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    How the FBI Colluded with Big Tech’s Twitter to Censor Hunter Biden Laptop Story

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    1
    President Joe Biden hugs his family during the 59th Presidential Inauguration ceremony in Washington, Jan. 20, 2021. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris took the oath of office on the West Front of the U.S. Capitol. (DOD Photo by Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Carlos M. Vazquez II)

    ANALYSIS – While the establishment media continues to ignore the disturbing ‘Twitter Files’ released by Elon Musk showing how Twitter censored the Hunter Biden laptop story, more information now indicates it was worse than we first thought.

    As Musk noted, it’s not a direct First Amendment violation for a private company to censor the news, but it absolutely is if it’s done at the behest of our government.

    And while I will argue that as the nation’s new ‘public square,’ Big Tech does violate the First Amendment when it censors news, there is now no denying that in the Hunter laptop case it did so with input from the FBI.

    I will save the public square censorship discussion for another time.

    These new disclosures provide more evidence that under the purported guise of stopping Russian election interference, the FBI ended up being guilty of employing its own U.S. election interference.

    And Twitter (like Facebook and LinkedIn, et al.) took the ball and ran with it.

    Based on the Twitter emails recently released by Elon Musk and reported by former Rolling Stone journalist Matt Taibbi, the Daily Caller reports:

    The FBI explicitly warned Twitter about a potential “hack-and-leak” operation involving Hunter Biden shortly before the platform censored the New York Post’s story based on emails from Biden’s laptop, according to a signed declaration by Twitter’s former head of Site Integrity, Yoel Roth.

    The FBI, along with several other agencies, warned Roth that “state actors” might attempt to leak hacked materials shortly before the 2020 election in a bid to influence its results, according to the declaration filed with the Federal Elections Commission (FEC) in December 2020, two months after the platform censored the NYP’s story. Roth stated that the conversation occurred during weekly meetings with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI, in which they warned him of potential threats to election security.

    “These expectations of hack-and-leak operations were discussed throughout 2020. I also learned in these meetings that there were rumors that a hack-and-leak operation would involve Hunter Biden,” Roth wrote.

    As Taibbi notes, Twitter, like all of Big Tech, including Twitter, is staffed by leftists and hence skewers its policies and actions to favor the left.

    This system wasn’t balanced. It was based on contacts. Because Twitter was and is overwhelmingly staffed by people of one political orientation, there were more channels, more ways to complain, open to the left (well, Democrats) than the right.

    The Daily Caller continues explaining the background to the Bureau’s own ‘election interference’ events:

    Roth’s revelations about the meetings with intelligence agencies are similar to those of Mark Zuckerberg, who said in August that Facebook censored the Hunter Biden story after federal law enforcement officials asked him to restrict “misinformation” and “Russian propaganda” ahead of the 2020 election.

    The FBI agent overseeing these weekly meetings was Supervisory Special Agent Elvis Chan, according to the NYP; however, Chan claimed not to recall whether the topic of Hunter Biden came up at these meetings in a deposition for a lawsuit filed by Republican attorneys general that alleged collusion to censor speech by federal agencies and Big Tech. Chan was also one of two FBI agents who met with Zuckerberg to warn him of potential Russian election interference before Facebook censored the story.

    However, while the FBI insinuated and influenced Twitter and Facebook and other platforms, like LinkedIn, indirectly to censor the laptop story, it never explicitly provided Big Tech any evidence or statement claiming officially that the laptop info was hacked.

    And this only makes Twitter’s decision more egregious.

    As the Daily Caller concludes:

    Taibbi tweeted an email indicating that Twitter’s trust and safety team initially explained to other employees that it made the decision to suppress the story — the company even went so far as to prevent it from being sent in private messages — because it violated Twitter’s policy for sharing “hacked materials.” Typically, such a ruling would require an official statement from law enforcement identifying the material as hacked, something that Twitter never received, according to Taibbi…

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

    Is Biden’s DOJ Out to Get Trump? Or Did Trump Do This to Himself?

