EXCLUSIVE: Police Report Proves Plainclothes Electronic Surveillance Unit Members Were Embedded Among Jan. 6 Protesters

While there is growing speculation that federal agents and Capitol Police were involved in instigating acts of violence during the Jan. 6, 2021 protests and recording responses for the purposes of entrapment, evidence now proves that “plainclothes” members of a special Electronic Surveillance Unit (ESU) were embedded among the protesters for the purposes of conducting video surveillance. Evidence also points to a day of security deficiencies and police provocation for the purpose of entrapment.

According to a report—First Amendment Demonstrations, issued Jan. 3, 2021, by Chief of Police Robert Contee of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD), Homeland Security Bureau, Special Operations Division, obtained exclusively by The Epoch Times—the MPD began to activate Civil Disturbance Unit (CDU) platoons on Jan. 4, 2021. Full activation of 28 platoons was scheduled to occur on the following two days.

Cover page for the First Amendment Demonstrations report, issued January 3, 2021 by the Metropolitan Police Department, Homeland Security Bureau, Special Operations Division.
Cover page for the First Amendment Demonstrations report, issued January 3, 2021, by the Metropolitan Police Department, Homeland Security Bureau, Special Operations Division. (Obtained by The Epoch Times)

According to the Department of Justice website, “A CDU is composed of law enforcement officers who are trained to respond to protests, demonstrations, and civil disturbances for the purpose of preventing violence, destruction of property, and unlawful interference with persons exercising their rights under law.”

The objective of MPD was “to assist with the safe execution of any First Amendment demonstration and ensure the safety of the participants, public, and the officers.” CDU personnel and Special Operations Division  (SOD) members were to “monitor for any demonstration and/or violent activity and respond accordingly,” according to the report.

There has been speculation that federal agents and Capitol Police were involved in instigating acts of violence during the protests for the purposes of entrapment. As Red State reported in October 2021, “multiple surveillance videos show masked men opening up the doors to the U.S. Capitol Building to allow protesters to enter. In fact, one video shows them entering while Capitol Police officers simply stand around. Yet, we have no idea who those men are.”

The ‘Covert Cadre’ of ‘Provocateurs’

On a Dec.  7, 2021, episode of Tucker Carlson Tonight, the attorney for several Jan. 6 prisoners, Joseph McBride, identified a man tagged on the internet by so-called “Sedition Hunters” as “Red-Faced 45.” The man, dressed in red from head to toe—with even his face painted red—appears in a video engaging in continuous dialogue with uniformed personnel and others whom McBride insists are agents embedded in the crowd. McBride said the man is “clearly a law enforcement officer.”

“He passes out weapons, sledgehammers, poles, mace. Some of those things come in contact with some of the other protesters who have subsequently been charged with possessing dangerous weapons and are using dangerous weapons at the Capitol. That is clearly entrapment.

That is clearly the government creating conditions of dangerousness and entrapping members of the crowd to possess weapons and possibly use them for reasons that we cannot comprehend.”

On Jan. 13, 2021, J. Michael Waller, senior analyst for Strategy at the Center for Security Policy, published a first-hand account of his observations. Waller is also President of Georgetown Research, a political risk and private intelligence company in Washington, D.C.; and was founding editorial board member of NATO’s peer-reviewed Defence Strategic Communications journal (2015–2018), and a senior analyst with Wikistrat. He is convinced people were embedded in the crowd to execute “an organized operation planned well in advance of the January 6 joint session of Congress.”

J. Michael Waller, Senior Analyst for Strategy at the Center for Security Policy.
J. Michael Waller, Senior Analyst for Strategy at the Center for Security Policy. (With permission from J. Michael Waller.)

According to Waller, a “covert cadre” of people were scattered throughout the crowd to encourage people toward the Capitol, including “fake Trump protesters” he suspected were ANTIFA “wearing Trump or MAGA hats backwards.”

The Epoch Times reported on Jan. 1 that senior federal law enforcement officials refused to answer questions about an Arizona man named Ray Epps, captured on video the day before the rally wearing a Trump hat repeatedly encouraging protesters to “go into the Capitol” the next day. Many were suspicious of him. Chants of “fed, fed, fed” drown him out. On Jan. 6, he is seen telling the crowd “we are going to the Capitol, where all of our problems are.”

Ray Epps encourages protesters to go into the Capitol the night before the siege of January 6, 2021.
Ray Epps encourages protesters to go into the Capitol the night before the breach on Jan. 6, 2021. (Villain Report/Screenshot via The Epoch Times)

Epps is also seen standing before a bike rack barricade, whispering into the ear of a protester wearing his Trump hat backwards. Moments later, that man is joined by others in tearing down the barricade. Epps is then seen running with the crowd toward the Capitol Building. Despite the evidence, Epps has not had any charges filed against him and his photo has been removed from the government’s list of most-wanted people from the event.

Bobby Powell host of “The Truth is Viral” podcast, has several videos exposing two men, clad all in black, whom he believes are FBI informants. They are seen breaking windows, attacking the Capitol building, and even pushing people inside.

McBride finds it strange that these “provocateurs,” as he calls them, have yet to be charged, despite their having a much more active role in the Capitol incident than some who were charged, including some individuals who never even set foot on Capitol grounds.

The Proof

Unknown to the public until now, the First Amendment Demonstrations report also reveals that an undisclosed number of “plainclothes” MPD ESU “members” were embedded into the crowd to “document the actions of the demonstrators and MPD’s response to any civil disobedience or criminal activity.”

In 2016, the MPD purchased 2,800 body-worn cameras.

It is unclear who the MPD ESU “members” were. However, they are never referred to as “officers” or “police.” Of the 37 “Specialized Units” listed as part of the MPD, an ESU is not among them. In order for other security personnel to recognize embedded ESU members among the protesters, they wore a specific “bracelet on their left wrist identifying them as MPD personnel,” the report stated.

Photo of bracelet worn my plainclothes members of the Metrolpilitan Police Department's Electronic Surveillance Unit, embedded in the crowds on January 6, 2021.
Photo of bracelet worn by plainclothes members of the Metropolitan Police Department’s Electronic Surveillance Unit, embedded in the crowds on Jan. 6, 2021 to “document the actions of the demonstrators and MPD’s response to any civil disobedience or criminal activity.” (Metropolitan Police Department First Amendment Demonstrations report.)

Because he didn’t assume the job as police chief until Jan. 2, 2021, Waller believes Contee inherited rather than set up the ESU. However, Waller is confident “this report raises a lot of questions.”

“While it is admittedly an important type of unit to have in the nation’s capital, electronic surveillance requires warrants,” Waller told The Epoch Times. “The word surveillance itself implies intrusive rather than passive monitoring of people, in which case it would be required for the police to get warrants to conduct electronic surveillance on people. What kind of warrants were asked for and under which jurisdiction? Were they issued? If not, why? Are such warrants necessary for the type of surveillance this unit was doing and how does it work? This raises a huge amount of questions about an entirely new kind of surveillance unit by the police chief of the nation’s capital.”

Waller also said the reference to “members” of the unit, as opposed to “officers” or “agents,” is also very disturbing. While he said “the rest of the memorandum sounds very disciplined in it’s language and specific,” that it doesn’t identify “officers” as members of the Electronic Surveillance Unit “is very troubling.”

“Are they using private contractors? Are they using political volunteers?” Waller posed. “Are using paid agents of different types? We don’t know. This is something the public has a right to know and we need to get to the bottom of it. If the D.C Police is running electronic surveillance on American citizens without warrants, this could be a very serious breach of our civil liberties.”

Even after Capitol occupation and violence on January 6, 2021, Capitol Hill Police made no attempt to apprehend "Q Anon Man," who is on the Senate steps just a few feet from the Capitol Hill Police line. This photo was taken after the Capitol Hill Police removed protesters from inside the Senate wing of the Capitol.
Even after Capitol occupation and violence on Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol Hill Police made no attempt to apprehend “Q Anon Man,” who is on the Senate steps just a few feet from the Capitol Hill Police line. This photo was taken after the Capitol Hill Police removed protesters from inside the Senate wing of the Capitol. (Courtesy of J. Michael Waller)

Intentional Security Deficiencies

An Oct. 29, 2021 report by Politico exposed that a 17-page strategy report called “The Civil Disturbance Unit Operational Plan,” showed that police made plans for plainclothes “officers” to monitor protesters and carry out five objectives:

  1. To provide an environment in which lawful First Amendment activity can be safely demonstrated.
  2. To prevent any adverse impact to the legislative process associated with unlawful demonstration activity.
  3. To effectively mitigate actions associated with civil disorder; safely respond to crimes of violence and destruction/defacing of property.
  4. To safeguard and prevent any property damage directed at the US Capitol, West Front Inaugural Platform, and all Congressional buildings.
  5. Establish and maintain a fixed march route while excluding access to counter-protestors to minimize potential for violent interactions.”

