The judge in the New York City case against Donald Trump and the Trump organization has transparently been a little goofy. From the first day when he posed for the cameras, to the sketchy application of legal review within the case, Judge Arthur Engoron exhibits the classic traits of being weird and unstable.
There is a pattern amid the deployment of Lawfare that deserves some background context. Whenever Lawfare is deployed there are always background characters who are seemingly needed to keep the bizarre interpretations of Lawfare tactics on track.
We saw this play out with Debra Katzenberg, Monica McLean and David Laufman controlling Kavanaugh accuser Christine Blasey-Ford. We saw it again with Mary McCord playing the role in the background of the Trump Lawfare impeachment to guide Jerry Nadler and Adam Schiff. We saw it again with Andrew Weissmann and Norm Eisen guiding Special Prosecutor Jack Smith from the backbench of Lawfare. In each case the principal activity is guided by Lawfare ideologues who use position to influence.
In the Judge Engoron example, court clerk Allison Greenfield has been passing notes and instructions to Engoron as the case has progressed. The activity has become so disconcerting that Trump’s lawyers have called it out in court as it happens {Breitbart Link}. In response to the sunlight upon the visible activity, Judge Engoron has now expanded his gag order to prohibit Trump’s lawyers from drawing attention to the activity of Ms. Greenfield.
NEW YORK — The judge overseeing Donald Trump’s ongoing civil fraud trial issued another gag order on Friday — this time prohibiting all lawyers working on the trial from “from making any public statements, in or out of court, that refer to any confidential communications, in any form, between my staff and me.” (link)
The issuance of the gag order is weird because the entire dynamic of the clerk instructing the judge is weird. The gag order is an effort by Engoron to stop people from noticing it…. Yeah, that’s exponentially weirder.
POLITICO – [Trump Attorney Chris] Kise complained about Greenfield’s habit of passing notes to Engoron during proceedings, suggesting she is improperly influencing his decisions. Engoron reacted sharply to that complaint, telling Kise, “I have an unfettered, absolute right to consult with my law clerks” and saying he wouldn’t tolerate future comments about his staff.
Kise, though, continued to argue that he needed to state objections on the record for the purposes of an eventual appeal. “If notes are being passed at certain specific times or they’re being passed in a way that might indicate some bias,” he said, “that’s a record that needs to be made contemporaneously.” (more)
As noted by Henry Rossof from inside the court today, “Judge Engoron said he will note a continuing objection to his consultation with his clerk but does not want anything more said about her… he will still consult.”
“I have an absolute, unfettered right to consult with my law clerks anywhere, anytime,” Engoron noted. “There’s no more need to make a record” [of it within the court when it occurs] he concluded.
After this series of exchanges today, Engoron then expanded his court order to forbid the Trump lawyers from telling the public about what was happening between him and his clerk in the court.
Yup, weird, sketchy and fitting right in with the pattern of how Lawfare is deployed.
These people are ideologically not stable.
A three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has lifted District Judge Tanya Chutkan’s gag order prohibiting Trump from criticizing the special counsel, Jack Smith, or “any foreseeable witness” in the case. [2-Page Opinion Here] In my opinion, it was the generalized “foreseeable witness” part of the Chutkan order that became the central issue for the appellate court. Jack Smith could name anyone as a potential witness, just to silence the accused.
President Trump’s team previously indicated in their filing to the appeals court that they are prepared to seek immediate relief at the Supreme Court. However, at least now, that approach will not be needed as the DC Appellate Court has blocked the gag order.
[ SOURCE LINK ]
If the appeals court had ruled to uphold the gag order, they would have opened the door for the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in and potentially overturn the lower rulings. Therefore, appeals court was most likely not willing to see their own credibility rest on the language of a motion written by Judge Chutkan.
In the ruling, the appeals court will accept briefings and oral arguments prior to making their own ruling on the matter. That will make any advancement to the Supreme Court much less likely to succeed. There’s a bit of court credibility and preservation playing out in this dynamic.
