Auburnfan91

The timeline is looking very puzzling. If Franklin County Children Services knew the 10 year old needed an abortion on June 22, which was 2 days BEFORE the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, then which doctor in Ohio said the 10 year old couldn't get an abortion and waited until June 27 to contact Dr. Caitlin Bernard in Indiana?

The Ohio AG has stated that the 10 year old would have been allowed an abortion in Ohio because of the exemptions. There appears to have been no communication made to the AG's office by any doctor or abortion provider in Ohio to get clarification on whether the 10 year old rape victim would be allowed an abortion through the exemptions. The Indiana doctor, Dr. Caitlin Bernard, has referenced that a child abuse doctor in Ohio contacted her on June 27 about the 10 year old rape victim. The doctor in Ohio has not been identified. Under Ohio law, physicians are required to report suspected child abuse. So far, there's been no confirmation that any doctor in Ohio filed a report. The police in Columbus, Ohio were made aware of the rape on June 22 through a referral by Franklin County Children Services that was made by the mother.

Ohio's AG David Yost would be a deciding factor in how the state would adjudicate an abortion case. He made his position clear in regards to the law. The AG cited the exceptions in the law that would have applied to this case. Contrast the Ohio AG's public comments vs the Indiana AG's public comments. If Yost thought the case wouldn't have applied, he would have already stated it. But even before the story was confirmed, Yost stated that the 10 year old would have been allowed to have an abortion based on the information. With the media reporting evidence to refute Indiana's AG's crusade against the doctor, there's been nothing reported to refute Yost's comments about exceptions that would have applied in Ohio allowing the abortion, other than opinion's like Ken White's that AUDub posted. Did a doctor in Ohio involved in this case reach out to Yost's office to see if exceptions would have applied? The OP article and every article reporting on the story so far has the same wording: 'The 10 year old was denied an abortion in Ohio' but no article ever identifies a hospital or doctor in Ohio. The only doctor that was identified by name in the story is the Indiana doctor Caitlin Bernard. There has also been no mention of a report made by any doctor in Ohio. The NYPost article posted earlier in this thread noted that no outlet had confirmed any report made by a doctor in Ohio: https://nypost.com/2022/07/12/ohio-ag-unaware-of-reported-rape-victim-10-who-had-abortion/ The only report currently known that was made in Ohio was made on June 22 to the police in Columbus, Ohio. The IndyStar article indicates it was a referral by Franklin County Children Services made by the mother and that's how it was reported to police. The doctor in Ohio who contacted Bernard on June 27 is not identified. https://www.indystar.com/story/news/health/2022/07/14/ohio-abortion-10-year-old-indiana-todd-rokita-dr-caitlin-bernard/65373626007/

If Dr. Caitlin Benard did anything wrong, it appears that she lied(maybe what she was told by the 10 year old's mother) when she filed a report that the alleged rapist was 17 years old. https://www.foxnews.com/politics/ohio-10-year-old-alleged-illegal-immigrant-rapist-27-listed-minor-abortionists-report-state

Before the story got confirmed, the Ohio AG weighed in and said Ohio's abortion law exception would allow the 10 year old to obtain an abortion. Imo, this case would apply for both (F) and (K) as a medical emergency. A 10 year old is not developed enough to carry an unborn child. An abortion would be safer than a 10 year old trying to give birth.

https://codes.ohio.gov/ohio-revised-code/section-2919.16

Did you read the whole article you posted thinking you were owning the Ohio AG? https://nypost.com/2022/07/12/ohio-ag-unaware-of-reported-rape-victim-10-who-had-abortion/ So the AG who has the authority to try and indict a doctor for an 'illegal' abortion said that the 10 year old would have been able to obtain an abortion.

Snopes tries to muddy the water by pointing to 'trigger' laws as an excuse for why the 10 year old went to Indiana for an abortion but Ohio's abortion law that was passed in 2019(which is current law) does include language for when a mother's life is endangered. Ohio was not one of the 13 states that enacted a 'trigger' law prior to Roe being overturned that Snopes tries to blame for the 10 year old traveling to Indiana.

The 10 year old could have gotten an abortion in Ohio because it threatened her life.

LSU 2021

Concrete? "Dozens of Snopes readers searched our site or contacted us wondering whether that had actually happened. To find out, we reached out to Dr. Caitlin Bernard, an obstetrician-gynecologist based in Indianapolis and who spoke to The Columbus Dispatch, about the headline-generating story. As of this writing, Bernard had not returned our request for an interview, but we will update this story if that changes." https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/07/05/abortion-10-year-old-rape-victim-ohio/ Despite this story going viral, it still hasn't been confirmed.

