Showing posts with label Alan Dershowitz. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alan Dershowitz. Show all posts

Sunday, November 26, 2017

Former Secret Service Agent Threatens To Reveal Details About Bill Clinton And Epstein"s "Lolita Express"

In a furious twitter exchange with a Clinton aide on Friday, former secret service agent Dan Bongino threatened to reveal new details about Bill Clinton’s 26 documented trips aboard notorious pedophile Jeffrey Epstein’s private jet, nicknamed the “Lolita Express."


Bongino and former Hillary Clinton aide Nick Merrill started feuding after Merrill challenged Bongino’s claim that Clinton was the most “manipulative political person in a position of power [he had] ever met in my entire life,” as Paul Watson pointed out.


Merrill fired back that Hillary “has enormous respect for the Secret Service & a great relationship with the agents on her detail.” He also alleged that Bongino was never on the Clintons’ detail – a claim that Bongino almost immediately disproved by supplying a photo of him sitting behind Hillary Clinton back in 2001.



After accusing Merrill of being a “fraud”, Bongino dropped a ominous-sounding threat: “Be careful Nick, people know things not yet released publicly about your messiah Hillary. Don’t poke the bear loser, you may not like the results. #Epstein #EmailGate,” tweeted Bongino.



He then taunted Merrill by asking: “Dear Nick, are you guys sure you know everyone on the Epstein planes?"



For those who are unfamiliar with his story, Jeffrey Epstein is a New York City financier who pled guilty in 2008 to a single count of soliciting sex from an underage girl. He eventually spent 13 months in prison and was forced to register as a level three sex offender (considered the highest risk of re-offending) though stories of his lust for girls as young of 12 have spread like wildfire in recent years.


Epstein allegedly installed beds in his custom jet, and also purportedly filmed powerful men during romps with underage girls to obtain materials for blackmail.


According to Fox News, Epstein allegedly had a team of traffickers who procured girls as young as 12 to service his friends on Epstein’s “Orgy Island,” an estate on Little St. James in the US Virgin Islands. Epstein now lives permanently in the US Virgin Islands.


Clinton chose to continue his association with Epstein even after the lurid trial, according to the Alliance to Rescue Victims of Trafficking, “everyone within his inner circles knew was a pedophile." Speculation that Clinton was involved with Epstein was noted in "Bill Clinton Was Here": The Elite One-Percent’s "Orgy Island" Exposed." An article by the now defunct Gawker titled "Flight Logs Put Clinton, Dershowitz on Pedophile Billionaire’s Sex Jet" added to speculation about Clinton"s troubling relationship with the convicted sex offender.


Bill Clinton took repeated trips on the " Lolita Express"—the private passenger jet owned by billionaire pedophile Jeffrey Epstein—with an actress in softcore porn movies whose name appears in Epstein"s address book under an entry for "massages," according to flight logbooks obtained by Gawker and published today for the first time. The logs also show that Clinton shared more than a dozen flights with a woman who federal prosecutors believe procured underage girls to sexually service Epstein and his friends and acted as a "potential co-conspirator" in his crimes.


 


* * *


 


Epstein"s predatory past, and his now-inconvenient relationships with a Who"s Who of the Davos set, hit the front pages again earlier this month when one of his victims, Virginia Roberts, claimed in a federal court filing that Epstein recruited her as a "sex slave" at the age of 15 and "sexually trafficked [her] to politically-connected and financially-powerful people," including Prince Andrew and attorney Alan Dershowitz. (The latter, the filing claimed, had sex with the victim "on private planes"; Dershowitz vigorously denies the charges, as does Prince Andrew.)


 


* * *


 


Two female associates of Epstein—the socialite Ghislaine Maxwell and Epstein"s former assistant Sarah Kellen—have been repeatedly accused in court filings of acting as pimps for him, recruiting and grooming young girls into their network of child sex workers, and frequently participating in sex acts with them. Kellen in particular was believed by detectives in the Palm Beach Police Department, which was the first to start unraveling the operation, to be so deeply involved in the enterprise that they prepared a warrant for her arrest as an accessory to molestation and sex with minors. In the end, she was never arrested or charged, and federal prosecutors granted her immunity in a 2007 non-prosecution agreement that described her as a "potential co-conspirator" in sex trafficking.


 


Maxwell, the daughter of the late media mogul Robert Maxwell, has been accused by Roberts of photographing Epstein"s victims "in sexually explicit poses and [keeping] the child pornography on her computer," and "engag[ing] in lesbian sex with the underage females she procured for Epstein." She has denied the allegations in the past.


 


Clinton shared Epstein"s plane with Kellen and Maxwell on at least 11 flights in 2002 and 2003—before any of the allegations against them became public—according to the pilots" logbooks, which have surfaced in civil litigation surrounding Epstein"s crimes. In January 2002, for instance, Clinton, his aide Doug Band, and Clinton"s Secret Service detail are listed on a flight from Japan to Hong Kong with Epstein, Maxwell, Kellen, and two women described only as "Janice" and "Jessica." One month later, records show, Clinton hopped a ride from Miami to Westchester on a flight that also included Epstein, Maxwell, Kellen, and a woman described only as "one female."




