Feds Took Documents That Were Protected by Attorney-Client Privilege During Trump Raid; Trump Calls for Seized Documents to Be Returned

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By Townhall. . .FBI didn’t leave empty-handed from Trump’s home, but some of the documents might have been declassified, and the attorney-client privilege protected some. At the same time, other records were reportedly covered by executive privilege (via Fox News):

The FBI seized boxes containing records covered by attorney-client privilege and potentially executive privilege during its raid of former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, sources familiar with the investigation told Fox News, adding that the Justice Department opposed Trump lawyers’ request for the appointment of an independent, special master to review the records.

Sources familiar with the investigation told Fox News Saturday that the former president’s team was informed that boxes labeled A-14, A-26, A-43, A-13, A-33, and a set of documents—all seen on the final page of the FBI’s property receipt —contained information covered by attorney-client privilege.

The FBI seized classified records from Trump’s Palm Beach home during its unprecedented Monday morning raid, including some marked as top secret. But the former president is disputing the classification, saying the records have been declassified.

[…]

Sources told Fox News that some records could be covered by executive privilege, which gives the president of the United States and other officials within the executive branch the authority to withhold certain sensitive forms of advice and consultation between the president and senior advisors.

(Read more from “Feds Took Documents That Were Protected by Attorney-Client Privilege During Trump Raid” HERE)

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Trump Calls for Seized Documents to Be Returned to Mar-A-Lago

By New York Post. Former President Donald Trump on Sunday called for the Justice Department to return the reams of documents FBI agents seized at his Mar-a-Lago resort last week, pointing to a report that said the information was covered by attorney-client or executive privilege.

“Oh great! It has just been learned that the FBI, in its now famous raid of Mar-a-Lago, took boxes of privileged ‘attorney-client’ material, and also ‘executive’ privileged material, which they knowingly should not have taken,” Trump said on his Truth Social site.

“By copy of this TRUTH, I respectfully request that these documents be immediately returned to the location from which they were taken. Thank you!,” the former president said in the posting.

Fox News reported, citing sources close to the investigation, that team Trump was told that at least five boxes – labeled A-14, A-26, A-43, A-13, A-33, and a set of documents – taken under authority of the search warrant contained information covered by attorney-client or executive privilege​.

The documents were among a cache of materials taken from Trump’s palatial Palm Beach home last Monday, including binders of photos, a handwritten note, a leatherbound box of documents, an “executive grant of clemency” for longtime aide Roger Stone, according to a property list of items released on Friday by the FBI. (Read more from “Trump Calls for Seized Documents to Be Returned to Mar-A-Lago” HERE)

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Brother of Marine Killed in Afghanistan Withdrawal Dies by Suicide During Memorial Service

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The brother of a U.S. Marine who died during last year’s military withdrawal from Afghanistan reportedly committed suicide during his sibling’s recent memorial service.

Dakota Halverson, 28, died on August 9. He was the older brother of Lance Cpl. Kareem Nikoui, 20, from Norco, California, who was one of the 13 military members killed by a suicide bomber outside the Kabul airport on August 26, 2021.

“The older brother of one of the 13 KIA in Kabul recently killed himself at his little brother’s memorial,” Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL) tweeted on Saturday.

“Please pray for his family. There MUST be accountability for this continued carnage,” he added.

The congressman also promoted a GoFundMe fundraiser set up to cover funeral expenses for Halverson. (Read more from “Brother of Marine Killed in Afghanistan Withdrawal Dies by Suicide During Memorial Service” HERE)

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Four U.S. Tourists Among Seven Victims Shot by Arab Terrorist in Jerusalem

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An Arab resident of eastern Jerusalem shot seven people, including four American citizens, near Jerusalem’s Old City overnight Saturday, before turning himself in to police after an intense hours-long manhunt.

Amir Sidawi, 26, was arrested at a police station in Jerusalem after coming there of his own will with the gun he used to during the terror attack.

The previous night, Sidawi had opened fire on groups of Israelis on a bus in a parking lot near the Western Wall, injuring passengers on and off the bus as well as a pregnant woman sitting in a nearby car. The victim, 35, was evacuated to a local hospital where she underwent an emergency C-section.

She and her newborn are in critical condition.

