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The right-wing Daily Caller published an “exclusive” report last September, alleging that Imran Awan, a former IT aide for Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) — then the chairperson of the Democratic National Committee — had been banned from the House of Representatives for using a secret server.

The report claimed Awan had “allegedly routed data from numerous House Democrats to a secret server” and that police had grown suspicious after receiving a copy of the server with an “elaborate falsified image designed to hide the massive violations.”

Since then, conservative media has been obsessed with the conspiracy theory. The Daily Caller has published dozens of pieces about him, and speculation about Awan’s role has also reached Fox News, Fox Business, Breitbart, The Gateway Pundit, and other popular right-wing websites.

President Trump himself tweeted about Awan multiple times, sometimes referring to him as “the Pakistani mystery man.”

On Tuesday, however, the Department of Justice (DOJ) blew a hole in that conspiracy theory. Announcing that the aide, who was indicted in August on multiple charges, including bank fraud, had reached a plea deal with investigators, the DOJ said it found no evidence of wrongdoing in his handling of House computer systems.

“The Government has uncovered no evidence that your client violated federal law with respect to the House computer systems,” they stated. “Particularly, the Government has found no evidence that your client illegally removed House data from the House network or from House Members’ offices, stole the House Democratic Caucus Server, stole or destroyed House information technology equipment, or improperly accessed or transferred government information, including classified or sensitive information.”

In July 2017, Awan was arrested at Dulles International Airport as he was attempting to board a flight to Lahore, Pakistan. Awan and four other congressional staffers had been under investigation on allegations of a procurement scam since earlier in the year.

According to Politico, Awan and his wife, Hina Alvi, “allegedly obtained $285,000 in home equity loans from the Congressional Federal Credit Union on two residential properties in Virginia” and then “transferred nearly all of those funds — $283,000 — to individuals in Faisalabad, Pakistan…. They repaid one loan, but failed to repay $165,000 from another loan.”

While he was being investigated, Awan and the four other staffers were barred from using the House computer networks, prompting the Daily Caller to publish its “exclusive” report, which claimed the ban was instead due to Awan’s alleged private server use.

Prior to the DOJ’s statements Tuesday, several prominent conservatives were busy spinning the news that Awan had reached a plea deal as a sign that Democrats would be hurt by the development. Others, like Project Veritas’ Laura Loomer, claimed the mainstream media was working with Democrats to purposely cover up the news.

Once the plea deal was made public, however, many of those same voices fell silent.

On Tuesday, David Damron, Wasserman Schultz’s spokesperson, referenced the right-wing conspiracy theory and conservative media spin while discussing Awan’s guilty plea. “We rely on our justice system to produce a fair result, after a considered, objective review,” Damron said. “That role is even more important at a time when Donald Trump and his allies spread dangerous distortions with the intent of falsely smearing his political opponents.”

Awan’s attorney, Christopher Gowen, went further, saying the “repugnant behavior went straight to the top.”

“This was all made up, for purposes of clickbait, Fox News stories, and political opportunism,” he said. “And yes, this repugnant behavior went straight to the top. Just weeks ago, the president of the United States tweeted again alleging that Imran was responsible for a missing Democratic Party server. Like so many irresponsible, misleading or simply untrue tweets from the President, this allegation displayed a complete lack of respect for law enforcement.”

Awan will be sentenced on August 21 and faces up to six months in prison.

He called a sitting congresswoman “crazy” and “corrupt.” He branded the National Security Agency’s handling of millions of telephone call records “a disgrace” — and suggested it was connected to the special counsel investigation into whether his campaign worked with Russia to interfere in the 2016 election.

WASHINGTON — U.S. intelligence agencies believe that North Korea has increased its production of fuel for nuclear weapons at multiple secret sites in recent months — and that Kim Jong Un may try to hide those facilities as he seeks more concessions in nuclear talks with the Trump administration, U.S. officials told NBC News.

The intelligence assessment, which has not previously been reported, seems to counter the sentiments expressed by President Donald Trump, who tweeted after his historic June 12 summit with Kim that "there was no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea."

