Month: April 2023

By Andrea Widburg

America First Legal (“AFL”) filed a FOIA request with the Office of the Inspector General (“OIG”) for the National Archives and Records Administration (“NARA”) to find out more information about the raid on Mar-a-Lago last year. Rather unexpectedly, the OIG responded honestly to the request, turning over records that revealed the White House helping to set up the FBI for the raid.

As a preliminary matter, Trump had an absolute right to possess any records he wanted, if he gained possession of them (as he did) while he was still president. It is black-letter law (that is, unquestioned, uncontested, absolute law) in America that the President of the United States is the last, best word when it comes to document classification:

In Navy v. Egan, 484 U.S. 518 (1988), the court examined whether a civil service board can review a “laborer’s” being denied national security clearance.  In that context, the Supreme Court was clear about the president’s plenary power, unimpeded by congressional acts:

The President, after all, is the “Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States.” U.S.Const., Art. II, § 2. His authority to classify and control access to information bearing on national security and to determine whether an individual is sufficiently trustworthy to occupy a position in the Executive Branch that will give that person access to such information flows primarily from this constitutional investment of power in the President, and exists quite apart from any explicit congressional grant. See Cafeteria Workers v. McElroy, 367 U. S. 886, 367 U. S. 890 (1961).

Some Trump supporters think they’re helping Trump by pointing to the fact that he was working with NARA in accordance with the Presidential Records Act. They’re not, because that still buys into the concept that there is some sort of limitation on the president’s declassification power. In fact, the President Records Act is a procedural device that is utterly irrelevant when it comes to the president’s plenary power over document classification status. Neither Congress, nor NARA, nor any other bureaucrat who stamps the word “classified” on a document can undo Trump’s ultimate presidential power to declassify documents at will, without following procedures, filling out forms, or making announcements.

Of course, it’s quite different when it comes to all the classified documents that Joe Biden has squirreled away over the decades. Whether he was a senator or the vice president, he had no power whatsoever to declassify documents unilaterally. What he did was purely illegal, something compounded by his carelessness with the documents once he illegally possessed them, and he should be locked up for a long time.

With that in mind—that is, President Trump acted legally and constitutionally at all times—here’s what AFL discovered when it got the requested documents from NARA:

On August 8, 2022, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) conducted an unprecedented raid of Mar-a-Lago on the ground that potentially classified records existed there. According to press reports, Biden Administration aides were “stunned” to hear of this development.

However, new NARA records obtained through America First Legal’s investigation into the circumstances surrounding the Mar-a-Lago raid further confirmed that the FBI obtained access to these records through a “special access request” from the Biden White House on behalf of the Department of Justice (DOJ).

What this effectively means is that there are substantial discrepancies between what the Archives has told Congress and what appears in its internal communications. For example, Acting Archivist Debra Wall told Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH) on August 16, 2022, that NARA “had not been involved in the DOJ investigation or any searches that it has conducted.”

This stunning revelation suggests that NARA was misleading Congress about the White House’s role in the shocking raid of President Trump’s home, and the fact that the Biden White House was acting “on behalf of” the DOJ raises significant legal concerns.

In other words, the White House lied to the public, and NARA lied to Congress. In reality, the White House, ignoring controlling U.S. law, worked with the DOJ and FBI to raid the residence of Donald Trump, a former president and Biden’s most serious opponent in the 2024 election, to smear Trump (and, they hoped, arrest him) as someone who had violated National Security laws.

Game theory says that, when your opponent changes the rules (i.e., cheats) to win, you don’t just keep playing politely and accepting your losses. Instead, you go after your opponent twice as hard using his own rules until he cries, “Uncle.”

In this case, given that Biden repeatedly violated national security laws, when Republicans regain control of the DOJ, it is imperative that they indict him and prosecute him to the fullest extent of the law. And depending on the statute of limitations, it’s time to get Hillary, too, along with any other Democrats (and I bet there are a lot of them) who have ignored national security laws.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/04/bidens_white_house_was_up_to_its_neck_in_the_maralago_raid.html

Almost 20 suspected terrorists exploited the asylum crisis in Britain to enter the country illegally from northern France last year, intelligence sources have revealed to the Daily Mail newspaper.

