When do we get to hang somebody for treason?


The Obama administration gave a free pass to Hezbollah’s drug-trafficking and money-laundering operations — some of which were unfolding inside the U.S. — to help ensure the Iran nuclear deal would stay on track, according to a bombshell exposé in Politico Sunday.

https://www.politico.com/inter...cking-investigation/

An elaborate campaign led by the Drug Enforcement Administration, known as Project Cassandra, reportedly targeted the Lebanese militant group’s criminal activities. But by tossing a string of roadblocks holding back the project, Obama administration officials helped allow the 35-year-old anti-Israel criminal enterprise to evolve into a major global security threat bankrolling terrorist and military operations, the report added.

“This was a policy decision, it was a systematic decision,” David Asher, who helped establish Project Cassandra as a Defense Department illicit finance analyst in 2008, told Politico. “They serially ripped apart this entire effort that was very well supported and resourced, and it was done from the top down.”

When Project Cassandra leaders, who were working out of a DEA’s Counter facility in Chantilly, Virginia, sought an OK for some significant investigations, prosecutions, arrests and financial sanctions, Justice and Treasury Department officials delayed, hindered or rejected their requests, according to Politico.

Dana Loesch sounds off on allegations that the administration rarely took action on criminals who sought to buy guns illegally.
The red tape halted Project Cassandra’s efforts to curtail top Hezbollah operatives, including one of the world’s biggest cocaine traffickers who was also supplying conventional and chemical weapons used by Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad against his own citizens. That operative's code name: the “Ghost.”

Former Obama administration officials told Politico anonymously that their decisions were guided by improving relations with Iran, stalling its nuclear weapons program and freeing four Americans prisoners held by the country. They also denied they “derailed” actions against Hezbollah out of politics.

“There has been a consistent pattern of actions taken against Hezbollah, both through tough sanctions and law enforcement actions before and after the Iran deal,” Kevin Lewis who worked at both the White House and Justice Department during the Obama administration, responded.

Asher said the closer the U.S. got to finalizing the Iran nuclear deal, the more difficult it was to conduct Hezbollah investigations. After President Obama announced the deal in January 2016, Project Cassandra officials were transferred to other assignments.

“The closer we got to the [Iran deal], the more these activities went away,” Asher 49, who speaks fluent Japanese and earned his Ph.D. in international relations from Oxford University, told Politico. “So much of the capability, whether it was special operations, whether it was law enforcement, whether it was [Treasury] designations — even the capacity, the personnel assigned to this mission — it was assiduously drained, almost to the last drop, by the end of the Obama administration.”

Hezbollah was formed by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in 1982 to fight Israel’s invasion of Beirut. Under the leadership of Hassan Nasrallah, who took over in 1992 after his predecessor, Abbas Mussawi, was killed in an Israeli airstrike, the group moved from seeking to implement an Iranian-style Islamic republic in Lebanon to focusing on fighting Israel and integration into Lebanon’s sectarian-based politics.

Nasrallah, now 57, has played a key role in ending a feud among Shiites, focusing attention toward fighting Israel and later expanding the group’s regional reach.

http://www.foxnews.com/politic...eal-report-says.html

What’s sad is that most of us pretty much assumed this and similar commie hijinks were going on. FBHO

This message has been edited. Last edited by: limblessbiff,

Shocked, I am.

B'rock the Islamic shock....

Barack's "idée fixe": everything must be made to support a deal with Iran. What a welter of consequences, intended or unintended, came in the wake of that monomania.

more on this story

https://hotair.com/archives/20...alers-off-hook-iran/

Before Barack Obama decided to pursue the nuclear deal with Iran, the DEA had a major operation called Project Cassandra. This operation had identified Hezbollah as a major supplier of cocaine to the US and other countries, along with its usual terrorist activities on behalf of its sponsors in Tehran. The DEA and FBI had built criminal cases against major players in Hezbollah’s drug and arms networks, succeeding in getting sealed indictments and finding witnesses for prosecution.

