Category: National Security

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Congress GOP National Security

‘National Security Risk’ Greene Exposes Classified Info At Wednesday House Hearing: Video

Proving that she remains just as much of a national security risk as she was on January 6, 2021, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) blurted out classified information during a Wednesday hearing on the border.

The hearing, which was held in Texas so that Congressional Republicans could have a photo op and pretend to give a damn about anything but scoring political points, featured testimony from U.S. Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz, who was asked by Greene about explosives found on the U.S.-Mexico border.

“Chief Ortiz, are you aware that there was an explosive device found by Border Patrol agents on January 17th in an area called No Man’s Land, and there’s surveillance of who put it there? And guess what? It wasn’t Americans; it was cartels. Are you aware of that?”

Ortiz replied:

“I will tell you that some of this information that I receive, I receive in a confidential [sensitive compartmented information facility (SCIF)], so I’m going to be a little hesitant of briefing what I know and what I don’t know with respect to some of those, an event like that.”

Undeterred by that warning, Greene bulldozed ahead like the loose cannon she always has and will be.

“I understand, Chief Ortiz, but I’m not going to be confidential because I think people deserve to know,” Greene huffed. “Our Border Patrol agents should not be in those type of conditions where they are at risk of being blown to pieces by the cartels, who, by the way, are criminals, and they should be treated as such.”

“As a matter of fact, I’ve co-sponsored legislation to declare war on the cartels because they are definitely declaring war on us, the American people, and our Border Patrol agents, and I’ve had enough of it, and I know Americans have had enough of it.”

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Congress GOP National Security

Marjorie Taylor Greene Is About To Have Access To ‘The Most Sensitive Secrets In Government’: Report

Now that she has successfully helped Kevin McCarthy ascend to the highest position in Congress, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) is poised to have tremendous power that could well wind up threatening American national security.

The New York Times reports House Republicans are preparing to put forth a resolution creating a special subcommittee within the Judiciary Committee that will turn its focus to the FBI and U.S. intelligence services to investigate what they claim is the “weaponization of the federal government” in the Biden administration.

Greene will be a key figure in all of the planned investigations because McCarthy has promised to allow her to serve on committees after she was stripped of her committee assignments by Democrats in the last Congress.

The Georgia Republican has publicly stated that she would love to serve on the Judiciary Committee even though she doesn’t have a law degree. And if Greene is indeed placed on the committee or a Judiciary subcommittee, she would instantly have access to some of the most top-secret information in the world because Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) wants his committee to “receive the same highly classified information that intelligence agencies make available to their oversight committee, the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.”

“Intelligence Committee members have access to some of the most sensitive secrets in the government, including information about covert actions, which are not shared with other lawmakers. Traditionally, House leaders tend to place on the intelligence panel members of their party they think are especially trustworthy not to disclose classified information.”

The Times also notes that “While Mr. Jordan’s investigative unit will be housed within the Judiciary Committee, its 13 members — eight of whom would be Republicans — will not be limited to lawmakers on that panel.”

McCarthy will be hard-pressed to deny Greene a seat on some committee that has access to secret information, and that alone is reason to fear for U.S. national security.

 “Mr. McCarthy has already promised her a spot on the House Oversight Committee, and she broke with other far-right members to support his speakership bid from the first ballot, as did Mr. Jordan. Such a situation could result in lawmakers trying to scrutinize a Justice Department investigation as that inquiry potentially examines some of those same lawmakers’ conduct concerning the events of Jan. 6.”

A perfect example of another member of the GOP who could also soon be allowed to access such sensitive information is Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA), whose cell phone was seized by the FBI in August of last year as part of the ongoing investigation of the Capitol insurrection. When asked if he would be allowed to access information related to Jan. 6, Perry had this to say on Sunday:

“Why should I be limited — why should anybody be limited just because someone has made an accusation? I get accused of all kinds of things every single day, as does every member that serves in the public eye. But that doesn’t stop you from doing your job. It is our duty and it is my duty.”

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Crime Donald Trump Espionage National Security The Trump Adminstration

18 Former Trump Officials Say His ‘Standing Order’ On Declassifying Top Secret Documents Is BS

According to disgraced, one-term former president Donald Trump, he had a “standing order” that stipulated any classified documents he took from the Oval Office to the White House residence residence, meaning it wasn’t improper or illegal for him to have thousands of top secret files at his Mar-a-Lago resort because he had already declassified them.

But 18 former officials who served in the Trump administration, no order was ever issued and the ex-president is lying yet again, according to a report from CNN.

“Nothing approaching an order that foolish was ever given,” said John Kelly, who served as Trump’s chief of staff for 17 months from 2017 to 2019. “And I can’t imagine anyone that worked at the White House after me that would have simply shrugged their shoulders and allowed that order to go forward without dying in the ditch trying to stop it.”

Mick Mulvaney, who succeeded Kelly as acting White House chief of staff, also dismissed the idea and told CNN he was “not aware of a general standing order” during his tenure.

