The Patriots

by Peter Hasson

• Democratic Rep. Keith Ellison, deputy DNC chair, claimed on Sunday that he hasn’t met with Farrakhan since crossing paths with him at two 2013 meetings
• Ellison, a former Nation of Islam member, claimed for years that he cut all ties to Farrakhan since running for Congress in 2006
• Ellison disputed Farrakhan’s account that he and Indiana Rep. Andre Carson visited the hate group leader in his hotel room in 2015
• Carson has already confirmed his own presence at the 2015 meeting

Under fire over his ties to Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, Democratic Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison claimed Sunday that he hasn’t attended any meetings with Farrakhan since 2013 and “never had” a relationship with him.

Farrakhan is a notorious anti-Semite and racist whose organization teaches that white people are inherently inferior to black people. Ellison, the deputy chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), is a former Nation of Islam member who claimed when he first ran for Congress in 2006 that he had left Farrakhan in his past.

New reporting has shown, however, that Ellison attended multiple meetings with Farrakhan while in Congress. That includes a private visit to Farrakhan’s hotel room in 2015 with Democratic Indiana Rep. Andre Carson. Farrakhan referenced the meeting in a December 2016 Facebook video, and Carson has confirmed that he was present. When CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asked Ellison about that meeting, the congressman did not deny that the meeting took place but instead lashed out at his critics.

Ellison lashed out at his critics again in a blog post on Sunday, claiming that he never had a relationship with Farrakhan and hasn’t met him since 2013, apparently contradicting Farrakhan and Carson’s accounts. Ellison did confirm his presence at two Farrakhan meetings that took place in 2013. Ellison claimed questions about his Farrakhan ties are “a smear by factions on the right who want to pit the Jewish community and the Black community against each other.”

“I do not have and have never had a relationship with Mr. Farrakhan, but I have been in the same room as him,” Ellison wrote. “About a decade ago, he and I had a brief, chance encounter in Washington, D.C. In 2013, I attended a meeting in New York City with Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and nearly 50 others where I advocated for the release of an American political prisoner. I didn’t know Mr. Farrakhan would be there and did not speak to him at the event. Contrary to recent reports, I have not been in any meeting with him since then, and he and I have no communication of any kind.”

"But as the attacks on me and my fellow Black representatives in Congress intensify, I want to be clear: this is a smear by factions on the right who want to pit the Jewish community and the Black community against each other, and distract from the hatred and bigotry on display by the president and the white supremacists who stormed Charlottesville this summer with their anti-Semitic chants and Confederate flags. I declined to dignify questions raised about Mr. Farrakhan because I know they are inherently political, and are designed to separate me from people who I work with every day on issues of importance for Americans of all backgrounds,” Ellison continued.

“The critics will not be satisfied. They won’t be satisfied any more than President Obama’s production of his birth documents satisfied his critics, or Hillary Clinton’s eleven-hour testimony before the House Select Committee on Benghazi sated her detractors,” he added.  Ellison’s blog post comes as he is increasingly under fire over his ties to Farrakhan.

The Washington Post awarded Ellison “Four Pinocchios,” their worst possible rating, for claiming that his relationship with Farrakhan ended in 2006. The post cited The Daily Caller’s reporting in the fact-check.

Democratic Illinois Rep. Danny Davis, who has repeatedly praised Farrakhan, compared Ellison’s relationship to Farrakhan to a fallen-away Christian’s relationship to Jesus in an interview with The Daily Caller News Foundation earlier this month.

“I don’t know that Keith knows Farrakhan as well as I do — in fact, I know he doesn’t,” Davis said. “I don’t think that Keith is no person who is super engaged with Farrakhan, he just happens to be a movement. Just like many of the folks who are Christians, they’re not super engaged with Jesus, but they say they Christians,” Davis said. 

Women’s March organization, a prominent left-wing activist group, has come under fire as well after their leaders expressed support for Farrakhan.  The group’s co-president, Tamika Mallory, attended Farrakhan’s annual Saviour’s Day speech last month where he railed against Jews and white people. Mallory defended Farrakhan after suffering backlash by implying that religious leaders are supposed to consider Jews their enemies.  “If your leader does not have the same enemies as Jesus, they may not be THE leader!” Mallory wrote on Twitter. She has repeatedly declined to condemn Farrakhan.