A total of 19 adult males linked to terrorist organizations — some of whom have links to the Islamic State — arrived in small boats across the English Channel last year among the 45,755 individuals who have since claimed asylum and currently reside in taxpayer-funded migrant hotels.

Seven of the individuals are understood to have been the subjects of active investigations in other countries before entering Britain, five of whom have reported affiliations with the Islamic State.

Of the 19 suspects, five are Iraqi nationals, five are Iranian, four came from both Afghanistan and Somalia, and one arrived from Libya.

According to the newspaper, the 19 suspects are now under surveillance by security services and counter-terrorism police. However, authorities will have great difficulty in removing them from the country due to their pending asylum applications and the protection now afforded to them by Britain’s human rights laws.

“It’s a real problem and not something we’re able to easily stop,” a security source told the newspaper.

“Once they’re here we can monitor them and limit any potential threat they pose, but it adds to the overall surveillance burden.”

David Barrett, the newspaper’s home affairs correspondent, explained the suspects couldn’t be turned away after arriving illegally among asylum seekers in small boats, adding that “human rights laws and international refugee conventions require they be given an opportunity to claim the right to live in this country indefinitely.

“It is understood there can be no criminal prosecutions because the evidence against them is based on intelligence material – which cannot be used in courts – and sources say the authorities’ hands are tied,” Barrett added.

The report will add further weight to the Conservative government’s efforts to push through a new immigration bill that will allow for the detention and deportation of anyone who enters the country illegally.

Natalie Elphicke, the Conservative MP for Dover, which is the face of Britain’s asylum crisis, said: “People will rightly be concerned that terror suspects have been able to enter our country in small boats and not be detained. It’s a national scandal.”

Fellow Conservative MP Bob Seely described the report as “appalling and deeply concerning.”

“Our security agencies have enough on their plate without having to increase monitoring to cope with an influx of foreign terror suspects,” he said, adding that “those who oppose government measures to halt the small boats crisis frankly need a reality check.”

https://rmx.news/crime/19-suspected-terrorists-arrived-in-britain-by-small-boat-last-year-uk-intelligence-reveals/

By Monica Showalter

When news broke a few weeks ago about the FBI targeting the Catholic Church’s Latin mass enthusiasts as part of the great Joe Biden hunt for “extremists,” outrage ensured, and the bureau moved quickly to dismiss the matter as the doing of an errant field office, which put out a bum policy paper. It certainly wasn’t the FBI’s policy to target Americans for their beliefs, FBI Director Christopher Wray testified, adding that the miscreants in the Richmond local field office would be given refresher courses to put them back on the straight and narrow. Never mind that they’d committed a violation of the First Amendment rights of American citizens under the Constitution. The refresher courses would fix everything.

Well, now it turns out there was more to the matter than simply a bad policy paper from the FBI’s local yokels out in the Richmond backwoods who didn’t understand the First Amendment.

According to National Review:

As part of its effort to identify extremists in the Catholic Church, the FBI recruited at least one “undercover employee” to “develop sources among the clergy and church leadership,” Representative Jim Jordan (R., Ohio) revealed Monday.

 Jordan, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, issued a subpoena demanding FBI director Christopher Wray testify and provide more information to Congress about the federal agency’s intelligence-gathering initiative targeting Catholic Americans.

Meaning, it was more than a policy paper, it was an anti-Catholic operation that was advanced pretty far along, complete with the recruiting of at least one informant.

Who the heck was this informant for this illegal act, how’d they find this character, how did the FBI make the recruitment pitch, and how much taxpayer money was the informant paid?

Meanwhile, the leftists dominating the Catholic Church itself have been attempting to stamp out Latin mass, too — so why was the FBI trying to uselessly duplicate its efforts — or was it a government-private “partnership” here?

