(Maire Clayton, Headline USA) John Oliver, host of HBO’s Last Week Tonight host attacked Lee Greenwood’s patriotic “God Bless the U.S.A.” during his show on Sunday and attempted to offer an alternative version starring former Saturday Night Live actor Will Ferrell.
Greenwood’s 1983 hit—which was used at the following year’s Republican National Convention to introduce then-President Ronald Reagan—has now become the preferred theme music for GOP nominee Donald Trump when taking the state at his rallies.
The British-born Oliver recalled hearing Greenwood’s tune while he became a U.S. citizen in 2019 and decided to bash the singer for accepting a $700 annual fee for the use of his song in the ceremonies.
“While Lee Greenwood has repeatedly claimed his song is apolitical, he definitely isn’t,” Oliver said, before turning his venom toward the 82-year-old Greenwood.
“Not only will we not charge the government $700 a year for it—we’re not assholes,” Oliver said. “We’ll actually pay them $700 a year.”
Greenwood previously recorded a variation of the classic tune for Canada, which Oliver stated “should never again be played at citizenship ceremonies because they deserve one genuinely unique to this country.”
Oliver claimed Ferrell was a “real American treasure” and showed the video featuring the Anchorman actor dressed in western attire as he exited a bar in a seemingly small town in the U.S.
Ferrell, who has actively campaigned for Vice President Kamala Harris, faced criticism over a recent publicity stunt in which he disrupted patrons at a Texas steakhouse by attempting to get them to offer a toast to transgenderism.
His parody of Greenwood featured a list of stereotypical American things, ranging from “corn dogs and apple pie” to “NASCAR, rodeo, barbecue.”
“That stuff’s American, now so are you,” he crooned.
Ferrell added that the U.S. is “a real big country with real big problems.”
John Oliver is sick of Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the U.S.A." being played at U.S. naturalization ceremonies, so he created an alternative—with help from Will Ferrell. pic.twitter.com/UnW7hFBVoS
“[When] you think about, what are you looking for in somebody you hire, you’re looking for somebody that you can trust, you’re looking for somebody who’s going to be responsible, who’s going to operate in good faith,” Cheney told the Detroit Economic Club on Oct. 22.
But new evidence has emerged suggesting that Cheney may have unethically influenced crucial anti-Trump testimony while serving as vice chairman of House Democrats’ Jan. 6 committee, which investigated the protest at the U.S. Capitol in 2021.
At issue is Cheney’s collaboration with Cassidy Hutchinson, now 27, a former aide to then-Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. Hutchinson, who also is campaigning for Harris, is widely considered the committee’s “star” witness for her damning account of Trump’s alleged conduct on Jan. 6.
For nearly two hours during her June 28, 2022, televised appearance, Hutchinson explained her version of what happened before and after Trump’s speech at the Ellipse as the White House scrambled to respond to the escalating chaos at the Capitol.
Draft of tweet Cassidy Hutchinson testified is in her handwriting. / House Administration Subcommittee
In one of the more explosive moments of that hearing, Cheney held up the handwritten draft of a tweet for President Donald Trump to post instructing protestors to disperse from the area.
Cheney asked Hutchison if she had written the tweet, which was never posted.
“That’s my handwriting,” replied Hutchinson, who said the words had been dictated to her by Meadows that afternoon around 3 p.m.
A footnote in the committee’s final report stated that a “review of Hutchinson’s handwriting was consistent with the script of the note.”
The import of the testimony was clear: Hutchinson was not only an eyewitness but a key participant as events unfolded that day.
But a certified handwriting analyst retained by Rep. Barry Loudermilk, R-Ga., chairman of the House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight, determined that Hutchinson did not write the note.
The handwriting, according to the expert, belongs to Eric Herschmann, a Trump White House lawyer who had immediately contradicted Hutchinson’s testimony in 2022 and later provided several samples of his own handwriting to Loudermilk’s analyst.
