Chief Justice John Roberts was the only dissenter in the U.S Supreme Court’s most recent ruling favoring a couple of Christian students who challenged their university for restricting when, where, and how they could speak about their faith and disseminate materials on campus.
Today's 8-1 decision in Uzuegbunam v. Preczewski marks the first time Chief Justice John Roberts has ever been the sole dissenting justice during his entire tenure. https://t.co/6Ux9HvXiDL
Uzuegbunam et al. v. Preczewski et al. first materialized after Chike Uzuegbunam, a student at Georgia Gwinnett College, was stopped by campus police for handing out religious materials on campus, a reported violation of the school’s “Freedom of Expression Policy,” which limited distributions and other expressions to free speech zones only with permission from the administration. Even after Uzuegbunam moved to the designated areas with permission, however, campus police attempted to stop him from speaking and handing out religious literature, prompting him and another student, Joseph Bradford, to take legal action against the university for violating their First and 14th Amendment rights and seek nominal damages.
The students’ attempts to sue the school, however, were shot down by both a district court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit after Georgia Gwinnett College changed its “Freedom of Expression” policy to remove barriers on when and where students could speak on campus and filed a motion to dismiss the case as moot. The Supreme Court took up the case after Uzuegbunam and Bradford noted that their rights were still violated no matter what the university modified its policy to reflect and still required a ruling on nominal damages.
Justice Clarence Thomas authored the opinion of the court, agreeing with the students’ case.
“Applying this principle here is straightforward. For purposes of this appeal, it is undisputed that Uzuegbunam experienced a completed violation of his constitutional rights when respondents enforced their speech policies against him. Because ‘every violation [of a right] imports damage,’ Webb, 29 F. Cas., at 509, nominal damages can redress Uzuegbunam’s injury even if he cannot or chooses not to quantify that harm in economic terms,” Thomas concluded.
Roberts, however, in his first solo dissent, wrote that the court was acting as “a moot court” in deciding this case and their ruling.
“When plaintiffs like Uzuegbunam and Bradford allege neither actual damages nor the prospect of future injury, an award of nominal damages does not change their status or condition at all. Such an award instead represents a judicial determination that the plaintiffs’ interpretation of the law is correct — nothing more,” Roberts stated.
The executive order, which remains in effect, mirrors Cuomo’s controversial nursing home order
As New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) faces articles of impeachment over covering up COVID-19 deaths in nursing homes and multiple allegations of sexual harassment, there is renewed scrutiny of his administration’s mishandling of the pandemic, including focus on an executive order that required homes for people with developmental disabilities to accept coronavirus patients.
Cuomo’s nursing home scandal, in which the governor issued an executive order to move COVID-19 patients from hospitals to nursing homes and then manipulated data to hide how many senior citizens contracted the coronavirus and died, is well documented. But another directive issued by the governor has until now received little attention.
The April 10 executive order, first highlighted by Maria McFadden Maffucci for National Review, directed residential group homes for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities to accept positive COVID-19 patients released by hospitals, just like the executive order for nursing homes. Cuomo’s nursing home order was eventually rescinded, but the order relating to homes for people with disabilities remains in effect. The results were tragic.
According to a study published in Disability and Health Journal in June and cited by McFadden Maffucci, New Yorkers with disabilities living in residential group homes were more than twice as likely to have severe outcomes and deaths from COVID-19. “Circumstances and decisions made early in the pandemic may have contributed to the higher case rate of people living with IDD in residential group homes. Those who tested positive for COVID-19 or who had presumed infection (during the time of limited testing availability) were required to return to their residential setting with instructions to sequester,” the study’s authors wrote.
Now, Fox News reports that 552 residents at homes for people with disabilities have died of COVID-19, according to the New York Office for People with Developmental Disabilities.
Additionally, more than 6,900 of the more than 34,552 people living in these homes have been infected with coronavirus.
“These group homes were required to have a process in place to expedite the return of asymptomatic residents from the hospital, who were deemed appropriate for return to their OPWDD certified residence,” an agency spokeswoman said. “In other words, OPWDD providers could accept individuals only if they could safely accommodate them in the group home.”