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    3
    Photo via Gage Skidmore Flickr

    In an event unprecedented in American history, a former U.S. president, protected by U.S. Secret Service agents, and currently running for president, was booked on federal criminal charges Tuesday by U.S. Marshals at the U.S. federal courthouse in Miami, before being taken to be fingerprinted and processed.

    Donald Trump pled ‘not guilty’ to all charges.

    The charges relate to Trump taking a lot of highly classified documents from the White House after he left office. And once discovered, he gave multiple bizarre reasons for having them.

    According to the indictment, the highly sensitive materials Trump kept included documents about overseas nuclear weapons holdings and various military plans.

    But they are really all about the fact that he refused to turn many of them over for upwards of 18 months. And I have criticized Trump for doing that.

    So, did Hillary Clinton get treated differently? Of course! And is Joe Biden’s Department of Justice (DOJ) out to get Trump?

    Absolutely! That’s a given.

    But Trump could still have avoided all this had he behaved differently, before and after he got caught. And that’s important too.

    As with Richard Nixon and Watergate, it was about the cover up.

    The 37 charges against Trump include violations of the Espionage Act or the willful retention of national security information as well as one count of “conspiracy to obstruct justice,” one count of “withholding a document or record,” one count of “corruptly concealing a document or record,” one count of “concealing a document in a deferral investigation,” one count of “scheme to conceal” and one count of “false statements and representations.”

    Based on the evidence represented in the indictment, and from his own words and deeds, it seems that he did do most of the things he is accused of, despite the Team Trump calls that this is only a political prosecution.

    I have said before that Trump basically dared the Justice Department to come after him. And I still believe that had Trump simply turned over all the classified materials when they were first requested, this would have likely ended last year without any criminal proceedings.

    But Trump didn’t.

    The FBI then conducted a very showy surprise raid on the ex-president’s Florida home, Mar-a-Lago, on August 8, 2022. That raid, and the documents recovered there, eventually led to the 37-count indictment that now put Trump where he is.

    THE FBI RAID ON MAR-A-LAGO

    Many condemned the FBI raid that launched all this as unprecedented and wrong, including me. I argued that it sent a horrible message to the world and looked highly political. (As does the indictment, arrest, and potential trial).

    Apparently, the FBI had doubts about the raid as well.

    Steven D’Antuono, who left the FBI late last year, explained the FBI-DOJ disagreements over the planning and execution of the Mar-a-Lago search during an interview last week with the House Judiciary Committee.

    While he called the back-and-forth between DOJ and the FBI “an everyday discussion,” he noted that it still created “consternation” among the law enforcement officials, reported Politico.

    According to the interview transcripts reviewed by Politico, D’Antuono said DOJ wanted the FBI to quickly seize the classified documents from Mar-a-Lago, claiming they could fall into the wrong hands. But the FBI’s Washington Field Office team preferred to seek Trump’s permission, through his attorneys, to search the premises.

    The FBI even proposed a plan to surveil Mar-a-Lago in case Trump’s team tried taking any of the disputed papers offsite, according to D’Antuono.

    The FBI “had a plan in place to have surveillance around if we needed to,” he said.

    “Again, no one was there. So, if they brought in — they – meaning the [former] president’s, you know, people — brought in a big box truck, we would see it, right, and we would have the search warrant in hand and be able to act at that point.”

    In the end, DOJ got its way, and they conducted the surprise raid. Fortunately, Trump wasn’t there when it occurred. And that was at least something.

    “I didn’t want the spectacle for obvious reasons of why we’re sitting here today. … It’s a reputational risk, right, and that’s the way I looked at it from the Bureau,” reported Politico.

    Unfortunately, the FBI has still suffered a great deal of reputational risk, as has the DOJ under Biden. This all stinks as political.

    But Trump has played a big part in all this as well.

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

    Amanda Head: Another Trump Indictment

    By
    Amanda Head
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    5
    Donald Trump via Gage Skidmore Flickr

    The walls are closing in on Donald Trump.

    Will the former President have another indictment in the coming weeks over his alleged mishandling of classified documents after leaving the White House in 2021? It’s not looking good.