However, because the CDU was understaffed and unprepared, it failed in all its objectives.

According to a 140-page report issued by then-Capitol Police Inspector General Michael Bolton—”Review of the Events Surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021, Takeover of the U.S. Capitol”—Capitol Police’s CDU was ordered by supervisors not to use the department’s most powerful tools, like stun guns. Bolton’s report, which has not yet been widely released to the public, also contends “heavier, less-lethal weapons,” including stun grenades, “were not used that day because of orders from leadership.”

The CDU was given riot shields, many locked in a bus some distance away, that “shattered upon impact.” They had expired weapons that didn’t work and inadequate training.

Bolton’s report also noted that officials were warned in an intelligence assessment three days before the protest that “Stop the Steal’s propensity to attract white supremacists, militia members, and others who actively promote violence may lead to a significantly dangerous situation for law enforcement and the general public alike” and that “Congress itself is the target.”

A man authorities identified as Jerry Braun outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021.
A man authorities identified as Jerry Braun outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. (DOJ via The Epoch Times)

However, reports surfaced that then acting House Sergeant-at-Arms Timothy Blodgett sent a memo to lawmakers informing them that security officials found that “there does not exist a known, credible threat against Congress or the Capitol Complex that warrants the temporary security fencing.”

Some Capitol Police officers were reportedly told to go home amid staffing shortages, reported Business Insider.

According to the “UNITED STATES CAPITOL POLICE TIMELINE OF EVENTS FOR JANUARY 6, 2021 ATTACK,” also obtained by The Epoch Times, “USCP Deputy Chief Gallagher replies” to the Department of Defense (DOD) “via text” on January 3, 2021, “that a request for National Guard support is not forthcoming at this time after consultation” with Chief of Police (COP) Steven Sund.

On Jan. 4, 2021, “COP Sund asked Senate Sergeant at Arms (SSAA) Michael Stenger and House Sergeant at Arms (HSAA) Paul Irving for authority to have National Guard to assist with security for the January 6, 2021 event based on briefings with law enforcement partners and revised intelligence assessment.”

• COP Sund’s request is denied. SSAA and HSAA tells COP Sund to contact General Walker at DC National Guard to discuss the guard’s ability to support a request if needed.
• COP Sund notifies General Walker of DC National Guard, indicating that the USCP may need DC National Guard support for Jan. 6, 2021, but does not have the authority to request at this time.
• General Walker advises COP Sund that in the event of an authorized request, DC National Guard could quickly repurpose 125 troops helping to provide DC with COVID-related assistance. Troops would need to be sworn in as USCP.

However, the timeline shows it took over three hours and five frantic requests before the National Guard was deployed.

During his opening remarks before two Senate committees on March 3, 2021, Walker told members of Congress he received a “frantic call” from Sund in the early afternoon advising that the security perimeter of the Capitol was being breached. However, military leaders informed him that deploying troops would not be “good optics.”

During testimony before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Piatt and Flynn denied making such comments.

At the hearing, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene informed the committee three people were involved in turning down repeated requests for the deployment of the National Guard. “Chuck Schumer in the Senate, Nancy Pelosi in the House, and Mayor Muriel Bowser. Also involved, are the SSAA Stenger, who answers directly to Schumer, and HSAA Irving, who answers directly to Pelosi.

National Guard troops leave Washington after being stationed there for four months following the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol, on May 24, 2021.
National Guard troops leave Washington after being stationed there for four months following the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol, on May 24, 2021. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

On Jan. 22, 2021, reports began to surface with images of National Guard members who were forced to stay in nearby parking garages in near-freezing temperatures sparking outrage among lawmakers on both sides of the political aisle.

In stark contradiction to then acting House Sergeant-at-Arms Timothy Blodgett’s assessment that no “credible threat against Congress or the Capitol Complex” existed to warrant “temporary security fencing,” there are multiple admonishments in the First Amendment Demonstrations report of the importance “for the members to monitor the fence line” and orders that “all members” were to “monitor 16th Street and the surrounding area for any potential issues or demonstrations.”

“Members assigned to the bicycle rack” were ordered to “restrict pedestrian and vehicle movement upon making the closure of the police lines.”

“The bicycle rack, in conjunction with police cars and blocking vehicles will create a barrier in which no person or vehicle will be allowed to pass,” the report said.

However, video evidence shows police waving protesters past bike racks and even removing them to open a path into the restricted areas to encourage people to move toward the Capitol Building.

A March 2, 2021, USCP Report of Investigation regarding the incident, also obtained by The Epoch Times, confirms that on Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021, “an Unknown Officer violated USCP Directive 2053.013, Rules of Conduct, when they allegedly waived unauthorized persons into a restricted area secured by bike racks toward the US Capitol during an insurrection.” Evidence in the case included the “video posted to twitter, dated 01/06/21 ” and “CCTV of the East Front of the US Capitol, dated 01/06/21.”

On Monday, Feb. 1, 2021, then Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) Commander of the United States Capitol Police, Inspector Michael Shaffer, sent an email with the Twitter video of the unidentified officer (UO) to Inspectors Amy Hyman (Senate Division), Thomas Loyd (Capitol Division), Kimberley Bolinger (House Division) and Acting Inspector Jessica Baboulis (Library Division) requesting assistance in identifying the UO. All parties responded to Shaffer that they were unable to identify the UO.

The recommendation was that the report “be APPROVED and the case CLOSED.”

On Feb. 4, 2021, this case was put on hold pending a review by the U.S. Attorney’s Office of Public Corruption. No further information is available.

Provocation and Entrapment

In a June 10 interview with EpochTV’s “Facts Matter,” Julie Kelly—a political consultant in Illinois and senior contributor for American Greatness—described Jan. 6, 2021, as “an inside job” and “something Democrats and some Republicans and federal agencies put together to entice” and “entrap” people who went to hear President Donald Trump’s speech. She noted that the FBI used agents to try to infiltrate the so-called militia groups.

Jeremy Brown exposed a video of FBI Terrorist Task Force agents attempting to recruit him to spy on fellow Oath Keepers.

The Department of Justice still won’t answer questions about Ray Epps, an Arizona resident captured on video encouraging protesters to breach the Capitol Building.

On January 6, 2021, Capitol Police fire tear gas into pro-Trump protesters well before the violence began. Even with the tear gas, the crowd remained orderly.
On January 6, 2021, Capitol Police fire tear gas into pro-Trump protesters well before the violence began. Even with the tear gas, the crowd remained orderly. (Courtesy of J. Michael Waller)

Kelly also noted how Capitol Police used flash bangs, teargas, and rubber bullets “to inflame the crowd and provoke a lot of the confrontations” seen in videos now being used as evidence to arrest, charge and incarcerate those who attended the rally.

More specifically, she accused Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and Democrat Majority Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi of “intentionally” leaving Capitol grounds unsecured.” She further alleged it was a “setup” designed specifically to cripple the MAGA movement.

While Bolton’s report said “heavier, less-lethal weapons,” including stun grenades, “were not used that day because of orders from leadership,” the Capitol Police timeline says United States Capitol Police (USCP) personnel “deploy[ed] munitions at the Rotunda door” at 1645 hours (4:45 p.m.) where protesters were alleged to be “pushing in doors and breaking windows.” Three minutes later, USCP deployed “chemical munitions on Lower West Terrace to disperse insurrectionists.”

Police release tear gas into a crowd of demonstrators during clashes outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021.
Police release tear gas into a crowd of demonstrators during clashes outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. Still, the crowd remained orderly. (Shannon Stapleton/Reuters)

Video footage found at Gateway Pundit shows flash grenades being launched by Capitol Police into a group of protesters, consisting of women, children, and elderly people, who were standing peacefully behind barriers. According to American Greatness, Capitol Police were also firing on the crowd with rubber bullets. The approximate time of the confrontation was around 1:36 p.m. However, the USCP Timeline does not mention the deployment of these flash grenades.

Another video, which still exists on TeaParty.org, was filmed by Kash Kelly from ground level where the flash grenades went off. Kelly, who is now himself in prison regarding pretrial release violations regarding a previous charge and the subsequent charges related to his presence in Washington, is shown ensuring the evacuation of women in the area where the flash grenades exploded.

“The police started shooting at people,” Kelly says. “There were kids in the crowd.”

More extensive video footage, analyzed by Ray Dietrich of Red Voice Media, shows “the beginning of violence on January 6.”

An unidentified USCP officer is seen repeatedly yelling down to the crowd, assembled peacefully below his position, advising that if they “want to get a good picture” they should “go up into the bleachers.”

