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DC insider: Deleted Jan. 6 texts are ‘very clearly a conspiracy’
August 07, 2022
While President Barack Obama gave the executive order for the operation that resulted in Osama bin Laden’s death in Pakistan on May 11, 2011, it was under President Joe Biden’s watch that another top al-Qaeda leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, was killed in Kabul, Afghanistan on July 31, 2022. Afghanistan is now under the control of the far-right Taliban, but al-Zawahiri’s death sends out a message that even in a Taliban-controlled country, a leader al-Qaeda terrorist can’t hide from U.S. forces.
Leon Panetta, who served as director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and later, secretary of defense under Obama, discussed al-Zawahiri’s death during an August 3 appearance on MSNBC — whose Andrea Mitchell noted now how “astonishing” it was that “as far as we know, they were no civilian deaths” even though the operation was carried out in the middle of Downtown Kabul. And Mitchell also brought up the January 6 committee’s investigation and the disappearance of Secret Service texts.
Panetta, now 84, said of al-Zawahiri’s death, “I pay tremendous tribute to our intelligence forces, our military forces that were involved, the CIA…. There’s a tremendous amount of planning involved in those kind of attacks. The ability to do constantly reconnaissance, to gather intelligence, to know that you have the right target, to be able to hit that target without any kind of collateral damage, I think, is a tribute to their capabilities. And in the end, I do think it completes a very important mission that we began on 9/11, which was to make sure we would go after those who were involved in the attack on 9/11…. It really does send a message that you don’t attack the United States and get away with it.”
Panetta, who also served as White House Chief of Staff under President Bill Clinton, noted that bin Laden and al-Zawahiri were the “key planners” of the al-Qaeda terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 — and now, both of them have been killed by U.S. forces.
Mitchell asked Panetta, however, if he was worried that terrorists — after learning that al-Zawahiri was in Kabul at the time of his death — might consider Afghanistan a “safe haven” because the Taliban “have clearly not lived up to their agreement not to harbor terrorists after the U.S. withdrawal.”
Panetta told Mitchell, “The Taliban is now in charge of Afghanistan; there’s no question that they’re providing a safe haven for terrorists…. The fact that al-Zawahiri, one of the top leaders of al-Qaeda, could simply walk into Kabul, get an apartment in the middle of the capitol, not have anybody raise any questions sends a real signal that the Taliban is going to continue to provide a safe haven for terrorism.”
The former CIA director went on to say that terrorism has “metastasized in many ways.”
Panetta told Mitchell, “It’s ISIS, it’s Boko Haram, it’s al-Shabab in North Africa, and it continues to be al-Qaeda. So, we are facing, and continue to face, a real threat of a terrorist attack either on the United States or elsewhere. That’s one of the major flashpoints that we have to control.”
Mitchell brought up another form of violent extremism: White nationalist violence in the United States, asking Panetta to weigh on the disappearance of U.S. Secret Service texts from January 6, 2021. And he responded, “Andrea, this is another major concern: that, obviously, officials out of the Trump Administration were taking steps to make sure that potential evidence involved in January 6 would not be there. I really do think that the Justice Department has to investigate the loss of this kind of critical evidence…. This was a deliberate effort to make sure that very important evidence regarding what the players were doing at the Pentagon, at the Secret Service and elsewhere were saying and doing on January 6 — all of which is very relevant to the investigation into what happened.”
When Mitchell asked Panetta, “You’re saying this is a cover-up?” he responded, “I don’t think there’s any question that when you go from agency to agency and find out that key messages have been deleted, something’s going on here that resembles very clearly a conspiracy.”
Watch the video below or at this link.
Jan. 6-related Texts Wiped 'From Agency To Agency' Looks Like 'Conspiracy': Panetta youtu.be
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Robert Brockman, the multi-billionaire investor indicted in the largest ever tax fraud in U.S. history died late Friday. He was 81.
Brockman was accused in 2020 "of evading $2 billion in taxes over a 20-year period through wire fraud, evidence tampering, and money laundering, among other criminal acts," Distractify when the charged were filed.
According to Bloomberg, the Republican megadonor was suspected of tapping into "untaxed proceeds from offshore entities to buy a Colorado fishing lodge, a private jet and a 200-foot yacht. The Internal Revenue Service's investigator, James Lee, remarked that he had "not seen this pattern of greed or concealment and cover-up in my 25-plus years as a special agent."
A Florida native, Brockman started his career selling computing services to automobile dealers on behalf of IBM. In 1970, he founded a company that helped revolutionize the auto dealer industry, "that helped car dealers run virtually every aspect of their operations," according to Bloomberg.
That company, Reynolds & Reynolds, became a massive business worth some $5 billion.
Brockman also helped spawn the career of Robert F. Smith, the wealthiest Black American citizen. He provided the initial investment in his private equity firm, Vista Equity Partners. The U.S. alleged that Brockman used a nexus of offshore entities and burner phones to hide $2 billion in income.
Smith finally admitted committing tax fraud but avoided prosecution by turning state's witness against Brockman.
"The case against Brockman hinged on whether billions of dollars in an offshore charitable trust were secretly controlled by him, as prosecutors alleged, or were independently managed, as he claimed," Bloomberg reported. "Prosecutors said he used untaxed proceeds from offshore entities to buy a Colorado fishing lodge, a private jet and a 200-foot yacht, which his lawyers denied."
At the time of his death, Brockman's lawyers maintained that he was suffering from dementia. In May, a judge ruled that he was competent for trial.
MORE from Raw Story: Trump rambles for 108 minutes in CPAC speech filled with 'unapologetic fascism': report
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DA suspended by DeSantis describes 'Orwellian thought police' treatment as he was hauled out of his office
August 07, 2022
Appearing on MSNBC's "The Katie Phang Show" early Sunday morning, the Florida district attorney who was suspended from his job by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) for pledging to not prosecute doctors or women over abortions described the horrific way he was forcibly removed from his office, saying it was akin to what you would see in Russia, China or North Korea.
Speaking with the host, Hillsborough County DA Andrew Warren said the whole affair reeked of living in an Orwellian Police state.
"Let's be clear, this isn't about anything I have done," he began. "This is about what I've said. The statements that I signed onto were value statements expressing my opposition to legislation that was being considered and passed that was violating people's constitutional rights"
"So I'd be punished not only for cases that have not come before me but for cases that don't even exist or not even on the ballot in the state of Florida," he continued. "This is Orwellian thought police, I'm being punished for not enforcing laws that are not even on the books yet."
Asked what happened on the day when the Republican governor went after him, Warren said he was forced from his office by an armed deputy who refused to let him talk to his staff.
"First of all, this happened so quickly," he recalled. "I mean, I was blindsided by this coup. An armed deputy came into my office and told me I had to leave. I was not even able to gather my things, wasn't able to talk to my staff, wasn't able to look at the order that this was based on."
"I was worried I was going to be put into handcuffs and dragged out of my own office," he added. "But let's be clear, we are going to fight back against this illegal order and fight hard. We will end up launching a thorough defense of our democracy that eviscerates this nonsensical and illegal order by the government."
Watch below:
MSNBC 08 07 2022 07 19 07 youtu.be
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