Trump Lawyers Slam Ga. Probe after Media Blitz by Unhinged Grand-Jury Foreman

(Headline USA) Former President Donald Trump’s lawyers in Georgia are criticizing Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’s politically motivated investigation into efforts to challenge the 2020 election results after the unhinged foreperson of the special grand jury went public this week.

Emily Kohrs first spoke out in an interview published Tuesday by the Associated Press, a story that was followed by interviews in other print and television news outlets.

She described some of what happened behind the closed doors of the jury room—including how some witnesses behaved, how prosecutors interacted with witnesses and how some witnesses invoked their rights not to answer certain questions.

Trump attorneys Drew Findling and Jennifer Little said that despite having concerns about the panel’s proceedings from the start, they kept quiet out of respect for the grand jury process. But they said revelations offered by Kohrs this week compelled them to speak up.

“The end product is the reliability of anything that has taken place in there is completely tainted and called into question,” Findling said in an interview with the AP on Wednesday evening. He said he held “no chagrin for a 30-year-old foreperson” who was part of “a failed system.”

“She’s a product of a circus that cloaked itself as a special purpose grand jury,” he said.

Findling and Little said they are on top of all the legal issues in the case and are keeping their options open. They had not filed anything by Thursday morning.

The special grand jury was impaneled at the request of Willis, who won election in the minority and Democrat-heavy district based on her promises to target the former president.

The panel did not have the power to indict but instead could offer recommendations for Willis, who will ultimately decide whether to seek indictments from a regular grand jury.

Willis herself has since been the subject of considerable scrutiny for her unethical conduct, including her efforts to investigate at least one Republican lawmaker after participating in campaign fundraisers for his opponent.

The D.A.’s office has declined to comment on Kohrs’s media appearances, other than to say they weren’t aware ahead of time that she planned to give interviews. Spokesperson Jeff DiSantis also declined Thursday to comment on Findling’s and Little’s comments.

Findling and Little expressed concern that the special grand jury, which they said was supposed to base its recommendations to the district attorney on evidence and testimony presented in the jury room, was allowed to watch and read news coverage of the case and was aware of some witnesses’ efforts not to testify.

Kohrs said prosecutors told the jurors they could read and watch the news but urged them to keep an open mind.

Kohrs also shared numerous anecdotes from the proceedings that she found amusing and was very expressive in television interviews, sometimes laughing or making faces.

Findling and Little said the district attorney’s office, which was advising the special grand jury, should have done a better job of educating the grand jurors about the solemnity of the process and the rules and limitations.

“It’s not a joking matter,” Findling said. “It’s not a matter for giggles. It’s not a matter for smiles.”

Trump himself lashed out in a post on his social media network Wednesday, calling the Georgia investigation “ridiculous, a strictly political continuation of the greatest Witch Hunt of all time.”

He expressed dismay at Kohrs “going around and doing a Media Tour revealing, incredibly, the Grand Jury’s inner workings & thoughts.”

Though Kohrs did not publicly name any individuals the special grand jury recommended for possible indictment, Findling and Little said she seemed to implicate Trump in response to media questions about indictments.

That’s a problem, Findling said, because they have examined the evidence and remain convinced that “our client did not break any law at all.”

The Trump lawyers also said that this situation could have been avoided if the judge had instructed special grand jury members not to speak to news outlets until after the panel’s full final report is made public. Several parts of the report were released last week, but Fulton County Superior Court Judge Robert McBurney said any section that recommended specific charges for specific people would remain secret for now.

McBurney, like Willis and Kohrs, has also been criticized for his own showboating, including his recent assertion in an unrelated case that he alone had the authority to decide how to interpret the state’s recently passed abortion law.

In the federal system, grand jurors are prohibited from talking about what witnesses said or anything that happened in the room. But the oath taken by grand jurors in Georgia only says they cannot talk about their deliberations.

The grand jury was dissolved on Jan. 9, and McBurney told the AP that he later met with grand jurors to discuss where things stood. He said he provided them with the “rules of the road” of what they were legally allowed and not allowed to discuss publicly.

He said they could discuss what witnesses said and what is in the report but could not talk about deliberations because that’s what their oath said.

Little said she believes some of the things Kohrs discussed in interviews were part of deliberations, including when she talked about decisions to recommend multiple indictments and the reasons why the grand jurors did not seek to bring Trump in to testify.