One Obama-era Treasury official, Katherine Bauer, in little-noticed written testimony presented last February to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, acknowledged that “under the Obama administration … these [Hezbollah-related] investigations were tamped down for fear of rocking the boat with Iran and jeopardizing the nuclear deal.”

“The closer we got to the [Iran deal], the more these activities went away,” Asher said. “So much of the capability, whether it was special operations, whether it was law enforcement, whether it was [Treasury] designations — even the capacity, the personnel assigned to this mission — it was assiduously drained, almost to the last drop, by the end of the Obama administration.”

Not all of these cases involved international operations

In Philadelphia, the FBI-led task force had spent two years bolstering its case claiming that Safieddine had overseen an effort to purchase 1,200 military-grade assault rifles bound for Lebanon, with the help of Kelly and the special narcoterrorism prosecutors in New York.

Now, they had two key eyewitnesses. One would identify Safieddine as the Hezbollah official sitting behind a smoked-glass barricade who approved the assault weapons deal. And an agent and prosecutor had flown to a remote Asian hotel and spent four days persuading another eyewitness to testify about Safieddine’s role in an even bigger weapons and drugs conspiracy, multiple former law enforcement officials confirmed to POLITICO.

Convinced they had a strong case, the New York prosecutors sent a formal prosecution request to senior Justice Department lawyers in Washington, as required in such high-profile cases. The Justice Department rejected it, and the FBI and DEA agents were never told why, those former officials said.

Long series of twitter posts here https://mobile.twitter.com/Imp...s/943269801501253634

Gist of story is the Awan brothers being investigated for Dems IT hijinks are up to their eyes in Hezbollah financing and drug trade....

Or, at Daily Caller:

House IT Aides Ran Car Dealership With Markings Of A Nefarious Money Laundering Operation

LUKE ROSIAK

The used car dealership known as CIA never seemed like an ordinary car dealership, with inventory, staff and expenses.

On its Facebook page, CIA’s “staff” were fake personalities such as “James Falls O’Brien,” whose photo was taken from a hairstyle model catalog, and “Jade Julia,” whose image came from a web page called “Beautiful Girls Wallpaper.”

If a customer showed up looking to buy a car from Cars International A, often referred to as CIA, Abid Awan — who was managing partner of the dealership while also earning $160,000 handling IT for House Democrats — would frequently simply go across the street to longstanding dealership called AAA Motors and get one.

“If AAA borrows a car to Cars International and they have a customer, it was simply take the car across the street and sell it, and then later on give the profit back or not,” Nasir Khattak, who ran the longstanding AAA dealership, testified in a lawsuit. “There was no documentation which is write every transaction that takes place. … If you go and try to dissect, you will not be able to make any sense out of them because there were many, dozens and dozens, of cars transferred between the two dealerships and between other people.”

Khattak did not explain why he would ruin his existing business to help the Awans. “All of those transactions was to support Cars International A from AAA Motors,” he testified. “That’s why I did not make any money from my dealership because my resources were supporting Cars International A.”

He said only Imran Awan knew what became of the money. “It was Imram, [Abid] Awan’s brother, who was running the business in full control,” he said.

Imran Awan and his family members were congressional IT aides who investigators said made unauthorized access to the House Democratic Caucus server thousands of times. At the same time as they worked for and could read all the emails of members of the House intelligence, homeland security and foreign affairs committees, they also ran a car dealership that took money from a Hezbollah-linked fugitive and whose financial books were indecipherable and business patterns bizarre, according to testimony in court records.

While Imran and Abid Awan ran their car dealership in Falls Church, Va. in the early part of the decade, Drug Enforcement Agency officials a few miles away in Chantilly were learning that the Iranian-linked terrorist group frequently deployed used car dealerships in the US to launder money and fund terrorism, according to an explosive new Politico expose.

The money that disappeared between the Awans’ dealership, some $7 million in congressional pay, the equipment suspected of disappearing from Congress under their watch, and their other side businesses — all while they displayed few signs of wealth and frequently haggled in court over small amounts of money — raise questions about whether the Awans might have been laundering money or sending it to a third party.