“The video shows the moment either stun grenades or tear gas canisters were deployed into the crowd of protestors,” Dietrich says as the video plays out. “The question I have, after a 20-year career in law enforcement, is why were these munitions deployed? I have picked this video apart and many more, and cannot see why the USCP used this force against the crowd. There is no fighting and no violence, so why did they target these people with less-lethal weapons?”

“What happened next?” Dietrich asks rhetorically. “Chaos. Violence. The crowd fought back. The Capitol was breached.”

As the stunned crowd scurries in the attack, police can be seen spraying people in the face with pepper spray. In another segment, three police officers are beating a protester who is being held on the ground. In a measure that further escalates the tension, police begin deploying tear gas into the already frantic crowd. In a course of 20 minutes, a once peaceful scene descends into total chaos.

In June 2021, reports surfaced that the Justice Department had begun to release its own video footage, including footage from body-worn cameras that allegedly show assaults against police officers defending the U.S. Capitol.

A summary of findings shows that:

  • Evidence shows that until the deployment of munitions, the crowds were peaceful.
  • MPD Electronic Surveillance Unit (ESU) members were embedded into the crowd to “document the actions of the demonstrators and MPD’s response to any civil disobedience or criminal activity.”
  • Of the 37 “Specialized Units” listed as part of the Metropolitan Police Department, an ESU is not among them.

The Epoch Times reached out to the Metropolitan Police Department and Capitol Police for comment.

Source: EXCLUSIVE: Police Report Proves Plainclothes Electronic Surveillance Unit Members Were Embedded Among Jan. 6 Protesters

Company in Charge of Arizona Election Audit Accuses Court of Releasing Security Plan to Public

Cyber Ninjas owner Doug Logan talks about overseeing a 2020 election ballot audit ordered by the Arizona Senate at the Arizona Veterans Memorial Coliseum, during a news conference in Phoenix, Ariz., on April 22, 2021. (Ross D. Franklin/AP Photo)
 

The Florida-based firm that’s overseeing the 2020 election audit in Arizona’s largest county on Friday accused a court of releasing its security plan to the public despite knowing it was meant to be shielded from public view.

Cyber Ninjas submitted a slew of documents to the Maricopa County Superior Court in response to a recent ruling by Judge Daniel Martin, who rejected an attempt to file the documents under seal because of their sensitive nature and ordered them filed by 12 p.m. on Thursday.

But even the plaintiffs in the case, the Arizona Democratic Party, agreed that one exhibit, which gave an overview of the security for the audit, should be withheld from the public.

The 7-page plan appeared on the website of the court on Thursday. It was available for anyone to view and download. The Epoch Times obtained the plan while it was publicly accessible.

According to a request for an emergency hearing, the court was aware the filing was meant to be shielded but still published it online for anyone to see.

At 11:02 a.m., about an hour before the deadline, lawyers for Cyber Ninjas informed Martin’s judicial assistant that the exhibit should not be publicly released. They offered to send over a stipulated motion saying as much.

The court approximately 30 minutes later asked for the motion. Lawyers drafted the motion and sent it to all parties involved. The court at 12:58 p.m. asked about the motion. Lawyers promptly informed the assistant that all parties had been provided with the proposed motion and they were waiting for approval. At 3:32 p.m., Cyber Ninjas filed the stipulation. Three minutes later, the judicial assistant responded, “Thank you.”

Additionally, the court’s clerk said in a minute entry from 3:20 p.m. that it received the stipulation and that the exhibit would be sealed.

But the security plans, known as Exhibit D9, were still released to the public.

Epoch Times Photo
A general view of Veterans Memorial Coliseum shows ballots being reviewed during an audit of the 2020 election, in Phoenix, Ariz., on April 29, 2021. (Rob Schumacher/The Arizona Republic via AP/Pool)

“Although the Court had knowledge since 11:02 am that the Parties agreed that Exhibit D9 should be sealed and not made available to the public, the Court released Exhibit D9 to the public via Maricopa County’s Clerk of the Superior Court website,” Cyber Ninjas lawyers wrote in the request for a hearing.

The exhibit began to appear on the internet after 6 p.m. and later that evening, a local media outlet published an article describing details of the exhibit.

The request was for an emergency status conference regarding what happened.

The court and Cyber Ninjas did not respond to requests for comment.

Martin took over the case, an attempt to block the audit by Arizona Democrats, from a different judge after that judge recused himself. Martin was appointed by a Democrat governor. On April 28, he rebuffed the bid to immediately halt the audit.

The audit started on April 23 and is scheduled to continue until May 14. Workers are reviewing ballots cast and machines used in Maricopa County in the 2020 presidential election.

Source: Company in Charge of Arizona Election Audit Accuses Court of Releasing Security Plan to Public

Parler Says It Informed FBI Over 50 Times About Violent Content Before US Capitol Breach

The Parler social media website is displayed on a cell phone in New York City on March 5, 2021. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

Social media platform Parler said it had referred violent content from its platform to the FBI ahead of the breach at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

Parler made the disclosure in a letter to the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, in response to the panel’s request for documents. The company said that it had referred “violent content and incitement” from its platform to the FBI over 50 times before Jan. 6. It also warned the bureau about “specific threats of violence being planned” about the Jan. 6 incident.

“Parler now writes to set the record straight and provide new information about the positive role Parler played in the days and weeks leading up to January 6th, which should finally put an end to the spurious allegations against the Company,” the letter, penned by Parler’s attorney Michael S. Dry, stated.

The information is the latest in an ongoing feud between Parler and big tech companies that had sought to terminate the platform’s operation following the Jan. 6 incident. Apple and Google removed Parler from its app stores, while Amazon removed the platform from its web hosting service. All three companies took issue with the company’s alleged lax approach to violent content posted by its users and “repeated violations” of their terms of service related to such violent content.

Parler has denied the allegations and argued that the big tech companies had colluded against it as it had not taken action against competitors like Twitter and Facebook, which had similar content on their platforms regarding Jan. 6. Parler has also sued Amazon for a breach of contract, defamation, and anticompetitive behavior.

“There is no truth to the absurd conspiracy theories that have been put forth by Big Tech and its media allies to unfairly malign the company and which were referenced in the Committee’s Letter,” Parler said, according to the letter. “Contrary to what has been reported, and as explained in more detail below: the company is and always has been American-owned and controlled; Parler has never engaged in any collusion with ‘the Russians’; and Parler never offered President Donald J. Trump an ownership interest in the company.”

In its letter, Parler said that the company recognizes “legal limits to free speech” and that its policies “have always prohibited threats of violence and incitement on its platform.” It said that it had developed a “strong working relationship with the FBI” to foster cooperation with law enforcement, and ensure that unlawful incitement and violent threats were reported in a timely manner.

The company added that it had formalized its working relationship with the FBI in November 2020 and began to regularly forwarding screenshots of unlawful posts that called for violence or merited additional investigation for public safety. Such posts include users threatening to kill politicians and former Attorney General Bill Barr.

Parler said it had also alerted the FBI in December to content about specific threats of organized violence at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

The company also sought to underscore the alleged unbalanced scrutiny of the platform, arguing that, out of 270 Justice Department charging documents it had perused, 80 percent of social media references related to Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, while only 5 percent mentioned Parler.

The letter also denied other accusations that had been lodged against the platform, including alleged collusion with Russian businesses and alleged discussion with former President Donald Trump aides to offer the former president an ownership interest in the company.

“This is also false,” the letter states. “Based on our review of documents and interviews of relevant individuals, we have identified no evidence that Parler ever negotiated with anyone to provide former President Donald Trump with a personal ownership interest in the company.”

Parler went under leadership restructuring following its dispute with big tech. Former Parler CEO John Matze, who co-founded the company, said he was fired following a dispute with one of Parler’s investors, Rebekah Mercer, over content moderation. Matze said this week that he has filed a lawsuit against the company.

Source: Parler Says It Informed FBI Over 50 Times About Violent Content Before US Capitol Breach

CCP Adviser Outlined Detailed Plan to Defeat US, Including Manipulating Elections

Then U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, a Democrat, (R) and then Chinese Vice Chair Xi Jinping talk during an expanded bilateral meeting with other U.S. and Chinese officials in the Roosevelt Room at the White House in Washington on Feb. 14, 2012. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

A leading Chinese professor—who is also an adviser to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)—laid out a comprehensive plan for the communist regime to overthrow the United States as the world’s superpower.

The professor’s multi-pronged strategy involves a range of malign actions to subvert the United States while strengthening the Chinese regime. They include: interfering in U.S. elections, controlling the American market, cultivating global enemies to challenge the United States, stealing American technology, expanding Chinese territory, and influencing international organizations.