She added that people “who could not be safely accommodated either remained at the hospital or were served in one of the over 100 temporary sites established for COVID-19 recovery efforts in partnership with OPWDD provider agencies.”
New York State Republicans that gave statements to Fox News said they have begun investigating Cuomo’s directive and have requested updated data on COVID-19 deaths and infections among New York’s IDD community.
“I am deeply concerned that the April 10th order from OPWDD needlessly put some of our most vulnerable citizens in harm’s way. Close on the heels of the deadly nursing home order from the Department of Health (DOH), this order appears both dangerous and tone deaf. Transparency has been a major failing of this administration at all levels,” state Sen. Mike Martucci, a Republican signatory of the letter and ranking member of the Senate Disabilities Committee, said.
New York has prioritized people with disabilities living in group homes for vaccines and anyone with an intellectual and developmental disability has been eligible to receive a vaccine since Feb. 15.
The Republican National Committee (RNC) is insisting it has the right to use former President Donald Trump’s name and likeness in fundraising appeals, after Trump sent cease-and-desist letters to the committee.
In a March 8 letter obtained by The Epoch Times, the RNC’s chief counsel Justin Riemer told Trump’s Save America political action committee that the RNC “has every right to refer to public figures as it engages in core, First Amendment-protected political speech, and it will continue to do so in pursuit of these common goals.”
Riemer also said that Trump and RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel enjoy a close relationship, alleging the former president over the weekend reaffirmed to her that he approves of the RNC’s current use of his name in fundraising and other materials, including for an upcoming donor retreat event in Palm Beach in which Trump is slated to participate.
“The RNC has not sent any fundraising requests in President Trump’s name or used his image since before he left office, nor would it do so without his prior approval,” the lawyer wrote.
The Save America committee didn’t respond to a request for comment.
A Trump adviser told The Epoch Times that Trump sent cease-and-desist letters not only to the RNC, but also to the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee.
The letters demanded the groups stop using Trump’s name and likeness to raise funds.
Former President Donald Trump speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Fla., on Feb. 28, 2021. (Joe Skipper/Reuters)
The pressure on the groups is part of an intra-party struggle over who heads the GOP. A growing number of Republicans have publicly opposed the former president, including 17 who sided with Democrats in the latest impeachment saga.
Trump plans on supporting primary opponents to some sitting lawmakers, including Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), one of seven senators who voted to convict him on a charge of incitement of insurrection.
Trump was ultimately acquitted because 43 senators voted against the charge.
Trump urged supporters on Monday to stop giving money to so-called RINOs, or Republicans in Name Only.
“They do nothing but hurt the Republican Party and our great voting base—they will never lead us to Greatness. Send your donation to Save America PAC at DonaldJTrump.com. We will bring it all back stronger than ever before!” he said.
Trump told a crowd at the recent Conservative Political Action Conference that he opposes House Conference Chair Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) staying in office, before telling supporters to “get rid of” all the members of Congress who voted against him in the latest impeachment saga.
“I will be actively working to elect strong, tough, and smart Republican leaders,” Trump declared. “RINOs will destroy the Republican Party … and the American workers.”
Ivan Pentchoukov and Jack Phillips contributed to this report.Follow Zachary on Twitter: @zackstieber
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex sat down for a tell-all interview with Oprah Winfrey
Buckingham Palace issued a statement regarding the explosive interview between Meghan Markle, Prince Harry and Oprah Winfrey on Sunday.
“The whole family is saddened to learn the full extent of how challenging the last few years have been for Harry and Meghan,” a statement from the Palace provided to Fox News reads. “The issues raised, particularly that of race, are concerning. While some recollections may vary, they are taken very seriously and will be addressed by the family privately.”
The statement concludes: “Harry, Meghan and Archie will always be much loved family members.”
The statement comes after the royals faced some criticism over their silence on the matter following the interview’s broadcast in the U.S. on Sunday and the U.K. on Monday.