Hutchinson handwriting sample used by analyst for comparison. / House Administration Subcommittee
“The Select Committee was willing to take [Hutchinson] at her word, rather than checking into the facts. The American people deserve the truth,” Loudermilk said.
Hutchinson’s attorney did not respond to a request for comment. Cheney could not be reached for comment.
This latest disclosure by Loudermilk—who is conducting separate inquiries into the events of Jan. 6 and the now defunct J6 committee—appears to represent another example of Cheney’s questionable involvement on the committee, particularly related to Hutchinson.
Loudermilk unearthed text messages on an encrypted chat app between Cheney and Hutchinson prior to her public testimony, which represented the fifth time Hutchinson testified before the committee; she had already sat for transcribed interviews in February, March, May, and on June 20, 2022.
On June 6, 2022, Hutchinson texted Cheney using Signal, asking “to have a private conversation with you,” according to information released by the House Administration Subcommittee on Oversight. They were connected by Alyssa Farah Griffin, a one-time co-worker of Hutchinson and also a witness before the committee who now appears on The View.
The texts appear to indicate Cheney and Hutchinson spoke on the phone shortly after that initial outreach.
Hutchinson dismissed her attorney at the time, former White House deputy general counsel Stefan Passantino, a few days later.
Passantino had represented Hutchinson and was paid to do so by Trump’s Save America PAC. Two Cheney-recommended lawyers, Jody Hunt and William Jordan, soon agreed to represent Hutchinson pro bono.
Cheney, a lawyer who is a member of the Washington D.C. bar, appeared to know her communications violated ethics guidelines about communicating with witnesses behind their lawyer’s back. A text from Farah Griffin to Hutchinson acknowledged a “concern” that Cheney “can’t really ethically talk to you without [Passantino.]”
Text messages between Liz Cheney and Hutchinson. / House Administration Subcommittee
But Hutchinson did more than just change lawyers; in several instances, she changed her story from her previous testimony.
During her televised testimony, which committee staffers later described as an “emergency” event initiated by Cheney, Hutchinson re-enacted an alleged confrontation between Trump, his driver, and the head of his security detail in the presidential vehicle following his speech at the Ellipse.
Under questioning led by Cheney, Hutchinson said Trump became “irate” upon being told it was not safe to go to the Capitol after he advised his supporters to march there “peacefully and patriotically.”
Trump, according to Hutchinson’s second-hand account, attempted to grab the steering wheel of the vehicle.
“Mr. Trump then used his free hand to lunge toward [Head of Security] Bobby Engel,” Hutchinson said as she recounted a conversation she purportedly had with Tony Ornato, the deputy White House chief of staff at the time, after the incident.
Her testimony rocked the political world, with legal analysts from across the spectrum insisting that the story would doom Trump.
Others expressed skepticism, prompting Cheney to defend her witness.
“I am absolutely confident in her credibility, I am confident in her testimony, and the committee is not going to stand by and watch her character be assassinated by anonymous sources,” Cheney told ABC News correspondent Jonathan Karl on June 30, 2022.
But no one in the White House corroborated Hutchinson’s version of events. To the contrary, Ornato said the first time he heard of any confrontation in the presidential vehicle was during Hutchinson’s testimony.
“I recall, that day after Ms. Hutchinson’s testimony, going to the Secret Service Counsel and being in his office and then the Secret Service spokesperson asking me about my recollection was of that story,” Ornato told Cheney, who asked about the incident. “And I relayed that that is not a story I recollect and I don’t recall that story happening.”
During the committee’s questioning of the unnamed Secret Service driver, investigators didn’t ask about the alleged incident.
The subject was discussed only after the driver’s attorney “proactively” brought it up, according to a report by Loudermilk’s committee, prompting the driver to tell the committee that “[President Trump] never grabbed the steering wheel. [President Trump] never grabbed the steering wheel. I didn’t see him, you know, lunge to try to get into the front seat at all.”
The driver’s transcript, in addition to hundreds of witness interviews conducted by the J6 committee, still has not been made public.