Willis has said since the beginning of the investigation two years ago that she was interested in a Jan. 2, 2021, phone call in which Trump suggested to Georgia’s RINO secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger, that he could “find” the votes needed to overturn Trump’s loss to Biden in the state.

“All I want to do is this: I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have,” Trump said during that call.

The context of the line came after Trump noted that widespread reports of voting irregularities in Fulton and other blue-run counties could yield hundreds of thousands of invalid ballots but that it wasn’t necessary for Raffensperger to investigate them all.

Much of that evidence has since been confirmed by watchdog groups—including True the Vote, which gathered video footage of illegal ballot harvesting in its bombshell documentary 2,000 Mules.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

Leavitt: Influence-Peddling Case Underscores China’s Relentless Resolve to Silence Critics

(Karoline Leavitt, Headline USA contributor) Recently, there has been increased concern about the influence of foreign governments, particularly the Chinese Communist Party controlled Beijing regime, on American politicians.

Let’s set the record straight: CCP never represents Chinese people.

Reports have emerged of alleged bribes and “honey pots” being used by the CCP to sway American politicians toward their interests. While bribery and corruption are certainly not new to politics, the scale and scope of these allegations are disturbing.

Just days ago, a CCP-linked operative, Nickie Lum Davis of Honolulu, came under scrutiny due to her involvement in a scheme to lobby U.S. government officials on behalf of a Malaysian financier believed to be backed by the Chinese Communist Party.

In exchange for millions of dollars, Davis and her co-conspirators attempted to use back channels to influence high-level U.S. government officials and sell their connections to the “highest foreign bidder,” as stated by John Keller of the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section.

As the case developed, it became clear that she was part of a larger scheme, in which she and her co-conspirators—Elliott Broidy, George Higginbotham and Prakazrel “Pras” Michel—tried to conspire with high-ranking officials of CCP to push for the return of Miles Guo, CCP’s No. 1 enemy, back to China.

Guo has been a thorn in the side of the CCP for years now, and the CCP continues to work through back channels in the United States to silence him.

Lum Davis worked hand-in-hand with a political fundraiser named Elliot Broidy. Together, they engaged in illicit lobbying efforts, sexual escapades and criminal activities more in keeping with a James Bond film than the realities of modern politics.

More than 47 pages of text messages reveal a stunning tale of bribery, criminality and illegality stemming from these CCP-linked individuals.

This type of behavior is a serious breach of trust and integrity—even more so since it stems from one of our biggest rivals, communist China. The use of bribes and illegal methods to sway government officials is a corruption of the lobbying process and undermines the public’s faith in the American political system.

Furthermore, Davis’s lack of remorse and previous attempts to withdraw her guilty plea indicate a disregard for the gravity of her actions.

Foreign influence in American politics is not new, and the CCP is not the only foreign interest engaging in these practices. However, the sheer size and global reach of China under CCP, combined with its strategic goals, make it a particularly potent threat.

The American political system is built on the principles of transparency and accountability, and any efforts by foreign governments to undermine these values must be taken seriously and thoroughly investigated.

The actions of Nickie Lum Davis and her co-conspirators are a reminder of the great threat posed by the CCP, and CCP-linked entities, within the United States. Their efforts to seize and silence an incredibly influential Chinese dissident, Miles Guo, will not stop.

The American government must recognize the reach and range of CCP’s infiltration into and threats to the U.S., so that the democratic government under the Constitution may be preserved.

The best way to do so is to let the American people know the case of Guo, which has clearly illustrated the CCP’s infiltration into the U.S. government. Any attempts to bribe or unduly influence government officials are unacceptable and undermine the integrity of the American political system.

The American people have a right to know the truth about the CCP’s influence through its money in U.S. politics, and to demand that their elected officials serve with integrity and dedication.

Karoline Leavitt is a Newsmax contributor and the founder of KL Communications. In 2022, Karoline made history as the youngest U.S. Congressional Nominee ever, securing the nomination in New Hampshire’s 1st Congressional District at 25 years old. Prior to running for Congress, Karoline served as communications director to House Republican Chairwoman Elise Stefanik, and as White House assistant press secretary to President Donald Trump. Karoline is an alumna of Saint Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire.
Editor’s Note: The above piece is an opinion piece. Although Headline USA does curate and edit such pieces for style purposes, the views expressed in it do not necessarily represent those of the publication. Headline USA did not receive nor furnish any compensation for the submission. 

