#DocumentTools

[nazma1057]

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[happyzombieapex]

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[thepdfleader-blog]

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[blueseotools]

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[duchessofostergotlands]

This is a link to Blake Lively's full complaint against Justin Baldoni and holy shit is it incredibly damning. Most of the news outlets are skimming over the details but it is absolutely worth a read:

https://static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/documenttools/1629cc34e562e325/4410b1d9-full.pdf

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Red-teaming the SCOTUS code of conduct

Tomorrow (November 18) at 1PM, I'll be in Concord, NH at Gibson's Books, presenting my new novel The Lost Cause, a preapocalyptic tale of hope in the climate emergency.

On Monday (November 20), I'm at the Simsbury, CT Public Library at 7PM

Last April, Propublica's Joshua Kaplan, Justin Elliott and Alex Mierjeski dropped a bombshell: Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas had been showered in high-ticket "gifts" by billionaire ideologue Harlan Crow, who subsequently benefited from Thomas's rulings in the court:

https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-scotus-undisclosed-luxury-travel-gifts-crow

This was just the beginning: in the coming days and weeks, more and more of Thomas's corruption came to light, everything from the fact that his mother's home had been bought by Crow, to the fact that Thomas's adoptive son went to a fancy private school on Crow's dime:

https://www.propublica.org/article/clarence-thomas-harlan-crow-private-school-tuition-scotus

The news was explosive and not merely because of the corruption it revealed in the country's highest court. The credibility of the court itself was at its lowest ebb in living memory, thanks to the two judges who occupied stolen seats – Kavanaugh and Coney Barrett. One of those judges – Kavanaugh – is a credibly accused rapist. Thomas is also a credibly accused sexual abuser:

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/10/01/30-years-after-her-testimony-anita-hill-still-wants-something-from-joe-biden-514884

Then, this illegitimate court went on to deliver a string of upsets to long-settled law, culminating in the Dobbs decision, which triggered state laws that force small children to bear their rapists' babies:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/09/health/abortion-bans-rape-incest.html

That was the context for the Thomas bribery scandal, which was swiftly joined by another bribery scandal, involving Samuel Alito's improper acceptance of valuable gifts from Paul Singer, another billionaire who brought business before the court:

https://www.propublica.org/article/samuel-alito-luxury-fishing-trip-paul-singer-scotus-supreme-court

This string of scandals and outrages naturally prompted public curiosity about the Supreme Court's ethical standards, and that triggered fresh waves of incredulous outrage when we all found out that the Supreme Court doesn't have any:

https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2023/why-doesnt-the-supreme-court-have-a-formal-code-of-ethics/

When Congress made tentative noises about providing minor checks and balances on the court, the justices erupted in outrage, telling Congress to go fuck itself:

https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/supreme-court-ethics-durbin/cf67ef8450ea024d/full.pdf

Chief Justice Roberts went on whatever the opposite of a charm-offensive is called (an "offense offensive?"), a media tour whose key message to the American people was "STFU, you're hurting our feelings":

https://news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/roberts-defends-high-court-against-attacks-on-its-legitimacy

To the shock of no one except billionaires and Supreme Court justices inhabiting the splendid isolation from societal norms that is the privilege of life tenure, America didn't like this. The Supreme Court's credibility plummeted. A large supermajority of Americans – 79%! – now support age limits for Supreme Court justices:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/18/the-people-no/#tell-ya-what-i-want-what-i-really-really-want

Support for packing the Supreme Court is at an historic high and gaining ground, now sitting neck-and-neck with opposition at 46% in favor/51% opposed. Among under-30s, there's a healthy majority (58%) in favor of appointing more SCOTUS justices.

As Roberts' wounded bleats reveal, SCOTUS is very sensitive to its plummeting legitimacy. After all, the court doesn't have an army, nor does it have a police force. Supreme Court rulings only matter to the extent that the American people accept them as legitimate and obey them. Transformational presidents like Lincoln and FDR have waged successful wars against the Supreme Court, sidelining its authority and turning it into an unimportant rump institution for years afterward:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/26/mint-the-coin-etc-etc/#blitz-em

Now the Supremes are working their way through the (mythological but convenient) five stages of grief. Having passed through Denial and Anger, they've arrived at Bargaining, with the publication of the court's first "code" "of" "conduct":

https://www.supremecourt.gov/about/Code-of-Conduct-for-Justices_November_13_2023.pdf