    Former President Donald Trump on Wednesday said he has not been told that he’s being indicted as a special counsel investigation into his handling of classified documents shows signs of wrapping up.

    “No one has told me I’m being indicted, and I shouldn’t be because I’ve done NOTHING wrong,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, adding that he has “assumed for years that I am a Target of the WEAPONIZED DOJ & FBI.”

    Watch Amanda explain the situation below:

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

    Senators Slam Liberal Scheme To House Illegal Aliens Instead Of Veterans

    By
    Donny Ferguson
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    5
    President Donald J. Trump participates in a roundtable discussion on immigration and border security at the U.S. Border Patrol Calexico Station Friday, April 5, 2019, in Calexico, Calif. (Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)

    A group of United States senators are sounding the alarm on an effort by President Joe Biden to give illegal aliens free taxpayer-funded housing while thousands of American veterans are homeless.

    To head off announced plans by the Biden administration to give free housing to illegal aliens, U.S. Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) introduced the Heroes Over Aliens Act to “prohibit the use of federal dollars to house illegal aliens in the United States when veterans remain homeless,.”

    “Veterans sacrificed for our country and deserve our thanks and support. The Heroes Over Aliens Act would prevent the Biden administration from prioritizing illegal immigrants over homeless heroes,” said Kennedy.

    Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) are cosponsoring the legislation.

    “With so many Americans, especially veterans, struggling thanks to Joe Biden’s failed economic policies, our country should not spend money housing the millions of migrants that his administration let cross our border. This bill will ensure that not a cent can be spent on shelter for illegal immigrants until our veterans are taken care of first,” said Cotton.

    “In Joe Biden’s America, illegal immigrants are prioritized over our veterans. As homelessness increases across the nation, it is unthinkable that taxpayer funds are used to house those who break the law instead of American heroes. It’s common sense to stop all federal funding for this offensive practice while there are still thousands of veterans living on the streets,” said Blackburn.

    “The Biden administration’s backwards border policies prioritize housing assistance for illegal aliens while neglecting homeless veterans. We must take care of each and every one of our own American heroes before using federal funds to house undocumented migrants,” said Cramer.

    The bill is in response to announced plans by the Biden administration to give illegal aliens housing at federal taxpayer expense, after some liberal cities and states have ordered hotels to give rooms to illegals and reportedly kicked out veterans and schoolchildren so government facilities can be used as illegal alien housing.

    “On June 12, 2023, August 21, 2023, and April 12, 2024, the Biden administration announced three separate actions to fund housing for immigrants—the majority of whom crossed the border illegally,” Kennedy’s office reports.

    “The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s 2023 Annual Homeless Assessment Report found that there were 35,574 homeless veterans living in the U.S.—a 7.4 percent increase from the previous report and the largest increase in 12 years,” Kennedy’s office adds.

    “The Biden administration’s open border policies have consumed federal and local resources and made it harder for states and localities to address veteran homelessness effectively,” Kennedy’s office concludes.

    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.

    Surge In Youth Mob Violence Reported Across US

    By
    Paul Crespo
    -
    7
    Police image via Pixabay free images

    ANALYSIS – The aftershocks from radical leftist movements, and the corresponding soft-on-crime approach of prosecutors across the country, is largely to blame for the current wave of lawlessness in many American cities.

    Sadly, it appears that most of the crime is being committed by mobs of teenagers in disadvantaged communities.

    I have recently written about the skyrocketing murder rate and carjackings in our nation’s capital here. I didn’t note then that much of that violent crime in Washington, D.C. is committed by young people. Some as young as 13.

    But frightening incidents of youth-led mob violence in two other cities graphically show how bad things really are.

    The Blaze reported that in what may be America’s most violent city: “Scores of thugs swarmed two Memphis gas stations over the weekend, stealing thousands of dollars of merchandise and destroying property. Looters also hit a 53-foot FedEx semi-trailer, stealing multiple packages.”

    Murders in Memphis are up 77% this year and on track to set an all-time city record.

