Updated(2): Oakland, CA Police Department Scandal. 24 Officers Had Sex With Underaged Girl, Daughter Of Police Dispatcher; Chief Resigns.

Posted May 25, 2016 4:35 PM ET; Last updated June 13, 2016 9:12 PM ET



Underage: Celeste Guap (below) started having sex with Officer Brendan O'Brien (above) in 2015 when she was underage, after he saved her from her pimp. He was the first of 21 police officers she would have sex with.




[Last updated June 14, 2016 7:08 PM ET]
[From article]
The Oakland police sex scandal is ricocheting across the East Bay as the woman at the center of it now says she had sex with two dozen current and former officers from five departments -- from Richmond to Livermore. And sources say that Oakland police's botched handling of the investigation is what precipitated Chief Sean Whent's sudden departure this week at the behest of the federal monitor overseeing the department.
[. . .]
Guap, whose real name this paper won't publish because she met the officers as an exploited minor caught up in sex work, said she didn't lie about her age to them.
"A lot knew I was underage because they nicknamed me 'juve,' which is short for juvenile," she said.
In perhaps the most surprising allegation -- one that might help explain Whent's sudden dismissal as chief -- Guap said she also talked via Facebook last June to his wife, Julia Whent.
[. . .]
Julia Whent, she said, knew "I was dating an officer" but never asked if she was underage. Those conversations occurred months before the department's federal overseer, Robert Warshaw, became aware of the allegations.
Multiple sources said Warshaw pressured Whent to resign on Thursday, furious over his handling of the case. No one answered the door at Whent's home in Brentwood on Saturday afternoon.
[. . .]
The scandal is a crippling blow to a department that has struggled for decades to win the trust of residents and has been under federal oversight for 13 years in part because of failures to adequately hold officers accountable for misdeeds.
"To think that officers were engaged in the sexual exploitation of a child: It's heartbreaking," City Council President Lynette Gibson McElhaney said. "And if it's true, it's criminal, and they should be prosecuted."
Mayor Libby Schaaf, whom council members are criticizing for not informing them of the allegations, first reported by the East Bay Express, did not return phone calls on Saturday. In a statement, Schaaf, who last month asked Alameda County District Attorney Nancy O'Malley to investigate the case, said she would not disclose details of an ongoing investigation, which could "impede our ability to reach the truth and secure the strongest judgments against those responsible." Oakland last month placed four officers on leave in connection with Guap's allegations, two of whom have since resigned.
Other departments now appear to be caught up in the scandal as well.
[. . .]
Guap said she slept with five Richmond police officers, including a lieutenant and two sergeants, four Alameda County Sheriff's deputies, one Livermore officer and a law enforcement worker based in Stockton.
[. . .]
"The big question is did they use their authority as police officers to get her to engage in sexual favors," he said. "Would they have had the same relationship if they were Joe the corner custodian?"
Guap, whose mother is an Oakland police dispatcher, said she began selling herself on the streets of Richmond at age 12. A pimp later moved her to Oakland's infamous sex trafficking hub on International Boulevard.
It was there that she met Officer Brendan O'Brien, whom she said protected her when she was running from her pimp. Guap said the two began a sexual relationship, and others soon followed.
"They were my protectors," she said. "I didn't have a pimp at the time. It did make me feel safer, having them."
[. . .]
John Burris, a civil rights attorney who negotiated the department's federal oversight regime after the infamous Riders police scandal in 2000, said Whent should have been more upfront with Warshaw from the beginning and questioned what role his wife's online conversations with Guap may have played in his departure.
"If his wife is involved in something like this, he should have disclosed it right up front and stepped away from the investigation immediately," Burris said. "If he had done that, I think he would have been fine."
Guap didn't provide many details about her conversations with Julia Whent other than that the chief's wife mentioned that one of her daughters was interested in becoming a dispatcher, like Guap's mother.
With the investigation still ongoing, Guap said she has been disappointed in the officers' statements to police officials. "They lied about knowing me or how much they were involved with me," she said. "I guess that's what you are going to do to protect your job."

http://www.mercurynews.com/bay-area-news/ci_30005624/oakland-police-scandal-spreads-other-east-bay-departments

Oakland police scandal spreads: Woman claims sex with dozens of officers
By Matthew Artz and David DeBolt, Staff writers
June 13, 2016

* * *



[Updated June 13, 2016 9:12 PM ET]
[From article]
Shocking new allegations reveal that not only did at least 24 police officers sleep with the same prostitute, they also tipped her off about undercover operations.
The woman, who goes by the name of 'Celeste Guap', said that she slept with three of the two dozen officers when she was just 17. She turned 18 last August.
Now, text messages from Guap shown to KPIX reveal exchanges with Oakland officers, who appear to warn her about undercover operations while she was working as a prostitute.
[. . .]
Out of the two dozen officers she had sex with, she says she slept with three of them when she was a minor and that all three of those worked at Oakland Police Department.
Guap also gave a break down to KPIX, where she revealed she had sex with 14 officers from Oakland Police Department, five from the Richmond Police Department, three from Alameda County Sheriff's deputies and one Livermore cop.
[. . .]
Oakland Police Chief Sean Whent resigned Thursday after a sex scandal that began in his department spread to four other cities.
She also said two Oakland officers provided her with confidential police information, including tips on scheduled anti-prostitution stings and arrest records, The Mercury News reported.
At the announcement of Whent's resignation on Friday, Mayor Libby Schaaf said: 'I'm extremely angry about the alleged misconduct in this department.'
Despite this, both Schaaf and city administrator Sabrina Landreth claimed Whent's departure was nothing to do with the scandal, the East Bay Express reported.
But sources told both The Mercury News and the East Bay Express that Whent was pressured to resign by the department's federal overseer, Robert Warshaw.
Whent's resignation came after his superiors discovered that both he and his wife had found out about the misconduct by various officers long before it became public, and refused to escalate the information, the East Bay Express claimed.
At least 14 of Whent's officers had been sexually involved with Guap, whose mother is an Oakland police dispatcher.
She also told Mercury News she had slept with five Richmond police officers, four Alameda County Sheriff's deputies, one Livermore officer and a law enforcement worker based in Stockton.
One of the sheriff's deputies had sex with her in his personal automobile while his K-9 dog sat in the back, she said.
[. . .]
The investigation into the officers' relationship began in September 2015, after married Officer Brendan O'Brien, who had been having an affair with Guap since she was 17, killed himself and named her and several officers in his suicide note.
Since then, two-dozen officers have been revealed to have slept with Guap, some of whom provided her with confidential information.
'I think cops are fine. They're cute and all, but it's like one less officer that's gonna arrest me,' she told the East Bay Express.
[. . .]
She also identified Officer Terryl Smith, one of the two officers who resigned from Oakland PD earlier this year, as someone who gave her arrest records and other confidential information.
'I would hook up with [Smith] like every Saturday night for three months straight,' Guap said. 'He had a mattress in his back seat and slept in his car in the OPD parking lot, so we would hook up after work.'
In addition, she said, a retired Oakland police captain in his 80s contacted her on Facebook in 2015, when she was underage, and eventually paid $250 to have sex with her in a motel after she turned 18.
The captain, who draws a $125,000 pension from the city, admitted to sleeping with the girl and said he found her because she was friends with lots of other officers on Facebook.
But he warned the Express: 'Please don't publish my name. I will die. I have a heart condition.' The paper left him anonymous.
The Express also says that according to text messages it obtained, Guap would have frequent late-night text conversations with Officer Luis Roman while he was on duty; he would send her texts and she would send him pictures of her naked body.
[. . .]
Barry Donelan, president of Oakland's police union, said he was 'mortified and deeply embarrassed' by the allegations. 'If any of this is true, it is an absolute betrayal of what we stand for,' he said.
The scandal is a blow to a department that has been under federal oversight because of failures to adequately hold officers accountable for misdeeds.
Guap, who began selling herself on the streets of Richmond at age 12 and eventually ended up in Oakland's International Boulevard, a well known sex-trafficking hub, said many officers knew she was underage.
'They nicknamed me 'juve,' which is short for juvenile,' said Guap.
She said O'Brien was the first officer she met. The two began a sexual relationship after he defended her from a pimp and others soon followed.
Police opened up an investigation after O'Brien committed suicide on September 25, 2015, at the age of 30, leaving a note naming officers involved with the woman. His wife had died a year earlier.
'They were my protectors,' she said. 'I didn't have a pimp at the time. It did make me feel safer, having them.'
Guap, who is now 18 and lives in Richmond, California, started revealing details on Facebook, suggesting she had illicit encounters with officers - calling the relationships 'harmless' but insisted that she did not 'snitch' on anyone.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3638335/Sex-scandal-Oakland-police-department-spreads-former-underage-sex-worker-says-sex-cops-five-cities.html

