Congressman John Conyers, Jr – A Civil Rights Legend – Legacy Preserved

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QAnon, Identity Theft, Progressive Candidate JFK Jr vincent fusca Def Newshour 12/12/18

A central figure in the QAnon conspiracy theory has been revealed to be former progressive Green Party Candidate, Ray Parrish. The failed Arizona Congressional candidate may be responsible for assuming someone else’s identity online in order to earn revenue through his affiliate programs. Posing as Vincent Fusca, a Pennsylvania GOP delegate, Parrish has fooled the entire following of the fringe conspiracy movement. Links https://pastebin.com/4RBRre8w

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Comey throws Lynch under the bus over Hillary email probe

Ex-FBI Director James Comey savages President Trump in his bestselling new tell-all, “A Higher Loyalty” — but also skewers former Attorney General Loretta Lynch for her dubious handling of the Hillary Clinton email probe.

Lynch, wrote Comey, had a “tortured half-out, half-in approach” to the investigation, and he said he even considered calling for a special prosecutor to be appointed to oversee the probe because of Lynch’s ambivalence.

“But I decided it would be brutally unfair to do that,” he wrote.

https://nypost.com/2018/04/13/comey-also-skewers-former-attorney-general-loretta-lynch-in-new-memoir/

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Former Albertville City Judge Sentenced to 17 ½ Years in Prison for Child Pornography

BIRMINGHAM – A federal judge on Wednesday sentenced an Albertville lawyer and former part-time municipal judge to 17½ years in prison on a child pornography crime, announced U.S. Attorney Jay E. Town and FBI Special Agent in Charge Johnnie Sharp Jr.

STEVEN VINCENT SMITH, 54, pleaded guilty in November to one count of receiving child pornography on a computer between January 2015 and March 2016. U.S. District Court Judge Virginia E. Hopkins sentenced Smith and ordered him to serve 10 years of supervised release following his prison term.

“This defendant swore to honor the law and uphold justice, but instead he committed loathsome crimes on the most vulnerable of victims,” Town said. “His innocent victims will grow into being survivors while Smith will spend most of his remaining breaths inside of a cell.”

According to the government’s sentencing memorandum, Smith “committed a shocking number of sex crimes.” Along with distributing child pornography on the internet and possessing thousands of images of child pornography, including photos of graphic sexual assaults on toddlers, Smith also molested a child, according to the sentencing memorandum. He also solicited the production of child pornography and advised other sexual predators on how to groom and molest children, the memorandum said.

Smith’s crimes spanned years, with forensic evidence showing him “discussing the rape of children and distributing child pornography as early as 2010,” according to the memorandum.

The FBI investigated the case in conjunction with the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency. Assistant U.S. Attorney Manu Balachandran prosecuted the case.

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EXCLUSIVE: Podesta Didn’t Register As A ‘Foreign Agent’ When He Represented A Bank With Ties To Russian Spy Agencies

Democratic super lobbyist Tony Podesta failed to register under the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) when he agreed to represent Sberbank, Russia’s largest bank.

Sberbank allegedly has close ties to Russia’s intelligence services, The Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative Group has learned.

Marc Raimondi, the national security spokesman at the Department of Justice, confirmed to TheDCNF that Sberbank never registered with the department under FARA. It did not directly register nor was it registered through any other agency such as the Podesta Group.

http://dailycaller.com/2017/03/07/exclusive-podesta-didnt-register-as-a-foreign-agent-when-he-represented-a-bank-with-ties-to-russian-spy-agencies/#ixzz4anBuJnJn

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Judge orders search warrant unsealed in Clinton email investigation

NEW YORK

Search warrant in Clinton email probe to be unsealed

A federal judge in New York on Monday ordered a search warrant in the Hillary Clinton email investigation to be unsealed, a decision that probably will mean the public will learn more details about the FBI’s controversial decision on the eve of the presidential election to resume the closed probe.