It's…not good. As Max Moran writes for The American Prospect and The Revolving Door Project, the proposed code amounts to "security theater," a set of trivially bypassed strictures that would not have prevented any of the scandals to date and will permit far worse in the years to come:

https://prospect.org/justice/2023-11-17-supreme-court-objectivity-theater/

The security framing is a very useful tool for evaluating the Supremes' proposal. The purpose of a code of conduct isn't merely to prevent people from accidentally misstepping – it's to prevent malicious parties from corrupting the judicial process. To evaluate the code, we should red team it: imagine what harms a corrupt judge or a corrupting billionaire would be able to effect while staying within the bounds the code sets.

Seen in that light, the code is wildly defective and absolutely not fit for purpose. Its most glaring defect is found in the nature of its edicts – they are almost all optional. The word "should" appears 53 times in the document, while "must" appears just six times:

https://ballsandstrikes.org/ethics-accountability/supreme-court-code-of-conduct-hilariously-fake/

Of those six "musts," two are not pertinent to ethical questions (they pertain to the requirement for a justice to get prior approval before getting paid for teaching gigs).

When the code of conduct was rolled out, the court and its apologists pointed out that it was modeled on the ethical guidelines that bind lower courts. In the wake of the Thomas revelations, these guidelines were a useful benchmark to measure Thomas's conduct against. The fact that other federal judges would have been severely sanctioned or even fired if they had engaged in the same conduct as Thomas was a powerful argument that Thomas had overstepped the bounds of ethical conduct.

But as Bloomberg Law discovered when they compared the lower courts' codes to the Supremes' draft, the Supremes have gone through those lower court codes and systematically cut nearly every mention of "enforce" from their own draft. They also cut the requirement to "take appropriate action" if a violation is reported.

If you are a bad judge or a bad donor, all of this is good news. Nearly everything that it condemns is merely optional, which means that if a judge can be convinced to ignore a rule, they won't have violated the code. What's more, even widespread rulebreaking doesn't trigger an investigation. That's a very weak security measure indeed.

But it gets worse. The Supremes' code also omit key definitions found in the codes that bind the lower courts. The most important definition to be cut is for "political organization," which the lower courts define expansively as both parties and "entit[ies] whose principal purpose is to advocate for or against political candidates or parties." That definition captures "nonprofits, think tanks, lobbying firms, trade associations, grassroots groups" – the whole panoply of organizations whom federal judges must maintain an arm's length distance from in order to preserve their objectivity. Federal judges may not lead, speak at or donate to these organizations.

By omitting this definition, the Supremes open the door to involvement with precisely the kinds of PACs, thinktanks and other influence organizations funded by the billionaires who have benefited so handsomely from the judges' rulings.

What's more, the Supremes carve out an explicit exemption for speaking to "nonprofits, think tanks, lobbying firms, trade associations, grassroots groups," and to serving as a director, trustee or officer of "a nonprofit organization devoted to the law, the legal system, or the administration of justice and may assist such an organization in the management and investment of funds."

As Moran points out, this exemption would cover – among other institutions – the far-right Federalist Society, which satisfies all those criteria. That means a Supreme Court justice could sit on the board and raise funds for the FedSoc without raising any issues with this code – not even one of those squishy "shoulds." Nothing in this code would stop Clarence Thomas or Thomas Alito from accepting lavish gifts, private jet rides, or luxury tour buses from billionaires with business before the court:

https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/justice-thomas-267000-loan-rv-forgiven-senate-democrats-104303972

As Moran writes, these definitional vacuums are a well-understood class of weaknesses in ethics codes. Congress gets a lot of mileage out of this ruse – for example, by narrowly defining "lobbying" to exclude things that most people understand that term to mean, Congress engage in improperly close relations with lobbyists while still maintaining that they hardly ever talk to a lobbyist at all:

https://www.politico.eu/article/jeff-hauser-opinion-watergate-european-union-qatargate/

The same ruse goes for campaign contributions – if you want to accept a lot of campaign contributions that would fall afoul of ethics rules, just narrow the definition of "campaign contribution" until all the money you're receiving no longer qualifies.