Hutchinson went on to testify twice more behind closed doors in September 2022 as her stories continued to change.
In fact, her attorneys filed a 15-page errata sheet that same month to significantly revise her earlier testimony.
The document not only added the allegations related to the incident in the presidential vehicle but also claimed Hutchinson had heard about the presence of dangerous weapons at the Capitol, including firearms—something she said she had not heard during earlier testimony—and that she heard chants of “Hang Mike Pence” on the television in the president’s dining room to suggest he was aware protesters were threatening his vice president.
She also reiterated her authorship of the Meadows’s note.
“These newly released texts are more evidence that Liz Cheney’s J6 Committee was not interested in the truth, only in promoting their predetermined political narrative,” Loudermilk told RCI on Monday.
“Not only did Cheney use Alyssa Farah Griffin to covertly communicate with Hutchinson, but she also directly communicated with Hutchinson about the sensational new claims that Pres. Trump was to blame for all that happened on January 6,” he added.
While her role as the committee’s star witness has been a lucrative endeavor for Hutchinson—who earned a book deal from Simon & Schuster, which published three Cheney family titles, and speaking arrangements—the same cannot be said for Stefan Passantino, her first lawyer.
Last year, Passantino, who headed the White House ethics office under Trump during the first half of his administration, filed a $67 million lawsuit against the federal government, accusing the committee of violating his privacy and causing “significant economic, reputational, and emotional harm.”
Passantino accused Cheney and her general counsel, Dan George, of attempting to set up a “sting” operation “seeking to induce Mr. Passantino to obstruct Congress during a third interview of Ms. Hutchinson” in May 2022.
Leaks to the news media with selected portions of Hutchinson’s testimony attempted to portray Passantino as advising his client to mislead the committee.
A December 2022 CNN “exclusive” report claimed Passantino told Hutchinson to “tell the committee that she did not recall details that she did” and suggested the matter had been referred to the Department of Justice. The committee’s final report also contained the unsubstantiated allegations.
CNN’s story seeded dozens of follow-ups, including an article at the student-run newspaper of Passantino’s law school alma mater, Emory University; and articles at MSNBC, the New York Times and CBS News.
The bad press resulted in Passantino’s firing by an Atlanta law firm and two separate bar complaints against him in both Georgia and Washington, D.C. Both were dismissed.
But other text messages between Hutchinson and Farah Griffin appear to support Passantino’s claims that he did not interfere in the investigation.
A text chain between the women in May 2022 in preparation for Hutchinson’s testimony later that month shows Hutchinson telling Farah Griffin that “[Passantino] isn’t against me complying.”
As the discussion continued, Hutchinson reiterated that Passantino advised her to cooperate with the committee. “He doesn’t want me to stonewall the committee,” she told Farah Griffin.
Testifying a third time, Hutchinson said Passantino advised, “builds my credibility as a witness.”
Passantino, now partner of his own firm in Atlanta, considers the texts an exoneration of the allegations against him.
Passantino has filed suit against Cheney, the Jan. 6 committee, and others for damage to his personal and professional reputation.
“When I first filed suit against Congress to hold Liz Cheney and the January 6 committee accountable for the damage done to my family, my reputation, and my career 18 months ago, I knew we had the facts to support our complaint,” Passantino told RealClearInvestigations last week. “I was less than confident, however, that the documents supporting my claims had not been destroyed or would ever see the light of the day.”
Fortunately for Passantino, his former client opted once more to switch her allegiances as political tradewinds began to blow in the opposite direction.
“It appears … that Cassidy Hutchinson captured screenshots of her encrypted communications with Liz Cheney and turned them over to Chairman Loudermilk,” Passantino said. “The tip of the iceberg appears to have crested the waterline.”
Passantino also filed a defamation lawsuit against former DOJ prosecutor and MSNBC legal analyst Andrew Weissmann for posting a tweet in September 2023 that accused Passantino of “coach[ing] her to lie.”
