Trump Ramps Up Rhetoric on Biden–Harris Economy

Elias Irizarry
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Trump Ramps Up Rhetoric on Biden–Harris Economy

(Elias Irizarry, Headline USA) ASHEVILLE, N.C.—Former President Donald Trump echoed his pledge to eliminate taxes on tips and social security at a campaign stop Wednesday in western North Carolina that was intended to highlight his economic agenda as he seeks to reclaim the White House.

The rally at Harrah’s Cherokee Center, in Asheville, drew strong support, filling the convention center, despite taking place in one of the state’s most radical left-wing enclaves.

In his roughly 75-minute speech, Trump blasted the Biden administration for their failed economic policies.

Trump warned of a Great Depression-style economic crash if Vice President Kamala Harris, Democrats’ newly anointed presidential hopeful, were to be elected in November.

“If Harris wins this election, the result will be a Kamala economic crash—a 1929-style depression,” he said. “When I win the election, we will immediately begin a brand new Trump economic boom.”

The “MAGA” leader called out Harris for stealing his plan to end federal taxation on tips for service workers—a policy that the Internal Revenue Service ramped up its enforcement of as part of the controversial Inflation Reduction Act, for which Harris previously boasted of having cast the tie-breaking Senate vote.

Trump joked that the San Francisco socialist and most unpopular vice president in mondern history was likely to plagiarize even more of his policy proposals when she rolls out her economic platform at a rally this week, also in North Carolina.

“When Kamala lays out her fake economic plan this week, it probably will be a copy of my plan, because … that’s what she does,” he said. “She’s waiting for me to announce it so she can copy it.”

Although Democrats are aggressively touting a lower rate of inflation to claim Bidenomics as a success and hector the Federal Reserve into a pre-election interest rate cut, Trump and other critics have pointed out the fact that the impacts of Bidenflation will linger on, even if the rate of dollar devaluation is stabilized.

Costs for both consumers and manufacturers remain elevated after Biden pressured businesses to boost the hourly rates for wage workers and brought Trump’s domestic energy independence to a halt, both of which dramatically increased overhead expenses.

At one point, the former president took out two containers of Tic Tacs, holding the original and larger-size Tic Tac container in one hand while holding a miniature-size one in the other.

“Look at this—so, this is Tic Tacs,” he said. “That’s what happened. This is inflation, this is Tic Tac.”

Behind the scenes at the Asheville rally, ill-intended rumors of a shake-up within Trump’s campaign appeared to jolt some in the MAGA community.

Trump’s once seemingly insurmountable lead has narrowed considerably following the coup of President Joe Biden, which allowed Democrat elites to install Harris as the candidate.

Anthony Scaramucci—the former Trump White House communications director, who was fired after 10 days in the position—claimed without evidence in an Aug. 9 podcast that Trump may be planning on firing two of his senior advisors, Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles.

On Monday, far-right white nationalist commentator Nicholas Fuentes announced that he was officially “declaring war” on LaCivita and Wiles, peddling rhetoric that the two are secretly anti-Trump.

The Lincoln Project, a NeverTrump political-action committee comprising several high-profile RINOs, has likewise begun a sabotage campaign aimed at pushing Trump to fire his senior advisors through psychological warfare.

Leftist operatives, such as Meidas Touch editor Ron Filipkowski, quickly pounced.

The rhetoric’s effect was front-and-center outside the convention center on Wednesday, as a protester named Rulon Dumas yelled at rallygoers to take action against the allegedly disloyal campaign officials, much to the dismay of those in attendance.

“This campaign sucks,” shouted Dumas, who is a follower of the white nationalist Fuentes, according to social media.

He proceeded to claim that Trump running mate JD Vance, a first-term senator from Ohio, was “always a Never Trumper.”

“LaCivita and Susie Wiles—they hated Trump then, and it shows with this campaign and the way it’s being ran right now,” Dumas shouted untactfully. “They hate him right now. I hope you see it.”