Moran closes by calling on Congress to formulate a real, meaningful code of conduct for the Supremes, one that orders Supreme Court judges not to accept corrupting gifts and to maintain the arm's length neutrality that the rest of the federal judiciary is required to keep. Rather than this new code of conduct constituting proof that SCOTUS can be its own oversight, its gross deficiencies should put to rest any question about whether the Supremes can be trusted to regulate themselves.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/17/red-team-black-robes/#security-theater

Image: Senate Democrats (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:United_States_Supreme_Court_Building,_July_21,_2020.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

[marvelsmostwanted]

Ummm you guys gotta read this. It’s insane.

Literally manufactured outrage.

Wow.

No paywall: https://static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/documenttools/1629cc34e562e325/4410b1d9-full.pdf

Or try: https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/18/be/7dac3eb84d1c8c3b90cf17cb17ef/complaint-of-blake-lively-v-wayfarer-studios-llc-et-al.pdf

[hackernewsrobot]

Contact of Containership Dali with the Key Bridge and Subsequent Bridge Collapse [pdf]

https://static01.nyt.com/newsgraphics/documenttools/6119296c8c79713a/0e214c46-full.pdf

[daitoshi]

Timeline of the raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, for clarity:

2021

January 2021: Trump is stepping down as president and is ordered to return all documents to NARA before leaving office.

May 2021: NARA officials contact Trump's team after realizing several important documents were missing.

Fall 2021: NARA has not received the documents. NARA lawyer Gary stern reaches out to Trump attorney to intervene, asking about several boxes of records apparently taken to Mar-a-Lago during Trump's relocation.

2022

It's been nearly 12 full months since he's been ordered to return all documents, and 7 months since NARA told him directly that they know documents are missing. He has not returned the documents in his possession during this time.

January 2022 - After months of discussions, NARA retrieves 15 boxes of Trump white house records. Some of them are torn up, some reconstructed with tape. NARA says in a statement that the boxes contain some SAP documents - Special Access Programs that severely limit who would have access to that information.

February 2022 - NARA asks Justice department to investigate Trump's handling of White House records, and whether he violated laws related to classified information.

April 2022 - NARA publicly acknowledges that the Justice Department is involved, and news outlets report that prosecutors have launched a criminal probe into Trump's mishandling of classified documents. Around this time, FBI agents begin interviewing Trump aides about the handling of records.

May 2022 - News outlets report that investigators subpoenaed NARA for access to the classified documents already obtained from Mar-A-Lago. This indicates that the Justice Department is using a grand jury in its investigation.

June 2022 - Four investigators, including a Justice Department counterintelligence official, visit Mar-A-Lago seeking info on the classified information Trump had taken to florida. During this meeting, federal officials serve a grand jury subpoena for some of the sensitive national security documents found on the premises. They take those documents with them when they leave.

Trump's attorneys then receive a letter, from federal investigators, asking them to further secure the room where documents are being stored. Trump aides add a padlock to the room. Federal Investigators serve a subpoena to the Trump investigation, demanding surveillance video. Trump's company turns over the footage.

August 8, 2022 - FBI executes a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago, focused on the club area where Trump's offices and personal quarters were located. Federal agents remove 'about a dozen' boxes of materials from the property after this search.

August 11, yesterday, Attorney General Garland revealed that he personally approved the decision to seek a search warrant.

And today the warrant dropped. You can read it here: https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/mar-a-lago-search-warrant-and-inventory/5144e66f50896998/full.pdf

Federal agents who executed the warrant did so to investigate potential crimes associated with violations of the Espionage Act, which outlaws the unauthorized retention of national security information that could harm the United States or aid a foreign adversary; a federal law that makes it a crime to destroy or conceal a document to obstruct a government investigation, and Section 2071, which covers the unlawful removal of government records. None of these laws differentiate information that has been declassified or not.

The Espionage Act in particular, if violated can carry a penalty of up to 10 years in prison per offense.

The search this past Monday seized 11 sets of documents in all, including some marked as “classified/TS/SCI” documents — shorthand for “top secret/sensitive compartmented information,” according to the report. SAPs like TS/SCI are created when the sharing of specific information represents a heightened threat of damaging disclosures, or when a “secret” or “top secret” classification is not deemed sufficiently protective. Documents marked thus are meant to be viewed only in secure govt. facilities.

The Washington Post also revealed an anonymous tip from individuals 'familiar with the investigation' that the FBI agents were looking for classified documents relating to nuclear weapons, though did not say if said documents had been recovered.Per the Atomic Energy Act, the president has no authority to declassify documents relating to nuclear power or weapons.

