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    Controversial Lefty-Feminist ‘Barbie’ Movie Tops $1 Billion at Box Office

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    Barbie was released in cinemas worldwide on July 21. Since then, according to Warner Bros., the colorfully controversial, left-leaning, gender-bender, fantasy-comedy movie has drawn in $459m so far in the U.S. and $572m internationally.

    That means it has already topped $1 billion overall. This is a huge global smash. But what does it say about us?

    Oscar-nominated Barbie writer and director Greta Gerwig also became the first female filmmaker to surpass the billion-dollar benchmark as a solo director, Warner Bros. said.

    Other female directors have helmed films that have surpassed the $1bn-mark, but they were working with others. Frozen, the animated blockbuster, and its sequel have generated more than $1.4bn in box office takings and were co-directed by Jennifer Lee and Chris Buck.

    Meanwhile, Captain Marvel, starring Brie Larson and co-directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, generated more than $1.1bn at the box office.

    But what is the very pink themed movie, starring Margot Robbie (the primary Barbie) and Ryan Gosling (the primary Ken), about? What is its messaging?  

    The feminist comedy with a PG-13 rating’s plot hinges on Barbie leaving her fake but perfectly idealized world behind and, like Pinocchio before her, becoming “real.” 

    That’s when it gets political and goes straight into lefty social issues like ‘the patriarchy,’ and gender confusion-fusion.

    Elon Musk mocked the film on ‘X,’ formerly known as Twitter, saying: “If you take a shot every time Barbie says the word ‘Patriarchy,’ you will pass out before the movie ends.”

    Conservatives have derided the Barbie movie’s anti-male themes, and inclusion of a trans-gender actor/actress playing one of the Barbies. The critics include journalist Piers Morgan and commentator Ben Shapiro. Newsweek reported:

    “If I made a movie mocking women as useless dunderheads, constantly attacking ‘the matriarchy,’ and depicting all things feminist as toxic bulls***, I wouldn’t just be canceled, I’d be executed,” Morgan wrote in his columns for British newspaper The Sun and The New York Post after seeing the Barbie movie.

    Shapiro meanwhile went as far as to burn a Barbie and Ken doll on Saturday, after seeing the movie the night before. The following Monday he claimed he had received death threats for his stunt.”

    Writing for the New York Post, Morgan added: “the movie achieves exactly what it wanted to achieve and that is to establish the matriarchy as the perfect antidote to the patriarchy when in fact it’s just the same concept that they asked us all to detest in the first place.”

    The movie “forgets its core audience of families and children while catering to nostalgic adults and pushing lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender character stories,” wrote a contributor to Movieguide, a site with a conservative Christian bent.

    Ginger Gaetz, wife of conservative Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz, posted on ‘X’ that at the premiere, she saw “disappointingly low T from Ken,” referring to testosterone, and she also called him a “beta” male, not an alpha. 

    Less politically, Time said: “Barbie never lets us forget how clever it’s being, every exhausting minute.”

    Mattel has a lot riding on its $100m Barbie movie, the first of a planned slew of films from the toy-making behemoth that include Masters of the Universe, Barney, Hot Wheels and Magic 8 Ball, to name but a few.

    The Barbie doll was launched by Mattel in 1959, when the toy-maker itself was only 14 years old, and has sold over a billion units over six decades.

    Today, Barbie is still considered Mattel’s crown jewel, driving about a third of its $5 billion annual revenue.

    Since 2018, Mattel has been working on a strategy to license its intellectual properties to Hollywood, to reverse a sales decline over recent years. The new movie was a big gamble for Mattel Films.

    A hit would boost toy sales, a flop would have done the opposite – threatening other projects currently in pre-production. But the gamble has clearly paid off.

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

    Amanda Head: New Poll Reveals Depressing Facts

    By
    Amanda Head
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    The latest Rasmussen poll is reporting some unfortunate facts about the state of America. A plurality of those polled said that our country’s best days are behind it…Do you agree?

    Watch Amanda break down the problem below:

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

    Amanda Head: Big Culture War Victory!

