Kash Patel confirmed to FBI by the US Senate 51-49

 

A Democrat with multiple credit card balances owed, including one for $1.2 million, should fit right in as a cabinet secretary overseeing spending of money we don't have

 

RFK Jr. had up to $1.2 million in credit card debt — what experts say on tackling high balances

Kennedy’s credit card balances range between $610,000 to $1.2 million in accounts that carry interest rates of 23.24% to 23.49%, the filing shows.

Financial experts interviewed by CNBC said balances that high are unusual.

“That’s a truly massive amount of credit card debt,” said Ted Rossman, senior industry analyst at Bankrate.

Maybe he can borrow some fashion money at lower rates from Kash Ap Patel at the FBI, if they ever confirm him.

 

It's great to be a Trumpist

 Trump Media gifts DJT shares to FBI pick Kash Patel, Linda McMahon and president’s son

Trump Media this week gifted thousands of shares of company stock to President Donald Trump’s nominee for FBI director, Kash Patel, to Trump’s eldest son and to four other board members, new regulatory filings show.

The company awarded 25,946 stock shares each to Patel, Donald Trump Jr., and the president’s pick for Education secretary, Linda McMahon, who all serve as Trump Media directors, the filings Thursday reveal.

Three other directors — former U.S. trade representative Robert Lighthizer, Eric Swider and Kyle Green — received the same number of DJT shares at no cost, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

The filings said the awards were granted Tuesday. Trump Media that day closed trading at $30.04 per share.

At that price, the shares have a paper value of more than $779,400. But most of the stock awarded has restrictions on when it can be sold. ...

 

FBI failed to investigate Pete Hegseth, GOP Senators afraid of being primaried just fine with it

 A gross dereliction of duty on the part of the Republican-controlled Senate and the Trump-directed FBI. That is a harsh but unavoidable assessment of the confirmation hearing for Pete Hegseth to serve as Donald Trump’s defense secretary. ...

Only [Senators] Wicker and Reed were permitted to review an FBI report that Reed described as “insufficient.” The FBI failed to question Hegseth’s second wife, despite her expressed interest in being interviewed. It didn’t speak to the woman who accused Hegseth of sexually assaulting her — and was paid by him in exchange for executing a nondisclosure agreement. It didn’t obtain the forensic audit of a veteran’s organization Hegseth ran that found “evidence of gross financial mismanagement.”

Mayer reported that “the F.B.I.’s background investigation also failed to interview Fox News personnel who had described Hegseth to NBC News as smelling of alcohol on the job as recently as last fall. Instead, sources say that the Bureau settled for an interview with a public-relations official at Fox.”

The FBI’s role here is troubling, because the bureau is supposed to serve as the Senate’s chief source of reported and reliable information about the individuals whose nominations it is considering. ...

The bureau has argued that the scope of its inquiries is limited by the directions it is given, in this case by the Trump transition team. But the Trump team’s goal is to win confirmation, not to get to the truth of the matter — which makes a Trump-directed FBI investigation worse than meaningless; it makes it effectively a coverup.

More.

Looks like Chuck Grassley's efforts paid off: FBI director Wray to resign

Thank you, Chuck.

Kash Patel incoming?

Before you get your hopes up about Kash Patel's capacity to do a good job, remember Wray was also a Trump appointee to replace the fired James Comey, and he turned out arguably worse than Comey.

Robert Mueller III was appointed by George W. Bush and assumed office exactly one week before 9/11/01. Neither of them kept us safe. And then they pursued the wrong guy in the anthrax attacks.

We have more than two decades of ugly feeling about the FBI to overcome.

 

 FBI Director Christopher Wray to resign before Trump takes office

 Grassley rips Wray's 'failed' leadership at FBI with 11 pages of examples in blistering 'no confidence' letter

 CNN data guru reports that Americans' trust in the FBI is at its lowest point 'this century'

Bigshots at FBI fear firing bloodbath from Donald Trump

 

 The rats prepare to jump ship.

According to most of the sources, no one in the FBI at a GS-14 level or higher is safe from losing their job after Mr. Trump is sworn in, and they fully expect the president-elect to “smash the place to pieces when he gets in,” and that it will be a “bloodbath.”

Former FBI whistleblower George Hill told The Washington Times that people in the agency say the current state of the FBI is “frazzled.”

“I have friends still at the Bureau telling me that no less than 50 Senior Executives (SES) are scrambling to retire ASAP,” he said.

More.

 

FBI crime data investigation July 2023: 32% of all police agencies submitted no data for 2022, new reporting requirements to make data incomplete for years to come, and EXPECT POLITICIZATION

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 As many police departments are still in the process of complying with the FBI’s new reporting requirements, experts predict that the national crime data is likely to be incomplete for years to come, and will leave more room to politicize crime statistics without concrete evidence. These issues are likely to become more urgent as the country moves closer to another election cycle where crime is certain to be a potent issue: In 2024, the FBI is likely to release its national crime data just before the election.

