Stimulus
59 of 96 Phones Assigned to Robert Mueller Probe Missing: GOP Senators
Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Ron Jonhson (R-Wis.) sent a letter to the Department of Justice (DOJ) requesting more information about missing phones used by former special counsel Robert Mueller during his investigation into former President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign.
In a news release, the two senators said they were compelled to send a letter (pdf) to the agency after the DOJ failed to review more than 20 phones for federal record preservation after Grassley in September 2020 asked about a possible violation of federal record-keeping laws following a Freedom of Information Act revelation showing records on devices used by Mueller’s team were deleted.
The DOJ’s Office of the Inspector General in September 2020, the senators wrote, told them that several phones belonging to “multiple people on then-Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigative team were ‘wiped’ for various reasons during [the Russia investigation].” And on May 11 of this year, the inspector general said that 59 of 96 phones assigned to Mueller’s team couldn’t be located, according to the senators.
Relating to the phones, the two senators said they want the names of the Special Counsel’s Office team members whose cell phones are not reviewed by official records, if there are any actions being taken to recover the missing phones, and whether the DOJ reviewed the devices to see if “they were used to leak sensitive or classified information,” among other requests. . . .
Federal agents arrest, turn back record 188,800 immigrants at southern border, report
Federal border patrol agents last month arrested or denied entrance to 188,800 immigrants – the highest monthly total at the southern U.S. border in roughly a decade, according to a news report.
The number is being reported by CNN and based on what the news outlet says is a Department of Homeland Security official familiar with the figures and to previously published data.
The number last month compares to 180,034 in May, bringing the fiscal year total so far to more than 1 million Customs and Border Protection encounters.
The number of immigrants trying to enter the country at the U.S.-Mexico border has increased since May 2020, when roughly 23,000 people were encountered by Customs and Border Protection. This June was the highest monthly number since President Biden took office. . . .
Breyer, Top Liberal Supreme Court Justice, Says He Hasn’t Decided on Retirement
The oldest Supreme Court justice says he has not decided when he will retire amid a push by Democrats to get him to step down.
Justice Stephen Breyer, a Clinton nominee, is and one of three justices nominated by a Democrat president.
The 82-year-old has faced a growing push by congressional Democrats and left-leaning groups to resign during President Joe Biden’s first term so Biden can nominate his replacement.
Fears that Republicans could flip the Senate in 2022 have added urgency to the effort, but Breyer said in a new interview that he’s not sure when he will leave the bench.
“No,” Breyer told CNN when asked if he had decided when he will retire.
Two factors will influence the decision.
“Primarily, of course, health,” said Breyer. “Second, the court.”
Breyer also talked about the position he found himself in after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg last year—the most senior liberal-nominated justice. . . .
Privacy Is Still a Victim When Rape Cases Hit the Justice System
Things were supposed to be different this time, Brooke thought in disbelief as the police officer demanded that she hand over every scrap of data on her phone to investigators — not because she was suspected of a crime, but because she was the victim of one. Years earlier, a man who Brooke had until then considered a friend pulled her into a London alley, pushed her against a wall, choked her and violently sexually assaulted her. Her fear and humiliation, more than just the invasion of her body, seemed to be his goal. Several times, she said, she broke free, only to have him catch her, throw her back against the wall, and assault her again.
She reported the attack to the police, who were initially supportive, she said. But then they closed her case after she refused to submit to a “digital strip search” — Britain’s policy of requiring victims of sex crimes to give the police full access to their phone data, social media accounts, school records and even therapists’ notes.
“I always assumed before any of this ever happened to me that the assault would have been the most traumatic thing that could happen,” said Brooke, an actress living in London. (The Times is not using her full name because she is a victim of sexual assault.) But in fact, she said, she found the experience of reporting the crime to the police, only to be treated like a suspect to be investigated herself, far worse.
Fewer than 2 percent of rape cases reported to the police in Britain are ever prosecuted. And the digital strip search is just one of the many policies that a recent government report criticized as contributing to the justice system’s catastrophic failures on rape and sexual assault.
Brooke’s experience is a microcosm of the ways that efforts to address those failures, though fueled by unprecedented public demand for change in the post-#MeToo era, are doomed unless they reckon with the societal and institutional conditions that created them in the first place. . . .
House Democrat-led Jan. 6 select panel schedules first hearing
The select committee looking into the deadly Jan. 6 riot at the US Capitol will hold its first hearing July 27, Democratic leaders announced Wednesday.
The panel, which is currently made up of eight House lawmakers — seven Democrats as well as Republican Liz Cheney of Wyoming — will hear testimony from law enforcement officers who were assaulted by supporters of former President Donald Trump during the melee.
“We need to hear how they felt, we need to hear what people who broke into the Capitol said to them,” committee chairman Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) told the Associated Press last week.
The House voted largely along party lines on June 30 to set up the select committee after Senate Republicans blocked legislation to create a 9/11-style commission to examine the origins of the riot. . . .
Former Harris Campaign Official Launches Group To Advise Companies On Social Justice Issues
Vice President Kamala Harris’ former campaign finance chair is reportedly launching a strategic advisory firm to advise companies and corporate executives on social justice and other political issues, according to sources familiar with the matter.
Jon Henes, a corporate attorney at the law firm Kirkland & Ellis, plans to launch the New York-based group in early September, CNBC first reported. Henes was the national campaign finance chair for Harris’ campaign during the 2020 election and later moved his fundraising efforts to support then-Democratic candidate Joe Biden, according to CNBC.
One source familiar with the matter noted the new advisory firm is initially planning to hire at least 15 people and could later expand operations to Washington, D.C., Los Angeles and San Francisco, CNBC reported. The firm will also include teams that focus on environmental, social and corporate governance, along with workplace diversity, equity and inclusion, sources added. . . .
Bannon’s War Room | Morning Edition Hour 1 | Recorded July 15, 2021 | Video: 48 Minutes 45 Seconds
Episode 1,097 – The Military is Not Ready to Fight. Our military is being weakened and Christian churches are under attack in Canada. Guests are: Jack Posobiec, Pastor Artur Pawlowski, Sydnie Ly.
U.S. Military Leadership’s Slow Descent Into Madness | “Joint Chiefs Chairman Compared Trump to Hitler, MAGA to Nazi ‘Brownshirts'”
After the 2020 election, Army General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, compared President Donald Trump to Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler and Trump’s supporters in the MAGA movement to Nazi brownshirts. This only further underscores conservative fears about President Joe Biden’s efforts to root out “extremism” in the military.
“Milley told his staff that he believed Trump was stoking unrest, possibly in hopes of an excuse to invoke the Insurrection Act and call out the military,” Washington Post reporters Carol Leaning and Philip Rucker wrote in their forthcoming book I Alone Can Fix It, CNN reported.
According to the book, Milley feared Trump would launch a coup and he prepared a plan to get the army to resign en masse rather than prevent the peaceful transition of power.
“They may try, but they’re not going to f**king succeed,” Milley reportedly told his deputies. “You can’t do this without the military. You can’t do this without the CIA and the FBI. We’re the guys with the guns.” . . .
[ PJ Media ]