Saucy texts reveal Oakland officers tipped off teen prostitute caught up in OPD scandal about undercover operations
Texts reveal Oakland officers tipped off prostitute about undercover ops
Police Chief Sean Whent stepped down as Oakland PD chief Thursday
Sources say it was because 14 of his officers slept with Celese Guap
And he allegedly refused to tell his superiors about his officers' actions
A further 10 officers from four other cities slept with the woman, now 18
She allegedly had sex with a number of officers starting at age 17
Guap was a prostitute at the time, and considered a vulnerable minor
Cop Brendan O'Brien, 30, was the first cop she had sex with
He killed himself last year; his suicide note sparked the investigation
By KIRI BLAKELEY and JAMES WILKINSON and KHALEDA RAHMAN FOR DAILYMAIL.COM and DAILYMAIL.COM REPORTER
PUBLISHED: 21:44 EST, 12 June 2016 | UPDATED: 16:43 EST, 13 June 2016



* * *



[Posted May 25, 2016 435 PM ET]
[From article]

An internal affairs investigation is underway focusing on several Oakland police officers who allegedly had sex with an underage girl.
Sources told KPIX 5 the internal affairs investigation centers around a young woman named Celeste Guap, who was underage at the time. She recently began revealing details of her relationships with officers on her Facebook page.
Guap is currently either 18 or 19 years old, according to sources, who also say investigators believe Guap had sex with potentially dozens of police officers beginning when she was 16.
On her Facebook page, Guap suggests she is involved in the sex scandal, but says she never snitched on anybody.
She said she had “harmless relationships” within the police department.
As recently as last month, Guap posted a picture of Oakland police officers dropping her off near her home.
“Took me back to Richmond in style,” she wrote.
In another post, she says the only officer she messed with while underage is sadly gone.
Oakland Police Officer Brendan O’Brien committed suicide last September about a year after his wife’s death was also ruled a suicide.
Investigators say O’Brien left a note that lead to an initial internal affairs investigation.
A subsequent investigation ordered by a federal judge led to many Oakland police officers admitting they had lied during the first internal affairs investigation about their relationships with Guap.
Sources say one officer also admitted to knowing she was underage when he had sex with her.
Oakland Police Department spokeswoman Johnna Watson said only that there is an investigation underway involving three officers, but wouldn’t give any specifics.
Nonetheless, Watson admits it’s another black mark for the department.
“We are entrusted by the community to protect, to serve them and to uphold the law. So we take the allegations very seriously,” said Watson.
Guap’s mother works with the police officers as a dispatcher with the Oakland Police Department.
In addition to the internal investigation, there is an ongoing criminal investigation happening in connection with the activities of the officers.

http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2016/05/12/underage-sex-scandal-rocks-oakland-police-department/

Underage Sex Scandal Rocks Oakland Police Department
May 12, 2016 6:32 PM By Da Lin
CBS News San Francisco CA

White House Orders Lawlessness Extended to State Courts, Selective Enforcement Of Laws Based On Race, Contrary To Repeated Supreme Court Rulings

More racial discrimination by the Civil Rights Division Of the Justice Department. See e.g., J. Christian Adams' book, Injustice; and John Fund and Hans van Spakovsky's Who's Counting?

[From article]
As New York moves to decriminalize low-level offenses, arguing enforcement is “rigged against communities of color,” other large cities are coming under pressure from the Justice Department to do the same thing.
Attorney General Loretta Lynch has issued a warning to municipal and state judges across the country that their courts could lose federal funding if they don’t ease up on fines and arrest warrants for minor crimes involving poor offenders, indigent minorities in particular.
In lieu of fines and jail time, Lynch urges the nation’s 6,500 municipal courts to provide an avenue for offenders to perform “community service” or take advantage of “amnesty days,” whereby outstanding arrest warrants are cleared for nominal fees.[. . .]
A strongly worded “guidance” letter, written by her civil-rights team, warns that a local court policy of enforcing warrants for failure to pay court fines and fees can have an adverse “disparate impact” on African-Americans, who are fined and/or arrested for outstanding warrants at “disproportionate” rates versus whites.
Federal data also show that blacks tend to break both felony and misdemeanor laws at a disproportionate rate. Even if applied evenly across all races and in neutral, color-blind fashion, such policies could be found by Justice to be discriminatory.
[. . .]
The Supreme Court has ruled that disparate impact doesn’t violate Title VI, only “intentional” discrimination does. “The administration is quite wrong to say that Title VI incorporates a ‘disparate impact’ standard,” Roger Clegg of the Center for Equal Opportunity points out. “The Supreme Court has ruled repeatedly that it does not.”
This new court “reform” will only exacerbate the crime problem. Studies show ignoring low-level crimes like warrant violations only leads to bigger crimes.
Under Mayor de Blasio, the NYPD has scaled back its aggressive enforcement of low-level offenses only to see both minor and serious crime rebound. Already cops have backed off public urination and other public nuisance violations, while overlooking outstanding warrants for many other misdemeanor crimes.
Even a senior Justice Department official predicts the decriminalization-cum-deincarceration movement will backfire in higher crime nationwide. “In five years the crime rate is going to be crazy again,” he said.

http://nypost.com/2016/03/27/ag-loretta-lynch-wants-to-let-nation-break-law-without-consequences/

AG Loretta Lynch wants to let nation break law without consequences
By Paul Sperry
New York Post
March 27, 2016 | 6:00am

New York City Detectives Question Lack of Autopsy of Justice Scalia in Texas

US Marshals Bypassed The Medical Examiner To Declare a Non Suspicious Death of the Supreme Court Justice Scalia 

Could this case be a motive for the remarkable determination, contrary to law, by a US Marshal, that Scalia's death was not suspicious (See Washington Post), and thus did not require an autopsy? Texas law provides for a medical examiner to make the determination, and few marshals are trained as MEs. See also,
Detectives question lack of autopsy in Scalia death
By Jamie Schram and Bob Fredericks
New York Post
February 15, 2016 | 11:07pm
Then again since Justice Scalia was an unimportant man, his death did not create any benefit to anyone. And in any case the current administration is so strictly lawful that it is irrational to even think such a thought. Nothing to see here folks. Move along. This way. To your left.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2016/2/17/scalia-affirmative-action-harvard/