Representatives for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex had no comment when reached by Fox News.
During the televised tell-all, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex detailed how they were allegedly mistreated by Britain’s royal household, as well as “The Firm,” referring to senior members of the family.
Markle described feeling so isolated and miserable inside the royal family that she had had suicidal thoughts, yet when she asked for mental health help from the palace’s human resources staff she was told she was not an employee.
Markle also said a member of the family had expressed “concerns” to Harry about the color of her unborn child’s skin.
Winfrey, 67, later said Harry told her off-camera that the family member was not Elizabeth or Philip, sparking a flurry of speculation about who it could be.
Harry also revealed the stresses the couple endured had ruptured relations with his father, Prince Charles, heir to the British throne, and his brother, Prince William, illuminating the depth of the family divisions that led the couple to step away from royal duties and move to California last year.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex married at Windsor Castle in May 2018. Their son, Archie, was born a year later. During the interview, the couple shared they are expecting a girl due this summer.
CHD Chairman Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and author, journalist and former political advisor Naomi Wolf weigh in on the battle to maintain the rights put in place by our founding fathers.
In the latest episode of “TRUTH” with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Kennedy sat down with the iconic Naomi Wolf for a spirited discussion on abuse of power, standing up to tyranny and preserving our Constitution. Wolf explained how tyrants always follow the same predictable route in their attempts to bring democracies to a close and how she believes our society has reached “Step 10” of her “Fascism in 10 Easy Steps.”
Highlights of their conversation include:
We’re reaching a point reminiscent of what led to the American Revolution: People were willing to die rather than give up their rights.
The Constitution wasn’t written for easy times but for emergencies such as the current COVID crisis.
Arbitrary restrictions are being put in place by those abusing emergency powers at local, state and federal levels.
In a free society, points are made and arguments won through free speech and open debate rather than censoring opinions that differ from ours.
Authoritarianism has no place in medicine although most liberals are accepting edicts promoted by Dr. Fauci and Bill Gates.
There’s no science to back up the widespread suspension of our Constitutional rights.
Non-partisan grassroots efforts are gaining momentum and can preserve our freedom and prevent totalitarian takeover.
All “Truth” episodes can be found on Children’s Health Defense’s social media and on Children’s Health Defense’s channel found on Peeps TV, a network on Roku. Roku is accessible from any Smart TV and can be purchased separately for older TVs.
Shares of electric carmaker Tesla–last year’s best-performing S&P 500 stock—plunged to their lowest level in three months Monday as the broader market rallied—yet another sign the recently booming market for tech stocks could be over, once postpandemic spending drives growth into other industries.
KEY FACTS
While the Dow Jones industrial average rallied by more than 400 points Monday afternoon, Tesla stock fell as much as 6%, as momentum from the Saturday passage of President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion stimulus plan helped drive investors back into blue chips in cyclical industries (like General Electric, up 4%) and away from big tech firms.
Tesla shares are down 20% in the past week alone, after plunging 8% Thursday when billionaire money manager Ron Baron—a longtime Tesla bull who’s declared the stock could swell thirtyfold in his lifetime—told CNBC he made the “painful” decision to sell 1.8 million shares for “risk management.”
Though Baron reiterated that prices could rocket toward $2,000 over the next decade, he said the move helped reduce risk in his portfolios after Tesla’s nearly 20x increase since he started buying shares in 2014, echoing concerns among other experts over the stock’s heightened volatility.
The Tesla selloff steepened after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Thursday that inflation will rise as the economy recovers, a development that sent Treasury yields surging–and stocks tumbling.
“Higher yields tend to hit highfliers harder,” Ally Invest Chief Investment Strategist Lindsey Bell said in a Thursday note, adding: “That’s why we’ve seen stocks like Tesla and Peloton fall more than 30% this year.”
Concerns over rising rates have also hit high-flying ETF provider Ark Invest, which has soared in popularity amid tech’s dominance for its investments in “disruptive innovation” but is now facing double-digit percentage losses and growing investor outflows.