The plan was explained in detail by Jin Canrong, a professor and associate dean of the School of International Studies at Beijing’s Renmin University of China, in a July 2016 speech on “Sino-U.S. Strategic Philosophy” given over two full days at Southern Club Hotel Business Class in south China’s Guangzhou City.

“We want to be the world leader,” Jin said, explaining Chinese Leader Xi Jinping’s desire for a “national rejuvenation” of the country.

Dubbed “teacher of the state” by Chinese netizens, Jin is a prominent scholar known for his fiery anti-U.S. rhetoric. He is an advisor to two powerful bodies of the CCP, the Organization Department, and the United Front Work Department, though it is unclear how close he is to Xi.

Epoch Times Photo
The title screen of a propaganda program called “How Xi Jinping Led China’s COVID-19 Battle,” from the CGTN archive is seen as it plays on a computer monitor in London, England on Feb. 04, 2021. (Leon Neal/Getty Images)

Weakening the United States

The strategy to topple the United States was composed of two broad components: weakening America through both internal and foreign sources; and strengthening the Chinese regime’s economic, military, and diplomatic power.

Using a metaphor of a company to illustrate the U.S.-China dynamic, Jin likened the United States to a company president, and China to a vice president who wants the top job.

“The United States is a middle-aged man, who is good looking, has strong capabilities, and support from most employees,” Jin said.

“[To replace it], we first need to create the conditions to make it easier for the United States to make mistakes. Second, we should make it as busy as possible [dealing with problems], to the extent that it will feel depressed and want to give up. Third, we should become intertwined with the United States, so that it can’t attack us.”

Jin said the CCP was thinking of many ways to weaken the United States, which he described as a “very difficult” task. The professor offered four practical tactics.

1. Manipulating Elections

Jin suggested that the CCP should interfere in U.S. elections to bring pro-Beijing candidates to power. He singled out races for seats in the House of Representatives as an easy target.

“The Chinese government wants to arrange Chinese investments in every single congressional district to control thousands of voters in each district,” Jin said.

He noted with a population (at the time) of about 312 million and 435 congressional districts, roughly 750,000 residents live in each district.

“The voting rate in the United States is about 30 percent, which means around 200,000 residents in each congressional district vote for the representative in that district,” Jin said. “Normally the difference of votes between two candidates is 10,000 or less. If China has thousands of votes on hand, China will be the boss of the candidates.”

Jin said China’s ambition is to control at least the House.

“The best scenario is China can buy the United States, and change the U.S. House of Representatives into the second Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress,” he said, referring to the committee that oversees the CCP’s rubber-stamp legislature.

2. Controlling the US Market

Epoch Times Photo
A container ship berthing at the port in Qingdao, in China’s eastern Shandong province on May 17, 2019. (STR/AFP/Getty Images)

Ramping up Chinese investments in the United States is another way to exert influence in the country’s political system, Jin said, noting that this tactic has the added benefit of enriching Chinese business people and the CCP.

“The investment opportunities in the United States are relatively good,” he said. “The U.S. market is open—more open than the Japanese and European ones,” he continued, adding that its benefits include its size, transparency, and stability.

He said the Chinese regime wants Chinese business people to control the U.S. market, and also for them to develop their businesses in the country.

To reach this goal, the Chinese regime had tried to negotiate with Washington for the U.S.-China Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT). The agreement was actively negotiated for the decade prior to 2017, but fell off the agenda during President Donald Trump’s administration.

Some U.S. companies wishing to enter the Chinese market, and the U.S.-China Business Council have advocated for the signing of a BIT.

3. Fostering Enemies of the US

Epoch Times Photo
Intercontinental ballistic missiles are launched by the Vladimir Monomakh nuclear submarine of the Russian navy from the Sera of Okhotsk, Russia, on Dec. 12, 2020. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP)

Jin said the CCP’s “strategic task” was to make sure the United States has not less than four enemies.

Four enemies are needed to stretch the United States’ resources while bogging the government down in domestic debates over which threat to prioritize, Jin said.

For instance, before WWII the United States had two adversaries, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. “The Americans debated over and over about who is the real threat,” he said.

“If the United States has four enemies, it will totally lose its direction.”

Analyzing the situation as of 2016, Jin concluded that the United States only has three adversaries: “Terrorism is definitely an enemy of the United States. Russia looks like another one … Definitely, the United States treats us as a competitor … It’s not enough.”

The professor said that in the past few years, the CCP had tried to develop Brazil into an adversary of the United States, but was unsuccessful because Brazil “didn’t want to be improved.”

He said the CCP had pumped a lot of investment into Brazil in the bid to get its support on global issues, including taking stances against the United States. Xi had visited Brazil in 2014 and agreed to invest in infrastructure in the country’s western region, as well as a railway to link ports in Brazil and Peru.

Jin said the Chinese regime has given up on this approach and is trying to find a candidate to develop into a U.S. adversary.

4. Causing International Problems for the US

Jin said the Chinese regime was at a strategic advantage due to the United States’ role as global enforcer: whenever there is a crisis in the world, the United States would have to intervene to maintain global stability, which in turn drains U.S. resources and diverts its attention away from China.

As examples, he cited the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, which he described as “completely not strategically valuable” endeavors that cost the United States “$6 trillion and 10,000 soldiers’ lives.”

The result was that the United States “wasted ten years [without being aware of China’s development], and let China grow big,” Jin said.

Another possible tactic is to sell the CCP’s holding of U.S. Treasury bonds to precipitate a debt crisis, he said. According to the U.S. Treasury, China currently holds nearly $1.1 trillion in U.S. treasury securities.

Finally, engaging in drawn-out negotiations with the United States is also an effective strategy to bog down the United States, while giving the regime the time to focus on developing itself, according to Jin. During such negotiations, the United States wouldn’t take punitive actions against the CCP such as sanctions, and instead focus its energy on preparing and carrying out the talks. Meanwhile, the Chinese regime, which has no intention of negotiating in good faith, would use the breathing space given to it over the course of the negotiations to solidify its power both inside and outside of China.

Former deputy national security advisor Matthew Pottinger in February warnedof the CCP’s “negotiation traps.” Pottinger said years of successive formal dialogues between the two sides, such as the “Strategic Economic Dialogue” allowed the regime to “draw out the clock” and continue its economic assaults on the United States with impunity.

Strengthening the Chinese Regime

Epoch Times Photo
China’s first self-developed large passenger jetliner C919 is presented after it rolled off the production line at Shanghai Aircraft Manufacturing Co. in Shanghai, China on November 2, 2015. (VCG/VCG via Getty Images)

Jin said the Chinese regime has greatly relied on the U.S. trade and investments to spur its economic development over the past four decades. He highlighted four approaches to expand the CCP’s economic and political power at home and abroad.

1. Stealing US Technology

The professor admitted that the CCP has depended on stolen American technology to fuel its growth.

“China’s industry has a large output, but lacks certain technology,” Jin said. “In the past 30 years, we bought technology, 46 percent of which were from Germany. But the United States has the best technology, but it doesn’t sell to us.”

He added, “Americans think that Chinese hackers steal a lot of their things. This may very well be true.” Jin said key technology for China’s J-20 fighter jet and DF-41 intercontinental ballistic missile was stolen from the United States.

The regime is also eager to get its hands on American space technology.

In June 2016, China’s Long March 7 rocket sent an orbital debris clean-up satellite Aolong-1 to space. Beijing claimed that Aolong-1 only brought space debris back to earth, but Jin suggested the satellite had another mission.

“The U.S. said that [Aolong-1] was collecting American satellites [from the space], and bringing them back to China,” Jin said. “We can disassemble [the American] satellites and reassemble them into Chinese ones.”

2. Expanding the Regime’s Territory

Jin believed that the Chinese regime would occupy the whole of the South China Sea and Taiwan in the near future.

The CCP lays claim to almost all of the South China Sea despite a 2016 ruling by an international court finding that its territorial claims were unlawful. The Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, and Taiwan also have competing claims in the waterways. Home to rich fishing grounds and potentially valuable natural resources, the South China Sea is also one of the world’s major shipping routes.

Epoch Times Photo
One of China’s man-made islands in the South China Sea, May 21, 2015. (U.S. Navy/Handout via Reuters)

Beijing has sought to bolster its claims in the strategic waterways by building artificial islands in the area and building military outposts on them.

“In one and half years [in 2013 and 2014 under Xi’s administration], China has created more than 3,200 acres of territory. The other four claimant states have created only 100 acres in 45 years,” Jin said.

Jin predicted that the CCP would continue to create more features in the South China Sea.

He also boasted about the regime’s success in wresting control of the Scarborough Shoal from the Philippines in 2012 with the help of Chinese fishing boats and coast guard vessels.