The last folks in the United States who violated both the Espionage Act and the Atomic Energy Act were executed!

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

September 8, 2021

Heather Cox Richardson

On this day in 1974, President Gerald Ford granted “a full, free, and absolute pardon unto Richard Nixon for all offenses against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 20, 1969 through August 9, 1974.” Ford said he was issuing the pardon to keep from roiling the “tranquility” the nation had begun to enjoy since Nixon stepped down. If Nixon were indicted and brought to trial, the trial would “cause prolonged and divisive debate over the propriety of exposing to further punishment and degradation a man who has already paid the unprecedented penalty of relinquishing the highest elective office of the United States.”

Ford later said that he issued the pardon with the understanding that accepting a pardon was an admission of guilt. But Nixon refused to accept responsibility for the events surrounding the break-in at the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee in Washington, D.C.’s fashionable Watergate office building. He continued to maintain that he had done nothing wrong but was hounded from office by a “liberal” media.

Rather than being chastised by Watergate and the political fallout from it, a faction of Republicans continued to support the idea that Nixon had done nothing wrong when he covered up an attack on the Democrats before the 1972 election. Those Republicans followed Nixon’s strategy of dividing Americans. Part of that polarization was an increasing conviction that Republicans were justified in undercutting Democrats, who were somehow anti-American, even if it meant breaking laws.

In the 1980s, members of the Reagan administration did just that. They were so determined to provide funds for the Nicaraguan Contras, who were fighting the leftist Sandinista government, that they ignored a law passed by a Democratic Congress against such aid. In a terribly complicated plan, administration officials, led by National Security Adviser John Poindexter and his deputy Oliver North, secretly sold arms to Iran, which was on the U.S. terror list and thus ineligible for such a purchase, to try to put pressure on Iranian-backed Lebanese terrorists who were holding U.S. hostages. The other side of the deal was that they illegally funneled the money from the sales to the Contras.

Although Poindexter, North, and North’s secretary, Fawn Hall, destroyed crucial documents, enough evidence remained to indict more than a dozen participants, including Poindexter, North, Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane, Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams, and four CIA officials. But when he became president himself, Reagan’s vice president George H.W. Bush, himself a former CIA director and implicated in the scandal, pardoned those convicted or likely to be. He was advised to do so by his attorney general, William Barr (who later became attorney general for President Donald Trump).

With his attempt to use foreign policy to get himself reelected, Trump took attacks on democracy to a new level. In July 2019, he withheld congressionally appropriated money from Ukraine in order to force the country’s new president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to announce he was opening an investigation into the son of then–Democratic presidential hopeful Joe Biden. That is, Trump used the weight of the U.S. government and its enormous power in foreign affairs to try to hamstring his Democratic opponent. When the story broke, Democrats in the House of Representatives called this attack on our democracy for what it was and impeached him, but Republicans voted to acquit.

It was a straight line from 2019’s attack to that of the weeks after the 2020 election, when the former president did all he could to stop the certification of the vote for Democrat Joe Biden. By January 6, though, Trump’s disdain for the law had spread to his supporters, who had learned over a generation to believe that Democrats were not legitimate leaders. Urged by Trump and other loyalists, they refused to accept the results of the election and stormed the Capitol to install the leader they wanted.

The injection of ordinary Americans into the political mix has changed the equation. While Ford recoiled from the prospect of putting a former president on trial, prosecutors today have seen no reason not to charge the people who stormed the Capitol. More than 570 have been charged so far.

Yesterday, a 67-year-old Idaho man, Duke Edward Wilson, pleaded guilty to obstruction of an official proceeding and assaulting, resisting or impeding certain officers. He faces up to 8 years and a $250,000 fine for assaulting the law enforcement officers. And he faces up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for obstruction of an official proceeding.

This law was originally put in place in 1871 to stop members of the Ku Klux Klan from crushing state and local governments during Reconstruction.

If Wilson is facing such a punishment for his foot soldier part in obstructing an official proceeding in January, what will that mean for those higher up the ladder? Representative Eric Swalwell (D-CA) has sued Trump; Donald Trump, Jr.; Representative Mo Brooks (R-AL), who wore a bullet-proof vest to his speech at the January 6 rally; and Trump’s former lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who also spoke at the rally, for exactly that: obstructing an official proceeding.