“Based on the modest way Awan was living, it is my opinion that he was sending most of his money to a group or criminal organization that could very well be connected with the Pakistani government,” said Wayne Black, a private investigator who served as law enforcement group supervisor in Janet Reno’s Miami public corruption unit. “My instincts tell me Awan was probably operating a foreign intelligence gathering operation on US soil.”

Officials told Politico that prosecutors refused to help them punish top Hezbollah operatives involved in its money laundering network because of political concerns, such as fears of jeopardizing the Obama administration’s deal with Iran. Similarly, the Awans, who had close relationships to House Democrats including Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Gregory Meeks, have not been charged with any crimes surrounding the dealership nor with their House activities. The disclosure of a House IT breach shortly before the election by Pakistani-born Democratic staffers would have had political fallout.

Shortly before the 2016 election, investigators found huge amounts of House equipment unaccounted for under the Awans’ stewardship, and when they looked into the family further, they found that they had logged in to members’ computers for whom they did not work. There were signs that the House Democratic Caucus’ server “is being used for nefarious purposes and elevated the risk that individuals could be reading and/or removing information,” according to a House investigation. They were also moving files online, “a classic method for insiders to exfiltrate data from an organization,” the report found, and “steps are being taken to conceal their activity.”

Politico tells the story of Ali Fayad, a “Ukraine-based arms merchant suspected of being a Hezbollah operative moving large amounts of weapons to Syria:”

Lebanese arms dealer Ali Fayad Ali Fayad, a suspected top Hezbollah operative whom agents believed reported to Russian President Vladimir Putin as a key supplier of weapons to Syria and Iraq, was arrested in Prague in the spring of 2014. But for the nearly two years Fayad was in custody, top Obama administration officials declined to apply serious pressure on the Czech government to extradite him to the United States, even as Putin was lobbying aggressively against it.
Abid Awan is married to a Ukranian named Nataliia Sova, who was herself on the House payroll as an IT aide in 2010 and 2011 for Reps. Emmanuel Cleaver, Ted Deutch, and Gabby Giffords. Abid incorporated Cars International in 2008, and Cars International A in 2009, taking out loans from the Congressional credit union while omitting the dealership from House financial disclosures. It was not clear how he could have been working at both the dealership and a high-paid congressional job.

In 2010, the CIA dealership took a $100,000 loan from Dr. Ali Al-Attar, who is of Iranian heritage and was a minister in the Iraqi government, according to court records. Al-Attar is a fugitive wanted by the U.S. government. Philip Giraldi, a former CIA officer, wrote that Attar “was observed in Beirut, Lebanon conversing with a Hezbollah official” in 2012–shortly after the loan was made.

The money was moved from Ali Al-Attar through accounts intended for Fairfax County real estate. Both Imran Awan and Khattak — who also put up $200,000 in cash as an investor in CIA — had realtors licenses.

It’s not clear where the dealership’s money was going, because it was sued by at least five different people on all ends of a typical car business who said they were stiffed. CIA didn’t pay the security deposit, rent or taxes for its building, it didn’t pay wholesalers who provided cars, and it sold broken cars to people and then refused to honor the warranties, the lawsuits say.

“The consignment agreements state it clearly that either Mr. Awan sells the cars for the agreed price no less $62,200 or return my cars back. I need my cars back,” Issmail Alchaleh, one wholesaler, wrote in court documents. Some of the consignment agreements use the same VIN for multiple cars.

Abid declared bankruptcy in 2010 to discharge debts racked up by the car dealership. He kept ownership of two houses in the bankruptcy by saying he was separated or divorcing from Sova, but even this year, they were still together, and Sova used Abid’s residence when incorporating her own car companies. One person who was listed on bankruptcy documents as being owed money by the dealership, Rao Abbas, later appeared on the House payroll as an IT aide, even though his most recent job experience was working at McDonalds. Democrats have refused to explain why they hired him.

Sova incorporated a mysterious company called Alain LLC in 2009, followed by Discover EZ Car Buying Co. in 2014 and Regional Car Center Inc. in 2015. Virginia incorporation documents list Abid’s home address as the businesses’ location, and a Google search did not reveal any evidence of the dealerships existing, which is incongruous for a line of work where basic revenue depends on making sure potential customers know where to find them.