That's not how it is. They're not being enforced because liberal DA's don't want to put more people in prison. Philly gun arrests are on a record pace, but convictions drop under DA Krasner Police are on pace to make 3,000 arrests this year for carrying a gun illegally, a record, but the people charged are less likely to be convicted. by Chris Palmer, Dylan Purcell, Mike Newall, and Mensah M. Dean Updated Mar 30, 2021 One in an occasional series, “Under Fire,” about Philadelphia’s unchecked gun violence. As Philadelphia’s gun violence has surged to unprecedented heights, two troubling trends have quietly kept building: Thousands more people are being arrested for carrying guns illegally. But their chances of being convicted in court have fallen by nearly a quarter. That conundrum now drives a debate between the Philadelphia Police Department and the District Attorney’s Office about how to stem the flow of illegal guns on city streets — and ultimately, how to slow possible violence by those who wield them. In 2021, police are making arrests for carrying an illegal gun on a pace nearly three times that of 2017, according to an Inquirer analysis of police data and eight years of court dockets. If the current pace continues, police will make more than 3,000 arrests this year for illegal gun possession — by far the most on record. Meanwhile, people accused of illegally carrying guns have seen their chances of getting convicted in court plunge from 63% in 2017 to 49% two years later. Put plainly, people accused of carrying illegal guns in recent years have had better than a coin flip’s chance of beating their case in court. The Inquirer analysis looked at cases where the most serious crime was a Violation of the Uniform Firearms Act (VUFA), nonviolent offenses that can range from carrying an unlicensed weapon, a misdemeanor, to being barred from possessing a firearm due to a previous conviction, a felony that can lead to years in prison. Police have long considered VUFA arrests essential to reducing crime because they take weapons out of the hands of people who later might use them. Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw said Philadelphia’s criminal justice system has become a “revolving door” for repeat gun offenders — leaving more of them on the street with their weapons, with little reason to fear the consequences of being caught. Although she declined to single out District Attorney Larry Krasner, her top partner in Philadelphia law enforcement, Outlaw echoed a point that the Inquirer analysis revealed — that conviction rates for being caught with an illegal gun dropped after Krasner was sworn into office in January 2018. “If there’s nothing to deter folks, if there’s no consequence where people believe, ‘If I do this, this is going to happen,’ [then] there’s no incentive to not carry a gun illegally, quite frankly,” the commissioner said. Krasner attributes the drop in convictions in part to police submitting weaker evidence or more cases being tossed out by judges because witnesses didn’t show up in court. In the years since the Philadelphia Police Department settled a civil rights lawsuit over unconstitutional pedestrian stop-and-frisks, officers have also been presenting more cases of guns they found during car stops, Krasner said. Those cases can be difficult to prosecute if multiple people were in the car and each disclaims ownership of the weapon, he said. Despite the drop in convictions for the nonviolent VUFA charges, most people arrested solely for gun possession have not been rearrested for new gun crimes, he contended. He is more concerned with swiftly and fairly convicting the people who actually use those guns to kill or wound others. Amid the record rise in shootings, the vast majority of them unsolved, “we are dealing essentially with a form of triage, and we have to be sensible about what we prioritize,” he said. Krasner, in the midst of a contested reelection race, said the city’s focus instead should be on other issues — the long-standing structural problems that drive people toward picking up a gun, such as underfunded schools, government neglect of impoverished neighborhoods, and a bloated justice system that has targeted poor and Black and brown residents. “If we’re all going to focus on the questionable notion that everybody who possesses a gun is spending their time looking at data on what conviction rates are, then we’re going to miss any solution that’s actually going to be real and effective,” the district attorney said. “Yes, enforcement is a small part of the story. The big part of the story is not that. The big part of the story is this city’s chronic failure to invest in prevention that the community is crying out for. That is where we have to go.” The existence of such a public debate is striking in a city awash in guns. And it’s the latest example of persistent tensions between Krasner, swept into office as a reformer, and other criminal justice stakeholders — including the mayor, his former managing director, two of his police commissioners, and many rank-and-file officers, some of whom have recently become more vocal on the issue. While the district attorney and the police commissioner agree that drastic, coordinated efforts must take place to check Philadelphia’s soaring gun violence, they have publicly aired their fundamental differences over how to deal with nonviolent gun-possession violations. (At a hearing Tuesday soon after this article was published online, city councilmembers questioned Krasner about its findings. The DA defended his office’s handling of homicide and shooting cases but acknowledged: “We are not happy with the conviction rate for possession of guns.” In response to a question, he promised to provide gun crime data to councilmembers who wanted to better understand the issue.) Mayor Jim Kenney’s views are in sharp contrast to