Women’s March has lost supporters over the Farrakhan scandal, and several regional chapters have slammed the national organization for refusing to denounce him. The group’s social media director, Alyssa Klein, resigned over the group’s support for Farrakhan, the New York Post reports.

A version of this article appeared on The Daily Caller News Foundation website.

by Richard Pollock

• The FBI will not expedite the release of documents about secret meetings between Comey and Obama.
• Comey held a secret Oval Office meeting with Obama on Jan. 5, 2017.
• TheDCNF requested records of all meetings between the two.

The FBI states it will not expedite the release of documents about secret meetings between FBI Director James Comey and former President Barack Obama, according to a letter the bureau sent to The Daily Caller News Foundation.

Such information is not “a matter of widespread and exceptional media interest in which there exists possible questions about the government’s integrity which affects public confidence,” David Hardy, the section chief for the bureau’s Record/Information Dissemination Section, told TheDCNF in a Feb. 26 letter.

TheDCNF, under the Freedom of Information Act, requested records of all meetings between Comey and Obama and sought an “expedited process” as provided under the act when issues are of great interest to the media and the records address issues pertaining to government integrity. TheDCNF FOIA request was filed Feb. 16, 2018.  The issue prompting the FOIA request was the disclosure Comey held a secret Oval Office meeting with Obama on Jan. 5, 2017. Comey never divulged the meeting to Congress.

Susan Rice, Obama’s national security adviser, former Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, and former Vice President Joe Biden also attended the meeting.

The National Archives revealed the existence of the meeting and released a declassified version of an email Rice sent to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary. Rice wrote an email to herself about the secret Jan. 5 meeting with Comey on Inauguration Day Jan. 20, 2017, as President Donald Trump was being sworn into office. The email suggested Comey may have misled Congress and was attempting to cover up the extent of his relationship with Obama.

Christopher Bedford, TheDCNF’s editor in chief, called the FBI denial “shameful.”

“The FBI just told us that Director James Comey potentially lying to Congress should not be of interest to us, that it doesn’t speak to their ‘integrity,’ and that it shouldn’t impact America’s ‘confidence’ in them,” Bedford said. “They said this with a straight face. We disagree, we think the American people disagree, and we think it’s absolutely shameful.”

Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and subcommittee chairman, and Lindsey Graham released the Rice email after they received it from the National Archives.

“President Obama had a brief follow-on conversation with FBI Director Comey and Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates in the Oval Office,” Rice stated in the email on Jan. 5. 

The president urged Comey to proceed “by the book” on the Russian investigation, according to Rice.  Grassley of Iowa and Graham of South Carolina wrote to Rice in a Feb. 8 letter saying the email seemed “odd” to them.

“It strikes us as odd that, among your activities in the final moments on the final day of the Obama administration, you would feel the need to send yourself such an unusual email purporting to document a conversation involving President Obama,” the two wrote.  “Despite your claim that President Obama repeatedly told Mr. Comey to proceed ‘by the book,’ substantial questions have arisen about whether officials at the FBI, as well as at the Justice Department and the State Department, actually did proceed ‘by the book,’” the two senators continued.

Comey claimed in June 8, 2017, testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence he had only two face-to-face meetings with the president in which they were alone.

“I spoke alone with President Obama twice in person (and never on the phone) – once in 2015 to discuss law enforcement policy issues and a second time, briefly, for him to say goodbye in late 2016,” Comey’s opening statement read.  The qualifier that he had meetings with Obama “alone” permitted the former director to suggest he only met with the former president on two occasions.

The DCNF filed its FOIA request before the bureau “seeking records that identify and describe all meetings between former FBI Director James Comey and President Barack Obama. This records request is for all meetings with Obama alone or with meetings with the president in the company of other administration officials.”   The DCNF requested records to include all Comey “logs, director appointment schedules, emails and memos outlining the meetings with the former President along with administration officials,” adding, the records “should list the date of the meeting, location, topic and meeting participants.”  TheDCNF stated it sought an “expedited request” for producing the records. 