More. 

And . . . right on cue:

Iran tries to help Democrats beat Trump by sending them information hacked from his campaign, says FBI

 Like who believes the FBI anymore?

How do we know it wasn't the FBI hacking the info and sending it to Dems?

Crypto: The biggest scam of our time

 

 While the number of reported crypto-related crimes accounts for around 10% of financial fraud complaints received by the FBI last year, the losses from those crimes accounts for nearly 50% of the total amount Americans lost to financial schemes.

More. 

See also the Internet Crime Complaint Center report here.

 

Anti-semitism runs wild on the nation's college campi and Joe Charlottesville Biden and his administration is silent

 

 Cruz on Anti-Israel Protests: "This Is America In 2024"; Where Is Biden? The Attorney General? FBI? Schumer? Jeffries?

Biden DOJ under Garland and FBI under Wray vigorously prosecute non-violent pro-lifers under the Face Act while turning a blind eye to hundreds of violent pro-abortion attacks

 

My organization has been highlighting this dangerous double-standard, warning Americans that the Justice Department and FBI are exploiting the FACE Act to target and harass individuals like Eva who stand in the way of their extremist agendas. 

Just this month, a man named Elliot Bennet set fire to a Catholic Church in New Jersey. This was the third time Bennet had committed acts of violence or vandalism against the church since 2018, the 21st attack on a Catholic Church in 2024, the 274th attack since May 2022 and the 412th attack since May 2020. 

Yet the same Justice Department that is fighting to throw Eva in jail failed to prosecute Bennet for these multiple and obvious FACE Act violations. It has also failed to federally prosecute a single one of the more than 400 egregious FACE Act violations against Catholic Churches since May 2020, or to meaningfully address the 90 attacks on pregnancy resource centers across the nation since May 2022. 

These attacks don’t involve prayer and hymns. They’ve involved fire-bombings and arson, vandalism of pregnancy clinics and churches, spray painted threats on clinic and church walls, decapitated statues, smashed glass, disrupted masses, blocking of church entrances and even physical attacks on priests and parishioners. They have cost at least $25 million in damages to Catholic Churches, while intimidating hundreds of peaceful Catholic and pro-life communities. 

More.

Last August the FBI gunned down 75-year old Craig Deleeuw Robertson in his Utah home, two days ago the ATF mortally wounded 53-year old Bryan Malinowski in his Arkansas home

Utah man suspected of threatening President Joe Biden shot and killed as FBI served warrant

Arkansas airport executive shot during attempted search warrant, police say

Totally normal.

Breaking: FBI says be on the lookout for gangs of white girls perpetrating organized retail theft

 

Dingbat Pelosi cries Russia! Russia! Russia! when it's Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran

 

Pelosi: FBI Should Investigate Progressive Groups Calling For Gaza Ceasefire, Possible Financial Ties To Russia

LOL Day

Today:

Martin Luther King, Jr. On the Nature of Love

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

 

One of the great public intellectuals in all of American history [who said] ... "Agape is more than romantic or aesthetic love. Agape is more than friendship. Agape is understanding, creative, redemptive goodwill for all men. …"

 

But not for all women.

 

2019:

 

Biographer Garrow pens explosive report on Martin Luther King Jr.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

 

 “I always thought there were 10 to 12 other women,” Garrow said. “Not 40 to 45.” In many of the accounts that Garrow documents, the FBI reported that King had been drinking. ... The document does not say that King participated in the rape, but ... “looked on, laughed and offered advice.” ... King and the singer allegedly had sex with the prostitute in a hotel room, before the man that King called earlier showed up and had sex with her, “while both [the singer] and the Rev. King watched the action from a close-by position.” ... The prostitute allegedly stated to an investigator that “that was the worst orgy I’ve ever gone through.”

 

King was mistaken about agape, incidentally, simply repeating now discredited scholarship. He was no Greek scholar. Close readers of the New Testament know that agape isn't uniquely special, however special it remains in the fantasies of some theologians.

 

You can love darkness with agape (John 3:19), love the praise of men with agape (John 12:43), love worldly treasures with agape (Matthew 6:24), love the best seats in the synagogues with agape, love the shows of respect to you in the streets with agape (Luke 11:43), and love little with agape (Luke 7:47).

