RealClearInvestigations' Picks of the Week August 20 to August 26, 2023 In RealClearInvestigations, Julie Kelly reports that the judge named to hear Donald Trump’s Jan. 6 trial is prone to the sort of intemperate comments she warns the former President against, as she makes politically charged rulings in dozens of trials of defendants accused in the 2021 Capitol melee. Kelly, author of the exposé “January 6” -- and now a contributor to RCI -- draws on thousands of pages of hearing transcripts revealing that: Chutkan U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Judge Tanya S. Chutkan has repeatedly expressed strong and doubt-free opinions about the issues at the heart of United States v. Donald Trump. These include her public assertions that the 2020 election was beyond reproach, that the Jan. 6 protests were orchestrated by Trump, and that the former president is guilty of crimes. She has described Jan. 6 as a “mob attack” on “the very foundation of our democracy” and branded the issue at the heart of the case she is hearing – Trump’s claim that the 2020 election was stolen – a conspiracy theory. Chutkan’s strident language raises questions about her impartiality in handling the case against the presumptive GOP nominee for president in 2024. She appears to share the same view of Jan. 6 as the special counsel prosecuting Trump in her courtroom, Jack Smith. In several cases, she has given defendants longer prison terms than recommended by prosecutors. In at least two cases she sentenced defendants to jail time when prosecutors sought only probation. In RealClearInvestigations, Mark Hemingway reports on Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss as Exhibit A in what critics are calling a gaping loophole in campaign finance that essentially allows wealthy foreigners to launder their contributions into American politics. Since 2016, some $245 million of the medical device entrepreneur-turned-philanthropist’s spending on American politics has gone to Arabella Advisors, which controls a vast network of progressive nonprofits and circuitously and opaquely diffuses its money through them. Arabella, which raised $1.6 billion in 2021, was dubbed by the liberal Atlantic magazine “The Massive Progressive Dark-Money Group You’ve Never Heard Of.” House Republicans this month announced an investigation into whether nonprofits are abiding by “the statutory and regulatory prohibitions against … foreign sources of funding.” Although foreigners have never been allowed to make direct contributions to campaigns, the landmark Citizens United Supreme Court ruling, which Democrats have long derided, essentially allowed Wyss and other foreign billionaires to give unlimited amounts to political action committees and other organizations that did not coordinate their advocacy with specific candidates. The attorney representing Wyss in a complaint to the Federal Election Commission was Marc Elias, the Democratic Party super-lawyer, elections litigator, and Democrat cut-out who paid for the debunked Hillary Clinton-funded Steele dossier in the Trump-Russia affair. Biden, Trump and the Beltway Scowling, Accused Ex-President Trump Is Subjected to Mugshot, AP New Memos Undercut Dems' 2019 Impeachment Narrative, Just the News Foreign Deals Spell More Trouble for Hunter Biden, Wall Street Journal Conflict? Hunter Biden Prosecutor Worked with Brother Beau, Washington Post GOP Probers: VP Biden Used Alias to Talk Hunter Business, Daily Mail Chummy Del. Prosecutor Used Joe's Secret Email Address, Daily Mail Hunter's Partner Used U.S. Position for Clout in Eastern Europe, Daily Wire Hunter Biden Had Long White House Stay at Time Coke Found, Daily Mail Rep. Ilhan Omar Touted DNC Megadonor's Company in Pakistan, Washington Free Beacon Other Noteworthy Articles and Series At least two-dozen women have come forward in recent months alleging abusive treatment within the CIA. They have told authorities and Congress about sexual assaults, unwanted touching and coercion as well as a campaign by the spy agency to keep them from speaking out, with dire warnings that it could wreck their careers and even endanger national security. This article reports that complaints to the CIA’s Office of Equal Employment Opportunity about sexual harassment and discrimination this year have already doubled last year’s total, detailing 76 separate incidents: Congressional aides told the AP they have interviewed or had contact with at least two dozen women CIA employees this year. They described misconduct ranging from lewd remarks about sexual fantasies at after-work happy hours to a case in which a senior manager showed up at a subordinate’s house at night with a firearm demanding sex. Some of the incidents go back years and took place as officers were on risky covert missions overseas, while others took place at CIA headquarters. An attorney for some of the women says one claims she was given alcohol on her first day at a new posting and then sexually assaulted by the most senior official. Another contends her supervisor told her on her first day of work that they were “soulmates” and followed up with text messages suggesting sexual trysts. … In another case, a female CIA employee said one of her co-workers repeatedly discussed bondage, sent her nude photos of women and threatened to get her security credentials revoked unless she had sex with him. Among the unwanted advances was an attempt at work by the co-worker to “airplane feed her pasta, which he spilled on her and then offered to clean up from the front of her shirt in an attempt to feel her breast.” Washington attorney Kevin Byrnes said many of his clients were told they could not identify their attackers, go to law enforcement or even speak to family members about their claims due to national security concerns or the risk of divulging unspecified classified information. So far this year, close calls involving commercial airlines have been happening, on average, multiple times a week, according to a Times analysis of internal FAA records, as well as thousands of pages of federal safety reports and interviews with more than 50 current and former pilots, air traffic controllers and federal officials. The number of such near misses recorded in a NASA database ‒ which is based on voluntary submissions that are not independently corroborated ‒ has more than doubled over the past decade, though it is unclear whether that reflects worsening safety conditions or simply increased reporting: The incidents often occur at or near airports and are the result of human error, the agency’s internal records show. Mistakes by air traffic controllers ‒ stretched thin by a nationwide staffing shortage have been one major factor. The close calls have involved all major U.S. airlines and have happened nationwide. Some have made headlines, including one in San Diego on Aug. 11, when a private plane almost landed on top of a Southwest flight. But most, including a close call between two planes in Phoenix four days earlier, have not been disclosed to the public. The article notes that almost everyone agrees that the U.S. air travel system, which transports nearly three million passengers a day, is the safest in the world. “But current and former air traffic controllers said in interviews that close calls were happening so frequently that they feared it was only a matter of time until a deadly crash occurred.” At a legal conference in July, top law school administrators not only brainstormed ways to circumvent the Supreme Court's ban on race-based admissions, this article reports, but appeared to recommend ways to hide such actions: When attendees questioned the legality of such methods, arguing that they could be struck down because of their race-conscious motive, [University of Michigan general counsel Timothy] Lynch stressed the need for plausible deniability. "You should be aware right now of the record you're creating," Lynch told the conference, which was ostensibly devoted to helping schools comply with the Supreme Court's decision. "What are your faculty saying in emails? What are they saying in public?" Plaintiffs often look for evidence of "discriminatory intent," Lynch explained, noting that the Supreme Court explicitly forbade backdoor racial preferences in its ruling. The "key question," he said, is "what can you say right now is the race-neutral explanation for doing it, and how do you avoid having your faculty colleagues muddy the record?" "Great point," replied [UC Berkeley Law School Dean Erwin] Chemerinsky, who moderated the conference. Chemerinsky had been caught on tape a few days earlier, in June, describing how his school gets around California's ban on affirmative action in faculty hiring, joking with students that "if ever I'm deposed, I'm going to deny I said this to you." From the Annals of Here They Go Again, Washington D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb is investigating conservative judicial activist Leonard Leo and his network of nonprofit groups after Politico and a progressive watchdog group reported that Leo may have violated laws against using charities for personal enrichment by using one of his nonprofits — registered as a charity — to pay his for-profit company tens of millions of dollars in the two years since he joined the company. Quote: The Leo-aligned nonprofit The 85 Fund – which is registered as a tax-exempt charity – paid tens of millions of dollars to a public relations firm in Virginia which he co-chairs in the two years since he joined the firm, known as CRC Advisors. The watchdog complaint alleges the total amount of money that flowed from Leo-aligned nonprofits to his for-profit firms was $73 million over six years beginning in 2016. “There are questions as to whether Leo-affiliated nonprofits have diverted substantial portions of their income and assets, directly or indirectly, to the personal benefit of Leonard Leo,” read the Campaign for Accountability’s complaint. … Best known as Donald Trump’s White House “court whisperer,” Leo played a behind-the-scenes role in the nominations of all three of the former president’s Supreme Court justices and promoted them through his multi-billion-dollar network of nonprofits. Trump chose his three Supreme Court picks, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett, from a list drawn up by Leo. More recently, Leo was the beneficiary of a $1.6 billion contribution, believed to be the biggest political donation in U.S. history. David B. Rivkin Jr., an attorney for the parties in the investigation, said in a statement that the complaint “is sloppy, deceptive and legally flawed and we are addressing this fully with the DC Attorney General’s office.” Americans are anxious, but those looking for help have found that the supply of available and qualified therapists hasn’t kept up with demand. Some can’t afford the fees. In response, this article reports, a flurry of old-line companies, upstarts and opportunistic entrepreneurs aim to fill the demand for relief, creating a growing industry geared toward anxiety outside the medical and traditional mental-health professions, including supplements, products and mental-health coaches: A search for “anxiety relief” on Google pulls up links for supplements in the form of pills, patches, gummies and mouth sprays. There are vibrating devices that hang around your neck and “tone your vagus nerve,” weighted stuffed animals, bead-filled stress balls and coloring books that claim to bring calm. Ads for online talk therapy apps pop up on social-media sites. The science behind much of the industry is unclear and in some cases questioned by scientists and researchers. The antianxiety claims of most products have no federal or regulatory oversight. The role of the Food and Drug Administration is to ensure that supplements meet safety standards, are well manufactured and accurately labeled, but the agency doesn’t need to approve supplements before they can be sold or marketed. Supplements might interact with other medications. |