Earlier this month, a federal judge allowed the case to move forward.
Proof of the backchannel communications also prompted a Washington, D.C., bar complaint last week against Cheney.
In the complaint, Cheney is accused of violating a D.C. bar rule that prohibits a lawyer from communicating with “a person known to be represented by another lawyer in the matter, unless the lawyer has the prior consent of the lawyer representing such other person or is authorized by law or a court order to do so.”
(Headline USA) An investigation by French newspaper Le Monde found that the highly confidential movements of U.S. President Joe Biden, presidential rivals Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, and other world leaders can be easily tracked online through a fitness app that their bodyguards use.
But the U.S. Secret Service told the newspaper that it doesn’t believe the protection it provides was in any way compromised.
Le Monde found that some U.S. Secret Service agents use the Strava fitness app, including in recent weeks after two assassination attempts on Trump, in a video investigation released in French and in English.
Strava is a fitness tracking app primarily used by runners and cyclists to record their activities and share their workouts with a community.
Le Monde also found Strava users among the security staff for French President Emmanuel Macron and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
In one example, Le Monde traced the Strava movements of Macron’s bodyguards to determine that the French leader spent a weekend in the Normandy seaside resort of Honfleur in 2021.
The trip was meant to be private and wasn’t listed on the president’s official agenda.
Le Monde said the whereabouts of Melania Trump and Jill Biden could also be pinpointed by tracking their bodyguards’ Strava profiles.
In a statement to Le Monde, the U.S. Secret Service said its staff aren’t allowed to use personal electronic devices while on duty during protective assignments but “we do not prohibit an employee’s personal use of social media off-duty.”
“Affected personnel has been notified,” it said. “We will review this information to determine if any additional training or guidance is required.”
“We do not assess that there were any impacts to protective operations or threats to any protectees,” it added. Locations “are regularly disclosed as part of public schedule releases.”
In another example, Le Monde reported that a U.S. Secret Service agent’s Strava profile revealed the location of a hotel where Biden subsequently stayed in San Francisco for high-stakes talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2023.
A few hours before Biden’s arrival, the agent went jogging from the hotel, using Strava which traced his route, the newspaper found.
The newspaper’s journalists say they identified 26 U.S. agents, 12 members of the French GSPR, the Security Group of the Presidency of the Republic, and six members of the Russian FSO, or Federal Protection Service, all of them in charge of presidential security, who had public accounts on Strava and were therefore communicating their movements online, including during professional trips.
Le Monde did not identify the bodyguards by name for security reasons.
It said movements trackable on Strava could lead to security breaches, especially when security agents travel in advance to places like hotels where leaders then stay and hold meetings.
Macron’s office said Monday that the consequences of the issues reported by Le Monde “are very slight and in no way affect the security of the President of the Republic.”
Local authorities are aware of Macron’s movements ahead of time and the places where Macron is staying are always fully secure, “so the risk is non-existent,” the statement said.
“A reminder was nevertheless issued to agents by the chief of staff asking them not to use this app,” Macron’s office added.
The Harris campaign deferred comment on the security issue to federal officials.
In response to questions posed to the Trump campaign, a spokesperson for the Republican National Committee repeated some of its criticisms of the Biden administration but did not address the vulnerability or how the campaign has responded.
The security risks associated with fitness apps show the need for better regulations on how tech companies can use consumer data, according to Ibrahim Baggili, a computer scientist and professor of cybersecurity at Louisiana State University.
Baggili’s research has exposed how bad actors could use fitness app data to track potential victims—creating risks for stalking, robbery and other crimes.
Consumers often grant app developers the right to use or sell their data when they agree to the terms of service, Baggili said.
“Companies love our data, and we love the product, so we give away the data for free,” he said. “The government really needs to start cracking down on how data can be used and how long it can be retained.”
Identifying the presidential bodyguards—some of them using their full name on Strava—could also help in finding other details about their personal addresses, their families, their movements, and photos they posted on various social media, all of which could possibly be used to put pressure on them for malicious purposes, the report stressed.