City-Wide Vax Mandates Did Nothing to Stop the Spread of COVID-19: Researchers

(Casey Harper, The Center Square) A slew of city-wide vaccine mandates announced in 2021 across parts of the U.S. made virtually no difference in stopping the spread of COVID-19, newly released research found.

“These mandates imposed severe restrictions on the lives of many citizens and business owners,” the study, conducted through George Mason University’s Mercatus Center, says. “Yet, we find no evidence that the mandates were effective in their intended goals of reducing COVID-19 cases and deaths.”

The researchers evaluated Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington D.C.

“We find no evidence that the announcement or implementation of indoor vaccine mandates in the cities listed had any significant effect on vaccine uptake, COVID-19 cases, or COVID-19 deaths, and this is largely consistent for all US cities that implemented the mandate,” the report said.

Many local leaders in these cities demanded the vaccine mandates, arguing at the time that the science was irrefutable.

For example, Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney plainly said its mask and vaccine mandates would slow the spread of COVID in a news release announcing the policy.

“The updated policies we announced today are critical to slowing the spread of the Delta variant of COVID-19, which is more dangerous and transmissible than earlier forms of the virus,” Kenney said. “The science is clear: these measures will protect Philadelphians and save lives.”

But this latest research says there is no evidence the vaccine mandates made a noteworthy difference, meaning the large economic toll on businesses may have been all for naught.

From the report:

Our findings put into question the efficacy of city-level vaccine mandates. Indoor vaccine man-dates caused large disruptions for many individuals and businesses. New York City, for example, fired 1,430 city workers for failing to comply with its vaccine mandate (Fitzsimmons, 2022). A survey found that over 90% of NYC restaurants reported having customer-related challenges, such as losing customers who objected to the mandate, and 75% having staff-related challenges (New York State Restaurant Association, 2021). Those are just a small fraction of the disruptions caused by the mandates.

Most supporters of the mandates claim that the associated increase in vaccination rates, and its implied reduction in the spread of COVID-19, outweigh the cost of the disruptions. However, we find that the effects of the mandates on their intended outcomes are not statistically noticeable in any of the cities they were implemented in all empirical strategies used.

The researchers propose that a key reason for the failure of these mandates is that it was easy for unvaccinated residents to simply cross city lines to visit the bars, restaurants and more that were unavailable to them within city limits. The paper argued nationwide mandates were more effective since crossing national borders is much more difficult.

Vitor Melo, one of the researchers behind the report, said he began the research in part because the success of nationwide vaccine mandates in Europe was being touted as proof of the need for those mandates in U.S. cities.

Melo said he expected to find that the vaccine mandates helped slow the spread of COVID-19, albeit on a smaller scale than what was seen in European countries, but was surprised to find in his research that that was not the case.

“There is definitely reason to be skeptical that if something worked in France, it would work in D.C.,” Melo told The Center Square.

Melo said his paper did not address the efficacy of vaccines, another hot topic, but showed moreso that those Americans who were unwilling to get vaccinated would not buckle, regardless of a municipal mandate.

All the cities reviewed in the study announced their indoor vaccine mandates in 2021 and repealed them in 2022.

“Many firms lost businesses because of this,” Melo said. “They lost customers. They weren’t allowed to let customers in if they were not vaccinated, and also they lost staff. The idea at the time was that the benefits would outweigh the cost…but then what I find in the research is that there is not much of a benefit at all.”

The efficacy of the vaccines also are being questioned after Dr. Anthony Fauci co-authored a paper shortly after he left his position as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases that said he know they would provide only limited protection against infection because “candidate vaccines for most other respiratory viruses have to date been insufficiently protective.”

Space Telescope Uncovers Massive Galaxies Near Cosmic Dawn

(Headline USA) Astronomers have discovered what appear to be massive galaxies dating back to within 600 million years of the Big Bang, suggesting the early universe may have had a stellar fast-track that produced these “monsters.”

While the new James Webb Space Telescope has spotted even older galaxies, dating to within a mere 300 million years of the beginning of the universe, it’s the size and maturity of these six apparent mega-galaxies that stun scientists. They reported their findings Wednesday.

Lead researcher Ivo Labbe of Australia’s Swinburne University of Technology and his team expected to find little baby galaxies this close to the dawn of the universe — not these whoppers.