“We don’t see it because you’re full of s**t,” chanted back one rallygoer.

On Friday, the campaign announced that it was planning to bring back trusted 2016 adviser Corey Lewandowski, along with “a handful of top allies,” according to Politico.

Follow Elias Irizarry at twitter.com/eliasforsc.

BREAKING: FBI Released Trump Shooter’s Body for Cremation, Scrubbed Crime Scene

Ken Silva
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BREAKING: FBI Released Trump Shooter’s Body for Cremation, Scrubbed Crime Scene

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Officials are refusing to release autopsy records for Trump shooter Thomas Crooks, and bombshell findings from Rep. Clay Higgins, R-La., may explain why.

Higgins, who’s on the House Task Force to investigate the Trump assassination attempt, issued his preliminary findings Thursday, telling the public that the FBI released Crooks’s body to his family for cremation before he could examine it. Higgins, a former law enforcement officer, also said the FBI scrubbed the crime scene of biological evidence, which he said is “unheard of.”

“My effort to examine Crooks’ body on Monday, August 5, caused quite a stir and revealed a disturbing fact… the FBI released the body for cremation 10 days after J13. On J23, Crooks was gone,” he said in his preliminary report.

According to Higgins, no one—including the county Coroner, law enforcement, and county sheriff—knew Crooks’s body had gone missing until he tried examining it on Aug. 5.

“The problem with me not being able to examine the actual body is that I won’t know 100% if the coroner’s report and the autopsy report are accurate. We will actually never know,” Higgins noted. “Yes, we’ll get the reports and pictures, etc, but I will not ever be able to say with certainty that those reports and pictures are accurate according to my own examination of the body.”

Higgins also noted that by the time Crooks’s body had been released, the House and Senate had already begun investigations.

“Why, then, by what measure, would the FBI release his body to the family for cremation? This pattern of investigative scorched earth by the FBI is quite troubling,” he remarked.

Higgins added: “Again, similar to releasing the crime scene and scrubbing crime scene biological evidence… this action by the FBI can only be described by any reasonable man as an obstruction to any following investigative effort.”

Higgins’s disturbing report on Crooks’s body follows news that the body was reportedly kept on the rooftop until 6 a.m. the day after the shooting. There, Butler County coroner William F. Young III allegedly examined Crooks’s body before sending him to the Allegheny County Medical Examiner for the autopsy.

The coroner, Young, released a one-page report on Aug. 2, but has suppressed the underpinning records—including exam photos, toxicology reports and scene images.

The Allegheny County Medical Examiner denied Headline USA’s records request for Crooks’s autopsy records, saying that the “case is under the jurisdiction of the Butler County Coroner and any reports or information must be approved by that agency.” Butler County’s coroner also denied a request, saying the records are exempt from disclosure.

Headline USA has appealed both decisions.

Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.

Texas State Fair BANS Firearms, Drawing Threat of Legal Action From Texas AG

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Texas State Fair BANS Firearms, Drawing Threat of Legal Action From Texas AG

(Headline USA) The State Fair of Texas is laying down a new rule before millions of visitors flock through the gates for corn dogs, deep-fried delights and a friendly wave from a five-story cowboy named Big Tex: No guns allowed.

But that decision by fair organizers—which comes after a shooting last year on the 277-acre fairgrounds in the heart of Dallas—has drawn outrage from gun-access proponents, including some Republican lawmakers, who in recent years have proudly expanded gun rights in Texas.

On Wednesday, the state’s attorney general threatened a lawsuit unless the fair reversed course.

“Dallas has fifteen days to fix the issue,” Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement, “otherwise I will see them in court.”

Tensions over where and how gun owners can carry firearms in public are frequent in Texas, but the standoff with one of the state’s most beloved institutions has moved the fight onto unusual turf. The fair has not backed down since cowboy hat-wearing organizers announced the new policy at a news conference last week.