Scalia’s Death Could Affect Affirmative Action Lawsuits
By AIDAN F. LANGSTON

Harvard CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
February 17, 2016

White House Cronies In Homeland Security Use Journalists To Smear Whistleblower

Special Agent Taylor Johnson

[From article]
The Department of Homeland Security on Thursday dismissed an ICE whistleblower it was secretly smearing to reporters after she testified before Congress about her troubles with the agency.
Special Agent Taylor Johnson — who had a storied career until she irked Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid by objecting to a visa program for foreign investors tied to the senator’s son — says she declined to take a $100,000 severance package because it included a non-disclosure agreement.
Gee, what a great use of taxpayer money that would have been. Pay a woman not to talk about what already got nationwide coverage when she talked about it before Congress.
DHS Acting Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Todd Breasseale did not respond to multiple inquiries about the reason for Johnson’s dismissal and why they tried to buy her silence.
Despite all the media coverage of her case, including a Washington Gadfly report that the ICE press secretary with the approval of Breasseale was peddling confidential information to discredit her in violation of the Privacy Act, Taylor is not surprised she got the boot.
“My entire chain of command was appointed by Obama,” she remarked. “They can do anything they want.”
In testimony last June to the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Johnson said she was stripped of her gun and badge, without explanation, after discovering fraud and abuse.
“Some of the violations investigated surrounding the project included bank and wire fraud, and I discovered ties to organized crime and high-ranking politicians and they received promotions that appeared to facilitate the program,” Johnson testified.
She said that during her investigation in 2013, she “discovered that EB-5 applicants from China, Russia, Pakistan, Malaysia had been approved in as little as 16 days” and that case files “lacked the basic and necessary law enforcement queries.”
At ICE, Johnson had amassed many awards and never had any disciplinary problems. But everything changed abruptly in 2013 when she invoked the ire of Senator Reid by holding up a visas (sic) for a foreigner investor in a Las Vegas casino represented by his son, attorney Cory Reid.
The Senator’s office complained to Johnson’s Special Agent in Charge. She was then placed on administrative leave, without explanation, on October 13, 2013.
Under pressure from Senate Democratic staffers Johnson did not mention in her testimony the role Reid’s office played in her ouster. But the DHS Inspector General concluded in a report last March that U.S. Customs and Immigration Services (USCIS) director Alejandro Mayorkas intervened in “an unprecedented matter” to approve EB-5 visas for the Las Vegas casino investors after pressure from Reid’s office.
The report essentially vindicated complaints by Johnson and other DHS employees about the program.
DHS has never given any public explanation for the disciplinary action it took against Johnson. After the hearing a DHS spokeswoman said they do not talk about personnel matters. But this past December, ICE press secretary Gillian Christensen, citing confidential information from Johnson’s file, tried to convince this reporter off the record that she was a dishonest and a problem employee.
That argument is going to be even harder to peddle now that the Department would have allowed Johnson to leave with a clean work record and $100,000 in spending money if she promised to keep her mouth shut.
Johnson is soliciting donations on gofundme.com to cover legal fees for a possible federal lawsuit.

http://dailycaller.com/2016/02/09/exclusive-ice-whistleblower-fired-after-refusing-dhs-hush-money/

EXCLUSIVE: ICE Whistleblower Fired After Refusing DHS Hush Money
EVAN GAHR, Investigative Journalist
12:57 AM 02/09/2016

Homeland Security Rewriting History, Destroying Records

[From article]
The most shocking evidence comes from Philip Haney writing for the Hill. Haney, a longtime Department of Homeland Security employee charged that he and others working there were ordered in November 2009 to destroy raw material intelligence needed to keep us safe.
Just before that Christmas Day attack, in early November 2009, I was ordered by my superiors at the Department of Homeland Security to delete or modify several hundred records of individuals tied to designated Islamist terror groups like Hamas from the important federal database, the Treasury Enforcement Communications System (TECS). These types of records are the basis for any ability to “connect dots.” Every day, DHS Customs and Border Protection officers watch entering and exiting many individuals associated with known terrorist affiliations, then look for patterns. Enforcing a political scrubbing of records of Muslims greatly affected our ability to do that. Even worse, going forward, my colleagues and I were prohibited from entering pertinent information into the database.
A few weeks later, in my office at the Port of Atlanta, the television hummed with the inevitable Congressional hearings that follow any terrorist attack. While members of Congress grilled Obama administration officials, demanding why their subordinates were still failing to understand the intelligence they had gathered, I was being forced to delete and scrub the records. And I was well aware that, as a result, it was going to be vastly more difficult to “connect the dots” in the future -- especially before an attack occurs.
As the number of successful and attempted Islamic terrorist attacks on America increased, the type of information that the Obama administration ordered removed from travel and national security databases was the kind of information that, if properly assessed, could have prevented subsequent domestic Islamist attacks like the ones committed by Faisal Shahzad (May 2010), Detroit “honor killing” perpetrator Rahim A. Alfetlawi (2011); Amine El Khalifi, who plotted to blow up the U.S. Capitol (2012); Dzhokhar or Tamerlan Tsarnaev who conducted the Boston Marathon bombing (2013); Oklahoma beheading suspect Alton Nolen (2014); or Muhammed Yusuf Abdulazeez, who opened fire on two military installations in Chattanooga, Tennessee (2015).
[. . .]



according to Investor’s Business Daily, the mosque was led for 15 years by a radical cleric -- Imam Mohamad Adam el-Sheikh -- who once represented a federally designated al-Qaida front group. El-Sheikh also has argued for the legitimacy of suicide bombings. And ISB board member and vice president Muhammad Jameel has blamed American foreign policy -- namely, U.S. support for Israel -- for terrorism and the rise of Osama bin Laden.
[. . .]
But by failing properly to vet the venue, and indeed reportedly letting the Council on American-Islamic Relations choose the site even though the FBI has banned this outfit from outreach because of known ties to the Hamas terrorist group, it’s questionable that Obama did the cause of interfaith understanding any good.
[. . .]
When Barack Obama visited the Muslim Brotherhood-linked Islamic Society of Baltimore on Wednesday, he said: “The first thing I want to say is two words that Muslim Americans don’t hear often enough: Thank you.”
While Obama has been President, Muslims have murdered non-Muslims, avowedly in the cause of Islam, at Fort Hood, Boston, Chattanooga, and San Bernardino, and attempted to do so in many, many other places. Imagine if armed Baptists screaming “Jesus is Lord” had committed murder, and explained that they were doing so in order to advance Christianity, in four American cities, and had attempted to do so in many others. Imagine that those killers were supporters of a global Christian movement that had repeatedly called for attacks on U.S. civilians and declared its determination to destroy the United States.
Imagine how incongruous it would be in that case for the President of the United States to visit a church and say: “The first thing I want to say is two words that Christian Americans don’t hear often enough: Thank you.” And imagine how unlikely it would be that Barack Obama would ever have done that.
But his visit to the Islamic Society of Baltimore was the apotheosis of the Muslim victimhood myth, as he signaled yet again to the world (and worldwide jihadis) that in the U.S., Muslims are victims, victims of unwarranted concern over jihad terror, and thus that concern is likely to lessen even more, as Obama dismantles still more of our counter-terror apparatus.
[. . .]



