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dontmeantobepoliticalbut · 1 year

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A former aide to former Trump attorney Rudolph Giuliani says he told her the ex-New York City mayor and then-president Donald Trump were offering to sell presidential pardons for $2 million apiece, according to court documents.

The bombshell allegation was levied in a complaint filed against Mr. Giuliani by Noelle Dunphy, a New York-based public relations professional who is suing him for “unlawful abuses of power, wide-ranging sexual assault and harassment, wage theft, and other misconduct” committed while she worked for him in 2019 and 2020.

The lawsuit also claims that she was subjected to sexual assault, harassment, wage theft and other misconduct by Mr. Giuliani, and alleges that she was forced to perform sex acts on him and work in the nude.

Ms. Duphy’s lawsuit details an interaction she allegedly had with Mr. Giuliani on or about 16 February 2019, when he was serving as Mr. Trump’s personal attorney and attempting to dig up overseas dirt on then-former Vice President Joe Biden, who at the time was two months away from entering the 2020 presidential race against Mr. Trump.

She writes that as they reviewed emails between him and Ukrainian government officials, she asked if he had to register as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Registration Act and offered to do the required paperwork for him.

The former mayor replied that he was allowed to violate FARA and other US laws because “[he had] immunity”, according to the lawsuit.

She then states that Mr. Giuliani asked her “if she knew anyone in need of a pardon” because he was “selling pardons for $2 million, which he and President Trump would split.”

“He told Ms. Dunphy that she could refer individuals seeking pardons to him, so long as they did not go through 'the normal channels' of the Office of the Pardon Attorney, because correspondence going to that office would be subject to disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act,” the suit added.

During Mr Trump’s presidency, he frequently granted pardons to wealthy or well-connected individuals without the involvement of the Pardon Attorney, the Department of Justice official who is charged with reviewing petitions for executive clemency and making recommendations as to whether a given petition should be granted.

No evidence has ever emerged that either Mr. Trump or Mr. Giuliani were ever compensated for any presidential pardon granted during Mr. Trump’s time in office, but Ms. Dunphy’s allegation matches that made by another person who once sought a pardon from the then-president.

In August, The New York Times reported that former CIA officer John Kiriakou broached the topic with Mr. Giuliani during a meeting at the Washington D.C. hotel Mr. Trump’s company ran between 2016 and 2022.

Mr. Kiriakou, who in 2012 was sentenced to nearly three years in prison for disclosing classified information, told the Times that one of Mr. Giuliani’s associates at the meeting said the ex-New York City mayor could assist him — for a price.

“It’s going to cost $2 million — he’s going to want two million bucks,” he recalled the Giuliani associate as saying.

He also told the Times that he did not pursue a pardon through Mr. Giuliani because he could not afford to pay him $2 million.

“I laughed. Two million bucks — are you out of your mind?” Kiriakou told the outlet. “Even if I had two million bucks, I wouldn’t spend it to recover a $700,000 pension,” he said.

Ted Goodman, a spokesperson for and adviser to Mr. Giuliani, told The Independent in an email that the former New York mayor “unequivocally denies the allegations raised by Ms. Dunphy.”

“Mayor Giuliani’s lifetime of public service speaks for itself and he will pursue all available remedies and counterclaims,” he added.

The Independent has reached out to Mr. Trump’s team for comment.

#us politics #news #donald trump #republicans #conservatives #trump administration #rudy giuliani #Noelle Dunphy #2023 #the independent #trump pardons #presidential pardons #Foreign Agents Registration Act #Office of the Pardon Attorney #Freedom of Information Act #John Kiriakou #the new york times #Ted Goodman

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headlinehorizon · 7 months

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Democratic Senator Bob Menendez Faces New Charge as Foreign Agent

https://headlinehorizon.com/Politics/Senate/901

The latest news reveals an additional charge against Senator Bob Menendez for acting as a foreign agent. This article discusses Menendez's opposition to Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) reforms and his recent indictment. Find out more!

#Democratic Senator Bob Menendez #Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) reforms #indictment #headline horizon #news #latest news

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eretzyisrael · 4 months

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by Michael Rubin

On Jan. 7, an Israeli airstrike killed two Al Jazeera journalists in the Gaza Strip. The Qatar-run news outlet immediately accused Israel of targeting journalists and labeled their death an "assassination."

No serious journalist, diplomat, or human rights activist should give Al Jazeera benefit of the doubt. Terrorists have long used media to amplify reach. Chechen rebels would cancel missions rather than move without cameramen to leverage their attack into effective propaganda.

During the Iraq War, U.S. soldiers became accustomed to seeing Al Jazeera journalists pre-positioned to film booby-traps meant to maim and murder Americans. Legitimate journalists do not know about attacks before they occur; terrorists do.

Al Jazeera has a long history of crossing the journalistic line. Al Jazeera journalist Fahad Yasin, for example, used Qatari cash to propel himself to become Somalia's intelligence chief, a position he used to fund terrorism further.

Were Hamza Wael Dahdouh and Mustafa Thuria, the two Al Jazeera employees Israel killed, illegitimate targets? No. Both were traveling in a vehicle with a terrorist. They were operating a drone to surveil Israeli forces and enable Hamas attacks. To knowingly travel with a terrorist with the purpose of supporting that terrorist forfeits one's immunity, just as medics or school teachers lose their immunity if they transport terrorists or give cover for their operations. If press freedom groups are angry, they should not blame Israel but instead launch lawsuits against Al Jazeera for violating the Geneva Conventions in a manner that imperils all war correspondents.