The fair, which reopens in September and lasts for nearly a month, dates back to 1886. In addition to a maze of midway games, car shows and the Texas Star Ferris wheel—one of the tallest in the U.S. — the fairgrounds are also home to the annual college football rivalry between the University of Texas and University of Oklahoma. And after Big Tex, the towering cowboy that greets fairgoers, went up in flames in 2012 due to an electrical short, the fair mascot was met with great fanfare upon its return.

But a shooting near the rows of food booths last year dampened the revelry.

Investigators said one man opened fire on another, injuring three people and resulting in police clearing the fairgrounds. Videos posted on social media showed groups of people running along sidewalks and climbing barriers as they fled.

Defending the new policy Wednesday, fair spokesperson Karissa Condoianis acknowledged it has attracted “both criticism and praise.” She noted that the fair previously allowed gun owners to carry concealed weapons “even after virtually all other public events ceased to allow the same.”

“This is the right decision moving forward to ensure a safe environment and family-friendly atmosphere,” Condoianis said.

Republican lawmakers urged the fair to reconsider in a letter signed by more than 70 legislators, arguing that the ban made the fairgrounds less safe and was “anything but a celebration of Texas.”

In a separate letter to the City of Dallas, Paxton argued that the ban infringes on the rights of Texas gun owners. The city owns Fair Park, where the annual fair takes place; Paxton argued that gun owners can carry on property owned or leased by the government unless otherwise prohibited by state law.

A city spokesperson said in a statement Wednesday that they were reviewing Paxton’s letter “and will respond accordingly.”

Condoianis said Wednesday that the fair, which is a private, not-for-profit organization, “is not a government entity nor is it controlled by a government entity.” She said they are aware of Paxton’s letter to the city, and that it appears he’s “seeking clarification” on the city’s relationship with the fair and its use of Fair Park under the long-term lease agreement between the two parties.

Condoianis also disagreed that the ban makes the fair less safe, saying the policy is similar to rules at large community gatherings such as sporting events and concerts. She also noted that 200 uniformed and armed Dallas police officers and fair safety team members will be patrolling the fairgrounds. The fair said on its website that attendees go through a screening process before entering.

The fair is a “microcosm of the kind of mystique that comes with Texas,” said Brian Franklin, associate director of the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. The fair, he said, speaks to Texans’ desire to emphasize the state’s rural cowboy heritage and being on the cutting edge of technology.

“You can go to the hall where it’s all the most amazing new cars and maybe other exhibits about technology,” he said, “and then you can also go and see the show cows.”

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Trump Asks Merchan to Delay Sentencing in Lawfare Case Until after November Election

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Trump Asks Merchan to Delay Sentencing in Lawfare Case Until after November Election

(Headline USA) On the heels of a shocking Fox News op-ed warning that corrupt leftist judge Juan Merchan was likely to sentence GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump to jail time, Trump’s lawyers asked the judge to delay the sentencing until after the November presidential election.

In a letter made public Thursday, Trump lawyer Todd Blanche suggested that sentencing Trump as scheduled on Sept. 18—about seven weeks before Election Day—would amount to election interference.

Blanche wrote that a delay would also allow Trump time to weigh next steps after the trial judge, Juan M. Merchan, is expected to rule Sept. 16 on the defense’s request to overturn the verdict and dismiss the case because of the U.S. Supreme Court’s July presidential immunity ruling.

“There is no basis for continuing to rush,” Blanche wrote.

Blanche sent the letter to Merchan on Wednesday after the judge rejected the defense’s latest request that he step aside from the case.

In the letter, Blanche reiterated the defense argument that the judge has a conflict of interest because his daughter works as a Democratic political consultant, including for Kamala Harris when she sought the 2020 presidential nomination. Harris is now running against Trump.

By adjourning the sentencing until after that election, “the Court would reduce, even if not eliminate, issues regarding the integrity of any future proceedings,” Blanche wrote.