U.S. District Judge P. Kevin Castel ordered that the warrant — along with the reasons that an FBI agent gave for seeking it and an inventory of what was recovered — be unsealed by noon Tuesday. The documents could be telling, revealing what cause the FBI felt it had to search a computer belonging to disgraced former congressman Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) for evidence in the Clinton email case.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/judge-orders-search-warrant-unsealed-in-clinton-email-investigation/2016/12/19/0c50d186-c1ab-11e6-8422-eac61c0ef74d_story.html?utm_term=.259a242c98d6

Clinton Search Warrant Unsealing Order 12-19-16 by Beverly Tran on Scribd

Clinton Email Search Warrant 12-20-16 by Beverly Tran on Scribd

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House Dems: Russia hacking probe needs political 'safeguards'

Lawmakers say Trump’s dismissal of Russian hacking and his business investments could ‘threaten the impartiality’ of an investigation.

Dean of the U.S. House
of Representatives
John Conyers, Jr.

Top Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee are demanding intelligence officials put “safeguards” in place to ensure any investigation into Russian hacking is free of political influence ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration.

The lawmakers say Trump’s repeated dismissal of the Russian hacking along with his possible business investments in the county could “threaten the impartiality” of an investigation while he’s president.

The letter, sent to Attorney General Loretta Lynch and FBI Director James Comey, also calls on federal investigators to make public additional details about Russian attempts to undermine the election, including whether there is a criminal investigation and if so, when it started.

“We strongly and urgently request that safeguards be put in place — prior to the completion of the presidential transition — to ensure that any criminal investigation into these matters is conducted in an independent manner and free of improper partisan influence,” House Judiciary Committee ranking member John Conyers (D-Mich.) wrote Wednesday.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas), top Democrat on the committee’s crime panel, also signed onto the letter, obtained by POLITICO.

“To the extent that this investigation extends to any U.S. persons — including any associate of President Elect Donald Trump — we ask that you confirm this as well,” they added.

Conyers and Jackson Lee also cite Trump’s potential conflicts of interest surrounding his business holdings, including possible financial ties to Russia, as the need for an independent investigation.

The Judiciary Democrats say any probe into Russian cyber warfare should be treated with just as much importance as the controversial investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server.

“These and other incidents concerning investigatory actions — or lack thereof — in the run up to the recent election have deeply shaken the reputation for fairness previously enjoyed by federal law enforcement and reinforce the need to appropriately handle any pending criminal investigation,” they write, citing Comey’s decision to publicly re-open the FBI’s investigation into Clinton’s email practices days before the election.

Conyers and Jackson Lee also echo calls for an “independent and bipartisan commission” to fully investigate Russia’s actions in the run-up toNov. 8. The letter comes after growing demands from key senators for GOP leaders to establish a select congressional committee to dig into the issue.

President Barack Obama and other top intelligence officials have said Russia was behind the election hacking that led to the release of thousands of Democratic documents, including Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s emails and personal information for lawmakers and staffers, and resulted in the resignation of Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz just hours before the Democratic convention.

But the president-elect and some Republicans have dismissed allegations of Russia’s role in the document dumps and the country's attempts to sway voters in Trump’s favor ahead of Election Day.

“If Russia, or some other entity, was hacking, why did the White House wait so long to act? Why did they only complain after Hillary lost?” Trump tweeted last week. He’s also called the claims “ridiculous” and “just another excuse.” Director of National Intelligence James Clapper announced onOct. 7, more than a month before the election, that U.S. intelligence agencies agreed that Russia had conducted the hacking operations in an attempt to meddle in the election.

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) has publicly sparred with top intelligence officials, saying they have refused to brief him and other members of the panel on the issue in recent weeks. Nunes last week announced plans for committee members to visit the intelligence agencies in January to learn more about the Russian investigation.

So far, top Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), have rejected requests for a separate probe, saying the committees with jurisdiction over cybersecurity can handle the investigation.

The Senate and House Intelligence Committees are taking the lead on investigating the issue but several other committees, including House Judiciary, have some jurisdiction.

Key lawmakers, including incoming Democratic leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Jack Reed (D-R.I.), have argued that a select panel is needed to head off problems from too many committees being involved.

McConnell again ruled out the idea of a special committee during an interview with a Kentucky PBS outlet Tuesday.

"It's a serious issue, but it doesn't require a select committee," McConnell said. "We already have a committee set up to do this."

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/russia-hacking-probe-house-democrats-232855

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Is Trump's Attorney General Jeff Sessions a Racist?

