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    Clueless Deputy Chief of Space Force Takes Sides in ‘Woke Wars’

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    4
    PETERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. -- Col. DeAnna Burt, 50th Space Wing commander, speaks to Airmen and civilians attending the Women's Leadership Symposium at the Peterson Club on Tuesday, Mar. 7th, 2017. Attendees came from a variety of bases, including Buckley, Peterson, Schriever, Vandenberg and Cheyenne Mountain. (U.S. Air Force photo/Senior Airman Laura Turner)

    ANALYSIS – You would think that a senior U.S. military officer would finally have figured out that they should stay out of the ‘woke wars’ 

    Unfortunately, Lt. Gen. DeAnna Burt, deputy chief of space operations at the U.S. Space Force (USSF), appears to have not gotten the memo.

    Even as the Pentagon cracks down on ridiculous Drag Queen shows, and the Congress pushes to eliminate woke policies like taxpayer-funded abortion travel, and ‘diversity’ programs that are more divisive than inclusive, Burt decided now was the time to rail against what she called “anti-LGBTQ+ laws” at the state level.

    She made her speech at a Pentagon ‘Pride’ event last week.

    Fox News reported that she “claimed that such laws affect her hiring and promotion decisions, sometimes leading her to choose a “less qualified” candidate because of a preferred candidate’s ‘personal circumstances.’”

    Yes. She said that.

    Fox said that Burt told those attending the event:

    Transformational cultural change requires leadership from the top, and we do not have time to wait. Since January of this year, more than 400 anti-LGBTQ+ laws have been introduced at the state level. That number is rising and demonstrates a trend that could be dangerous for service members, their families, and the readiness of the force as a whole. 

    Fox News explained:

    The “anti-LGBTQ+ laws” Burt mentioned appeared to be referencing the legislation passed by more than 20 states restricting or banning gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors, as well as numerous bills limiting the amount of time in which an abortion can be performed during a pregnancy.

    Most of these GOP-led state laws are perfectly reasonable, and designed to protect unborn children, and their mothers, as well as protect kids being pushed into irreversible transgender medical procedures.

    They are also totally outside her purview, and democratically established by state legislatures.

    But to Burt, they are so dangerous she prefers to hire less qualified candidates due to their ‘personal circumstances,’ rather than subject them to these states’ laws. 

    Fox News quoted her as saying:

    When I look at potential candidates, say, for squadron command, I strive to match the right person to the right job. I consider their job performance and relevant experience first. However, I also look at their personal circumstances, and their family is also an important factor. 

    If the good match for a job does not feel safe being themselves and performing at their highest potential at a given location, or if their family could be denied critical health care due to the laws in that state, I am compelled to consider a different candidate, and, perhaps, less qualified. 

    Which part of ‘don’t get into partisan politics or the culture wars’ doesn’t she understand. And hiring less qualified people for a job based on ‘personal circumstances’ sounds like discrimination to me. 

    Not to mention horrible leadership, dangerous to national security, and bad for America.

    But it’s not just one senior leader at USSF. According to leaked emails, last month, two Navy officials derided critics of the service’s promotion of LGBTQ+ Pride as “bigots” and “a—holes.”

    These two ‘Pride Pushers’ reportedly schemed on how to best post a “rainbow wingtip graphic” for LGBTQ+ Pride Month on the Navy social media accounts.

    As I wrote about then, the Navy only had one Pride image up on social media for less than a day on June 1st, the start of ‘Pride Month,’ before removing it.

    None of the other services posted Pride imagery this year, a stark difference from last year when ‘Pride Month’ began.

    This is hopefully part of a broader Pentagon policy to pull out of the ‘woke wars’ and keep partisan, ideological, racial, and sexual politics out of our military.

    I noted earlier: “Only the Coast Guard and the National Guard made posts for Pride Month, but neither service changed its profile pictures or header image. Hopefully, they will soon get the memo.”

    Well, now I add – these navy officials and Lt. Gen. Burt should also get the memo, or even better, an invitation to a Congressional hearing to explain themselves.

    It’s time to focus on real wars, not woke ones.

    Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.