    Some blame Steve Mulroy the city’s new soft-on crime Democrat district attorney, others, such as the mayor, blame soft-on crime courts. I would say it is likely both.

    Whichever is most to blame, James Davis, owner of L.R. Clothier, whose business was broken into early Sunday morning, said: “What this says to me is that people don’t fear any repercussions of their actions.”

    And that sums it up, as can be seen in the video below.

    The Blaze continued:

    Roughly $2,000 of items were stolen from the Exxon at 3483 Airways Boulevard. Over $15,000 of merchandise was taken from the Fill-N-Go gas station at 3084 South Third Street just hours later, where a clerk reported having a rifle pointed at him by a suspect. The mob is estimated to have inflicted $9,000 in damage at the second location.

    Footage of one of the incidents shows a mob of looters, some masked and others bare faced, ransacking a gas station and absconding with everything from candy to an electric sign. One hooded figure taking his time deciding which chocolate bars to load into his sagging pants can be seen carrying around a rifle. Another masked figure grabbing a handful of loot appears to be an adolescent girl.

    Clerks and paying customers look on in disbelief as the looters pilfer without any fear of consequence.

    The outlet added: “In what appears to have been a coordinated effort, drivers blocked a FedEx truck in the middle of Riverport Road and Mallory Avenue around 8:30 p.m., affording masked men an opportunity to break into the trailer and steal multiple packages.”

    But as scary as this ‘purge’ like behavior is in Memphis (referring to the movies where all crime, including murder, is allowed one day a year), the recent incident in Las Vegas is even worse.

    There a teenage boy, Jonathan Lewis Jr., was brutally beaten to death by 15 teens in broad daylight.

    Video of the brutal attack emerged on social media last week, showing the teen being savagely pummeled as he tried to run away.

    [His father, Jonathan] Lewis Sr. said he believes the deadly onslaught began after “Jonathan stood up for one of his smaller friends,” according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

    “A couple (of people) attacked him, and they weren’t able to hurt him enough, and they all attacked him at once,” the dad stated.

    Lewis Sr. remembered his son as a “loving, giving, kind, fierce young man who loved community and caring for others.” He added that “his son was an aspiring artist who was considering joining the military like his grandfather – who served in the U.S. Navy.”

    Another article in The Blaze noted that:

    While the victim’s family tries to process his death, others are puzzling over why this violent episode has not elicited the kind of national response other racially dichotomous incidents have in recent years.

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

    AP ‘Stylebook’ – How the Left Manipulates Abortion Language to Manipulate News

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    0
    Washington D.C., USA - January 22, 2015; A Pro-Life woman clashes with a group of Pro-Choice demonstrators at the U.S. Supreme Court.

    ANALYSIS – Most conservatives understand that one of the left’s major weapons in the war of ideas is manipulating language and using well-researched buzzwords and phrases to change reality and mask their more extreme ideas.

    We see it every day with the constant use of ‘gun violence’ rather than shooting or murder committed by a criminal. We see it with ‘global warming’ becoming ‘climate change’ when the facts don’t support the narrative.

    We also see it with the insanely deceptive and grotesque ‘gender-affirming care’ rather for genital-mutilating sex-change surgery.

    And of course, we see it in spades with abortion, where supporting the unrestricted killing of unborn babies in the womb becomes ‘reproductive health care rights,’ previously known as being ‘pro-choice.’

    The new term is far better politically since it appears to somehow be about rights and health, not deception and killing. Plus, ‘pro-choice’ has been thoroughly sullied by its accurate association with being ‘pro-abortion.’

    And we can’t have that.

    And now, since the Dobbs decision correctly returned the abortion issue to the states where it always belonged, the battle to control the language, and hence the narrative on abortion, is intensifying.

    And it just got a lot worse.

    The latest words and phrases chosen by the left to describe or refer to abortion fly in the face of fact and science.

    But the leftist language warriors are now being reinforced by the power behind the news media – the Associated Press—and its widely used ‘Stylebook.’

