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    Trump Dominates GOP Presidential Rivals as Biden Approval Tanking

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    4
    Donald Trump via Gage Skidmore Flickr

    ANALYSIS – Even as the indictments pile up, or maybe because of them, a new national NBC News poll finds former President Donald Trump expanding his national lead in the Republican presidential nominating contest to 43 points over his nearest rival, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

    Trump leads the first-choice field with 59% of national Republican primary voters. In comparison, Ron DeSantis gets support from 16% — followed by former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley at 7% and former Vice President Mike Pence at 4%.

    The poll also includes an all-time high disapproval of Joe Biden’s job performance. Fewer than 4 in 10 voters (37%) approve of his handling of the economy. This is huge.

    As NBC News reported: 

    Deeper inside those numbers, Biden is underwater among voters between the ages of 18 and 34 (46% of them approve of his job performance), all women (46%), Latinos (43%) and independents (36%).

    What’s more, the NBC News poll finds 37% of voters approve of Biden’s handling of the economy, and 41% approve of his handling of foreign policy.

    Biden is also taking a big hit for his open borders policy and unprecedented waves of illegal immigration on his watch, as also shown by a recent The Washington Post-ABC News poll. 

    Axios noted: 

    “A variety of factors may be at play,” [ABC News’ Gary] Langer writes in his analysis. “Biden’s poor performance ratings, the extent of economic discontent, the immigration crisis and doubts about his age clearly are relevant.”

    Axios added: “In the Post-ABC poll, 44% said they’re worse off — the most for any president in the poll since… 1986, ABC News’ Gary Langer said in his poll analysis.”

    “In NBC, Biden’s disapproval rating is the highest of his term for that poll.”

    NBC News also noted that: “Another 60% have major concerns (45%) or moderate concerns (15%) about Biden’s possible awareness or involvement in the business dealings of his son, Hunter, including alleged financial wrongdoing and corruption.”

    “This [NBC] survey is a startling flashing red light for an incumbent party,” said Republican pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies. McInturff conducted the September 15-19 poll with Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt and his team at Hart Research Associates.

    “Yes, the numbers for Biden aren’t where he needs them to be,” said Horwitt. However, Trump and Republicans have challenges, such as the GOP front-runner’s unpopularity with the general electorate.

    Most polls show that both Trump and Biden have high unfavorability going into a general election.

    NBC News reported: “Three-quarters of voters say they’re concerned about President Joe Biden’s age and mental fitness, while nearly two-thirds have concerns about the multiple trials former President Donald Trump faces, a new national NBC News poll finds, casting a gloomy shadow over the upcoming 2024 presidential election.”

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

    Mexico’s Hosts Russian and Chinese Military Units in Independence Parade

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    3
    Kremlin.ru, via Wikimedia Commons

    ANALYSIS – In the ‘what the h*ll are you thinking’ category – a contingent of Russian soldiers marched in the annual Mexican Independence Day parade over the weekend. 

    Russian troops had participated before, but not since Moscow launched its war of aggression against Ukraine.

    This year marked 213 years since the end of Spanish rule in Mexico. 

    And even as deadly fentanyl precursor ingredients are entering Mexico, to then be made into the deadly drug and flood the U.S., a Communist Chinese military honor guard from the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) also marched alongside Mexican troops.

    The presence of the Russian troops drew criticism because of the Russia’s brutal invasion of its neighbor. Mexico, which has long harbored bitterness against the United States for intervening militarily in Mexico in the 1800s, has condemned Russia’s invasion but has adopted a policy of ‘neutrality’ and has refused to participate in sanctions.

    Populist socialist Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obrador (known as AMLO) noted that a contingent from China also participated. “All the countries that Mexico has diplomatic relations with were invited,” he said.

    AMLO admitted the issue had become “a scandal,” but blamed it on the news media being against him.