It is in not only Gaza, however, where Al Jazeera violates the norms and ethics of journalism in pursuit of terrorism, violence, or espionage, but also on Capitol Hill. As Rep. Jack Bergman (R-MI) has pointed out, Congress credentials 136 Al Jazeera "journalists" to enable them into House and Senate galleries and expansive access to senators, members of Congress, and staff. Compare that to the New York Times that credentials only 82 members. The discrepancy in coverage — the New York Times produces far more — suggests that something other than journalism may motivate Al Jazeera.

The danger is multifold. The Justice Department has designated Iran's PressTV, Russia's RT, and Turkey's TRT to be foreign agents. Al Jazeera is no different. They are agents of a foreign power that flirts dangerously with terrorism sponsorship even if the State Department and Pentagon are reticent to designate the emirate formally, often for narrow bureaucratic reasons such as the lavish lifestyle servicemen enjoy in Qatar or access to sheikhdom's strategically superfluous al Udeid Air Base.

Al Jazeera may cynically resist measures to bring its credentialed staff in line with journalistic needs by citing First Amendment protections, nevermind that Qatar does not respect any such privilege domestically, nor does it allow open access to its palaces. That Al Jazeera has violated journalistic ethics by conducting surveillance on alleged opponents of Qatar's pro-Hamas, anti-Israel policies simply underscores it is a network of operatives operating under the cover of journalism.

House Resolution 189, introduced by Bergman, is a commonsense measure that should appeal across the partisan spectrum. It plugs a loophole in which foreign agents can claim press credentials to avoid compliance with the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Perhaps its only flaw is it does not go far enough: All journalists receiving access to roam not only the halls of Congress but also the Pentagon and State Department should undergo background checks, whether they are American citizens or not. In addition, the access foreign journalists receive should be proportional to that which American outlets enjoy in their countries.

Democracies and liberal societies rest upon a basis of rule of law. Too often, illiberal opponents shield themselves behind their opponents' idealism and mirror imaging without subscribing to it. With Hamas, this has meant corruption of protected institutions such as schools and hospitals and treating journalism as a shield for terrorism and espionage.

Al Jazeera may mourn its journalists, but they do not deserve the benefit of the doubt. For too long, Al Jazeera has played the outside world for fools. Enough is enough.

#al jazeera #house resolution 189 #qatar #gaza #hamas

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russiawave · 1 year

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youtube

Modern Russia has a lot of laws it uses to suppress free speech and criticism of Putin or Russia's actions in Ukraine. I've already covered Russian censorship on this channel before, including the so-called Foreign Agent law. However, recently this law has become one of the main tools that Russia uses to silence people: prominent individuals who oppose Putin are called "foreign agents" and are forced to obey all sorts of ridiculous requirements. Failure to obey results in jail. So, what is the Russian foreign agent law? Why is Russia doing this? And how is this law different from the American Foreign Agent Registration Act?

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beardedmrbean · 6 months

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A top American diplomat who used to be the US ambassador to Bolivia has been arrested for allegedly secretly working as a Cuban spy.

Manuel Rocha, 73, was taken into custody in Miami on Friday in what marked the culmination of a long-running FBI counterintelligence investigation, according to the Associated Press.

Two sources told the agency that Mr Rocha is accused of secretly working to promote the Cuban government’s interests.

Investigators allege that this is a violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act – a law which requires any individual lobbying and doing the political bidding of a foreign government on US soil to register with the Justice Department.

Further details about the 73-year-old’s alleged work as a Cuban government agent are expected to be revealed on Monday when he appears in federal court.

Neither the DOJ or Mr Rocha has yet publicly commented on his arrest.

Mr Rocha’s wife Karla Wittkop Rocha refused to comment and hung up the phone when reached for comment by the AP.

The bombshell arrest comes after Mr Rocha has spent 25 years working as a top US diplomat in several Latin American countries.

His diplomatic postings included a stint at the US Interests Section in Cuba during a time when the US lacked full diplomatic relations with Fidel Castro’s communist government.

Born in Colombia, Mr Rocha was raised in a working-class home in New York City and went on to obtain a succession of liberal arts degrees from Yale, Harvard and Georgetown before joining the foreign service in 1981.

He was the top US diplomat in Argentina between 1997 and 2000 as a decade-long currency stabilisation program backed by Washington was unraveling under the weight of huge foreign debt and stagnant growth, triggering a political crisis that would see the South American country cycle through five presidents in two weeks.

At his next post as ambassador to Bolivia, he intervened directly into the 2002 presidential race, warning weeks ahead of the vote that the US would cut off assistance to the poor South American country if it were to elect former coca grower Evo Morales.

“I want to remind the Bolivian electorate that if they vote for those who want Bolivia to return to exporting cocaine, that will seriously jeopardise any future aid to Bolivia from the United States,” Mr Rocha said in a speech that was widely interpreted as a an attempt to sustain US dominance in the region.

The gambit worked but three years later Bolivians elected Morales anyway and the leftist leader would expel Rocha’s successor as chief of the diplomatic mission for inciting “civil war”.

