Month: June 2023

The New START Treaty, which is the final nuclear arms treaty between the United States and Russia, continues to fall apart after on Thursday the Biden administration said it would walk away from multiple key obligations stipulated under the agreement, after Moscow already effectively ended its participation earlier this year.

The State Department announced in a Thursday fact sheet that the US will initiate “Four lawful countermeasures in response to the Russian Federation’s ongoing violations of the New START Treaty” which it deemed “proportionate” and “reversible.” Further, Russia has been notified in advance of the move.

But the fact sheet underscored that “The United States continues to abide by the treaty’s central limits, and to fulfill all of its New START obligations that have not been included within these countermeasures.”

Crucially, the most important of the countermeasures bans all Russian inspectors from visiting US territories. This was the most important aspect to the agreement, given that among the nuclear reduction treaty’s chief aims is to ensure inspection and monitoring of each side’s nuclear arsenal by the other. However, it had already been on pause since 2020 in relation to Covid restrictions and lockdowns.

Related to central monitoring protocols, the US is also backing away from basic information-sharing with the Kremlin. Washington will now withhold “notifications required under the treaty, including updates on the status or location of treaty-accountable items such as missiles and launchers.”

Additionally, data will no longer be shared about future missile tests, including “telemetric information on launches of US ICBMs and SLBMs,” according to the State Department.

All of this comes very dangerously as nuclear saber-rattling continues in relation to the Ukraine war. Russia has recently ordered tactical nukes to be hosted on Belarusian territory – a move the West has condemned.

Russian officials have long explained that the country’s nuclear doctrine has not changed, warning that nuclear weapons can be deployed only if sovereign Russian territory and the population comes under existential threat. And yet, cross-border attacks from Ukraine have only intensified, including increasing incidents of ground troop incursions, with the use of military hardware, some it provided by NATO allies.

Biden administration acknowledges it keeps crossing Putin’s red lines because he hasn’t launched a nuclear response yet. https://t.co/bmNOu3Ifzf

— Max Abrahms (@MaxAbrahms) June 1, 2023

Russia has at the same time accused the West of backing these brazen attacks, and has warned of continued escalation. Putin’s “red lines” continue to be crossed, almost daily at this point.

Submitted by Gun Owners of America,

On Thursday, Joe Biden planned to enact the largest gun ban in U.S. history—a ban on up to 40,000,000 pistols.  

But at the eleventh hour, the executive order gun ban was gutted by three federal courts. 

After a months-long legal battle with the federal government, Gun Owners of America secured one such preliminary injunction in Texas v. Garland, preventing the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) from prosecuting any GOA members under this new rule.  

🚨 BREAKING🚨

GOF and @GunOwners just received the order for our Pistol Brace lawsuit and our case has resulted in a PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION for ALL GOA MEMBERS.

When the clock strikes midnight, millions of GOA members will still be law-abiding Americans. We are thankful for… pic.twitter.com/41LD8WY1Tq

— Gun Owners Foundation (@GunFoundation) June 1, 2023

Similar rulings were issued by two other federal courts to members of two other advocacy organizations as well—the plaintiffs in Mock v. Garland and SAF v. ATF.  

In effect, the Biden Pistol Ban crumbled before it even got off the ground. 

Without the injunction, ATF could have already begun kicking in doors and confiscating “illegal” unregistered pistols. 

But even though the injunctions are not nationwide, it is now nearly impossible for ATF to differentiate the pistol owners they can prosecute from the Gun Owners of America members and other protected persons. 

Notably, Gun Owners of America isn’t satisfied with this limited injunction. In fact, GOA had argued for a nationwide injunction, but the courts refused and only granted limited relief to its members. 

In case you missed it, GOA and @GunFoundation secured a Preliminary Injunction last night against the Biden Pistol Ban for GOA Members. This means that when the rule went into effect at 12 AM ET, millions of GOA members were still law-abiding Americans. 👏

We know there are a…

— Gun Owners of America (@GunOwners) June 1, 2023

That’s why GOA is also urging activists to contact Congress and urge them to provide oversight and to protect all gun owners nationwide. 