Four of the other victims were U.S. citizens, members of a Satmar Hasidic family from Brooklyn, NY, who were visiting Israel as tourists. (Read more from “Four U.S. Tourists Among Seven Victims Shot by Arab Terrorist in Jerusalem” HERE)

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Afghan Father Whose Teen Fell From U.S. Cargo Plane: ‘I Blame the Americans’

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As the first anniversary of the disastrous US pullout from Afghanistan approaches, a victim of one of its most gruesome tragedies finally has a name.

Zabi Rezayee, 17, was one of the desperate civilians who clung to the landing gear and wheel covers of a US Air Force C-17 as it taxied down the runway of Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport on Aug. 16, 2021 — only to fall to his death on the tarmac, his father told the Sunday Times of London.

And Zabi’s brother Zaki, 19, who joined his attempted escape from the Taliban, has not been heard from since, said Mohammed Rezayee.

“I’m hurting, I’m angry, but there’s nothing I can do,” Rezayee, 42, said. “I’ve buried one son and I don’t even know if the other one is dead or alive.”

Horrifying cell-phone videos of the young men who grabbed hold of the giant cargo plane on take-off, then dropped helplessly to the ground as it gained altitude, gripped the globe as America’s war in Afghanistan came to its chaotic and ignominious end. (Read more from “Afghan Father Whose Teen Fell From U.S. Cargo Plane: ‘I Blame the Americans’” HERE)

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At Least 300 TikTok Employees Worked for Chinese State Media: Report

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A new report found some overlap between hundreds of employees at TikTok’s parent company ByteDance and Chinese state media outlets.

Forbes surveyed hundreds of LinkedIn profiles for the tech firm’s employees, finding at least 300 workers had previously held positions in Chinese state media – and 15 of them currently work for both.

“Fifteen indicate that current ByteDance employees are also concurrently employed by Chinese state media entities, including Xinhua News Agency, China Radio International and China Central/China Global Television,” the report said. The U.S. State department has labeled these organization as “foreign government functionaries.”

TikTok has come under increased scrutiny as U.S. officials continue to warn of the national security threat the app poses: FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr in June called on the CEOs of Google and Apple to remove the app from their stores, citing reports that suggest the app harvests “swaths of sensitive data.”

“TikTok is not what it appears to be on the surface. It is not just an app for sharing funning videos or memes. That’s the sheep’s clothing,” Carr wrote. “At its core, TikTok functions as a sophisticated surveillance tool that harvests extensive amounts of personal and sensitive data.” (Read more from “At Least 300 TikTok Employees Worked for Chinese State Media: Report” HERE)

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FBI Report Concludes Trigger Was Pulled On Set of Alec Baldwin’s ‘Rust’

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Almost 10 months ago, actor Alec Baldwin’s prop gun was discharged on the “Rust” movie set, killing cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and injuring director Joel Souza.

Baldwin has maintained that he did not pull the trigger of the gun, telling ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos last December that he had “no idea” how a live bullet got onto the film set, but that he “didn’t pull the trigger” on the firearm.

The FBI has now completed its forensics investigation and handed the case over to the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office. According to the FBI forensic report, which was obtained by ABC News, the gun used in the fatal shooting on the New Mexico movie set could not have been fired without pulling the trigger.

With the hammer in the quarter- and half-cock positions, the gun “could not be made to fire without a pull of the trigger,” the report stated.

In a postmortem report obtained by ABC News, the New Mexico Office of the Medical Investigator classified Hutchins’ death as an accident. (Read more from “FBI Report Concludes Trigger Was Pulled On Set of Alec Baldwin’s ‘Rust'” HERE)

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

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Farmers Promise to ‘Escalate’ Protests Against Government Shutdown Orders

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Farmers in the Netherlands reduced nitrogen pollution by nearly 70% through a voluntary system. But the government says that is not enough and is demanding that they cut pollution by another 50% by 2030.

By the Dutch government’s own estimates, 11,200 farms out of the roughly 35,000 dedicated to dairy and livestock would have to close under its policies; 17,600 farmers would have to reduce livestock; and total livestock would need to be reduced by one-half to one-third. The Dutch government has demanded that animal farming stop entirely in many places. Of the over $25.7 billion the government has set aside to reduce pollution, just $1 billion is for technological innovation, with most of the rest for buying out farmers.