CRUCIAL QUOTE
“It’s been a brutal selloff for the electric-vehicle sector over the past month, which, along with tech stocks, have sold off markedly after a historic rally over the past year,” Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said in a note Monday. “The poster child for electric vehicle weakness the last few weeks has been Tesla,” he adds, attributing the firm’s “painful risk-off moment” to valuation concerns specific to electric vehicle companies (rival Nikola is down 9% this year), competition heating up in the industry, chip shortages and dwindling demand for the vehicles in China.
SURPRISING FACT
Tesla, which carries about 1.5% of the S&P 500’s weight, is the worst-performing top ten stock in the index on Monday. Other big underperformers include Apple and Alphabet—both down about 3%. Though it’s still up 365% over the past year, Tesla has plunged 35% since its high on January 26; over the same period, the S&P is virtually flat.
BIG NUMBER
$308 billion. That’s how much market value Tesla has lost since January 26, when the firm was worth about $848 billion. CEO and chairman Elon Musk is worth about $145 billion, according to Forbes.
TANGENT
In February, value stocks outperformed growth stocks like Tesla by the widest margin since the dot-com bubble burst in 2000, Bank of America said in a note to clients last Tuesday. Underperformance among growth stocks was led by the five biggest ones–Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook and Tesla–which fell an average of 5% last month.
KEY BACKGROUND
Markets have gotten a taste of yield-induced panic in recent weeks, with the Dow Jones industrial average plunging as much as 1,000 points in late February as yields hit a one-year high. Fed Governor Lael Brainard earlier this month became one of the first U.S. central bankers to express concerns over rising yields, saying at a conference that the recent boom “caught [her] eye.” It’s likely the Fed will be pressured to raise historically low interest rates in order to contain yields if they continue to grow, but experts have warned that any such hawkishness could tank stocks. “The difficulty today is that we have the most interest-rate-sensitive stock market in Wall Street history,” Jim Stack, the president of Whitefish, Montana’s InvesTech Research toldForbes in February.
When some future historian, or perhaps some honest parodist of our modern mores, seeks an event that captures the inversion at the core of our continuing cultural revolution, he should examine closely the television spectacle that aired on CBS Sunday evening.
There they were, assembled dreamily in the verdant grounds of a California mansion, poster victims of our irredeemably unjust system: the sixth in line to the throne of the United Kingdom, his wife, a so-so actress who nonetheless enjoyed considerable fortune before she married into the highest levels of the English aristocracy, alongside one of the most successful television celebrities on the planet, bemoaning the injustices that have befallen them in a systemically cruel society.
You’d struggle to find a better metaphor for one of the dominant narratives of our age: our elites parading their grievances and preoccupations for the masses, demanding sympathy, issuing a call for the ordinary people to do better to acknowledge their own sinfulness.
Economic inequality is greater than it has been in decades, and widening still further after a great recession and a global pandemic. The poorest neighborhoods in this country, many of them dominated by ethnic minorities, are beset by levels of violent crime and disorder not seen in a generation. Educational opportunities for those most blighted are drowning in a sea of neglect, ideological rectitude and acquiescence to the demands of teachers unions. All the while, we are forced to listen as chief executives, tenured academics, Hollywood celebrities and now a prince and his wife lecture us about what are supposed to be the real systemic flaws in our society: the terrible legacy of American history; sexism, racism and “transphobia”; the endless stream of microaggressions caused by an errant word, a contentious writer or the illustrations in the Dr. Seuss books.
None of this is to deny that our three figures, up there on their little Californian Calvary on Sunday, have, like all of us, had to bear their crosses.
Oprah Winfrey was there as the facilitator. She is a woman of exceptional talent and character who overcame crushing hardship in early life to achieve deserved success. When she speaks—or in this case facilitates a discussion—about hardship, we are well-advised to listen.
The duke of Sussex—the name provides a clue—had no such misfortune of birth, though he did suffer the unspeakable grief of losing his mother at a young age in violent and public circumstances, an event that surely left the deepest of psychic scars.