(Ken Silva, Headline USA) The House Oversight Committee has released a Department of Homeland Security whistleblower disclosure, which warned that the Chinese Communist Party was targeting vice presidential candidate Tim Walz as a potential asset.
Oversight Chair James Comer, R-Ky., included the whistleblower disclosure in a letter to DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Tuesday. The DHS disclosure released by Comer is a Microsoft Teams group chat, which was sent the day Walz was tapped as Harris’s running mate. The message warns that Harris’s pick “feeds into what [China] has been doing here with him and local gov.”
“It’s seriously a line of the intel. Target someone who is perceived they can get to DC,” the message warned.
🚨 WHISTLEBLOWER DISCLOSURES ABOUT WALZ’S CCP TIES 🚨
Because of DHS’s lack of compliance with our legal subpoena and unwillingness to cooperate in good faith, @RepJamesComer is releasing a small portion of the Department’s internal communications received from a whistleblower… pic.twitter.com/Gu3AQ4qP3R
Comer said he felt compelled to release the text message after Mayorkas stonewalled his request for DHS records about Walz’s links to the CCP.
“Because of DHS’s lack of compliance with the Committee’s legal subpoena and unwillingness to cooperate in good faith, the Committee is releasing a small portion of the Department’s internal communications it received from a whistleblower. The information shows DHS officials with subject matter expertise discussing, on the same day Vice President Kamala Harris selected Governor Walz as her running mate, the CCP’s targeting of Governor Walz,” Comer said.
“The Committee is releasing the above message as an example of communications within DHS’s possession in which DHS officials express concern about the CCP targeting politicians and their influence operations at the state and local levels—and specifically, concerns about the CCP’s influence operations as they relate to Governor Walz.”
Comer reiterated to Mayorkas that he expects a “prompt response” to his committee’s subpoena, which was issued in August.
Meanwhile, the FBI is also stonewalling the House Oversight investigation.
“The FBI’s silence regarding Mr. Walz’s documented relations with CCP affiliates is inexcusable,” Comer said last month in a letter to FBI Director Chris Wray.
“The Committee must understand the full extent of Mr. Walz’s ties to the CCP.”
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
(Ken Silva, Headline USA) A whistleblower has reportedly made stunning allegations that the FBI conducted an off-the-books operation against Donald Trump in 2015—infiltrating his staff with at least two female undercover agents that acted as “honey pots” while on the campaign trail.
The whistleblower allegation, first reported by the Washington Times, is reportedly being reviewed by the House Judiciary Committee. Neither the FBI nor its then-director James Comey responded to media inquiries before the Times published its report. The Times did not endeavor to explain why the whistleblower disclosure is only being made now, more than nine years after the fact and six days ahead of a major election.
According to the Times, Comey personally approved the off-the-books operation.
EXCLUSIVE: Whistleblower: James Comey had FBI 'honey pot' spies infiltrate Trump's 2016 campaign – https://t.co/RWMSFTYNZd – @washtimes
The whistleblower disclosure reportedly said that two female FBI undercover agents successfully infiltrated Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign at high levels and were directed to act as “honey pots” while traveling with Mr. Trump and his campaign staff on the trail.
“The off-the-books investigation did not appear to target a specific crime but was more of what agents would describe as a fishing expedition to find something incriminating about Mr. Trump,” the Times reported Tuesday.
The whistleblower reportedly alleged that the off-the-books investigation “had no predicated foundation, so Mr. Comey personally directed the investigation without creating an official case file in Sentinel or any other FBI system.”
According to the whistleblower, the female undercovers targets included Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos, who eventually pled guilty to of making false statements to the FBI in October 2017 as part of the bureau’s Russia investigation.
According to the Times, the FBI closed its off-the-books honey pot operation after a newspaper obtained a photograph of one of the undercover agents and was about to publish it.