Using the Congressional Review Act, the ATF rule could be reversed, and the agency could be prohibited from ever enacting a similar rule in the future. 

Two joint resolutions of disapproval have already been introduced. H. J. Res. 44, introduced by Rep. Andrew Clyde, has 189 sponsors in the House of Representatives and S. J. Res. 20, introduced by Sen. Kennedy, has 47 sponsors in the Senate.  

Public calls for Speaker McCarthy to hold a vote to block the pistol brace rule have only mounted in recent weeks, with several coalitions calling for immediate action—including 27 Attorneys General currently suing the Biden Administration, 2A influencers with over 30,000,000 combined followers, and numerous members of the gun industry. 

*   *   *

We’ll hold the line for you in Washington. We are No Compromise. Join the Fight Now. 

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) on Thursday accused the United States of conducting an espionage operation that compromised thousands of iPhones using sophisticated surveillance software.

Moscow-based Kaspersky Lab says that dozens of their employees’ devices were compromised as part of the operation.

In a statement, the FSB said that the targets included domestic Russian subscribers, as well as foreign diplomats based in Russia and the former Soviet Union, Reuters reports.

“The FSB has uncovered an intelligence action of the American special services using Apple mobile devices,” said the FSB in a statement, adding that the plot revealed “close cooperation” between Apple and the National Security Agency (NSA). The FSB did not provide any evidence of Apple’s cooperation.

Kaspersky CEO Eugene Kaspersky said on Twitter that dozens of his employees’ phones were compromised in the operation, which his company described as “an extremely complex, professionally targeted cyberattack” that had targeted workers in “top and middle-management.”

Kaspersky researcher Igor Kuznetsov told Reuters that his company had independently discovered anomalous traffic on its corporate Wi-Fi network around the start of the year. He said Kaspersky did not circulate its findings to Russia’s Computer Emergency Response Team until earlier on Thursday. -Reuters

More from Kaspersky via Twitter;

Triangulation transmits private information to remote servers: microphone recordings, photos from instant messengers, geolocation and data about a number of other activities #IOSTriangulation

— Eugene Kaspersky (@e_kaspersky) June 1, 2023

We are quite confident that Kaspersky was not the main target of this cyberattack. The coming days will bring more clarity and further details on the worldwide proliferation of the spyware #IOSTriangulation

— Eugene Kaspersky (@e_kaspersky) June 1, 2023

Important: The activity observed in Operation Triangulation does not overlap with already known iOS campaigns, such as Pegasus, Predator or Reign.

— Eugene Kaspersky (@e_kaspersky) June 1, 2023

Kaspersky says that disabling iMessage will defeat the hack.

Repeat after me: https://t.co/li3xomQY60 pic.twitter.com/HzfZgC0lkN

— Davy Douhine (@ddouhine) June 1, 2023

According to the FSB, the Americans had compromised diplomats from China, Syria, Israel and NATO members. 

“The hidden data collection was carried out through software vulnerabilities in U.S.-made mobile phones,” said Russia’s foreign ministry in a statement. “The U.S. intelligence services have been using IT corporations for decades in order to collect large-scale data of Internet users without their knowledge.”

Reuters notes that “The United States is the world’s top cyber power in terms of intent and capability, according to Harvard University’s Belfer Center Cyber 2022 Power Index, followed by China, Russia, the United Kingdom and Australia.”

Russian officials said the plot had been uncovered as part of a joint effort by FSB officers and those of the Federal Guards Service (FSO), a powerful agency that runs the Kremlin bodyguard and was also once the KGB’s Ninth Directorate.

Officials in Russia, which Western spies say has constructed a very sophisticated domestic surveillance structure, have long questioned the security of U.S. technology. -Reuters

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that all officials in the Putin government knew that gadgets such as iPhones were “absolutely transparent.”

“Using them for official purposes is unacceptable and prohibited,” he said, adding that they were free to use iPhones for private communications.

By Alan Adler of FreightWaves,

The California State Assembly voted Wednesday to ban driverless trucks from the state’s roadways, requiring a safety driver be present. If passed by the Senate, it would leave the state where most autonomous trucking companies are based as an outlier in adopting the technology.