Election Day is Nov. 5, but many states allow voters to cast ballots early, with some set to start the process just a few days before or after Trump’s scheduled Sept. 18 sentencing date.

Merchan, who has said he is confident in his ability to remain fair and impartial, did not immediately rule on the delay request.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office, which prosecuted Trump’s case, declined to comment.

Trump was convicted in May of falsifying his business’ records to conceal a 2016 deal to pay off porn actor Stormy Daniels to stay quiet about her alleged 2006 sexual encounter with him. Prosecutors cast the payout as part of a Trump-driven effort to keep voters from hearing salacious stories about him during his first campaign.

Trump says all the stories were false, the business records were not and the case was a political maneuver meant to damage his current campaign. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is a Democrat.

Trump’s defense argued that the payments were indeed for legal work and so were correctly categorized.

Falsifying business records is punishable by up to four years behind bars. Other potential sentences include probation, a fine, or a conditional discharge which would require Trump to stay out of trouble to avoid additional punishment. Trump is the first ex-president convicted of a crime.

Trump has pledged to appeal, but that cannot happen until he is sentenced.

In a previous letter, Merchan set Sept. 18 for “the imposition of sentence or other proceedings as appropriate.”

Blanche argued in his letter seeking a delay that the quick turnaround from the scheduled immunity ruling on Sept. 16 to sentencing two days later is unfair to Trump.

To prepare for sentencing, Blanche argued, prosecutors will be submitting their punishment recommendation while Merchan is still weighing whether to dismiss the case on immunity grounds. If Merchan rules against Trump on the dismissal request, he will need “adequate time to assess and pursue state and federal appellate options,” Blanche said.

The Supreme Court’s immunity decision reins in prosecutions of ex-presidents for official acts and restricts prosecutors in pointing to official acts as evidence that a president’s unofficial actions were illegal. Trump’s lawyers argue that in light of the ruling, jurors in the case should not have heard such evidence as former White House staffers describing how the then-president reacted to news coverage of the Daniels deal.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

9/11 Attack Plans Revealed to Belong to Saudi CIA Asset

Ken Silva
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9/11 Attack Plans Revealed to Belong to Saudi CIA Asset

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Major revelations about the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks have been coming from the long-running lawsuit victims have been pursuing against Saudi Arabia and other actors involved in 9/11.

The most recent development came earlier this month, when one of the plaintiffs’ lawyers revealed in open court for the first time that sketches plotting the 9/11 attack belonged to a Saudi intelligence agent and alleged CIA asset named Omar al-Bayoumi—the handler for two of the hijackers.

The New York Times, which reported on the revelation Friday, explained the significance of the finding.

“Ten days after the attacks, British police officers raided the home of Mr. al-Bayoumi … Among the items the officers seized was a pad on which Mr. al-Bayoumi had sketched an airplane in blue ink. Above the airplane, he had written out a mathematical equation,” NYT reported.

According to the newspaper, 10 years passed before the bureau had an expert analyze the equation and discover its potential significance.

“The expert found it could be used to help calculate the rate at which a plane would need to descend in order to hit a target on the horizon,” NYT said.

News about the diagram’s connection to al-Bayoumi comes about two months after a long-suppressed video was finally released, showing him allegedly casing Capitol Hill in June 1999—months before al-Qaeda made the decision to include Washington DC in its terrorist plot. Numerous investigators believe the Capitol building was the target of Flight 93, which instead crashed in Pennsylvania.

Additionally, new evidence in recent years has suggested that not only was al-Bayoumi a Saudi agent; he was also an asset of the CIA. That information has been coming from the proceedings against 9/11 defendants at Guantanamo Bay.

According to Office of Military Commissions investigator Don Canestraro, at least two FBI agents told him that the CIA had attempted to recruit two of the hijackers as informants. The CIA was directing its recruiting efforts through al-Bayoumi, according to Canestraro.

Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.

Starbucks Offers New CEO a Massive $113M Package of Pay, Incentives

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Starbucks Offers New CEO a Massive $113M Package of Pay, Incentives

(Headline USA) In a bid to turn around its flagging fortunes, coffee giant Starbucks is offering a record-shattering package of pay and incentives in order to lure a highly sought-after chief executive away from Chipotle.

Incoming Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol could make well in excess of $100 million in his first year with the company under an incentive-laden contract, and he will not be required to relocate from his home in California to Seattle, the home of the global coffee giant.

Starbucks announced on Tuesday that Niccol would become its chairman and CEO, taking over from Laxman Narasimhan, who stepped down abruptly after spending a little more than a year as the company’s top executive. Niccol will become Starbucks’ chairman and CEO on Sept. 9.

Niccol is among the mostly highly in-demand CEOs after establishing a track record of success in turning around companies that have hit a rough patch, including Taco Bell and, most recently, Chipotle.

Niccol took the top job at the California chain in 2018, when Chipotle was being roiled by a series of foodborne illness outbreaks that had sickened more than 1,000 of its customers over several years.

Since his arrival, revenue at Chipotle has nearly doubled. Niccol was credited with energizing product innovation and, at the same time, instituting employee benefits like a program that pays employees’ college tuition costs at certain schools.

Starbucks is counting on Niccol to revive fading sales and re-establish the company as a destination where customers are willing to pay premium prices for its products.

In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission late Wednesday, Starbucks said that the 50-year-old Niccol will receive a cash signing bonus of $10 million and equity awards totaling $75 million once he joins the company. The equity component of his pay package will vest over time and is contingent on meeting performance targets.

If Starbucks meets those targets and other goals, his pay could easily surpass $100 million in his first year.

Niccol’s annual base salary will be $1.6 million. He’ll also have an annual cash incentive opportunity at a target of 225% of his base salary and a maximum of 450% of base salary. If he achieves the maximum incentive, it would be about $8.8 million.

Starting in fiscal 2025, Niccol will be eligible to receive annual equity awards worth up to $23 million.

Perhaps just as notable, Starbucks is not requiring that Niccol relocate to Starbucks headquarters in Seattle, saying he can remain in Newport Beach, California, where he currently lives and where Chipotle is based.

According to a regulatory filing, Starbucks will help create, with assistance from Niccol, a small remote office in Newport Beach, and the company will hire an assistant for Niccol at that location.

Niccol will commute to Seattle as needed, as well as embark on any other business travel that’s deemed necessary.

Starbucks Chief Financial Officer Rachel Ruggeri is serving as the interim CEO until Niccol arrives in early September.

Shares of Starbucks rose slightly before the market open on Thursday.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Report: Trump to be Surrounded by Bulletproof Glass at Future Outdoor Rallies

Ken Silva
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Report: Trump to be Surrounded by Bulletproof Glass at Future Outdoor Rallies

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) ABC News reported Thursday that the Secret Service will surround Donald Trump with bulletproof glass at his outdoor campaign events.

ABC said the use of such measures is typically reserved for sitting Presidents, but the Secret Service is making an exception after almost getting Trump killed at his July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. All of Trump’s events have been indoors since the Butler rally.

“Trump’s protective detail is preparing for glass panels to surround him on three sides, according to the sources—though it’s not immediately clear when that would start,” ABC reported.

“Trump has privately expressed a desire to campaign outdoors and has sought assurances it would be safe, the sources said.”

Both the Secret Service and Trump’s campaign reportedly declined to comment. The Secret Service initially pushed for Trump to have all his events indoor after the July 13 attack, but that was met with widespread criticism.

The news that Trump will be surrounded by ballistic glass comes as he prepares to return to Butler in October.

“We’re going back to Butler, and we’re going to go back in October, we’re all set up,” Trump told Elon Musk on their interview Monday on Twitter/X. “It’s a great area, these are incredible people.”