Those seem like valid questions for Jordan to ask as his subpoena brings Wray back to testify under oath.

We could leave it to the Catholics to sort out whether he went to confession afterwards for his misdeed, informing on his fellow parishioners for an intrusive government agency in a blatantly illegal act.

The fact that they had an informant (and who knows if it was really one, let alone confined to the Richmond field office?) puts the FBI squarely in the league of Russia’s KGB, which, after the Soviet empire collapsed, was found to have infiltrated the Russian Orthodox Church like termites, spying on people going to church, listening in on confessions, driving clergymen to issue state policy pronouncements. It was an ugly period, and obviously, many Russians abandoned religion altogether as the ugly specter became obvious, both before and after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Might that be the real aim of the Bidenites — to separate people from their churches, making them distrustful, and no longer wanting to be associated with them? That certainly would be convenient for the state, whether the Soviet one, or the American one.

Which is just astounding to consider, given the scope of this operation. Jordan has his hands full with this revelation and an urgent mission to get to the bottom of it. The U.S., according to a recent poll, is already showing signs of falling into irreligion and church attendance in many faiths is down. While the press may be blaming COVID, the state intrusion factor shouldn’t be overlooked, either. Church and faith are the social glue for the creation of civil society and the amassing of a culture of trust, the social capital of society. An atomized society dominated only by the state is a Soviet state and we all know what became of that.

This outrageous intrusion into religious freedom has got to be nipped in the bud fast. Jordan is right to be on it.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2023/04/an_fbi_informant_inside_the_catholic_church_to_keep_tabs_on_all_those_latin_mass_aficionados.html

by Giulio Meotti

Testimonies collected by the New York Times within the International Labor Organization (the UN labor agency) speak of a payment of 25 million dollars by the Doha government into the agency’s coffers, which would have led to a softer attitude on workers’ rights in the emirate, in view of the football World Cup. The agency denied that.

In 2021, Saudi Arabia – another flagship country of workers’ rights – was elected to the executive committee of the International Labor Organization.

Wonderful news can be read on the websites of UN agencies. Like this one: “The director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Ghada Waly, and the chairman of the Saudi Arabian Anti-Corruption and Control Authority, Mazin bin Ibrahim Al-Kahmous, signed an agreement of 10 millions of dollars to fight against corruption”.

In fact, the Saudis know how to fight drug trafficking: they behead it.

In 2018, Qatar promised 500 million dollars to UN agencies.

The truth is that Islamic dictatorships are buying up the UN agencies. What interest do some of the world’s least populated and most repressive countries, from Qatar to Saudi Arabia, have in becoming the world’s largest donors to humanitarian causes? This was explained to Le Figaro by the distinguished philosopher Pierre Manent, director of the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales. He quotes Brexit and a great scholar of Machiavelli: “We have allowed the establishment of a discipline of words and feelings which forbids us to defend and, so to speak, to love what we are, the form of life which is our own, but which , on the other hand, imperiously commands us to welcome with avidity everything that accuses us, everything that disturbs us, everything that offends us. We were a people who claimed to govern themselves and to be part of history. We have given up on this ambition and declared it unjust. Our nation separates us from humanity, it is urgent to dissolve it in humanity, such is our new political religion”.

In the same hours that the New York Times accused the labor agency of corruption by Qatar, the head of the UN refugee agency, Filippo Grandi, was in Qatar to sign an agreement with the emirate worth 18 million dollars. The UN secretary, Antonio Guterres, was also in Qatar to inaugurate the “House of the United Nations”. The Emir of Qatar is funding numerous UN agencies, from Unicef to WHO to FAO. One of the smallest states in the world is among the top ten international donors to UN agencies. Saudi Arabia is the third largest donor in the world. What was the UNWTO, the UN agency for tourism, doing in Saudi Arabia?

A report by the Adenauer Foundation tells how Gulf countries use humanitarian donations to promote political Islam.

