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Whistleblowers Expose FBI’s Corruption And Ongoing Persecution Of Political Opponents In Damning New Testimony


BY: SHAWN FLEETWOOD| MAY 18, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/05/18/whistleblowers-expose-fbis-corruption-and-ongoing-persecution-of-political-opponents-in-damning-new-testimony/

FBI Whistleblower Friend testifying before the House Judiciary Committee

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In an explosive House committee hearing on Thursday, several whistleblowers accused the FBI of engaging in a bevy of highly corrupt and partisan activity, including manipulation of statistics, targeting political opponents, and retaliating against whistleblowers seeking to expose the agency’s corruption. The revelations come days after a report from U.S. Attorney John Durham revealed the FBI had no evidence then-candidate Donald Trump colluded with the Russians when it launched its Crossfire Hurricane investigation into the former president’s 2016 campaign.

While speaking before the House Judiciary Committee, former FBI special agent Steve Friend said he filed protected whistleblower disclosures in August 2022 over concerns he had regarding investigations assigned to his office over the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot. More specifically, Friend was concerned the conduction of these inquiries represented a departure from proper “case management rules established in the FBI’s Domestic Investigations and Operations Guide” and that such actions “could have undermined potentially righteous prosecutions and may have been part of an effort to inflate the FBI’s statistics on domestic extremism.”

“I also voiced concerns that the FBI’s use of SWAT and large-scale arrest operations to apprehend suspects who were accused of nonviolent crimes and misdemeanors, represented by counsel, and who pledged to cooperate with the federal authorities in the event of criminal charges created an unnecessary risk to FBI personnel and public safety,” Friend said. “At each level of my chain of command, leadership cautioned that despite my exemplary work performance, whistleblowing placed my otherwise bright future with the FBI at risk.”

Despite purportedly following proper whistleblower protocol, Friend said the FBI quickly retaliated against him by weaponizing the security clearance process to remove him from active duty “within one month” of filing his disclosures. According to Friend, the agency then orchestrated a “campaign of humiliation and intimidation” designed to “punish and pressure [him] to resign,” which included leaking his private medical information to The New York Times, refusing to “furnish [his] training records for several months,” and imposing an “illegal gag order” to prevent him from “communicating with [his] family and attorneys.”

In addition to retaliation, Friend went on to accuse the FBI of weaponizing process crimes and reinterpreting laws in order to “initiate pretextual prosecutions and persecute its political enemies.” He also asserted the agency actively colludes with Big Tech platforms to censor political speech the regime disagrees with, gather intelligence on Americans, and “target citizens for malicious prosecution.”

During his testimony, Garret O’Boyle, a U.S. Army combat veteran and former FBI special agent, chronicled his own experience with the FBI’s disdain for whistleblowers. At some point after filing a whistleblower disclosure over concerns the agency was being used to go after the regime’s political opponents, O’Boyle sought another position within the country, which the FBI approved of. According to O’Boyle, it was only after he had sold his home and moved his family “halfway across the country” did the FBI then suspend him.

“They allowed us to sell my family’s home. They ordered me to report to the new unit when our youngest daughter was only two weeks old. Then, on my first day on the new assignment, they suspended me; rendering my family homeless and refused to release our household goods, including our clothes, for weeks,” O’Boyle said.

[READ: The Durham Report Leaves No Doubt: The FBI Is A Mortal Threat To Democracy]

Marcus Allen, a former Marine and FBI staff operations specialist, also testified about his experience with the FBI’s politicization, particularly its attempts to destroy the lives and careers of those within its ranks with dissenting views. As part of his position, Allen was tasked with providing situational awareness and information regarding the Jan. 6 riot. After submitting information to his superiors and others that questioned “the narrative” of Jan. 6, however, Allen was accused of pushing “conspiratorial views” and “unreliable information.” The FBI subsequently suspended Allen in January 2022 and questioned his allegiance to the United States.

According to Allen, it wasn’t until five months later, after a congressional member “made statements indicating the FBI was conducting a purge of employees with conservative viewpoints,” did the FBI reach out seeking an interview. Much like Friend, Allen claims his security clearance was revoked after he filed his whistleblower complaint.

“It has been more than a year since the FBI took my paycheck from me. My family and I have been surviving on early withdrawals from our retirement accounts while the FBI has ignored my request for approval to obtain outside employment during the review of my security clearance,” Allen said. “We have lost our federal health insurance coverage. There is apparently no end in sight.”

Predictably, House Democrats used Thursday’s hearing to slander the whistleblowers to cover for the FBI’s authoritarianism. In one instance, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., attempted to equate Friend’s calls to “defund the FBI” due to its weaponized behavior with support for defunding law enforcement. The Florida Democrat also accused Friend of using Thursday’s hearing to promote his upcoming book — which Friend never mentioned — and attacked the former agent for his concerns over the FBI’s use of excessive force during certain arrests.