    Leonard Leo Pledges $1 Billion To Combat ‘Liberal Dominance’ In Corporate America, Media

    By
    Patrick Houck
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    2
    Image via Pixabay free images

    Leonard Leo, a billionaire activist often credited as the architect of the conservative supermajority on the U.S. Supreme Court, has announced a $1 billion investment aimed at countering what he calls “liberal dominance” in corporate America, the media and entertainment sectors.

    In a rare interview with the Financial Times, Leo detailed his plans through his nonprofit group, the Marble Freedom Trust, which will focus its resources on the private sector. “We need to crush liberal dominance where it’s most insidious,” Leo said, explaining that the initiative will build talent and capital pipelines in industries where he believes left-wing extremism is most pervasive.

    Leo also emphasized targeting companies and financial institutions that he claims are influenced by “woke” ideology. “Expect us to increase support for organizations that call out companies and financial institutions that bend to the woke mind virus spread by regulators and NGOs,” he said, vowing that these entities would face consequences for prioritizing “extreme left-wing ideology” over consumers:

    Leo has spent more than two decades at the influential Federalist Society, guiding conservative judges into the federal courts and the Supreme Court itself. In 2018, conservative justice Clarence Thomas joked that Leo was the third most important person in the world.

    Leo’s efforts culminated under Trump’s presidency, when three Federalist Society-backed judges were appointed to give conservatives on the Supreme Court a 6-3 supermajority, and profound influence over US law. The court has since then ruled to overturn the right to an abortion, among other long-sought rightwing causes.

    In 2020, after Trump lost the election, Leo stepped back from running the daily operations of the Federalist Society, while remaining its co-chair.

    The following year, Leo founded Marble, with a $1.6bn donation from electronic device manufacturing mogul Barre Seid, to be a counterweight to what he said was “dark money” of the left. He spent about $600mn in its first three years, according to public financial disclosures.

    During the interview, Leo identified several potential targets for his campaign, including banks, China-friendly corporations and companies that have institutionalized diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) frameworks, as well as those adhering to environmental, social and governance (ESG) investing principles.

    He added that his goal is to find “very leveraged, impactful ways of reintroducing limited constitutional government and a civil society premised on freedom, personal responsibility and the virtues of Western civilization.”

    Article Published With The Permission of American Liberty News.

    Universities Training Gen Z to be Woke Snitches and to Punish Speech

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    1

    ANALYSIS – It is becoming sadly clear that this may be the last generation of any real freedom in America as Generation Z (Gen Z or Zoomers) increasingly supports the surveillance and punishment state. Many are also exhibitionists craving 24-7 attention.

    As I wrote about earlier – Gen Z ‘loves Big Brother.’ Big Brother is the term used by George Orwell to describe the totalitarian surveillance state in his dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984).

    In that piece, I noted a CATO Institute poll that showed 30 percent of people under 30 support allowing the government to install video cameras in our homes to “reduce domestic violence, abuse, and other illegal activity.”

    And we can blame a lot of that on the far-l*ft w*ke culture at our colleges and universities.

    It’s bad enough that many of this generation is willing to let faceless bureaucrats watch us in our homes, but Zoomers appear willing to go beyond even that. They are the generation of snitches, and punishers, going after anyone they disagree with.

    This generation has been taught to equate ‘unapproved’ speech with actual violence, so it makes sense that they’ll do whatever it takes to eliminate it. 

    Much of this can be traced back to higher education. Our colleges and schools are teaching our kids to be hypersensitive, ideological, w*ke snitches. 

    After providing various scary examples, including one where a professor used the oft-used term “sacred cow,” and a student filed a complaint that said the student would “not feel safe around him” any longer, Christian Schneider writes in National Review:

    …part of the reason Gen Z has an unquenchable thirst for surveillance is what they are being taught at their colleges and universities. All the above examples were reports filed with campus “Bias Response Teams” — programs set up by institutions of higher education that incentivize students to narc on each other for expressing unpopular opinions or engaging in disfavored behavior.

    Decades ago, courts threw out college “speech codes,” finding that public universities banning language was impermissible under the First Amendment. So when the internet grew as a tool, schools crafted a workaround: What if, instead of the schools targeting students for unpopular speech, it was the students themselves doing the targeting? And thus a majority of public colleges and universities began crowdsourcing their speech codes.

