McCarthy calls for investigating Biden over classified documents

 January 12, 2023

Source: 

By Al Mayadeen English 

US President Joe Biden’s lawyers discovered a second batch of classified documents from his vice presidency at a new location.

President Joe Biden visits Mexico City on January 9. (Getty Images)

Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy called for a Congressional investigation of Biden after classified documents were found at his home in Wilmington, Delaware.

“Congress has to investigate this,” McCarthy said, pointing to the Justice Department’s investigation of former president Donald Trump for keeping more than 100 classified documents at his home in Palm Beach, Florida.

Moreover, Republican lawmakers in Congress will look into President Joe Biden’s mishandling of classified government records while serving as vice president because it is a serious felony, Republican Congressman Paul Gosar said on Thursday.

A day after the president was briefed about the first set of records discovered in his private office in Washington, Biden’s lawyers discovered a second batch of classified documents from his vice presidency at a new location.

“Joe Biden stole classified documents and secretly hid them in his office while he was Vice President yet suddenly democrats could care less. Negligently retaining classified documents is a felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison. Republicans in congress will investigate and see to it that Biden answers for his crimes,” Gosar said in a statement.

In the same context, the White House announced Thursday that “a small number” of classified documents dating from the Obama-Biden administration had been discovered at Joe Biden’s private residence in Wilmington, Delaware.

Other documents were discovered at a Washington think tank where Biden used to work, embarrassing the White House as authorities investigate an even larger scandal involving ex-President Donald Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents.

Biden says ‘cooperating fully’ with classified documents review

In the meantime, Biden stated on Thursday that he is “fully cooperating” with a Justice Department investigation after classified documents were discovered at his private residence in Wilmington, Delaware.

Lawyers “discovered a small number of documents with classified markings in storage areas and file cabinets in my home and my personal library,” Biden said, adding, “I take classified documents and classified material seriously.”

Yesterday, Biden said that he was “surprised” to learn that classified documents were taken to his personal office after he left the vice presidency and that he has no idea what is in the records. Meanwhile, Democratic and Republican leaders on Capitol Hill demanded more information about the discovery that prompted a Justice Department investigation.

“I was briefed about this discovery and surprised to learn that there are any government records that were taken there to that office,” Biden said during a news conference in Mexico City on Tuesday evening.

“But I don’t know what’s in the documents. My lawyers have not suggested I ask what documents they were. I’ve turned over the boxes — they’ve turned over the boxes to the Archives. And we’re cooperating fully — cooperating fully with the review, which I hope will be finished soon, and there will be more detail at that time,” he added.

This came after the White House confirmed that the US Justice Department is reviewing a batch of potentially classified documents found in the office space of Biden’s former institute in Washington.

Richard Sauber, special counsel to Biden, indicated that “a small number of documents with classified markings” were discovered when the President’s personal attorneys were emptying the offices of the Penn Biden Center, where Biden kept an office after he left the vice presidency in 2017 until shortly before he launched his presidential campaign in 2019.

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US throws Khashoggi case under a bus after suit against MBS dismissed

7 Dec 2022

Source: Agencies

By Al Mayadeen English 

Prior to his electoral victory, US President Biden pledged he would make MBS a “pariah” and said he would bring justice to the dismembered victim. 

A US federal judge ruled on Wednesday that the lawsuit against the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman be lifted after it was announced by federal authorities that he was basically “immune” from jurisdiction. 

The reason for such entitlement was owed to his title as prime minister of Saudi Arabia which he was granted on September 27, just six days before the State Department’s court-imposed deadline to determine whether Mohammed was protected from legal action.

“The US has informed the court that he is immune, and Mohammed is therefore ‘entitled to head of state immunity … while he remains in office,’”  reads a filing by Judge John D. Bates of the US District Court for the District of Columbia who heeded the motion to protect the Crown Prince despite there being “credible allegations of his involvement in Khashoggi’s murder.”

The filing also dismissed the claims filed against two senior Saudi officials due to a lack of evidence in pushing for a ruling over their case.

Read more: Amnesty: US immunity to MBS ‘deep betrayal’

Civil rights organization, DAWN, founded by the late Jamal Khashoggi condemned the move as a “last ditch effort to escape the jurisdiction of the court.”

