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This Man Stole Trump’s Tax Returns And Illegally Leaked Them. So Why Is DOJ Letting Him Off Easy?

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Donald Trump via Gage Skidmore Flickr

A former IRS consultant who stole the tax returns of President Donald Trump and thousands of wealthy individuals, then leaked them to liberal media outlets to campaign for tax hikes, has pleaded guilty to a single count of “unauthorized disclosure of tax return and return information,” despite confessing in court to committing the crime thousands of times.

The decision to charge Charles Littlejohn with a single minor crime, while seeking decades in prison for Trump and many of his supporters, has many claiming it is yet another example of a politicized Justice Department.

Littlejohn faces a maximum of five years in prison, but will almost certainly serve far less than that, if any, time.

Littlejohn used his access to confidential information to steal the tax returns of Trump and wealthy individuals, often saving the electronic files to personal devices like an iPad, then leaking the documents to the New York Times and the liberal activist outlet ProPublica.

The illegal leaks set off a feeding frenzy in the media, who used the illicit disclosures to attack Trump and falsely campaign for tax hikes.

The DOJ’s decision to give Littlejohn a sweetheart plea deal, while targeting Trump supporters with harsh charges, has some in Congress calling out what they see as a biased and two-tier justice system.

“The defendant admitted to making two separate disclosures to two separate news outlets impacting over a thousand taxpayers, and further admitted to impeding or obstructing the investigation — yet the Department of Justice inexplicably only pursued one count of unauthorized disclosure,” the House Committee on Ways and Means Committee fumed in a statement.

“Ways and Means Committee Republicans have pushed federal investigators for years to get to the bottom of who stole and leaked the taxpayer information of thousands of Americans – including those of former President Donald Trump. Finally, the thief has been identified, charged, and now has pled guilty to this unprecedented crime,” said Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo.).

“Unfortunately, the Department of Justice elected to charge only one count despite the more than a thousand disclosures he admitted to in open court. To restore trust in the justice system and the IRS – and to deter future thefts – there need to be significant consequences for this type of illegal, politically motivated activity,” Smith added.

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

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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.

Are Liberals Using Tax Exempt Groups To Promote Terrorism?

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Image via Pixabay free images

A top congressional chairman is leaning on the Internal Revenue Service to revoke the tax-exempt status of several left-wing or Islamist organizations for actively supporting deadly Islamist terrorist activity.

The U.S. House Ways and Means announced in a statement that Committee Chairman Jason Smith (MO-08) is calling on the IRS to “revoke the tax-exempt status of multiple organizations previously referred by the Ways and Means Committee for failing to operate within their stated tax-exempt purpose.

“The letter coincide(ed) with the anniversary of the October 7th terrorist attack on Israel and targets organizations with links to designated foreign terrorist groups, as well as organizations linked to violence and unrest in the United States,” the Committee reports.

“Chairman Smith previously demanded then-IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel revoke the tax-exempt status of eight organizations with ties to Hamas and terror-linked organizations, as well as entities fueling antisemitic protests on U.S. college campuses and violence in the U.S.

In the letter to the IRS, Chairman Smith wrote: “We write to request that the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) prioritize examinations into the tax-exempt status of tax-exempt organizations previously referred to the IRS for revocation during the 118th Congress. In light of the anniversary of the October 2023 violent attack on Israel, along with recent acts of political violence and the continued disruptive activities of previously identified organizations that have been sowing chaos in the United States and have links to designated foreign terrorist groups, it is imperative that action is taken to ensure tax-exempt groups are operating within their tax-exempt purpose.”