Once again Obama felt free to scold and admonish Christians, but said nothing about Muslims in the U.S. needing to clean house and work for real reform that would mitigate jihad terror. And his premise was false: there is no attempt to restrict Muslims’ freedom of religion.
[. . .]
“Islam,” Obama declared, “has always been part of America.” Really? There were Muslims at Jamestown? In the Massachusetts Bay Colony? At Roanoke? Obama’s statement is so wildly ridiculous that it doesn’t just invite parody; it pleads for it.
[. . .]
The US Customs authority’s announcement last week that it will begin enforcing a 20-year old decision to require goods imported from Judea and Samaria to be labeled “Made in the West Bank,” rather than “Made in Israel,” signals Obama’s intentions.
[. . .]
Today, Republicans are near unanimous in their support for Israel. According to a Gallup poll from February 2015, 83% of Republicans support Israel.
Only 48% of Democrats do. From 2014 to 2015, Democratic support for Israel plunged 10 points.
[. . .]
Those emails of Hillary’s which have been made public reveal a virtual torrent of anti-Israel advice from those so close to her that they communicated on her personal account and often -- including Sidney Blumenthal, former Ambassador Thomas Pickering, “docs in socks” Sandy Berger. Then there’s her exceedingly close tie to her aide Huma Abedin, another person closely tied to the loathsome and dangerous Moslem Brotherhood.
[. . .]
[S]ince Secretary Clinton’s tenure began, with Huma Abedin serving as a top adviser, the United States has aligned itself with the Muslim Brotherhood in myriad ways.
[. . .]
Pat Condell has well described the racist attitudes of the political left which permits them to hold Palestinians and Arabs to a lower standard of conduct than they hold Israel or the West and the fear of truth tellers that they’ll be labeled racist for not playing along with this odious tactic to suppress free speech.
[. . .]
And this Moslem woman, relying on survey evidence establishes that Islam does have a substantial problem -- a cancer of extremism which will not be eradicated by pretending it does not exist, as Obama, Hillary, and Sanders do.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2016/02/you_cannot_support_israels_existence_and_ours_and_vote_democratic_this_election.html

February 7, 2016
You Cannot Support Israel’s Existence (and Ours) and Vote Democratic This Election
By Clarice Feldman

Malfeasance, Corruption, Abuse of Power Prevents Accountability of Prominent Officials

[From article]
the FBI has moved from a criminal investigation to an espionage investigation in the Hillary email scandal.
[. . .]
The damage to national security can’t be underestimated, because the gist of the FBI’s change of focus means employees of the intel agencies who had access to classified assessments, including special access programs (SAP), abetted the effort to disclose the information to unauthorized individuals.
[. . .]
Despite the vast majority of patriotic and talented people in the intelligence community (I.C.), the question becomes, then, who would take advantage of being “read on” to restricted programs to obtain these documents, thereby committing an act of espionage? I don’t know the names, obviously; the FBI will take care of that. But I think there are three main types of people who would work around the safeguards.
The first is the true believer. This is exemplified by the titular head of Hillary’s informal intel network, Sid Blumenthal. Ever since Monica Crowley alerted us to Hillary’s network, we know Blumenthal has been at the center of several covert and sleazy activities.
[. . .]
While the focus of the analysis was on a network designed to go around normal intel channels, the highly classified documents currently at the center of the investigation could have come only from Hillary’s and Blumenthal’s sources in U.S. agencies. We’ve already seen the effects of Hillary’s true believers placed into the intelligence agencies during Bill’s presidency. A couple of decades is plenty of time for these dedicated souls to rise to leadership positions within the I.C., and who would be driven to see their gal as POTUS.
The second type is the progressive, idealistic newbie. It’s no secret that universities, particularly those on the eastern seaboard, are prime recruiting grounds for intelligence agencies.
[. . .]
(See Ben Rhodes.)
[. . .]
The third type could be from any demographic but has essentially been placed into a vulnerable position open to coercion and blackmail, and not from a foreign government. Over three years ago, a report surfaced that revealed a troubling and illegal practice at the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). The NRO was conducting an increasing amount of “lifestyle” polygraph tests, which in some cases would reveal that the applicant or current employee had committed serious crimes, including child molestation.
Normally in DoD agencies, the counter-intelligence polygraph is the norm. This test asks only questions related to national security matters such as possible terrorist background indicators and unauthorized disclosure of classified information. McClatchy’s review found that the NRO was responsible for:
Establishing a system that tracks the number of personal confessions, which then are used in polygraphers’ annual performance reviews.
Summoning employees and job applicants for multiple polygraph tests to ask about a wide array of personal behavior.
Altering results of the tests in what some polygraphers say is an effort to justify more probing of employees’ and applicants’ private lives.
What might be shocking to some is that the applicants who were found to have committed drug abuse, child molestation, and sexual crimes were not referred to law enforcement for possible charges. But if one is a supervisor who wants leverage on his employees, this tactic is not surprising at all. By allowing access to classified materials to those with criminal backgrounds or serious behavioral problems, then getting them to do your bidding simply becomes a matter of coercion and blackmail.
[. . .]
All indications are that the FBI is doing its part in a professional and thorough manner. The question is, if the perps in the I.C. sing like canaries, can the DoJ fight off an indictment when it concerns charges of espionage?

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/01/who_are_the_spies_for_the_dc_power_brokers.html

January 30, 2016
Who are the spies for the DC power brokers?
By John Smith

Springfield, MA Officer Charged With Theft of Cash Evidence

Policeman Kevin Burnham holding cocaine evidence. 

No mention if he stole any drugs. The City and MA Attorney General appear only interested in the cash money. Police Commissioner and Mayor called it a lesson learned? Is this the first time evidence was stolen from a police department? Hello? Were these two public officials born yesterday?

[From article]
Police Commissioner John Barbieri said he and members of his department were blind-sided by the alleged discovery of a staggering $385,000 in systematic thefts of cash from the evidence room by retired Officer Kevin Burnham.
During a press conference followingBurnham's arraignment Monday in Hampden Superior Court on multiple counts of larceny, Barbieri said the tip of an apparent pattern was uncovered during a city audit in the summer of 2014, after the then-new commissioner took office and approximately when Burnham retired.
The city's internal auditor initially reported "there were some problems" after Barbieri ordered a review of the department's cash and evidence protocols. He said the review was part of an overall plan to modernize the department, as opposed to a response to any internal rumblings about Burnham.
"We wanted to determine if that cash had simply been misplaced or mis-stored, or whether we, in fact, had been the victim of a larceny," Barbieri said. "Officers reported back that they couldn't locate the cash."
[. . .]
More than a year later, Attorney General Maura Healey's office on Monday announced it was bringing charges against Burnham after a grand jury returned indictments in late December. The indictments state Burnham swiped cash from evidence envelopes stored in connection with about 162 criminal cases. Along with the indictments, Healey's office filed a five-page spreadsheet detailing the alleged thefts
[. . .]
Burnham pleaded not guilty to the charges and was released on his own recognizance. He had been a police officer for 43 years and retired as the department's senior officer in 2014. Healey's office said he "took advantage" of his position as narcotics evidence officer, a position Barbieri said Burnham held for almost 20 years.The citations include piddling amounts under $100; but in one case, nearly $108,000 was never recovered, according to the documents. The spreadsheet tracked cases back to late 2009.
[. . .]
The overall message by Barbieri and other officials at Monday's press conference, including Mayor Domenic Sarno, amounted to: "Lesson learned."
[. . .]
Thus far, the issue has shaken out to be more than a $500,000 problem for a struggling city – given the $385,000 missing from the evidence room, $170,000 for the private auditing firm and thousands more spent on new equipment for the department.
Barbieri said no other police officers have been implicated in the investigation. It remains a question how one officer could allegedly lift nearly $400,000 in cash under the noses of his supervisors, however.
[. . .]
Barbieri said evidence money is now stored in a bank account, as opposed to in lockers in the evidence room

http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2016/01/springfield_police_commissione_30.html

Springfield Police Commissioner John Barbieri: Department blind-sided by alleged theft of $385,000 in evidence money by retired officer
By Stephanie Barry | sbarry (at) repub.com
January 11, 2016 at 7:01 PM

Chicago Mayor Employs White House Tactics to Avoid Accountability

[From article]
most large Democrat-run cities are following this path to disaster, with a shrinking base of taxpayers supporting a growing population of dependents, as municipal employees consume ever greater portions of tax revenue for their retirements and health care benefits. The money runs out, services decline, and the dependents get angry and unruly. Even more taxpayers flee, until the bills cannot be paid.
But Chicago, run by Rahm Emanuel an intimate friend and White House majordomo of both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, has the most potential to turn violent as well as lurch toward insolvency next. Its crash would be hard for national Democrats to ignore.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/01/the_fall_of_chicago.html

January 3, 2016
The Fall of Chicago
By Thomas Lifson

Lawsuit Naming High Ranking Politicians, Prosecutors, Ignored by Mainstream Journalists

Brad Edwards, Attorney


Paul Cassell, Attorney

[From article]
the deal that handed out token punishment to the statutory rapist has been hidden from the public and from the victims themselves:
Federal prosecutors in Florida intentionally kept underage victims of billionaire perv Jeffrey Epstein in the dark about his plea deal, newly unsealed court papers reveal.
The documents also show prosecutors wanted to keep the extent of Epstein’s alleged sex crimes away from a judge reviewing the deal.
[. . .]