“DAWN’s lawsuit against [Mohammed] bin Salman (MBS) for his ruthless murder of Jamal Khashoggi is only one part of our continued efforts for justice and accountability for this crime, and the many other crimes the Saudi government is perpetrating against its own citizens,” a statement reads by the organization’s executive director, Sarah Leah Whitson. “While we are disappointed in the decision, we will consider all options to continue our legal challenges to MBS’s criminal behavior.”

Bin Salman admitted he was responsible for the death of Khashoggi but denied any direct involvement in the assassination. 

Read more: US says MBS’ ‘legal immunity’ was unavoidable, albeit not so sure

Prior to his electoral victory, US President Biden pledged he would make MBS a “pariah” and said he would bring justice to the dismembered victim. 

But when Biden greeted MBS earlier this year with a fist bump, it was clear to the public that Biden broke his vow.

In response to the outrageous move, Khashoggi’s fiance, Hatice Cengiz, urged the President to “uphold your promise to pursue justice for Jamal.”

“President Biden, imagine yourself in my position, trying to move on while knowing that the people who killed your loved one are still free,” Cengiz wrote. “Imagine the trauma of knowing that what happened to your loved one can and will happen to someone else because the perpetrators know there will be no consequences.”

Here is my statement about judge #JohnBates decision.#MBS and his cowardly gang are thugs and murderers who went after a brave and great man,committing one of the most heinous crimes in history in order to silence him. #JamalKhashoggi pic.twitter.com/KNdQJedsE5

— Hatice Cengiz خديجة (@mercan_resifi) December 7, 2022

Read more: 

• WH eyes delaying decision on MBS immunity over Khashoggi murder
• Khashoggi ally takes KSA, Israeli NSO to court over Pegasus hacking

Sit-in marks 38 years since Georges Abdallah’s imprisonment

October 23, 2022 

The United Campaign for the Liberation of Lebanese revolutionary Georges Abdallah stages a sit-in in front of the French Embassy in Beirut.

A sit-in protest in front of the French embassy in Beirut.

The United Campaign for the Liberation of Lebanese revolutionary Georges Abdallah, alongside a number of activists, staged a sit-in in front of the French embassy in Beirut on Saturday.

The annual sit-in commemorates his arrest on October 24, 1984, and calls for his release, which has been constantly denied despite numerous judicial and political victories.

Abdallah has so far served 38 years in prison, which makes him the longest-held prisoner in Europe. He was accused of assassinating US and Israeli diplomats and was sentenced based on these accusations.

Abdallah completed the minimum portion of his life sentence in 1999, but French authorities denied his nine parole requests. The judiciary agreed several times to these requests, given that the French Interior Ministry planned on deporting him, but that decision was never taken.

Seven years after his latest parole request, the Lebanese revolutionary changed his strategy and is now back before the judiciary requesting that he be deported from France.

A member of the United Campaign for the Liberation of the Lebanese revolutionary, Mohamed Hoteit said: “On the 38th anniversary of Abdallah’s arrest, and in conjunction with a protest at the Lannemezan Prison in France, as well as rallies in several Arab and international capitals, including Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria, and Palestine, we stand here in front of the French embassy to demand Abdallah’s release, which had been possible in 1999, but French authorities rejected his nine parole requests.”. 

Manifestation à Lannemezan pour la libération de Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, militant libanais pro-palestinien enfermé depuis 38 ans et libérable depuis 1999 ! Liberté pour Abdallah et pour le peuple palestinien 🇵🇸 pic.twitter.com/78x6mS2cT1

— Solidaires Étudiant·es Pau (@SESLPau) October 22, 2022

#تونس… مظاهرة أمام السفارة الفرنسية تدعو للإفراج عن المناضل الأممي جورج عبد الله المعتقل في السجون الفرنسية
*للإطلاع على الخبر اضغط عبر الرابط أدناه:https://t.co/6vHImTM9b7#الحرية_لجورج_عبدالله #LibertéGoergeAbdallah #FreeGeorgesAbdallah@FreeGIAbdallah @Collectif_PV #Tunis pic.twitter.com/AXPX1SRLGp

— Catherine Daher (@CatherineDaher) October 22, 2022

“A decision to release Abdallah was made in 2003, but it was put on hold due to a political decision made by the French government, as well as clear, public, and explicit pressure from the US – ‘Israel’s’ biggest ally,” he added.