Other opaque companies, such as New Dawn 2001 and Acg LLC, were also established in 2011 out of Imran’s house.

A relative of the Awans told TheDCNF that Abid sent huge quantities of iPads and iPhones to Pakistan and that Imran frequently talked about Russia. They also sent money to a Pakistani police officer. The brothers’ stepmother, Samina Gilani, said in court documents that when the family spends time in Pakistan, the brothers are escorted by a motorcade of Pakistani government agents. Rep. Yvette Clarke, a New York Democrat who employed Abid, filed paperwork saying that $120,000 in technology equipment went missing while Abid managed it for the office.

Despite brothers Imran, Abid and Jamal and Imran’s wife, Hina Alvi, all making chief-of-staff level salaries of $160,000 on Capitol Hill, they displayed few signs of wealth in the US, further raising questions about where all the money was going. Abid is in a lawsuit against his stepmother after Abid replaced her with himself on his father’s life insurance policy, and his attorney, Jim Bacon, told a judge he needed money. Imran’s lawyer said his children were living in squalor. They reported few holdings on their House ethics disclosures.

They bought houses will little money down, then rented them out, insisting that rent be paid in cash, tenants told TheDCNF. Sources said the FBI generated Suspicious Activity Reports hundreds of pages long based on large cash deposits and international wires.

Members of Congress have refused to acknowledge what is well-known among the House bureaucracy, that investigators found conclusive evidence that the Awans wantonly violated House IT regulations. “There’s no question about it: If I was accused of a tenth of what these guys are accused of, they’d take me out in handcuffs that same day,” a fellow House IT aide said. But fellow IT aides with knowledge pertinent to the case said the FBI hasn’t even interviewed them.

Politico’s money-laundering story echoed similar themes: “Right now, we have 50 FBI agents not doing anything because they know their Iran cases aren’t going anywhere,” including investigations into allegedly complicit used-car dealers, a prosecutor said.

http://dailycaller.com/2017/12...aundering-operation/

This message has been edited. Last edited by: feersum dreadnaught,

quote:

Officials told Politico that prosecutors refused to help them punish top Hezbollah operatives involved in its money laundering network because of political concerns, such as fears of jeopardizing the Obama administration’s deal with Iran. Similarly, the Awans, who had close relationships to House Democrats including Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Gregory Meeks, have not been charged with any crimes surrounding the dealership nor with their House activities. The disclosure of a House IT breach shortly before the election by Pakistani-born Democratic staffers would have had political fallout.

And from the MSM we hear only about Trump's "collusion" with Russia.

Before I kick the bucket, I want to see this Muslim faker perp walk with his blonde henchwoman.

RMD

Did anyone ever doubt his hatred for America?

quote:

Originally posted by rduckwor:
Before I kick the bucket, I want to see this Muslim faker perp walk with his blonde henchwoman.

RMD

I think we will have to wait until we are on the other side to see these two brought to justice.

quote:

Originally posted by darthfuster:

quote:

Originally posted by rduckwor:
Before I kick the bucket, I want to see this Muslim faker perp walk with his blonde henchwoman.

RMD

I think we will have to wait until we are on the other side to see these two brought to justice.

I'm afraid you are correct.

Not in this world.

RMD

Congress Demands DOJ Turn Over All Docs Related to Obama Scheme to Nix Hezbollah Terror Investigation - Congress investigating former administration's efforts to appease Iran

Congress instructed the Department of Justice on Thursday to turn over all documents and communications that may be related to newly disclosed efforts by the Obama administration to handicap an investigation into the terror group Hezbollah and its Iranian benefactors, according to a letter sent to Attorney General Jeff Sessions obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

The letter represents the first salvo in a new investigation by congressional leaders into allegations senior Obama administration officials thwarted a decade-long Drug Enforcement Agency investigation into Hezbollah's illicit operations.

The Obama administration, in what congressional insiders described to the Free Beacon as a "potentially criminal" enterprise, interfered with the DEA's investigation into Hezbollah drug activities in order to avoid angering the terror group's chief patron Iran and preserve the landmark nuclear deal.