WASHINGTON – A federal appeals court on Friday lifted a gag order reining in Donald Trump’s comments about the criminal election-subversion case pending against him in Washington.
At the former president’s request, a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily lifted U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan’s order prohibiting Trump from using his public statements to target special counsel Jack Smith and his team, court officials and potential witnesses in the case.
The appeals court’s action makes it likely that the gag order, which Trump contends violates his First Amendment rights and those of his supporters, will be sidelined for more than two weeks and perhaps longer. Trump has also complained that the order interferes with his rights as a presidential candidate to argue to voters that he is being politically persecuted by the Biden administration.
The D.C. Circuit set oral arguments on the gag order issue for Nov. 20. The panel issuing the order consisted of two Obama appointees — Patricia Millett and Cornelia Pillard — as well as the court’s newest member, Biden appointee Bradley Garcia. (read more)
…”No court in American history has imposed a gag order on a criminal defendant who is actively campaigning for public office—let alone the leading candidate for President of the United States. That centuries-long practice was broken on October 17, 2023, when the district court entered its Opinion and Order, A1 (the “Gag Order”), muzzling President Trump’s core political speech during an historic Presidential campaign.
Given the Gag Order’s extraordinary nature, one would expect an extraordinary justification for it. Yet none exists. President Trump has made months of public statements about this case, but the Department of Justice (“the prosecution”) submitted no evidence of any actual or imminent threat to the administration of justice. Instead, when asked about the supposed threat to the case, the prosecution admitted, “of course this prejudice is speculative.”
Based this speculation, the district court entered a sweeping, viewpoint-based prior restraint on the core political speech of a major Presidential candidate, based solely on an unconstitutional “heckler’s veto.” The Gag Order violates the First Amendment rights of President Trump and over 100 million Americans who listen to him.
President Trump’s uniquely powerful voice has been a fixture of American political discourse for eight years, and central to the American fabric for decades. The prosecution’s claim that his core political speech suddenly poses a threat to the administration of justice is baseless. The prosecutors and potential witnesses addressed by President Trump’s speech are high-level government officials and public figures, many of whom routinely attack President Trump in their own public statements, media interviews, and books.
President Trump’s viewpoint and modes of expression resonate powerfully with tens of millions of Americans. The prosecution’s request for a Gag Order bristles with hostility to President Trump’s viewpoint and his relentless criticism of the government—including of the prosecution itself. The Gag Order embodies this unconstitutional hostility to President Trump’s viewpoint. It should be immediately stayed.
President Trump requests a ruling on this motion by November 10, 2023, and requests an administrative stay pending the Court’s ruling. President Trump has notified the prosecution, who note that they oppose this motion. President Trump respectfully asks that this appeal be expedited to the greatest extent possible.”..
~ President Donald J Trump, Legal Team
Crypto conman Sam Bankman-Fried has been found guilty on all seven counts of fraud and conspiracy. The evidence was overwhelming and the three former executives who worked side by side with him testified against him.
Former Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison and former FTX executives Gary Wang and Nishad Singh, said SBF directed them to commit crimes, including the looting of FTX and lying to lenders and investors about the companies’ finances.
NEW YORK, Nov 2 (Reuters) – FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried was found guilty on Thursday of defrauding customers of his now-bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange in one of the biggest financial frauds on record, a verdict that cemented the 31-year-old former billionaire’s fall from grace.
A 12-member jury in Manhattan federal court convicted him on all seven counts he faced after a monthlong trial in which prosecutors made the case that he stole $8 billion from the exchange’s customers out of sheer greed. The verdict came just shy of one year after FTX filed for bankruptcy in a swift corporate meltdown that shocked financial markets and erased his estimated $26 billion personal fortune.
The jury reached the verdict after just over four hours of deliberations. Bankman-Fried stood and clasped his hands together as the verdict was read.
Bankman-Fried had pleaded not guilty to two counts of fraud and five counts of conspiracy.