Analysts at the CIA and other intelligence agencies don't see it that way, according to more than a dozen American officials who are familiar with their assessments and spoke on the condition of anonymity. They see a regime positioning itself to extract every concession it can from the Trump administration — while clinging to nuclear weapons it believes are essential to survival.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In recent months, even as the two sides engaged in diplomacy, North Korea was stepping up its production of enriched uranium for nuclear weapons, five U.S. officials say, citing the latest intelligence assessment. North Korea and the U.S. agreed at the summit to "work toward" denuclearization, but there is no specific deal. On Trump's order, the U.S. military canceled training exercises on the Korean peninsula, a major concession to Kim.

While the North Koreans have stopped missile and nuclear tests, "there's no evidence that they are decreasing stockpiles, or that they have stopped their production," said one U.S. official briefed on the latest intelligence. "There is absolutely unequivocal evidence that they are trying to deceive the U.S."

Four other officials familiar with the intelligence assessment also said North Korea intended to deceive the U.S.

U.S. intelligence agencies have stepped up their collection against North Korea in recent years, and it appears to be paying off with greater insights into a country that has long been the world's hardest spying target, officials say. NBC News agreed to withhold some details of the latest intelligence assessment that officials said could put sources at risk.

"There are lots of things that we know that North Korea has tried to hide from us for a long time," a U.S. intelligence official said.
It's long been understood that North Korea had at least one undeclared facility to enrich nuclear fuel, aside from Yongbyon, its main nuclear site.

"When North Korea constructed the enrichment facility at Yongbyon in 2009, the North Koreans did so at a pace that suggested this was not their first rodeo, i.e. not the first time they had assembled large cascades of centrifuges," said Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program for the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.

Go ahead with your "fake news" crap, it is all you guys got to go on.

to #WalkAway Campaign
July 2 at 8:12 PM · Solon Springs, WI ·
I have been raised a democrat my whole life. My entire family is. I was always told that Republicans only care about rich people so I just followed suit. I voted for Kerry and Obama twice. I was a Bernie supporter when the 2016 campaigns started. Then once it came down to Hillary and Trump I really started to pay attention, I listened to what they were saying not just what the news said they were saying and I woke up! I started doing my own research and really digging in, I discovered people like Ben Shapiro who had nothing but facts and statistics going back generations on the left. I realized I had been fooled my whole life. Voted Trump 2016 and have caught nothing but anger from family members, even being told that Trump supporters like me are brainwashed and following a cult. I #walkedaway and will never go back!

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Court-packing, Democrats’ nuclear option for the Supreme Court

Almost as soon as Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement from the Supreme Court, putting the legality of abortion and the safety of protections for LGBT people in immediate jeopardy, calls started pouring in from liberals and leftists for a drastic response: court-packing.

There is nothing in the Constitution mandating that the Supreme Court have nine members, and a simple act of Congress could increase that number to 11, or 15, or even more. That effectively creates a way for a political party in control of the House, Senate, and presidency to add a large number of ideologically sympathetic justices to the Court, all at once.

To many leftists and left-liberals, such drastic action is needed if any progressive legislation in the future is to survive. Gorsuch’s appointment alone justifies it by shifting the Court from a potential 5 to 4 liberal majority to a 5 to 4 conservative majority...

In their 2017 paper “How to Lose a Constitutional Democracy,” UChicago law professors Aziz Huq and Tom Ginsburg concur, writing, “The presidential effort to pack the Supreme Court represents a low point for the rule of law in the United States, and is a technique that has been followed by modern-day illiberal democrats.”

It’s not hard to see why political scientists taking a more international view would see court-packing as, on its face, a threat to democratic institutions. As Huq and Ginsburg note, court-packing is a frequently used tool in the toolkit of would-be authoritarians.

There is nothing in the Constitution mandating that the Supreme Court have nine members, and a simple act of Congress could increase that number to 11, or 15, or even more.

Quote:

There is nothing in the Constitution mandating that the Supreme Court have nine members, and a simple act of Congress could increase that number to 11, or 15, or even more.

While the Republicans have the majority a simple act of Congress could prevent that from happening. I believe they are working on just such a law.

I dunno. Any law that passed can also be repealed.

There is nothing in the Constitution mandating that the Supreme Court have nine members, and a simple act of Congress could increase that number to 11, or 15, or even more.