A Wikileaks document about former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s leaked emails revealed that between January 10-14, 2015, she sent an email to former French Minister of Foreign Laurent Fabius, saying that “although the French Government has no legal authority to overturn the Court of Appeal’s January 10 decision, we hope French officials might find another basis to challenge the decision’s legality.”

In other words, the US ordered the French government to stomp over its legal system and over the principle of separation of powers.

Read more: France’s ‘robust’ ties with “Israel” keep Georges Abdallah in prison

Atef Al-Ibrik, a leading member of the People’s Democratic Party, stated that “it is forbidden to release Abdallah since it will be considered as a victory for the Resistance whether in Lebanon or Palestine.”

Addressing French President Emmanuel Macron, the campaign questioned how the latter “urges Ukrainians to resist, supplying them with lethal weapons, despite the fact that Ukraine is thousands of kilometers far from his country while condemning just cause of Georges Ibrahim Abdallah.”

In his only statement in regard to the war in Ukraine, Abdallah underlined the hypocrisy of the imperialist camp, notably by turning a blind eye to the presence of neo-Nazi Ukrainian battalions, while criminalizing pro-Palestinian movements.

America’s Collapse: Asset Forfeiture

By Dr. Paul Craig Roberts

Global Research, July 25, 2019

Readers aware that I, and Dmitry Orlov, have been chronicling America’s rapid decline ask me, “where did it all begin?”  To  answer that question would require a massive history such as Jacques Bazun’s From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life. All I can do for you is to show you recent evidence from our time.

Let’s begin an occasional series on the subject with asset forfeiture.  Asset forfeiture was one of those tactics that Sir Thomas More warned against in the play, “A Man for All Seasons.” Cutting down a protective feature of law in order to better chase after devils exposes the innocent to injustice along with the guilty.  The devil was the Mafia.  Asset forfeiture originated as a way to prevent gangsters from using their ill-gotten gains to hire better lawyers to defend them than the US Justice Department could hire to prosecute them.  In effect, gangsters were denied the use of their money in their defense. This was the beginning of an unconstitutional assault on private property and due process, but the judiciary, desiring that the Mafia be imprisoned, ignored their constitutional responsibility. The judges joined in the chase after devils.

A next step was to go further in the “war on drugs” and confiscate the property of those suspected of drug crimes.  The Comprehensive Forfeiture Act of 1984 declared forfeitable all real property, including any right, title or interest in anything associated in any way with the commission of a drug crime. 

As I have stressed and as legal scholars formerly stressed, the law unfolds to the limit of its logic.  Innocent people have had their cars confiscated because they picked up a hitch-hiker who was in possession of drugs discovered in a police stop.  Federal agents have confiscated real estate on the grounds of which they conducted a “drug sting.”  As one of the participants in the sting committed a crime, the property chosen for the sting can be confiscated on the grounds that the property  “facilitated a drug crime.”  Multimillionaire Donald Scott was shot dead by police in his home on his 200-acre estate in Malibu, California, because of a conspiracy to seize Mr. Scott’s home on the theory that there was “probable cause” to think that the heir to a vast European chemical and cosmetic fortune was growing marijuana somewhere on his estate (The Tyranny of Good Intentions, pp. 117-120).

“Cash Cops”: How Civil Forfeiture Enriched US Law Enforcement

Asset forfeiture soon jumped beyond drug crimes to all crimes.  A family lost their motel because a prostitute rented a room in which she conducted her business.  The motel had unknowingly “faciliated a crime.”  Asset forfeiture permits a person’s property to be confiscated even though the owner was not a participant in the crime and had no knowledge of the crime.

There have been vast numbers of innocent American tax-paying victims of police stealing their property under asset forfeiture law. Over the years I have reported cases, and Lawrence Stratton and I addressed police theft from the innocent public in The Tyranny of Good Intentions published in 2000 and a new edition in 2008.  The injustice done to so many Americans is one cost of asset forfeiture laws.  The criminalization of police departments is another cost.