In his prior testimony, Friend detailed a case where the FBI planned to use a SWAT team to carry out an arrest warrant on a Jan. 6 “subject.” According to Friend, he was concerned over the use of such tactics because “the subject of the arrest warrant had been in communication with the FBI at that point and had expressed a willingness to cooperate.”

“[I]n my experience in dealing with subjects of crimes and bringing them into custody, the FBI tends to use the least amount of force necessary to do that safely, and I felt that the use of SWAT … was an unnecessary tool to use for that particular individual,” Friend said. Of course, Wasserman Schultz misconstrued Friend’s testimony to make it sound as if he sympathized with the Jan. 6 subject and other suspected criminals upon whom arrest warrants are issued.

A House Judiciary Committee report containing the whistleblowers’ aforementioned allegations and prior testimony can be found here.

If you did not know these were FBI agents, and only heard their testimony, you might conclude this was testimony of people in communist nations, or Hitler’s Germany. I don’t know about you folks, this is frightenly madding. we’ve got to vote these socialists out as soon as possible.


Shawn Fleetwood is a Staff Writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He also serves as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood

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EXCLUSIVE: House Democrats Lied About Whistleblower in Leak to Corrupt Media


BY: MARGOT CLEVELAND | MARCH 07, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/03/07/exclusive-house-democrats-lied-about-whistleblower-in-leak-to-corrupt-media/

close-up of Jerry Nadler surrounded by other people

House Democrats lied when they said an investigation into an FBI whistleblower’s claim of retaliation had been dismissed, according to a letter obtained exclusively by The Federalist. On the contrary, an investigation into Special Agent Steve Friend’s claims is ongoing. 

Last week, Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee leaked a “staff report” that contained numerous misrepresentations to The New York Times, Monday’s letter to Inspector General Michael Horowitz said. The letter — signed by Tristan Leavitt, the president of Empower Oversight, the legal services firm representing Friend — began by condemning the “Forward” from committee ranking member Jerry Nadler and subcommittee ranking member Stacey Plaskett that declared by fiat and without evidence: “[T]he three individuals we have met [including Friend] are not, in fact, ‘whistleblowers.’”

Friend is indeed a whistleblower, the letter said. Not only that, but throughout the report that Democrats crafted and peddled to multiple media outlets, they falsely and repeatedly claimed the Office of Inspector General (OIG) had rejected Friend’s whistleblower retaliation claims, Leavitt stressed. “These mischaracterizations in the Democrat staff report were subsequently parroted by multiple media outlets,” including CNN and The Washington Post. 

Contrary to the Democrats’ claims, echoed by friendly media outlets, Leavitt’s letter says that Friend’s whistleblower retaliation complaint, originally filed in September 2022, remains pending with the DOJ’s inspector general. While Friend had also alleged “systematic abuses of the Constitution, laws, and policy by the FBI,” in December of 2022, those allegations were referred to the FBI’s Inspection Division. But in follow-up inquiries, the OIG made clear, according to Empower Oversight, that the referral did not apply to Friend’s whistleblower retaliation claims. 

In fact, since then, “Special Agent Friend and Empower Oversight continued to furnish additional information” to the OIG, and the inspector general continues to receive and evaluate information, the letter said, explaining the attorneys’ understanding of the investigation’s status. Friend’s attorneys said they understood the OIG intended “to interview Friend in order to obtain a more complete understanding of his allegations and fully assess both his underlying disclosures as well as his retaliation claims.” 

Yet some media, without seeking comment from the OIG, “uncritically repeated” Democrats’ false narrative that the inspector general had rejected Friend’s claims. Conversely, when other outlets sought comment and clarification on the status of Friend’s case, Horowitz remained silent.

“This suggests a disturbing situation in which your office’s silence is allowing its reputation for neutrality and objectivity to be hijacked by partisans and their media allies to leave a false impression with the public — all in the service of undermining a whistleblower for political purposes,” Leavitt wrote. 

Given the inspector general’s silence, Empower Oversight requested an update on the status of his office’s investigation into Friend’s whistleblower retaliation complaint — something his attorneys should not have to request. But given the Democrats’ lies, apparently it’s necessary to correct the record.

Monday’s letter also chastised House Democrats for leaking excerpts of Friend’s deposition transcripts, “without authorization of the Committee.” This was in violation of the committee’s representation to Friend that it would treat the transcripts “confidentially,” the letter added.

The leaks will likely continue, however; and sadly, so will the blatant lies.