Smith’s letter continues, “From the international funding sources and activities of tax-exempt entities in the U.S., and the role of certain organizations in fostering antisemitism on college campuses, the Committee has remained steadfast in ensuring that all tax-exempt organizations are abiding by their exempt status.  In September 2024, the Committee on Ways and Means (“the Committee”) sent seven letters to the IRS requesting that the IRS investigate and revoke the tax-exempt status of the referenced organizations, while also highlighting the tax-exempt organizations’ ties to Foreign Terrorist Organizations, support of illegal activity in America, and failure to operate for stated exempt purposes.  Some of the organizations, such as Americans for Justice in Palestine Educational Foundation, American Muslims for Palestine, and Islamic Relief USA, are suspected of having terrorist ties to groups like Hamas, using those ties to actively support and funnel resources in support of terrorism. Other groups like the Alliance for Global Justice, WESPAC Foundation, and Tides Foundation instead fiscally sponsor projects that disrupt college campuses, incite violence and intimidation, and illegal riot across the United States—prominent projects include Students for Justice in Palestine and Samidoun. Together, this evidence strongly supported referring the groups to the IRS for revocation of their tax-exempt status.”

The committee notes “organizations for which Chairman Smith is renewing referral for revocation of tax-exempt status include: Americans for Justice in Palestine Educational Foundation, American Muslims for Palestine, Islamic Relief USA, Alliance for Global Justice, WESPAC Foundation, Tides Foundation, Peoples Media Project (also known as The Palestine Chronicle), and The People’s Forum.”

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Great America News Desk. 

After Brutal Poll, Top Obama Advisor Suggests Biden Drop Out of Race

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Photo via Gage Skidmore Flickr

ANALYSIS Are Democrats wetting their beds about Joe Biden? As I wrote about earlier, even the New York Times (NYT) is admitting Biden is losing in the polls to Donald Trump in five key electoral states. 

And David Axelrod, chief strategist for Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns, and a senior advisor to the former president Obama, is sending a message to the elderly Biden – “this is your last chance – get out now.”

This is one of Obama’s top advisors, so it seems like a veiled message from the ex-president himself to Biden that it’s time to quit. We will likely hear this chorus to grow among Democrat movers and shakers.

As reported by The Hill:

When questioned about his comments Monday, Axelrod told CNN that it’s a good time for Biden to check if he should keep up his campaign. Sunday marked one year before the election.

“As I’ve said for like a couple years now, the issue’s not — for him, is not political, it’s actuarial. You can see that in this poll and there’s just a lot of concern about the age issue, and that is something I think he needs to ponder. Just do a check and say, ‘Is this the right thing to do?’” Axelrod said.

“Is this the best path? I suspect that he will say yes, but time is fleeting here, and this is probably the last moment for him to do that check, and it’s probably good if he does,” the Obama alum added.

By ‘actuarial,’ Axelrod was referring to Biden’s age, calling it is “his biggest liability” and something he cannot change.

“Among all the unpredictables there is one thing that is sure: the age arrow only points in one direction,” Axelrod wrote on X. Meaning, Biden is only going downhill from here.

The NYT poll found Biden being trounced by Trump in five out of six battleground states including Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, and Pennsylvania by margins of 3 to 10 points.

The poll also found that 71 percent of registered voters said they agree to some degree that Biden is “just too old to be an effective president.” 62 percent of participants said Biden did not have the “mental sharpness to be an effective president.”

The Hill added: “Axelrod told CNN that he’s not reacting to one poll with his comments but has had conversations with people and finds 2024 a unique year considering the threat of Trump — who is leading the GOP primary race — on the other side of the aisle.”

The Hill continued:

“Trump is a dangerous, unhinged demagogue whose brazen disdain for the rules, [norms], laws and institutions or democracy should be disqualifying,” Axelrod wrote in a separate post. “But the stakes of miscalculation here are too dramatic to ignore.”

I would add that maybe the growing GOP impeachment inquiry into the Biden family business – ‘influence peddling’ – and the tax fraud and gun indictments against Hunter Biden, are also worrying Democrats.

Echoing the growing talking points about Biden quitting while he still can, a separate Hill piece reported:

Arguing Biden is “justly proud of his accomplishments,” Axelrod said Biden’s poll numbers will “send tremors of doubt” through the Democratic Party.