    In fact, bias-response teams are actually worse than the traditional speech codes, which outlawed specific words: The new standard for determining whether speech is forbidden is simply anything that offends someone. Any oversensitive campus resident now has the power to log on and anonymously report a fellow student or professor.

    Not to be outdone by its elite competitors, Stanford University implemented its own Orwellian system in which the school offered students a cash bounty if they reported insensitive speech on campus. In April, the school backtracked on the plan after an ensuing episode of national outrage.

    You can’t get much more Orwellian than that. 

    But there is a big added factor in why this generation loves surveillance, “cameras are what young people now seek, hoping to parlay their everyday goings-on into a Kardashian-like media empire.”

    Schneider notes that one poll found that nearly one-quarter of Zoomers in the United States planned to be internet ‘influencers,’ making their living creating videos for YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram. 

    Apparently, we no longer need doctors, engineers, scientists, or lawyers (well, maybe not so many lawyers).

    I don’t know about you, but a nation of empty-headed TikTok influencers scares me almost more than the Orwellian surveillance they like so much.

    Schneider adds: “Today’s young people have become both informers and self-exposers. If we’re not careful, their snitch culture will threaten privacy and freedom.” 

    I would go further. If we aren’t careful, very soon, America, as a free country, will be totally unrecognizable.

    Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.

    House Investigating Democrats Who Fraudulently Obtained Private Military Records of GOP Candidates

    By
    Paul Crespo
    -
    6

    INVESTIGATION – As I noted in my late January PDB, a ‘Democrat Colluded With Air Force Against Black Female GOP Candidate.’ 

    In that case, the Air Force took the fall for the release of the congressional candidate’s military record, blaming “a junior individual [who] didn’t follow proper procedures.”

    However, Jennifer-Ruth Green, a Republican, continues to blame U.S. Rep. Frank Mrvan and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) for illegally obtaining and releasing the information through corrupt Air Force personnel to damage her campaign in the weeks leading up to the November election.

    The release despicably included information about a sexual assault Green had suffered while serving in Iraq.

    But, it seems there is much more to the story.

    We now learn she wasn’t the only target of the corrupt DCCC.

    We also learn that a Democrat-linked consulting and research firm called ‘Due Diligence Group’ (DDG) has been at the center of a partisan effort to improperly, and likely illegally, obtain the service records of at least 11 service members via fraudulent SF-180 requests.

    According to data from OpenSecrets.org, the DCCC has paid more than $100,000 to DDG since 2021.

    SF-180s are used by veterans, authorized legal recipients and next of kin to legally obtain information from military personnel records. 

    Third-party requests require the service member to authorize their request with their signature.

    In these 11 cases, it is clear the service members did not provide their authorization.

    Just the News reports:

    In an unprecedented breach, the Air Force improperly released to a research firm tied to Democrats’ congressional campaign arm the confidential personnel files of eleven members of the military, including one involving a retired lieutenant colonel running for office as a Republican that detailed how she had been sexually assaulted in the Air Force, Congress has been told.

    And the House Armed Services and Oversight committee are demanding answers. The news outlet continues:

    [In a February 13 letter], House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers and House Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer are demanding that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin explain how he will prevent future breaches of military members’ private information while pressing to know if there will be criminal prosecutions.

    Just the News further reports on the letter:

    “The Office of the Secretary of the Air Force (OSAF) has informed the Committee that it released 11 individuals’ records over a 14-month period from October 2021-December 2022 to a private research firm which allegedly misrepresented itself in order to obtain access to the personnel records without authorization or consent.” 

    Rogers and Comer wrote that the release of other service members’ personal information highlights “not only the inadequacy of procedures to secure military personnel files, but also raises concerning questions of possible illicit motive or political partisanship.”

    “This conduct by the Air Force is, at a minimum, unacceptable,” they added, “The conduct by the research firm is quite possibly criminal.”

    Just the News reported that Rogers told the outlet that much more needs to be investigated.  

    Rogers stated:“It’s abhorrent that a Democrat-aligned firm would do something so despicable as fraudulently obtaining service records. Chairman James Comer and I pressed the Department of Defense for answers on this egregious breach.”

    Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.

    France’s Riots are Like our BLM Riots – Not Really About the Police

    By
    Paul Crespo
    -
    5

    ANALYSIS – Another summer of rage erupts in Paris, this time sparked by the police shooting several days ago of a 17-year-old Muslim man of North African origin. Many liken the fiery French riots to our own Black Lives Matter (BLM) riots of 2020. 