    Ukraine’s Ambassador to Mexico, Oksana Dramaretska, posted online that “The civic-military parade in Mexico City was stained by the participation of a Russian regiment; the boots and hands of these war criminals are stained with blood.”

    But this is only the latest Russian flirtation by AMLO.

    As Arturo Sarukhan writes in his commentary for Brookings: “…it would seem that some in Mexico, unwittingly, or wittingly, seem intent on opening a ‘second front’ for Moscow from there.”

    What’s behind all of this? Given that Mexico trades in two days with the United States what it trades in a whole year with Russia, ideology seems to be paramount. The traditional left in Mexico — and throughout Latin America in general — tend to support policies that push back against “Western imperialism” but is also skeptical of liberalism and what it perceives as its institutions and stakeholders, which — like many authoritarian regimes — it considers to be tools of Western values and hegemony. 

    It should therefore come as no surprise that the Mexican left is inclined to swallow and regurgitate Russian disinformation and propaganda (“NATO aggression,” “denazification of Ukraine”), see sanctions as another form of “imperialism” and an attempt to corner Russia, and resort to RT and Sputnik as sources of valid information.

    The Kremlin, creating a contrast with U.S. troops on Russia’s borders, has also asked frequently, if rhetorically, what if Russian troops were stationed across the border in Mexico?

    Maybe this is one way for Moscow to make that point. But there is more to the story.

    As ABC News reported:

    Some members of López Obrador’s Morena party have publicly expressed affection for Russia even after the invasion, and López Obrador has frequently criticized the United States for sending arms to Ukraine.

    López Obrador’s administration has continued to buy Russia’s Sputnik COVID vaccine and intends to use it as a booster shot later this year, along with Cuba’s Abdala vaccine.

    Experts have questioned the use of those vaccines, along with Mexico’s own Patria vaccine, as a booster for new variants, because all of them were designed in 2020 to combat variants circulating at the time.

    Mexico would rather buy old and likely ineffective vaccines from Russia, than be on better terms with the United States. Under AMLO Mexico is also a helpful tool for Moscow in other ways.

    As Sarukhan wrote:

    …Viktor Koronelli, Russia’s ambassador to Mexico, who said during the recent launching of the Mexico-Russia friendship caucus that “Mexico will never join anti-Russian sanctions” and that “across the world, there are countries like China, like India, like Mexico, that will never say ‘Yes, Sir’ to Uncle Sam’s orders.”

    Despite all this Russian bravado and bluster, I would be just as concerned, or more so, about the Chinese military presence in the parade.  As AMLO noted, a contingent from  China also participated, and no one complained about that.

    But China’s influence in Mexico is likely far more significant than Russia’s, and far more threatening to the United States.

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

    Amanda Head: Tim Allen Masterfully Strong-Arms Disney Into Christian Content

    By
    Amanda Head
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    0

    Tim Allen is reprising his beloved role as Santa Claus in Disney’s latest Christmas series. The original 1994 “The Santa Clause” movie saw massive success and Allen went on to play the role for two more movies. However, Allen says that he had some big conditions for Disney before returning to the iconic role for the new series- one of them being Disney must incorporate Christianity into the show.

    Watch Amanda break down the situation below:

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

    ‘Target’ Woke Companies and Huge Investment Firms Behind Them

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    3
    Marcha del orgullo en Paraná, Entre Ríos, Argentina. Noviembre de 2021 via Wikimedia commons

    ANALYSIS – ‘Go woke – Go Broke’ – The saga of Budweiser and Target’s disastrous forays into transgender politics is great for conservatives, and all Americans. 

    It shows how national grassroots pressure can force giant woke companies to lose billions of dollars in a matter of weeks.

    But more importantly, it shows us other ways to fight back. To truly force change we have to effectively leverage these boycotts and go way beyond them. 

    We need to go after the behemoth investment firms that push and incentivize these corporations to go even more woke.

    Elon Musk just hinted at the next battleground – courtrooms. 