Even the duchess, the squeakiest of the wheels, commands some sympathy. The costs of marrying a royal are sometimes overlooked. Whatever their virtues, the Windsors will never be known for an openness of manner or spirit. They seem to have combined in their personalities in fact the relaxed informality of their German heritage and the sunny warmth of their adopted English homeland, so, we can assume Meghan’s distinctly New World style probably went over like supermarket kibble in the corgis’ breakfast bowl. And while claims about a yearning for privacy can be taken with a pinch of salt coming from an actress with a penchant for self-publicity that was notable even by the standards of her profession, it’s also true that the British press can be aggressively intrusive in ways anyone would find painful.
But the personal struggles, real as they are, aren’t the subject matter of the lesson we are enjoined to learn from them. The ex-royal couple have enough wit to understand that their own hardships don’t occasion many tears outside their lachrymose celebrity friends.
Instead they frame themselves as victims of much larger societal evils.
Harry and Meghan have seized the moment to sign on fully to the woke creed, ascribing their trials to that original sin of racism, not just from the royal family itself, but from the British press, feeding the ugly prejudices of the masses. They conveniently forget that the arrival of Meghan was greeted by the same press—and the same masses—with joyous acclaim, that she was portrayed as somewhere between Grace Kelly and Diana Ross.
But that’s the beauty of the new dispensation: You can always blame systemic injustice. Meghan may be pointing the finger at unnamed royals for her victim status, but we know that’s just a proxy for the wider evil that, improbable as it seems, makes her the victim. Even as you sit there in your alabaster palaces, your Silicon Valley boardrooms or your elegantly appointed dressing rooms, you can point to the real cause of society’s inequity: the Trump- and Brexit-voting hordes with their unenlightened views on immigration, crime, the climate, Western history.
And it’s one of the ironies of our leading social-justice revolutionaries, fighting to overturn the social order. When you have on your side the people who control most of the nation’s corporations, newsrooms, universities, celebrities, the federal government—along with a duke and a duchess—can you really be that oppressed?
Klaus Schwab’s World Economic Forum (WEF), the organization behind the Great Reset, is promoting an artificial sun called “Urban Sun.”
A Dutch artist has launched an installation he says “aims to make public spaces safe by using UV light to kill the virus causing COVID-19,” according to ABC Eyewitness News.
Video shows artist Daan Roosegaarde’s installation, dubbed “Urban Sun,” on display in Rotterdam in the Netherlands.
NEW – Klaus Schwab's World Economic Forum has released another dystopian video promoting an "artificial sun," so it is "easier for people to gather again."pic.twitter.com/isf8irieTm
The studio said the project was based on “multiple peer-reviewed journal articles authored by scientists from Columbia University and Hiroshima University” which found coronavirus airborne droplets were killed when exposed to a particular wavelength of ultraviolet-C (UV-C) light.
“Research shows that though traditional 254nm UV light is harmful, the new far-UV-C light with a wavelength of 222 nanometers can actually sanitize viruses safely,” the studio said.
Roosegaarde hopes to install the lights at festivals in the summer as COVID-19 restrictions ease but said it was not a replacement for a vaccine or government rules, Reuters reported. The actors involved in the project, who are seen in this footage, were tested for the coronavirus before filming and were only exposed to the light for a few minutes at a time, the agency reported.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has said UV-C radiation may be effective in inactivating SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, but there is “limited published data about the wavelength, dose, and duration of UV-C radiation required” to do so.
The administration also warned that there have been “reports of skin and eye burns resulting from improper installation of UV-C lamps.”
The WEF has been eyeing sun-replacement technology for years now. A June 2017 WEF publication praised German scientists for their creation of “the world’s largest artificial sun.”
The WEF is now showcasing the Urban Sun on their website as means of destroying “up to 99.9% of virus particles.”
As Joe Biden constructs his new administration, individuals from the Obama administration are quietly resurfacing in positions of power. Some of these people are well known, others lesser so. But they all played critical roles at various times during the Obama administration.