A senior White House official dubbed Trump’s assertion of automatic declassification “total nonsense,” adding, “If that’s true, where is the order with his signature on it? If that were the case, there would have been tremendous pushback from the Intel Community and DoD, which would almost certainly have become known to Intel and Armed Services Committees on the Hill.”

Another fact that directly undercuts Trump’s claim of a “standing order” of declassification according to David Laufman, the former chief of the Justice Department’s counterintelligence division, is that “Programs and officials would have been notified. There is no evidence they were.”

Multiple sources said they believed that Trump’s claim the documents were declassified was nothing more than a transparent attempt to try to defend himself for taking the documents to Mar-a-Lago.

“There is a process to declassify, the president can’t just wave a magic wand,” a former senior Trump White House official said.

Meanwhile, Trump and his ragtag collection of so-called “attorneys” are trying to get the affidavit used to obtain the search warrant unsealed without any redactions, a move that could threaten the lives of federal law enforcement officials and jeopardize the ongoing Justice Department investigation of whether or not the former president violated the Espionage Act.

A federal magistrate said Thursday that the DOJ has until Thursday, Aug. 25 to submit a redacted version of the affidavit which he will then rule on.

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Donald Trump Foreign Policy National Security

NATO Nations Say They’ll Seek New Allies If Trump Is Reelected: Report

If failed, one-term former President Donald Trump hasn’t been indicted or descended into complete mental incapacity by the time the 2024 election is held and he manages to win a second term in office, it could result in the complete destruction of the NATO alliance.

That terrifying prediction comes from Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT), who told CNN’s Kasie Hunt that some NATO allies have told him they will “re-think” remaining aligned with the United States if Trump wins two years from now.

Hunt asked Romney:

“Do you think that the former president, Donald Trump, permanently damaged NATO?”

The senator replied:

“I think what happened with NATO is they have said can we rely on the U.S.? And is this America First idea, which is the president saying to everybody, ‘hey, go off and do your own thing,’ that approach is one that frightens other members of NATO and they wonder are we committed to NATO and our mutual defense, or are we going to go off on our own? And so they wonder.”

That led Hunt to inquire:

“Are they going to get over that?”

Romney:

“They wonder whether we’re going to return to the, if you will, policies we have had for the last 70 years or we’re going to take the turn that Donald Trump represented. If he were to come back as the U.S. president, I think it would represent a pretty dramatic departure for the world and they would rethink on whether they can count on the United States.”

Will the 2024 election decide the question? Hunt asked. The Utah Republican responded:

“I think if President Trump were to return as president, the nations of the world would say they have to really rethink their own national security and the extent to which they want to be in line with us and be allied with someone else. You saw that happen during the time President Trump was there. I have had conversations with leaders of other nations now, members of NATO, and they raise this question: we’re happy to see you committed to our mutual defense, but we don’t know whether you’re just committed short-term or whether this is a long-term and permanent commitment. I think it’s long-term and permanent.”

Imagine a world without NATO. Such a scenario would be a dream come true for Russian mass murderer Vladimir Putin. And it would leave the world less secure and more unstable.

There’s any number of reasons that Trump should never hold office again. The most terrifying is how badly a second Trump administration would threaten the national security of the United States and the world.

Here’s the video from CNN:

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Crime Donald Trump National Security The Trump Adminstration

Classified National Security Documents Were Likely ‘Stolen’ By Trump From The White House: Report

Now that the National Archives and Records Administration has referred the matter of failed, one-term former President Donald Trump’s mishandling of White House documents to the Justice Department for further investigation and possible criminal charges, there’s a much larger threat that could be caused as a result of Trump purloining materials that should have been handed over before he left office on January 20, 2021.

Some of those documents, according to a former Republican congressman, were likely classified national security materials, and that means they could have been given to adversaries of the United States.

Former Florida congressman David Jolly warned on “Deadline: White House” that Trump is capable of anything, no matter how sinister:

“It’s easy to think of presidential records as being benign, and I’m sure many of the records are benign, but consider this is a president who was twice impeached for malfeasance and maladministration within office, and he also is somebody who is under criminal investigation in multiple jurisdictions, so there certainly could be evidentiary information that is relevant, not just to a fact-finding investigation of the Congress, but to criminal investigations and investigations that might to relate to behaviors that have not yet been identified.”

Jolly then brought up the specter of national security materials being in the possession of a man as unstable as Trump:

“I would also say in a very real way, in terms of our national security posture, there very likely are national security documents that despite having certain classified protections, were also prone to being torn up. I mean, there are staff members who have acknowledged — those responsible for having to remove national security documents — that he did this when it came to national security measures as well. So it is important form a fact-finding perspective. it is important for posterity, if you will, but it’s also important because of the uniqueness of his president, who was twice impeached and is now under criminal investigation.”

Consider this scenario: Trump is badly in need of money and protection, so he calls up Russian President Vladimir Putin and offers him classified materials in exchange for several million dollars and the promise of safe haven if and when he’s indicted on any number of alleged crimes.

The DOJ needs to take a close look at what exactly Trump took from the White House, and if any of the documents were indeed classified they need to consider asking a grand jury to indict him for endangering U.S. national security.