Margot Cleveland is The Federalist’s senior legal correspondent. She is also a contributor to National Review Online, the Washington Examiner, Aleteia, and Townhall.com, and has been published in the Wall Street Journal and USA Today. Cleveland is a lawyer and a graduate of the Notre Dame Law School, where she earned the Hoynes Prize—the law school’s highest honor. She later served for nearly 25 years as a permanent law clerk for a federal appellate judge on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Cleveland is a former full-time university faculty member and now teaches as an adjunct from time to time. As a stay-at-home homeschooling mom of a young son with cystic fibrosis, Cleveland frequently writes on cultural issues related to parenting and special-needs children. Cleveland is on Twitter at @ProfMJCleveland. The views expressed here are those of Cleveland in her private capacity.

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15 Insane Things In Democrats’ H.R. 1 Bill To Corrupt Elections Forever


On Wednesday, House Democrats passed an 800-page bill that would mandate insecure voting processes and subject voting tallies to partisan manipulation. It’s a slap in the face to the half of Americans, including many Democrats, who believe the 2020 election was riddled with fraud and errors, largely due to the rapid expansion of mail-in balloting and other suspensions of state election laws.

“It is difficult to imagine a legislative proposal more threatening to election integrity and voter confidence,” write 20 Republican attorneys general in a Thursday letter about the ridiculously named For The People Act of 2021, or H.R. 1. Democrats have made the bill their top priority this Congress to permanently cement their current unified control of the federal government.

The bill “would (among other things) implement nationwide the worst changes in election rules that occurred during the 2020 election; go even further in eroding and eliminating basic security protocols that states have in place; and interfere with the ability of states and their citizens to determine the qualifications and eligibility of voters, ensure the accuracy of voter registration rolls, secure the fairness and integrity of elections, and participate and speak freely in the political process,” says a Heritage Foundation analysis.

H.R. 1 broadcasts Democrats’ goals for unending electoral dominance through openly rigged voting processes. It would engineer an unconstitutional federal takeover of state elections for national office. No surprise, then, that Joe Biden says he will sign this legislation if it reaches his desk.

Here are just some of the unconstitutional, absurd, nakedly partisan, and crime-assisting provisions in this bill that 220 House Democrats voted for and every House Republican voted against.

1. Openly Breaks the Constitution

As the attorneys general note, “Under both the Elections Clause of Article I of the Constitution and the Electors Clause of Article II, States have principal—and with presidential elections, exclusive—responsibility to safeguard the manner of holding elections.” This bill would instead unconstitutionally give Congress primacy over state elections, in numerous ways.

Yet the Constitution expressly affords the states, not Congress, the power to determine how presidential electors are selected. Mandating mail-in voting, requiring states to accept late ballots, overriding state voter ID laws, and mandating that states conduct redistricting through unelected commissions all violate states’ constitutional authority in conducting elections.

2. Set Up Star Chambers to Intimidate Judges

The bill would establish a “Commission to Protect Democratic Institutions” that would have the power to force judges to testify before a panel of unelected federal bureaucrats. According to the bill on page 389, the commission, or any member or subcommittee of the commission, may “hold hearings and sit and act at such times and places, take such testimony, receive such evidence, and administer such oaths as the Commission considers advisable.”

This commission, the Heritage analysis finds, “would be given the authority to compel judges to testify and justify their legal decisions, threatening their independent judgment and subjecting them to political pressure and harassment.”

3. Mandate Mail-in Ballots, 10-Day Delay in Results

Rather than reject the 2020 electoral chaos caused by bureaucrats suspending state election laws to further unreliable mail-in voting and suspend legal deadlines for mailed ballots, H.R. 1 would mandate this electoral chaos forever.

The bill mandates universal mail-in balloting and requires states to wait ten days after election day for any outstanding tranches of ballots to be suddenly discovered in Democrat-run strongholds — oops, I mean, allow all ballots to arrive. The Heritage report notes that “no-fault absentee ballots” “are the tool of choice for vote thieves.”

Besides a recipe for chaos and partisan election manipulation, this is unconstitutional. The attorneys general note that “The exclusivity of state power to ‘define the method’ of choosing presidential electors means that Congress may not force states to permit presidential voting by mail or curbside voting.”

4. Eliminate Voter ID Election Security

“Perhaps most egregious is the Act’s limitations on voter ID laws,” write the attorneys general. “Fairly considered, requiring government-issued photo identification at the polls represents nothing more than a best practice for election administration.”

After a brief overview of this history of bipartisan support for voter ID laws, the letter continues: “Voter ID laws remain popular, with thirty-five states requiring some form of documentary personal identification at the polls. Yet the Act would dismantle meaningful voter ID laws by allowing a statement, as a substitute for prior-issued, document-backed identification, to ‘attest[] to the individual’s identity and . . . that the individual is eligible to vote in the election.’ This does little to ensure that voters are who they say they are. Worse, it vitiates the capacity of voter ID requirements to protect against improper interference with voting rights.”