Mr Rocha also served in Italy, Honduras, Mexico and the Dominican Republic, and worked as a Latin America expert for the National Security Council.

Following his retirement from the State Department, Mr Rocha began a second career in business, serving as the president of a gold mine in the Dominican Republic partly owned by Canada’s Barrick Gold.

More recently, he’s held senior roles at XCoal, a Pennsylvania-based coal exporter; Clover Leaf Capital, a company formed to facilitate mergers in the cannabis industry; law firm Foley & Lardner and Spanish public relations firm Llorente & Cuenca.

#nunyas news

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zvaigzdelasas · 2 years

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Radio of Free Asia, sometimes called Radio Free Asia, was an anti-Communist radio station created by the Korean Cultural and Freedom Foundation which broadcast from Seoul into North Korea, China, and Vietnam.[1][2][3] In a congressional hearing, General Coulter, then President of the Korean Cultural and Freedom Foundation, declared Radio of Free Asia the principal project of the foundation.[4] It operated from 1966 to early 1970s.

The Korean Cultural and Freedom Foundation (KFF) was first organized in Washington, D.C. in 1964 with the goal of "containing communism" in Asia.[1] The Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA) put pressure on the KFF to support a project to broadcast anti-communist propaganda into nearby Asian communist states. The intention was to raise money for the project from the US. [5]

Radio of Free Asia (ROFA), as the radio station became known, began broadcasting from Seoul on 15 August 1966.[1][5] The first broadcast featured a taped message from Soong Mei-ling [wife of Chiang Kai-Shek].[3]

ROFA formally had an American chief but it's two directors of operations were KCIA operatives who worked under Kim Jong-Pil. The station was given free access to South Korean government facilities with broadcasts monitored by the KCIA's psychological warfare unit.[5] The US Justice Department later suggested the station was “acting under the direction of and control of the Korean Government”.[6]

Although mainly funded through private donations, it had the financial support of several elected officials before and after broadcasts began, including Senator Bob Dole and Presidents Truman and Eisenhower.[7] South Korean President Park Chung-Hee sent letters to 60,000 prominent Americans asking for contributions to the project.[6] Millions of dollars were raised for Radio of Free Asia through direct mail requests to American citizens, soliciting funds both by claiming they would finance the broadcasts and that they would aid starving children in Asia.[7]

In 1971, US government agencies, including the Justice Department, began investigating the station for alleged violation of the Foreign Agent Registration Act.[8][6] The broadcaster's status as a foreign private foundation was called into question due to the free air time provided by the South Korean government on its national network. Bo Hi Pak secured the services of former CIA Deputy Director of Intelligence Robert Amory Jr. for legal assistance to defend against these charges. At the time Amory was employed by the Thomas Corcoran law firm and was a legal counsellor to the CIA. The investigation was terminated in 1972 and soon after the station stopped broadcasting from Seoul.[6][8]

A newly disclosed Justice Department investigatior into organizations and persons connecter with the controversial Rev, Shn Myung Moon has raised the possibility that American citizens are illegally working on behalf of the South Korean Government.[...]

The Federal officials familiar with the inquiry were careful to assert that Mr. Moon himself and his Unification Church were not being investigated, because Constitutional questions of freedom of religion might be raised. Instead, the inquiry is focusing on organizations associated with the church.[...]

The Federal sources indicated that among the organizations under scrutiny were the Korean Cultural and Freedom Foundation, the Freedom Leadership Foundation, headed by Neil A. Salonen, the International Federation for Victory Over Communism, and the Little Angels of Korea, a children's singing group that tours overseas.[...]

This investigation is one element in broad inquiry that includes allegations that Park Tong Sun, a Korean businessman, and others bribed Congressmen and tried illegally to influence American policy. it also includes an investigation of whether officers of the K.C.1.A. coerced and violated the civil rights of Koreans living in America and Korean‐American citizens.

The South Korean Government, according to both Korean and American officials, has long been eager to improve the image of President Park Chung Hee and his administration. South Korea's economic development, and therefore some of its political stability, depends heavily on trade and financial help from the United States.[...]

Among the earliest missions with that objective was that of the Korean Cultural and Freedom Foundation, founded in 1964. Its head, Pak Bo Hi, joined it in early 1965, shortly after he resigned from the South Korean Arm”.[...]

Korean intelligence sources said that Mr. Pak is the K.C.1.A.'s channel to Mr. Moon, A Korean with access to K.C.I.A. reports said that “Pak Bo Hi is a very important man because he made Sun Myung Moon famous. It's all his idea.”

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bighermie · 10 months

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mariacallous · 2 months

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Last week, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán made waves by flying to the United States to meet with Donald Trump—but not with sitting president Joe Biden. It was, at a minimum, a severe breach of diplomatic protocol, and one that threatens to unravel Budapest’s strained relations with Washington even further. Even Biden himself commented on the meeting, saying that Orbán—an authoritarian who has effectively unwound Hungarian democracy—was “looking for dictatorship.”

But there was one other meeting that Orbán took while in the U.S. that hasn’t received enough attention—and points directly to how Orbán has cultivated American conservatives to his cause and created a beachhead for Hungarian influence in Washington. On Friday, he spoke at a closed-door meeting at the Heritage Foundation’s headquarters in the nation’s capital. Joined by Heritage president Kevin Roberts and failed presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, Orbán spoke, according to a readout, in front of an audience that “included renowned U.S. right-wing politicians, analysts and public personalities.”