    Referring to Target’s decision to sell LGBT-themed items and clothing aimed at families and kids (including ‘onesies’ for toddlers and books instructing kids on using transgender pronouns), and the ensuing financial backlash, Musk said Friday that it’s just a matter of time before Target faces lawsuits for “destruction of shareholder value.”

    “Won’t be long before there are class-action lawsuits by shareholders against the company and board of directors for the destruction of shareholder value,” he tweeted.

    Musk made the remarks in response to a tweet by conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who posted about JPMorgan downgrading Target’s stock after suffering its longest consecutive drop in decades.

    Kirk replied by saying that shareholders should organize to get politics out of the “hyperpolitical” corporations of today.

    And that is exactly what should be done. 

    Conservatives should also consider buying just one share of each offending company to give them legal rights as shareholders. And then take the companies to court.

    These lawsuits won’t just put the offending companies on notice, but their huge investment firm backers too.

    A big factor encouraging brands to promote transgender ideologies is an attempt to score points on lefty environmental, social, and governance (ESG) standards that are being foisted on organizations all over the country. 

    And this is a product of leftist political pressures and aggressively activist investment firms.

    During an appearance on Fox News, Anson Frericks, an ex-top Anheuser-Busch executive, said that quiet pressure from huge investment firms like New York-based BlackRock and Pennsylvania-based Vanguard is behind many of the controversial decisions by the woke companies they are heavily invested in.

    He noted that BlackRock, Vanguard, and another firm, State Street, manage about $20 trillion in capital and use their power to promote leftist political agendas.

    However, it’s also not necessarily coming from the investment firms organically, since they too are being pressured by progressive lawmakers overseeing giant government pension funds that the investment firms profit from.

    These hyper-politicized monster government pension funds are the ones really calling the shots.

    One of the huge investment firms mentioned earlier, manages California’s massive pension fund — the country’s biggest — and California’s leftist politicians have a big say in the corporate governance and politics of the firms the fund invests in, Frericks noted.

    “In California, for example, they recently have mandated those large pension funds [sic] that they divest from things like fossil fuels and oil and gas…”

    “But they also tell BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard if they’re going to manage their money, they have to commit to things like ESG — diversity, equity, inclusion — and adopt firm-wide commitments that they therefore then force onto all the major companies in corporate America,” he added.

    So, we need to find ways to limit the power and influence of these monstrous and highly politicized government pension funds that use taxpayer funds to push radical agendas.

    We should also note that this isn’t just a conservative issue. Erin Elmore at Turning Point USA, reported The Epoch Times, argued that calls to boycott Target are “not necessarily conservative.”

    Instead, she said, “it’s common sense. Most parents don’t support satanists or little boys wearing girls’ bathing suits,” she tweeted on May 28.

    This isn’t a conservative-liberal thing. It’s an American thing.

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

    Amanda Head: Brutal Polls Numbers Are In For Biden!

    By
    Amanda Head
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    1
    Photo via Gage Skidmore Flickr

    Democrats didn’t expect it to be this bad…

    Weeks after Joe Biden announced his re-election campaign and pollsters are already showing massive red flags.]

    Watch Amanda explain the situation below:

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

    Trump’s Much-Needed ‘Radical’ Second Term Agenda

    By
    Paul Crespo
    -
    3
    Gage Skidmore Flickr

    ANALYSIS – Former President Donald Trump is thinking bigly. In his bid to return to the Oval Office, Trump and his allies have promised a sweeping transformation of the federal government.

    And while the left and their mass media puppets decry these plans as radical, they are mostly a much-needed corrective after four years of truly extreme and disastrous Biden policies.

    If he returns to the White House in 2024, Trump is planning to root­ out polit­ical foes (dismantle the hyper political and leftist ‘deep state’), deport millions of illegal migrants who have invaded the U.S. under Joe Biden, slap tar­iffs on imports and scal­e back involvement in over­seas wars.