5. Register Millions Of Criminally Present Foreign Citizens to Vote

By forcing states to automatically and duplicatively register all people to vote through government outposts such as motor vehicles, state universities, and welfare agencies, H.R. 1 would register millions of illegal migrants to vote in the United States. According to their own reports on surveys, millions of illegally present foreign citizens vote in the United States, and overwhelmingly for Democrats. Democrats including President Barack Obama have worked to prevent states from enforcing laws against foreign citizens voting in U.S. elections.

This bill would essentially create de facto voting rights for the tens of millions of non-citizens inside the United States. Under this bill, states must automatically register every adult and are legally prohibited from inspecting or checking whether anyone who votes is legally eligible to do so.

The bill also bans courts from enforcing any legal penalties on any foreign citizens who illegally vote in the United States (Section 1015). This bill’s provisions would thus allow anyone inside the United States to vote in its elections with no consequences, even if they are not citizens and have demonstrated contempt for our nation by breaking our laws to take advantage of our freedoms (for as long as they last).

6. Explode Opportunities for Election Cheating

“Adding to the threat of increased voter fraud, the Act would mandate nationwide automatic voter registration and Election Day voter registration,” write the attorneys general. “Such systems would provide too many opportunities for non-citizens and others ineligible to vote to register and cast fraudulent ballots before officials can take preventive action.”

Allowing people to register the same day they vote in 2020 contributed to suspiciously high — near or even above 100 percent — percentages of registered voters reportedly casting ballots in many precincts, often in key locations.

The bill would also “Prevent election officials from checking the eligibility and qualifications of voters and removing ineligible voters,” notes the Heritage analysis. It would require every ballot to be considered legitimate from the get-go, effectively banning provisional ballots.

Those are currently used, for example, when a voter shows up at the polls and records say he already voted or he is registered using incorrect information such as the wrong address. Under this bill, he could still vote without the error being cleared up, and with a regular, not provisional, ballot.

The bill would also eliminate any requirements that a witness sign an absentee ballot, and send absentee ballots for life to everyone who has ever used one. It would also effectively ban matching signatures on absentee ballots to government records of the voter’s signature, such as from a driver’s license record (Section 307).

Therefore, the bill eliminates almost every safeguard meant to protect against fraud and give voters confidence in election results.

7. Prevent Cleaning Up Voter Rolls

If the bill passes into law, “States could not use a combination of voter inactivity and unresponsiveness to maintain voter lists but may instead remove illegitimate voter registrations only where officials obtain some other unspecified ‘objective and reliable evidence that the registrant is ineligible to vote,’” write the 20 state attorneys general. “This attack on reliable methods that states have been using to maintain voters lists without specifying any reasonable permissible alternatives belies any actual interest in preventing voter fraud. The objective, rather, seems to be to prevent meaningful voter list maintenance altogether.”

Moreover, the bill threatens anyone, such as a local election official or poll watcher, who might undertake any questioning of any voter or attempts to establish his or her eligibility to vote. Section 1071 says: “It shall be unlawful for any person, whether acting under color of law or otherwise, to corruptly hinder, interfere with, or prevent another person from registering to vote or to corruptly hinder, interfere with, or prevent another person from aiding another person in registering to vote.” The maximum penalty for this would be up to five years in prison.

8. Unleash Mobs on Political Donors

If passed, the bill would require that political speakers and nonprofit organizations publish the identities of their donors. This would create blacklists for leftist activists to target to prevent their political opponents from the opportunity to speak in public, note the attorneys general.

In addition, the bill would require massive compliance costs for “candidates, citizens, civic groups, unions, corporations, and nonprofit organizations,” says the Heritage Foundation. “Many of these provisions violate the First Amendment, protect incumbents, and reduce the accountability of politicians to the public; its onerous disclosure requirements for nonprofit organizations would subject their members and donors to intimidation and harassment.”

Even the leftist American Civil Liberties Union expressed concern about these provisions in a letter to top House Democrats. These sections of H.R. 1 “could harm political advocacy and expose non-profit donors to harassment and threats of violence should their support for organizations be subject to forced disclosure,” the ACLU wrote.

9. Gerrymander Districts to Favor Democrats

The bill would establish a commission of unelected national bureaucrats to decide where the political boundaries for various districts will be, rather than state elected officials.

“At least when legislatures draw boundary lines voters may punish egregious behavior at the next election; not so with government-by-commission, which trades accountability for mythical expertise and disinterest,” complain the Republican attorneys general about this provision. “The republican form of government inherently rejects the idea that elites have some unique capacity to discern and implement the best policies. The American tradition instead embraces political accountability as the best way to advance the public interest. With respect to political redistricting, no ideal, perfectly balanced congressional boundaries exist, so we should let the people decide, through their elected officials, where to place them.”