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Rule 41 change probably won’t get congressional action

UPHILL CLIMB ON RULE 41 — It’s increasingly unlikely that the House and Senate will take action to block a pending change to government hacking powers. The proposed alteration to Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure would let judges grant electronic search warrants for devices whose locations aren't known, and permit them to authorize remote searches of devices not in their jurisdiction. Congress has until Dec. 1 to halt the Rule 41 amendment, which critics fear could vastly expand government surveillance authority but proponents say is a mere technical necessity in today’s digital age. Sens. Ron Wyden and Rand Paul have sponsored legislation to block the update.

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Nina Turner: Dems Need to Heal Because Clinton Campaign Actually Wrote WikiLeaks Emails

The Campaign wrote those emails.

Saturday, MSNBC political analyst and former Ohio State Sen. Nina Turner (D) discussed the WikiLeaks emails that show the Hillary Clinton campaign’s disdain for fellow Democrats, as well as recruiting “needy Latinos.”

Turner said that the Democratic party will need to heal because the emails were actually written by Democrats about fellow Democrats.

“I believe that the Democratic party, when all of this is said and done, will have to deal in a very deep way with the healing process, because the fact of the matter is that the hackers didn’t write the emails,” Turner explained. “We’re dealing with people who talked about needy Latinos. We’re dealing with people who said things about African-Americans and others. Heck, I’m even in the emails, as well. I can tell from you reading the ones that I’ve seen so far with my name in them, the Russians didn’t write those emails. They were by the people within the Clinton camp.”

http://endingthefed.com/nina-turner-dems-need-to-heal-because-clinton-campaign-actually-wrote-wikileaks-emails.html

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Goodlatte Presses Justice Department on Secret Agreements with Top Clinton Advisors

Washington, D.C. – House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) today pressed Attorney General Loretta Lynch about a secret agreement to destroy the laptops of top advisors to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

As part of the House Judiciary Committee’s ongoing oversight of Secretary Clinton’s unauthorized use of a private email server during her tenure as Secretary of State, the Justice Department provided a private review of certain immunity agreements entered into during the investigation. The immunity agreements mentioned secret side agreements between the Justice Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Beth Wilkinson, the lawyer representing Cheryl Mills, chief of staff and counselor to Secretary Clinton, and Heather Samuelson, senior advisor to Secretary Clinton. After reviewing the side agreements, the Committee has learned that the FBI agreed to destroy Mills and Samuelson’s laptops after inspecting them.

In his letter to Attorney General Lynch, Chairman Goodlatte calls on the Justice Department to provide information about the side agreements and answer the many questions they raise about the FBI’s investigation.

Goodlatte Presses Justice Department on Secret Agreements with Top Clinton Advisors Letter To Attorney Gene... by Beverly Tran on Scribd

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Fox News Reports on DOJ's Secret Immunity Agreements

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Partisan fireworks over Clinton aides' immunity deals

The revelation that several Hillary Clinton staffers received partial immunity in the FBI email probe set off another round of partisan fireworks on Friday: Republicans said they're increasingly convinced the Justice Department mishandled the investigation and Democrats accused the GOP of stoking the issue for maximum political damage in the heat of the campaign.

Oversight Committee Republicans seethed after the disclosure that Clinton’s lawyer Cheryl Mills was granted protection from prosecution for turning over to the FBI the laptop she used while helping sort Clinton’s "work-related” emails from her “personal messages.” The work messages were slated to be made public, while the personal ones were deleted. Also receiving legal protection was Heather Samuelson, a Clinton campaign staffer-turned-legal assistant who made the initial determination on how to categorize the emails.

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/cheryl-mills-immunity-deal-reaction-228596#ixzz4LJFq887j 

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Obama administration orders ND pipeline construction to stop

The Obama administration said it would not authorize construction on a critical stretch of the Dakota Access pipeline, handing a significant victory to the Indian tribe fighting the project the same day the group lost a court battle.

The administration said construction would halt until it can do more environmental assessments.

The Department of Justice, the Army and the Interior Department jointly announced that construction would pause on the pipeline near North Dakota's Lake Oahe, a major water source on the Missouri River for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. The agencies will now decide whether they need to reconsider permitting decisions for the pipeline under the National Environmental Policy Act.

http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/295223-obama-administration-orders-nd-pipeline-construction-to-stop

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Private prison stocks collapse after Justice Department promises to phase them out

The Justice Department on Thursday announced that it will end the use of private prisons, which currently house more than 22,000 federal prisoners, or about 12 percent of the total federal prison population.

