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The FBI’s reputation problems have accelerated with the arrest on corruption charges of Charles McGonigal, the former chief of counterintelligence for the FBI’s New York field office, one of the most powerful spy-hunters in the country - who also happened to be connected to Hunter Biden. In twin indictments last month, McGonigal was charged with taking secret cash payments from a former Albanian intelligence officer, holding secret meetings with Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, and attempting to remove top Kremlin oligarch Oleg Deripaska from a US sanctions list. The Albanians cited by prosecutors tie this scandal to Hunter Biden and...

Former high-ranking FBI official Charles McGonigal started tearing up Thursday as he was sentenced to 50 months in federal prison for colluding with a Russian oligarch to evade US sanctions. McGonigal, 55, was ordered to surrender by Feb. 26, 2024, made to serve three years of supervised release following his time behind bars, and was fined $40,000. After he exited the courthouse, McGonigal told onlookers, “Happy holidays.” McGonigal, who helmed the FBI’s counterintelligence division in New York from 2016 to 2018, pleaded guilty to the charge back in August. “[McGonigal] well knew his actions violated those sanctions,” Manhattan federal judge...

The most circulated newspaper in Europe killed a major corruption story to please Joe Biden. A new report details how editors at Bild, the outlet in question, canned an extensive investigative piece on Albanian PM Edi Rama because he and the US president are friends and political allies.Per The Washington Examiner, Albania has become a narco-state over the last decade under Rama, and Bild was getting ready to expose him further.So, who is Rama? He’s the far-left leader of Albania’s Socialist Party. Accusations against him range from drug trafficking to money laundering, to extortion and vote buying.A few days ago,...

Zohran Mamdani’s campaign has been run by the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), an organization that, by its own members’ admission, despises the Democratic Party even as it uses the endorsement of high-ranking Democrats to bolster their campaigns. A new video released by the watchdog group Canary Mission reveals DSA leaders across the country explaining that their strategy is to use the Democratic Party to win elections, but not for anything else. “I think we’re all on the same page that we hate the Democratic Party,” said Sarah Hurd of the Houston DSA. “The...

Where did all the Republican votes go in Bridgeport, Connecticut? Either over half of the traditional Republican voters in gubernatorial elections were no-shows on November 2 or the Constitution State's most populous city...lost its constitution. Bridgeport is certainly not the sort of idyllic Norman Rockwell town found throughout most of Connecticut. It has long endured political corruption and patronage, high rates of poverty and crime, a shrinking economy, a  declining population, and more recently, an infestation of radical progressive groups such as ACORN, AFL-CIO, WFP, and SEIU. Bridgeport did not earn the nickname "Chicago of the East" for nothing. Despite its...

Now that Republicans have narrow control of the House of Representatives, the GOP is investigating the Biden administration with gusto. Still, Republicans seem not to have noticed one major foreign policy scandal that's hiding in plain sight. As I recently reported , the rising scandal surrounding retired FBI senior official Charles McGonigal is perhaps the worst in the bureau’s history. Multiple sources have told me that McGonigal, while still serving with the FBI as head of counterintelligence in New York, shook down Balkan business people, most of them Albanian, in an audacious political corruption scheme worth many millions of dollars....

4 ‘African Socialists’ charged with election meddling for Russia after FIB raided their homes Four American socialists have been charged with election meddling and spreading Putin’s propaganda after they were arrested in dramatic FBI raids. The four, are members of the African People’s Socialist Party. Omali Yeshitela, the group’s chairman was one of the 4 Americans indicted Tuesday for “sowing discord, spreading pro-Russia propaganda and interfering in elections within the United States.” The DOJ says that the 81-year-old veteran leader of the far-left group conspired along with three others to help Russian efforts to meddle in elections. Yeshitela has called...

How can one write history so that it seems like a thriller? How does one write a biography without making the subject the centerpiece of the narrative? I have no idea if David Pietrusza asked himself these questions — or this one: How can history be written as a newspaper headline? Call this a biography by indirection. Franklin Delano Roosevelt is defined by competing individuals and movements: Huey Long, Father Coughlan, Al Smith, the Liberty League, Earl Browder and the Communist Party, Dr. Francis Townsend and the Townsend Plan, Norman Thomas and the Socialist Party. They threatened FDR’s majority in...

After years of Russiagate conspiracy theories about how the Russians had somehow rigged the 2016 presidential election using Facebook ads, the Senate Intelligence report awkwardly revealed that the Russian operation had focused most of its attention on black nationalists. The Senate report revealed that "most of the videos" put out by the Russian IRA troll factory on YouTube "pertained to police brutality and the activist efforts of the Black Lives Matter organization" and found that "no single group of Americans was targeted... more than African-Americans" around "race and related issues". But that was an understatement. The Russians had created their...