 

Josh Boswell speculates the $5.2 million discrepancy in Joe Biden's 2017-2019 income is Burisma money of which $2.744 million was used in 2017 cash purchase of Joe's beach house

 DailyMail.com has discovered that then-private-citizen Biden, who had spent virtually all his adult life in public service, bought the home for slightly under $2.75million – in cash. And making the transaction even stranger it was within weeks of a highly questionable text that Hunter had sent to Runlong 'Raymond' Zhao, an associate at Chinese oil giant CEFC asking to seal a deal worth $10 million a year. ...

Property records show Joe's six-bedroom second property was purchased on June 8, 2017 for $2,744,001 – just seven weeks before his son's shakedown messages. ...

An analysis published last year by DailyMail.com shows a $5.2 million discrepancy between his IRS filings and his Office of Government Ethics disclosures for the same period. ...

The figure is surprisingly similar to the $5 million Joe was allegedly bribed by Mykola Zlochevsky, the owner Ukrainian gas firm Burisma, according to information received by a trusted FBI informant.

The whole thing is here.

Police state: two-thirds of the FBI's current investigations are focused on Trump supporters

 

FBI Targets Trump Followers as the 2024 Election Nears

William Arkin, Newsweek

I can see it now: Edward Snowden foe Mike Rogers will be the Republican candidate for US Senate from Michigan and Justin Amash will run as the Libertarian Party spoiler to help Democrat Elissa Slotkin win

 Former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, a Michigan native and former FBI agent who rose to become chairman of the House Intelligence Committee before leaving Congress more than eight years ago, announced Wednesday he is running for the Republican nomination for the state's open U.S. Senate seat next year.

The story, here, never mentions Rogers' strong opposition to what Edward Snowden did to reveal illegal US government surveillance of US citizens.

Fourth Amendment libertarians are certain at least to take note.

Rogers is ex-FBI.

Craig Robertson: 'I’m not coming out [expletive]'

 FBI’s killing of Utah man prompts questions from neighbors :

Questions are being asked if the FBI’s response was unduly harsh. “The FBI just came and shot an elderly man from my ward,” Travis Clark told the paper. “You know, a guy who’s nearly 80 years old, 300 pounds and can barely get around with a cane.” ... “I just think he was an old kook shooting his mouth off,” Clark said. “There was nothing he ever did that would have made me think that he was either mentally or physically capable of doing anything. And anybody who knew him knew that. “I just can’t believe that this man warranted that kind of response,” Clark added.

IRS team investigating Hunter Biden's alleged crimes never investigated the Ukraine-Burisma bribes allegations

Jerry Dunleavy, here:

Mykola Zlochevsky, the Ukrainian owner of Burisma, was the "foreign national" involved in the alleged "criminal bribery scheme" aimed at shaking an alleged investigation into Burisma by then-Ukrainian prosecutor Viktor Shokin, according to sources familiar with the FBI record who described its contents to the Washington Examiner.

The sources said Zlochevsky said he believed it would be difficult to unravel the alleged bribery scheme for at least 10 years because of the number of bank accounts involved.

Amid the threat of being held in contempt of Congress, FBI Director Christopher Wray allowed members of the GOP-led House Oversight Committee to review an FD-1023 form this month that contained redacted versions of the allegations from the paid FBI informant.

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), the ranking member on the House Oversight Committee, repeatedly claimed following a late May FBI briefing that Barr and his “hand-picked prosecutor” — Scott Brady, then the Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania — ended the investigation into the bribery claims in 2020. But Barr quickly said that is false.

“It’s not true,” Barr soon told multiple outlets in early June. “It wasn’t closed down. On the contrary, it was sent to Delaware for further investigation.”...

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) also revealed this month that a less redacted version of the form he has viewed says Zlochevsky claimed to have 17 recordings of his conversations with Joe Biden and Hunter Biden (two of the former and 15 of the latter) as an "insurance policy." 

Zlochevsky’s alleged reference to Joe Biden as the “big guy” appears independent of the apparent reference to the now-president as the “big guy” by a Hunter Biden business associate during negotiations with Chinese intelligence-linked businessmen. The China-related reference occurred in a May 2017 email not made public until October 2020.

Shapley said that Assistant U.S. Attorney Lesley Wolf instructed FBI and IRS investigators not to ask witnesses about “dad” (Joe Biden) or about “the big guy.”

Hunter Biden reached a plea deal on federal charges related to tax crimes and the illegal purchase of a handgun, Weiss’s office revealed in a court filing on Tuesday.

The IRS whistleblower claims detailing the politicization and slow-walking of the Justice Department investigation were made public on Thursday, including allegations that Weiss had sought special counsel status from the DOJ and sought to file charges in California and in the nation’s capital but was repeatedly denied. The whistleblowers also pointed to new apparent links between Joe Biden and his son’s China deals and that the FBI authenticated Hunter Biden’s laptop by November 2019.