This effort has sparked a fierce backlash among Dutch farmers, who argue that the government seems more interested in reducing animal agriculture than in finding solutions that protect the food supply and their livelihoods.

“Why would you buy out farmers or reduce livestock when you have the possibility to invest in innovation?” asked Caroline van der Plas, the founder and sole Member of Parliament for the Farmer-Citizen Movement party, or BBB in Dutch. “The car industry innovated for the past 40 years. There aren’t fewer cars and the cars we have are cleaner. We even have electrical cars. That’s what I think is so crazy. Why don’t we treat the farmers just like the car industry? Give them time to develop solutions or innovate? We can produce food in a much more efficient and cleaner way if we do that. And it’s much cheaper also then by buying out farmers.”

Farmer protests in the Netherlands come at a time of heightened global food insecurity created by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a major wheat exporter. (Read more from “Farmers Promise to ‘Escalate’ Protests Against Government Shutdown Orders” HERE)

Photo credit: Flickr

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Biden’s CIA Director Employed Chinese Communist Party Members While Heading Elite DC Think Tank

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Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns formerly headed an influential D.C. think tank while it employed undisclosed Chinese Communist Party (CCP) members as well as individuals with Chinese government ties, the Daily Caller News Foundation has found.

During Burns’ tenure as president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace from February 2015 to November 2021, the think tank employed at least 20 policy experts whom the DCNF has identified as CCP members. These CCP members worked at both Carnegie’s Washington, D.C., headquarters and Carnegie-Tsinghua — the Beijing center Burns’ predecessor, Jessica Mathews, launched in 2010 in cooperation with Tsinghua University.

Yet, expert profiles on Carnegie’s website don’t disclose these individuals’ ties to the CCP. The DCNF only discovered their communist ties after analyzing hundreds of Chinese-language, Communist Party branch records and personnel profiles from more than a dozen CCP-linked organizations.

Burns’ tenure at Carnegie coincided with increased alarm from the FBI concerning the CCP conducting “malign influence operations” against key American institutions. In July 2020, FBI Director Christopher Wray warned that the CCP seeks to “influence our policymakers” and “manipulate our public opinion” by exploiting the “openness” of our society.

Considering such warnings, employing CCP members and those with Chinese government ties raises red flags, national security experts said. (Read more from “Biden’s CIA Director Employed Chinese Communist Party Members While Heading Elite DC Think Tank” HERE)

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Trump Records Negotiator Warns of Russiagate Materials Cover-up

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Justice Department officials appear to be maneuvering to block the disclosure of documents from the so-called “Russiagate” controversy, according to a top Pentagon official from the Trump administration.

Kash Patel appeared on Fox News on Sunday and defended former President Donald Trump’s claims that he issued sweeping declassification orders of documents after the FBI raided his Mar-a-Lago resort and seized more than a dozen boxes of materials in an investigation that could have national security implications.

Patel, who was chief of staff to acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller and held other high-ranking positions in the Trump administration, said Trump named him his representative to the National Archives, and they have been locked in a “bureaucratic battle” over documents that were taken to his Florida club.

Because there appears to be an “ongoing” counterintelligence investigation, he argued, “you will never be allowed to see the Russiagate docs or any other docs that President Trump lawfully declassified, and they will hide it from the public,” Patel told Sunday Morning Futures host Maria Bartiromo. Patel was being interviewed along with Devin Nunes, a former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee who is now the CEO of Trump’s social media company. (Read more from “Trump Records Negotiator Warns of Russiagate Materials Cover-up” HERE)

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WATCH: Biden Rides Bike in Front of Reporters on Beach, Refuses to Take Questions

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President Joe Biden rode his bike in front of reporters again on Sunday, this time peddling along the beachfront in front of media cameras on Kiawah Island, South Carolina.

The president, wearing a polo and shorts, rode along the beach front, stopping to visit with some families and children and take selfies with supporters.

Biden was surrounded by Secret Service agents who also rode bikes around him as he slowly pedaled across the sand.

(Read more from “Biden Rides Bike in Front of Reporters on Beach, Refuses to Take Questions” HERE)

Photo credit: Flickr

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