In 2002, as New York reported previously, Clinton recruited Epstein to make his plane available for a week-long anti-poverty and anti-AIDS tour of Africa with Kevin Spacey, Chris Tucker, billionaire creep Ron Burkle, Clinton confidant Gayle Smith (who now serves on Barack Obama"s National Security Council), and others. The logs from that trip show that Maxwell, Kellen, and a woman named Chauntae Davis joined the entourage for five days.


That last name, Chauntae Davies, emerged elsewhere in papers unearthed by the various investigations into Epstein"s sex ring: his little black book. Davies is one of 27 women listed in the book under an entry for "Massage- California," one of six lists of massage girls Epstein kept in various locales, with a total of 160 names around the globe, many of them underage victims.



Today, Davies is an actress with credits including HBO"s Enlightened. In 2002, she was 23. According to her IMDB profile, in addition to her apparent massage work for Epstein, she landed a role that year as a "lingerie model" in Exposed, a movie produced by a softcore porn company called MRG Entertainment. (Other MRG films include Deviant Desires and Carnal Confessions; the company has since been purchased by Larry Flynt. Exposed, appropriately enough, was directed by a pseudonymous auteur who went by the name of Clinton J. Williams.) Davies"s role in Clinton"s flying AIDS-prevention circus isn"t clear, and though her LinkedIn page claims a certificate in Swedish massage, there is no evidence that she ever actually treated Epstein to one. Reached via e-mail, she said only, "I really am not interested in being slandered in the media for having known this person a time ago. Some of the things being said are not things I have information on."


Full flight logs of Jeffrey Epstein"s "Lolita Express"










Thursday, July 13, 2017

Alan Dershowitz Slams New York Times For Trump Jr. "Treason" Claims

Over the past couple of days, the emergence of details regarding Trump Jr."s meeting with the Russian-born lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya has prompted a return of the Trump-Russia mass hysteria on the part of the mainstream media and the left. Hillary Clinton"s former running mate, Tim Kaine, even went so far as to refer to Don Jr."s meeting as "treasonous."




Meanwhile, the New York Times published an op-ed detailing how treason statutes could potentially be adapted for the sole purpose of incriminating Don Jr. for taking the meeting with Veselnitskaya.





Although we do not yet have enough facts to judge, Donald Jr. and others may also be liable for conspiracy with respect to espionage, depending on how any illicit information was obtained and the level of their awareness of any spying. Because the Russian campaign that followed was nothing less than an assault on our democracy, we understand why some are raising issues of treason as well. Prosecution under the federal treason statute is ultimately unlikely because we are not at war with Russia. But during the Cold War, treasonous conduct was often prosecuted under other statutes. (Alger Hiss was sentenced to four years in prison for “forgetting” in sworn testimony that he had met with Whitaker Chambers, an American working for the Russians.)



But former Harvard Law Professor, Alan Dershowitz, a constant voice of reason throughout the post-election hysteria, says all of the discussion of "treason" on the left is nothing more than wishful thinking.  As Dershowitz reasonably points out, while the act of actually stealing or hacking information is illegal, "seeking to obtain the work product of a prior hack would be no more criminal than a newspaper publishing the work product of thefts such as the Pentagon Papers and the material stolen by Snowden and Manning."





Obviously if anyone conspired in advance with another to commit a crime – such as hacking the DNC – that would be criminal. But merely seeking to obtain the work product of a prior hack would be no more criminal than a newspaper publishing the work product of thefts such as the Pentagon Papers and the material stolen by Snowden and Manning.   Moreover, the emails sent to Trump Jr. say that the dirt peddled by Veselnitskaya came from “official documents.”  No mention is made of hacking or other illegal activities. So it is unlikely that attendance at the meeting violated any criminal statute.



Meanwhile, regarding all those "collusion" claims, Dershowitz points out that while the act of "colluding" with a foreign government maybe should be made illegal in the future, it is not currently a crime under existing laws....so tough luck there too.





Whether or not such collusion, if it occurred, is a crime, it is clear that the American people have the right to know whether any sort of collusion –legal or illegal – took place.  And, if so, what was its nature.



The Mueller investigation is limited to possible criminal activity.  Probing the moral, political or other non-criminal implications of collusion with, or interference by, Russia is beyond the jurisdiction of the special counsel.  It is the role of Congress, not the Criminal Division of the Justice Department, to make changes in existing laws.  Perhaps mere collusion by a campaign with a foreign government should be made a crime, so as to prevent future contamination of our elections.  But it is not currently a crime.



Nor will it be easy to draft a criminal statute prohibiting a campaign from using material provided by a foreign power, without trenching on the constitutional rights of candidates.  But this is all up to Congress and the courts, not the special counsel, with his limited jurisdiction.