The event was, on paper, a somewhat dull affair, with Orbán covering matters ranging from Hungary’s “conservative family and economic policies” to the state of the war in Ukraine. Pulling back, however, the talk was nothing short of shocking. Instead of meeting with the White House, Orbán traveled to Washington to sit with the leadership of a think tank, using them as a platform to access and influence conservative Americans about both foreign and domestic policy.

All of which leads to one question: How, and why, did the Heritage Foundation become the go-to vehicle for Budapest’s budding autocracy to target Americans?

The answer follows several different tracks. On the one hand, Hungary has been shedding lobbying outfits for the past few years, dropping a range of P.R. shops and Twitter influencers to focus solely on Heritage. On the other hand, internal transformations at Heritage—and a willingness to shred its reputation as a bastion of Reaganite, and even democratic, credentials—led the think tank’s leadership directly into Orbán’s lap, allowing it to become little more than a mouthpiece for a strongman and a leading proponent for Orbán-style rule in the U.S.

During the Trump era, Orbán’s government ran one of the most prominent lobbying campaigns in the U.S., almost all of which focused on forging stronger links between Washington and Budapest. This was to some degree understandable: With Trump ensconced in the White House, Hungary became America’s preferred partner in Europe—not least for the authoritarian model Orbán set for Trump. (As Trump said of Orbán last week, “There’s nobody that’s better, smarter, or a better leader than Viktor Orbán. He’s fantastic.… He’s a great leader.”) According to the Department of Justice’s Foreign Agents Registration Act, or FARA, database, Budapest inked deals with eight separate American law or communications firms during Trump’s presidency—an unprecedented burst of activity.

Not that all of these lobbying efforts were traditional, or even successful. In one contract, Budapest signed a firm called Strategic Improvisation, Inc. As part of the arrangement, the firm’s president, a Twitter reactionary named David Reaboi, began pumping pro-Orbán content on social media. While Reaboi made tens of thousands of dollars from working as a foreign agent, it’s unclear what, if any, impact his tweets actually had. (Reaboi did, however, produce arguably the most unintentionally hilarious filing FARA has ever seen, revealing that a tweet in which he said he supported Hungary and was “not in this for the money” was, in fact, paid for by Budapest.)

But with Biden’s election, Hungary’s lobbying efforts collapsed. Some of the contracts ended after only a few months, while others—including the deal with Reaboi’s firm—were canceled the day before Biden entered the White House. As of this week, Hungary is one of the few nations without a single active firm represented in the FARA database.

But that doesn’t mean Hungarian influence has waned. If anything, it’s simply shifted—using loopholes and workarounds to dodge disclosure requirements, while nonetheless wooing conservative Americans and staking its ties in Washington almost wholly on a Trump victory this November.

Enter the Heritage Foundation. While Heritage grew to prominence in the 1980s as a font of Reaganite policy, in recent years the organization has undergone a monumental shift in terms of both policy and priorities. Rather than persist in its stolid dedication to conservative values, Heritage has swung in a far more reactionary—and far more authoritarian—direction in recent years. Across the policy landscape, Heritage has become little more than an intellectual breeding ground for Trumpist ideas.

While much attention has understandably focused on Heritage’s so-called “Project 2025,” which provides a roadmap for Trump to seize as much power as he can, such a shift has extended to foreign policy. This has been seen most especially in Heritage leading the effort to gut funding for Ukraine. But it’s also evident in the way Heritage has endeavored to anchor its relations with Orbán, making Budapest once more America’s preferred partner in Europe—regardless of the cost.

Much of that shift is downstream from Heritage’s leadership, overseen by Kevin Roberts. Appointed as Heritage’s president in 2021, Roberts immediately began remaking Heritage’s priorities with a distinctly pro-Orbán bent—and began opening up Heritage as a vehicle for Hungarian influence in the U.S.

Part of that involved things like last week’s confab, one of many meetings between Roberts and Orbán. (After one 2022 sit-down, Roberts—who, among other things, has said he doesn’t think Joe Biden won the 2020 election—posted that it was an “honor” to meet with Orbán, praising his “movement that fights for Truth, for tradition, for families.”) But the relationship is structural as well: Heritage, in an atypical move, finalized a formal partnership last year with the Danube Institute, a Hungarian think tank that appears to exist only to praise Orbán’s government.

The Budapest-based Danube Institute is largely unknown in the U.S., but it has transformed in recent years into one of the premier mouthpieces for propagating Orbánist policies. While it is technically independent, it is, as Jacob Heilbrunn notes in his new book on the American right’s infatuation with dictators, located “next to the prime minister’s building and funded by Orbán’s Fidesz party.” Indeed, the Hungarian think tank is overseen by a foundation directly bankrolled by the Hungarian state—meaning that the Danube Institute is, for all intents and purposes, a state-funded front for pushing pro-Orbán rhetoric.

The Danube Institute claims it is dedicated to “advocat[ing] conservative and national values and thinking,” which almost always ends up with the institute praising Orbán’s pronouncements. It has become, according to Hungarian journalists at Atlatszo, “one of the main tools of the Orbán government’s ideological expansion abroad”—and one of the “main vehicles” to “building a political network in the United States.”