Krasner’s. Kenney said the plunging conviction rate for gun possession is making Philadelphia less safe — and fuels violence that overwhelmingly claims the lives of young people of color. “My frustration is the loss of the energy and the promise of almost an entire generation of young Black men,” Kenney said in a recent interview. “I get up every morning, I reach into my side table and I pull up my phone and I see the [shooting] numbers for the day, it’s heart-wrenching.” ‘I’d rather throw a bullet than catch a bullet’ The Inquirer’s data analysis, which focused solely on cases in which illegal gun possession was the most serious charge, showed that most people arrested for gun possession have not been rearrested for new crimes so far. Of the 1,400 people accused of illegally carrying a firearm in 2018, for instance, 19% have been arrested since for another crime, according to the analysis of court data, through mid-March. And only 2.5% were later charged in a murder, attempted murder, or aggravated assault. Still, that conclusion tells only part of the story. Because four out of five shootings in Philadelphia do not result in charges, Inquirer data show, it’s impossible to know with certainty who committed the crimes, their backgrounds, and whether they had a previous nonviolent gun offense. This makes it difficult to determine how much violence could have been prevented by more successful prosecutions of nonviolent gun possession. Krasner’s office said it has seen little evidence that those accused of carrying guns illegally are responsible for driving the violence, as the huge uptick in gun arrests since last year has done nothing to slow the current torrent of gun violence. He agrees with many antiviolence activists who say any plan to stem the illegal use of guns by young people must center on providing resources and support to those who may be tempted to do so. Advocates like Reuben Jones, executive director of Frontline Dads, a mentoring organization, see reasons behind the rise: As shootings surge in neighborhoods where residents have long felt targeted — not protected — by police, young people don’t feel safe, and would rather risk getting caught with an unlicensed or illegal gun than getting shot or killed. Jones said: “When young people don’t feel valued, respected, trusted, or connected to the city’s mainstream, they create their own struggle, their own path to survival.” Kevin Gold, 35, founder of the All the Kings Men mentoring program for males at the district’s Building 21 high school, said he believes many of those who arm themselves on city streets do so as “a response to what they have been presented in life.” “I refuse to believe that people involved in that lifestyle actually want to be,” said Gold, director of student support at the West Oak Lane public school. Of the nearly 200 young men he has mentored since 2009, just one has been shot (and survived), and none has been arrested for carrying a gun, he said. “But I will say, all of them are exposed to opportunities to have access to guns and access to that lifestyle.” Stefan Shaw, 19, who graduated in 2019 from Building 21 and is still being mentored by Gold, echoed his sentiment. “It’s really hard to grow up in Philadelphia, especially a boy, and not experience some type of gun violence,” said Shaw, who left Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania and is now a car salesman in Frankford. “You can gather a room full of 100 boys my age and I’d bet they’d all raise their hands if you asked if they’ve been around a gun or seen gun violence, or somebody they know died from gun violence,” Shaw said. Gold said many Black and brown young men in Philadelphia believe the police are not able to protect them, or not interested in doing so. As a result, these young men — including those who are otherwise law-abiding — are arming themselves. Shaw and his friend Shyheem Boyd, 20, who is also a mentee of Gold’s, each said they plan to buy a gun legally when they are 21. (In Philadelphia, adults 21 or older can get a license to carry a concealed weapon outside their home if they pass a criminal background check and meet other requirements.) “I’ll say it like this: I’d rather throw a bullet than catch a bullet,” Shaw said. Upon reflection, Boyd said: “I’m not gonna lie. I’ll probably get one before I turn 21. There’s a lot of stuff that can happen in a year.” Outlaw and her team strongly support mentoring, intervention, and more community resources. But she contended that the “vast majority” of the people police have been catching with firearms are either linked to the city’s gun violence or are at risk of becoming ensnared in it — especially as trivial conflicts, such as Instagram feuds, have been leading to violence. “We’re not talking about somebody that made a mistake, somebody that was carrying for protection and they didn’t have their license,” Outlaw said. “We’re talking about people who know full well you’re not supposed to have it.” West Philly cops grow frustrated Police are encountering these illegal guns on the street every night. So far this year, the department has recorded 32 days of 10 or more gun arrests, compared with just two days over the same time last year. In the Southwest Philadelphia police division, the radio crackles with reports of gun arrests at a dizzying clip. Officers there have arrested more illegal gun suspects than anywhere else in the city: 638 people last year, and on pace to double that in 2021. Shootings there have doubled since 2017. Inspector Derrick Wood, commanding officer of Southwest Division, attributes some of the spike in VUFA arrests to what he describes as a growing lack of fear among people carrying guns due to dropping conviction rates and lower bails set by bail commissioners. “What I see is that the city and the criminal justice system do not take illegally carrying firearms