“While most galaxies in this era are still small and only gradually growing larger over time,” he said in an email, “there are a few monsters that fast-track to maturity. Why this is the case or how this would work is unknown.”

Each of the six objects looks to weigh billions of times more than our sun. In one of them, the total weight of all its stars may be as much as 100 billion times greater than our sun, according to the scientists, who published their findings in the journal Nature.

Yet these galaxies are believed to be extremely compact, squeezing in as many stars as our own Milky Way, but in a relatively tiny slice of space, according to Labbe.

Labbe said he and his team didn’t think the results were real at first — that there couldn’t be galaxies as mature as the Milky Way so early in time — and they still need to be confirmed. The objects appeared so big and bright that some members of the team thought they had made a mistake.

“We were mind-blown, kind of incredulous,” Labbe said.

The Pennsylvania State University’s Joel Leja, who took part in the study, calls them “universe breakers.”

“The revelation that massive galaxy formation began extremely early in the history of the universe upends what many of us had thought was settled science,” Leja said in a statement. “It turns out we found something so unexpected it actually creates problems for science. It calls the whole picture of early galaxy formation into question.”

These galaxy observations were among the first data set that came from the $10 billion Webb telescope, launched just over a year ago. NASA and the European Space Agency’s Webb is considered the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, coming up on the 33rd anniversary of its launch.

Unlike Hubble, the bigger and more powerful Webb can peer through clouds of dust with its infrared vision and discover galaxies previously unseen. Scientists hope to eventually observe the first stars and galaxies formed following the creation of the universe 13.8 billion years ago.

The researchers still are awaiting official confirmation through sensitive spectroscopy, careful to call these candidate massive galaxies for now. Leja said it’s possible that a few of the objects might not be galaxies, but obscured supermassive black holes.

While some may prove to be smaller, “odds are good at least some of them will turn out to be” galactic giants, Labbe said. “The next year will tell us.”

One early lesson from Webb is “to let go of your expectations and be ready to be surprised,” he said.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press

School Choice? Let’s Try Teacher Choice

(Antonette Bowman, RealClear Wire) The House Education and Workforce Committee convened a hearing last week entitled “American Education in Crisis.” The perennial left–right debate between promoting parents’ rights and protecting public schools was on full display.

Committee Chair Virginia Foxx, a Republican from North Carolina, used her opening statement to argue for extending “education freedom” and to defend parents’ prerogative to take their children and the public funding that goes with them to private, charter, or home schools. Representative Suzanne Bonamici, a Democrat from Oregon, countered by expressing her “strong opposition” to plans that would “funnel taxpayer dollars to unaccountable private schools and for-profit charter schools,” saying that such an approach would “undermine the effectiveness of public education.”

With both sides launching familiar salvos in a policy debate that never seems to go anywhere, what’s needed are reforms to improve American education that could actually garner bipartisan support. A policy of teacher choice could do just that by addressing some of the legitimate concerns of parents while preventing a damaging exodus of students and financial resources from many of America’s public schools. Indeed, letting parents and guardians of public school students choose from available teachers could empower parents and restore the parent-teacher-school relationship, facilitate more effective teaching, improve student learning, and elevate the status of the teaching profession.

To implement a policy of teacher choice, K-12 public schools could provide parents and guardians with teacher profiles and offer the opportunity to pick from available teachers at the beginning of each semester. These profiles could feature a balance of qualitative and quantitative information – including the teacher’s educational background and performance, student and parent testimonials, a description of teaching philosophy, and brief video footage of teachers speaking directly to parents and working in the classroom.

Allowing parents to choose who teaches their children would build greater trust with teachers. Parents would feel more empowered, and teachers would feel honored by the choice and more motivated to perform well. Parents and teachers could then work together to tailor more creative and effective curricula for students.

Teacher-choice policies would also boost student learning by facilitating better instruction. According to RAND, teachers matter more to student achievement than any other aspect of schooling. Permitting parents to find a pedagogical match for their children will enhance learning, as kids are more likely to excel when they have good personal relationships with their teachers and feel welcome in the classroom.

This model would reward top teachers and shine a spotlight on underperforming teachers, who could then choose to emulate the high performers or find a new line of work. As less competent teachers depart, morale and mutual respect will improve among remaining teachers. This, in turn, will elevate the image and status of the school and the teaching profession generally.