Representative Bennie Thompson (D-MS) launched a similar lawsuit against Trump, Giuliani, the Proud Boys, and the Oath Keepers, but withdrew from it when he became chair of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol. Ten other Democratic House members are carrying the lawsuit forward: Representatives Karen R. Bass (CA), Stephen I. Cohen (TN), Veronica Escobar (TX), Pramila Jayapal (WA), Henry C. Johnson, Jr. (GA), Marcia C. Kaptur (OH), Barbara J. Lee (CA), Jerrold Nadler (NY), Maxine Waters (CA), and Bonnie M. Watson Coleman (NJ).

Lawyer and political observer Teri Kanefield writes on Just Security that there is “a considerable amount of publicly available information supporting an allegation that Trump and members of his inner circle intended the rallygoers to impede or delay the counting of electoral votes and certification of the election.” She points out that the rally was timed to spur attendees to go to the Capitol just as the counting of the electoral votes was scheduled to take place, and that in the midst of the attack, Giuliani left a voicemail for a senator asking him to slow down the proceedings into the next day.

At the end of the Civil War, General U.S. Grant and President Abraham Lincoln made a decision similar to Ford’s in 1974. They reasoned that being lenient with former Confederates, rather than punishing any of them for their attempt to destroy American democracy, would make them loyal to the Union and willing to embrace the new conditions of Black freedom. Instead, just as Nixon did, white southerners chose to interpret the government’s leniency as proof that they, the Confederates, had been right. Rather than dying in southern defeat, their conviction that some men were better than others, and that hierarchies should be written into American law, survived.

By the 1890s, the Confederate soldier had come to symbolize an individual standing firm against a socialist government controlled by workers and minorities; he was the eastern version of the western cowboy. Statues of Confederates began to sprout up around the country, although most of them were in the South. On what would become Monument Avenue, the white people of Richmond, Virginia, erected a statue to General Robert E. Lee in 1890, the same year the Mississippi Constitution officially suppressed the Black vote. Black leaders objected to the statue, but in vain.

Today, 131 years later, that statue came down.

Notes:

https://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/library/speeches/740061.asp

https://www.cfr.org/blog/orlando-massacre-and-global-terrorism

https://www.brown.edu/Research/Understanding_the_Iran_Contra_Affair/prosecutions.php

https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/swalwell-lawsuit-trump/6d4926e63b9a8fcd/full.pdf

https://www.justsecurity.org/75032/litigation-tracker-pending-criminal-and-civil-cases-against-donald-trump/#Thompson

https://www.justsecurity.org/78035/why-a-trump-lawsuit-to-protect-executive-privilege-could-backfire/

https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/idaho-man-pleads-guilty-assault-law-enforcement-and-obstruction-during-jan-6-capitol?s=03

Dr. Hilary Green @HilaryGreen77With Lee Monument coming down, I know that this site will be filled with apologists decrying the process. As someone who wrote about Richmond in book 1 and currently in book two, Black Richmonders rejected the Lost Cause monuments and routinely vocalized their discontent. 1/8

278 Retweets1,076 Likes

September 8th 2021

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/virginia-politics/robert-e-lee-statue-removal/2021/09/08/1d9564ee-103d-11ec-9cb6-bf9351a25799_story.html

Sha

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[grugq]

https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/2021-intelligence-community-election-interference-assessment/abd0346ebdd93e1e/full.pdf

Declassified report on the intelligence assessment of interference in the 2020 US election.

[texasprelawland-blog]

The Law Of Mifepristone And The FDA

By Allison Yue, Rice University Class of 2026

May 22, 2023

For the first time in history, a judge has single-handedly ordered that a specific drug–mifepristone–be taken off the market. Mifepristone, commonly used for medical abortions, is part of a two-step routine more than five million women in the United States have used to safely terminate their pregnancies. 