seriously,” Wood said. “There’s been an explosion of gun violence in the last three years, and there’s more than one reason — but I think one reason is we don’t take it seriously.” An Inquirer review of 2019 gun arrests from the 18th Police District, in Wood’s Southwest Division, showed that of the 82 people whose cases were resolved as of January 2021, more than half, 53%, had their charges withdrawn or dismissed. Wood and some of his officers contend that amid this reality, they are encountering the same suspects over and over again. Fed up, they began posting photos on social media of confiscated firearms and calling for stricter consequences for carrying them. “They know there’s no consequences for carrying a gun in Philly. It’s zero to none,” he said. “I don’t care what kind of programs you come up with, what kind of money you put in prevention — if people are not held accountable, then people are going to keep carrying guns.” He added: “I’m not worried about hurting people’s feelings anymore,” without specifying names. “We’ve got to do something different. We can’t keep doing the same thing.” While not responding directly to Wood, Krasner said he believed that some cops, frustrated by the increasing violence — anger he shares — may be focusing on the surge in gun-possession cases to shift the narrative away from the department’s low clearance rate for shootings and homicides. “What I hear more and more is ‘Let me tell you how many guns we got off the street this week, let me redefine the issue,’” Krasner said. He credited officers with doing their best to follow orders, seize illegal firearms when they find them, and collect evidence they think is strong enough to sustain a prosecution. Still, he added: “I think it’s always a good thing to get guns off the street. But it is not the primary job of police to harvest guns. It is the primary job of police to arrest people with solid evidence that can be proved beyond a reasonable doubt.” ‘He didn’t deserve to go out like that’ Sometimes those accused of gun possession go on to become suspects in violent crimes. The Inquirer found 17 instances in which someone charged with a VUFA case in 2018 was later charged with homicide, murder, or attempted murder. One of them was Sabir Bunch, who has been charged with fatally shooting Sean Gunther, an expectant father, outside a barbershop in Tioga in December 2019. Bunch had beaten a gun-possession case in court the year before, according to 2018 court records. The reasons were not clear because court documents in the case are no longer public. Gunther’s relatives are now left to wonder why that prosecution failed, and whether anything more could have been done to prevent Bunch — who has several other gun charges on his record — from allegedly squeezing the trigger. Bunch “should not have been on the street,” said Gunther’s cousin, Gloria Easley, 41, who said many residents do not feel that public officials are doing enough to help neighborhoods suffering from crime or violence. Gunther’s sister, Rayna Gunther, said that her brother had lived a life on the street and served time but that he remained committed to his family and had provided hospice care for their father. “He had been through a lot,” she said, “but he didn’t deserve to go out like that.” Seeking solutions Why has the rate of convictions for gun possession fallen during Krasner’s first term? Besides blaming the difficulty of proving gun possession in car-stop cases with multiple occupants, his office offered the findings of a study of 221 VUFA cases that failed in court, both before and after Krasner took office. One in 10 dismissed under Krasner failed because the police witness didn’t show up at initial hearings, they said, and about one in three were dismissed because civilian witnesses failed to appear in court, requiring the judge to throw out those cases or prosecutors to withdraw them. Together, these two reasons account for close to half of his office’s losing gun-possession cases. These problems existed long before Krasner took office, and yet none seemed to prohibit his predecessors from securing a higher conviction rate. Krasner did not say what might have changed. But he added that it would be a “logical consequence” to have a lower conviction rate “if the context is: You used to have a smaller number of cases with stronger evidence, and now you have a bigger number of cases with weaker evidence.” Krasner has built his administration on the idea that fewer people belong in jail — that he was sworn in to help unravel decades of misguided policy devastating communities of color and fueling more crime. But the explosion of gun arrests presents a new test for the reform-driven DA. Due to the court system’s slowdown during the pandemic, The Inquirer’s analysis shows that as many as 3,500 gun cases remain pending in court, even as dozens of new arrests are being recorded each week. If his office were to convict 49% of those 3,500 people — its current rate — Krasner would face the possibility of significantly swelling the city’s jail population. “This is an issue someone in my office raised with me,” Krasner said. “Are we going to replace a war on drugs with a war on guns, and are we going to use that as an excuse for mass incarceration?” For her part, Outlaw said it’s time to move past philosophical disagreements — and toward consistent, fair consequences for carrying or using a gun. She and Krasner say their offices have been collaborating more in recent months to review gun cases shortly after arrest and ensure they can stand up in court. The need could not be more apparent. Even in the midst of a pandemic, Outlaw and the mayor said slowing the pace of gunfire is the city’s most urgent challenge. “The numbers,” Outlaw said, “speak for themselves.” https://www.inquirer.com/news/philadelphia-gun-arrests-2021-convictions-vufa-20210330.html