“Not ‘bed-wetting,’” but legitimate concern, Axelrod wrote…

“Only @JoeBiden can make this decision,” he continued. “If he continues to run, he will be the nominee of the Democratic Party. What he needs to decide is whether that is wise; whether it’s in HIS best interest or the country’s?”

 I don’t know about you, but I sense there is a lot of Democrat bed-wetting about Biden going around right now.

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

Amanda Head: Debunking Leftists’ Lies About Thanksgiving

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Every year as families and friends gather to give Thanks a coalition of left-wing woke harpies descend on the holiday to remind you to make sure to politicize every aspect of your life. In recent years liberals have targeted the controversial story of Thanksgiving as a way to attack White colonizers and sing a song of sympathy for Native Americans.

Watch Amanda de-dunk the biggest lies peddled by the left about Thanksgiving.

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

Amanda Head: DeSantis Flailing; Ramaswamy Surging!

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Vivek Ramaswamy speaking with attendees at the 2022 AmericaFest at the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, Arizona.

Did you expect this?

Popular Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is flatlining in the polls while another Republican candidate for president is surging ahead.

Watch Amanda explain the situation below:

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

Amanda Head: (Almost) No One Wants Biden in 2024

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Bad news for Biden.

A new poll provides some chilling details for President Biden’s reelection plan. Will he finally start to listen?

Watch Amanda explain the new development below:

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

GOP House Must Impeach DHS Secretary Mayorkas for Dereliction of Duty Over Border

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NEW YORK CITY (September 11, 2022) Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas lays flowers for USSS Master Special Officer Craig Miller and participates in the September 11th Anniversary Commemoration Ceremony at Ground Zero in New York City, NY. (DHS photo by Sydney Phoenix)

ANALYSIS – During Joe Biden’s two-year term in office, the number of illegal migrants swarming into the U.S. has swelled to its highest number in decades. 

Many of these illegals have serious criminal records and Team Biden can’t confirm how many or who they are.

So, what does the administration do?

Rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Joe Biden’s Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner Chris Magnus was forced to resign over the weekend by Department of Homeland Security chief Alejandro Mayorkas.

While Magnus, an incompetent leftist ideologue, failed miserably as CPB chief, his firing was purely political, making him a scapegoat for Team Biden’s broader border and immigration disaster.

Analysts believe Magnus was forced to resign to avoid him testifying at future GOP-led House committee hearings.

The real villain here is Mayorkas who really needs to go. 

As a Senate-confirmed cabinet official, he has been derelict in his constitutional duties to protect the U.S. homeland.

He needs to resign or be impeached by the GOP House next year.

As Senator Ted Cruz,( R-Tx.), told Fox News Digital: 

The Biden administration found their fall guy for the chaos at the border. Responsibility for the border crisis lies with Joe Biden and DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, and real accountability starts with Mayorkas being impeached. Every moment the border continues to remain open only heightens the present humanitarian and national security crisis.

Other GOP lawmakers echoed Cruz’s remarks. Fox News reported:

“The Biden administration has completely failed to protect our borders, and now it’s trying to find a scapegoat,” Burchett said. “Mayorkas should be the one to resign.”

“When Republicans take over the House, we’re gonna bring some rational thought back to our border security operations,” he continued.

Texas Republican Rep. August Pfluger also called on Mayorkas to hit the road, telling Fox News Digital the DHS secretary tried to use Magnus’ departure as a cover-up of his own “failures.”

And Texas congressman Lance Gooden tweeted about Magnus’s resignation: “Accountability would be DHS Secretary Mayorkas joining him.”

Now, GOP lawmakers with the House Homeland Security Committee confirmed that Mayorkas cannot guarantee that no convicted criminals are among the roughly two million border crossers and illegal aliens who have entered the U.S. since Joe Biden took office.