Take the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism’s donor list: Qatar and Saudi Arabia hold it tight with their dollars. It doesn’t matter that Qatar has donated 1.5 billion to Hamas, that in Syria Qatar has supported the Al Nusra terrorists or that Qatar is accused by the parents of an American journalist assassinated by ISIS of ties to terrorism.

At the Orwellian UN, “terrorism” does not mean terrorism.

Meanwhile, Qatar has anointed the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, with 16 million dollars. Last September, Saudi Arabia donated 1 million to the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations, the UN body for “dialogue between civilizations”. Then 10 million from Kuwait to the UN migration agency.

Islamic regimes have launched a takeover bid for UNESCO by investing immense financial resources in the United Nations agency. Qatar, the world’s richest state per capita, has provided extremely generous financial support. For this reason a representative of Qatar, the former Minister of Culture Hamad bin Abdulaziz al Kawari, led the race for the leadership of UNESCO.

This “lobbying” has allowed Islamic countries to form the most powerful bloc in Unesco. As Denis MacEoin explained, “of Unesco’s 195 member states, 35 are fully Islamic nations, another 21 are members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and four are observer states. That makes 60 representing a bloc in favor of Muslim-inspired resolutions.”

Turkey gave 5 million to UNESCO, which remained very silent when Erdogan converted the Hagia Sophia basilica into a mosque.

Qatar donated 4 million and promised 10 to UNESCO (another half million has just been allocated for 2023). UNESCO’s headquarters in Paris hosted a Saudi-sponsored forum on “cultural and religious diversity” (UNESCO just praised the Saudis). A capitulation to barbarism paid for by the Saudi king Abdallah Ibn Abdul Aziz with 20 million to UNESCO. The United Arab Emirates donated 6 million to UNESCO and Kuwait 5 million. Then another donation of 3.5 million from Kuwait.

Saudi Arabia has just been elected to lead the UNESCO commission on world heritage. Not bad for a state that has destroyed 98 percent of its religious and artistic heritage. We recall that UNESCO is the acronym that stands for “United Nations Fund for Education, Science and Culture”. George Orwell.?..

Azerbaijan, one of the richest Islamic countries in the world, has enormous weight within UNESCO. Azerbaijani Vice-President Mehriban Aliyeva (who is also President Ilham Aliyev’s wife) has been given the title of ‘UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador’, a position that organizations such as the European Center for Press and Media Freedom have asked UNESCO to withdraw. Aliyev awarded a medal to former UNESCO director Koichiro Matsuura. And when UNESCO lost 22 percent of its budget, Azerbaijan gave 5 million to UNESCO. The same year, UNESCO hosted an exhibition titled “Azerbaijan, Land of Tolerance” at its Paris headquarters at the request of the Aliyev Foundation, headed by his wife.

In the words of that magnificent French intellectual who was Jean-François Revel, UNESCO has become the “international fund of lies, whose original mission was to spread education, science and culture, but which reversed the course of its function making one think of Orwell’s Ministry of Truth”.

Why pass up a long weekend at the five-star Four Seasons Riyadh hotel, where “marble bathrooms with deep soaking tubs” await? This is what the 2,100 delegates of 400 Western non-governmental organizations gathered in the realm of Islam for the world forum “Youth and their social impact” organized by the United Nations must have thought. Participants of the fairer sex were asked to “dress modestly”, wearing the abaya, the long dark dress. Men were asked never to give their left hand, “it is considered impolite” in Islam, and “never extend your hand to women”. The event was organized by a foundation of the Saudi family and saw the participation, among others, of the UNESCO secretary Irina Bokova and the French Jacques Attali.

At the Four Seasons hotel the motto is: “You will love it”. They must have thought so too, the castes of untouchables of the UN agencies, home of a humanitarian bureaucracy that does not know austerity, gets bigger and fatter every year and whose tendency to pachydermia is proportional to its uselessness and danger. They are the West’s soft underbelly.

Islamic dictatorships are trying to buy the UN agencies | ערוץ 7 (israelnationalnews.com)

French President Emmanuel Macron is a “madman”, a senior figure within the French parliament has declared.