Such focus makes sense in terms of the Danube Institute’s personnel. For instance, the institute identifies arch-reactionary Rod Dreher as the “director of [its] Network Project.” The Southern Poverty Law Center obtained Dreher’s contract, which described him as an “agent” who would connect with a “circle of Christian-conservative contacts” on the institute’s behalf, while also writing publicly in praise of the Danube Institute’s “achievement[s].” Along the way, the Danube Institute began doling out significant grants to a range of other American conservatives, such as provocateur Christopher Rufo, who received tens of thousands of dollars, as well as a number of writers published in The American Conservative.

Most important, however, is the man currently running the Danube Institute: John O’Sullivan, a British conservative who once served as the director of studies at—you guessed it—the Heritage Foundation. “With his extensive connections in the conservative universe, [O’Sullivan] became Orbán’s conduit to the American Right,” Heilbrunn noted.

Unsurprisingly, the key to O’Sullivan’s and the Danube Institute’s outreach to American conservatives has been the Heritage Foundation. A post in early 2023 from the Hungarian Conservative noted that the Danube Institute and the Heritage Foundation had “signed a landmark cooperation agreement, deepening Hungary’s transatlantic relations.” While the formal cooperation agreement hasn’t yet been published, the summary noted that “each year four researchers from the Heritage Foundation will visit Budapest and work with the Danube Institute as visiting researchers” and that Heritage “will also organize more joint events” with the Danube Institute in the future.

The two have already begun operating closely, co-hosting the Danube Geopolitical Summit last September. Featuring both Heritage and Danube Institute leadership, as well as a number of Hungarian officials, the conference centered on many of the aforementioned themes Orbán routinely highlights, railing against so-called “wokeness” in Western democracies. At the conference, James Carafano, Roberts’s key adviser at Heritage, “stressed the importance of building transatlantic connectivity,” saying he was “so proud to be associated with the Danube Institute.”

While the arrangements with Americans like Dreher appear to contravene America’s foreign lobbying laws, the relationship between Heritage and the Danube Institute unfortunately appears to fall outside of the purview of things like FARA. All of which means that we have no idea how much funding may be flowing directly from Orbán’s regime to the Heritage Foundation—and what this “landmark cooperation agreement” between Heritage and the Danube Institute actually entails.

But we’ve already seen what the arrangement looks like in practice. While the entire relationship between Heritage and the Danube Institute—and between Budapest and American conservatives writ large—can seem like an overwrought, overly complicated series of agreements and associations, zooming out, the links become clear.

In Hungary, a state-funded organization that serves as little more than a propaganda arm for Orbánist policies—and which has already directly funded a number of American conservative writers—has formally partnered with an American think tank that’s collapsed into little more than a bastion of Trumpism. Both have thus provided platforms for one another, reinforcing each other’s efforts and reaching mutual audiences on both sides of the Atlantic. All the while, they’ve done so in a manner that hasn’t required any transparency about finances or expectations and that skirts America’s current foreign lobbying laws—keeping both Americans and Hungarians in the dark about the relationship.

It is, in many ways, unprecedented. While American think tanks have seen a range of dodgy funding streams in recent years, we’ve never seen anything like the partnership unfolding between Heritage and the Danube Institute. All of which makes Orbán’s equally unprecedented trip—when he visited the former president, as well as a pro-Trump think tank, but not the current White House itself—last week that much less surprising. As Orbán himself said an interview with Hungarian media after his talk in Washington, when it comes to the Heritage Foundation, “Hungary has an honored place.”

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dontmeantobepoliticalbut · 10 months

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The “missing” witness long-touted by Republicans in Congress as the missing link to their probe into alleged Biden family corruption was accused of being an unregistered foreign agent for China and an international arms trafficker while violating U.S. sanctions on Iran and lying to investigators, among a laundry list of other federal charges unsealed Monday.

Dual U.S.-Israeli citizen Gal Luft was originally charged on Nov. 1, 2022 and arrested in February, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York.

Luft had already skipped out on his bail while in Cyprus awaiting extradition to the U.S. for the case in March—though he alleges that the sprawling case against him represents political persecution and retaliation by the Biden administration against a potential witness.

The House Oversight Committee has for months touted a secret “informant” who could provide evidence of an alleged “quid pro quo” deal for foreign aid between an Obama-era Biden and an unnamed country—though details of the arrangement remain murky and unverified at best.

Those claims partially unraveled when Rep. James Comer (R-KY) in May held a much-hyped press conference in which he promised to expose the preliminary findings of four months’ worth of scrutiny into the Biden family’s business dealings—while failing to air any real evidence of corruption. He then offered a partial excuse for the failure: their star witness had up and disappeared.

The situation was memorialized in a much-publicized Fox News interview, in which a credulous Maria Bartiromo appeared shocked by the revelations.

“Well, unfortunately, we can’t track down the informant,” the Kentucky representative said. “We’re hopeful that the informant is still there. The whistleblower knows the informant. The whistleblower is very credible.”

“We’re hopeful that we can find the informant,” Comer added. “Remember, these informants are kind of in the spy business, so they don’t make a habit of being seen a lot or being high-profile or anything like that.”