Susan Rice, Obama’s national security adviser and now the “top adviser to the president on domestic policy and related decisions,” has admitted to participating in the unmasking of members of the Trump transition team. Unmasking is the process whereby a U.S. citizen’s identity is revealed from collected surveillance.
Initially, Rice publicly denied the allegations, claiming that “I know nothing about this. I was surprised to see reports from Chairman Nunes on that count today.” Two weeks later Rice stated that she had not done so for “for any political purposes.” It was later reported that Rice told House investigators that “she unmasked the identities of senior Trump officials to understand why the crown prince of the United Arab Emirates was in New York.”
Rice was also a participant in an early January 2017 meeting with President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, FBI Director James Comey, and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates where President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming national security adviser Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn’s call with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak was discussed.
According to a filing in the Flynn legal case, notes from FBI Agent Peter Strzok revealed that “former President Obama, James Comey, Sally Yates, Joe Biden, and apparently Susan Rice discussed the transcripts of Flynn’s calls and how to proceed against him. Mr. Obama himself directed that ‘the right people’ investigate General Flynn.” According to Strzok’s notes, it also appears that “Biden personally raised the idea of the Logan Act” that would initially be used to pursue Flynn.
Rice, whose level of participation in the spying on the Trump 2016 campaign is still not fully known, sent herself an email on Obama’s last day in office detailing events that took place during this meeting. In addition to Flynn, Rice also noted that Obama asked his team to be “mindful to ascertain if there is any reason that we cannot share information fully [with the incoming Trump team] as it relates to Russia.”
Samantha Power, President Obama’s choice to replace Susan Rice as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, at a confirmation hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on July 17, 2013. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)
Meanwhile, Samantha Power has been named as administrator, U.S. Agency for International Development. Her position has not yet been confirmed. Power was the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in the Obama administration. According to a July 27, 2017, letter to then-Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) noted that “one official, whose position had no apparent intelligence related function, made hundreds of unmasking requests during the final year of the Obama administration.” That official was later identified in the media as Power. For her part, Power has denied that she was the person making the unmasking requests.
In addition to the better-known names from the Obama administration, there are other lesser-known members of the new Biden administration who had played roles, sometimes crucial ones, in the surveillance of the Trump transition team.
Then-National Security Division Assistant Attorney General John Carlin speaks during a conference between The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)and the Justice Department at the CSIS building in Washington, on Sept. 14, 2016. (Zach Gibson/AFP via Getty Images)
Acting Deputy AG John Carlin
John Carlin, currently the acting deputy attorney general, is involved in the DOJ’s investigation into the events of Jan. 6 at the U.S. capital. Carlin recently confirmed that more than three hundred people have been charged in relation to the events on Jan. 6 and more than two hundred and eighty have been arrested. Carlin told reporters on Feb. 26 that the investigation is “moving at a speed and scale that is unprecedented.” Earlier in his career, Carlin was the deputy chief of staff and counselor to then-FBI Director Robert Mueller, who would later be appointed as special counsel during the Trump administration.
During the Obama administration, Carlin was the assistant attorney general for national security and head of the DOJ’s National Security Division (NSD) from April 2014 through October 2016 and was involved in the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation of the Trump campaign.
According to testimony by FBI lawyer Lisa Page, Carlin was receiving briefings on both the Clinton and the Trump investigations directly from FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe. Page testified that Carlin “was kept abreast of the sort of investigative activity that was going on” and said that “Carlin might call over to Andy McCabe, and sort of make his team’s pitch.” As part of this process, Carlin was receiving briefings on the progress of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) application on Trump campaign aide Carter Page.
This likely wasn’t the first time Carlin heard about Page. In March 11, 2016, Carlin and Preet Bharara, the United States attorney for the southern district of New York, released a joint statement noting the guilty plea of Evgeny Buryakov, a Russian Intelligence officer convicted of spying. Page had assisted in this investigation and had met with the FBI on the matter on March 2, 2016. Carlin’s knowledge of Page’s previous assistance to the FBI suggests he would have known Page was not a Russian agent. This, however, did not impede the FBI’s efforts to obtain a FISA warrant on Page on Oct. 21, 2016.
