This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Crime

  • Yer Latest Clintoon Email Fiasco Update

    The other day I mentioned that we’d likely never see some of Clintoon’s so-called “private” email.  Well, the New York Times reported yesterday that that is indeed the case.

    It appears we’ll never see as many as 40 of them, and possibly even more.

    We won’t see at least 22 because they are “too classified to be made public”, even in redacted form.  Another 18 were emails between Clintoon and her boss, the POTUS – and are being withheld under the “longstanding practice of presidential communications for future release”.  We might or might not ever see those.

    Plus, there are more emails awaiting review.  Who knows how many of them will end up being “too sensitive” to release publicly?

    State also for the first time publicly admitted that information classified Top Secret had indeed been sent to and stored on Clintoon’s private server.  I guess they finally ran out of ways to deny reality – whether the reasons for denial were plausible or not.

    I’m thinking Clintoon should brush up on the US Code, AKA Federal law – starting with 18 USC 793(f), and continuing with 18 USC 4 and 18 USC 371.  Looks to me like at least two of those three sections of Federal law might be of interest to her and her close associates.  Hell, all 3 might be in play.

    And I’m also thinking their lawyers might all have an interest in becoming really familiar with them, too.

  • Some Clintoon Email May Be “Too Damaging” to Release

    Well, we have yet another bit of “good news” about Ms. Clintoon’s “private email server” and its security issues.

    Another batch of Clintoon “private” emails were scheduled to be publicly released by State this past Friday. However, that won’t be all of them.

    Why? First, State says they recently uncovered a previously unknown stash of several thousand emails that need review. Second, the recent snowstorm on the East Coast also delayed the review process.

    But it now also appears that the public may never see some number of emails stored on that unauthorized and poorly-secured privately-owned server.

    Why not, you ask? It appears that the Intelligence Community has determined that some of those emails are potentially so damaging they cannot be publicly released at all – not even in redacted form. It rather goes without saying that information that sensitive and highly classified is never allowed to be stored on an unauthorized, poorly-secured, and privately-owned and operated email server.

    Fox News published an article recently with more details concerning this latest development. It’s IMO certainly worth reading.

    And remember: these emails were stored on a server that – per former SECDEF and CIA Director Gates – was likely accessed by Russian, Chinese, and Iranian intelligence.

    At the risk of repeating myself: great. Just freaking great.

    Someone really should do time for this. Serious time.

  • Misiewicz Pleads Guilty In GDMA Scandal

    CDR Michael Vannak Khem Misiewicz has pleaded guilty in Federal court to two felonies in conjunction with the Glenn Defense Marine Asia, Ltd (hereafter “GDMA”) bribery scandal.  The two felonies were conspiracy to commit bribery and bribery of a public official.

    Prior to the scandal, Misiewicz had been selected for promotion to Captain.  Now he faces up to 20 years in Federal prison.  A sentencing hearing is scheduled for 29 April.

    Another Naval officer involved – LCDR Todd Malaki – has also recently pleaded guilty.  He’s scheduled to be sentenced today.  He faces a maximum possible sentence of 5 years in prison.

    In the GDMA scandal, the CEO of GDMA – “Fat Leonard” Francis –  provided numerous expensive gifts to various Navy personnel in exchange for advance information regarding Navy port calls and/or the diversion of Navy ships to specific ports.  This in turn allowed GDMA to overcharge the US Government approximately $20 million for services performed in conjunction with those port calls.

    At present, only one of the GDMA conspirators is fighting charges; the rest have pleaded guilty.  A partial list of those involved from about a year ago can be found here.  However, it is known to be incomplete, as Malaki is not listed there.

    The matter remains under investigation.  More arrests are possible.

    Personally, I hope every one of the US personnel involved – civilian or military – gets absolutely nailed to the wall at sentencing. These individuals were all in positions of public trust and abused them badly. IMO they deserve a looong time to contemplate their misdeeds.

  • Joe Weeks’ mother’s body exhumed

    Joe Weeks’ mother’s body exhumed

    Joseph Weeks

    We talked about Joe Weeks back in August 2014 when Scotty busted him for being a phony PJ and for trying to give himself a Silver Star Medal with a Wikipedia entry. A year later, it was revealed that he may have stolen funds when he was the president of the motorcycle charity group Sons of Malta. Last month we read that the local Sheriff’s Department considered exhuming his mother’s body when new evidence came to light in regards to her sudden and unexpected death. Today, we’re told that there was enough evidence to exhume her body in North Carolina and now she’s on a table in the coroner’s office in Michigan.

    See, Joe was an EMT and he used to brag to his wife that he knew how to mix a toxic cocktail that wouldn’t be suspected in his intended victims and apparently, the sheriff thinks there’s enough evidence to suspect him of his mother’s death;

    Weeks said he believes that situation [stealing money from his charity, pretending to be something that he’s not] is part of why he’s under investigation now — in combination with a nasty divorce and being estranged from his brother.

    “I made some enemies,” Weeks said.

    Monday, the Kalamazoo County sheriff was emphatic that his department is not currently accusing Weeks of murder.

    “No one’s being charged with anything at this time,” Sheriff Richard Fuller told 24 Hour News 8. “We have merely reopened a death investigation due to some information that’s been brought to our attention.”

    Sheriff’s investigators had not yet conducted an autopsy as of Monday. They said they were in the process of making preparations to perform that part of the investigation.

    Thanks to UpNorth for the link.