Boris Vallaud, who leads the Socialist Party within the French parliament, has described Emmanuel Macron as being a “madman” in an interview.

The denunciation is one of many others levelled at the French President in recent days, with the head of state angering allies and enemies alike with his aggressive push to pass reforms at, seemingly, any cost.

According to a report in Le Figaro, Vallaud lashed out at Macron’s continued bullheaded support for his pension reform system, something that is overwhelmingly unpopular in the country.

“I do not accept that Emmanuel Macron has a mandate to apply this reform,” the Socialist leader said.

He meanwhile described Macron as seemingly becoming ever more “entrenched” in the Elysée palace as opposition to him mounts, attacking the “obstinancy” of the President — who he now considers a “madman” — who has opted to lash out at the general public for opposing him rather than listen to their perspectives.

“Humiliation is a form of government method with Emmanuel Macron,” Vallaud said, adding that France was now in a “democratic crisis” thanks to Macron.

In response to the French President’s forcing through of his extremely unpopular pension reforms, the senior Socialist said that his party was now planning on tabling a new bill in the country’s parliament aimed at reversing the forcibly implemented changes.

“It would be a way to give voice to the French who demand a form of continuous democracy,” he said, referencing the fact that the parliament was not given an opportunity to vote on the reforms the first time around due to the French government abusing a constitutional loophole.

Such a bill is likely not at the forefront of Macron’s mind right now though, with the French President having seemingly moved on to antagonising the United States over issues in China.

Speaking to POLITICO, the French head of state advocated for Europe to reduce reliance on the U.S. dollar, as well as work to build a decent relationship with China.

Warning against the continent becoming a “vassal” to either power, Macron also advocated for Europe to largely leave the issue of Taiwan alone, saying that it was not in its interests to go poking its nose into the issue.

“The question Europeans need to answer … is it in our interest to accelerate [a crisis] on Taiwan? No,” he said. “The worse thing would be to think that we Europeans must become followers on this topic and take our cue from the U.S. agenda and a Chinese overreaction.”

“Europeans cannot resolve the crisis in Ukraine; how can we credibly say on Taiwan, ‘watch out, if you do something wrong we will be there’?” he went on to ask. “If you really want to increase tensions that’s the way to do it.”

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2023/04/11/president-macron-has-become-a-madman-says-senior-opposition-mp/

For several days, the media kept pushing the story of an Imam who was stabbed in his mosque, tying it to someone scribbling over a name that had Allah in it at that mosque and implying that this involved Islamphobia.

National stories at CNN and the New York Times failed to mention that the stabber was a fellow Muslim.

The man accused of stabbing a Paterson imam during morning prayers at a city mosque Sunday morning told police he wanted to kill the man over religious differences, court documents show.

During a brief virtual court appearance from the Bergen County Jail on Monday, Zorba spoke through a Turkish-language interpreter and at times appeared confused…

Immediately after his arrest, Zorba told police “he planned the attack the night prior at his home on his own due to his disagreeing with the mosque and its leader collecting money in the name of Islam,” the officer wrote.

Even when the media finally reports that this was Muslim-on-Muslim theological violence, it still can’t actually state that openly, and keeps trying to create the impression that this was an attack by a non-Muslim on a Muslim.

The stabbing occurred a day after the discovery of an act of vandalism at the Dr. Hani Awadallah School in Paterson. A vandal defaced the “allah” part of the Awadallah’s name. “Allah” means “God” in Arabic.

Allah means the Islamic deity, but that has no obvious connection to the stabbing, and whether or not it does, Zorba is a Turkish Muslim offended by the imam’s actions for Islamic reasons.

Serif Zorba, 32, had been attending prayer services at the Mevlana Cami, a mosque on Sussex Street, every day since the start of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month that began March 22, according to the vice president of that congregation, Hasan Oren…

After prayers, Zorba allegedly approached the imam and pointed at his tie, asking him, “Why are you wearing a tie? In our religion, you should not wear a tie.”