Critics of a teacher-choice policy might argue that some parents will make bad decisions. Some may rely on rumors about teachers or select teachers thought to be easy graders. Negligent parents may even fail to pick a teacher for their child at all. These challenges can be managed by administrators and school districts and must be weighed against the benefits ofan approach that empowers parents.

Critics may also argue that a teacher-choice policy would create an increased administrative burden. Adopting this approach would no doubt require an investment of staff time and energy. But schools already expend substantial time to achieve a relatively equal student distribution among classes by achievement level, behavioral and medical considerations, language ability, gender, physical maturity, special needs, and even personality conflicts with faculty.

Besides, a teacher-choice policy would generate its own distribution – perhaps a more effective one in some schools. Different parents will want different types of teachers. When necessary, counselors and administrators can work with parents to even out the student distribution, based on mutual consent. Public schools can ease some of the burden by creating online registration systems for selection of courses and teachers, as most colleges and universities do.

Over the long term, underperforming teachers who are not a good fit for the school and community will struggle to attract students and will need to move on.

And that’s exactly the point.

The Left is correct that if we abandon public schools and allow them to deteriorate, we shouldn’t be surprised if our democracy declines, too. But the Right has a point in emphasizing the prerogatives of parents when it comes to their children’s education. Who can blame parents for being frustrated when their child is taught in a public school by an obviously subpar teacher?

Establishing a policy of teacher choice can begin to bridge the partisan divide by simultaneously empowering parents, preserving public schools, and perhaps even catalyzing a renaissance in American education. This is an approach we should all be able to support.

Trump’s Ohio Visit Sends MSM Mafia into Full Cover Mode for Biden Admin.

(Mark Pellin, Headline USA) A chorus of cheers and an outpouring of gratitude greeted former President Donald Trump on his Wednesday visit to the embattled town of East Palestine, Ohio, triggering a leftist media and sending them into a frenzied spiral of spinning for the Biden administration.

Trump’s visit to the town that was left reeling from a toxic train derailment and has been largely snubbed by the Biden administration was a huge success, with the former president delivering hundreds of pallets stacked with cleaning supplies, recovery materials and food, along with truckloads of Trump-branded bottled water. 

Trump toured East Palestine with Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, and was embraced by residents who had lined streets in anticipation of the visit. Cheers of “Trump ’24” and “USA” mingled with chants of “Let’s Go Brandon,” and Trump responded in kind, delivering a blistering indictment of President Joe Biden’s bungling of the disaster.

“I sincerely hope that when your representatives and all of the politicians get here, including Biden, they get back from touring Ukraine, that he’s got some money left over,” Trump told residents.

“They were intending to do absolutely nothing for you,” he said of the town snubbed by the Biden administration. “They could have been here two weeks earlier, at least a week earlier, but they decided to do it this way, and I guess it came from the top.”

On his way out of town, Trump stopped at local McDonald’s, where he passed out MAGA hats and bought lunch for local first responders. When a reporter asked the former president if he had a message for the current president, Trump replied with a simple, “Get over here.”

On that note, the mainstream media had already swung into action with cover for Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who reportedly had been shamed into an Ohio visit by Trump’s trip.

“I don’t know exactly what he’s planning to do there,” Buttigieg said during a fawning interview with CBS News before Trump’s visit. “Especially since his administration was anti-regulation and pro-industry every step of the way.”

Fake news media latched onto the widely debunked talking point promulgated by the Biden regime, that Trump was somehow responsible for the toxic train wreck, and spun it as the main focus for their coverage of Trump’s hugely successful Ohio visit.

The Guardian didn’t even bother trying to hide its cover-op, running a headline that proclaimed “Trump’s environmental rollbacks in focus on visit to Ohio toxic train site.”

It was in high-res focus for the regime’s media collaborators, including the New Republic and its supposedly “news” article that was subtly headlined, “Trump, Who Deregulated the Railroad Industry, Lies to the People of Ohio in His Visit,” and proceeded to regurgitate White House talking points.

The Independent blared “Ex-president accused of ‘feigning concern’ for Ohio residents after visit,” while Yahoo News! declared “Trump set to visit East Palestine after cutting rail regulations as president.”

Politico joined the gaslighting with an assurance that “Trump’s visit to Ohio derailment gives Biden’s team some breathing room,” by “offering a political opening to battered Biden administration officials” who now had a chance to further push their distorted version of Trump’s record.