The 54-3 vote banning autonomous vehicles over 10,000 pounds from operating without a safety driver followed similar majority committee votes on Assembly Bill 316. The measure received support from the Teamsters and other labor groups. They claim driverless trucks would eliminate thousands of good-paying jobs for human drivers.

“The public should not be treated as a lab rat for big corporations to test their technology. Californians deserve a safety-first approach. And this bill would do just that,” Randy Cammack, president of Teamsters Joint Council 42, said in March.

California 2024 Senate candidates U.S. Reps. Katie Porter, Adam Schiff and Barbara Lee have voiced support for the legislation. San Francisco Mayor London Breed also has expressed support.

Autonomous vehicle industry wants governor’s support

“AB 316 is a preemptive technology ban that will put California even further behind other states and lock in the devastating safety status quo on California’s roads, which saw more than 4,400 people die last year,” the Autonomous Vehicle Industry Association (AVIA) said in a statement after the vote.

“AB 316 undermines California’s law enforcement and safety officials as they seek to regulate and conduct oversight over life-saving autonomous trucks,” said Jeff Farrah, AVIA executive director. “We encourage Governor Newsom and the State Senate to reject AB 316 so Californians will benefit from the safety and supply chain benefits of autonomous trucks.”

In an April 20 editorial, the Orange County Register said opposition to driverless trucking is “classic union featherbedding.”

Dozens of autonomous trucking and technology founders, CEOs, and others wrote to Newsom in June 2022. California in late August released “Driving the Future: Autonomous Vehicles Strategic Framework Vision and Guiding Principles.”

The nine-page document concludes that “AVs hold the promise to be an important part of our mobility future.” But its added that “they are just one part of a broader set of solutions.”

The California Department of Motor Vehicles is considering the framework that could allow autonomous vehicles over 10,000 pounds to hit the road, without consent from the State Legislature.

Self-driving trucking software companies Kodiak Robotics, Plus, Waymo and TuSimple are all based in California. But they only operate their trucks in the state with safety drivers. That is the current practice in other states. Several states have shown willingness to eventually allow the driver to be removed from the truck.

TuSimple is aiming to commercialize a driverless route in Arizona between Tucson and Phoenix as soon as 2024. Pittsburgh-based Aurora is planning to run driverless trucks in Texas by the end of next year.

With a surge in population growth, soaring urban development, and, of course, desert conditions, it comes as no surprise the Phoenix metropolitan area could one day run out of groundwater. On Thursday, local authorities declared the state would no longer issue building permits for new developments across the metro area unless alternative water sources can be found. 

Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs said a newly released study of the Phoenix metropolitan area’s groundwater showed a potential shortage looms. To safeguard supplies, current developments that have been approved can be constructed, but ones that have yet to be approved will have to show alternate water sources. Developers must show state officials they have an alternative “assured water supply” for 100 years from non-local groundwater. 

The study found that 4% of the metro area’s demand for groundwater, nearly 4.9 million acre-feet, cannot be met over the next century. If the projections are correct, a massive water shortage could be nearing and have widespread implications for the post-Covid development boom. 

Thursday’s announcement is a sign the water-scarce metro area, situated in a desert, has limitations in terms of the number of homes it can support. 

“It’s going to make it harder for developments to spring up on raw desert in the far-flung parts of town where developers like to develop,” Sarah Porter, the director of the Kyl Center for Water Policy, told CNN. 

The former Phoenix mayor, Terry Goddard, said the study indicates residents are “living on borrowed water.” He added:

“You need to be conscious of every drop. You can’t build unless you know exactly where the water is coming from.”

Last year, Arizona’s Water Infrastructure Finance Authority began reviewing a proposal for a multibillion-dollar project to construct a water desalination plant in Mexico that would pump water through a 200-mile pipeline to the border state to counter its drought-driven water uncertainty.

Instead of blaming climate change, Phoenix should remember they’re situated in the middle of the desert, and the explosive population growth in the last several years draws down on finite resources much quicker. If the metro area wants to continue to expand, it might have to consider the 200-mile pipeline from Mexico. 