Breitbart News reported:

During a House Homeland Security Committee hearing on Tuesday, Rep. Kat Cammack (R-FL) grilled Mayorkas over the roughly 1.4 million border crossers and illegal aliens that have been released into American communities since February 2021, as well as the 600,000 illegal aliens who are known to have successfully crossed the southern border in Fiscal Year 2022.

“Now can you answer definitively … that none of the 600,000 individuals who are now in the United States amongst our communities that got away are gang members or criminals?” Cammack.

“Your question highlights precisely why we have sought to prioritize national security and public safety threats in our Immigration and Customs Enforcement apprehension and removal efforts,” Mayorkas said, evading the question.

Breitbart continued:

Mayorkas also did not provide data on how many of the nearly 30,000 convicted criminal illegal aliens apprehended in Fiscal Year 2022 went on to claim asylum after arriving at the southern border.

Cammack pressed Mayorkas on whether criminal records exist for those released into the U.S. under the Biden administration thus far.

“In Fiscal Year 2022, you have now released 1.4 million into the United States and my question to you now is can you guarantee that none of those people have criminal records?” Cammack said, to which Mayorkas did not answer directly.

This failure to respond by Mayorkas, and failure to account for, and confirm the identity and whereabouts of a large number of criminal illegal aliens in the U.S. under his watch, is cause for impeachment.

As Breitbart noted: “In April, Mayorkas failed to guarantee to lawmakers that none of the illegal aliens on the FBI Terrorism Watch List or No-Fly List, apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border at the time, had been released into American communities.”

For all these reasons, and many more, Mayorkas has failed in his constitutional duties and he should be the first Biden cabinet official to go when the GOP takes over Congress in January.

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

Trump Indicted Again – This One Could Be Serious

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Photo via Gage Skidmore Flickr

ANALYSIS – Donald Trump has been wrongly persecuted since he was elected president in 2016. From the 4-year long Hillary Clinton-manufactured ‘Russia collusion’ hoax, to corrupt investigations, to ‘deep state ‘resistance’ within his administration, to a partisan impeachment — no president has been so unfairly hounded in U.S. history.

And now, we have the multiple indictments against him, including the ones for poor bookkeeping in the Stormy Daniels nonsense, and the “I can’t remember exactly when it happened, but Trump raped me 30 years ago” case of E. Jean Carrol.

We have seen a lot of proverbial ‘stuff’ thrown at this Republican leader. Most of it stinks of political persecution. Few of it has stuck. And I have defended him through much of it.

But the latest federal criminal indictments are different. Yes, they are, of course, politicized. 

The Department of Justice (DoJ) under the thumb of a president from the other party, and an opponent in the next election, accusing an ex-president of federal crimes, can’t be anything but political.

And that will hold a lot of sway, especially with Republican voters.

Still, these latest indictments are far more serious and dangerous for Trump.

I have previously argued that Trump brought the Mar-a-Lago classified documents charges onto himself. 

In part he did this by not turning over the sensitive materials when requested, by bragging about having them, by claiming he declassified them, and by jerking federal investigators around for 18 months.

Trump basically dared them to come after him. And they obliged. First by raiding his Mar-a-Lago home. Then, by indicting him.

Neither Joe Biden, nor Mike Pence did these things when they were found to have classified materials in their possession. They just turned them over.

Note – Trump was not charged for any materials he did return earlier in the process. He could have avoided the entire legal ordeal had he just returned all the classified documents, instead of hiding them in bathrooms.

Those charges carry real jail time; if they stick, and a Florida jury convicts him. Those are two big ‘ifs.’

But Donald Trump now faces new criminal charges for the fourth time in five months, arising from efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.

In total, Trump faces 78 criminal counts. Any one of them can land the ex-president in federal prison. 

The federal crimes with which Justice Department prosecutors have now charged the former president involve three conspiracies; conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct certification of the Electoral College vote and Conspiracy Against Rights.