10. Make Vote Hacking Easier

The bill’s mass forced voter registration of every person with a record in various state databases comprises “a recipe for massive voter registration fraud by hackers and cyber criminals,” the Heritage analysis finds. Government databases are notorious for breaches of private information by cybercriminals and foreign countries. This would also create numerous duplicate voter registrations that the bill bans state and local officials from cleaning up, potentially assisting individuals in voting multiple times.

11. Let Former Felons Vote Before They’ve Completed Their Sentences

The Heritage analysis says this bill would also “Require states to restore the ability of felons to vote the moment they are out of prison regardless of uncompleted parole, probation, or restitution requirements. Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment gives states the constitutional authority to decide when felons who committed crimes against their fellow citizens may vote again. Congress cannot override a constitutional amendment with a statute.”

12. Help 16- and 17-Year-Olds Vote Illegally

H.R. 1 “would also require states to allow 16-year-olds and 17-year-olds to register; when combined with a ban on voter ID and restrictions on the ability to challenge the eligibility of a voter, this would effectively ensure that underage individuals could vote with impunity,” says the Heritage analysis.

In Section 1091, the bill establishes a federal pilot program in public schools to register 12th graders to vote. This is a blatant attempt to push elections Democrat, as polls have shown for decades the younger people are, the more likely they are to vote Democrat.

13. Bans Keeping the Records Necessary for an Election Audit or Recount

In Section 1502, the bill would ban state and local officials from preserving the record of paper ballots that make trustworthy post-election recounts and audits possible. It states: ‘‘The voting system shall not preserve the voter-verified paper ballots in any manner that makes it possible, at any time after the ballot has been cast, to associate a voter with the record of the voter’s vote without the voter’s consent.”

14. Mandates Ballot Drop Boxes

In Section 1907, H.R. 1 would mandate that, beginning 45 days before an election, “In each county in the State, each State shall provide in-person, secured, and clearly labeled drop boxes at which individuals may, at any time during the period described in subsection (b), drop off voted absentee ballots in an election for Federal office.” This allows for the anonymous submission of absentee ballots outside of mail.

It is also a recipe for massive fraud, given that in 2020, when mail-in balloting was massively expanded, more than 26 million ballots were requested and never returned. Since this bill also requires all votes to be presumed valid, anyone could gather up any number of ballots that this law also requires to be mailed to all people listed in every government database, fill them out, and dump them in.

Tens of millions would be available for ventures like these. This bill would also legalize “ballot harvesting,” or authorizing one individual to collect such ballots and turn them in by the barrel.

Even if not one partisan in the entire United States is unscrupulous enough to take advantage of this big cheating opportunity, the mere existence of this possibility would seriously erode public confidence in elections. That should be reason enough for any honest person to oppose it.

15. Giving U.S. Territories Extra Democrat Seats in Congress and the Electoral College

H.R. 1 would form a commission to consider granting five U.S. territories voting rights, but not statehood. This is an open attempt to rig Congress and the presidency in favor of Democrats.

If these territories are granted House, Senate, and Electoral College seats, they could add as many as 10 senators and 18 new Electoral College votes, all almost assuredly filled with Democrats. Notice that at the current construction of the Senate, when a 60-vote majority is needed to pass most items of importance, this plan would give Democrats that insurmountable 60-vote majority to do whatever they want with no obstacles.

Since these remote islands are all welfare states that have chosen to remain dependent on U.S. taxpayer largess rather than developing self-government, they would be poor partners for the existing states, to say the least. Like usual, Democrats don’t even want to challenge them to self-governance. They just want to use them as dependents to expand their political power.

There’s a lot more in this bill, such as that its only limits on voting appear to be regarding absentee ballots for U.S. soldiers. This massive list is not a comprehensive examination.

It should suffice, however, to reveal how insane today’s Democrat Party is that every single House Democrat, save one, voted for this bill. This is a voting bill that only totalitarians seeking a uniparty nation could love.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Joy Pullmann is executive editor of The Federalist, a happy wife, and the mother of six children. Sign up here to get early access to her next book, “How To Control The Internet So It Doesn’t Control You.” Her bestselling ebook is “Classic Books for Young Children.” A Hillsdale College honors graduate, @JoyPullmann is also the author of “The Education Invasion: How Common Core Fights Parents for Control of American Kids,” from Encounter Books.