And here is the full interview with Dershowitz from earlier today:


Friday, June 9, 2017

What Everyone Is Missing About the Comey Scandal

(ANTIMEDIA Op-ed) Given the tone of political reportage over the last month and the breathless coverage of James Comey’s hearing yesterday, you would have thought President Donald Trump had diminished the power of a co-equal branch of government or violated some basic protection in the Bill of Rights, upsetting the delicate balance that renders the United States a nation governed by laws and not men.





What was Trump’s transgression? Had he levied new wars abroad without congressional authorization? Had he ordered mass surveillance of the American people in contravention of their 4th amendment rights? Had he cracked down on free speech or assumed the power to issue new laws from the presidential chair ex-cathedra? Had he locked people up in internment camps, confiscated people’s gold, suspended habeas corpus, or ordered prisoners of war to be tortured?



No, at least not more than other presidents before him. Rather, Donald Trump had done something much worse. He fired a man, one James Comey, upsetting the “constitutional requirement” that the Director of the FBI be independent of the president of the United States. Days after Comey’s ouster, the former director of National Intelligence and “unwitting” voyeur into Americans’ private lives, James Clapper, had this to say:







“The founding fathers in their genius created a system of co-equal branches of government and a built-in system of checks and balances, and I feel as though that is under assault and is eroding.”


However, despite Clapper’s earnest worry and woe, the FBI is not a co-equal branch of government able to “check and balance” the executive branch. Despite James Comey’s defense of the FBI’s independence at his hearing yesterday, there is no constitutional requirement that the FBI be independent of the presidency. Comey even admitted as much amid his defense of FBI independence. Legal scholar Alan Dershowitz writes:


“Comey confirmed that under our Constitution, the president has the authority to direct the FBI to stop investigating any individual. I paraphrase, because the transcript is not yet available:  the president can, in theory, decide who to investigate, who to stop investigating, who to prosecute and who not to prosecute.  The president is the head of the unified executive branch of government, and the Justice Department and the FBI work under him and he may order them to do what he wishes.                    







“As a matter of law, Comey is 100 percent correct.  As I have long argued, and as Comey confirmed in his written statement, our history shows that many presidents—from Adams to Jefferson, to Lincoln, to Roosevelt, to Kennedy, to Bush 1, and to Obama – have directed the Justice Department with regard to ongoing investigations. The history is clear, the precedents are clear, the constitutional structure is clear, and common sense is clear.”


Indeed, the FBI’s independence is merely an establishment tradition; and though it may be a well-intentioned tradition meant to curtail political influence in law enforcement, traditions are not laws no matter how much they aspire to bolster the largely mythical “rule of law.” Such aspirational traditions may, in fact, be counterproductive to protecting people’s liberties, giving the fleeting appearance of checks on presidential power even as the executive branch assumes more and more power and authority all the same.


Maybe this is how the establishment wanted it until recently — to give the appearance of propriety while conning Americans out of their liberties behind the scenes. But now Donald Trump is giving the game away. Apparently, all it takes is one power-hungry fool to upset the rule of law and send the established political class into meltdown mode.


To me, all this high dudgeon and partisan prattle that executive branch agencies should be independent of the president is essentially a confession that the executive branch is too powerful and corrupt. Either people naively believe executive agencies are independent of the chief executive or they are cynically trying to conceal from the public how much power the president has at his disposal.


Keeping up appearances that the FBI or NSA or DOJ are independent of presidential politics and abuses of power doesn’t solve this problem; it only obscures the problem that the president of the United States can, for instance, start wars abroad without congressional consent, kill American citizens with drones, spy on millions of Americans, and more generally, has the vast legal discretion to direct the many agencies of the unified executive branch to manipulate Americans in almost every aspect of our lives.


What fools “we” must be to think a reliance on non-binding political traditions can keep us immune from political abuses and corruption. If Congress and the courts continue to grant immense powers to the executive branch to carry out their wars abroad and social engineering at home while hoping tradition and the occasional congressional investigation or court injunction will restrain that power, we will soon discover (if we haven’t already) that the elected and unelected men and women in government are not angels. We will soon discover a government with too many laws becomes a government of men’s selective whims and not sound common law.


As George Orwell correctly assessed while reviewing Hayek’s Road to Serfdom, “By bringing the whole of life under the control of the State, Socialism necessarily gives power to an inner ring of bureaucrats, who in almost every case will be men who want power for its own sake and will stick at nothing in order to retain it.”


If Donald Trump did indeed fire James Comey for corrupt reasons, the only remedy is impeachment, but whether or not that day comes, let us not be fooled into thinking that will set us free from law enforcement carrying out the whims of power-hungry politicians and partisan interest groups. No, the only solution is to shrink the power and province of the federal government, first back to the states but eventually back to each individual to live free as long as he allows others to be free as well.


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