This is why the draft opinion was leaked. They want to create a climate of intimidation. If you don't rule the way they want you to, then they're going to try and punish you. The same party and administration that continues to whine about 1/6, has no problem with inciting the harassment of judges outside their homes. They only criminalize protests at the Capitol and imprison non-violent protesters for years if you intimidate them.

‘Molotov thrower’ Urooj Rahman blames de Blasio for not holding back NYPD amid protests By Bruce Golding June 5, 2020 4:39pm The Brooklyn lawyer accused of tossing a Molotov cocktail into an NYPD vehicle blamed Mayor Bill de Blasio for not holding back cops — for their own protection — less than an hour before the incident. “I think this protest is a long time coming,” lawyer Urooj Rahman said in a videotaped interview filmed near the Barclays Center in Brooklyn at around 12:15 a.m. May 30. “This s–t won’t ever stop unless we f–kin’ take it all down. And that’s why the anger is being expressed tonight in this way,” she said. The video surface Friday, as Rahman and co-defendant Colinford Mattis were taken back into custody by US marshals. The two had been released to home confinement of $250,000 bail, but on Friday an appeals court granted prosecutors’ request for an emergency stay of their release. During the four-minute interview, Rahman claimed to be unaware that cops had been hurt by protesters during violent clashes sparked by the police killing of George Floyd — but said de Blasio should have held back the NYPD “the way that the mayor in Minneapolis did.” “I think the mayor should have done that, because if he really cared about his police officers, he should have realized that it’s not worth them getting hurt,” she said. Rahman was then caught on surveillance video just before 1 a.m. that day lighting a Molotov cocktail and tossing it into an empty police vehicle near the 88th Precinct, according to court papers. Rahman, 31, said in the video before the Molotov incident that violence against cops was “understandable,” adding, “people are angry because the police are never held accountable. “This has got to stop. And the only way they hear, the only way they hear us is through violence, through the means that they use,” she said. “We’ve got to use the massa’s [master’s] tools, that’s what my friend always says.” Rahman — who spelled out her first name at the end of the interview — spoke while covering her face with the same black-and-white headdress that she wore in a photo that Brooklyn federal prosecutors say shows her clutching a Molotov cocktail in the passenger seat of a minivan driven by fellow lawyer and co-defendant Mattis, 32. Rahman was also wearing the same T-shirt — which shows a clenched fist clutching a strand of barbed wire and the words “THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES REGARDLESS” — in which she was arrested. She and Mattis were chased down and allegedly caught with the makings for more homemade explosives, which the feds say they’d been offering to other protesters “in furtherance of more destruction and violence.” During her video interview, Rahman claimed that protesters were “not targeting random people; they’re targeting precincts. “It’s a way to show their pain, their anger,” she said. Rahman and Mattis had been released on bail Monday over the objections of prosecutors. They’re each charged with one count of damaging a police vehicle by fire and explosives, which carries a maximum 20 years in prison and a mandatory minimum of five. Neither Rahman’s lawyers nor City Hall immediately returned requests for comment Friday afternoon. https://nypost.com/2020/06/05/molotov-lawyer-urooj-rahman-blames-de-blasio-for-not-calling-off-nypd/ They wanted to cause damage. Plain and simple.