Pelosi faces growing Democratic unrest over Covid relief


Reported by By HEATHER CAYGLESARAH FERRIS and JOHN BRESNAHAN | Updated: 

URL of the originating web site: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/15/nancy-pelosi-house-coronavirus-deal-415112

Nancy Pelosi

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi walks to her office Sept. 14 on Capitol Hill. | Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo

Pelosi’s stance is increasingly putting her at odds with moderate members in her caucus, some of whom are growing more vocal in their anger by the day and with less than two months before the election. A call between the centrist New Democrat Coalition and leadership grew heated Tuesday as Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) defended their posture, even as several lawmakers pleaded for them to change tacks in the coming weeks.

Rep. Kathleen Rice (D-N.Y.) pressed Pelosi on why members wouldn’t stay in town waiting for a deal, to which the speaker told her to “take a poll of your colleagues,” according to Democrats on the call. “I’m always here,” Pelosi added. And the exchanges only grew stormier after Pelosi dropped off and Hoyer took over.

“My conviction is to actually do my goddamn job and come up with a solution for the American people,” Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-Va.), who sits in a GOP-leaning seat, said, according to two sources on the call. “We have to bring something to the floor.”

Hoyer, who has privately pushed the speaker to reconsider her strategy, was sympathetic to the moderates’ concerns but wouldn’t break with Pelosi on the call.

“I don’t want to undermine Nancy in any way,” Hoyer said multiple times on the call.

The mixed messaging from the leadership wasn’t cutting it with frontliners, who have spent the last few months facing urgent demands from their constituents for some kind of congressional action to address the twin health and economic crises.

“Every member of the leadership team, Democrats and Republicans, have messed up. Everyone is accountable,” said Rep. Max Rose (D-N.Y.). “Get something done. Get something done!”

Pelosi and senior Democrats argue their strategy is the only way to ensure that Democrats don’t simply cave to a GOP proposal that would fail to address major sectors of the economy, most especially aid to state and local governments who are facing a potentially catastrophic loss of revenue.

“A skinny deal is not a deal,” Pelosi said on a call with Democratic members Tuesday. “It is a Republican bill.”

And Pelosi has strong backing from progressive groups and labor unions, who are demanding that Congress pass a robust stimulus package in order to help the battered economy. While millions of jobs have returned, payrolls are down more than 11 million jobs from pre-pandemic employment levels. Poverty and food insecurity have gotten worse, and many economists fear the United States is on the verge of a long-term downturn unless more dramatic steps are taken by the federal government.

Pelosi made a similar argument to her leadership team in a private meeting on Monday night, where she again reiterated that Democrats should stand firm in their funding demands for the next package, according to people in the room. The California Democrat told members that she is still working to negotiate with the White House, but didn’t offer details on the status of those talks.

Pelosi tried to appease her caucus Tuesday, telling them in the morning call that the House wouldn’t depart Washington until there is a coronavirus funding compromise.

“We have to stay here until we have a bill,” Pelosi said, according to multiple Democrats on the call.

But that move only seemed to lead to more consternation after she and Hoyer later clarified that lawmakers would, in fact, be able to leave town as long as they could return within a day’s notice to vote on a bill — the same arrangement the House had during the August recess.

Many Democrats said they felt torn, anxious to get at least some money out the door — without caving to a GOP bill that shortchanges the most desperate Americans.

“We can‘t wait around forever for the proposal we think is the perfect proposal and that obviously won’t be helpful to anybody. Time is of the essence here,” said Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.), who flipped a GOP seat in 2018.

But he added that Democrats can’t accept a number too low, either: “If you’re looking at something that is wholly insufficient and does not address the complexity of the money, then you’re actually just wasting that money.”

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), the highly influential freshman lawmaker, also said she has wrestled with the issue even as she has seen the pandemic’s devastating influence back home.

“This administration, it seems what they want to do is cut another $1,200 check, but they don’t want to actually provide state and local [aid],”Ocasio-Cortez said. “That $1,200 is a nice little sugar high, and I support giving another stimulus check, but a second check in and of itself alone — if we’re not going to support state and local funding, if it’s not going to include significant investments in testing, tracing capacity and infrastructure — all it is is a little sugar high. It’s not going to solve the critical issues of the pandemic.”

The sentiment from Ocasio-Cortez and others reflects the mounting angst within the Democratic Caucus over the party’s handling of the coronavirus response and whether they need to do more to counteract the GOP’s messaging. The House passed a $3.4 trillion relief package in May but the Senate didn’t act on it.

Some Democrats worry that voters have already long forgotten about the House’s massive relief package from May and will take their anger out on both parties in November. They say that voting on additional bills could help remind people back home that Democrats have been pushing to deliver more aid all along.

“Let’s make sure the American people know what we stand for and where we are,” Rep. Greg Meeks (D-N.Y.) said.

One idea, Meeks said, is to build out a new proposal to reflect the roughly $2 trillion price tag that Pelosi has described as the lowest figure Democrats would be willing to accept.