Luft then came forward days later in an interview with New York Post opinion columnist Miranda Devine, alleging that he was hiding out in an undisclosed location after being arrested on charges including international arms dealing, as well as a violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, among other charges.

“The chances of me getting a fair trial in Washington are virtually zero,” he told Devine as the reason he skipped out on his bail. “I had to do what I had to do.”

Despite the allegations, Comer doubled down on Friday, tweeting that Luft is a “very credible witness on Biden family corruption,” who “provided incriminating evidence to six officials from the FBI and the DOJ in a meeting in Brussels in March 2019.”

“We have no reason to believe the FBI & DOJ acted on this info,” he continued.

On Sunday, Republican Senator Ron Johnson (WI) added Luft should be granted immunity.

“Now, he’s literally fleeing for his life right now,” Johnson told Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo. “He’s on the run. He’s an important witness. He needs to be granted immunity to be able to testify and tell his story.”

Monday’s unsealed charges add some clarity to the laundry list of alleged crimes Luft is accused of—including a 2016 scheme to “recruit and pay” a White House adviser to support China-friendly policies without first filing as a foreign agent.

According to a release from the Justice Department, Luft is also accused of brokering arms deals with Chinese businesses to sell their wares in places such as the United Arab Emirates, Kenya and Libya—all without a valid U.S. license. Federal authorities allege that they have proof Luft hawked anti-tank launchers, grenade launchers, mortar rounds, aerial bombs, rockets and even drones.

To make matters worse, Justice Department prosecutors say he lied to them during interviews about the alleged scheme.

“During a voluntary interview with U.S. law enforcement in which he was asked questions about his involvement in arms trafficking, LUFT made multiple false statements, including that he had not sought to engage in or profit from arms deals,” the department’s statement reads.

Luft is also accused of brokering deals for Iranian oil—which he falsely labeled “Brazilian”—in violation of U.S. sanctions.

In all, Luft faces 36 counts that carry a maximum of 100 years in prison, according to the Justice Department.

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workersolidarity · 11 months

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Boston Chinese American unionist targeted as "foreign agent"

Western governments have completely given over to their Fascist instincts. With the United States pushing a new Cold War against Russia, China and Iran, the US and its Western allies are doing everything in their power to suppress pro-Chinese or Pro-Russian opinions online, including the outright suppression of Freedom of Speech, an essential Right under Capitalism if we're to ever have any chance of overthrowing the Capitalist system.

On May 17th, 2023 The Grayzone correspondent Kit Klarenberg was detained by British Anti-Terror Police after landing at London's Luton Airport. During his detainment, Kit Klarenberg was extensively interrogated over 5 hours in a small room in the airport.

All of Kit Klarenberg's electronic devices were seized by British Anti-Terror Police, they took his SD cards, fingerprinted him, took DNA swabs, and photographed him extensively.

Meanwhile in the United States, the DOJ is using the Foreign Agents Registration Act to suppress and arrest foreign-born American Activists and Union members, accusing them of being Agents of China and Russia without evidence.

And this is what I've been afraid of for some time. That the ruling Capitalist Class should decide the Western facade of "democracy" and "Freedoms" is no longer worth keeping up with and begin a new 1950's style unAmerican Activities campaign to economically ruin and politically imprison dissenters.

The US ruling class is doing everything in its power to disenfranchise, deplatform, and silence voices critical of Western Imperialism and Capitalist exploitation.

Meanwhile, the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance is calling for the dropping of Liang's charges and his reinstatement to his previous job position.

It is unlikely the Govt will oblige them.

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89845aaa · 9 months

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jellobiafrasays · 1 year

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Rhodesia in Brief (c1974 ed.)

This material is prepared, edited, issued, or circulated by the Rhodesian Information Office, 2852 McGill Terrace N.W., Washington D.C. 20008, which is registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act as an agent of the Government of Rhodesia in Salisbury

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boaringoldguy · 11 months

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“When we first exposed, in 2018, their deals in China, their initial response was there are no deals in China. Then it became well, there might be deals in China, but Hunter Biden didn’t make any money in China. And then, of course, that. So you see this continue to erosion,”

breitbart.com

Exclusive -- Peter Schweizer: 'The Dam Is Starting to Break' on Biden Family Corruption

Hannah Bleau

4–5 minutes

“The dam is starting to break” on the Biden family corruption, multiple New York Times best-seller author Peter Schweizer said during an appearance on Breitbart News Saturday.

Schweizer, a senior contributor at Breitbart News and president of the Government Accountability Institute, spoke about the recent Hunter Biden whistleblower revelations.

“This is really, really important. The dam is starting to break — truly the first time you’ve had somebody from inside the government who has said, ‘Wait a minute, the way this is being handled is wrong,'” he said, praising the whistleblowers who could otherwise retire and have comfortable lives.

“Based on what they’ve told us, is that under ordinary circumstances, Hunter Biden would, right now, be facing indictments not only for tax evasion charges, which are felonies,” but also for violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), Schweizer explained.

“The U.S. Attorney in Delaware wanted to bring charges in both of those areas and was blocked by the Department of Justice (DOJ),” he said, explaining that the revelations also reveal that the DOJ not only failed to do its job but applied a different set of standards to Hunter.

“We’re gonna call the person that is the subject of the search warrant. We’re going to call their lawyer and let them know a couple of days in advance that the search is coming,” he said, speaking of the special treatment issued to Hunter Biden.