    I’m hoping that the last pledge doesn’t mean misguided global retreats, but instead ‘recalibrating’ to force NATO allies to do more in Europe, while we focus on China, for example.

    And though no longer talking about a ‘wall,’ Trump says he would “fully secure” the southern border, ending mass unskilled illegal immigration through Mexico.

    Trump’s allies are also working on executive orders and studying the Constitution in anticipation of legal challenges.

    As CNN reported:

    The goal is to have executive orders prepared – on everything from immigration to the removal of government protections for civil servants – for Trump to sign on day one of a potential second administration.

    Meanwhile, ‘Project 2025’, a significant effort run by the conservative Heritage Foundation, has brought many of these groups together to “pave the way for an effective conservative administration.”

    Trump’s plan includes asserting more White House control over the Department of Justice (DOJ), which he says he would use to pursue his relentlessly weaponized persecutors, plus reigning in the increasingly politicized FBI and Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

    The former president has also promised to issue pardons to “a large portion” of the nonviolent rioters jailed after the January 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol. Too many of them have received obscenely long sentences for minor, nonviolent crimes.

    And he isn’t giving Biden a pass. CNN noted:

    “I will appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the United States of America, Joe Biden, and the entire Biden crime family,” Trump also said in June after his arraignment in Florida.

    “I will totally obliterate the Deep State.”

    One of Trump’s more sweeping, and welcome, proposals is ‘Agenda 47’: The large-scale arrest, detention, and mass deportation of illegal immigrants. Trump also plans to end automatic citizenship for children born to illegal migrants.

    Additionally, Trump vows to revive many of his effective first-term immigration policies to restrict both legal and illegal immigration – including reinstating and expanding a travel ban on predominantly-Muslim countries.

    He has also vowed to designate deadly Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs) and to impose the death penalty at the federal level on drug dealers and human traffickers.

    But there’s more. As Barrons reported:

    Trump says he would also deploy the National Guard “to restore law and order” in liberal cities and would investigate “radical Marxist prosecutors” refusing to punish disorder.

    Trump has weighed in on most of the so-called “culture war” issues that polarize Americans, from abortion, transgender rights and gun control to the teaching of America’s racist history.

    The candidate says he would crack down on doctors providing gender-affirming care to minors and “pink haired communists” pushing critical race theory or “inappropriate” political material in schools.

    Trump would also create a new tax credit, he said, to reimburse teachers for concealed carry firearms and training…

    While some of these plans do hold the potential for abuse, the current system is already being abused in an unprecedented manner. 

    To quote the Joker played by Jack Nicholson in the 1989 Batman movie: “this town needs an enema.” And Trump may be the one providing it.

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

    Gen. Milley Surrenders on Chinese Nuke Buildup – Instead, Let’s ‘Bankrupt China’

    By
    Paul Crespo
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    7
    Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III, Army Gen. Mark A. Milley, chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff; and Under Secretary of Defense (Comptroller) Michael J. McCord provide testimony at a Senate Armed Services Committee budget hearing, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C., March 28, 2023. (DoD photo by Chad J. McNeeley)

    ANALYSIS – Déjà vu all over again. Just like the establishment back in the 1960s and 1970s facing a massive Soviet nuke buildup, Team Biden and his top general Mark Milley, are simply throwing their hands up in despair.

    “We are probably not going to be able to do anything to stop, slow down, disrupt, interdict, or destroy the Chinese nuclear development program that they have projected out over the next 10 to 20 years,” said the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff recently at a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee. 

    “They’re going to do that in accordance with their own plan.”

    Sound familiar?

    Yes, this is the same top general who has overseen a cascade of woke policies at the Pentagon and thought the Capitol riot was about “white rage.”

    Well, under (sometimes) conservative president Richard Nixon and his Machiavellian national security advisor, Henry Kissinger, the U.S. stopped our nuke arms race so the Soviets could catch.