“Even if the Philippines wants the United States to take over the reefs [in the South China Sea], the United States can’t guard them,” Jin said. “If the United States stations an aircraft carrier there, China can simply send 2,000 fishing boats and surround the carrier. Then the carrier doesn’t dare to fire at the fishing boats.”

In relation to Taiwan, the CCP has more ways to bring the democratic island under its control, Jin said. The regime views the self-ruled island as part of its territory and has vowed to bring Taiwan under its fold with force if necessary. For instance, the regime could bribe Taiwanese politicians, ban trade and tourism from China, convince the few remaining countries that recognize Taiwan diplomatically to switch to China, blocking Taiwan’s participation in international organizations and meetings, and assassinating some Taiwanese to instill fear among the population.

3. Building Global Influence By Leading Projects

Xi’s global strategy to bolster the regime’s global power has two pillars, according to Jin. One is the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the other is the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific (FTAAP).

BRI, previously known as One Belt One Road, is a massive global investment strategy launched by the CCP in 2013 aimed at bolstering its economic and political influence across Asia, Europe, Africa, and South America. The project involves investments in infrastructure and natural resource projects in countries. It has been criticized by the United States and other countries as an example of “debt trap” diplomacy, that saddles developing countries with unsustainable debt burdens while allowing the regime to export its technology and governance abroad.

“The ultimate purpose of BRI is to team up with the industrial power Germany. Then there’s no position of the United States in the world’s industrial playing field,” Jin said.

Similarly, Jin said the FTAAP, a proposed free trade agreement between 21 Asian-Pacific countries, would also open a conduit of influence for the CCP in the region.

The professor also believed that Chinese-backed development banks, the New Development Bank and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, would work to Beijing’s advantage, as countries that received loans from the banks would then be beholden to the regime, Jin said.

“We are building up our friend’s circle in the world. We will be more powerful than the United States with more friends,” he said. “Then we can tell the United States that we are the only representative of the world.”

4. Influencing International Organizations

Jin also explained the CCP’s plan to exert greater influence over global bodies such as the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the World Health Organization, Interpol, the International Monetary Fund, the International Olympic Committee, and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

The Chinese regime’s goal is for “all these international organizations to be controlled by China. We can appoint someone who speaks Chinese [who represents China] to be its leaders,” Jin said.

Epoch Times Photo
Chinese candidate to head the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Qu Dongyu addresses FAO members and delegates during the plenary assembly for the election of the new FAO Director-General held at the FAO headquarters, in Rome on June 22, 2019. (Vincenzo Pinto/ AFP via Getty Images)

During his speech, Jin emphasized that Xi was unlike his predecessors in his ambitions. Previous CCP leaders, such as Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, and Hu Jintao worked hard to develop the regime’s power but didn’t dare to use it, he said.

“No matter how much power you have, it’s nothing if you don’t dare to use it,” Jin said. “Chairman Xi dares to use it. [Xi’s authorities] have the power, dare to use that power, and all of its attacks make the other party bleed.”

Xi’s ambitions, however, cannot be revealed to the outside world, the professor said.

When Xi took power in 2012, he urged the country to realize the “Chinese dream.” This meant becoming a “moderately well-off” country by 2021, and then a “strong, democratic, civilized, harmonious, and modern socialist country” by 2049.

Jin explained that Xi’s target is actually to replace the United States as the world’s only superpower by 2049.

“[Chinese] Ministry of Foreign Affairs keeps on saying [at press briefings] that China loves peace. But no reporters at the press briefings believe this,” Jin said.

Source: CCP Adviser Outlined Detailed Plan to Defeat US, Including Manipulating Elections

90,000 Ballots in Largest Nevada County Sent to Wrong Addresses, Bounced Back: Report

Clark County Election Department worker puts mail-in ballots collected from vehicles in a ballot box at the Clark County Election Department in North Las Vegas, Nev., on Oct. 13, 2020. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

More than 90,000 ballots mailed to registered voters in Nevada’s largest county were returned undeliverable, according to an analysis of election data by a conservative legal group.

Clark County, which includes the Las Vegas metro area, made the extraordinary move to mail ballots before the November general election to all the nearly 1.3 million active voters in the county, instead of just those who requested them. The county justified the move as helping people vote remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic.

More than 450,000 voters cast their votes through the mail-in ballots. But more than 92,000 ballots were returned by the postal service as undeliverable, according to the Public Interest Legal Foundation’s (PILF) March 10 research brief (pdf).

The number is based on data provided in February by Clark County Voter Registrar Joe Gloria, the brief says. The Clark County Election Office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

“Mass-mail balloting is a step backward for American elections. There are millions of voter registration records with unreliable ‘active’ address information that will ultimately send ballots to the wrong place in a mail election,” PILF President J. Christian Adams said in the brief.

Prior to the election, PILF criticized such mass ballot mailings in states that hadn’t had such systems already in place.

The entire state of Nevada reported only 5,863 mail ballots returned undeliverable in the 2012, 2014, 2016, and 2018 General Elections combined, the brief says, referring to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission surveys.

Adams also took aim at the H.R. 1 election reform bill that was recently passed by the Democrat-controlled House of Representatives.

The nearly 800-page bill would largely shift power over elections to the federal government. It would discard state voter-ID laws, allow for same-day voter registration, ban witness signature requirements for mail-in ballots, and require that mail-in ballots can arrive as late as 10 days after election day (as long as it is post stamped by election day). It would also make it a federal crime to “communicate or cause to be communicated” information that is knowingly false and designed to discourage voting and require a plethora of other measures.

Conservatives have made it their priority to oppose the bill.

“H.R. 1 does more harm than good for the American people and will leave them at a constant disadvantage to correct election system errors which ultimately impact their abilities to vote in a timely manner,” Adams said.

The bill “basically codifies everything that was irregular or outright wrong or the opportunities for fraud during last year’s election and makes it the law of the land,” Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita recently told Breitbart News.

Source: 90,000 Ballots in Largest Nevada County Sent to Wrong Addresses, Bounced Back: Report

Opinion: Lies the Supreme Court Told Me

Children ride scooters across the plaza at the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington on March 17, 2020. (Tom Brenner/Reuters)

Commentary

In a fashion we must now regard as entirely predictable the Supreme Court of the United States has dismissed (i.e., thrown out) the various state challenges to the 2020 presidential election.

Any decisions on these challenges were determined by the majority to be “moot” because the election had already been decided, and Donald Trump has conceded to Joe Biden. (Associate Justices Thomas, Alito and Gorsuch objected in varying degrees.)

In other words, a stolen presidential election—if it happens, we don’t really know in this case—has an almost immediate statute of limitations, although the results of that election can affect hundreds of millions, if not, as in the case of the United States, nearly the entirety of humanity.

This is true, apparently for a majority of the Supremes, although all sorts of crimes, some not particularly onerous, have statutes of limitations that can go on for years.

Go figure.

The Supremes also cited the issue of “standing,” a term of legal “art” that has always struck me, despite all the precedents on which it is supposedly based, as wide open for biased interpretation of the most self-serving sort. One person’s “standing” can be another’s closed door, almost at will and certainly by vote of a “majority.”

If I sound cynical about the Supreme Court, I have to admit I am. It’s even true of the law in general, which I want to believe in and admire, but increasingly no longer do.

In the real world, legal results tend to mirror A.J. Liebling’s 1960 comment in The New Yorker about the press: “Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.”

The law belongs to those who have the deepest control of a society at the time.

We want lady justice to be blind but in actuality she’s a cyborg with all-seeing, rotating night vision similar to the kind you might find on many urban street corners today from Beijing to Chicago, using the latest algorithms to isolate presumed enemies of the state.

And, yes, I am no lawyer. I haven’t taken even one course in the law and spent my time in college and graduate school studying now questionable white men like John Milton.

But over my decades as a Hollywood screenwriter and then founder and CEO of PJMedia I employed many lawyers—some very good and some not so much—and came to understand the limitations on what they did.

Contracts, it turned out, weren’t worth much more than the paper they were written on unless both parties wanted to honor them. Enforcing infringements, unless they were hugely egregious, was rarely worth the expense and effort.

Lawsuits—win or lose— tend to take over your life in highly deleterious ways. Few want to get involved.

The Supreme Court is the apotheosis of this system—an organization that puts its finger in the air to see which way the wind is blowing (assuming that’s even necessary) and then writes its opinions based on pre-conceived notions designed to offend the lowest number.

Sadly, it is the last place to look for justice in a Presidential election—or anything, really, that tilts against that prevailing wind.

They wouldn’t even, as Clarence Thomas requested, explore the blatantly unconstitutional malfeasances in various states where unelected officials clearly and unlawfully superseded the legislatures in changing election law by fiat, something we would think would only happen in totalitarian countries.

But it happened here, my friends, several times. We could cite the Supreme Court for dereliction of duty … or we could look elsewhere for justice.

