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Elections

FBI creates new category of extremists ahead of 2024 election: ‘MAGA followers’

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Newsweek published an expose in which they write that their journalists “spoke to over a dozen current or former government officials who specialize in terrorism in a three-month investigation to understand the current domestic-security landscape and to evaluate what President Joe Biden‘s administration is doing about what it calls domestic terrorism.”

Majority of officials requested anonymity because they were not authorized to talk publicly, were reluctant to stray into partisan politics or feared the repercussions of speaking frankly.”

The article’s first paragraph sums up exactly what is happening in the federal agency:

The federal government believes that the threat of violence and major civil disturbances around the 2024 U.S. presidential election is so great that it has quietly created a new category of extremists that it seeks to track and counter: Donald Trump‘s army of MAGA followers.

“The FBI is in an almost impossible position,” says a current FBI official, who requested anonymity to discuss highly sensitive internal matters. The official said that the FBI is intent on stopping domestic terrorism and any repeat of the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

The article clearly divulges the bias from the FBI:

From the president down, the Biden administration has presented Trump and MAGA as an existential threat to American democracy and talked up the risk of domestic terrorism and violence associated with the 2024 election campaign.

President Biden tweeted last September, “Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans are a threat to the very soul of this country…MAGA Republicans aim to question not only the legitimacy of past elections but elections being held now and into the future.”

Biden’s Homeland Security Advisor Liz Sherwood-Randall is no less bias than Biden himself, stating: “The use of violence to pursue political ends is a profound threat to our public safety and national security…it is a threat to our national identity, our values, our norms, our rule of law—our democracy.”

In a statement to Newsweek, the FBI said: “The threat posed by domestic violent extremists is persistent, evolving, and deadly. The FBI’s goal is to detect and stop terrorist attacks, and our focus is on potential criminal violations, violence and threats of violence. Anti-government or anti-authority violent extremism is one category of domestic terrorism, as well as one of the FBI’s top threat priorities.”

The FBI further said, “We are committed to protecting the safety and constitutional rights of all Americans and will never open an investigation based solely on First Amendment protected activity, including a person’s political beliefs or affiliations.” The White House declined to comment.

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Elections

IRS Whistleblower Receives Retaliation After Speaking Out on Hunter Biden Tax Case

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A whistleblower in the Hunter Biden tax investigation, IRS Supervisory Special Agent Gary Shapley, is facing harsh repercussions from the IRS after revealing alleged misconduct within the agency. Shapley, who gained widespread attention following an interview with investigative journalist Catherine Herridge, claims to be under intense pressure to accept a demotion or resign after publicly disclosing his concerns.

National Review reports on the recent developments, shared by Shapley’s attorney, Tristan Leavitt, reveal that the IRS had apparently been withholding a punitive decision until after Herridge’s interview went viral. “Less than an hour after @C__Herridge posted this story yesterday about the retaliation against the IRS whistleblowers, the IRS sent SSA Shapley this notice telling him he had 15 days to choose whether to be demoted or to resign,” Leavitt tweeted, noting that the agency appeared to have delayed this decision by at least two weeks.

On October 15, the IRS officially informed Shapley of a planned reassignment, notifying him he would be moved from his role as a Supervisory Special Agent in the criminal division to a Senior Analyst position—a demotion. Shapley was given the option to either accept the downgrade or, if he chose not to, request a lower-level special agent role or leave the agency entirely.

In response to the alleged retaliation, Shapley’s attorney sent a formal letter to Congress on Thursday. Addressed to House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer (R-Ky.), House Judiciary Committee chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), and House Ways and Means Committee chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo.), Leavitt’s letter highlights a history of punitive treatment Shapley claims to have faced since he first disclosed his findings.

“From the moment USA Weiss received access to SSA Shapley’s protected whistleblower disclosures and contacted IRS leadership, the IRS has treated SSA Shapley differently,” Leavitt wrote in the letter. He also added that “the illegal reprisal increased after SSA Shapley made clear he intended to blow the whistle to Congress and others. And it continues to this day, when the IRS knows it can retaliate against SSA Shapley simply by waiting out the clock for him to be forced into the position of resigning or being demoted.”

The U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC) is currently investigating the allegations of retaliation, not only against Shapley but also against another IRS whistleblower, Joseph Ziegler, who had similarly come forward regarding the Hunter Biden case. Leavitt has requested that the OSC intervene to prevent what he calls an apparent case of retaliation and has urged congressional Republicans to ask for a briefing on the progress of the OSC’s 17-month-long investigation.

 

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