    Jimmy Carter then bent over backward to appease the USSR. According to our establishment ‘nuclear luminaries’ then, nuclear parity was more stable than U.S. superiority.

    Is Joe Biden hoping to do the same with China now? If not, Milley needs to wake up.

    At least one expert believes America can do something to slow down the rapid rise of China’s war machine, and it doesn’t involve us unilaterally surrendering.

    Gordon Chang, a respected academic, China hawk, and the author of The Coming Collapse of China, argues that economic warfare is America’s trump card (no pun intended).

    His advice, similar to Ronald Reagan’s approach against the Soviet empire, is simply – “bankrupt China”.

    Chang writes in The Daily Caller:

    Milley is wrong about China’s nuclear weapons ambitions. He is, unfortunately, expressing the same pessimism that pervaded the Nixon, Ford and Carter years, when the American foreign policy establishment took the Soviet Union as a given and therefore promoted détente.

    America can stop China’s nuclear weapons development and other monumental programs. The Chinese Communist Party needs America for, among other things, money, and the U.S. does not have to provide it.

    Like Reagan and the Soviets before him, Chang focuses on the severe economic conditions plaguing the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) that are hiding in plain sight.

    While in hindsight we all now accept that the USSR was a third world country with a huge military, few see analogies with the modern, vibrant and growing Chinese economy. One that is allegedly either equal to, or rapidly closing in on, the United States.

    But many argue China’s economy is a house of cards. Specifically, Chang identifies China’s lack of cash, or liquidity.

    He quotes Gregory Copley, the president of the International Strategic Studies Association and editor-in-chief of Defense & Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy as saying: 

    “The one resource which Xi Jinping’s ambition has overreached is cash. Beijing cannot, in the short term, provide the cash needed to dominate the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and other places.”

    Chang adds: “The fundamental problem for the audacious Chinese ruler is that China’s economic growth is stumbling. China’s official National Bureau of Statistics reported that gross domestic product last year grew 3.0%, well below the regime’s announced target of ‘around 5.5%.’”

    This is especially salient as the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has been steadily taking much larger slices of the Chinese economic pie. Last year, China’s military budget, according to official sources, increased 7.1% while the economy, ‘officially,’ grew only 3.0%.

    The reality is likely far less.

    The PLA needs more cash to keep growing. But the Chinese economy isn’t growing nearly fast enough, if at all. 

    That’s China’s dilemma, and its Achilles heel.

    Chang goes on to describe myriad factors in China’s economic stagnation, before issuing his verdict: “In sum, the Chinese economy is anemic.”

    “China, therefore, needs factory orders from abroad and foreign investment.”

    He then makes his case for economic warfare against Beijing: “The American president can crimp both of these lifelines by, among other things, using his authority under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 and by joining or liberalizing free-trade agreements with other countries.”

    He adds a few other policy proposals to hit Beijing where it hurts – its pocketbook.

    They may not have an immediate impact, but with a little time, they will hold China back.

    Chang writes:

    In the short term, therefore, China can afford its nukes, but the budget of the Chinese central government is strained because of Xi Jinping’s other grand ambitions, such as his building and maintaining an enormous surveillance state — this costs more than the Chinese military — and his Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) worldwide infrastructure-building program.

    The China hawk notes: “Xi has diverted the state’s resources for nuclear weapons. He can do that for a time, but soon the cash will run out.”

    Chang concludes: “So here is a message for General Milley: There is a lot America can do to stop China’s fast buildup of its most dangerous arsenal, and in any case Americans must not under any circumstances fund, with trade and investment, the weapons pointed at them.”

    “President Ronald Reagan bankrupted the Soviet Union by reducing the flow of cash to Moscow. It is now time to bankrupt China.”

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

    Amanda Head: Hugh Jackman Goes Insanely Woke

    By
    Amanda Head
    -
    0

    Another Hollywood hero has gone woke!