    And in many ways, they are similar.

    They both used the police killing of a man of color to justify violence, arson, looting, and spreading chaos. Their initial stated agenda was to highlight police brutality and police racism, then just racism. 

    Then a bunch of other stuff.

    In the United States, a lot of the BLM rioting was targeted at President Donald Trump. In France, some of the rage is directed at Jews. 

    Meanwhile, both violent rampages were quickly co-opted, if not initially instigated, by extremist ideologies and agendas. In the U.S., BLM was run by the far left and often became dominated by issues totally unrelated to the police or even racism. 

    In Paris, the riots are as much about a growing unassimilated Arab/North African Muslim minority bringing radical Islam to France, as it is about the police or race.

    It’s also about being anti-Jewish, anti-Catholic, and anti-French.

    Just as BLM often disparaged all of white America as being racist while targeting cops, many French Muslims see the entire French system as evil.

    And part of that ruling system includes French Jews.

    The Times of Israel reported that “perpetrators did vandalize a monument for Holocaust victims in Nanterre, the Paris suburb where the 17-year-old, identified in the French media only as Nahel M., was killed. The perpetrators spray-painted the words ‘Police scum’ on the monument.”

    Antisemitic chants have also  been heard during the riots, “part of a well-documented sentiment among some Muslims who see Jews as part of an oppressive power structure.”

    While Jews haven’t been attacked directly yet, these riots remind many French Jews of 2014, when Muslim rioters singled out Jewish-owned shops in a Paris suburb nicknamed “little Jerusalem” due to its large Jewish population.

    That anti-Jewish violence, which also targeted several synagogues, was partly spurred by Muslim anger toward Jews amid the 2014 Gaza war between Israel and Hamas and other terrorist groups.

    Today we have Israel engaged in a major military operation in the West Bank against Palestinian terrorists using the Jenin refugee camp as a base for attacks against Israelis. This operation began Monday, and we have yet to see its impact on the riots in France.

    If the conflict extends in the West Bank, expect things to heat up more in Paris.

    But as The Times of Israel also noted, this violent uprising in Paris is far more widespread than ever before. And might be a turning point for how the French view their suicidally insane immigration policies.

    “In 2014, I was afraid as a Jew. This time, I’m afraid as a Frenchman,” said Jonathan C., noting that he does not have a Middle Eastern appearance.

    The Times added:

    Police and firefighters are common targets of violence by rioters whom many believe are acting out of resentment of French society, where the anti-immigration far right is the second-largest political force.

    Other incidents are seen by some as reflecting a religious dimension of the riots, which are occurring in heavily Muslim areas.

    On Thursday, two unidentified individuals beat up and robbed a priest in Saint-Etienne near Lyon. Disagreements exist on whether the assault, the second attack of a priest in the region in three weeks, was part of the riots.

    Hate attacks against Christians are multiplying in France, where in 2021 the interior ministry recorded 1,052 anti-Christian hate crimes, nearly double the assaults on Jews. It meant that Christians were, in absolute numbers at least, the religious group that was most targeted that year.

    This worries many in France. They see the huge number of antisemitic and anti-Christian attacks, as well as attacks against police, as part of a resurgence of radical Islam in unassimilated migrant communities.

    Even if these riots subside, the bigger danger remains. And that should be a concern for not just Paris, but other major European cities as well.

    Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.

    Amanda Head: Crocs Brand Sponsors Kids Drag Show!

    By
    Amanda Head
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    0

    Popular shoe brand Crocs is siding with the woke gender mob…

    Watch Amanda fill you in on the latest controversy:

    Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.

    Discredited Ex-CISA Chief Says Election Lies and Denial a ‘Risk to Democracy

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    1
    Missvain, CC BY 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

    ANALYSIS – Apparently now to flailing Democrats, everything is a ‘threat to democracy.’ So much so that Chris Krebs, the discredited former head of Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) is joining the liberal chorus.

    He simply replaced the term ‘threat’ with ‘risk.’

    “Threat to democracy’ is the Democrats’ 2022 version of ‘Russia collusion.’

    Recall that Krebs was fired by then-President Trump in 2020 after Krebs, without any way to confirm, stated that the 2020 election was the “most secure” ever. 