Zorba’s worldview is pretty obvious here and yet the national media won’t even touch that question.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/muslim-attacks-imam-over-islam-media-blames-islamophobia/

The defense lawyer of an Afghan migrant accused of stabbing a woman to death in Northern Ireland last week has claimed his client should be given bail since the prison service may not adequately accommodate his religious needs during Ramadan.

Habib Shamel, a 26-year-old who arrived in Dublin from Afghanistan in October 2020 and claimed asylum, appeared before Belfast Magistrates’ Court on Saturday after being charged with the murder of Geila Ibram, a 27-year-old Romanian national.

The court heard how the victim’s mutilated body was found at an apartment building in the city of Limerick on Tuesday. She died from multiple stab wounds during what police say was a “vicious and frenzied attack.”

A police investigation led to Shamel after messages on the victim’s phone revealed a “sexual exchange” had been arranged between the Afghan national and his victim on the day of the attack, and CCTV footage showed Shamel leaving the victim’s address shortly after arriving at around 1:30 p.m. on Tuesday afternoon.

Shamel, who is understood to have injured himself in the attack, attended the local hospital before fleeing to Belfast later that day. He was eventually arrested by local police on Friday.

Shamel’s defense lawyer made a bail application to the court on the grounds that the accused, as a practicing Muslim, would not have his religious needs adequately catered to by the Northern Ireland Prison Service.

“He is very religious and is required to observe religious customs which occur at sunrise and sunset,” the lawyer told the court.

“He also has to fast during set parts of the day due to Ramadan and is also required to wash himself with water after each prayer session.

“We are concerned about the ability of the prison service to accommodate these religious observances,” they added.

Bail was contested by the prosecution, who argued Shamel represents a significant flight risk and could seek to abscond to mainland Britain.

“This is obviously a very grave offense which is evidenced by a strong prosecution case. There is also a risk of flight and further offending and I consider it far too high a risk in both cases to grant bail,” ruled the magistrate.

Legal aid was granted for the defendant, who is due to appear again before the court via video link on May 2.

https://rmx.news/uk/afghan-migrant-accused-of-brutal-murder-in-northern-ireland-wanted-bail-as-prison-service-may-not-allow-him-to-observe-ramadan/

An Indian-American lawmaker serving in the Tennessee House of Representatives has said that a recently-expelled Democrat hurled a racial slur at him, calling him the “brown face of Indian supremacy”.

Sabi Kumar, 75, told Fox News that during a debate in the statehouse, Democrat Justin Jones, 27, shoved his finger in his face and said: “Kumar, they will never accept you.”

The remarks against Kumar came just before the Tennessee House of Representatives voted to expel Reps Jones and Justin Pearson from the Legislature for their role in a protest calling for gun control after a shooting at a private school in Nashville that killed six people.

“I have been here for 53 years, and I have practice surgery. I have lived in Tennessee for 46 years, and people have been extremely kind to me. I was really surprised, and that these things should not happen, especially in a place where people are constantly guarding the values in such a way that discrimination and racism does not occur,” Kumar said at the ‘Tucker Carlson’ show.

Fox News reported that Jones was sanctioned for using a bullhorn when he joined with protesters, which State House leaders called “disorderly behaviour”.

President Joe Biden criticised the move in a tweet, saying: “Three kids and three officials gunned down in yet another mass shooting. And what are GOP officials focused on? Punishing lawmakers who joined thousands of peaceful protesters calling for action. It’s shocking, undemocratic, and without precedent.”

Responding to Jones’ charge during the debate, Kumar said having lived in the country for 53 years, he never faced a racial slur.

“I live a good life, yet you, on tape, called me a brown face,” Kumar told Jones.

“You shove your finger in my face and said Kumar they will never accept you. You said it twice… You have insulted your colleagues. You have insulted the House of Representatives… You have insulted our speaker you have personally insulted me.”

He finished his statement by calling Jones “a talented young man” who has “a lot to offer”.