These prisons had become increasingly controversial in the past several years. A DOJ Inspector General's report recently found that these prisons were on average less safe and secure than government-run prisons. Mother Jones magazine recently published a searing, 35,000-word expose on abuses at one private prison in Louisiana.

Criminal justice reformers also raised concerns that private prisons have a profit motive to put more people behind bars. The companies that own these prisons, like the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA)and the GEO Group, stand to make more money if the prison population grows. Many private prison contracts mandate a minimum occupancy rate -- often 90 or even 100 percent. In some cases, the government must pay for 100-percent capacity regardless of how many beds are filled.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/08/18/private-prison-stocks-collapse-after-justice-department-promises-to-phase-them-out/

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GOP lays out case for charging Clinton with perjury

A pair of leading House Republicans on Monday laid out detailed instructions for the Justice Department to file perjury charges against Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

More than a month after first requesting the department open a criminal probe into Clinton for alleged misstatements she made under oath, the GOP heads of the House Judiciary and Oversight committees told a federal prosecutor specifically where they believed Clinton had lied to Congress about her email setup at the Department of State.

In at least four separate occasions during a marathon appearance before the House Select Committee on Benghazi, the lawmakers alleged, the former secretary's claims were at odds with what the FBI has now discovered to be the truth about her private server.

http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/291494-gop-lays-out-case-for-charging-clinton-with-perjury

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Hillary election win could raise uncertainty over future of Clinton Foundation

The Clinton Foundation has caused political headaches for its namesakes — and it’s unclear what they’ll do with their charitable organization if they return to the White House.

Some say the multibillion-dollar foundation should be disbanded to avoid possible conflicts of interest. Others say the foundation does too much good work around the globe and should continue under new leadership.

Hillary Clinton’s team is facing renewed questions about conflicts of interest after new emails released last week revealed that Clinton Foundation staffers asked top State Department officials to provide foundation donors access to other senior government employees.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/hillary-win-shutdown-clinton-foundation-article-1.2750195

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Sources: Congress to get Hillary Clinton's FBI interview notes

Washington (CNN)Members of Congress will soon receive notes from Hillary Clinton's interview with the FBI over her private email server and they could be sent as early as Monday, according to sources.

The FBI does not have a complete transcript of the interview, FBI Director James Comey told Congress in long testimony earlier this summer. She was not under oath, he added. But members of Congress will have access to notes taken during the interview.

Several Republican lawmakers have requested the information after Comey's testimony.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/08/14/politics/congress-hillary-clinton-fbi-notes/

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Joint FBI-US Attorney Probe Of Clinton Foundation Is Underway

Multiple FBI investigations are underway involving potential corruption charges against the Clinton Foundation, according to a former senior law enforcement official. 

The investigation centers on New York City, where the Clinton Foundation has its main offices, according to the former official who has direct knowledge of the activities.

Prosecutorial support will come from various U.S. Attorneys Offices — a major departure from other centralized FBI investigations.

The New York-based probe is being led by Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. Bharara’s prosecutorial aggressiveness has resulted in a large number of convictions of banks, hedge funds and Wall Street insiders.

The official said involvement of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York “would be seen by agents as a positive development as prosecutors there are generally thought to be more aggressive than the career lawyers within the DOJ.”

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/joint-fbi-us-attorney-probe-of-clinton-foundation-is-underway/ar-BBvwVw5

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Congresswoman indicted, accused of using charity as 'slush fund'

Rep. Corrine Brown (D-Fla.) and her chief of staff, Elias “Ronnie” Simmons, are being charged with 24 counts of fraud in connection with a fake charity, according to a federal grand jury indictment that was released Friday.

 

The charges include mail and wire fraud, conspiracy and tax fraud, according to the Department of Justice.

 

Prosecutors allege that Brown and her associates were pocketing funds from a One Door for Education Inc., an organization that billed itself as a charity for poor students even though it was not properly registered as a nonprofit.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/287012-congresswoman-indicted-on-24-counts-of-fraud

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