On April 7, 2023, Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk of the Northern District of Texas issued a 67-page order weighing on the lawsuit filed by the Alliance of Hippocratic Medicine, which includes several major anti-abortion organizations, against the FDA. This preliminary ruling invalidated the FDA’s over 20 year approval of mifepristone for two main reasons: First, that the FDA was wrong to approve it because it’s not safe for the women who take it, even though it’s been approved for over 20 years and widely recognized to be safer than Tylenol. It’s approved for use in the first 10 weeks of pregnancy and is used in dozens of countries. Second, the judge also banned sending any abortion medication through the mail by reviving the Comstock Act, which was passed in 1873 and designed to use the US mail to impose a broad morality rule by censoring what could and couldn’t be sent through the mail. This act, considered a relic  by Roe v. Wade, prevented mailing anything related to contraception or abortion, but also anything “obscene, lewd, lascivious, indecent, filthy, or vile.” Notably, while never actually repealed, it hasn’t been truly enforced since the 1930s, when a court ruled it could only be used if someone was specifically intending to mail something for illegal use in an abortion. 

In contrast to the claims made in this decision, mifepristone is legal and has medical uses other than abortion, like cancer treatment. This particular judge is very well-known for his opposition to abortion, and was handpicked by the plaintiffs, the Alliance of Hippocratic Medicine, among all the federal district courts in the country. But on the same day Judge Kacsmaryk issued his ruling, Judge Thomas O. Rice of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Washington issued a ruling that essentially came to the opposite conclusion in a lawsuit filed by several district attorneys in a number of Democratic states challenging the renewed FDA restrictions preventing access to mifepristone. Judge Rice’s decision worked to protect availability of mifepristone in these states; due to the conflict between the two rulings, experts have considered it “logistically untenable for the F.D.A. to apply one set of rules about a drug to some states and not others,” meaning the order had national implications.

After Roe v. Wade was overturned, the message was basically that the power was being sent back to the states. But what this ruling would mean is that when it comes to this, it wouldn’t matter what a state wants or how the people there vote–it would be a national ban, which is exactly the type of thing lots of members of Congress said wouldn’t happen after Roe was overturned. Additionally, there is also a concern about precedent here that would have nothing to do with abortion: if this rule were allowed to stand, that would mean the FDA can approve a drug, it can then be used for decades with lots of evidence that it’s very safe, and then one judge can have it pulled off the shelves nationwide.

As it currently stands, access to the drug will remain unchanged as the Supreme Court issued a temporary order staying any changes until the case winds its way up appeals courts to the Supreme Court itself. This case will likely then be the most major abortion case the Supreme Court has faced since Roe v. Wade.

______________________________________________________________

https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/court-decision-invalidating-approval-of-mifepristone/0bb045930a649567/full.pdf

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/pill-anthony-comstocks-chastity-laws/

https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/court-decision-keeping-mifepristone-available/1d2b761e9ab275f7/full.pdf

[thepdfleader-blog]

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[blueseotools]

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[trumpq]

【パトリック・バーン】 2021/2/11 8:36 JST

https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/letters-to-georgia-officials-from-fulton-district-attorney/70d7cbc8ba0ae1dd/full.pdf

※ケンプ知事あての手紙、 続きに訳付きで掲載。一見裁判所がうまく動き出したのかと思えるが、コメント欄を読むと、DJTを調査し選挙詐欺で責任を擦り付けようとしているのではないか？との推測あり。ブラックパンサーの娘ではとも……

我々はこの人について何を知っている？

※書簡の差出人でてきましたん。

※コメント欄より。ステイシー・エイブラムスの妹？彼女はジョージア州の全ての役人に手紙に署名し、彼らが関与する選挙妨害調査のために証拠を保存することを要求しました。etc

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

フルトン郡地方検事官事務所 アトランタ司法裁判所 136 プリヨアストリートSW、3階 アトランタ, GEORGIA 30303

ファニ T.ウィリス 地方弁護士 2021年2月10日

ブライアン・P・ケンプ 206 ワシントンストリート 州議会議事堂 スイート203 アトランタ, GA 30334

VIA HAND DELIVERY

親愛なるケンプ知事 この手紙は、フルトン郡地方検事が、2020年のジョージア総選挙の運営に影響を与えようとする試みについて調査を開始したことをお知らせするものです。この調査には、選挙詐欺の勧誘を禁止するジョージア州法違反の可能性、州および地方政府機関への虚偽の陳述、共謀、恐喝、公職宣誓違反、選挙の運営に関連する暴力や脅迫への関与などが含まれますが、これらに限定されるものではありません。