As the situation of the migrants on hunger strike in Brussels worsens, French-speaking socialist party PS and green party Ecolo have threatened to quit the federal government if any one of the activists dies, which would result in the current government falling. Both parties have informed Prime Minister Alexander De Croo that the ministers and secretaries of state will resign, which would see the government De Croo I losing its majority as part of the Vivaldi coalition. During the core cabinet meeting on Monday morning, federal Economy and Labour minister Pierre-Yves Dermagne warned that the PS ministers and secretaries of...

The experience of Venezuelans under the late President Hugo Chavez offers a cautionary tale to the United States about where packing the Supreme Court can lead. Last fall, then-presidential candidate Joe Biden refused to answer whether he would support adding justices to the Supreme Court and now has established a commission to review the proposal and other issues concerning judicial reform. One need look no further than Venezuela’s recent history for the devastating impact on liberty such a move could have. “In 2004, Chavez’s allies held a majority in Venezuela’s National Assembly (congress), passing a law that increased the number...

MIAMI -- Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro stood defiant in the face of a $15 million bounty by the U.S. to face drug trafficking charges, calling Donald Trump a "racist cowboy" and warning that he is ready to fight by whatever means necessary should the U.S. and neighboring Colombia dare to invade. Maduro's bellicose remarks Thursday night came hours after the U.S. announced sweeping indictments against the socialist leader and several members of his inner circle for allegedly converting Venezuela into a criminal enterprise at the service of drug traffickers and terrorist groups. One indictment by prosecutors in New York accused...

Presidential week in Provence: Obamas arrive in south of France on private jet for vacation at $60,000-a-week, 18th century farmhouse - just days after Sasha graduated from high school Former US president Barack Obama and his family arrived in Avignon, in south of France on Friday The Obamas are reportedly staying at a luxurious 18th century farmhouse Bathelasse island The seven-bedroom property called Le Mas des Poiriers, was rented at 55,000 euros for the week The main house features seven double bedrooms, a family room with large windows that allow for natural light illuminate the lavishly decorated space. It also...

MADRID — Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s Socialist Party took a beating Sunday in an election in Andalusia that saw the far right win seats in one of the country’s regional parliaments for the first time in decades. The Socialists (PSOE) — which have ruled the southern region uninterrupted for 36 years — came in first but could lose their grip on power if parties on the right team up against them. Juanma Moreno — the local leader of the Popular Party — said as the results came in that he would try to replace the Socialists’ incumbent regional leader,...

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez faces growing pressure from within his Socialist Party to call an early election, before scandals besetting his four-month-old minority government undermine a surge in voter support. Riding high in the polls, Sánchez aims to serve a full term to mid-2020 as he focuses on approving next year’s budget and countering renewed independence moves in the Catalonia region. But last week, his science minister was forced to deny media reports he cheated on his taxes, days after a recording emerged of the justice minister using a homophobic slur. Two other ministers have already been pushed out,...

For the last century control of the United States has cycled between the 19th Century Democratic and Republican parties. Voters choose between the old ideas of the Democratic Party and the old ideas of the Republican Party. The two parties are mired in the same old partisan conflicts election after election. The Democrats in particular seem more interested in playing partisan political games than in dealing seriously with the nation's problems. Republicans are increasingly following their example. Millennials need to decide whether they want to continue the politics of their grandparents' generation or replace the 19th Century parties with 21st...

It is time for Americans to wake up, stand up, #Walkaway from the new Democrat [Socialist] Party Intermarriage is not always a matter of race or religion - sometimes it is a matter of politics. In 2008, Barack Hussein Obama officiated at the wedding of the Democrat party and Socialism. In this case the bride and groom came from very different family backgrounds with diametrically opposed world views and political perspectives. The bride’s family, Constitution, was 242 years old and deeply committed to individualism, equality, liberty, and limited powers of government. The groom’s family, Socialism, came to America in 1877...

Pedro Sanchez aims to remove Catholicism from public lifePolitical changes in the West mostly occur through the ballot box. A week ago, however, one exception to that rule took place in the Kingdom of Spain. On June 1, the governing People's Party lost a motion of censure which amounts to a vote of no confidence without an election, forcing Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy to resign and the main opposition leader Pedro Sanchez to assume the post and form a government. The People's Party, which had won the last three elections in Spain, lost the vote to a coalition of opposition...

Remarks by French President Emmanuel Macron that he wanted to repair church-state ties caused uproar Tuesday, sparking charges he was tampering with France’s longstanding secular tradition. The Church and the state were for centuries virtually indistinguishable in France, but the 1789 Revolution marked the first step by republicans to exclude religion from government affairs, codified in a 1905 law separating the two. But tensions have persisted, with conservative politicians often accusing officials of denying France’s cultural heritage — as seen in efforts to install nativity scenes at town halls during Christmas. Macron, who prides himself on tackling difficult issues head-on,...

A proposal to ban smoking in French films has been met with splutters of indignation in a land raised on images of puffing, pouting silver-screen stars. The idea was floated last week by a senator from the opposition Socialist Party, Nadine Grelet-Certenais, during a parliamentary debate on how to help the French quit smoking. Quoting a study that found 70 percent of new French films show at least one character lighting up, the senator accused filmmakers of painting smoking in a positive light.