It was left for Trump to set the record straight, which he did when asked during his East Palestine visit about the Biden administration’s accusations that Trump-era policies were to blame for the town’s dire straits.

“It had nothing to do with it. We’re like a third-world nation, and this is an example of it, the breakdown,” Trump told Breitbart News.

“Our whole country is breaking down, and [Buttigieg]’s really got to look at the airports because I have people that are taking planes, and they’re delayed. They’re waiting in an airport for three days. It’s crazy what’s happening.”

There have not been any reports, yet, from mainstream media blaming Trump for the multiple airline fiascos that have unfolded during Buttigieg’s tenure. But it’s still early days.

Jan. 6 Defendant Seeks to Unseal Evidence of Undercover Law Enforcement Activity

(Ken Silva, Headline USA) More evidence of undercover law enforcement’s participation in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol Hill protest has surfaced in recent court filings from William Pope, who is seeking to have a federal judge unseal evidence that he says will show a more complete picture of government’s covert operations that day.

Pope—who faces obstruction of Congress, civil disorder and trespassing charges—included video footage of undercover officers at Jan. 6 in a court filing last week. He did so to disprove government’s claims that there were no undercover government provocateurs at the Capitol on Jan. 6, he said.

Videos included in Pope’s filing included police bodycam footage showing officers questioning whether five apparent Jan. 6 participants were armed. In response, the armed suspects proceeded to produce what appear to be DOJ/DEA agency credentials, Pope noted.

There is also bodycam footage showing uniformed officers repeatedly telling people to “keep marching” while waving them towards the Capitol, he said.

“These are not wild conspiracy theories; these are facts on video. The only reason I am able to access these particular facts and share them as public exhibits is because they are not designated as sensitive or highly sensitive and thus are not materials that are subject to the protective order (because I fully comply with the protective order!),” he said.

“However, the government continues trying to block me from having full access to the discovery which likely contains many additional exculpatory facts that will enable me to defend myself in court.”

One particular video Pope seeks to have unsealed purportedly shows an undercover Metropolitan Police Department officer joining the crowd in chants of “Drain the swamp!” and “Whose house? Our house!”—repeatedly urging protestors to advance up the northwest steps to the Capitol.

Pope seeks to have a judge remove the “sensitive” designation on this video so he can share it publicly—because “major news organizations are now contacting me asking about the undercover MPD video,” he said.

“It would also serve the interests of justice and completeness for this court to release the broader video recorded by the undercover officer,” he said.

Prosecutors have yet to respond to Pope’s request.

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

Pentagon Scrambles to Fix Email ‘Glitch’ Leaking Sensitive Military Info

(Joshua Paladino, Headline USA) The Pentagon has repaired a national defense breach after an internet security researcher discovered that he could access about three terabytes of military emails without advanced hacking techniques.

The researcher, Anurag Sen, discovered that he could access a military server, which seemed to contain communications involving US Special Operations Command, with a regular web browser, a standard internet connection and “without a password,” the Post Millennial reported.

He accessed the server on Feb. 8, and the issue was fixed on Feb. 20. The Pentagon and Microsoft have not found the cause of the breach, but they suspect human error.

The military stored the sensitive emails on Microsoft’s Azure government cloud, “which uses servers that are physically separated from other commercial customers and as such can be used to share sensitive but unclassified government data,” TechCrunch reported.

So far, the Pentagon has not found evidence that anyone accessed the server.

“We can confirm at this point is no one hacked U.S. Special Operations Command’s information systems,” said USSOCOM spokesperson Ken McGraw.

A Defense Department spokesperson refused to state whether the server can track unauthorized access to it.

The Azure cloud server had emails dating back many years, as a three terabyte system could contain millions of pages of communications.

Although Microsoft’s Azure server should not contain classified information, an email reportedly had a federal employee’s questionnaire that he or she used to obtain a government security clearance.

If the form were accessed by state actors or hackers, they would have found private information about the federal employee as well as a “significant amount of background information on security clearance holders valuable to foreign adversaries.”

The Pentagon let the US Office of Personnel Management suffer a data breach in 2015, when Chinese hackers stole about 21.5 million records of government employees that included Social Security numbers, fingerprints and addresses.

Pfizer Quietly Changes Anti-White Scholarship Requirements after Lawsuit

(Dmytro “Henry” Aleksandrov, Headline USA) Big Pharma giant Pfizer changed the application requirements for one of its fellowships after a nonprofit group filed a lawsuit, stating that the fellowship was racist toward white and Asian people.