Roger L. Simon is an award-winning novelist, Oscar-nominated screenwriter, co-founder of PJMedia, and now, editor-at-large for The Epoch Times. His most recent books are The GOAT” (fiction) and I Know Best: How Moral Narcissism Is Destroying Our Republic, If It Hasnt Already” (nonfiction). He can be found on Parler as @rogerlsimon.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Birdpuk.com.

Source: Opinion: Lies the Supreme Court Told Me

Trump Impeachment ‘Political Theater,’ Ignores US History: Constitutional Lawyer

Constitutional lawyer Rick Green in an interview with "American Thought Leaders." (The Epoch Times)

The impeachment effort against former President Donald Trump is “political theater” that goes against the history of the United States and the American Constitution itself, according to constitutional attorney Rick Green.

“When we have political actors involved, we get political theater. And that’s a lot of what we’re getting here. Is this the judiciary now? Is the Senate now the judiciary that will try any citizen? Because an impeachment is specifically for someone that is in office, according to the American Constitution,” Green, a former Texas state representative and co-founder of the Patriot Academy, told “American Thought Leaders.”

Trump’s attorneys have stated that it goes against the Constitution to impeach or try a former office-holder.

“Virtually everyone agrees that impeachment in our Constitution is designed for those three categories listed in Article 2, Section 4. And that’s the president, the vice president, and civil officers—so people that are still serving in office,” Green said.

He said the concept being pushed currently in the impeachment trial—that if Trump isn’t convicted he will get away with doing “horrible things,” and future presidents will be able to “do whatever they want and get away with it”—is “a total red herring.”

“It’s literally fantasy,” the attorney said.

House Democrats, joined by 10 Republicans, voted on Jan. 13 to approve a single article of impeachment (pdf) against Trump for “incitement of insurrection,” making him the first president to be impeached twice. On Feb. 9, he became the first former president to stand trial.

Democrats allege that the president incited violence at the Capitol in a speech he delivered near the White House on Jan 6. In his address, Trump used the words “fight like hell” in reference to his team’s legal efforts around election integrity. The Democrats allege that Trump used the words to incite his followers to commit violence.

However, Democratic House impeachment managers, led by Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), in their arguments on Feb. 10, presented no new evidence to support the allegation that Trump incited an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol last month.

donald trump, trump
President Donald Trump at the Save America rally in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021. (Lisa Fan/The Epoch Times)

Green suggested that in this case, constitutional provisions are being abused in order to “silence” the “opposition.”

“My fear is a separation of powers conflict here that the Senate becomes more and more the judiciary… and now if they can go after someone that’s a citizen like Donald Trump is today, well, they can indict you. They can indict me, they can prevent us from running for future office.

“I know that was not the view of the Founding Fathers. And when you abuse a constitutional provision in one instance, then other people will be able to abuse it in other instances in the future.”

The constitutional attorney accused the Democratic House impeachment managers of stringing elements of the American Constitution together in order to argue that a former president can be impeached.

“I’ve said this throughout this whole process that what they’re doing and pulling together different parts of the Constitution and creating these new rules is more worthy of a banana republic than a constitutional republic,” he said.

Green said language from Article 1, Section 3 of the Constitution was taken, “separated,” and mixed with some of the language in Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, in a way that was both “masterful” and “deceptive.”

“The reason they’re doing that is because on one hand, they want to say he’s the president. On the other hand, they want to say, it doesn’t matter if he’s the president, he did something awful, and we can still impeach. Putting those things together is the way that they’re trying to make their case. It’s when we say political theater,” he explained.

“They took a few kernels of truth—a few phrases out of the Constitution that are obviously there, and even few historical stories. They used those to weave that together to create a fantasy of a situation that has never been done in history—but it feels like it’s accurate and is truth because of the little kernels of truth that were thrown out there. That’s frankly good political theater,” Green said of the impeachment managers in the way that they presented their arguments.

The attorney said that at this point, the United States is living “post-Constitution,” and urged Americans to read the text of the Constitution themselves.

“We’re literally ignoring the constitutional history and the plain text of the Constitution. I think it’s important for us to actually as citizens, to go look at the Constitution ourselves, and not just listen to the silver tongue rhetoric,” he said.

He added: “It’s just like any other trial, you walk into a trial. If trial attorneys are really good, they paint the picture that they want you to believe and I’m afraid they’ve done that in this case, but it is new territory, and it ignores 240 years of history in the United States. And most importantly, it ignores the Constitution itself.”

The Democrats face an uphill battle in convincing enough Republican senators that Trump should be convicted. Forty-four Republicans voted on the first day of the trial that the Senate doesn’t have jurisdiction to try Trump because he’s now a private citizen. Several Republican senators said on Feb. 9 that the vote is an indicator of how the GOP members will ultimately vote on the question of whether the former president is guilty.

Democrats need the votes of at least 17 Republicans in order to secure the supermajority needed to convict Trump. If the vote from the first day of the trial is any indication, the impeachment managers need to change the minds of at least 11 Republicans, a task which even liberal media commentators concede is virtually impossible.

https://www.scribd.com/document/494198699/Impeachment-Resolution

Source: Trump Impeachment ‘Political Theater,’ Ignores US History: Constitutional Lawyer

Time Magazine Details the “Shadow Campaign” Against Trump

In a surprisingly brazen article, “The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election,” Time magazine chronicles a myriad of pre- and post-election actions taken by a loose coalition of Democratic operatives, grassroots activists, mainstream media, tech companies, and corporate CEOs before and after the 2020 presidential election.

According to the article, the effort consisted of “a well-funded cabal of powerful people, ranging across industries and ideologies, working together behind the scenes to influence perceptions, change rules and laws, steer media coverage and control the flow of information.”

In the post-election days, the author refers to this disparate grouping of players as a “conspiracy unfolding behind the scenes, one that both curtailed the protests and coordinated the resistance from CEOs” resulting in an “informal alliance between left-wing activists and business titans.”

Although the words “cabal” and “conspiracy” are used to describe the sweeping activities of these groups, collectively referred to as the Shadow Campaign, the article’s author takes pains to note that these efforts weren’t aimed at “rigging the election; they were fortifying it.”

Indeed, throughout the article, there is the repeated claim that these efforts were made not with the intention of subverting the election, but rather as part of a heroic grassroots movement intent on salvaging our democracy and preserving the integrity of this and future elections.

“The scenario the shadow campaigners were desperate to stop was not a Trump victory. It was an election so calamitous that no result could be discerned at all, a failure of the central act of democratic self-governance that has been a hallmark of America since its founding,” the article reads.

Although the article treats the actions taken by this “Shadow Campaign” as necessary steps towards saving our democracy, a more objective reader of events might make the case that our democracy was actually trampled underfoot.

According to the players in this saga, the perceived threat to our democracy was so consequential that it would require “an effort of unprecedented scale” and a measure of cooperation heretofore not seen during an election process. And one that would encompass a surprisingly broad coalition of interests that would include “Congress, Silicon Valley and the nation’s statehouses.”

As the article notes, the efforts of this cabal “touched every aspect of the election” including our election laws. These groups engaged in a unified legal front to “change voting systems and laws” at the state level, often unconstitutionally bypassing state legislatures and shifting power to the states’ governors in the process. Conservative efforts to fight against this process were euphemistically termed as “voter-suppression lawsuits.”

The terminology and framing of issues bring us to a peculiar characteristic of the article. It’s written as though 75 million Trump voters simply don’t exist—as though a nation was somehow wholly united against a self-imposed second term of a Trump presidency. There is no acknowledgment that President Donald Trump enjoyed support from a large segment of the population. When the term “voters” is used, it’s always in reference to those who were voting against Trump and for Biden.

Other than a few short paragraphs, the reader could be forgiven for thinking the election was ever even in question.

While an intense focus on the Trump campaign is present in the article, there’s an almost surprising lack of discussion regarding the Biden campaign. As the article states, the Shadow Campaign was “separate from the Biden campaign and crossed ideological lines.” Indeed, Biden is mentioned in the article only a handful of times and never in direct relation to anything he or his campaign was doing to prepare for the election.

Media Framing, Online Efforts & Tech Companies

In tandem with the focus on Trump, there is another almost unifying theme of gaslighting that traces its way throughout the article. Any activity, position, or response from conservatives or the Trump administration was automatically labeled and then framed as inherently nefarious, even villainous. Meanwhile, a notion of false nobility was attached to every action taken by the left.

Preelection warnings from the Trump campaign “and his henchmen” on the risks from an unprecedented shift to mail-in ballots were, according to the article, designed to “spoil the election.” Conservative legal pushback against the unconstitutional changes to state election law was termed as “spurious.” Despite being the legal instigators, the article stated that “Democratic lawyers battled a historic tide of pre-election litigation.”