This plea involved the slap on the wrist sentence of 13 months -- and he got to spend his waking hours at his Palm Beach mansion. That is, he only had to check into his "jail" eight hours a day.
Note: Epstein slept in a vacant wing of the Palm Beach County Stockade, so he was spared the ordeal of interaction with other prisoners.
[. . .]
Ann Coulter saw the problem a year ago, speaking to Sean Hannity:
This is a really important story. And I so love that you're pitching it just as a Clinton sex scandal, but it is so much more than that. And it's appalling that the only place that covered it last night -- I watched TV, every station -- was Megyn Kelly. God bless her. At least we got it out there. This is not just a Clinton sex scandal; this is the elites getting cozy and covering up and protecting one another. It also involves the Bush administration, it involves Ken Starr, the lawyers for Epstein.
There are some facts that are absolutely known, there are some that are only allegations right now. But the basic story is that Jeffrey Epstein -- there's a major Palm Beach police investigation, a young girl, 15-year-old girl's mother went to Palm Beach police back in 2006 and said my daughter is being paid to have sex with this rich man in Palm Beach. Palm Beach police staged a very detailed investigation without Epstein's knowledge.


Recipient of Sweetheart Court Deal, Billionaire Jeff Epstein, BFF of Bill Clinton 

They went through his garbage, they get sworn statements from about a half-dozen of the victims as well as this slightly older girl who was procuring them. The evidence was quite strong and the same prosecutor that was going after Rush Limbaugh for back pain medication for two years wants to just give him a little ticket, just pay ten dollars and that's enough for having sex with these underage girls, that's of course statutory rape in Florida.
The Palm Beach police went mental after they staged this investigation and put all the evidence together. So they went to the federal government. That's where this case comes involved.
[. . .]



The prosecutors private's lives were investigated and according to the U.S. Attorney they were just pressured, jerked around, everything was appealed. Eventually they get Epstein to agree to plead guilty to a state charge, allegedly sentenced to 18 months, in fact it was 13 months and for 16 hours a day he was allowed to go to his mansion in Palm Beach. So he got basically no jail time. He is a registered sex offender.
[. . .]
A secret agreement was struck. The documents are under seal. A no prosecution agreement against not only Epstein but his lawyers and all these other friends of his. They are suing under that, they can open this case again. They could breach the no prosecution.
That case has been going on since 2008.
[. . .]
And the fact that thus far this has only been covered on Fox News is shocking. This is not a political thing. This is what MSNBC and the rest of the networks have been describing what they thought these fraternities, what they thought the [Duke] lacrosse rape [case was]. This is the elites circling the wagon and protecting a pederast. It's a shocking case and that's just the known facts.
[. . .]
Two teenage victimes of Palm Beach billionaire sex offender Jeffrey Epstein have filed court papers asking to depose top federal officials who were involved in inking the secret deal that saved Epstein from serious federal charges.
[. . .]



The victims filed the motion, in part, because of a new argument Assistant U.S. Attorney Dexter Lee made during a routine status check hearing in November.
Lee said the girls aren’t really victims because they procured other minor girls for Epstein and received money for it so they’re not protected under the federal Crime Victims’ Rights Act.
[. . .]
Filed in 2008, the lawsuit says the U.S. Attorney’s Office violated the federal Crime Victim’s Rights Act by failing to confer with the victims before signing a non-prosecution agreement with Epstein in September 2007.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/01/the_sweetheart_deal_for_bill_clintons_orgy_island_pal_may_be_exposed_and_overturned.html

January 5, 2016
The sweetheart deal for Bill Clinton's Orgy Island pal may be exposed and overturned
By Thomas Lifson

Secret Service Supervisors Revealed Private Records of U.S. Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT)

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah)
(Cliff Owen/AP)

[From article]
An assistant director of the Secret Service urged that unflattering information the agency had in its files about a congressman ­critical of the service should be made public, according to a government watchdog report released Wednesday.
“Some information that he might find embarrassing needs to get out,” Assistant Director Edward Lowery wrote in an e-mail to a fellow director on March 31, commenting on an internal file that was being widely circulated inside the service. “Just to be fair.”
Two days later, a news Web site reported that Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, had applied to be a Secret Service agent in 2003 and been rejected.
That information was part of a Chaffetz personnel file stored in a restricted Secret Service database and required by law to be kept private.
[. . .]
The report also cited Lowery’s e-mail as the one piece of documentary evidence showing the degree of anger inside the agency at Chaffetz and the desire for the information to be public.
[. . .]
The inspector general’s inquiry found that the Chaffetz information was spread to nearly every layer of the service.
[. . .]
All told, 18 supervisors, including assistant directors, the deputy director and even Clancy’s chief of staff knew the information was being widely shared through agency offices, the report said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/watchdog-top-secret-service-official-wanted-information-about-chaffetz-made-public/2015/09/30/ff280378-67ae-11e5-9ef3-fde182507eac_story.html

Secret Service official wanted to embarrass congressman
By Carol D. Leonnig and Jerry Markon

September 30, 2015 at 7:57 PM

Seattle Rape Victim Sexually Abused by NYPD Investigators, Lawsuit

[From article]

A Manhattan nursing student is suing the NYPD for $3 million, claiming the cops sent to interview her about her sexual assault instead took her drinking and tried to have sex with her — telling her afterward, “It can’t leave this room” and threatening that her “credibility would be shot” if she told anyone about their night out.
The 25-year-old woman says in the Manhattan federal lawsuit, filed late Tuesday, that after she was sexually assaulted by a social acquaintance in a Manhattan apartment in January 2013, she flew to Seattle to be with her family, then reported the assault to the NYPD in June 2013.
NYPD Lt. Adam Lamboy and Detective Lukasz Skor­zewski flew to Seattle to interview the woman about the assault, but at a follow-up meeting on July 6, 2013, they instead pressured her into drinking with them, according to the suit.
Lamboy even joked that it was “OK” and “we’ll protect you,” the suit states.
The cops kept buying her drinks over a 10-hour pub crawl, with Skorzewski flirting with the woman and telling her, “You’re my favorite victim,” according to the suit.
“By midnight, plaintiff indicated she needed to leave because she had work in the morning.
“The officers told plaintiff to call her boss and tell him she could not make it to work and they would ‘vouch for her’ as police officers,” the suit states, adding that the cops coaxed the woman into spending the night at their hotel.
Skorzewski climbed into bed with the woman and said he wanted to kiss her, but even when she said that was inappropriate, he persistently kissed and fondled her while trying to get his hands into her pants for the next 20 to 30 minutes, the suit states.
“Eventually, plaintiff was able to get out of bed and retreated to the shower where she began to cry,” the suit claims.
“When plaintiff returned to the room, she was confronted by Skorzewski, who implored plaintiff not to divulge what had just transpired to anyone. ‘It can’t leave this room,’ stated Skorzewski,” according to the lawsuit.
The NYPD suspended and demoted Skorzewski. Lamboy’s pay was docked and he was transferred.
http://nypost.com/2015/09/30/cops-tried-to-have-sex-with-me-after-i-reported-sexual-assault-woman-says/

Cops tried to have sex with me after I reported sexual assault, woman says
By Josh Saul
New York Post
September 30, 2015 | 12:51pm

Secret Service Joins IRS, Justice Department Abusing Its Power For Political Purposes, Malfeasance Everywhere

[From article]
An award-winning investigative journalist at The Washington Post, Carol Leonnig, broke the story about what can be described as a Secret Service “plot” to leak confidential documents in an attempt to embarrass Congressman Jason Chaffetz, an outspoken critic of the Service. Over a dozen officials at the Secret Service knew about the plot but failed to report this illegal activity.
Instead of focusing on the unlawful leak intended to humiliate Chaffetz, government officials issued judge-less warrants for the telephone records of the “good cop” who spoke with Leonnig when his colleagues failed to follow the law.
[. . .]