Describing it as an “enormous breakthrough,” Schweizer added, “I don’t think these whistleblowers would come forward, except for the fact that this is true, and as they said, all of this can easily be corroborated based on correspondents and based on the information that’s available.”

“It is a devastating blow, and if you look through American history — whether it’s Watergate or other scandals — oftentimes it’s a cover-up that gets them because they get arrogant. They get greedy. They think they can get away with it, and that’s usually when they get caught,” the Red-Handed: How American Elites Get Rich Helping China Win author said.

Schweizer also weighed in on the new statement issued by a White House Council spokesman, who now said President Joe Biden was never in business with his son. The author described this as the “continued erosion of their position.”

“The defense from the Biden team was always this was a legitimate enterprise, as Hunter is a highly trained lawyer and an international businessman. Now their position has evolved during the same time period to say, ‘Well, look, Hunter was a drug addict. He didn’t really know what he was doing. He didn’t really know what he was saying,'” he said.

“The point is, they are flipping and flopping because they know that the noose on this entire enterprise is starting to tighten. And I think that this is going to have major repercussions not just for the Biden family, but for the 2024 election,” he said, adding that he would not be shocked to see someone such as California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) jumping into the presidential race “not just on some of the questions about where the President is mentally because of his age, but also because this scandal has legs.”

Indeed, recent surveys indicate that the American electorate view Biden himself as corrupt, “involved with his son in an illegal influence peddling scheme,” and Schweizer also pointed to that fact.

“We already see polls, Harvard Harris poll, showing a comfortable majority of Americans, including independents, fundamentally believe that he was engaged in criminal activity to aid and help his family’s business,” he added.

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t4t4t · 1 year

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Controversy and criticism [of the Uhuru Movement]

...At the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany, the General Students' Committee (AStA) broke apart in April 2015 as a consequence of internal dispute over purported antisemitism after having organized an information event about the Uhuru Movement on JGU campus in January.[19] The AStA distanced itself both from the Uhuru Movement, African People's Socialist Party and its leader Omali Yeshitela stating that "the struggle against racism and the consequences of colonialism should not blind us to other reactionary ideologies" and regretted providing a platform for this movement.[20]

Russian foreign influence controversy

The Uhuru Movement has been accused by state prosecutors of collaborating with alleged Russian foreign agent Aleksandr Viktorovich Ionov to sow social divisions in the United States.[21] Members of the group have traveled to Saint Petersburg, Russia, to attend an anti-globalization conference, and the group has also acknowledged that it supports Russia in its ongoing invasion of Ukraine.[22][23] On July 29, 2022, the Uhuru House in St. Petersburg, Florida, was raided by the FBI due to an indictment by a grand jury alleging a conspiracy between Ionov and the Uhuru movement to spread Russian disinformation under the guise of domestic political movements. An FBI Tampa Special agent said that "The facts and circumstances surrounding this indictment are some of the most egregious and blatant violations we've seen by the Russian government in order to destabilize and undermine trust in American Democracy."[24][25] On December 23, 2022, the Uhuru Movement organized an emergency meeting via Zoom, stating that the APSP expected new indictments by the FBI and the Department of Justice "in early January 2023 and possibly sooner", for violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act.[26] On April 18, a federal indictment was unsealed alleging that the Uhuru Movement, including the founder of the African People's Socialist Party, worked on behalf of the Russian government to spread pro-Russian propaganda and influence local elections.[27][28]

#not sure what to think. ive seen them at local portland protests and i signed up to their email newsletter years ago just to see what they #talk about #mostly reparations afaict #american democracy is a lie so im wondering whats really being revealed or said here but its interesting

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 10 months

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Chris Britt :: @chrisbritt01#GOP

* * * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

July 11, 2023

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

JUL 12, 2023

Late last night, just before a court deadline, former president Trump’s lawyers requested that his trial for illegally keeping national security documents be postponed indefinitely. While the lawyers argued that they were interested in protecting American democracy, falsely accusing President Biden of advancing the case in hopes of weakening his “chief political rival,” in fact the desire to push off the trial suggests that Trump realizes he’s in big trouble. His advisors have told reporters that he expects to end that trouble by winning the election. In the filing, his lawyers warned that as the “likely Republican Party nominee,” he would not have enough time to manage a trial.

The Department of Justice has asked for a speedy trial to begin in December, getting it over with before the election, not afterward.

Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) is in hot water today for calling white nationalists “true Americans” and refusing to admit that white nationalism, which quite literally means a nation built on the concept of white supremacy, is racist.

But Trump’s plea for delay until after the election so he can stack the DOJ with his own appointees is a reminder that, despite the distraction about white nationalism, we should not lose sight of Tuberville’s absolute unwillingness to drop his hold on about 250 senior military appointments. Keeping those positions open echoes then-Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) refusal to hold hearings for President Obama’s nominee for the Supreme Court in 2016, holding the seat open for Trump to appoint someone when he took office. Tuberville was in close touch with Trump during the attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Meanwhile, Gal Luft, a dual Israeli-U.S. citizen who is the key witness to what the Republican-dominated House Oversight Committee insists is President Biden’s corrupt ties to China, has been indicted by the Department of Justice for being a Chinese operative. Damian Williams, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, said Luft “subverted foreign agent registration laws in the United States to seek to promote Chinese policies by acting through a former high-ranking U.S. government official; he acted as a broker in deals for dangerous weapons and Iranian oil; and he told multiple lies about his crimes to law enforcement.”