“The FBI Press Office, according to the agent’s disclosure, misled the newspaper by claiming the photograph was of an FBI informant, not an undercover agent. The FBI said that the informant would be killed if the photograph was published,” the Times reported.
“Additionally, the FBI employee alleged that one of the undercover agents agreed to be transferred to the CIA so that she would not be available as a potential witness, and another bureau employee involved in the operation was rewarded for her activities with a promotion and now is a high-level FBI executive,” the Times added.
The Times concluded its article by reporting that the whistleblower observed FBI employees being directed to “never discuss the operation with anyone ever again.”
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
Routh had sought Cannon’s recusal for several reasons, including that she was appointed to her position by Routh’s alleged victim, Donald Trump; she made rulings favorable to Trump in the Justice Department’s classified documents case against him; and she went to high school with one of Routh’s prosecutors.
Cannon said her appointment by Trump was not a sufficient reason for recusal.
“I have never spoken to or met former President Trump except in connection with his required presence at an official judicial proceeding, through counsel. I have no ‘relationship to the alleged victim’ in any reasonable sense of the phrase,” she said.
🚨BREAKING🚨Judge Aileen Cannon just denied alleged Trump assassin Ryan Routh's motion for her to recuse herself from the case.
Cannon: "I have never spoken to or met former President Trump except in connection with his required presence at an official judicial proceeding,… pic.twitter.com/GwFDxx7LyR
“I follow my oath to administer justice faithfully and impartially, in accordance with the Constitution and the laws of this country. And Defendant has identified no practice, much less an established practice, warranting a judge’s recusal because a party, witness, or alleged victim in a judicial proceeding makes public statements—positive or negative—about a judge who lacks any control over such statements.”
Cannon made similar comments about her relationship with one of the prosecutors on the case, Christopher Browne of the DOJ’s National Security Section in Miami. Routh’s attorneys disclosed last week that the two went to school together, and that Cannon attended Browne’s wedding some nine years ago.
However, Cannon said she hasn’t spoken to Browne in years, denying that the two are close friends.
“I maintained a professional friendship with the stated prosecutor during my time as a prosecutor (2013–2020), as I did with other colleagues within the United States Attorneys’ Office. As part of that professional friendship, I attended his wedding nearly a decade ago,” she said.
“I maintain no ongoing personal relationship with the prosecutor, nor have I communicated with him in years. In short, my personal friendship years ago with the prosecutor has no bearing or influence whatsoever on my impartial handling of this case or any other case in which he may appear as counsel of record,” she added.
Meanwhile, the parties are set to meet by Thursday to discuss a dispute they have over the scope of the protective order that prosecutors want to place on evidence in the case. DOJ seeks to keep all evidence secret, while Routh’s attorneys said such restrictions would violate his constitutional rights.
For more on that dispute, read here.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
Another ballot box in nearby Portland, Ore., was also set on fire after someone placed an “incendiary device” on the outside of the drop box, according to the Portland Police Bureau.
It had been nearly two full days since the last ballot pick up in Vancouver, Washington, according to local news outlet KATU.
The box is in the 3rd Congressional District where Republican Joe Kent is running against Democrat Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez.
The Associated Press considers the election a swing race.
Video posted by reporter Evan Bell showed workers trying to take burning ballots out of the box.
The Clark County Elections ballot drop box at the Fisher's Landing Transit Center was lit on fire this morning. Clark Co. Auditor Greg Kimsey says hundreds of ballots were inside at the time, the last pickup being 11AM Saturday. Full story here https://t.co/sYkz8ydEqH@KATUNewspic.twitter.com/a8vw0QXXoY
Clark County Auditor Greg Kimsey told the news outlet “hundreds of ballots were inside at the time,” according to KATU’s paraphrase. Voters can check the status of their ballot and determine if they need a replacement one.
The FBI is currently investigating the attacks in Vancouver and Portland, according to NBC News. The two cities are only a 15-minute drive apart, and law enforcement believes the incidents are related.
Law enforcement announced they had photos of the suspected vehicle and were seeking more information.