調査対象者が、国務長官、司法長官、ジョージア州北部地区の連邦検事局など、この問題を調査している可能性のある他の機関と接触したとの報道がありました。このように、本庁は、調査の対象となっている行為の目撃者ではない管轄権を有する唯一の機関です。この司法回路は、連絡を受けたジョージア州政府機関の本部がある場所であり、知事室、国務長官、司法長官、総会などが含まれているため、この機関はこの問題を管轄しています。

この書簡は、2020年の総選挙の運営に関連する可能性のあるすべての記録を保存しなければならないことを通知するものであり、その選挙を運営していた人物の行動に影響を与えようとする試みの証拠となる可能性のあるものは、特に注意を払って脇に置いて保存しなければならないというものです。政府の義務の遂行のために作成または受領した記録を、承認された保存スケジュールの運用以外で破棄することは、ジョージア州法の下で犯罪であることを職員に忘れないようにしてください。あなたのオフィスの保管スケジュールで、関連する記録が私のオフィスに提供される前に破棄されるように指示された場合は、そのような記録に関するスケジュールを直ちに中断してください。

このような記録には、政府職員が政府および非政府の電子メールアカウントで送受信した公務に関連する電子メールメッセージが含まれていることに注意してください。電子メールアカウントを介して送信された潜在的に関連性のあるメッセージを保存するように従業員に注意してください。

ジェフ・ダンカン氏への手紙 2021年2月10日 2ページ中2ページ この問題は最優先事項であり、米国とジョージア州の憲法を守ることを誓った同胞の立憲主義者として、インタビュー���文書、ビデオ、電子記録を通じた潜在的な犯罪の情報と証拠の入手には協力的であると確信しています。次回のフルトン郡判事は3月に召集される予定であり、当事務所はその時点で必要に応じて判事召喚状の請求を開始する予定です。現段階では、ジョージア州の職員が 調査の対象になるとは考えていません。

私の尊敬する同僚として、また同胞の公務員として、この問題を調査し、必要であれば起訴することが我々の義務であることに同意しています。選挙、法執行システム、司法プロセスに対する国民の信頼を築くために、フルトン郡地方検事局は自らを行動に移していきます。 ご質問がある場合は、(404)612-4639までご連絡ください。この重要な問題にご注目いただきありがとうございます。

敬具 ファニ T.ウィリス 地方弁護士 アトランタ司法裁判所

[ibutenko]

Байден, Бурисма и пр.

За время своего президенства Трамп соврал более 22 тысячи раз. Проверить и опровергнуть столько ложных утверждений у меня жизни не хватит, но пару случаев покопать можно. 

История о том, что Джо Байден якобы воспользовался своим положениям, чтобы отстранить генерального прокурора Украины, якобы расследовавшего дело о преступлениях его сына Хантера Байдена – ровно из этой серии.

В 2019 году Трамп добился расследования в отношении Байдена: комиссия Конгресса США, возглавляемая его ставленниками и сторонниками, при содействии ФБР работала параллельно с комиссией Мюллера. Как мы помним, комиссия Мюллера нашла 10 нарушений в действиях самого Трампа. Но мало кто знает, что ни комиссия Конгресса, ни ФБР не нашли ничего криминального ни в действиях Джо Байдена, ни в действиях Хантера Байдена. Это прошло незамеченным на фоне остальных скандалов, комиссия прекратила свою деятельность, но это не остановило Трампа от того, чтобы продолжать утверждать, что Хантер Байден - преступник, а Джо Байден - коррупционер. Трамп отправил своего личного адвоката Джулиани на Украину, чтобы нарыть хоть что-то. В октябре прошлого года Джулиани вернулся, сделал несколько громких заявлений о том, что он сейчас всех разоблачит, и у него якобы есть доказательства, но, как мы знаем, никто до сих пор ничего не опубликовал.

Трамп не остановился и уже в нынешнем году находившийся под контролем Трампа Сенат создал свою комиссию для повторного расследования. В комиссию входили исключительно протрамповские политизированные республиканцы. У них была полная поддержка всех силовых структур США.

И они ничего не нашли.

Комиссия опубликовала отчёт на 87 страниц, из которого следовало, что нет ни одного доказательства коррупции Джо Байдена, все его действия в отношении Украины были открытыми, соответствовали внешнеполитической доктрине США, и европейские партнеры страны действовали точно так же. И что в действиях Хантера Байдена не найдено ни одного преступного, криминального или коррупционного. Если хотите прочесть подробности, полная версия доклада тут:

https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/senate-homeland-security-report-on-hunter-biden-and-burisma/3d48468e81b378ee/full.pdf

Переводить 87 страниц не хочется, но сообщу, что комиссия пришла к следующим выводам.