Meanwhile, information from the right was repeatedly deemed to be “Trump’s lies,” “conspiracy theories” or “Bad actors spreading false information.” According to the article, these efforts, along with “the involvement of foreign meddlers made disinformation a broader, deeper threat to the 2020 vote.”

In contrast, when leftist organizations such as the Voting Rights Lab and IntoAction created “state-specific memes and graphics” designed to claim that mail-in voting was safe and not subject to fraud, their actions were framed as “battling bad information.” Nor was this any small effort. As the article notes, these memes and graphics were “widely disseminated by email, text, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok” and were viewed “more than 1 billion times.”

Another focus of this campaign was to convince the public that election results would be delayed, perhaps for a number of days. These efforts were designed to condition the voting public to not expect, or even accept, an outcome on election night. As the article notes, the “organization’s tracking polls found the message was being heard: the percentage of the public that didn’t expect to know the winner on election night gradually rose until by late October, it was over 70%. A majority also believed that a prolonged count wasn’t a sign of problems.”

Perceptions and information are crucial in an election and in recognition of this, Democratic operatives “successfully pressured social media companies” in advance of the election. These efforts were largely successful as large numbers of conservative accounts were deplatformed and crucial stories that might injure the Biden campaign were suppressed, while the media relentlessly attacked the Trump campaign.

While acknowledging the involvement of technology companies in the effort, the article portrays the resulting suppression of information and conservative deplatforming in a positive light. When stories such as the ones regarding Hunter Biden’s business activities in China were dismissed or simply not covered by the mainstream media, these tactics were labeled as taking a “harder line against disinformation” in an ongoing effort to “fight viral smears.”

There is a side question raised by the participation of the tech companies in online suppression. If accounts were deplatformed from places such as YouTube and Twitter purely for political ends, does this not raise the specter of a meaningful breach of fiduciary duty to the companies’ stockholders?

Mail-In Ballots & Shadow Campaign Funding

These groups also engaged in large-scale “national public-awareness campaigns” designed to convince Americans that “the vote count would unfold over days or weeks” as an unprecedented number of mail-in ballots were systematically flooding into our electoral system.

With 100 million mail-in ballots sent out in an effort to get “millions of people to vote by mail for the first time,” the coalition recruited “armies of poll workers” to deal with the influx of absentee ballots. Large amounts of money would be required to deal with the processing and in preparation for this, the group “helped secure hundreds of millions in public and private funding.”

This money had two material sources. The first, surprisingly, came from the first round of COVID-relief packages in March 2020. As the article notes, activists lobbied Congress in March 2020, “seeking $2 billion in election funding.” This effort was led by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.

Although the group didn’t get anywhere close to their lofty $2 billion goal, they were still wildly successful. When the CARES (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security) Act passed in March, it contained “$400 million in grants to state election administrators.”

From there, the informal group turned to private funding for additional sources; Silicon Valley tech companies were the primary focus. According to the Time article, an “assortment of foundations contributed tens of millions in election-administration funding. The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative chipped in $300 million.”

These contributions were framed as an effort to fill “funding gaps” left by the federal government, while ignoring that it was Democratic operatives who were pushing the mail-in vote efforts.

Indeed, focus groups were held by the Voter Participation Center (VPC), designed to “find out what would get people to vote by mail.” Several months later, the VPC would send out ballot applications to “15 million people in key states.” The group followed up with mailing campaigns and digital ads urging these targeted voters to “not wait for Election Day.”

These efforts were historically successful and transformative. As the article notes, “In the end, nearly half the electorate cast ballots by mail in 2020, practically a revolution in how people vote. About a quarter voted early in person. Only a quarter of voters cast their ballots the traditional way: in person on Election Day.”

The Left’s Control of the Mobs

There are several material admissions made in the article, not the least being that the left actually did control the activities of groups such as Antifa, Black Lives Matter, and others that rioted throughout the election year. As the article notes, “Many of those organizers were part of [Mike] Podhorzer’s network” the man credited in Time’s article as being “The Architect” of the entire election effort.

The article notes that more than 150 liberal groups joined the “Protect the Results” coalition and stated that “The group’s now-defunct website had a map listing 400 planned post-election demonstrations, to be activated via text message as soon as Nov. 4. To stop the coup they feared, the left was ready to flood the streets.”

There’s another unspoken admission here as well. The trigger for the pre-planned riots was a Biden loss, not a “stolen election.” Or said another way, the left would determine what comprised a stolen election only by its outcome.

This matter was further highlighted in a recounting of election night events after Fox News called Arizona for Joe Biden. Angela Peoples, director for the Democracy Defense Coalition, told Time that “We wanted to be mindful of when was the right time to call for moving masses of people into the street.”

But after Fox called Arizona for Biden, a decision was made to “stand down.” As Podhorzor noted, “They had spent so much time getting ready to hit the streets on Wednesday. But they did it … there was not a single Antifa vs. Proud Boys incident.”

In other words, Podhorzor and his crew effectively controlled the actions of Antifa and Black Lives Matter—if not completely, then at the very least during these critical moments and days.

The Importance of Fox’s Arizona Call

The description surrounding election night, while short, is telling and raises further questions. Despite the overall tone of the article, it seems clear that Democrats thought they had lost the election in the later hours of Nov. 3th, 2020:

“Election night began with many Democrats despairing. Trump was running ahead of pre-election polling, winning Florida, Ohio, and Texas easily and keeping Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania too close to call.”

According to the article, the “liberal alliance gathered for an 11 p.m. Zoom call. Hundreds joined; many were freaking out.” While Podhorzor was speaking, Fox News “surprised everyone by calling Arizona for Biden.”

The Fox News call changed everything. As the article put it, “The public-awareness campaign had worked: TV anchors were bending over backward to counsel caution and frame the vote count accurately. The question then became what to do next.”

There is another related item of note as well. Podhorzor was sharing his data regarding a “Blue Shift”—the term used to describe a late surge in Democrat votes from mail-in voting—with “media organizations who would be calling the election.”

One analyst, described as a “member of a major network’s political unit who spoke with Podhorzer before Election Day” told Time that having access to Pordhorzor’s data and being able to “document how big the absentee wave would be and the variance by state was essential.”

Arnon Mishkin, an outside contractor and a Democrat, was the individual at Fox who reportedly made the call on Arizona at 11:20 p.m. New York time. According to one report, “No announcement was made until anchor Bill Hemmer, reviewing the latest status of an electoral map that was looking positive for Trump, glanced at the southwest, where the decision desk had left its yellow check mark on Arizona awarding the state to Biden.”

After making his call on Arizona, Mishkin stated that Trump was “likely to only get about 44% of the outstanding votes that are there.” Mishkin was wrong. Trump got a significantly higher percentage of the remaining votes, and although the Arizona call ultimately stood, it was far closer than Mishkin had forecast. Indeed, there’s currently a parallel audit underway in Maricopa County, Arizona’s most populous county.

Post-Election Impact

While voters on the right protested in seemingly unorganized groups, the left appeared to be far more prepared. At roughly 10 p.m. local time on election night, a bus carrying Republican election observers arrived at Detroit’s TCF Center. The article provides a rather biased description, stating that Republican observers “were crowding the vote-counting tables, refusing to wear masks, heckling the mostly Black workers.”

When the Republican observers arrived, Art Reyes III, leader of ‘We the People Michigan’ “sent word to his network.

“Within 45 minutes, dozens of reinforcements had arrived. As they entered the arena to provide a counterweight to the GOP observers inside, Reyes took down their cell-phone numbers and added them to a massive text chain.”

Election boards were another “pressure point.” Activists called “attention to the racial implications of disenfranchising Black Detroiters. They flooded the Wayne County canvassing board’s Nov. 17 certification meeting with on-message testimony.” Detroit’s vote was certified by the Republican board members.

Finally, the pressure on state legislatures was intense. On Nov. 20, Trump invited the Republican leaders of the Michigan legislature to the White House. According to the article, a “full-court press” was launched by the left and “Protect Democracy’s local contacts researched the lawmakers’ personal and political motives.”

Reyes’s activists rallied at departure and arrival terminals for the Republican state lawmakers’ trip to DC.

The final step in certifying the Michigan vote was a vote from the state canvassing board, which was comprised of two Republicans and two Democrats. “Reyes’s activists flooded the livestream and filled Twitter with their hashtag, #alleyesonmi. A board accustomed to attendance in the single digits suddenly faced an audience of thousands.”

The vote was certified 3-0, with one Republican abstaining.

Shadow Campaign Wants You to Know

The in-your-face detailing of events in the Time article leads to one somewhat alarming conclusion. The leaders of the Shadow Campaign want you to know what they did. Whether this stems from hubris or a position of power isn’t entirely clear, but there are some important people who were willing to contribute to this article. And to be openly quoted.