Lawyers who torched NYPD police vehicle agree to new plea deal By Ben Feuerherd June 2, 2022 7:07pm The pair of radical lawyers who torched an empty NYPD vehicle amid protests in Brooklyn over the police killing of George Floyd pleaded guilty Thursday to conspiracy charges in a deal struck with federal prosecutors. The firebug attorneys, Colinford Mattis and Urooj Rahman, each copped to counts of conspiracy to commit arson and to make and possess an unregistered destructive device for firebombing the police van in Brooklyn on May 30, 2020, a spokesperson for the US Attorney’s Office said. They had previously pleaded guilty to possessing a destructive device – but successfully fought prosecutors’ effort to give them a lengthy sentence under a “terrorism enhancement.” Under the plea deal cemented Thursday, prosecutors will not seek the enhancement, and will request for a maximum sentence of two years in prison. In a May court filing, prosecutors noted the federal probation department said the enhancement was too strong given their otherwise law-abiding lives. “This increase appears to over-represent the maliciousness of the defendants’ intentions in committing the offense, while also negating the defendants’ otherwise law-abiding lives free of prior criminal convictions,” the federal probation department wrote. The pair were arrested after Rahman tossed a Molotov cocktail at an empty NYPD van outside the 88th Precinct stationhouse in Fort Greene amid citywide uprisings in May 2020. Mattis acted as the getaway driver in the caper, the feds charged. Mattis is scheduled to be sentenced Oct. 5; Rahman will be sentenced on Sept. 29. https://nypost.com/2022/06/02/lawyers-who-torched-nypd-van-agree-to-new-plea-deal/ Amazing, they were allowed to withdraw their previous plea deal in favor of a new plea deal that will reduce the charges and sentencing.