Trump’s return plans are concerning local officials. Det. Pat Young, commander of the Beaver County SWAT team—which had a significant presence at the July 13 rally—said he still hasn’t met with Secret Service over the security failures.

When asked if he thinks Trump would be safe at another Butler rally, Young said he couldn’t provide any guarantees.

“I can’t say that. At this point, me along with the majority of American people have many questions as to what and how the Secret Service does its job. And I never would have said that before, really, this week,” Young told CNN in an interview.

Young’s concern is seemingly shared by the Secret Service’s rank and file. Last month, a Secret Service whistleblower warned that his agency isn’t ready for the next assassination attempt on Trump.

Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.

Fetterman Hypocrisy Exposed over Failure to Disclose Kids’ Stock Portfolios

Contributing Author
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Fetterman Hypocrisy Exposed over Failure to Disclose Kids’ Stock Portfolios

(Headline USA) Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., reportedly failed to comply with requirements to disclose his children’s stock portfolios despite supporting legislation that would ban lawmakers and their families from owning stocks.

Senate ethics rules require senators to annually report “assets, transactions, gifts, travel reimbursements, and liabilities” received by their dependent children. Fetterman has been serving in the Senate since 2023 after winning his election in 2022, but disclosed his children’s stock portfolios for the first time this week, according to the Washington Free Beacon. He also amended disclosures he submitted as a Senate candidate in 2021 and 2022 to reflect these portfolios. 

The disclosure reveals Fetterman’s three minor children own between $45,000 to $675,000 in stocks and between $53,000 and $445,000 in corporate bonds. The stocks and bonds are held in major banks such as Citigroup and J.P. Morgan.

In his filings as a Senate candidate, Fetterman did not include these holdings, and only listed that his children had between $600,000 and $1.25 million in checking accounts under their names.

The disclosure calls into question Fetterman’s past commitment to the ETHICS Act, which would ban lawmakers, their spouses, and their dependent children from owning or trading corporate securities. Under the bill, lawmakers’ dependent children would be permitted to own only $10,000 total in securities. 

In other words, if the ETHICS Act were passed, Fetterman would need to divest his children’s sizable stock portfolios.

In a statement, his office claimed Fetterman did not initially report his children’s stock assets because those investments were “created by generous grandparents who were unaware of the reporting requirements.” His office did not, however, clarify whether Fetterman would be divesting those investments as part of his push for the ETHICS Act.

The Fetterman family’s investments also undermine the senator’s argument that lawmakers should not “profit off the same companies that they are regulating” — a comment he made just last year. As a member of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, Fetterman helps regulate banks such as Citigroup and J.P. Morgan, where most of his children’s assets are held.

Meta Roils Leftists by Eliminating Longtime Censorship Tool CrowdTangle Ahead of Election

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Meta Roils Leftists by Eliminating Longtime Censorship Tool CrowdTangle Ahead of Election

(Headline USA) Facebook and Instagram parent Meta Platforms has shut down CrowdTangle, a tool widely used by leftists to monitor social media posts and promote censorship on the company’s social-media sites.

Wednesday’s shutdown, which Meta announced earlier this year, has been protested by several activist organizations hoping the Mark Zuckerberg-run company would intervene, as it did in the 2020 election, to prevent information critical of Democrats from gaining traction on the platforms.

“For years, CrowdTangle has represented an industry best practice for real-time platform transparency,” the Mozilla Foundation wrote in a March letter that was also signed by several dozen groups and individual academics.

“It has become a lifeline for understanding how disinformation, hate speech, and voter suppression spread on Facebook, undermining civic discourse and democracy,” the censorship activists wrote.

Zuckerberg acknowledged having colluded with intelligence agencies like the FBI to kill stories related to Hunter Biden’s laptop, skepticism of coronavirus vaccines and evidence of widespread vote fraud in the 2020 race between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, among other topics. Much of the censored content was ultimately validated and acknowledged as true after the fact.