    By
    Amanda Head
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    Watch Amanda explain the situation below:

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

    Like BLM Riots in US, France’s Race Riots Do Major Damage

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    A protester holds up a Black Lives Matter sign outside the Hennepin County Government Center.

    ANALYSIS – While the establishment media has tried to spin France’s recent wave of rioting as a response to unfair or racist French policing, like the Black Lives Matter (BLM) riots of 2020 in the United States, they really aren’t. 

    For both, that is only the pretext. But they are very similar in other ways.

    As I wrote before, both were about much more. In the case of BLM, it was part of a bigger far-left agenda. 

    In the case of France, it is an uprising of racial, cultural and religious resentment with Islamist overtones.

    Both also caused substantial physical damage ($1-2 billion) and injured many hundreds of police.

    The damages and injuries to police from the BLM riots across multiple cities in the U.S. were larger and spread over a few months. 

    In France, the first protests occurred in Nanterre, but then spread to other towns and cities, including Paris, Marseille, Lyon, Toulouse, Strasbourg and Lille.

    And in France, they only lasted about a week. France is also smaller in terms of population and its economy. So, overall, the impact was greater, and impossible to downplay as it was in the United States.

    The response to the rioting though has been very different in each country.

    The damage following a week of violence in France is expected to cost more than $1.1 billion, excluding damage to public buildings.

    French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire has promised support as thousands of insurance claims pour in. Insurers have received 5,900-plus claims worth some $305 million, according to the chair of the insurance industry lobby group ‘France Assureurs.’

    Rioters lit an estimated 23,000 fires and damaged 273 buildings belonging to the security forces, along with 168 schools and 105 mayor’s offices. In total, more than 1,100 buildings and 5,850 vehicles have been damaged or destroyed.

    More than 800 French law enforcement officers have been injured.

    According to Fortune, “The videos of the riots that circulated around the world hurt the image of France,” Geoffroy Roux de Bézieux, the outgoing head of the French employers’ lobby Medef, told Le Parisien newspaper.

    “It’s always difficult to say if the impact will be long lasting, but there will certainly be a drop in reservations this summer.”

    France’s Interior updated senators on the destruction carried out by primarily teenage mobs in ‘multi-ethnic’ areas of French cities. He said about 90 per cent of the 3,502 people arrested during the riots were French nationals.

    That doesn’t change the racial or demographic facts that most of the rioters were young Muslims of Arab and North African descent. They were born in France as part of the most recent immigration wave.

    The average age of the French rioters was 17.

    “What’s happening there is the consequence of a failure to integrate the country’s Muslim immigrant population,” Alan Mendoza, co-founder and executive director of the Henry Jackson Society, told Fox News Digital.

    President Macron sparked controversy on Wednesday by suggesting social media could be “cut off” if “things get out of control,” according to media reports.

    Macron singled out platforms like Snapchat, TikTok and encrypted messenger Telegram for their role in helping organize and spread images of the violence.

    Fox News reported:

    Macron has provided a mixed response to the crisis, initially describing the shooting as “inexplicable” and “unforgivable” but then decrying the protests and blaming everything from social media to video games for the increasing violence.

    Macron argued that social media platforms, including TikTok, Snapchat and others, helped fuel the riots, especially after the personal information of the officer who shot Nahel ended up circulating on the platforms. He said his government would work with social media sites to take down “the most sensitive content” and identify users who “call for disorder or exacerbate the violence.” Macron also denied there was systemic racism within the country’s law enforcement services.

    Meanwhile, as I wrote last August, in a few months in the United States, the BLM riots caused $2 billion in damages and injured 2,000 police officers nationwide. 19 people were killed during just 14 days of BLM rioting – none by police.

    The killing of police officers nationwide, though, surged 28% in 2020 during the BLM riots and protests.

    Unlike the muted judicial response to BLM rioters, France’s Justice Minister issued an order on Friday that demanded a “ strong, firm and systematic” judicial response.

    And unlike the United States, where President Donald Trump was attacked and vilified for trying to send federal officers to quell the violence – in France, Macron eventually deployed 45,000 officers and armored vehicles to control the riots.