    The Daily Signal reports:

    The Associated Press recently released a guide for news outlets for reporting on abortion that’s so biased in favor of the procedure, its guidance often runs contrary to medical science. The new guide has the ability to significantly distort how Americans perceive the abortion issue.

    The AP’s “Abortion Topical Guide” is part of the widely used “AP Stylebook” that many outlets across the country, including The Daily Signal, use as a guide for everything from grammar to punctuation to best practices for terms and phrasing.

    One glaring problem among many? The guide frequently cites the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists to back up its guidance. ACOG claims to be the premier professional membership organization of OB-GYNs. But on the issue of abortion—a procedure that most OB-GYNs don’t perform—ACOG is wholly committed to lobbying for extreme abortion policies that don’t reflect its membership’s views.

    In typical Orwellian fashion, the leftists at AP cudgel writers into referring to an unborn child’s “heartbeat,” which is detectable via ultrasound from the very early stages of life to the deliberately bland and mostly meaningless term “cardiac activity.”

    The Stylebook also inappropriately enters the scientific realm as self-made medical experts when it advises writers not to refer to unborn children as “pain-capable” until after at least 24 weeks.

    This, even though the beloved doctors who actually perform surgeries on ‘preemies,’ or premature babies in utero, regularly use anesthesia for those babies under 24 weeks because they feel pain.

    The AP’s demonic advice also contradicts the massive, and growing, body of research showing unborn babies can feel pain at just 15 weeks or even earlier.

    And most importantly, the Stylebook admonishes writers to never, ever use the accurate but uncomfortable phrase – ‘late-term abortion.’

    Polls show a solid majority of Americans are opposed to late-term abortions, so best to religiously (pun intended) avoid the term.

    The Daily Signal concludes:

    The AP guide misses the mark throughout. Of course, that’s inevitable when the goal is not objective reporting of fact but rather promoting pro-abortion propaganda. Try as the AP might, it’s a fool’s errand to put lipstick on a pig.

    I go further by saying AP is part of the left’s far-flung language-distorting media empire intended to manipulate words, in order to manipulate news, in order to manipulate you.

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

    Marines Urged by Woke Study to Use Gender-Neutral Terms in Boot Camp

    By
    Paul Crespo
    -
    8

    ANALYSIS – In the most glaring example of wokeness in the military, which the Marine Commandant recently claimed wasn’t an issue in our beloved Corps, jarheads are being urged not to use sir or ma’am in Marine boot camp.

    According to the Marine Corps Times, this is seen as part of a sweeping effort to avoid ‘misgendering’ drill instructors. This is something all Marines know has been a huge and pressing issue at boot camp for decades, as we have so many non-binary and trans drill instructors.

    Please note my sarcasm.

    The recommendation is part of a massive, recently completed, 738-page academic report from the University of Pittsburgh, which was commissioned by the Corps in 2020.

    Instead of sir or ma’am the 22 University of Pittsburgh Academics that concocted the study – headed by biologists Bradley C. Nindl and Mita Lovalekar, recommend aspiring privates call their superiors by their last names. 

    The study notes that other military branches have made strides to “de-emphasize gender” by using other names instead. 

    The Marine Corps Times reports:

    Instead of saying ‘ma’am’ or ‘sir,’ recruits in these Services refer to their drill instructors using their ranks or roles followed by their last names. Gendered identifiers prime recruits to think about or visually search for a drill instructor’s gender first, before their rank or role.

    The far-left report is riddled with other woke ideas and includes a detailed study on improving gender integration at boot camp.

    One important figure who thankfully appeared hesitant about this gender-neutral proposal was Col. Howard Hall, chief of staff for Marine Corps Training and Education Command.

    Hall and others maintain that even if the Corps implements the change at its training facilities, recruits will then need to re-adapt to again addressing senior officers by ‘sir’ or ‘ma’am’ when they enter the fleet, as Marines in the real world would likely not enforce the rule.

     Hall told the Marine Corps Times, in slightly mangled terms, and some big words:

    Honestly, that’s not a quick fix. What are inculcating in our young recruits that will or will not be reinforced when they graduate and enter the fleet Marine force? So again, we want to avoid any quick-fix solutions that introduce perturbations down the line.