“The issue of Director Comey’s meetings with President Obama is a key troubling issue for Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley,” TheDCNF wrote in its application for the expedited processing. TheDCNF attached to Grassly-Graham letter to Rice in the FOIA request for expediting handling.

Hardy said The DCNF failed to meet its standards for expedited processing as provided under 28 CFR 16.5 (e)(1)(iv).

“You have not provided enough information concerning the statutory requirements permitting expedition: therefore your request is denied,” he told TheDCNF.

A version of this article appeared on The Daily Caller News Foundation website.

by Joshua Gill

A U.K. court upheld an earlier ruling Tuesday ordering a toddler to be taken off life support despite his parents’ desire to continue treating him.

London’s Court of Appeal denied the parents’ request to transfer their son, 21-month-old Alfie Evans, to the Vatican’s Bambino Gesu Pediatric Hospital. The appeals court upheld a lower court’s ruling that sided with doctors at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool, who say that continued treatment is “futile,” according to Crux Now.

Evans suffers from an unknown neurological degenerative condition that has reduced him to what the hospital has called a “semi-vegetable state,” but his parents argue that he is still responsive and say they will continue to fight for him to be treated.

“At this moment, Alfie’s not ready so we’re not ready to let go,” Tom Evans, the boy’s father, told the BBC.  Tom said that he would challenge the ruling before the U.K.’s Supreme Court.

The case bears similarities to the 2017 legal battle over treatment for Charlie Gard, who died at 11 months old after U.K. courts continually deliberated and denied him the option to receive treatment. Then as now, the hospital officials overseeing the treatment of the child have argued that attempting to treat him would be against the child’s best interest — a conclusion that Alfie’s parents contest.

“Our aim is always to try and reach an agreement with parents about the most appropriate care plan for their child. Unfortunately there are sometimes rare situations such as this where agreement cannot be reached and the treating team believe that continued active treatment is not in a child’s best interests,” Alder Hey Children’s Hospital said in a statement, according to Crux.

Justice Anthony Hayden of the U.K.’s High Court agreed in his Feb. 20 ruling with the hospital’s assessment that continuing to treat the Alfie was “unkind, unfair, and inhumane.”  Hayden praised the efforts of Alfie’s parents but ultimately denied them the chance to medically fight for their son’s life. He said that Tom’s urging to “fight on with Alfie’s army” was commendable but that the parents’ had no clear plan for their son’s betterment. Tom, incensed by the ruling, denounced it and vowed that he would continue the fight.

“My son has been sentenced to the death penalty. The system has worked against us. I’m not crying because I know how wrong they are, I know how strong my boy is doing. He is strong, he is comfortable. This isn’t the end. This is just the start. I’m going to take this NHS down. I’m not giving up, my son isn’t giving up. No-one, I repeat, no-one in this country, is taking my boy away from me. They are not violating his rights and they are violating my rights,” Tom said after Hayden’s ruling, according to the U.K. Daily Mail.

The three judges of the appeals court, however, echoed Hayden’s reasoning Tuesday and said that the hospital had given due consideration to the parents’ wishes.

Barrister Stephen Knafler QC, who represents Alfie’s parents against the state, argued that, regardless of the hospital’s assessment, the courts’ rulings overstep their boundaries and interfere with “parental choice,” according to Crux.

Please like and share this story on Facebook if you think this court’s ruling is sickening.

by Martin Walsh

New Zealand-based hacker and political activist Kim Dotcom claims the hacking of the Democratic National Committee in 2016 was an inside job. If that’s true, it could blow the case of the mysterious murder of former DNC staffer Seth Rich wide open.

It all began Sunday when President Donald Trump explained on Twitter that he had never denied the possibility of Russia meddling in the 2016 presidential election, saying at one point that “it may be Russia, or China or another country or group, or it may be a 400 pound genius sitting in bed and playing with his computer.”