MJF's promo tonight was epic... It was even better than CM Punk's 'pipebomb' promo in 2011. He's got the charisma and mic skills that even WWE has been hard pressed to produce in the last decade. He's the future of AEW but he's been booked like a glorified midcarder the last 2 years. It's a travesty that MJF hasn't won a title in AEW.

How was Sussman's lie immaterial? He was using the FBI(who willingly went along with it and kept the investigation going) to influence the election. The FBI investigating the false dirt gave it enough credibility for the media to run with the story about 'Trump's possible ties to Russian bank' right before the election. It's what Hillary tweeted on October 31, 2016.

Friends with Benefits: Sussmann Trial Further Exposes the FBI and Washington Establishment May 30, 2022 Below is a slightly expanded version of my column in the Hill on Sussmann trial and what it revealed about the role of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the combined Russian collusion investigations. It also looks down the road at whether Special Counsel John Durham will be allowed to write the same type of public report that concluded the Mueller investigation. Here is the column: With the jury out in the trial of former 2016 Clinton campaign counsel Michael Sussmann, the usual odds-takers appeared on cable news, rating the chances of a conviction. Despite the seemingly overwhelming evidence against Sussmann, the jury’s makeup seems strikingly favorable for the defense. One verdict, however, appears to need little deliberation. It concerns the Department of Justice, and particularly the FBI. The trial confirmed what many have long alleged about how top officials eagerly accepted any Russia collusion claim involving Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign. Special counsel John Durham’s investigation, which led to Sussmann’s trial, is an indictment of a department and a bureau which, once again, appeared willfully blind as they were played by Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Despite the trial judge’s rulings imposing strict limits on the scope of the trial evidence, Durham’s case still revealed new information on how the Russia collusion theory was pushed into the FBI and the media by the Clinton campaign. Perhaps the most ironic moment came when Sussmann’s defense team outed Clinton as personally approving the campaign’s effort to spread a baseless claim that the Trump organization maintained a secret channel to the Kremlin through Russia’s Alfa Bank. That claim was a real tinfoil-hat conspiracy theory without support. Durham previously disclosed how researchers tasked with supporting the claim were afraid it was so unsupported that they would be mocked. They argued, according to Sussmann’s indictment, that anyone familiar with analyzing internet traffic “would poke several holes” in the theory. One researcher warned: “Let’s assume again that they are not smart enough to refute our ‘best case scenario.’ You do realize that we will have to expose every trick we have in our bag to even make a very weak association.” Yet, the Clinton campaign did not seem remotely concerned about even minimal inquiries that might expose the lack of proof. The researchers were told to just worry about creating a “very useful narrative.” During the trial, Clinton campaign general counsel Marc Elias and campaign manager Robby Mook both said the campaign trusted the media to push the story. They were right: Slate quickly ran it, and then Clinton and one of her aides, Jake Sullivan (now President Biden’s national security adviser), released statements expressing alarm about the claim as if it were news to them. The Clinton campaign similarly pushed the infamous Steele dossier into the news, too, after secretly helping to fund it. And both the Steele dossier and the Alfa Bank claim was pushed to friends in the FBI. Regardless of what the jury decides regarding Sussmann, the combined record of the Steele dossier and the Alfa Bank claim makes the FBI look like an unindicted co-conspirator. On the witness stand in Sussmann’s trial, for example, FBI general counsel James Baker was asked why it took him so long to turn over the most damaging evidence — a text message to him in which Sussmann said he was not representing any client in pushing the Alfa Bank claim to FBI officials. Baker explained that Sussmann was his friend and told prosecutors that “this is not my investigation. This is your investigation.” In other words, there was no reason for the Justice Department to expect that Baker, a former top Justice lawyer, would help to make the case against Sussmann. It did not help the optics when Baker left the Justice Department and joined Brookings Institution, liberal think tank linked to key figures who framed the early Russian collusion claims. For some, it seemed like not just friends but “friends with benefits.” Later, the supervisory agent for the FBI’s Trump-Russia probe, Joe Pientka, sent a note to FBI special agent Curtis Heide, stating: “People on the 7th floor to include Director are fired up about this server.” Pientka then messaged Heide: “Did you guys open a case? Reach out and put tools on?” That description of the apparent eagerness of then-FBI Director James Comey and others only magnifies concern over the bureau’s alleged bias or predisposition on the Trump investigation. It was the same eagerness that led the FBI to pursue the Russian investigation for years despite being warned early by American intelligence that the Steele dossier contained not just unsupported allegations but possible Russian disinformation. When FBI investigators were given Sussmann’s allegation, they were told by supervisors that it came from the Justice Department, not Sussmann. Even with that framing, however, investigators found what the Clinton campaign researchers feared — in Baker’s words, that there was “nothing there.” The FBI, however, went on to pursue the other Russia collusion claims. That effort would result in a conviction of FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith for making false statements by altering key evidence to obtain secret surveillance orders against Trump associate Carter Page. Another trial witness, the FBI’s Heide, admitted he is under investigation for allegedly withholding exculpatory information contradicting the premise of the Russia investigation. Previously, of course, another special counsel, Robert Mueller, never found any basis for criminal charges related to Russia collusion. But what is now even more striking is how so much of this information about “fired up” FBI officials and the role of the Clinton campaign mysteriously escaped Mueller and his team. The question now is whether Durham will be given the same opportunity as Mueller to write a report on his findings. All of these disclosures were made despite limitations placed on Durham by the court. Clearly, Durham is sitting on more information about how the collusion claims were packaged and pushed to eager friends in the media and the FBI. Before Mueller declined to press criminal charges on any Russia collusion allegations, Democrats in Congress insisted that he should not just issue a report but that the report should be released unredacted, including ordinarily secret grand jury material. There is no such hue and cry for a similarly unredacted report by Durham. If Durham does not issue such a report, much of the true story behind the Russia collusion scandal could be buried. Indeed, even if control of Congress were to flip to Republicans in November, the Justice Department could refuse to turn over investigatory material and information. That is precisely what many in Washington undoubtedly would like to happen. Yet, after the glimpses offered in Sussmann prosecution of still undisclosed evidence, the public deserves to have a full Durham report on how these scandals were conceived and crafted among “friends.” Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. Follow him on Twitter @JonathanTurley. https://jonathanturley.org/2022/05/30/friends-with-benefits-sussmann-trial-is-an-indictment-of-the-fbi-and-the-washington-establishment/

You're incredibly naive. The FBI already knew Flynn talked to a Russian official. They even had the transcript of it. What purpose, other than entrapping Flynn, was there in sending agents to interview him? The FBI was in on Russiagate. The FBI didn't care that Sussman(Clinton campaign) gave them false dirt on Trump. They let it go. The FBI leadership kept the investigation going for political purposes. That's the real conspiracy. George Papadopolous on the other hand spent 2 weeks in jail for lying to the FBI. In sentencing him, the FBI claimed that he didn't provide substantial assistance to the investigation. See how this works? Today should make it crystal clear that there is a two-tiered justice system in D.C. https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/31/sussmann-acquitted-trump-special-counsel-00036033 No amount of evidence was going to change the outcome in the Sussman case for some jurors.