Already, during the 2024 race, Meta’s platforms have come under fire for stealthily censoring information regarding the July 13 assassination attempt on Trump, prompting Zuckerberg to call the GOP presidential nominee and apologize.

Yet, despite keeping a lower profile than in the 2020 race—in which he gave nearly half a billion dollars to support mail-in balloting and other efforts, specifically targeting the urban areas of otherwise red or swing states—Zuckerberg may still seek to interfere with the upcoming race as leftists grow more desperate to drag Democrat candidate Kamala Harris across the finish line.

Last year, the company hired former CIA agent Aaron Berman in the top spot overseeing its “election policies.”

Meta acquired CrowdTangle in 2016, but on Wednesday it said the internet spying tool didn’t provide a complete picture of what was happening on its platforms and that new tools were more comprehensive.

Meta has released an alternative to CrowdTangle, called the Meta Content Library, and has been gathering feedback from “hundreds of researchers in order to make it more user-friendly and help them find the data they need for their work,” Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, said in a blog post last week.

But access to it is limited to academic researchers and nonprofits, which excludes most news organizations. Critics have also complained that it’s not as useful as CrowdTangle—at least not yet.

In May, dozens of groups, including the Center for Democracy and Technology, the Digital Forensic Research Lab at the Atlantic Council, Human Rights Watch and NYU’s Center for Social Media & Politics, sent a letter to the company asking that it keep the spying tool running through at least January so it would be available through the U.S. presidential election.

“This decision jeopardizes essential pre- and post-election oversight mechanisms and undermines Meta’s transparency efforts during this critical period, and at a time when social trust and digital democracy are alarmingly fragile,” the letter complained.

CrowdTangle, “has been an essential tool in helping researchers parse through the vast amount of information on the platform and identify harmful content and threats,” it added.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

WSJ: Zelenskyy Approved Plan to Attack Nord Stream Pipelines

Ken Silva
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WSJ: Zelenskyy Approved Plan to Attack Nord Stream Pipelines

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) The Wall Street Journal published a report Thursday that implicates Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the 2022 attack on the  Nord Stream gas pipelines that run between Russia and Germany—one of the worst ecoterrorism incidents in world history.

The WSJ report is one of many accounts of what happened with the Nord Stream attack. This writer has put the most stock in the reporting from Pulitzer Prize-winner Seymour Hersh, who has blamed the CIA.

But according to the WSJ, the CIA actually tried preventing the attack after it was initially greenlit by Zelenskyy.

Citing four senior Ukrainian defense and security officials who either participated in or had direct knowledge of the plot, the WSJ said the plan was initially hatched after Russia’s invasion stalled in early 2022.

“In May of 2022, a handful of senior Ukrainian military officers and businessmen had gathered to toast their country’s remarkable success in halting the Russian invasion. Buoyed by alcohol and patriotic fervor, somebody suggested a radical next step: destroying Nord Stream,” the newspaper reported.

“Within days, Zelensky approved the plan, according to the four people familiar with the plot. All arrangements were made verbally, leaving no paper trail.”

According to the WSJ, the CIA found out about the plot and tried to stop it. The CIA reportedly warned Zelenskyy to halt the operation.

However, a top Ukrainian general reportedly told Zelenskyy that the sabotage team, once dispatched, went incommunicado and couldn’t be called off because any contact with them could compromise the operation.

“He was told it’s like a torpedo—once you fire it at the enemy, you can’t pull it back again, it just keeps going until it goes ‘boom,’” a senior officer told the WSJ.

The WSJ report comes on the heels of news that Germany issued its first arrest warrant over the attack against a Ukrainian man believed to have resided until recently in Poland. German authorities have reportedly been referring to their target as “Volodymyr Z”—an obvious reference to Zelenskyy.

Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.

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