    And yes, while we all want to avoid ‘perturbations’ down the line, more importantly we want to avoid sheer idiocy right now.

    Maybe our Marine officers should learn to be blunter.

    This study also shows why the military needs to stop relying so much on outside consultants and academics, and their idiotic, ideologically-driven studies, to guide its policies.

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

    Alec Baldwin Charged with Involuntary Manslaughter over ‘Rust’ Movie Set Shooting

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    2

    ANALYSIS – From the day cinematographer Halyna Hutchins was shot and killed on the set of the movie Rust, on Oct. 21, 2021, there has been a flurry of speculation over whether anyone would be criminally charged.

    Hutchins was killed when a live round was fired from a real ‘prop’ gun being held by liberal actor Alec Baldwin.

    Well, now the speculation is over, and Baldwin will be charged.

    He has always denied responsibility, saying the replica old west revolver should have had dummy bullets and that he never pulled the trigger.

    On the first point, Baldwin is correct; on the second, he is less convincing.

    The set armorer is responsible for ensuring gun safety. And there was no reason for live rounds to be on a movie set. Period.

    Much less mixed in with dummy rounds.

    The armorer certainly is responsible if not culpable. And a big question is why live rounds were on the set and mixed in with dummy rounds and who put them there.

    But experts have shown that Baldwin’s claim of not firing the gun doesn’t wash.

    It is physically impossible for this type of gun to fire without the trigger being pulled and/or the hammer dropped.

    Beyond his immediate possible culpability as the man who ‘fired’ the gun, Baldwin was also a producer of the low-budget Western film.

    After the shooting numerous current and former crew members from the film publicly claimed that safety was extremely lax, and formal complaints had been made and ignored about those safety concerns.

    The shooting occurred while rehearsing a scene inside a wooden chapel on Bonanza Creek Ranch in New Mexico.

    This is a popular western location seen in the likes of Jimmy Stewart’s 1955 “The Man from Laramie” and Paul Newman and Robert Redford’s 1969 “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.”

    As the crew worked out positions for the scene, Baldwin, playing a grizzled 1880s Kansas outlaw, fired a live round from an Italian-made Pietta Long Colt revolver replica – the bullet passed through Hutchins’ chest and lodged in director Joel Souza’s shoulder.

    Hutchins died in a flight to the hospital in Albuquerque, while Souza was later discharged from the hospital.

    In April 2022, the producers, including Baldwin, were fined $136,793 by the New Mexico Occupational Health and Safety Bureau, which said: “management knew that firearm safety procedures were not being followed on set and demonstrated plain indifference to employee safety.”

    A wrongful death lawsuit was then filed against Alec Baldwin and other key members of the production in Feb. 2022.

    The lawsuit named Baldwin and others who “are responsible for the safety on the set” and called out “reckless behavior and cost-cutting” that led to the death of Hutchins, according to the family’s lawyer.

    The lawsuit also claimed that Baldwin and other “Rust” crew and cast committed “major breaches” of safety on the set.

    That lawsuit was later settled.

    But Baldwin’s legal woes continue as he is now being hit with two counts of involuntary manslaughter over the shooting.

    Hannah Gutierrez Reed, the film’s young and inexperienced armorer, will also be charged with two counts of involuntary manslaughter.

    Meanwhile, assistant director Dave Halls who handed the gun to Baldwin prior to the shooting signed a plea agreement for a charge of the negligent use of a deadly weapon.

    In return, he received a suspended sentence and six months of probation, according to the district attorney.

    If Baldwin is convicted, he could be facing up to 18 months in prison.

    “Involuntary manslaughter in New Mexico is a Class D felony punishable by up to 18 months in prison,” former Assistant U.S. Attorney Neama Rahmani explained to Fox News Digital. “If Baldwin is convicted, I can see him being sentenced at or near the max.”

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

    More Media Company Layoffs

    By
    Amanda Head
    -
    1

    More media companies are feeling the pinch…

    Watch Amanda explain the situation:

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

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