    CISA is part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and is tasked with“strengthening cybersecurity and infrastructure protection across all levels of government.”

    However, while it plays a role in elections, and coordinates with the states, it is not the ultimate arbiter of whether election fraud occurred, or whether there were irregularities.

    There is no ultimate arbiter of that, except maybe the American people.

    Regardless, Krebs is now joining Team Biden in wailing about the ‘risk to democracy’ posed by Trump, his supporters, and many GOP politicians.

    During a Washington Post Live event on Monday, Krebs said that election-related falsehoods and misinformation represent “a tactical and strategic risk to democracy,” citing the number of election denialists running for statewide offices that “have the ability to determine the certification of the 2024 election,” as well as the chilling effect that election-related lies can have on voter turnout. 

    As Defense One reports:

    Krebs said that lies about the 2020 midterm elections—as well as falsehoods about the accuracy of the midterm elections—exist, because “it’s a great fundraising mechanism” for the former president, his allies and political candidates, and also because “it’s a great clout-chasing mechanism.”

    “It’s a benefit to them from an incentive perspective,” Krebs added. “And I think the real harm is that it is shifting the Overton window, it’s shifting what’s politically acceptable in American political discourse into something that’s much more dangerous and much more violent.”

    To combat these claims, Krebs said it’s important for Republican lawmakers, in particular, to speak truthfully about the voting process and election security. 

    Some of what he says is valid, and I do agree with Krebs’ last point; something Democrats ignore as they push for government efforts to quash free speech.

    The best way to combat false claims by politicians (a constant for millennia, but now called ‘disinformation’), is by counterarguments. 

    This is the essence of America’s democracy – the marketplace of ideas.

    While I believe we must ensure our elections are secure, this involves far more than worrying about, or demonizing free speech as so-called ‘disinformation.’

    It involves election integrity of the voting process, mail-in ballots, voter ID, and a range of other concrete issues Democrats ignore, rebuff, and refuse to address.

    And yes, there are foreign threats to America’s elections, such as Russian and Chinese hacking and influence operations, which I have repeatedly noted, and these should also be a primary focus of our federal government. 

    As Krebs added: “We’ve seen reports lately of Russia, China, and Iran back at their old tricks, and it is going to create a very chaotic environment.” 

    Indeed, Mr. Krebs.

    That too is a ‘risk to our democracy, and it is where the government can have the most impact in securing our elections without unconstitutionally targeting Americans or their freedom of speech.

    Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.

    Amanda Head: Biden Admin Leaves Americans In The Dark As Usual

    By
    Amanda Head
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    4

    Joe Biden prefers to keep Americans in the dark…especially when it comes to his administration’s many many mistakes.

    Watch Amanda break down the latest scandal below:

    Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.

    Biden’s Dangerously Weak and Naive Meeting with China’s Chairman Xi – ‘Strategic Insanity’

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    1
    Joe Biden via Gage Skidmore Flickr

    ANALYSIS – Just when you thought things couldn’t get worse with Joe Biden, he goes and has a chummy sideline meeting with China’s communist leader-for-life, Xi Jinping, at the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia.

    While his partisan spinmeisters in the media dutifully reported the White House line that Biden was firm with Xi, the three-and-a-half-hour private meeting was muddled, absurdly naïve and dangerous.

    At the summit, Biden stated that the U.S. aims to manage competition with China “responsibly” and that there is no need for a new Cold War. 

    Biden also strongly and foolishly reaffirmed China’s ‘One China’ policy regarding Taiwan, adding (against warnings from NATO and his own national security officials) that he didn’t foresee any Chinese military action against Taiwan any time soon.

    Fox News reported Biden said during a press conference ahead of the G20 summit in Bali:

    “[Xi] was clear and I was clear that we’ll defend American interests and values, promote universal human rights and stand up for the international order and work in lockstep with our allies and partners…”

    “We’re going to compete vigorously but I’m not looking for conflict. I’m looking to manage this competition responsibly,” Biden said. “And I want to make sure that every country abides by the international rules of the road. We discussed that.”

    Biden’s messaging was clear in one area though.

    He believes climate change is more of a threat than a revisionist, expansionist, power-hungry, communist dictatorship with an economy almost the size of the U.S.