“We don’t know the motive behind these acts,” Assistant Chief Amanda McMillan said in a news release.
“We do know acts like this are targeted, and they’re intentional, and we’re concerned about that intentional act trying to impact the election process,” she added. “We’re dedicated to stopping this kind of behavior.”
Nonetheless, suspicions centered around the domestic terrorist group Antifa, which has openly engaged in similar acts of destruction in the past.
⚠️ Ballot Box at 3510 S.E. 164th Ave in Vancouver, Washington, in Clark County set on fire.. Most ballots were destroyed.
This is not the only time that ballot boxes have been targeted for vandalism. In 2020, law enforcement charged a man with burning a ballot box in Boston, Mass.
The use of ballot boxes has also come under scrutiny for the possibility of fraud—as even some Democrats have acknowledged problems.
Meanwhile, some Democratic officials have tried to stop election integrity efforts to allow the monitoring of ballot drop boxes.
(Ken Silva, Headline USA) FBI Special Agent Clarke G. Burns helped arrest multiple Jan. 6 protestors, and was most recently seen stalking J6er William Pope as he toured the U.S. Capitol in preparation for his upcoming trial.
Burns is also a prolific donor to the Democratic Party and the anti-Trump Lincoln Project, according to The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project.
“Burns has made 152 political donations totaling $7,137.28, mostly through the ActBlue fundraising platform,” The Daily Signal reported Monday, citing the Oversight Project.
🚨Lincoln Project's FBI Agent🚨
This is FBI Special Agent Clarke Burns.
He is aggressively working misdemeanor January 6 cases.
According to the Oversight Project, nine of Burns’ donations, totaling $950, were to Biden’s 2020 campaign.
“Burns also contributed to the 2020 primary presidential campaign of Pete Buttigieg, former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, who became Biden’s transportation secretary,” The Daily Signal reported.
“The FBI agent made six donations totaling $1,000 to The Lincoln Project, the anti-Trump PAC. He made one of the donations four days after the events of Jan. 6, Heritage’s Oversight Project discovered. Burns also made several donations to Democratic congressional candidates.”
Burns is apparently secretive about his donations. He reportedly listed his employer as the U.S. government, but didn’t mention the FBI. He also called himself a “fact finder” as opposed to a special agent.
According to Pope, Burns followed him on his recent walk through the Capitol.
“This guy tried to stare me down before my recent Capitol tour even began, and he would swoop in behind me to try and read my private legal notes whenever I started writing. It’s interesting that he donates big money to Democrats. But more concerning how he behaves on the job,” Pope said.
By the way, the government freaked out about me pointing out this agent's behavior, and they filed an intense letter under seal. My judge brushed it off during my 10/23/24 hearing, and the transcripts will provide details. The DOJ hates me exercising First Amendment rights on X.
“By the way, the government freaked out about me pointing out this agent’s behavior, and they filed an intense letter under seal. My judge brushed it off during my 10/23/24 hearing, and the transcripts will provide details. The DOJ hates me exercising First Amendment rights on X,” Pope added.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
(Headline USA) Longtime Donald Trump ally Steve Bannon was released from prison early Tuesday, after serving a four-month sentence for defying a subpoena from the Jan. 6 Commission.
Bannon left the Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury, Connecticut, according to Kristie Breshears, a spokesperson for the federal Bureau of Prisons.
He planned to hold a news conference later in the day in Manhattan, his representatives said.
Bannon also returned to his podcast and online show Tuesday morning, saying he was focused on helping Trump win the presidential election.
He bashed Democrats and their agenda, asserting that former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sent him to prison to silence his voice.
“The four months in federal prison not only didn’t break me, it empowered me,” Bannon said. “I am more energized and more focused than I’ve ever been in my entire life.”
STEVE BANNON IS BACK, and his return monologue is insanely powerful.
"The four months in federal prison not only didn't break me, it empowered me. I am more energized and more focused than I've ever been in my entire life."