Despite Carlin’s involvement in the Page FISA and the earlier espionage case in which Page had assisted, Carlin stated that his recollection of Carter Page and the FBI’s FISA application on Page was limited when he was interviewed in July 2017 by the House Select Committee on Intelligence.
When asked by then-Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) if he had participated in any FISA application related to Page, Carlin stated “I believe—I believe I did. There’s been so much public reporting since I left, but I remember being involved in the preparation of the FISA application for an individual that was related to the Trump campaign.” Carlin told Gowdy that “I remember there was one application. I don’t remember whether or not I actually signed it.”
As head of the DOJ’s NSD, Carlin also maintained oversight of the intelligence agencies’ use of Section 702 authority. The NSD and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) jointly conduct reviews of the intelligence agencies’ Section 702 activities every 60 days and the NSD is required to report any incidents of agency noncompliance or misconduct to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC).
Additionally, the Attorney General and the Director of National Intelligence (DNI) are required by Section 702 to provide the FISC with annual certifications and show that Intelligence Community agencies are following targeting and minimization procedures that are approved by the FISC. These annual certifications are filed by the NSD.
A Jan. 7, 2016, report by National Security Agency (NSA) Inspector General George Ellard disclosed a fundamental issue that appeared to cause issues with oversight of Section 702 data. Ellard noted that the methodology that the DOJ and NSD “have agreed on does not include providing all records of queries performed.” Furthermore, the IG report also found that “controls for monitoring query compliance have not been completely developed” and there was “no process to reliably identify queries” being performed.
The Jan. 7, 2016, IG report notes that the “NSA’s Office of General Counsel (OGC) notified DOJ NSD of the FISA incidents.” However, it does not appear that the NSD ever disclosed the IG report to the FISC.
In addition to the IG findings, on March 9, 2016, “DOJ oversight personnel conducting a minimization review at the FBI’s [redacted] learned that the FBI had disclosed raw FISA information” to an undisclosed entity. In an April 2017 ruling, the FISC noted that this unknown division or center was “largely staffed by private contractors” and that these contractors “had access to raw FISA information on FBI storage systems.”
The Court also stated that the contractor’s access to raw FISA data appears to have been the “result of deliberate decision making” and the access to FBI systems “was the subject of an interagency memorandum of understanding” that had been “prepared or reviewed by FBI lawyers.” Despite this pre-existing multi-agency agreement, “no notice of this practice was given to the FISC until 2016.”
The NSA’s IG report combined with the discoveries on March 9, 2016, prompted an internal compliance review instigated by then-NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers. On Oct. 24, 2016, Rogers verbally informed the FISA court of the findings from his investigation, which the FISC found to include “significant noncompliance with the NSA’s minimization procedures involving queries of data acquired under Section 702 using U.S. person identifiers.”
The court noted that the “full scope of non-compliant querying practices had not been previously disclosed to the Court” and that preliminary results from additional reviews suggested that “the problem was widespread during all periods under review.”
Carlin had filed the government’s proposed 2016 Section 702 certifications on Sept. 26, 2016, but did not disclose the Jan. 7, 2016, IG report to the FISA court. Additionally, it appears that the court was again not notified of the IG report during an Oct. 4, 2016, follow-up hearing.
In its April 2017 ruling, the “the Court ascribed the government’s failure to disclose those IG and OCO reviews at the October 4, 2016 hearing to an institutional ‘lack of candor.’”
On Sept. 27, 2016, the day after he filed the annual certifications, Carlin announced his resignation from the DOJ, which would become effective on Oct. 15, 2016. At this time, the FBI’s application of the Page FISA was nearing completion. On Oct. 21, 2016, the DOJ and FBI obtained a FISA warrant on Page. At this point, the FISA court still was unaware of the Section 702 violations.
Former US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland on June 20, 2018. (Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images)
Victoria Nuland
Biden recently announced that he nominated Victoria Nuland as “undersecretary of state for political affairs”—the third-highest ranking post at the State Department. Nuland has a lengthy history in the State Department and played several roles during the FBI’s investigation of the Trump campaign.