“I think we can reemphasize what we’re doing and how we’re intent on spending the money, and even where we made some reductions,” Meeks said.

But Pelosi has roundly resisted calls from some Democrats to negotiate a smaller coronavirus deal or put targeted bills on the floor addressing specific aspects of the pandemic including testing, unemployment aid and small business loans. Talks between Pelosi and the White House, led by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, have been stalled for weeks, even as the coronavirus continues to devastate the U.S. economy, leaving millions without jobs and at risk of losing their homes. More than 6.5 million Americans have been infected with the virus and more than 194,000 have died.

Senate Democrats blocked the GOP’s attempt to advance a “skinny” $500 billion coronavirus relief bill last week, leaving senators in both parties — including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell himself — to speculate that congressional leaders wouldn’t get another coronavirus deal until after the election. That prospect, however, has alarmed many House moderates, particularly those facing tough races in November. Some, led by the bipartisan House Problem Solvers Caucus, have drafted their own long-shot compromise in an attempt to pry loose some kind of deal before November.

That group released a roughly $2 trillion plan on Tuesday that would renew now-expired programs like unemployment aid and small business loans, though it also includes billions in spending that Senate Republicans have already rejected, like cash for state and local governments or the U.S. Postal Service. Pelosi has indicated she would negotiate a $2.2 trillion package with Republicans but hasn’t been open to going below that number.

Pelosi didn’t address the Problem Solvers plan during Tuesday’s caucus call, but her position was made clear later in the day when several of her committee chairmen put out a joint statement dismissing the plan as falling “short of what is needed.” Some of those same allies, including House Ways and Means Chairman Richard Neal (D-Mass.), also defended Pelosi’s strategy on the caucus call Tuesday.

“For us, not to cave in is really important,” Neal said on the call, according to Democrats who dialed in. But not everyone was in agreement.

House Transportation Committee Chairman Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) did not sign onto the joint statement. And he said on the caucus call it was clear Democrats would have to address the coronavirus again before going home for the election, noting it’s been four months since the House passed its $3.4 trillion relief bill.

“We can’t leave town without a package,” DeFazio said, stressing Democrats pass a bill that will provide coronavirus aid at least until early next year, when there might be a Democratic president in the White House. “We need to talk about all of our principles in a five month bill.”

GOP Rep: Democrats Still Withholding Secret Impeachment Transcripts


Reported by Joshua Caplan | 

URL of the original posting site: https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/12/27/gop-rep-democrats-still-withholding-secret-impeachment-transcripts/

From left, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., House Committee on Oversight and Reform Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., House Financial Services Committee Chairwoman Maxine Waters, D-Calif., House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., listens to an aide as they meet in a …/AP Photo/Andrew Harnik

Appearing Friday on the Fox News Channel, Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX) revealed House Democrats are still withholding transcripts of depositions conducted by the House Intelligence Committee inside Congress’s Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) as part of their impeachment inquiry.

A partial transcript is as follows; 

ANCHOR: Democrats and Nancy Pelosi have said they are waiting on these articles to ensure there’s a fair trial in the Senate, but there have been a lot of other theories floated by Republicans, by folks from the other side of the aisle that think that Nancy Pelosi is stalling for all sorts of reasons. So I want to get your thoughts on why these articles are being held.

REP. MICHAEL BURGESS: My first take is that they’re holding the articles of impeachment because they really had nothing in the first place, so if they send them to the Senate and it crashes and burns, the president is exonerated and they did not accomplish what they set out to accomplish, which was to politically harm the president at the beginning of a political year.

ANCHOR: So you think they’re stalling, in essence, to continue digging, that they’re hoping they find something more?

REP. BURGESS: Look, they had all the tools at their disposal on the House side, they made it secret. They had armed guards outside the doors. They still haven’t made all of the transcripts available to members of Congress. And according to House rules, any committee hearing, the transcript is supposed to be available to other House members. But they have not done so, and no one has asserted that these are classified briefings. They were just simply secret hearings because it behooved the speaker to have secret hearings. That doesn’t pass muster. That’s not a constitutional part of the process.

Benghazi Security Officer Warned U.S. Months Before Attack: ‘Everybody’ Will Die


waving flagby Aaron Klein, 28 Jun 2016

URL of the original posting site: http://www.breitbart.com/jerusalem/2016/06/28/benghazi-security-officer-warned/

Clinton ObamaTEL AVIV – A U.S. government security officer serving at the U.S. Special Mission in Benghazi prior to the September 11, 2012 attacks, warned his superiors that lack of adequate security at the compound made serving there a “suicide mission.”

The officer further predicted to his superiors “that there was a very good chance that everybody here was going to die.”