The conviction represented a victory for the U.S. Justice Department and Damian Williams, the top federal prosecutor in Manhattan, who made rooting out corruption in financial markets one of his top priorities. (read more)
…”FTX cofounder Gary Wang, who was FTX’s chief technology officer, revealed in his testimony that Bankman-Fried directed him to insert code into FTX’s operations so that Alameda Research could make unlimited withdrawals from FTX and have a credit line up to $65 billion. Wang said the money came from customers.”… ~ Politico
More of this is needed. Today, Illinois Senator Dick Durbin (D) and Ohio Senator JD Vance (R) confronted each other in the upper chamber over DOJ nominees that Senator Vance refuses to advance with unanimous consent.
Durbin was furious at the blocks JD Vance was putting in front of the Joe Biden nominees for U.S. Attorney and criticized Vance for campaigning on “law and order” while blocking those DOJ nominees advanced by Durbin. In response, Senator Vance delivered remarks promising to block every DOJ nomination as long as Joe Biden continues weaponizing Main Justice and the USAO nominations to target his political opposition. WATCH [prompted to the Vance response]:
.
JD Vance has some tenuous network affiliations in his background that give me a little pause; however, on the substance of this issue, he is righteous in this approach.
There has been little, if any, Republican push-back to the radical nature of the onslaught brought forth by Biden, DAG Lisa Monaco and AG Merrick Garland. Factually the Lawfare tactics have increased in weaponized intensity throughout the Biden term in office.
The Republican House has the ability to block the funding mechanism, and the Republican minority in the Senate have the ability to block the nominees. Until now, we have seen little, if any, effort by either chamber to bring the Biden rogue elements to heel. Perhaps this is the start. Regardless, it is at least a step in the right direction.
This is a time of great consequence, deliberate choosing and decisions to be made.
History will long remember where each of the participants in our governmental bodies stand in these moments of crisis.
A based Senator JD Vance is making a good decision.
During yesterday’s Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee hearing, Kentucky Senator Rand Paul took the opportunity to confront the Dept of Homeland Security (DHS) and FBI with the recent history of their activity.
As noted by Senator Paul, the past several years exhibits clear and irrefutable evidence of the DHS and FBI working collaboratively to conduct surveillance on American citizens, while simultaneously violating the first amendment by coordinating with big tech social media companies on censorship. WATCH:
Everything Rand Paul says in that statement is factually correct. However, highlighting just how the game of pretending is conducted in DC, at the end of hearing Senator Rand Paul -joined by Senator Lindsey Graham- voted to approve Jack Lew as Joe Biden’s ambassador to Israel. Quite a shift in ideological priority considering that Jack Lew was the primary cover-up official responsible for protecting Obama from exposure to the IRS targeting operation against conservatives.
Additionally, prior to his job as Treasury Secretary, and prior to his position as President Obama’s Chief of Staff, and prior to him being Obama’s Budget Director (comical considering Obama never had a budget) Jack Lew served as State Department Director under Hillary Clinton. It was Lew’s influence that shaped and positioned the failed Obama/Clinton foreign policy toward the Middle East. Specifically, toward Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya during their upheaval, the Arab Spring. How did that work out for our interests?
For those who believe the bankers control everything, Jack Lew is a case study.
President Obama’s first chief of staff was Rahm Emanuel, he sat on the board of troubled federal mortgage giant Freddie Mac. Obama’s second CoS was Bill Daley, a previous top executive at financial firm J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. Next came Jack Lew.
From 2006-2008, Jack Lew was chief operating officer of Citibank’s alternative investments division. And it was his division that made billions of dollars betting “U.S. homeowners would not be able to make their mortgage payments.”
Lew made millions at Citi, including a bonus of nearly $950,000 in 2009 just a few months after the bank received billions of dollars in a taxpayer rescue, according to disclosure forms filed with the federal government. Jack Lew was CEO of Citibank’s hedge fund of “credit default swaps“, the financial tool that devastated the housing equity market and created the subsequent economic collapse.
Notice the pattern?
I digress…
Hey, at least Senator Paul can talk eloquently about the constitutional protections being usurped in real time. Doing something about it, not so much.