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

    The other Soros: Senator Reveals How this Liberal Swiss Billionaire Has Been Funneling Cash into US Elections

    By
    Donny Ferguson
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    2
    Image via Pixabay free images

    A left-wing Swiss billionaire has been bankrolling the voting systems used in American elections, with an alleged bias toward liberals, a U.S. senator reveals.

    United States Senator Bill Hagerty (R-TN), a member of the Senate Rules Committee, pressed Benjamin Hovland, Vice Chair of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC), on foreign influence in U.S. elections through what he called “a new form of Zuckerbucks: partisan, foreign-backed funding for local election administrators through the U.S. Alliance for Election Excellence.”

    Hagerty calls it a “highly problematic scheme in which left-wing organizations provide substantial, foreign-funded resources for conducting American elections at the local level.”

    Much of the funding comes from Hansjörg Wyss, a Swiss billionaire and multi-million dollar donor to left-wing causes through his “Hub Project.”

    “This is an $80 million initiative, funded by a web of left-wing entities, to ‘help’ local election administrators conduct elections,” Hagerty explained. “It’s a new form of ‘Zuckerbucks,’ is what it is. This network of entities has received tens—if not hundreds—of millions of dollars from a foreign left-wing billionaire named Hansjörg Wyss. He’s not a U.S. Citizen, so he can’t contribute directly to our elections, but he’s found a way to be involved in our elections.”

    “After being repeatedly pressed by Hagerty to acknowledge whether foreign donations used to conduct American elections are acceptable, Vice Chair Hovland conceded that this interference is inappropriate,” a statement from Hagerty’s office reveals.

    “Absolutely not. Of course not,” Vice Chair Hovland answered. 

    “I want to be clear with that because what this is is Zuckerbucks 2.0 coming from a foreign billionaire involving themselves in our elections. What I want to make certain is that this Commission—that no Election Assistance Commission dollars are commingled in any way with these foreign funds,” said Hagerty.

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

    Biden Admin. Caught Spying On Trump Supporters’ EventBrite GoFundMe Pages

    By
    Donny Ferguson
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    0
    Image via Pixabay free images.

    In a disturbing expansion of the Biden White House’s illicit monitoring of political dissidents, federal authorities quietly sent letters to the operators of crowdfunding sites asking for private financial information on pages that used terms associated with Republicans, conservatism and former President Donald Trump.

    In response, and to determine the extent of Biden administration’s wrongdoing, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) has sent his own letter to Eventbrite and GoFundMe “requesting documents and communications between federal agencies, including the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).”

    A statement from the Judiciary Committee and its Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government announced they are “conducting oversight of financial surveillance of American citizens, including the tracking and monitoring of private financial records in coordination with federal law enforcement.”

    According to the Judiciary Committee:

    The federal government, through FinCEN, urged large financial institutions to comb through their customers’ private transactions and report charges on the basis of protected political and religious expression. The Committee and Select Subcommittee have uncovered how the FBI worked with Bank of America to gather private financial data of Americans. Congress has an important interest in protecting Americans’ privacy and First Amendment activity. Documents obtained by the Committee and Select Subcommittee raise the prospect that Eventbrite and GoFundMe may have been in communication with FinCEN or other federal law-enforcement agencies about activity on Eventbrite and GoFundMe’s platform. 

    Excerpts of the letter to Eventbrite read:

    “The Committee and Select Subcommittee have obtained documents showing that following the events at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) distributed materials to financial institutions that, among other things, outlined the ‘typologies’ of various persons of interest and provided financial institutions with suggested search terms and Merchant Category Codes (MCCs) for identifying transactions on behalf of federal law enforcement, ostensibly to aid in investigations. These materials included a document recommending that financial institutions ‘search Zelle payment messages’ using  generic terms like ‘TRUMP,’ ‘MAGA,’ ‘America First,’ ‘PELOSI,’ ‘PENCE,’ ‘SCHUMER,’ as well as a document reflecting a ‘prior FinCEN analysis’ of ‘Lone Actor/Homegrown Violent Extremism Indicators.’ According to this analysis, FinCEN warned financial institutions of ‘extremism’ indicators that include ‘transportation charges, such as bus tickets, rental cars, or plane tickets, for travel to areas with no apparent purpose,’ or ‘the purchase of books (including religious texts) and subscriptions to other media containing extremist views.’ In other words, the federal government, through FinCEN, urged large financial institutions to comb through their customers’ private transactions and report charges on the basis of protected political and religious expression.