  1.       Отстранение генпрокурора Украины Виктора Шокина в марте 2016 года не было связано с тем, что Шокин расследовал дело Burisma. Все наоборот: это произошло потому, что Шокин отказался расследовать коррупцию среди украинских политиков. Когда европейские и американские дипломаты требовали от Украины покончить с коррупцией, они сосредоточили свое внимание на периоде руководства Шокина Генеральной прокуратурой, начиная с февраля 2015 года. (Отступление: почему для правительства США было важно покончить с коррупцией в Украине? - Всё просто: если руководство какой-то страны просит у тебя деньги, и твоё правительство соглашается их дать, то оно даёт не свои деньги, а деньги налогоплательщиков. В такой ситуации, правительству-донору важно убедиться, что деньги тут же не разворуют. Соответственно, если есть люди, покрывающие тех, кто разворовывает деньги, есть два выхода: один из них - не давать деньги, пока что-то не изменится, что и сделали США и другие страны и фонды).

Майк Карпентер, который служил советником по внешней политике дал показания, что Шокин "никогда не преследовал коррумпированных лиц, никогда не привлекал к ответственности за какие-либо громкие дела о коррупции".

Чарли Купчан, который был специальным помощником президента Барака Обамы и старшим директором по европейским делам в Совете национальной безопасности: "антикоррупционные усилия были «большой частью нашей дипломатии с Украиной, которая взяла обязательства расследовать коррупцию». Шокин закрывал дела о коррупции, в результате Байден, в соответствии c договоренностями, подписанными Украиной, задержал транш в 1 миллиард долларов. в качестве "кнута для продвижения Украины вперед. Он действовал вместе с нашими европейскими союзниками. Все были единодушны в том, что этот прокурор не выполняет эту работу (свои обязательства)".

Дарья Каленюк, соучредитель и исполнительный директор Центра противодействия коррупции в Киеве, подтвердила, что МВФ также пригрозил задержать помощь в размере 40 миллиардов долларов по аналогичным причинам. "Многие общественные организации в Украине настаивали на его отставке, - сказала Каленюк, - но этого было недостаточно. Ситуацию изменило именно то, что партнеры Украины указали на нарушение страной обязательств и бездействие генпрокурора".

После ухода Шокина из Генпрокуратуры посол Европейского Союза в Украине Ян Томбинский назвал это "возможностью начать все сначала". "Я надеюсь, - сказал Томбинский, - что новый Генеральный прокурор обеспечит независимость Генеральной прокуратуры от политического влияния и давления и доверие общественности".

2.       Ни  генпрокурор, ни генеральная прокуратура не вели расследования в отношении Burisma в то время, когда Джо Байден требовал отстранения Шокина. Согласно документам Национального антикоррупционного бюро Украины, которое тесно сотрудничало с ФБР в расследовании, Burisma Holdings не находилась под расследованием ни в 2015 ни в 2016 годах, когда когда Джо Байден требовал увольнения Шокина.

Шокин расследовал дело Burisma в 2014 году, расследование велось в отношении деятельности фирмы в 2010-2012 годах, и фирма подозревалась в отмывании денег и нарушении налогового законодательства. В тот период Хантер Байден не работал в Бурисме, он вошел в совет директоров только в 2014 году и работал до начала 2019 года. То есть, во-первых, он вошел в совет директоров позже, во-вторых, никакая часть его деятельности не была предметом расследования генпрокуратуры. Дело было закрыто в суде.

Сенатский отчёт был опубликован в сентябре этого года. Глава сенатского комитета и его помощники по расследованию сделали несколько заявлений об отсутствии доказательств того, что Джо Байден оказывал давление на Украину, чтобы уволить ее главного прокурора, чтобы защитить своего сына и пр. То есть, как минимум три расследования показало, что Трамп соврал.  И даже после этого поток вранья не остановился: Трамп попытался повторить его во время дебатов. Эффекта это не произвело. Собственно, всё. В заключение скажу вот что: на английском всё это найти оказалось просто, а по-русски на сайтах СМИ - невозможно. Не знаю, чем это объяснить.