This is not my only source about terrorist cells moving into the USA because Biden has opened the borders. The open border has had two objectives. Democrats in Texas are already pushing that illegal aliens should be allowed to vote. They are being joined nationally and Biden will do an executive order to allow them to vote pre-2024 if we even get to an election.
The Democrats see this as changing America to wipe out the Republican opponents. The LEFT has determined to end freedom and democracy just like Zelinsky – it will be their way or no way! I have been to Texas recently, where people are concerned about the flood of illegal aliens.
However, they have DELIBERATELY allowed terrorist cells to enter so they can justify more restraints upon our freedom to even move. Welcome to the decline and fall of the United States. Don’t get upset. Communism fell in 1989. It’s just our turn since there are 34 years to this cycle.
Earlier today, Texas AG Ken Paxton also asked the court for a restraining order against Joe Biden’s administration who are taking down border barriers and cutting through barbed wire in order to increase the flow of illegal aliens. [Court Filing Here] AG Paxton wants the court to stop Biden from opening the border.
TEXAS – Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a motion for a temporary restraining order on an emergency basis after federal agents escalated their destruction of Texas’s barrier at the State’s border with Mexico. The federal government’s renewed effort to destroy Texas’s barrier and assist aliens’ entry into the country follows just days after Texas filed a lawsuit against the Biden Administration’s Department of Homeland Security (“DHS”), DHS Secretary Mayorkas, and other agencies for numerous documented incidents of barrier destruction and occasions on which federal agents facilitated aliens’ mass entry during a severe immigration surge in recent months.
Texas is seeking an order that would enjoin federal agents from cutting, destroying, damaging, or otherwise interfering with Texas’s concertina wire fence. (link)
A few thoughts about the letter itself before getting to the substance. {pdf link Here}
First, as you are likely aware, the Senators and Committee heads/ranking members do little of the investigative effort themselves. This is where the value of exceptional staff comes into play, along with the background battle between a small group of congressional aides and assistants -vs- an army of Lawfare operatives. The battle to reveal truth takes place deep in the trenches of hidden government, and the only weapon on the side of the righteous is the ultimate weapon – the truth.
Second, again with a familiar approach, this letter is not penned to the recipient FBI Director Christopher Wray, in as much as it is an alarm sounded by Senator Grassley’s office to the larger American audience. This is essentially Grassley saying to We The People, here’s the evidence of how inherently corrupt and politicized the FBI has become. The motive appears to be providing damaging information the media will avoid mentioning, discussing or outlining.
DC FBI Building, left – Main Justice DOJ Building, right.
In summary of the 7-page letter, it describes a national effort by the FBI to cover up the activity of Hunter and Joe Biden’s illicit financial dealings. Because the Biden family essentially operated a network of financial schemes that touched on multiple areas and interests, the activity itself was tracked by the FBI through a series of several dozen Confidential Human Sources (CHS’s) and informants in multiple jurisdictions throughout the U.S.
Because the various field offices and CHS/Informant networks were diverse and widespread, the DC FBI needed a control mechanism that would throw a bag over all the activity coast to coast. The mechanism they chose was the familiar “Foreign Influence Disinformation” designation. The FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force was the DC organization -an institutional tool per se’- used to block, impede and eliminate sunlight upon the information that was surfacing from multiple investigations of the Biden family.
Grassley walks through examples of how the central HQ of the FBI deployed the label of “disinformation” in order to get various field offices to discredit their own investigative tools, CHS’s and informants. The way it worked would be central FBI command would label an investigative lead as “disinformation”, and that would throw a bag over the field office outcome. The CHS’s and informants were then undermined, discredited and cut loose from the record keeping of the FBI.
Essentially, labeling the findings as foreign disinformation was the protective shield to remove the evidence of the Biden family activity. This was done from Washington DC through the main FBI headquarters. The downstream field offices were then shut down by administrative labeling, and the issues they uncovered were eliminated. This is a familiar process to those who have followed the deep weeds of how the FBI operates.