    “In addition, the Committee and Select Subcommittee have obtained documents showing that on January 18, 2021, FinCEN emailed financial institutions a list of ‘crowdfunding sites’ that included Eventbrite, GoFundMe, and Anedot, among others, and explained how financial institutions could use a ‘transaction reference’ to identify customers making certain transactions on crowdfunding sites. For example, in the email, FinCEN alerted financial institutions to customers’ use of Eventbrite, noting that ‘people have been observed using this site to post an event and sell tickets including bus tickets to the demonstrations.’ FinCEN noted how ‘Card Purchase[s]’ to events are findable using ‘the transaction reference ‘EB [the EVENT] with the phone number’ and detailed how individuals who purchased tickets to events in support of President Trump could be identified using the transaction reference, ‘EB MARCH FOR TR 801413720.’ FinCEN also provided a second method for identifying individuals using transaction references, writing: ‘[y]ou may see a Card Purchase with the transaction reference in the following format . . . [a Message or like a cause or candidate] with the phone number in the following format . . . .’ 

    “Despite these transactions having no apparent nexus to criminal activity—and, in fact, relate to Americans exercising their First Amendment rights—FinCEN seems to have adopted a characterization of these Americans as potential threat actors. This kind of pervasive financial surveillance, carried out in coordination with federal law enforcement, without legal process, into Americans’ private transactions is alarming and raises serious concerns about the federal government’s potential abuses of Americans’ fundamental civil liberties.”

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

    America-First Congresswoman Lauren Boebert Joins Liberty & Justice Podcast

    By
    Matt Whitaker
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    1

    MAGA Congresswoman Lauren Boebert (R-CO) tunes in to Matt Whitaker’s podcast to discuss key issues facing America and how patriots can help take back their freedom.

    Per Matt Whitaker:

    Lauren became the first mom to represent Colorado’s Third District in Congress after unseating a five-term incumbent Congressman and then, despite being outspent nearly 2-1, defeated her Democrat opponent on November 3rd, 2020. Lauren’s historic victory showed that no amount of money can beat good, old-fashioned grassroots enthusiasm and hard work.

    Lauren was the founder and former operator of Shooters Grill, a restaurant that earned national notoriety for staff that proudly open carry as they serve their customers. She gained additional recognition in September 2019 by attending presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke’s rally to tell him directly: “Hell, no, you won’t take our guns.”

    When Colorado’s liberal Democrat Governor tried to shut down small businesses across the state, it was Lauren who stood against tyranny and kept her business open. They operated safely and took every precaution to keep her staff and her patrons healthy. Because of this, Lauren’s staff was able to continue making their hard-earned money and weren’t sent to the unemployment line. Lauren will ALWAYS fight for small businesses.

    A Coloradoan living on the Western Slope, Lauren is active in her church and has spent years counseling at-risk women at the local jail, encouraging them to become self-sufficient and productive members of society who do not depend on government assistance.
    Lauren’s husband, Jayson, has worked his entire adult life in oil and gas fields, primarily in Western Colorado. They are the proud parents of four boys.

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

    GOP Bill Says Only US Flags Will Fly Over Our Embassies Abroad – But What About Fed Buildings at Home?

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    2

    ANALYSIS – As a former Marine Corps officer and military attaché who served at several embassies overseas in the 1990s, it has infuriated me to see partisans and ideologues impose their radical agendas on our foreign embassies during Joe Biden’s tenure at the White House.

    Flying extremely divisive, and to many host countries, offensive, flags representing controversial sexual agendas (LGBTQ+), which includes the extreme ‘trans’ movement, and private groups which espouse hate toward one race and law enforcement (Black Lives Matter – BLM), has been an egregious abuse pushed hard by the Biden State Department since last year.

    Our embassies and consulates are official extensions of the United States. They are even considered sovereign U.S. territory. 