    “X-Men” Actor and Broadway performer Hugh Jackman says that gender-specific awards are a thing of the past!

    Watch Amanda explain the newest controversy below:

    Biden’s Disgraced ‘Non-Binary’ Nuke Official Led Anti-Christian Hate Group

    By
    Paul Crespo
    -
    0

    ANALYSIS – Yes, all this transgender stuff is related. First, we have the Los Angeles Dodgers inviting, disinviting, and then re-inviting, the drag-queen, anti-Christian hate group ‘Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence’ (SPI) – to be honored at their June opening game. 

    The Dodgers and Major League Baseball (MLB) caved to the intense pressure to re-invite them by far-left Democrat groups. 

    Second, we have Sam Brinton, a cross-dressing, self-identified “nonbinary” man, with an open bondage ‘pup play,’ fetish, who I have also written about here, here, and here, due to his numerous arrests for airport luggage and designer women’s clothes theft. 

    Brinton served as Joe Biden’s Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Office of Spent Fuel and Waste Disposition before his first couple of arrests made him resign from his sensitive position last year. 

    But this is where it all gets even weirder. Or maybe expected.

    The flamboyant group of gay men who dress garishly as caricatures of Catholic nuns, regularly mocks and ridicules Catholics, and Christianity in general. 

    They often perform lewd semi-nude pornographic shows displaying their anti-Christian hate.

    This includes pole-dancing on a cross with a man on it representing a crucified Jesus. The group’s mission is to attack Christianity and Christians. It has very little to do with LGBT ‘Pride.’

    Yet, the ‘City of Angels’ baseball team will now present this ‘demonic’ hate group with a “Community Hero Award” for LGBT ‘Pride’ month.

    This has created a firestorm of protest. You can go to my earlier article to see how you can show your outrage. 

    Meanwhile, Team Biden initially hailed the pick of Brinton for the sensitive nuke position as a pioneering move for ‘nonbinary gender-fluid’ people (i.e., totally made up, nonexistent, genders).

    Sadly, in this case, ‘gender fluid’ also meant liking to steal women’s clothing.

    Brinton was recently arrested as a fugitive from justice in Maryland following similar larceny in Minneapolis and Las Vegas. A lawyer for a Tanzanian fashion designer said the theft dated back to 2018 and was related to his client’s baggage that contained custom designs.

    But what makes it all come together in an even more concerning manner, is that Brinton was also apparently a leader of the D.C. chapter of the ‘Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.’ He used the nuclear-themed name ‘Sister Ray Dee O’Active.’ 

    This, according to tax filings reviewed by Fox News.

    National Review reports:

    As the head of the D.C. Sisters, Brinton reportedly organized various events, including drag brunches, White House protests, and even a “high heel race.” He was also present at a San Francisco Easter gathering of the Sisters in 2019. As described in a Mission Local report, the event included children among the attendees, raising questions about the appropriateness of exposing them to the group’s provocative activities.

    In 2015 Brinton also wrote an op-ed that defended a ‘Rent boy’ website after it was shut down by federal agents. ‘Rent boy’ refers to young boys who are paired up with older men for sexual services, so the website essentially trafficked young, vulnerable boys as escorts.

    So, yes, this cabal of bizarre, Christian-hating, transgender sexual fetishists who have Easter-themed drag shows for children, and are ok trafficking young boys for sex, are apparently a growing force in Democrat politics now. 

    One big remaining question is – how did this guy pass a background security check?

    Fox News contributor Joe Concha and host Rachel Campos Duffy each asked on a recent show how being the leader of the ‘Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence’ DC chapter could have been ‘overlooked’ when Brinton underwent a background check for the sensitive, and fairly high level, nuclear-waste job.

    Being part of an extremist hate group and being a borderline sex trafficker should disqualify you from a clearance. 

    But apparently under Team Biden only traditional Catholics are considered extremists. Catholic-hating cross-dressers and pedophiles are just fine.

    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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