In addition to Podhorzer, Norman Eisen is quoted at several points in the article. In addition to recruiting members for the Voter Protection Program, Eisen is one of the architects and authors of two Brookings Reports that were written during the Mueller investigation.

Brookings produced a 108-page report, “Presidential Obstruction of Justice: The Case of Donald J. Trump,” authored by Barry Berke, Noah Bookbinder, and Eisen, on Oct. 10, 2017. They followed up with a 177-page second edition on Aug. 22, 2018, which also came with a lengthy appendix.

Eisen, a senior fellow at Brookings, served as White House special counsel for ethics and government reform under former President Barack Obama and is the founder of CREW (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics) in Washington. Eisen, according to his Brookings profile page, advised Obama “on lobbying regulation, campaign finance law, and open government issues,” according to his CREW bio. He also served as the ambassador to the Czech Republic from 2011 to 2014.

Eisen and Berke were later retained by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) on a consulting basis as special oversight counsels to the Democratic majority staff.

As Nadler noted in an announcement, the two men had a particular focus on reviewing Mueller’s investigation and would be advising the committee. It also appears Nadler intended for the two lawyers to question Attorney General William Barr, who ultimately declined to attend the hearing—leading to a Democratic vote to hold Barr in contempt.

Ill-Fated Jan. 6 Rally

On Jan 6, thousands of Trump supporters came to D.C. for what would be an ill-fated rally, culminating in an assault on the Capitol building. The fallout from this event would be severe and the full effect has yet to be fully determined.

The new administration, along with many in Congress, appear to making domestic terrorism threats a top priority. Biden’s newly installed U.S. Homeland Security chief Alejandro Mayorkas has stated publicly that “one of the greatest threats that we face currently on our homeland … is the threat of domestic terrorism.”

Despite the expectations of many, there didn’t appear to be a material presence of counter-demonstrators from the left at the Jan. 6 rally.

The author of the Time article appears to have been in continued contact with members of the “Shadow Campaign,” including Podhorzer, the group’s “architect.” On the morning of Jan. 6, Podhorzer texted her, noting that the activist left was “strenuously discouraging counter activity.”

His message concluded with a “crossed-fingers emoji.”

Jeff Carlson is a regular contributor to The Epoch Times. He is a CFA® Charterholder and worked for 20 years as an analyst and portfolio manager in the high-yield bond market. He also runs the website TheMarketsWork.com and can be followed on Twitter @themarketswork.

Source: Time Magazine Details the “Shadow Campaign” Against Trump

Trump Won Two-Thirds of Election Lawsuits Where Merits Considered

Voters line up for the first day of early voting outside of the High Museum polling station in Atlanta, Georgia on Dec. 14, 2020. (Jessica McGowan/Getty Images)

The claim often repeated by the mainstream media, social-media content moderators, and fact-checkers that lawsuits filed by President Donald Trump’s campaign and Republicans were universally dismissed by the courts is untrue, according to a new analysis.

The findings do not necessarily suggest that if the lawsuits had all been decided before Joe Biden was certified as the official winner of the presidential election by Congress on Jan. 7 that former President Trump would have won the hotly contested election.

Nor would they necessarily have affected many of the Electoral College votes won by Biden in the disputed battleground states. Some of the legal victories took place in states like Colorado and Iowa where the popular vote counts for the respective winners of those states –Biden in Colorado and Trump in Iowa— were not close.

Of the 22 cases that have been heard by the courts and decided on their merits, Trump and Republicans have prevailed in 15, according to citizen journalist John Droz Jr., a physicist and environmental advocate in Morehead City, N.C.

This means Trump has won two-thirds of the cases fully adjudicated by the courts.

Droz and a team of volunteers dug through court filings and legal minutiae to track down 81 lawsuits that were filed in connection with the Nov. 3, 2020 presidential election. The lawsuits were tracked on Droz’s publicly available spreadsheet that was current as of Feb. 6.

Of the 81 cases, 11 were withdrawn or consolidated and 23 were dismissed for lack of standing or on other grounds. Both the cohort of 11 and of 23 should not be considered “wins or losses for either side,” Droz says, because they “have nothing to do with the merits of the case.”

This leaves 47 cases. Of those 47, 22 have been finalized after the court heard arguments, considered evidence, and then issued a ruling.

Of those 22, Trump or Republicans won 15 and lost 7, according to the analysis.

This leaves 25 lawsuits that have yet to be finally disposed of.

This means Trump and Republicans “have WON the majority of 2020 election cases fully heard, and then decided on the merits!” Droz said in a statement. “Is that what the mainstream media is reporting?”

Among the legal victories for Republicans were:

RNC v. Miller, in the Iowa courts, a lawsuit in which the Republican National Committee won an injunction over absentee ballot applications.

RNC v. Gill, in the Iowa courts, in which the Trump campaign won an injunction preventing a county official from distributing and accepting signed forms containing preprinted information.

Trump for President v. Boockvar, in the Pennsylvania courts, in which the Trump campaign was granted an injunction against the counting of mail-in and absentee ballots where voters were allowed to provide proof of identity days after Election Day.

Droz noted that only three lawsuits addressed voting machine inaccuracies.

“One of these was dismissed (due to jurisdiction), one was ruled against (although no discovery was granted), and one is still open (discovery was granted).”

“The likely explanation for so few cases in these two areas is that legally proving fraud or voting machine manipulations are very time-consuming processes, that require substantial investigative work and documentation. There simply wasn’t enough time to do this prior to key points in the process (like the Electoral College).”

“Our view is that the public needs to be much better educated regarding the election integrity issue—and having a more accurate understanding of the lawsuit component is a key part of that,” Droz wrote, explaining the purpose of his report

Source: Trump Won Two-Thirds of Election Lawsuits Where Merits Considered

Supreme Court to Consider 2020 Election Challenge Lawsuits in February Conference

The Supreme Court is seen in Washington, on Nov. 5, 2020. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo)

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday scheduled several high-profile contest-of-election lawsuits, including ones brought by attorneys Sidney Powell and Lin Wood, and the Trump campaign, for consideration at its Feb. 19 conference.

According to a case listing, the lawsuits include Sidney Powell’s Michigan case(20-815), the Trump campaign’s Pennsylvania lawsuit (20-845) and Wisconsin lawsuit (20-882), the Pennsylvania lawsuit brought by Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) (20-810), and Lin Wood’s Georgia case (20-799).

All cases allege some form of unlawful election-related conduct affecting the result of the election, including expansion of mail-in balloting by elections officials changing rules in contravention of state election laws, lack of adequate security measures around mail ballots, issues with machine vote tabulation, and denial of meaningful access to poll watchers.

The Supreme Court declined to grant relief or fast-track the cases as requested in respective petitions filed ahead of the Jan. 20 inauguration of President Joe Biden.

Powell’s Michigan petition (pdf) sought “emergency declaratory relief avowing that the presidential election results certified by Michigan officials were unconstitutional and otherwise contrary to law, together with injunctive relief de-certifying those results.”

Wood’s Georgia petition (pdf) asked the Supreme Court to “enter an emergency order instructing Respondents to de-certify the results of the General Election for the Office of the President.”

The Kelly petition (pdf) asked the court for an injunction “that prohibits the Executive-Respondents from taking official action to tabulate, compute, canvass, certify, or otherwise finalize the results of the Election.”

The Trump campaign suits similarly called for emergency injunctive relief in the form of expedited hearings and blocking certification of the electoral college votes for Biden.

Some of the lawyers in the cases said that seeing the challenges through is important as they could have an impact on long-term election fairness.

“Our legal issue remains important in need of the court’s review,” attorney John Eastman told the Washington Examiner, referring to Pennsylvania’s conduct during the 2020 election.

Greg Teufel, Kelly’s lawyer, told the Washington Examiner that the congressman has no intention of dropping the suit.

The Supreme Court has kept its distance from Trump’s election challenges. In December, it rejected a lawsuit filed by the Republican attorney general of Texas and backed by Trump seeking to decertify the election results in four states.

If, at the Feb. 19 conference, the Supreme Court decides to take up any of the election lawsuits, they most likely won’t be heard until October.

In a sweeping report on the integrity of the 2020 election, Trump adviser Peter Navarro concluded that the allegations of irregularities surrounding the vote in key battleground states were serious enough to warrant an urgent probe and substantial enough to potentially overturn the results.

“If these election irregularities are not fully investigated prior to Inauguration Day and thereby effectively allowed to stand, this nation runs the very real risk of never being able to have a fair presidential election again,” Navarro warned in his report.

Source: Supreme Court to Consider 2020 Election Challenge Lawsuits in February Conference