    They are there on behalf of the entire U.S. nation, as represented by our national flag, not sectarian views, or radical and controversial agendas. 

    This is true, even when these same radical agendas are being forced on our executive branches of government. 

    Thankfully, the new GOP House is proposing to quickly change that abuse.

    The Old Glory Only Act, introduced Monday by South Carolina Republican Rep. Jeff Duncan would prohibit any flag other than the American flag to be flown over U.S. embassies and consulates.

    Newsmax reported:

    “Our beautiful flag, Old Glory, should be the only flag flying and representing our country over our diplomatic and consular posts worldwide,” Duncan said in a press release announcing the bill’s introduction in the House Monday. “The American flag is a beacon of liberty, and no other flag or symbol better portrays our shared values than the Stars and Stripes. It is important to ensure that Old Glory only is flown at American embassies to represent our ideals abroad.”

    The New York Times previously reported that Biden Secretary of State Antony Blinken authorized U.S. embassies to fly ‘gay pride’ flags in April 2021, prior to May 17, which is the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia, and to continue displaying the flag through the end of the month.

    The push to fly the rainbow ‘gay pride’ flag actually began in 2014, under the Obama-Biden term. That flag has flown over U.S. embassies in more than a dozen countries since then, including Russia, Spain, Sweden and South Korea.

    President Trump’s Secretary of State banned the ‘pride’ flags from being flown but his order was quickly  reversed by Blinken.

    In May, another cable from Blinken’s State Department authorized flying Black Lives Matter flags at U.S. diplomatic facilities worldwide, Foreign Policy reported at the time.

    The BLM flag has been flown at U.S. embassies in Brazil, Greece, Spain, Bosnia, Cambodia and South Korea, according to Duncan’s office.

    This, even though violent BLM rioters had spent months attacking the federal courthouse in Portland and laying siege to dozens of cities nationwide just months earlier in 2020.

    The BLM riots caused over $2 billion in property damage, more than any other similar event in U.S. history, injured over 2,000 local and federal police officers, and resulted in numerous deaths of civilians. 

    According to the NYT, a cable from the State Department at the time gave the chiefs of missions (COMs), who lead our overseas diplomatic stations, a “blanket written authorization” to display the flags if it was “appropriate in light of local conditions.” 

    While the Times noted this was an “authorization, not a requirement,” few COMs will ignore the pressure to follow the boss’ lead, and the more woke embassies and consulates quickly started flying these unofficial flags.

    Republicans are optimistic the new GOP leadership will hold a vote on the bill since there is broad GOP support for the idea.

    But why stop there? Why not ban these divisive flags from being flown over any federal buildings, period – including all of the ones here at home?

    According to the General Services Administration (GSA), More than 40 federal buildings across the country opted to raise the Pride Flag to show their support of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” in the federal workforce.

    What they are actually doing is flying the flags of exclusive, divisive and radical private groups on federal property paid for by the U.S. taxpayer.

    This too must end. 

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

    Biden Administration Sued Over Scheme To Revoke Trump Q Security Clearance

    By
    Donny Ferguson
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    2
    President Donald J. Trump is presented with a 10th Combat Aviation Brigade challenge coin following an air assault and gun rain demonstration at Fort Drum, New York, on August 13. The demonstration was part of President Trump's visit to the 10th Mountain Division (LI) to sign the National Defense Authorization Act of 2019, which increases the Army's authorized active-duty end strength by 4,000 enabling us to field critical capabilities in support of the National Defense Strategy. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Thomas Scaggs) 180813-A-TZ475-010

    The non-profit public interest law firm Judicial Watch reports they filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Energy for “records about the retroactive termination of former President Donald Trump’s security clearance and/or access to classified information.”

    Judicial Watch reports the lawsuit “cites Trump’s January 12, 2024, motion to compel discovery in his criminal prosecution in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, in which the former president asserts that DOE attempted to terminate his security clearance retroactively after his June 2023 indictment by Special Counsel Jack Smith.”

    “It looks like the Department of Energy is trying to manufacture a criminal case,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “What are they hiding?”