  • Another Day, . . .

    . . . another report of a new Clintoon “private email server” security issue.  And like yesterday, this one is “Big (Effing) Deal” bad, too.

    How bad?  Well, I’ll just provide a link or two to explain that.  Here’s the first link, identifying yet another type of highly classified material that’s reportedly been found on Clintoon’s unauthorized, inadequately-secured “private email server”.  It rather goes without saying that this newly-identified type of classified information was not authorized to be stored there either.

    Now, here’s the second link to publicly-available IC documentation briefly describing that type of information.  The need for extreme protection for this type of information should be obvious to anyone with 3 or more working brain cells.

    Oh, and here’s another little bit of “good news”.  Former SECDEF and CIA Director Robert Gates believes there’s a very good chance that Clintoon’s server was accessed by Russian, Chinese, and Iranian intelligence .  So anything that was there . . . is very likely no longer exactly a secret.

    Geez.  First unauthorized TS-SCI info is found stored on Clintoon’s inadequately-secured “private server”.  Next, unauthorized SAP info.   Now this.

    And all of the information stored there has likely been divulged to Russia, China, and Iran.  Great.  Just freaking great.

    Damn, what’s going to be found next on that effectively unsecured “private” server – Pentagon OPLANs?  The design specifications and blueprints for a US nuclear warhead?  At this point, given what we’ve seen found so far I’m not sure I’d be shocked even by that.

    IMO multiple people should end up doing serious time for this fiasco.  There’s simply no excuse for this degree of negligence – or deliberate disregard for the law – when handling these types of classified information.

  • A Clintoon SAP Story

    “Welcome back my friends, to the show that never ends . . . .”  Well, at least it seems sometimes as if this one will persist forever.

    Still, maybe not.  Remember the argument a few weeks ago, when the Clintoon camp tried to “pooh-pooh” two emails found on her poorly-secured “private email server” that contained top secret information, calling them the result of a “disagreement” over the proper classification or claiming that they “weren’t classified at the time”?  The IC came on record and flatly stated that was not the case, and that the materials in question were indeed top secret.

    Well, it looks as if there was a bit more to it than that.

    It seems as if the Intelligence Community IG office did a comprehensive review of the issue, apparently between November and earlier this month. And it’s considerably worse than they first let on.

    Bottom line: dozens of classified emails were on that ineffectively-secured and unauthorized “private” server.  And at least some of those emails apparently contained information that was not only top secret, but which was also SAP (special access program) material from the Intelligence Community.  For those of you unfamiliar with the term, this linked Wikipedia article provides a decent overview of what a special access program is and why one would exist.

    If you’re thinking, “That’s bad” – yeah, that’s bad.  Really bad.  As in “Big (Freaking) Deal” bad, to quote the current VP.

    Something like this is simply NOT supposed to happen.  Period.

    The material here is so highly controlled that some members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee – the Senate committee which oversees operations of the State Department – were not authorized access to this information without receiving additional security briefings and signing additional nondisclosure agreements specifically relating to the material.  This was true even though those same individuals were previously cleared for access to all other materials publicly acknowledged as being found on Clintoon’s unauthorized “private” server.

    The linked articles are quite informative – and disturbing as hell.  IMO they’re worth your time to read.

    IMO, a number of people should be going to jail for this.  At this point it appears obvious that this was not merely the result of some “honest mistake” in handling classified information.

    18 USC 793(f) and (g), anyone?  Sure looks like it to me.

  • California Guardsmen plead guilty to trafficking weapons

    The San Diego Tribune reports that California National Guardsmen Staff Sergeant Andrew Reyes, 33, and Specialist Jaime Casillas, 23, pleaded guilty to selling non-military firearms to federal agents;

    Authorities said they were also accused of selling military equipment from the California National Guard, including gun magazines, ammunition, ballistic vests and the ceramic shields that go inside the vests.

    Casillas was accused of boasting to the undercover agent that he could procure such items, and the investigation began. The transactions totaled some $15,000, authorities said.

    Some of the transactions that the men admitted in San Diego court Thursday included the sale of a $1,700 AK-47, a $2,150 AR-15, a .40-caliber pistol and four high capacity .223 magazines, according to the plea agreement.

    According to the article, the pair bought the firearms in Texas and then transported them to California. They thought they were selling the firearms to to members of a drug cartel. I guess they aspired to be BATFE agents.

  • Yer Friday Funny: “Here is a better photo that one is terrible.”

    We all know criminals usually aren’t the proverbial “sharpest knife in the drawer”.  But every once in a while, you see some idiocy involving a criminal that makes you say, “YGBSM!!”

    Take the case of Donald “Chip” Pugh, 45.

    Pugh was facing charges of drunk driving in Lima, OH.  He failed to appear at a scheduled court hearing on 28 December, and a warrant was issued for his arrest.

    Apparently the Lima PD also publicized his mugshot online.  And that didn’t sit well with Pugh.

    So he took a selfie – and sent it to the Lima PD for their use as a replacement mugshot – accompanied by a rather narcissistic message.  I quoted his message above in the title of this article.

    Well, as the old saying goes: he “really shouldn’t oughta done that.”  His sending that “replacement mugshot selfie” made the news.

    Apparently social media tips and/or other information generated by his sending that photo to the Lima, Ohio, PD allowed LE to locate him.  Pugh was arrested in Century, Florida earlier this week.

    Sheesh.  What a freaking moron.