Local TV stations in Tennessee, for example, have reported many instances of police from different local jurisdictions fighting over seizure rights on different stretches of Interstate 40.  The police stop cars with out-of-state tags, search the cars and passengers, and if they find cash in the amount of $100 or greater the police confiscate it on the grounds that the amount indicates the selling of drugs or the intended purchase of drugs. On other pretexts the police seize the cars leaving the family on foot in a strange land.

In The Tyranny of Good Intentions, Larry Stratton and I tell the story of Selena Washington who was stopped on I-95 in Florida on her way to purchase construction materials to repair her hurricane-damaged home. She doubted the building materials company would accept a large check from a black woman and had with her the insurance settlement of $19,000 in cash.  Police had set up roadblocks in order to rob people and confiscated her money without even taking her name. With the aid of an attorney and proof of insurance settlement, she was able to recover $15,000 or 79% of her money.  To get her money back, she had to agree that the police could keep $4,000.  I don’t know what the attorney’s fees were. Most likely, the bandit police prevented the full restoration of her home, just as when the police steal a person’s car they prevent the person from going to work and earning a living. Is the person still responsible for car payments when their car is stolen by police?

Clearly, neither the police nor the local governments that allegedly oversee the police are concerned  about the career-destroying impositions, along with the deaths, that they impose on the people who pay their salaries. Why do the idiot “law and order conservatives” romanticize the police?  How utterly stupid can a person be?

The Orlando Sentinel investigated police stops in Volusia County, Florida, and concluded that the police had used pretexts to confiscate tens of thousands of dollars from motorists.  Only four of the motorists managed to get all of their money back.

Despite massive police abuse, or is it merely enforcement, of forfeiture laws, the practice continues to expand.  The public acceptance of police as criminal organizations has resulted in new schemes for stealing people’s property.  Police stop motorists and on any number of pretexts impound their car. Impound and storage fees rapidly mount, making it impossible for anyone other than a well-to-do person to recover their car.  The cars are then sold to a contractor. The August 2019 issue of Car and Driver describes how this works in Chicago.  It is a tale of banditry.  And it goes on right in front of our eyes, and nothing is done about it.

When the police who are paid by the public to “serve and protect” instead rob and murder without accountibility, not even insouciant Americans can deny the devastating evidence of American legal, political and societal collapse.

*

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This article was originally published on the author’s blog site: Paul Craig Roberts Institute for Political Economy.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

The original source of this article is Global Research

Copyright © Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, Global Research, 2019

Sheikh Zakzaky in Critical Condition; US, Saudi Arabia Extend His Detention

By Al-Ahed

Beirut – Al-Ahed news sources uncovered that the Nigerian Judiciary delayed the trial of the Leader of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria Sheikh Ibrahim al-Zakzaky for 11 days after rounds of discussions between lawyers and the prosecution in Kaduna’s Supreme Court.

According to the information, Sheikh Zakzaky is in critical health condition. He is suffering from poisoning due to the bullets remaining in his body since 2015, when the Baqiatullah Husseinieh in the Zaria city was subjected to a bloody attack by the Nigerian forces and was detained consequently after being shot.

The Nigerian sources also noted that Sheikh Zakzaky has totally lost his left eyesight, while his right eye has lost 45% of its function. His wife, Zeenat, also is in need of urgent medical care due to the bullets in her body. She also needs installing artificial knees.

The Nigerian judiciary set a condition in return of releasing Sheikh Zakzaky, which is that he shall receive medical treatment on the Nigerian soil. However, estimations suggest the option of transferring him abroad, namely to Turkey, according to a previous agreement with the court.

According to al-Ahed sources, Nigeria’s Supreme Federal Court issued a year and a half earlier a decision to release Sheikh Zakzaky and his wife and compensating each of them with an amount of $120,000. However, the decision was not implemented and his eminence remained arbitrarily detained by the General Intelligence due to American, Saudi and ‘Israeli’ pressures imposed on the Nigerian government that is led by the country’s president Muhammadu Buhari, who in turn banned applying the judgement.

Ex Guantanamo prisoner recounts ordeal and displays GITMO-prisoners’ art

Source

February 09, 2019

Here is an interview of Mansoor Adayfi: