Important Takeaways:
- Outgoing FBI Director Christopher Wray revealed during an interview on Sunday, a week before he steps down, that China has penetrated America’s water treatment plants, electric grid, and other critical civilian infrastructure, and is lying “in wait” for an opportunity to cyberattack at a time and place of its choosing.
- Asked on CBS’s 60 Minutes about Chinese penetration of U.S. cyber and infrastructure, Wray said China’s cyber program is the largest in the world and has stolen more of Americans’ personal and corporate data than every nation combined. Then, he added:
- But even beyond the cyber theft. There’s another part of the Chinese cyber threat that I think has not gotten the attention publicly that it I think desperately deserves. And that is Chinese government’s pre-positioning on American civilian critical infrastructure. To lie in wait on those networks to be in a position to wreak havoc and can inflict real-world harm at a time and place of their choosing.
- Wray said China has already infiltrated malware into critical American infrastructure.
- “Things like water treatment plants. We’re talking about transportation systems. We’re talking about targeting of our energy sector, the electric grid, natural gas pipelines. And recently we’ve seen targeting of our telecommunications systems,” he said.
- Wray said China has also been listening into Americans’ calls.
- Joshua Steinman, former National Security Council senior director for cyber security during the Trump administration, posted on X:
- This enrages me. I left them with the tools they needed to confront this. And it appears those tools went unused for four years. Total mismanagement.
- Wray called stepping down “one of the hardest decisions” he has ever made, but said he had little choice after President-Elect Donald Trump made it clear he would be replaced.
- Trump has nominated Kash Patel, former deputy Director of National Intelligence and Pentagon chief of staff for the role.
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Important Takeaways:
- The FBI seized more than 150 homemade explosives from a Virginia man’s home, ABC News reported on Wednesday.
- Federal investigators made this discovery in December while searching the home of Norfolk, Virginia, resident Brad Spafford.
- According to court documents, it is believed to be “the largest seizure by number of finished explosive devices in FBI history,” ABC News reported.
- The court documents added that most of the bombs, material for building explosives, and tools were found in a garage next to Spafford’s home.
- “Several additional apparent pipe bombs were found in a backpack in the home’s bedroom, completely unsecured,” said prosecutors.
- Spafford’s defense attorneys argued in a motion Tuesday that he never planned anything violent.
- The prosecution responded, “While he is not known to have engaged in any apparent violence, he has certainly expressed interest in the same, through his manufacture of pipe bombs marked ‘lethal,’ his possession of riot gear and a vest loaded with pipe bombs, his support for political assassinations and use of the pictures of the President for target practice,” ABC News reported.
- According to the court documents, “this investigation began in early 2023 when the defendant’s neighbor and friend reported that the defendant disfigured his hand in 2021 while working with a homemade explosive device and was stockpiling weapons and homemade ammunition.”
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Important Takeaways:
- More than any other personnel decision former President Donald Trump, the president-elect now, has made for his incoming administration, his decision to pick attorney Kash Patel to lead the FBI as the bureau’s next director has electrified Trump’s most ardent supporters.
- The raw energy with this selection may be because Patel is viewed as one of the movement’s most aggressive fighters–he was critical in the effort to undercut in Trump’s first term the Russia hoax against the then-president and then later led counterterrorism efforts in the White House–but it’s perhaps even more because of the distrust American conservatives have in the FBI over the past several years that finding someone who just will not appease the world’s preeminent law enforcement agency’s bad actors and will aim to steer the bureau back towards actually enforcing the law and away from political witch hunting.
- Senators may disagree with Patel on one thing or another, but they cannot legitimately argue that the person who led counterterrorism activities for the Trump White House including overseeing the raid that killed ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, serving as a senior adviser to the Director of National Intelligence, as chief of staff at the Pentagon, and as a top attorney for the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI), as well as a long and illustrious career both as a prosecutor and as a public defender, is not qualified for the job. So see, this move by Trump puts these forces that his base has long distrusted and sought to counter in check–if not checkmate–and that’s why his base is so excited.
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Important Takeaways:
- CIA official Asif William Rahman was arrested by the FBI in Cambodia on Tuesday and charged with disclosing classified documents allegedly showing Israel’s retaliation plans against Iran, the New York Times reported on Wednesday. He was brought to a federal court in Guam to face charges.
- Rahman was indicted by a US federal court in Virginia with charges of willful retention and transmission of national defense information, the report said.
- According to the New York Times, the documents were prepared by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which analyzes US spy satellite information and photos.
- While both the US Department of Defense and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment on the leaked documents, they did not deny their authenticity.
- The leak occurred on Friday when the Middle East Spectator Telegram channel claimed it had received documents about Israel’s strike preparations from a source within the US intelligence community. This Telegram channel is known for publishing pro-Iranian propaganda, and its associated Twitter account states that its operators are based in Iran.
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Important Takeaways:
- The Justice Department, FBI, and IRS all knew the infamous Hunter Biden laptop “was real” immediately after it came to light and prosecutors told investigators not to ask questions about Joe Biden ahead of the 2020 election, according to two whistleblowers.
- IRS employees Gary Shapley and Joseph Ziegler, both who previously testified before Congress, spoke to investigative reporter Catherine Herridge in their first interview since Hunter Biden pleaded guilty to federal tax charges to avoid facing another criminal trial months after being convicted in a separate gun case.
- The infamous “laptop from hell” was originally abandoned by first son Hunter Biden at a Delaware computer repair shop before being retrieved and authenticated by the FBI.
- In October 2020, the New York Post first reported the abandoned laptop included of influence-peddling, drug use, and other lurid activity.
- Government officials, social media companies, and the mainstream media refused to acknowledge the authenticity of the laptop, instead saying it was part of a Russian disinformation effort.
- In July 2023, the FBI’s section chief of the Foreign Influence Task Force testified before a House panel that the bureau knew the laptop belonged to Hunter Biden in the run-up to the 2020 election.
- Shapley and Ziegler told Herridge federal investigators faced “a lot of overt investigative steps that we were not allowed to take because we had an upcoming election.”
- They also told the reporter:
- “The prosecutors … told us that they didn’t want to ask about ‘The Big Guy.'”
- “We corroborated that ‘The Big Guy’ was Joe Biden. Yes.”
- “There was no question ever that ‘The Big Guy’ was referring to Joe Biden.”
- “It was for the purpose of affecting that [2020] election.”
- The two whistleblowers alleged there is disparate treatment of taxpayers by the IRS and a double standard at the Justice Department for the handling of presidential campaigns.
- Herridge also reported that an internal IRS email shows the whistleblowers’ supervisor celebrated the Hunter Biden guilty plea, calling it a “great conviction” even though the whistleblower say they have been punished for coming forward by superiors.
- “Those are words that are not supported by the actions of the agency,” Herridge was told.
- “This to me was someone who knows that [an] IRS watchdog right now is looking into the way that they’ve handled this and they see the writing on the wall, and this really is an example of just covering their backside like a true bureaucracy.”
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Important Takeaways:
- Weaponization of the government’s power against its opponents and even its own citizens has been steadily growing worse and for a reason.
- FBI whistleblower Steve Friend is well aware as to why that is.
- “To set the foundation for it, you have to go back to Barack Obama assuming office in 2009. So, a Kamala Harris presidency would mean 20 years. That’s an entire government career, a full generation of hiring that has gone across every single agency,” Friend tells Steve Deace of “The Steve Deace Show.”
- “Now you have 20 years of ideologies,” he continues, adding, “and that’s how you’re getting things like McDonald’s the other day, who had one franchise allow him to do one photo opportunity and then we had an E. coli breakout, CDC all over that one, and then the United States senators accusing them of price gouging and driving the stock share price down.”
- Not only did the government jump at the chance to punish McDonald’s for allowing a photo op with a political opponent, but citizens across the country have fallen victim to the FACE Act.
- “In the Biden administration, it’s been applied more than any other presidential administration in history,” Friend explains. “92% application towards pro-lifers, not people who were subject to fire bombings at their crisis pregnancy centers.”
- “People do not know exactly the powers that are at their fingertips,” Friend continues. “They have the ability to have an assessment from the Patriot Act, which means that they can open up an investigation on any American for an articulable purpose. Don’t need probable cause of a crime.”
- “In other words, you’re describing investigations in search of crimes. Not criminal investigations, but investigations in search of crimes. That’s what you’re describing,” Deace says.
- “Find me a man, and I’ll show you the crime,” Friend agrees.
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Important Takeaways:
- The suspect, Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, 27, is a citizen of Afghanistan residing in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, according to prosecutors.
- “This defendant, motivated by ISIS, allegedly conspired to commit a violent attack, on Election Day, here on our homeland,” said FBI Director Christopher Wray in a statement on Tuesday.
- The FBI said he was attempting stockpile firearms, and had taken steps to liquidate his family’s assets and relocate members overseas.
- Mr Tawhedi is charged with providing, attempting to provide, and conspiracy to provide support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization; and with trying to procure firearms and ammunition to use to commit a felony or act of terrorism.
- Mr Tawhedi sought AK-47 assault rifles to use in the attack, authorities claim. On 7 October, he and the co-conspirator met with individuals who actually worked undercover for the FBI to purchase the weapons and ammunition.
- After the purchase, Mr Tawhedi and his co-conspirator were arrested.
- In an interview conducted after his arrest on Monday, the FBI said Mr Tawhedi allegedly confirmed he planned an Election Day attack that would target “large gatherings of people” and that he planned to die carrying it out.
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Important Takeaways:
- July 4 warning: FBI issues alert over attackers targeting holiday celebrations
- The security organizations say the biggest threats are lone offenders and small groups, who may have a larger agenda, and find large events such as holiday gatherings “attractive” targets, according to a bulletin.
- “The political environment of the country certainly doesn’t help,” Aaron Katersky, a security correspondent, told ABC News. “The police are being told by the FBI and Department of Homeland Security to be on watch for these types of things that are notoriously difficult to guard against.”
- Katersky added that big cities including New York and San Francisco are likely potential targets.
- He added that citizens should proceed with caution, however they should not panic.
- According to the Gun Violence Archive, mass shootings on the Fourth of July have steadily increased over the past three years.
- The organization tallied a total 80 mass shootings that occurred over the past three years between July 1-7, according to Mark Bryant, the executive director of the nonprofit that tracks US shootings.
- The group defines a “mass shooting” as a shooting that kills or injures four or more people, not including the shooter.
- Last year, in 2023, there were 28 mass shootings over the July 4th week, followed by 27 in 2022 and 25 in 2021.
- The researchers found that days with high heat saw an 18 percent increase in violence among inmates.
- Hot weather increases body temperature, which in turn increases heart rate and blood pressure.
- Increased blood pressure and heart rate can lead to discomfort, which researchers say explains how high heat leads to increased anger and violence.
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Important Takeaways:
- Congress continues to intensify scrutiny of China’s influence and technology transfers in American academia
- A U.S. congressional committee on China has asked leading research university Georgia Institute of Technology to detail its collaboration with a Chinese university facing U.S. government restrictions due to its alleged ties to the country’s military.
- Georgia Tech partnered with China’s northeastern Tianjin University on cutting edge technologies despite its documented ties to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA)
- Tianjin University and numerous affiliates had been added in 2020 to the Commerce Department’s export restrictions list for actions contrary to U.S. national security, including trade secret theft and research collaboration to advance China’s military.
- The U.S. Justice Department under the Biden administration ended a Trump-era program called the China Initiative intended to combat Chinese espionage and intellectual property theft, but which critics had said spurred racial profiling toward Asian Americans and chilled scientific research.
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Important Takeaways:
- Chinese government-linked hackers have burrowed into U.S. critical infrastructure and are waiting “for just the right moment to deal a devastating blow,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said on Thursday.
- An ongoing Chinese hacking campaign known as Volt Typhoon has successfully gained access to numerous American companies in telecommunications, energy, water and other critical sectors, with 23 pipeline operators targeted, Wray said in a speech at Vanderbilt University.
- “Its plan is to land low blows against civilian infrastructure to try to induce panic.”
- Earlier this week, a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson said Volt Typhoon was in fact unrelated to China’s government, but is part of a criminal ransomware group.
- Wray said China’s hackers operated a series of botnets – constellations of compromised personal computers and servers around the globe – to conceal their malicious cyber activities.
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