Sometime in the latter half of 2014, Christopher Steele, author of the infamous dossier at the center of the Russia probe, began to informally provide reports he had prepared for a private client to the State Department. One of the recipients of the reports was Victoria Nuland, who was then the assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs.
On July 5, 2016, FBI agent Michael Gaeta traveled to London and met with Steele at the offices of Steele’s firm, Orbis. At some point in early July, Steele’s early dossier reports were passed to Nuland and the State Department—possibly through Jonathan Winer, then a State Department official who was friends with Steele, perhaps through Gaeta or possibly through Steele himself.
During an interview, Nuland said that “in the middle of July, when he [Steele] was doing this other work and became concerned…he passed two to four pages of short points of what he was finding and our immediate reaction to that was, this is not in our purview. This needs to go to the FBI if there is any concern here that one candidate or the election as a whole might be influenced by the Russian Federation.” Nuland later said these documents were passed on at some point to both the FBI and Secretary of State John Kerry.
Nuland was later briefed on the larger Steele dossier during a meeting with an associate of Sen. John McCain, David Kramer, in December 2016. Kramer said that McCain instructed him to meet with Nuland and Russian Affairs Director Celeste Wallander. The purpose of the meeting was to verify whether the dossier “was being taken seriously.” Kramer said he didn’t physically share the dossier with them at this point, but met again with Wallander, a National Security Council member, “around New Years” and “gave her a copy of the document.”
The mayor pro tem of a Northern California city resigned after he pleaded guilty to election fraud, according to local reports last week.
Crescent City Mayor Pro Tem Alex Campbell entered the plea to making a false declaration of candidacy in Del Norte County’s Superior Court, according to the city’s clerk’s office, as reported by local news outlet Wild Rivers Outpost.
According to local news outlets, Campbell submitted a form to the Del Norte County Clerk on Aug. 6 of last year saying his current address was within the city limits of Crescent City when his actual residence was outside the city’s boundaries, deputy District Attorney Eric Bryant told Del Norte County Superior Court Judge Bob Cochran.
He had faced two felony counts of perjury and one count of false declaration of his candidacy, reported KIEM-TV and Wild Rivers, but the Del Norte County District Attorney agreed to dismiss the perjury charges.
Campbell faces two years of felony probation and fines of up to $20,000 and a restitution fine of up to $10,000, said Cochran, according to the reports.
Campbell was elected to the City Council on Nov. 3 before he eventually became mayor pro tempore in December. Campbell is scheduled to appear in court for sentencing on April 15.
“So in filing the vacancy the council has two basic options for them, one is to hold a special election, which can be pretty expensive, or the other, is to appoint someone into the position,” City Manager Eric Weir said to KIEM-TV, while confirming that Campbell formally resigned last week. “Which that position would then appointed up until the next general municipal election municipal which would be November of 2022.”
Alex Campbell (Del Norte County Sheriff’s Office)
Campbell did not comment following his court appearance last week, as reported by Wild Rivers. He provided a sticker that says “Free Alex Campbell” that appeared to be designed like Monopoly money.
Campbell previously stated that he does indeed have a house in the county, but he claimed he’s renting a room in city limits from a friend of his, adding he’s currently living there. “I’m currently at that house right now,” Campbell told Wild Rivers. “I do have a house (in the county). I stay there occasionally, but my main official residence is on I Street.”
Other details about his cause were not provided. Crescent City is located in Del Norte County, located near the Oregon-California border in the northwestern party of the state.
And last week, in Aberdeen, Mississippi, a judge ordered a new runoff election after more than three-quarters of absentee ballots cast in the June Democratic runoff election were found to be invalid, while a notary involved in the election was arrested.
Judge Jeff Weill, in a 64-page order, said that there is evidence of fraud and criminal activity in how absentee ballots were handled, how they were counted, and actions from individuals at polling places during the runoff election held in Aberdeen, Mississippi. As a result, a new runoff election for the Ward 1 alderman seat is necessary, reported WCBI.