As recent as April 2020, a Harvard-Harris poll found that 77% of Democrats still believed the Steele Dossier proved that Trump colluded with Russia. https://harvardharrispoll.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/j17063-QHHP041220-PostWtd-Ban1-Sec1-Filtered-16-Apr-2020.pdf - page 98 The 'Trump colluded with Russia' narrative is a big part of the Sussman trial.

The lobbying stuff is ridiculous and was largely weaponized by Mueller to go after Flynn. Multiple Dems were guilty of FARA violations, and one was charged with lying but they both got off because of their ties to the Democratic party. Tony Podesta, brother of John Podesta(Hillary's campaign chairman), retroactively registered as a foreign lobbyist and left his firm in 2017 after Mueller started investigating the Podesta Group. He avoided charges. Former White House Counsel to the Obama Administration, Greg Craig, was charged by Mueller in April 2019 for lying to the FBI about his lobbying work for the Ukraine government. He plead not guilty and a D.C. jury(mostly Dem) acquitted him of lying in September 2019.

Flynn was entrapped by Obama's "Justice Department". The main reason he pled guilty initially was because they threatened to go after Flynn's son if he didn't cooperate. There was never any collusion. Flynn was doing part his job during the transition by talking to foreign officials about the incoming administration. Yet they charged him with lying about whether he discussed foreign policy with a Russian official. It's a farce. He should have never been charged. It was a political abuse of power.

The judge in the Flynn case was anti-Trump and a pissant who wouldn't drop the case, even after the DOJ had filed motion to drop all charges. The judge in the Sussman case is a Dem and his wife donated to Hillary's campaign in 2016(which Sussman worked for). D.C. is a cesspool of Dem politics. From the judges to the jury. No conservatives will ever get fair trials in D.C. When the GOP retake control of Congress, they need to pass a bill to move trials out of D.C.

Federal agents entered Uvalde school to kill gunman despite local police initially asking them to wait Two senior federal law enforcement officials said the federal agents decided after about 30 minutes not to wait any longer and entered the school to find gunman Salvador Ramos. May 27, 2022, 5:47 PM CDT / Updated May 27, 2022, 6:06 PM CDT By Julia Ainsley Federal agents who went to Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, on Tuesday to confront a gunman who killed 19 children were told by local police to wait and not enter the school — and then decided after about half an hour to ignore that initial guidance and find the shooter, say two senior federal law enforcement officials. According to the officials, agents from BORTAC, the Customs and Border Protection tactical unit, and ICE's Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) arrived on the scene between noon and 12:15 p.m. on Tuesday. Local law enforcement asked them to wait, and then instructed HSI agents to help pull children out of the windows. The BORTAC team, armed with tactical gear, at first did not move toward the gunman. After approximately 30 minutes passed, however, the federal agents opted of their own volition to lead the “stack” of officers inside the school and take down the shooter. Steven McCraw, the director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, said Friday that Peter Arredondo, the chief of police for the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District, had stopped at least 19 officers from breaking into the school as the gunman opened fire for at least an hour. Arredondo believed that the shooter had barricaded himself and that the children were not under an active threat, said McCraw at a news conference. “From the benefit of hindsight where I’m sitting now, of course, it was not the right decision. It was a wrong decision. Period. There was no excuse for that,” McCraw said. “There were plenty of officers to do what needed to be done, with one exception, is that the incident commander inside believed he needed more equipment and more officers to do a tactical breach at that time.” According to McCraw, Arredondo believed there was no active threat, so instead of sending officers in, he spent time finding keys that would let him into the school. During this time, however, Ramos had unencumbered access to carry out the attack. Nineteen students and two teachers were killed. Arredondo was not present among law enforcement officials standing with McCraw on Friday, and McCraw did not explicitly name him. Arredondo did not immediately return a request for comment by NBC News. Two teachers and 19 students, many of them fourth graders, were killed inside a single classroom during Tuesday’s massacre. McCraw said Friday that two students inside the school dialed 911 multiple times during the shooting and begged authorities for help. The calls began at 12:03 p.m. and lasted through most of the hour. At 12:47 p.m., one of the students called a 911 operator and said “please send the police now.” Both students survived, McCraw said. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/federal-agents-entered-uvalde-school-kill-gunman-local-police-initiall-rcna30941 Thank God the Border Patrol agents weren't afraid of taking out the shooter.