    And Biden is willing to risk America’s sovereignty, independence, security and freedom to get China’s faux help with his extreme climate agenda.

    GOP Senator Marco Rubio of Florida was rightfully livid over Biden’s meeting and statements.

    Rubio said in a statement:

    President Biden’s claim that ‘there need not be a new Cold War’ between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party proves that this administration dangerously misunderstands the CCP, which openly pushes for conflict with the United States and its allies…

    Last week, while Xi appeared in a military uniform and called on the People’s Liberation Army [PLA] to prepare for war, Biden’s Department of Defense pulled an entire squadron of American fighter jets out of the Indo-Pacific. Not only is the United States unprepared to defend Taiwan against a PLA invasion, President Biden is now downplaying its likelihood.

    This meeting should have held the CCP accountable for its rampant human rights abuses, ongoing theft of American intellectual property, and its refusal to investigate the origins of COVID-19.

    Rubio added: “Instead, President Biden demonstrated that he is willing to sacrifice everything — including our national security and the security of our allies — for the sake of pursuing ill-fated climate talks with our nation’s greatest adversary.”

    Former Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen told Fox News on Monday that Biden’s diplomacy with China is “strategic insanity” that may only help the autocratic communist state accumulate power and global influence.

    Fox News adds that “Biden reportedly has been pressuring China to essentially join him in his Green New Deal-style vision of non-petroleum power sources, which Thiessen said is one of the key areas the United States can apply pressure to Beijing if they invade their peaceable neighbor Taiwan.”

    “The last thing we want China to do, quite frankly, is to start weaning itself off of oil,” Thiessen said.

    “If they follow Biden’s advice and wean themselves off of oil and start embracing clean energy, we lose that leverage,” Thiessen said.

    “So, you know, it’s not only a sign of weakness, it’s strategic insanity.”

    As I recently reported, Xi has been increasingly adamant that so-called ‘reunification’ with Taiwan can no longer wait and China will use force if necessary to control the independent democratic nation.

    Top U.S. commanders and senior intelligence officials have warned that China could take forceful action against Taiwan as early as next year, and increasingly likely by 2025 or 2027, at the latest.

    Meanwhile, Biden is playing footsies with Xi, hoping China will join his radical green global agenda.

    Because that is all he, and his leftist puppeteers, care about. GAND

    Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of Great America News Desk.

    Congress Reveals Stunning New Information on January 6 Attacker

    By
    Donny Ferguson
    -
    7

    Members of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee investigating the federal government’s response to the January 6, 2021 incidents at the U.S. Capitol now reveal that a pair of pipe bombs planted at the Capitol Hill offices of the Republican and Democrat parties may have been a diversion to distract law enforcement from other events.

    They also reveal that while the bombs contained live explosives, it does not appear the timers were operable, and the FBI may not even have interviewed the witnesses who discovered them.

    In response, Chairmen Thomas Massie (R-KY), Andy Biggs (R-AZ), Jim Jordan (R-OH), and Barry Loudermilk (R-GA) sent a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray “revealing new information surrounding the FBI’s investigation into pipe bombs placed near the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Republican National Committee (RNC) on January 5, 2021,” the Judiciary Committee reports.

    “On June 7, 2023, the Committee on the Judiciary conducted a transcribed interview of Steven D’Antuono, the former Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI Washington Field Office (WFO),” the Committee announced.

    “In that role, Mr. D’Antuono oversaw the WFO’s investigations into the events at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, including the placement of pipe bombs near the headquarters of the DNC and RNC on January 5, 2021. Mr. D’Antuono’s testimony provided new information about the FBI’s investigation into the pipe bombs and reinforces our concerns about the FBI’s handling of this matter,” the Committee revealed.

    In his transcribed interview, Steven D’Antuono “suggested that the FBI could not even determine whether the placement of the pipe bombs was a ‘diversionary’ tactic for the events of January 6,” the Committee also revealed.

    D’Antuono testified:

    MASSIE: Are you familiar with the diversion thesis, that these were set up to be a diversion?