On July 7, House Oversight Committee chair James Comer (R-KY) called Luft “a very credible witness on Biden family corruption,” who “provided incriminating evidence to six officials from the FBI and the DOJ in a meeting in Brussels in March 2019.” Luft also allegedly worked with a former Chinese government official to plant into Trump’s 2016 campaign someone who would push pro-Chinese policies and who then, for pay, funneled information to the Chinese. That person, who is not named in the indictment, was later under consideration for Secretary of Defense, Secretary of Homeland Security, or Director of National Intelligence.

Luft was indicted in absentia because he is a fugitive after jumping bail in April (which explains why Comer said he was “missing” in May). While Luft claims the indictment is retaliation for his revelations about Biden, in fact the sealed indictment was handed down on November 1, 2022, before he became a Republican witness. So he was charged first, arrested in Cyprus in February on related charges, and then became Comer’s star witness.

Also today, the Justice Department told lawyers for Trump and writer E. Jean Carroll, who has sued the former president for defamation, that it does not believe he was acting within the scope of his employment when he said he didn’t know her, she wasn’t his type, and he did not sexually assault her. While the DOJ focused on the statements Trump made as president, it said that it took into consideration the similar comments he made last October, which suggested that he was not, in fact, trying to protect and serve the U.S. when he made the initial comments. It also considered a jury’s verdict in May finding Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation and awarding Carroll $5 million in damages.

This means that the Department of Justice will no longer defend Trump against Carroll’s lawsuit, forcing him to rely on his own lawyers. A Trump spokesperson said the DOJ’s decision showed that the department was “politically weaponizing the justice system” against Trump.

Meanwhile, the summit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Vilnius, Lithuania, began with a surprise as Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan dropped his country’s opposition to Sweden’s NATO membership. His shift likely comes from U.S. assurances that the deal for F-16 jets Turkey badly wants will probably materialize. At the same time, Erdogan likely recognizes that moving away from Russia and toward Europe is a smart move as Russia’s war continues to sap that country’s strength.

In the Washington Post, Asli Aydintasbas of the Brookings Institution, formerly a journalist in Turkey, gave Biden credit for bringing Erdogan to “yes.” “The cutthroat geopolitical competition against China and Russia does not give Washington the luxury to maintain its policy of social distancing toward Erdogan,” she wrote, “despite his awful record on democracy.”

To get Erdogan permission to purchase F-16s, Biden had to work to convince congressional leaders, notably chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Robert Menendez (D-NJ), that it would be easier to work with Turkey inside NATO than outside it. Aydintasbas also suggested that Biden had worked with members of the European Union to consider expanding Turkey’s access to trade with the E.U.

“This is an important moment—and an opening to try to reverse Turkey’s drift,” Aydintasbas wrote. “But the window of opportunity for better relations with NATO and the West will not be open forever. For more thawing, Turkey will have to be willing to work on domestic issues as well.”

So Sweden has the green light, but to the dismay of Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky, who is also at the meeting, Ukraine does not. It is not a surprise that the 31 NATO member nations are not eager to welcome Ukraine to NATO immediately, since the terms of the alliance mean that doing so would bring the member states into open war with Russia, but Zelensky had hoped at least for a date for future admission.

A declaration from the heads of state and government participating in the meeting of the North Atlantic Council, NATO’s principal political decision-making body, blamed Russia for shattering peace in the Euro-Atlantic area and for violating the principles of a rules-based international order. Russia “is the most significant and direct threat to Allies’ security and to peace and stability in the Euro-Atlantic area,” it declared, and must be “held fully accountable” for its “illegal, unjustifiable, and unprovoked war of aggression against Ukraine.”

“Ukraine’s future is in NATO,” it said, but for now it focused on additional security packages and the establishment of a new joint body, the NATO-Ukraine Council, “where Allies and Ukraine sit as equal members to advance political dialogue, engagement, cooperation, and Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO.”

It is not as much as Zelensky wanted, but it is a good deal more than Trump ally Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) offered today when she called for President Biden to withdraw from NATO altogether, saying bizarrely that NATO, which was formed in 1949 to stand against Soviet aggression and now stands against Russian expansion, is “entirely beholden to Russia.” Indeed, Trump recently boasted that he could end the war in 24 hours, and his former vice president Mike Pence noted that “the only way you’d solve this war in a day is if you gave Vladimir Putin what he wanted.” And even that suggestion rather neatly ignores the reality that the Ukrainians have the ultimate say about the matter.

In contrast to Trump’s approach to U.S. foreign policy, Bo Erickson of CBS News noted today that Biden’s extensive foreign policy experience and personal appeal have enhanced U.S. credibility and moral authority, which is especially welcome after the previous administration undermined international alliances. Liana Fix, European fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, told Erickson: “For Europe, he represents a nostalgia for the 20th century, which was based on shared values, when the West was strong and the relations were clear with the Cold War…. President Biden is the old, great trans-Atlanticist.”

—

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#political #heather cox richardson #letters from an american #NATO #war in ukraine #Tuberville #foreign policy #white power #white supremacist

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