“…it’s sad what you just stated to me, and that’s what this is really about. He said ‘You see everything under the lens of race, when you join this body, you should just become one of us. Just assimilate”, Jones said in response to Kumar.

Kumar, the only non-white member of the Republican caucus, immigrated to the US from India in 1970, working as a surgeon in Miami from 1971 to 1977 after which he moved to Springfield.

Currently the Chairman of the House Insurance Committee, Kumar won the Tennessee House of Representatives’ 66th district in 2014, and has represented it since then.

https://hindupost.in/world/black-democrat-lawmaker-justin-jones-uses-racial-slur-brown-face-of-indian-supremacy-for-republican-lawmaker-sabi-kumar-tennessee-usa/

On Friday (April 7), the American newspaper The New York Times (NYT) published a contentious piece, arguing that it is in the best interests of everyone to not know the truth about the 2022 Nord Stream pipeline sabotage.

The article, authored by a journalist named Erika Solomon, claimed, “Naming a culprit could set off unintended consequences.” She went on to suggest that ‘naming’ Russia could lead to demands for a ‘response’ from the Western allies.

“Claiming Russia was behind the attack would mean it had successfully sabotaged major critical infrastructure in Western Europe’s backyard and could spark demands for a response,” Solomon wrote.

“Blaming Ukrainian operatives could stoke internal debate in Europe about support for their eastern neighbour. And naming a Western nation or operatives could trigger deep mistrust when the West is struggling to maintain a united front,” she further added.

Erika Solomon managed to find a ‘military expert’ named Jens Wenzel Kristoffersen to back her contentious proposition. “There are strategic reasons for not revealing who did it. As long as they don’t come out with anything substantial, then we are left in the dark on all this — as it should be,” he suggested.

The sudden change in the stance of The New York Times comes two days after Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh called out the American daily for parroting the CIA (US intelligence agency)’s version of the underwater bombing of Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines.

It must be mentioned that the American journalist had earlier accused the US Navy of blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines in an explosive piece in February this year.

In a Substack newsletter published on Wednesday (April 5), Seymour Hersh stated, “Within weeks of my report that Joe Biden ordered the destruction of the Nord Stream pipelines, the agency produced a cover story and found willing takers in the New York Times and two major German publications.”

He lambasted the American newspaper for peddling the story, concocted by the Central Investigation Agency, to shield the role of the US government in the 2022 Nord Stream pipeline sabotage.

The Background of the Controversy

On March 7 this year, The New York Times published an article wherein it cited new Intelligence to claim the role of Russian/ Ukrainian nationals in the sabotage.

“Officials who have reviewed the intelligence said they believed the saboteurs were most likely Ukrainian or Russian nationals, or some combination of the two. US officials said no American or British nationals were involved,” it stated.

Citing officials, NYT further added, “The explosives were most likely planted with the help of experienced divers who did not appear to be working for military or intelligence services, U.S. officials who have reviewed the new intelligence said.”

German law enforcement officials had initially claimed that a 6-member Ukranian group forged passports and chartered a 15-metre yacht named ‘Andromeda’ to carry out the destruction of Nord pipelines. However, they backtracked from this theory earlier this month.

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh slammed the likes of The New York Times for failing to question the ‘dubious’ Andromeda story and blindly relying on Intelligence inputs. He said that the story was fed by the CIA to both the US and German media as well as the latter’s Intelligence service.

“By creating a story of deep sea divers and a crew who did not exist, the agency was following protocol, and the story would have been part of the first days of secret planning to destroy the pipelines…The cover story was shared with and supported by the BND, Germany’s federal intelligence service,” Hersh noted.

Under fire from the veteran American journalist, The New York Times was forced to make quick amends and come up with an intriguing piece that neither discredits their original CIA cover story nor encourages an in-depth investigation into the Nord Stream pipeline sabotage.

Journalist Erika Solomon found the solution to the fix – Don’t name the culprit!!!

https://www.opindia.com/2023/04/new-york-times-investigators-nord-pipeline-russia/