The importance of the Grassley letter goes beyond Joe and Hunter Biden; it cuts to the heart of a system of corruption within the FBI that many Americans became familiar with in the aftermath of the FBI activity against Donald Trump in the Russiagate storyline. The FBI is metastatically corrupt, with the origin of the cancer in Washington DC, and the efforts of the Foreign Influence Task Force becoming the method to spread the corrupt infection nationally.
The Grassley letter originates from information provided by whistleblowers inside the FBI who were subjected to having their investigations nulled by Washington DC. Apparently, some of those who had time, effort and investigative resources dedicated to the honest investigation of the Biden family scheme, did not like seeing their investigations shut down simply because Christopher Wray and other politically active leaders in the DC command center of the FBI did not want the Biden family exposed.
This pattern of activity, the institutional preservation issue, is exactly what was noted in the previous Trump-Russia targeting effort. Former AG Bill Barr and all of the officers and investigative officials therein, were also in alignment with this institutional preservation approach. The FBI throwing a bag over the Biden corruption schemes, is yet another example of a decision to preserve a corrupt system rather than allowing the American public to see it, thereby running the risk of collapse.
I would strongly urge everyone to take the time to read the 7-page outline provided by Senator Grassley’s office, along with the investigative staff and resources of Senator Ron Johnson. While they are unnamed, I am certain that I have personally met some of the people who put this outline together.
[…] “It is unclear how many confidential human sources, or how many of their reports, were categorized as disinformation by the Foreign Influence Task Force, but the whistleblower told Grassley that the FBI’s improper branding of the information as “disinformation” “caused investigative activity to cease.”
~ Margot Cleveland, Federalist
Beyond the details, granular information, citations and evidence, what becomes crystal clear is that every root and branch of the FBI is now politically corrupt. It is an institution now more akin to the Russian FSB than it is to a USA national investigative agency. It simply cannot be reformed.
The U.S. Dept of Justice and FBI are now political institutions that have abandoned their originating mission in order to become the domestic equivalent of the Soviet-era FSB. Their joint targeting mechanisms have been redesigned to support the interests of corrupt DC politicians – specifically the interests of Democrats. Grassley is giving specifics to what has been visible for years.
This is why and how the Fourth Branch of U.S. Government is now the superseding apparatus above all other branches. {GO DEEP} This is why and how Barack Obama, John Brennan and Eric Holder created it, cemented it, and made it impervious to any effort to remove it.
The Fourth Branch of Government is evil Sauron, and Washington DC is Mordor. The corrupt media have aligned with it; they are preserving it; and the institutions in/around the DC system are self-aware, acting to support it and fully autonomous.
Additionally, to overlay their ability to monitor every single aspect of every life that might seek to challenge or destroy it, the end game of surveillance outlined by Edward Snowden is active.
It is no secret that politicians use their insider information to select stocks. A recent trade has raised eyebrows and raises the question of whether those behind the curtain knew that the Hamas attacks were coming, or worse, the whole thing was planned.
Josh Gottheimer is a Democrat Congressman from New Jersey. On September 25, Gottheimer just so happened to purchase numerous shares of Northrop Grumman Corp (NYSE: NOC) for around 425 per share. Northrop Grumman Corp also just so happens to be one of the largest military defense contractors in the world and it conducts the majority of its business with the US Department of Defense.
Hamas penetrated the Iron Dome two weeks later on October 7. The stock spiked 11% on the day of the attack and is trading a bit below 500 at the time of this writing. Lucky trade? Solid company? The trade itself doesn’t seem off until you look a bit closer. Gottheimer is also an overseeing member of the National Security Agency and Cyber Subcommittee, a branch of the Department of Defense that partners with all the three letter agencies and every branch of the military. As explained on their website, “NSA Cybersecurity prevents and eradicates threats to U.S. national security systems with a focus on the Defense Industrial Base and the improvement of U.S. weapons’ security. It also strives to promote cybersecurity education, research, and career-building.”
If this were a case of insider trading, it indicates that American intelligence agencies had been preparing for October 7. Again, no one has yet to discover how Hamas invaded what was possibly the most secure border in the world. Something does not add up here.
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