The Star Chamber authorized searches and seizures of books and papers to silence critics of the Crown and religious dissidents. Judge-less administrative subpoenas “are impossible to reconcile with the Fourth Amendment,” which was written as paramount law governing government to prohibit such abuses.
Privacy advocates have been very vocal criticizing the NSA’s collection of telephone metadata, which, while violating the Fourth Amendment’s requirements of probable cause and individualized suspicion, has not been used to harass individuals, businesses, or nonprofit organizations – to my knowledge, at least.
[. . .]



[A] so-called Email Privacy Act being pushed by Google expressly acknowledges the proper Fourth Amendment process that only judges may issue warrants for federal officials to obtain private emails. The bill, however, would only protect Google and other email storage services, while actually encouraging federal and state bureaucrats to seize private emails directly from us or our businesses through judge-less administrative warrants.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/10/judgeless_warrants_for_phone_records_and_money_in_the_bank_for_lawyers.html

October 6, 2015
Judge-less warrants for phone records (and money in the bank for lawyers)
By Mark J. Fitzgibbons

Equality Advocates Protest Unlawful Misuse of Taxpayer Funds Favoring Black Students

[From article]
The $20 million fund unveiled by a top California university last month to endow scholarships for African-American students and to hire diverse faculty is just the latest attempt to get around a state law barring schools from using racial preferences in admissions, according to critics, who are vowing yet another legal battle.



University of California-Berkeley's "African-American Initiative" would raise funds from private non-profits to fund “a comprehensive effort to address the underrepresentation of African-American students, faculty and staff at our university, and improve the climate for those who are here now and all who will join our community in the future.” The money would go to scholarships for black students, the hiring of race-specific clinical psychologists and fostering a more diverse faculty and senior management, according to the school.
[. . .]



But critics say the scholarship fund is an end-run around Proposition 209, the 1996 law barring state institutions from considering race, sex, or ethnicity for public employment, contracting and education. Ward Connerly, a conservative African-American who served on the University of California Board of Regents from 1993-2005 and is considered one of the architects of Prop 209, said the initiative appears to be illegal.
“The University of California, especially Berkeley and UCLA, have long tried to circumvent the law when it comes to this,” Connerly told FoxNews.com. “We are a nation of laws and Berkeley is not above them. The school has no right to avoid the law by developing initiatives such as this.”
Prop 209's backers claim it was modeled after the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which barred race as a factor in an effort to protect African-Americans from discrimination. By using similar language more than three decades later, the measure's proponents sought to stop racial preferences. University of California schools have seen higher graduation rates among minority students since Prop 209 took effect, with the Berkeley campus alone seeing a 6.5-percent increase in graduating students. But despite the rise in graduation rates, raw enrollment rates among African-Americans has dropped.
[. . .]



While private scholarships can legally use race as a consideration, Cal-Berkeley's involvement in creating and administering the endowment could be viewed as violating the law's intent, according to [Ward] Connerly.
“I intend to ask the Pacific Legal Foundation to take a look and if there’s any wrongdoing found, we will sue,” he said. “If we allow them to disregard the law, then they will try to do more and more.”
Gail Heriot, University of San Diego law professor and expert on Prop 209, told The College Fix the scheme does appear to violate the law.
“If the initiative is as described in the university’s announcement, it is a straightforward violation of Proposition 209,” Heriot said.

 

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/10/06/critics-question-legality-cal-berkeley-new-20m-race-based-scholarship-program/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+foxnews%2Fmost-popular+%28Internal+-+Most+Popular+Content%29

Critics blast $20M Cal-Berkeley fund for race-based scholarships, hiring
By Perry Chiaramonte
Published October 06, 2015
FoxNews.com

IRS Used Teams of Lawyers To Hide Evidence Of Malfeasance

[From article]
It’s been a very bad week for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) – which translates into a very bad week for the American people.
First, it was revealed the IRS failed to implement critical upgrades to its computer systems which made it much easier for Russian hackers to steal information from more than 100,000 taxpayers. Then, if Russian hackers weren’t enough, an IRS employee in Missouri pleaded guilty to stealing more than $325,000 by filing fraudulent tax returns – stealing the identities of American taxpayers.
Now, we learn that as Congress began its investigation into the unlawful scheme targeting conservative and Tea Party groups the IRS used “hundreds of attorneys” to hide critical information from Congress.
According to new bombshell testimony, the IRS set up a previously unknown “special project team” comprised of “hundreds of attorneys,” including the IRS Chief Counsel (one of only two politically appointed positions at the IRS).
The IRS’s director of privacy, governmental liaison, and disclosure division, Mary Howard, testified that soon after the IRS targeting scandal was revealed, the IRS “amassed hundreds of attorneys to go through the documents [requested by Congress] and redact them.” She told Congress that once the “special project team” was created and operational, she never saw requests for information.
Members of Congress have long complained that many of the documents produced by the IRS have been “redacted to the point of absurdity.” Now we know why.
Her testimony is clear: As soon as the IRS targeting scandal broke, the IRS set up a special team of hundreds of attorneys, including President Obama’s political head of the Chief Counsel’s office, to keep requests for publicly available information away from the person who would normally review those documents and turn them over to Congress and the public. That “special” team then overly redacted, delayed, and determined which documents it wanted Congress to see.
After setting up a special “group” to target and delay applications by Tea Party groups for tax-exempt status, the IRS set up a new “special project team” to delay and redact information from Congress about that targeting. Talk about a cover-up.
When asked about these revelations and the ongoing investigation by Congress into the IRS and former top IRS official Lois Lerner’s involvement, Howard testified, “I think that Lois Lerner was the tip of the iceberg.”

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2015/06/04/more-irs-outrage-agency-used-hundreds-lawyers-to-hide-information-from-congress.html

More IRS outrage: Agency used 'hundreds of lawyers' to hide information from Congress

By Jay Sekulow

Published June 04, 2015

FoxNews.com

Evidence of Corruption of Obama-Clinton Regarding Benghazi Massacre

[From article]
Years ago, Judicial Watch served Freedom of Information Act requests relating to Benghazi on the Defense Department and the State Department. The Obama administration stonewalled, as always, so Judicial Watch eventually had to sue to enforce its rights under FOIA. That lawsuit has been going on for more than two years, as the Obama administration continued to resist producing relevant documents. Finally, on September 9, 2014, a federal court in the District of Columbia ordered the State and Defense Departments to produce certain additional documents. Those documents have been trickling in to Judicial Watch, heavily redacted.
Despite the redactions, some of the documents are bombshells. This one was sent to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the White House’s National Security Council on September 12, 2012, the day after the Benghazi attack. It says, among other things:
The attack was planned ten or more days prior on approximately 01 September 2012. The intention was to attack the consulate and to kill as many Americans as possible to seek revenge for U.S. killing of Aboyahiye ((ALALIBY)) in Pakistan and in memorial of the 11 September 2001 atacks on the World Trade Center buildings.
[. . .]
This report also describes the terrorist group that claimed responsibility for the Benghazi attack:
The attack on the American consulate in Benghazi was planned and executed by the Brigades of the Captive Omar Abdul Rahman (BOAR).
[. . .]



