evidence recovered.

The investigation is ongoing.

California CEO and Seven Others Charged in Multi-Million Dollar Conduit Campaign Contribution Case

On Friday, AG Bill Barr indicted eight individuals for illegally funneling foreign money to a major demoncrap PAC. One, George Nader (no relation to Ralph), was one of Mueller’s witnesses and is a top donor, so it should be easy to figure out which “…candidate for President of the United States in the 2016 election.” is being referred to.

And, of course, not one peep was heard about this in the MSM.

Earlier today, an indictment was unsealed against the CEO of an online payment processing company, and seven others, charging them with conspiring to make and conceal conduit and excessive campaign contributions, and related offenses, during the U.S. presidential election in 2016 and thereafter.

Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and Assistant Director in Charge Timothy R. Slater of the FBI’s Washington Field Office made the announcement.

A federal grand jury in the District of Columbia indicted Ahmad “Andy” Khawaja, 48, of Los Angeles, California, on Nov. 7, 2019, along with George Nader, Roy Boulos, Rudy Dekermenjian, Mohammad “Moe” Diab, Rani El-Saadi, Stevan Hill and Thayne Whipple. The 53 count indictment charges Khawaja with two counts of conspiracy, three counts of making conduit contributions, three counts of causing excessive contributions, 13 counts of making false statements, 13 counts of causing false records to be filed, and one count of obstruction of a federal grand jury investigation. Nader is charged with conspiring with Khawaja to make conduit campaign contributions, and related offenses. Boulos, Dekermenjian, Diab, El-Saadi, Hill, and Whipple are charged with conspiring with Khawaja and each other to make conduit campaign contributions and conceal excessive contributions, and related offenses.

According to the indictment, from March 2016 through January 2017, Khawaja conspired with Nader to conceal the source of more than $3.5 million in campaign contributions, directed to political committees associated with a candidate for President of the United States in the 2016 election. By design, these contributions appeared to be in the names of Khawaja, his wife, and his company. In reality, they allegedly were funded by Nader. Khawaja and Nader allegedly made these contributions in an effort to gain influence with high-level political figures, including the candidate. As Khawaja and Nader arranged these payments, Nader allegedly reported to an official from a foreign government about his efforts to gain influence.

The indictment also alleges that, from March 2016 through 2018, Khawaja conspired with Boulos, Dekermenjian, Diab, El-Saadi, Hill, and Whipple to conceal Khawaja’s excessive contributions, which totaled more than $1.8 million, to various political committees. Among other things, these contributions allegedly allowed Khawaja to host a private fundraiser for a presidential candidate in 2016 and a private fundraising dinner for an elected official in 2018.

The indictment further alleges that, from June 2019 through July 2019, Khawaja obstructed a grand jury investigation of this matter in the District of Columbia. Knowing that a witness had been called to testify before the grand jury, Khawaja allegedly provided that witness with false information about Nader and his connection to Khawaja’s company. Boulos, Diab, Hill, and Whipple also are charged with obstructing the grand jury’s investigation by lying to the FBI.

Currently, Nader is in federal custody on other charges.

An indictment is not a finding of guilt. It merely alleges that crimes have been committed. A defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

The FBI’s Washington Field Office is investigating the case and Deputy Chief John D. Keller and Trial Attorneys James C. Mann and Michael J. Romano of the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section are prosecuting the case.

U.S. Naval Academy graduate died relaying crucial information to first responders.

PENSACOLA, Fla. – A young graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, whose dream was to become a pilot, is being hailed a hero after he reportedly related crucial information about the identity of the Naval Air Station (NAS) Pensacola shooter to first responders, despite having been shot several times, a family member revealed.

Joshua Kaleb Watson, 23, was confirmed as one of the three victims who were killed Friday morning when Saudi national Mohammed Saeed Alshamrani opened fire on a flight training program for foreign military personnel, Adam Watson revealed in a Facebook post.

In an interview to air Sunday with Fox News’ Chris Wallace, Defense Secretary Mark Esper said all three victims were Americans. Two were members of the U.S. Navy, a senior Pentagon official told Fox News.

Watson’s father Benjamin told USA Today that his son was the officer on deck at the time of the shooting and sustained at least five gunshot wounds before being able to make it out to relay important information about the shooter before succumbing to his injuries.

“Heavily wounded, he made his way out to flag down first responders and gave an accurate description of the shooter,” he told the outlet. “He died serving his country.”

A Fraught Moment

The last time the Democratic Party blew up in a presidential election year was 1860. It had evolved from Jefferson’s 1800 bloc of yeoman farmers to Andrew Jackson’s rowdy caucus of frontier populists in the 1830s, and settled into a slough of pro-slavery apologists by the 1850s, including two do-nothing Democratic presidents, Pierce and Buchanan. The party held a nominating convention in the spring of 1860 and couldn’t come up with a candidate when a claque of southern “fire-eaters” walked out. They tried again a few months later and cracked up into three separate parties with three nominees — and of course Mr. Lincoln won the election. The result was the bloodiest war in US history.

That’s one way to drain a swamp. Historical obfuscators might say the Civil War was a lofty, legalistic quarrel over “state’s rights,” but of course it was really about the intolerable depravity of slavery. A hundred years later, the mysterious inversions of history converted the old slaver’s party into the Civil Rights party. That had a good fifty-year run. It included a hearty side-dish of anti-war sentiment, and a general disposition against the Big Brother treatment of citizens, including especially the overreach of the CIA and the FBI.

What is the Democratic Party today? Well, it’s the cheerleading squad for “seventeen” government agencies that add up to the craftily-labeled “intel community,” a warm-and-fuzzy coalition of snoops, false witnesses, rogue lawfare cadres, seditionists, and bad-faith artists working sedulously to hide their previous misdeeds with ever-fresh ones. They’re the party against free speech, the party against due process of law, the party determined to provoke war with Russia. They’re the party of sexual confusion, sexual hysteria, and sexual conflict, the party of kangaroo courts, cancel culture, erasing boundaries (including national borders), and of making up rules for all that as they go along — like the Nazis and Soviets used to do. The ideas and policies they advocate are so comprehensively crazy that their old support of slavery looks quaintly straightforward in comparison.

It’s taken a while for the full efflorescence of these political pathologies to present. But now they are finally on display for all to see in what is supposed to be a climactic impeachment melodrama. The impeachment process itself has revealed the party’s genius for inventing new debaucheries of law and government misconduct — the latest being Rep Adam Schiff’s blatantly illegal cadging of his opponents’ phone logs. And now, after three years of unchallenged wickedness, they literally face the moment of truth.

That is, when all the many players in this grand game of Gotcha have to face the consequences of what they have done.