    Judicial Watch reports the lawsuit “points to the February 2024 response to Trump’s January 2024 motion in which Smith acknowledges the existence of a June 2023 memorandum prepared by an Energy Department official regarding the security clearance.”

    “The Special Counsel’s office describes the memorandum’s contents and asserts that it had produced the record to Trump,” Judicial Watch reports. “Smith also acknowledges requesting and receiving additional ‘responsive’ records from DOE, including ‘approximately 30 pages of records and eight emails.’ Smith asserts that he was ‘now producing’ the 30 pages to Trump and withholding the eight emails.”

    “Trump’s lawyers suggest in the January 2024 motion to compel discovery that Trump had a high-level security clearance as recently as 2023,” Judicial Watch notes.

    “Lawyers for Trump say a government document from June 2023 still listed him with a “Q” clearance from the DOE. The document was dated a few weeks after prosecutors indicted Trump in the classified documents case,” Judicial Watch reports. “A ‘Q’ clearance refers to a type of security clearance handled by the Department of Energy, which holds classified information focused largely on nuclear secrets.”

    Judicial Watch reports it “filed the lawsuit after the Energy Department failed to comply with a January 18, 2024, FOIA request for its records and communications concerning retroactively terminating Trump’s security clearance and/or access to classified information.”

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

    Feds Admit Dozens of Undercover Agents Joined Protesters at Capitol on Jan 6

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    6
    Elvert Barnes, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

    ANALYSIS – Federal and local law enforcement reportedly had at least 40 confidential informants, or CIs, (also known by federal agencies as Confidential Human Source – CHS) embedded with protestors and rioters at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

    This, according to the attorney for one of the Jan 6 defendants, Dominic Pezzola.

    A member of the nationalist Proud Boys group, Pezzola is facing charges in federal court for allegedly conspiring to oppose the Jan. 2021 transfer of presidential power and related charges by interfering with Congress’ certification of the Electoral College vote.

    His attorney says federal prosecutors kept this critical evidence secret and belatedly admitted this bombshell just recently.

    I wrote about this issue in March when a video was released that showed undercover DC Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) officers inciting the rioters to storm the Capitol. Many more videos are still sealed by the courts and kept from the public.

    As the attorney’s filing noted:

    Some of these undercover Metro officers marched with the Proud Boy[s] march. And some appear to have played roles of instigators, in that they are seen on body-worn videos chanting “Go! Go!,” “Stop the Steal!,” and “Whose house? Our house!” on Jan. 6.  Others generally followed demonstrators toward the Capitol.

     
    While that video, part of which was posted on Rumble, shows three members of the MPD’s Electronic Surveillance Unit (ESU) acting as protesters and inciting the crowd, new information reveals that MPD and the feds may have had dozens of undercover informants there that day.

    The Daily Caller reports that Pezzola’s lawyer, Roger Roots, said that federal prosecutors admitted Tuesday that eight FBI confidential human sources were embedded among the Proud Boys on Jan. 6. In his Wednesday court filing, Root said that Homeland Security Investigations (HIS) , part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), appears to have had some 19 informants active at the time.

    That means that the largest number of federal CHSs on Jan. 6 didn’t even belong to the FBI, but instead were from DHS.

    Roots added that, in addition to all these federal CIs, at least 13 undercover plain-clothes DC Metro Police agents worked among Jan. 6 defendants that day (one more than originally revealed). 

    That’s a lot of local police undercover officers and federal confidential informants for one protest. And who knows how many more there may have been in other capacities.

    In his filing, Roots argues that:

    Pezzola submits that the entire defense in this trial, including opening,cross, and defense cases, would have been different, and much more aggressive, if defense counsel had known of the scope and scale of undercover government operations on Jan. 6. Prosecutors made arguments contrary to information they possessed and withheld; and defense counsel could have lodged different cross-examination and direct examination questions if they had known of these materials.

    Roots concludes by noting that the “United States is refusing to provide information which obviously has a high likelihood of being exculpatory.”

    He adds that defendants are entitled to this information. “ACCORDINGLY, Pezzola asks for an order compelling the United States to provide the names, identities, and reports of all HSI confidential informants operating at or near the Capitol or around the Proud Boys on January 6, 2021.”

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

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