    D’ANTUONO: Yeah, I’ve heard people say that, but if you watch – I’ve done a lot of media reports. I was trying to get the information out there, tips and stuff like that, right. I will not speculate. I’m not going to speculate on that. I think that’s speculation, at best, when people say that it’s a diversionary tactic. We’ll never know until we find the person that actually did – or persons that actually did it. So I can’t speculate on that. Could it have been? Yes, that’s one theory. Obviously, it’s one theory. But is it the only theory? I don’t – I really don’t know.

    MASSIE: It looks like the head Capitol Police [sic] believes it was a diversion.

    D’ANTUONO: So Steve Sund, chief of police, yes. I believe he wrote that in his book. Again, it’s pure speculation. There’s no intelligence – look, I ran the investigation for 2 years until I stepped out. We don’t know. We don’t even know the gender at this point as to – we could speculate, and there’s a lot of people that are speculating as to the gender.

    MASSIE: How confident are you that the individual depicted in the surveillance footage on January 5th set both of those pipe bombs in place?

    D’ANTUONO: So the video that we saw, I feel confident that by the video that we have, that that person planted those. 

    D’Antuono also testified on the “viability of the pipe bombs, which, according to reporting, were deemed to be ‘inoperable,’” the Committee reports.

    “D’Antuono referenced a report from the FBI laboratory in Quantico, Virginia, that the pipe bombs were viable, and ‘they could explode, and they could cause harm or death,’” the Committee notes, adding. “D’Antuono also acknowledged that the timer used on the pipe bomb could not have detonated the pipe bomb given the time already elapsed between placement and discovery.”

    He testified:

    MASSIE: Well, let me ask you this: Do you think it was technically possible for a kitchen timer . . . that has [a] 1-hour duration . . . to detonate a bomb 17 hours later?

    D’ANTUONO: No, I don’t. And I saw the same kitchen timer as you. I agree. I don’t know when they were supposed to go off. Maybe they weren’t supposed to go off. We can’t—we don’t know. We honestly don’t know, and that’s some of the pain . . . .

    D’Antuono’s testimony “provided additional details about the FBI’s use of geofencing technology to identify the pipe bomb suspect,” the Committee revealed.

    He testified:

    D’ANTUONO: So the – there’s a lot of phone data that came in. Yes, I’ve seen the same video. I’ve watched the same video. We put out the same video. It looks like a phone. Was it a real phone, a not a real phone, was it a ruse? Was it a – you know, I picked up my phone several times at meetings going, oh, yeah, I got to take this call, and walk out, right. The phone’s not on, right. So was the person just sitting there trying to pretend like they’re on a bench taking a phone call? We don’t know until we find the person, right, and ask them those questions.

    We did a complete geofence. We have complete data. Not complete, because there’s some data that was corrupted by one of the providers, not purposely by them, right. It just – unusual circumstance that we have corrupt data from one of the providers. I’m not sure – I can’t remember right now which one. But for that day, which is awful because we don’t have that information to search. So could it have been that provider? Yeah, with our luck, you know, with this investigation it probably was, right. So maybe if we did have that – that data wasn’t corrupted – and it wasn’t purposely corrupted. I don’t want any conspiracy theories, right. To my knowledge, it wasn’t corrupted, you know, but that could have been good information that we don’t have, right. So that is painful for us to not to have that. So we looked at everything.

    D’Antuono also testified that he did not definitively know if the FBI had interviewed the individual who discovered the pipe bomb at the DNC.

    He testified:

    MASSIE: So just to . . . put a fine point on it, you do not know whether they interviewed the person that discovered . . . the [bomb] at the DNC?

    D’ANTUONO: I don’t know.

    The Committee notes “D’Antuono conceded that it would be ‘investigation 101’ to interview the individuals who discovered the bombs, yet he was unable to confirm whether the FBI had taken this basic investigative step.”

    He explained:

    MASSIE: So – but the person who found – you either haven’t identified the person who found the second pipe bomb, or did you?

    D’ANTUONO: I – honestly, sir, I don’t know the granularity of everything my agents and analysts did in that matter. It’s just – it’s a whole host of stuff that’s going on. As the [Assistant Director in Charge], as like any senior leader, I’m getting briefed on things, and that part never came up, so –

    “D’Antuono’s testimony raises concerns about the FBI’s handling of the pipe bomb investigation, more than 890 days following the placement of the pipe bombs. To date, the FBI has failed to respond to the Committee’s requests for a briefing regarding the investigation,” the Committee concludes.

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