It has long been rumored that Ambassador Chris Stevens was in Benghazi for reasons having to do with the flow of weapons out of that city:
Weapons from the former Libya military stockpiles were shipped from the port of Benghazi, Libya to the Port of Banias and the Port of Borj Islam, Syria. The weapons shipped during late-August 2012 were Sniper rifles, RPG’s, and 125 mm and 155mm howitzers missiles.
During the immediate aftermath of, and following the uncertainty caused by, the downfall of the (Qaddafi) regime in October 2011 and up until early September of 2012, weapons from the former Libya military stockpiles located in Benghazi, Libya were shipped from the port of Benghazi, Libya to the ports of Banias and the Port of Borj Islam, Syria. The Syrian ports were chosen due to the small amount of cargo traffic transiting these two ports. The ships used to transport the weapons were medium-sized and able to hold 10 or less shipping containers of cargo.
This DIA report, dated August 2012, is intensely interesting. It describes the situation in Syria and warns against the rise of the Islamic State:
The deterioration of the situation has dire consequences on the Iraqi situation and are as follows:
This creates the ideal atmosphere for AQI [al Qaeda Iraq] to return to its old pockets in Mosul and Ramadi, and will provide a renewed momentum under the presumption of unifying the jihad among Sunni Iraq and Syria, and the rest of the Sunnis in the Arab world against what it considers one enemy, the dissenters. ISI could also declare an Islamic state through its union with other terrorist organizations in Iraq and Syria, which will create grave danger in regards to unifying Iraq and the protection of its territory.
[. . .]



The belated release of these critically important documents, years after the fact, illustrates the success of the Obama administration’s stonewall strategy. Multiple investigations of the Benghazi attack have been carried out, and, while they have uncovered considerable evidence of malfeasance on the part of Hillary Clinton and others in the Obama administration, President Obama and his minions have succeeded in hiding much, perhaps most, of the most relevant evidence. In fact, it seems likely that key evidence has been destroyed, redacted or otherwise hidden, and never will come to light. This is, in my view, one of the more troubling aspects of the comprehensive corruption of the Obama administration.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2015/05/the-truth-about-benghazi-slowly-emerges.php

POSTED ON MAY 18, 2015

BY JOHN HINDERAKER
THE TRUTH ABOUT BENGHAZI SLOWLY EMERGES

Two DEA Agents Busted For Running NJ Strip Joint

[From article]
The dive, called the Twins Plus Go-Go Lounge, has repeatedly been cited by state regulators for lewdness because the dancers over-exposed themselves — and also took money for sex in the private lap dance rooms, the complaint says.
Agent David Polos, who is now retired, and employee Glen Glover, who is on administrative leave, are also in hot water for supervising their club via computer and smartphone apps during paid DEA shifts, and for lying on government paperwork by claiming they did not have any outside employment.
[. . .]
The mammary mecca was a financial success despite the $1 domestic bottle specials and free buffets the place occasionally offered. Between May 2011 and August 2014, about $600,000 in cash proceeds were deposited into the joint’s bank accounts, the complaint says.
The “go-go” lounge was described in classic FBI-speak in the complaint as “an adult entertainment establishment located in South Hackensack, New Jersey featuring scantily clad and sometimes topless women (‘dancers’) and offers private stalls for what are supposed to be limited-contact dances between patrons and those dancers, commonly called ‘lap dances.’”



[. . .]
Polos was an assistant special agent-in-charge who supervised the New York Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force. Glover was a telecommunications specialist.

http://nypost.com/2015/05/20/dea-agents-secretly-owned-strip-club-with-illegal-immigrant-dancers-feds/

DEA staffers secretly owned strip club with illegal immigrant dancers: feds
By Josh Saul and Laura Italiano
New York Post
May 20, 2015 | 12:32pm

What Abuse of Power Looks Like in Contemporary United States, Government Run Amok, Who Is Scott Walker?

[From article]
"THEY CAME WITH A BATTERING RAM.”
Cindy Archer, one of the lead architects of Wisconsin’s Act 10 — also called the “Wisconsin Budget Repair Bill,” it limited public-employee benefits and altered collective-bargaining rules for public-employee unions — was jolted awake by yelling, loud pounding at the door, and her dogs’ frantic barking. The entire house — the windows and walls — was shaking. She looked outside to see up to a dozen police officers, yelling to open the door. They were carrying a battering ram.
[. . .]
Some even barged into the bathroom, where her partner was in the shower. The officer or agent in charge demanded that Cindy sit on the couch, but she wanted to get up and get a cup of coffee. “I told him this was my house and I could do what I wanted.” Wrong thing to say. “This made the agent in charge furious. He towered over me with his finger in my face and yelled like a drill sergeant that I either do it his way or he would handcuff me.” They wouldn’t let her speak to a lawyer. She looked outside and saw a person who appeared to be a reporter. Someone had tipped him off. The neighbors started to come outside, curious at the commotion, and all the while the police searched her house, making a mess, and — according to Cindy — leaving her “dead mother’s belongings strewn across the basement floor in a most disrespectful way.” Then they left, carrying with them only a cellphone and a laptop.

[. . .]

It was indeed a home invasion, but the people who were pouring in were Wisconsin law-enforcement officers. Armed, uniformed police swarmed into the house. Plainclothes investigators cornered her and her newly awakened family. Soon, state officials were seizing the family’s personal property, including each person’s computer and smartphone, filled with the most intimate family information. Why were the police at Anne’s home? She had no answers. The police were treating them the way they’d seen police treat drug dealers on television.
[. . .]
As if the home invasion, the appropriation of private property, and the verbal abuse weren’t enough, next came ominous warnings. Don’t call your lawyer. Don’t tell anyone about this raid. Not even your mother, your father, or your closest friends. The entire neighborhood could see the police around their house, but they had to remain silent.
[. . .]
The mom watched as her entire life was laid open before the police. Her professional files, her personal files, everything. She knew this was all politics. She knew a rogue prosecutor was targeting her for her political beliefs.
[. . .]

For dozens of conservatives, the years since Scott Walker’s first election as governor of Wisconsin transformed the state — known for pro-football championships, good cheese, and a population with a reputation for being unfailingly polite — into a place where conservatives have faced early-morning raids, multi-year secretive criminal investigations, slanderous and selective leaks to sympathetic media, and intrusive electronic snooping. Yes, Wisconsin, the cradle of the progressive movement and home of the “Wisconsin idea” — the marriage of state governments and state universities to govern through technocratic reform — was giving birth to a new progressive idea, the use of law enforcement as a political instrument, as a weapon to attempt to undo election results, shame opponents, and ruin lives. Most Americans have never heard of these raids, or of the lengthy criminal investigations of Wisconsin conservatives. For good reason. Bound by comprehensive secrecy orders, conservatives were left to suffer in silence as leaks ruined their reputations,
[. . .]
This was the on-the-ground reality of the so-called John Doe investigations, expansive and secret criminal proceedings that directly targeted Wisconsin residents because of their relationship to Scott Walker, their support for Act 10, and their advocacy of conservative reform. Largely hidden from the public eye, this traumatic process, however, is now heading toward a legal climax, with two key rulings expected in the late spring or early summer. The first ruling, from the Wisconsin supreme court, could halt the investigations for good, in part by declaring that the “misconduct” being investigated isn’t misconduct at all but the simple exercise of First Amendment rights. The second ruling, from the United States Supreme Court, could grant review on a federal lawsuit brought by Wisconsin political activist Eric O’Keefe and the Wisconsin Club for Growth, the first conservatives to challenge the investigations head-on. If the Court grants review, it could not only halt the investigations but also begin the process of holding accountable those public officials who have so abused their powers. But no matter the outcome of these court hearings, the damage has been done. In the words of Mr. O’Keefe, “The process is the punishment.”
[. . .]