Trump was also charged with obstruction. All can carry prison time if convicted.

Conspiracy to Defraud the United States makes it a crime for two or more people to “conspire either to commit any offence against the United States or to defraud the United States” or any federal agency and for one of them to perform some action that would affect the object of the conspiracy, which carries a fine or maximum prison sentence of five years if convicted.

Obstruction of an Official Proceeding criminalizes “obstructing, influencing, or impeding any official proceeding” or attempting to do so, which is punishable by a fine or up to 20 years in prison.

Obstruction charges relate to Trump’s alleged attempts to block Congress from certifying the Electoral College vote. The January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol building postponed the vote count.

According to the New York Times, he isn’t the only charged in these conspiracies:

The indictment identified six individuals as co-conspirators in Trump’s effort to overturn the election, but none of those people were charged Tuesday. Though the alleged co-conspirators were not named, the descriptions correspond to a cabal of Trump lawyers who embraced increasingly fringe strategies as Trump’s bid to remain in power faltered. They include Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Kenneth Chesebro and Sidney Powell.

Trump is scheduled to appear in federal court in Washington, D.C., on Thursday afternoon for an initial court appearance before a magistrate judge. 

He is expected to plead not guilty.

However, unlike the classified materials case in Florida, where a Trump appointed judge is in charge, this time Trump’s case has been initially ‘randomly’ assigned to U.S. District Court Tanya Chutkan, an Obama-appointed judge who has been among the harshest critics of Jan. 6 defendants.

She appears anything but fair-minded.

As I said, political, or not – these indictments could be very serious.

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

Is Your Name In This Biden Citizen Spying Database?

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Joe Biden via Gage Skidmore Flickr

The federal government has been spying on millions of private gun sales and spying on American citizens without a constitutionally-mandated warrant as part of a nationwide gun control scheme.

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee reports committee chairman Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) sent a letter to Acting ATF Director Daniel Driscoll, “requesting information on a secretive program that appears to allow the federal government to monitor law-abiding Americans attempting to exercise their Second Amendment rights.”

“This kind of backdoor surveillance of American citizens—without due process or public disclosure—should alarm every single person who values the Bill of Rights,” said Paul. “The ATF and FBI have no business creating secret watchlists for law-abiding Americans seeking to purchase firearms. It’s unacceptable, and I intend to get answers.”

“An activist judge subjected GOA to a ‘gag order’ after the Biden Administration mistakenly gave us information related to its unlawful NICS Monitoring program. ATF and FBI have no business monitoring the gun purchases of American citizens. GOA has since learned that the FBI abused NICS Monitoring to enforce California’s ‘assault weapons’ ban. We are thankful to Chairman Paul and the Senate Homeland Security Committee for opening an investigation into this egregious violation of Second and Fourth Amendment rights,” said Aidan Johnston, Director of Federal Affairs, Gun Owners of America.

The committee reports Paul’s letter “follows reporting based on a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by Gun Owners of America, which revealed the existence of the NICS Audit Log Review (Monitoring) system. The Biden Administration’s ATF mistakenly released unredacted documents exposing the system, and has reportedly spent years trying to cover it up ever since.”

“According to the exposed documents, the program enables ATF agents to request that the FBI flag and monitor specific individuals using data from the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), often for extended periods of time—without those individuals ever knowing,” the committee reports.

The committee reprots Paul “demands that the ATF provide unredacted records showing how many Americans have been subjected to this monitoring, for what reasons, the legal basis for the program, whether it has led to prosecutions, and whether there has been any misuse by ATF personnel or contractors. The records must be submitted to the committee no later than 5:00 pm on April 24th, 2025.”

Dr. Paul highlights in his letter that “the existence of this surveillance program, and the ATF’s longstanding push to conceal it from the public, raise questions about its general use and its potential to infringe on Americans’ civil liberties.”

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Great America News Desk.