Before the lawsuit, the “Breakthrough Fellowship Program” allowed only “Black/African American, Latino/Hispanic, and Native American” students to apply, with the winner getting an opportunity to take numerous internships, earn a master’s degree that is fully funded by the company and sell your soul by working for several years at Pfizer, according to the Daily Signal.

In September, Do No Harm, a medical watchdog group that says it seeks to “protect health care from a radical, divisive, and discriminatory ideology,” filed a lawsuit saying the fellowship discriminates against qualified white and Asian applicants, with Asian applicants being discriminated only by coincidence since they are outperforming any other race group in the academic world.

A leftist federal judge dismissed the lawsuit in December, saying that Do No Harm did not have standing to bring the suit, even though Pfizer violated Title VI of the 1965 Civil Rights Act, which bans racial discrimination in any program receiving federal assistance, by implementing these kinds of racist requirements.

Do No Harm filed an appeal and Pfizer, to avoid even more scandal, has since then quietly changed the requirements.

“You are eligible to apply for the Breakthrough Fellowship Program, regardless of whether you are of Black/African American, Latino/Hispanic, or Native American descent,” the application form now states.

The nonprofit responded to the recent change in application requirements.

“Do No Harm is pleased that Pfizer recognizes its blatant racial discrimination is unlawful and immoral,” Do No Harm board Chairman Dr. Stanley Goldfarb said. “It is important to recognize that this significant change was made only after Do No Harm’s lawsuit, and only because Pfizer knows its fellowship is in jeopardy on appeal.”

When the nonprofit filed the lawsuit, the fellowship’s website also said the program “works to advance students and early-career colleagues of Black/African American, Latino/Hispanic and Native American descent with a goal of developing 100 fellows by 2025.”

“We remain committed to the goals of the Breakthrough Fellowship Program, which is designed to cultivate a pipeline of diverse talent at Pfizer,” a company’s spokesperson said. “We believe that the support of a broad coalition committed to [diversity, equity, and inclusion] strengthens our ability to meet these goals.”

Kyle Rittenhouse’s Antifa-Linked Assailant Sues for Getting Shot

(Adrienne Ferguson, Headline USA) An Antifa-linked protestor who was shot during the mayhem, looting and vandalism that erupted during 2020 in Kenosha, Wisconsin, has filed a lawsuit against Kyle Rittenhouse, an Illinois resident who in self-defense shot three people, killing two, during the violent riots.

A lawsuit was submitted earlier this month in the U.S. District Court for the District of Eastern Wisconsin by Gaige Grosskreutz, one of the individuals Rittenhouse shot. Rittenhouse was found not guilty of all charges that were filed.

Rittenhouse, former Kenosha County Sheriff David Beth, and former Kenosha Police Chief Daniel Miskinis are named as defendants in the lawsuit acquired by CBS 58, according to Grosskreutz. The county and city of Kenosha, as well as other counties and municipalities that sent personnel to Kenosha during the violence that followed riots after Jacob Blake, a black man, was shot by a white Kenosha police officer, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down, are also named as defendants.

In November 2021, Rittenhouse was found not guilty of all counts related to the shootings that claimed the lives of Anthony Huber and Joseph Rosenbaum and injured Grosskreutz.
“[Gaige Grosskreutz] must live with the physical and emotional wounds inflicted by Defendant Rittenhouse and the Defendants who deputized and enabled him,” the lawsuit noted.

According to the lawsuit, law enforcement failed to take action when the wrongful acts occurred and could have been stopped with reasonable care but they “neglected to prevent or aid in preventing these wrongful acts.”

The complaint asks for financial compensation for “emotional distress, humiliation, loss of enjoyment of life, and other pain and suffering” in the form of economic damages.

In reaction to the lawsuit, Rittenhouse tweeted, “This lawsuit is an effort to drown anyone who legally and justifiably defends there [sic] lives from attackers in a mountain of legal debt. We cannot allow them to triumph. They’ll go after you if they can go after me.”

The family of Anthony Huber, who was one of the individuals killed in self-defense by Rittenhouse, has filed another lawsuit against Rittenhouse.

A federal court decided earlier this month that the civil rights case against Rittenhouse, the city of Kenosha, and Kenosha police officers could proceed.