Why would Chisholm seek such broad powers to investigate a year-old embezzlement claim with a known suspect? Because the Milwaukee County executive, Scott Walker, had by that time become the leading Republican candidate for governor. District Attorney Chisholm was a Democrat, a very partisan Democrat. Almost immediately after opening the John Doe investigation, Chisholm used his expansive powers to embarrass Walker, raiding his county-executive offices within a week.
[. . .]
This expansion coincided with one of the more remarkable state-level political controversies in modern American history – the protest (and passage) of Act 10, followed by the attempted recall of a number of Wisconsin legislators and, ultimately, Governor Walker.
[. . .]
Governor Walker was untouched, his reforms were implemented, and he survived his recall election.
[. . .]
Empowered by a rubber-stamp judge, partisan investigators ran amok. They subpoenaed and obtained (without the conservative targets’ knowledge) massive amounts of electronic data, including virtually all the targets’ personal e-mails and other electronic messages from outside e-mail vendors and communications companies. The investigations exploded into the open with a coordinated series of raids on October 3, 2013. These were home invasions, including those described above.
[. . .]
O’Keefe, who has been in contact with multiple targeted families, says, “Every family I know of that endured a home raid has been shaken to its core, and the fate of marriages and families still hangs in the balance in some cases.” Anne also describes a new fear of the police: “I used to support the police, to believe they were here to protect us. Now, when I see an officer, I’ll cross the street. I’m afraid of them. I know what they’re capable of.”
[. . .]

Victims of trauma — and every person I spoke with described the armed raids as traumatic — often need to talk, to share their experiences and seek solace in the company of a loving family and supportive friends. The investigators denied them that privilege, and it compounded their pain and fear. [Government thugs working with their criminal conspirator's still prevent me from talking about 45 years of egregeous abuses of government criminals.
[. . .]
The investigation not only damaged families, it also shut down their free speech. In many cases, the investigations halted conservative groups in their tracks.
[. . .]
many of the investigators’ legal theories, even if proven by the evidence, would not have supported criminal prosecutions. In other words, they were investigating “crimes” that weren’t crimes at all. If the prosecutors had applied the same legal standards to the Democrats in their own offices, they would have been forced to turn the raids on themselves. If the prosecutors and investigators had been raided, how many of their computers and smartphones would have contained incriminating information indicating use of government resources for partisan purposes?
[. . .]
And so, almost five years after their secret beginning, the John Doe proceedings are nearly dead — on “life support,” according to one Wisconsin pundit — but incalculable damage has been done, to families, to activist organizations, to the First Amendment, and to the rule of law itself. In international law, the Western world has become familiar with a concept called “lawfare,” a process whereby rogue regimes or organizations abuse legal doctrines and processes to accomplish through sheer harassment and attrition what can’t be accomplished through legitimate diplomatic means. The Palestinian Authority and its defenders have become adept at lawfare, putting Israel under increasing pressure before the U.N. and other international bodies.
[. . .]
The John Doe investigations are a form of domestic lawfare, and our constitutional system is ill equipped to handle it. Federal courts rarely intervene in state judicial proceedings, state officials rarely lose their array of official immunities for the consequences of their misconduct, and violations of First Amendment freedoms rarely result in meaningful monetary damages for the victims.
[. . .]

Conservatives have looked at Wisconsin as a success story, where Walker took everything the Left threw at him and emerged victorious in three general elections. He broke the power of the teachers’ unions and absorbed millions upon millions of dollars of negative ads. The Left kept chanting, “This is what democracy looks like,” and in Wisconsin, democracy looked like Scott Walker winning again and again. Yet in a deeper way, Wisconsin is anything but a success. There were casualties left on the battlefield — innocent citizens victimized by a lawless government mob, public officials who brought the full power of their office down onto the innocent.
[. . .]
in Wisconsin, the rule of law hangs in the balance — along with the liberty of citizens.

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/417155/wisconsins-shame-i-thought-it-was-home-invasion-david-french

Wisconsin’s Shame: ‘I Thought It Was a Home Invasion’
by DAVID FRENCH

April 20, 2015 4:00 AM 

From the May 4, 2015, issue of National Review

FBI Obstruction of Justice, Congress and Inspector Generals

[From article]

In investigating the Fast and the Furious case, the Justice Department’s IG was told by the FBI that grand jury testimony could not be shared with the Inspector General. According to Mr. Grassley, the FBI claimed it had the right to refuse to provide the IG information in over a dozen other categories as well.
“Remember – the law says the Inspector General shall have access to all records, documents and other materials they deem necessary to conduct their investigations,” said Mr. Grassley, “And yet the FBI says its attorneys will review material first and decide what it would and would not release to the Inspector General.”
The FBI claimed the inspector general needed to get approval from the attorney general or the deputy attorney general to provide information to the Inspector General, an action Mr. Grassley called “exactly upside down!”



“Under the law, an inspector general must be independent. Agencies cannot be trusted to investigate themselves,” said Mr. Grassley. “If an inspector general had to ask for permission from senior leadership, he would not be truly independent.”
Other agencies who have avoided inspector general inquires through legal loopholes are the Environmental Protection Agency and the Peace Corps, Mr. Grassley said. Last year, a group of 47 inspector generals wrote a letter to Congress warning of these problems across the government.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/apr/20/chuck-grassley-fbi-obstructing-fast-and-furious-ot/

Chuck Grassley: FBI obstructing Fast and Furious, other probes
By Kelly Riddell

The Washington Times

Monday, April 20, 2015

NYPD Officer Caught On Video Tape Stealing Cash From Bodega

[From article]

Cyrus, a member of the Brooklyn North Narcotics squad, entered the Yemen Deli and Grocery store on Marcus Garvey Boulevard in Bedford-Stuyvesant last Friday night with several other cops after receiving a tip the employees were selling the loose cigarettes.
Surveillance video shows Cyrus stuffing a wad of bills into his pocket as the officers conducted a search of the store after arresting Faladh Al Awadhy, 23 and Ghazi Alkasri, 34 and charging them with selling unstamped cigarettes.
It wasn’t until the following day that store owner Ali Abdullah noticed the money was missing from a cigar box he kept under the counter, he said, adding that the money was supposed to go toward the businesses’ rent.
“At first I’m thinking my employees took the money,” he said. “I had to ask them where did the money go. They were mad that I accuse them.”
Abdullah went back and looked at the store’s elaborate 12 camera surveillance system and witnessed the cop emptying the cigar box and then pocketing the money.

http://nypost.com/2015/04/09/nypd-detective-caught-on-tape-stealing-over-3k-at-bodega-cops/

NYPD detective caught on tape stealing over $3K at bodega: cops
By Kirstan Conley and Daniel Prendergast
New York Post
April 9, 2015 | 2:18pm

NYPD Officer Sentenced To 18 Years in Prison For Abuse of Power

[From article]
Jose Tejada, a 17-year department veteran, was found guilty last June of helping a crew of hoodlums rob dealers of drugs and cash in Manhattan, Queens and the Bronx.
The married father of three and his cohorts routinely handcuffed victims and waved guns during the heists – and once terrorized an innocent family after barging into the wrong apartment.
Tejada, 47, actually caught a break Thursday after federal prosecutors lobbied for a sentence of 30 years.

http://nypost.com/2015/03/12/crooked-ex-cop-sentenced-to-18-years-in-prison/

Crooked ex-cop sentenced to 18 years in prison
By Selim Algar
New York Post
March 12, 2015 | 7:11pm