In a devastating indictment, the officer stated that a superior told him “everybody back here in D.C. knows that people are going to die in Benghazi, and nobody cares and nobody is going to care until somebody does die.”30 Witnesses disappear

The dramatic testimony was provided to the House Select Committee on Benghazi and contained in a 339-page House Democrat report on Benghazi released on Monday and reviewed in full by Breitbart Jerusalem.  The report was issued prior to the release on Tuesday of the Benghazi Committee’s final report.

The Select Committee quoted the officer as “Agent B,” explaining he served in Benghazi from November to December 2011 and was the State Department-provided Regional Security Officer (RSO) there for ten days in December 2011. RSOs are special agents of the State Department’s U.S. Diplomatic Security Service serving overseas.

Benghazi RemebrenceAgent B says he was getting the “runaround” regarding additional security requests and that he gave his dire prediction to a superior.

When I took over as RSO, I called [the DS Desk Officer], because I was getting the runaround on some physical security requests, complaining to him vigorously, you know, what the problem was.Lybia-Losses-600-LI

I told him that, you know—to use frank language, I told him that this was a suicide mission; that there was a very good chance that everybody here was going to die; that there was absolutely no ability here to prevent an attack whatsoever; that we were in a completely vulnerable position, and we needed help fast, we needed it quickly, or we were going to have dire consequences.

Agent B further described the dangerous security conditions and his appeal for what he said were “desperately” needed security upgrades. 

Our perimeter security is non-existent, we have walls with lattices that somebody can shoot through; we have walls with footholds people can climb over; we have a 4-foot wall back here; we have no lighting.  So all these physical security standards, especially around the perimeter of the building, were completely insufficient, and we needed large amounts of money and this was going to take time, it was going to be expensive, but we needed this desperately to make this place safe.

Agent B said that a superior informed him that DC employees at the State Department expected deaths in Benghazi to such an extent that they were already discussing a security investigation, or Accountability Review Board (ARB), to probe the Benghazi facility following any fatalities there.Picture1

[Redacted] told me, he said, [Redacted], everybody back here in D.C. knows that people are going to die in Benghazi, and nobody cares and nobody is going to care until somebody does die.  The only thing that you and I can do is save our emails for the ARB that we all know is coming.  So this was December of 2011.  He made it very clear to me that in DS/IP, in the State Department, and he was speaking very broadly, that everybody knew that deaths in Benghazi were very likely, and that they were already talking about an ARB.

North Africa

HELP AVAILABLE TO BENGHAZI WHILE UNDER ATTACK

With research by Joshua Klein.

Aaron Klein is Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio.” Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow. Follow him on Facebook.

Laughing-H-600-LI Picture1 true battle Picture1 freedom combo 2

Federal Judge Hands Republicans ‘Historic,’ Unexpected Win Over Obama


waving flagPosted by Jack Davis September 10, 2015

URL of the original posting site: http://www.westernjournalism.com/federal-judge-hands-republicans-historic-unexpected-win-over-obama/?utm_source=Email&utm_medium=TeaPartyNewsletter&utm_campaign=PM2&utm_content=2015-09-10

Image Credit: Flickr/Erik Drost

Constitution 1; Obama 0.

That was the score Wednesday as a federal judge gave House Republicans the go-ahead to proceed with their lawsuit to block President Obama’s budget-busting healthcare law. “This suit remains a plain dispute over a constitutional command, of which the Judiciary has long been the ultimate interpreter,” wrote U.S. District Court Judge Rosemary M. Collyer, who said that House Republicans have legal standing to sue.

The Constitution, Collyer wrote, “could not be more clear: ‘No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury but in consequence of Appropriations made by Law.’ Neither the president nor his officers can authorize appropriations; the assent of the House of Representatives is required before any public monies are spent.”

Complete Message

Republicans had argued the Obama administration violated the Constitution by spending money on Obamacare without Congressional approval. House Democrats had called the Republicans’ suit “a political stunt.” The suit focuses on the $175 billion Obama wants to spend as part of a cost-sharing program with health insurance companies.

“The United States House of Representatives now will be heard on an issue that drives to the very heart of our constitutional system: the control of the legislative branch over the power of the purse,” said Jonathan Turley, the attorney for House Republicans.

“The president’s unilateral change to Obamacare was unprecedented and outside the powers granted to his office under our Constitution,” said House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, in a statement. “I am grateful to the court for ruling that this historic overreach can be challenged by the coequal branch of government with the sole power to create or change the law. The House will continue our effort to ensure the separation of powers in our democratic system remains clear, as the Framers intended.”B2A_FvyCMAE14px

Arguments on the merits of the suit are scheduled to be heard in the fall, although the White House said Wednesday it will appeal Collyer’s decision.

The Lower you go Indenification of Obama 95b119e45c50cbea1e7a4fbfa33415f3 In God We Trust freedom combo 2

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