Bannon, 70, reported to the prison July 1 after the Supreme Court rejected his bid to delay the prison sentence while he appeals his conviction.
A jury found Bannon guilty in 2022 of two counts of contempt of Congress: one for refusing to sit for a deposition with the Jan. 6 House Committee and a second for refusing to provide documents related to his involvement Trump’s efforts to overturn his loss to Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential race.
When he began serving his sentence in July, Bannon called himself a “political prisoner.”
“I am proud of going to prison,” he said at the time, adding that he was standing up Attorney General Merrick Garland and a “corrupt” Justice Department.
Trump is seeking to regain the presidency in next week’s election against Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.
A federal appeals court panel upheld Bannon’s convictions in May.
Bannon is now asking the full appeals court to hear his case. His legal team had argued that the congressional subpoena was invalid because Trump had asserted executive privilege.
Prosecutors, though, say Bannon had left the White House years before and Trump had never invoked executive privilege in front of the committee.
Bannon faces additional criminal charges in New York state court, alleging he duped donors who gave money to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Bannon has pleaded not guilty to money laundering, conspiracy, fraud and other charges.
A trial in that case is scheduled to begin in December.
(Mike Maharrey, Money Metals News Service) The universe seems to know the dollar is in trouble. During a recent news conference, a reporter asked Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, “How concerned are you about the potential impact of the dollar’s status as the world reserve currency?”
In simple terms, the U.S. and its allies have used the dollar as a hammer in attempts to bend other countries to its foreign policy will. This is most evident in the aggressive sanctioning of Russia, including locking the country out of the SWIFT payment system in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine.
As an Atlantic Council report put it, “In recent years, and especially since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the Group of Seven (G7)’s subsequent escalation in the use of financial sanctions, some countries have been signaling their intention to diversify away from dollars.”
Whether you think the sanctions were justified or not, it’s important to remember that other countries are watching how the U.S. behaves. They realize that dependence on dollars makes them vulnerable to U.S. meddling, and this is one of the reasons many countries are trying to diversify away from USD.
Think about it — if you are concerned that the U.S. could pull the “dollar rug” out from under you, why not get that rug out of your living room before that can happen?
This appears to be what is slowly happening.
According to a 2023 Invesco survey, a “substantial percentage” of central banks expressed concern about how the U.S. and its allies froze nearly half of Russia’s $650 billion gold and forex reserves.
Second, U.S. fiscal irresponsibility is eroding global confidence in the dollar.
After all, if the U.S. is going to keep printing money and devaluing the dollar, why would you want to hold them? Furthermore, America’s incessant borrowing and spending is undermining its credibility as a good credit risk.
This is the kind of borrowing and spending one would expect during an economic crisis. The only bigger annual budget deficits both occurred during the COVID lockdown era. And yet here we are, in what is supposed to be a “robust” economy, with a crisis-like budget deficit.
Meanwhile, Uncle Sam paid $1.13 trillion in interest expense in fiscal 2023. It was the first time interest expense has ever eclipsed $1 trillion. The federal government paid more for interest expenses than it did for national defense or Medicare!
This doesn’t exactly scream “trustworthy borrower.”
If the United States continues to borrow and spend at this irresponsible level, eventually countries will stop lending it money.
The U.S. has benefited tremendously from the privilege of issuing the reserve currency. Because the world needs dollars, the U.S. has been able to print money with minimal consequences. Global demand for dollars soaks up a lot of the excess. This has allowed the federal government to borrow and spend at a far higher rate than it otherwise could have. This supports the massive welfare and warfare states.
A de-dollarization of the world economy would cause the value of the U.S. currency to crash and likely spark a currency crisis. This would further erode the purchasing power of the dollar and drive prices even higher. It could even lead to hyperinflation.
Even a modest decrease in the use of the dollar could begin to undermine the strength of the currency. This could lead to a downward spiral with dollar weakness further undermining confidence in the greenback.
The dollar is in trouble. You know it. I know it. And apparently, the universe knows it.