"I've long believed that the Obama administration could not have done any more to bend over backwards to appease the Iranian regime, yet news that the Obama administration killed the investigation into a billion dollar drug ring that lined the terrorist group Hezbollah's pockets in order to save its coveted Iran deal may very well take the cake," DeSantis said.

"Hezbollah is a brutal terrorist group with American blood on its hands and it would be unconscionable for American policy to deliberately empower such a nefarious group," he said.

Congressional leaders have begun a formal investigation into the matter and petitioned the DOJ to hand over "all documents and communications" that may shine light on "interference with the DEA's law enforcement efforts against Hezbollah," according to a letter sent by Reps. Ron DeSantis (R., Fla.) and Jim Jordan (R., Ohio.).

"We have a responsibility to evaluate whether these allegations are true, and if so, did the administration undermine U.S. law enforcement and compromise U.S. national security," the lawmakers wrote to Sessions, according to a copy of the letter obtained by the Free Beacon.

The lawmakers are requesting the DOJ hand over to Congress all materials relating to a DEA operation known as Project Cassandra, which Politico first reported was part of an effort to investigate Hezbollah's drug activities across Latin America.

The lawmakers also are demanding files and communications related to other Hezbollah investigations, including, but not limited to, Operation Titan, Operation Perseus, and the Iran-Hezbollah Super Facilitator Initiative, according to the letter.

DeSantis and Jordan also have requested DOJ produce documents related to key individuals linked to these investigations, including those in Hezbollah's inner circle.

Additionally, the lawmakers are seeking "all documents and communications referring or relating to the potential designation of Hezbollah as a Transnational Criminal Organization," as well as, "all documents referring or relating to efforts to prosecute targets related to Hezbollah through the" RICO Act.

DOJ must provide Congress with these communications and documents no latter than 5 p.m. on Jan. 8, 2018.

Lawmakers also have required DOJ brief them no later than Jan. 12, 2018, on the matter.

The request for information marks the first investigatory effort by lawmakers since Politico first disclosed that the Obama administration may have thwarted DEA investigations into Hezbollah as part of an effort to avoid upsetting Iran.

Multiple sources who spoke to the Free Beacon about the matter described the Hezbollah meddling as one part of a larger Obama administration effort to overlook Iran's global terror operations.

Congress is particularly interested to learn whether key senior Obama administration officials, including former National Security Council staffer Ben Rhodes, were involved in meddling with the Hezbollah operation as part of an effort to preserve diplomatic relations with Iran and pave the way towards the nuclear deal.

The investigation by DeSantis and Jordan is being undertaken under the wider umbrella of oversight efforts into the Obama administration's diplomatic dealings with Iran that led to the nuclear deal.

Congressional officials and others have long maintained the Obama administration misled lawmakers and the American people about the nature of the deal in order to ensure its survival.

In addition to the latest information on the Hezbollah investigation, the Obama administration has been accused of helping Iran skirt international sanctions and providing Tehran with multiple cash infusions to ensure it remained at the bargaining table.

U.S. drug enforcement agents who spoke to Politico about the matter accused the Obama administration of derailing an investigation into Hezbollah's drug trafficking and money laundering efforts that began in 2008 under the Bush administration.

The investigation centered on Hezbollah and Iranian-backed militants who allegedly participated in the illicit drug network, which was subject to U.S. wiretaps and undercover operations.

Hezbollah is believed to have been laundering at least $200 million per month just in the United States, according to the report.


http://freebeacon.com/national...error-investigation/

This is much worse than I imagined. I did a search on CNN for Cassandra, and there was zero. We are so lucky that Hillary did not win. I think that one of Obama's major goals was to have Israel destroyed, and all these smaller things are icing on the cake.
----------------
The Obama team “really, really, really wanted the deal.”

— Former CIA officer on how intelligence operations were also impacted by negotiations with Iran.
----
I wonder how many confidential informants were outed and killed because of Wasserman-Schultz and Hillary's server.

Anything to make sure his homies get the "big one".

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Bigboreshooter,