Authored by Mark Tapscott via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

Hundreds of millions of U.S. tax dollars went to recipients in China and Russia in recent years without being properly tracked by the federal government, including a grant that enabled a state-run Russian lab to test cats on treadmills, according to Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa).

Ernst and her staff investigators, working with auditors at the Government Accountability Office (GAO) and the Congressional Research Service, as well as two nonprofit Washington watchdogs—Open The Books (OTB) and the White Coat Waste Project (WCWP)—discovered dozens of other grants that weren’t counted on the federal government’s USASpending.gov internet database.

While the total value of the uncounted grants found by the Ernst team is $1.3 billion, that amount is just the tip of the iceberg, the GAO reported.

Among the newly discovered grants is $4.2 million to China’s infamous Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) “to conduct dangerous experiments on bat coronaviruses and transgenic mice,” according to a May 31 Ernst statement provided to The Epoch Times.

The $4.2 million exposed by Ernst is in addition to previously reported funding to the WIV for extensive gain-of-function research by Chinese scientists, much of it funded in whole or part prior to the COVID-19 pandemic by National Institutes for Health (NIH) grants channeled through the EcoHealth Alliance medical research nonprofit.

The NIH has awarded seven grants totaling more than $4.1 million to EcoHealth to study various aspects of SARS, MERS, and other coronavirus diseases.

Buying Chinese Puppy Parts

As part of another U.S.-funded grant, hearts and other organs from 425 dogs in China were purchased for medical research.

“These countryside dogs in China are part of the farmer’s household; they were mainly used for guarding. Their diet includes boiled rice, discarded raw food animal tissues, and whatever dogs can forage. These dogs were sold for food,” an NIH study uncovered by the Ernst researchers reads.

Other previously unreported grants exposed by the Ernst team include $1.6 million to Chinese companies from the federal government’s National School Lunch Program and $4.7 million for health insurance from a Russian company that was sanctioned by the United States in 2022 as a result of the invasion of Ukraine.

“It’s gravely concerning that Washington’s reckless spending has reached the point where nobody really knows where all tax dollars are going,” Ernst separately told The Epoch Times. “But I have the receipts, and I’m shining a light on this, so bureaucrats can no longer cover up their tracks, and taxpayers can know exactly what their hard-earned dollars are funding.”

The problem is that federal officials don’t rigorously track sub-awards made by initial grant recipients, according to the Iowa Republican. Such sub-awards are covered by a multitude of federal regulations that stipulate many conditions to ensure that the tax dollars are appropriately spent.

The GAO said in an April report that “limitations in sub-award data is a government-wide issue and not unique to U.S. funding to entities in China.”

“GAO is currently examining the state of federal government-wide sub-award data as part of a separate review,” the report reads.

The Eco-Health sub-awards to WIV illustrate the problem.

“Despite being required by law to make these receipts available to the public on the USAspending.gov website, EcoHealth tried to cover its tracks by intentionally not disclosing the amounts of taxpayer money being paid to WIV, which went unnoticed for years,” Ernst said in the statement.

“I was able to determine that more than $490 million of taxpayer money was paid to organizations in China [in] the last five years. That’s ten times more than GAO’s estimate! Over $870 million was paid to entities in Russia during the same period!

“Together that adds up to more than $1.3 billion paid to our adversaries. But again, these numbers still do not represent the total dollar amounts paid to institutions in China or Russia since those numbers are not tracked and the information that is being collected is incomplete.”

Adam Andrzejewski, founder and chairman of OTB, told The Epoch Times, “When following the money at the state and local level, the real corruption exists in the subcontractor payments. At the federal level, the existing system doesn’t even track many of those recipients.

“Without better reporting, agencies and appropriators don’t truly understand how tax dollars were used. We now know that taxpayer dollars are traded further downstream than originally realized with third- and fourth-tier recipients. These transactions need scrutiny. Requiring recipients to account for where and how they actually spend each dollar creates a record far better than agencies are capable of generating.”

Read more here…

Nearly 10,000 photos from Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop were uploaded to a new website – BidenLaptopMedia.com, which has been intermittently unavailable since launch due to overwhelming traffic.

The site, which took months to complete, is the brainchild of former Trump White House aide, Garrett Ziegler, who worked as an aide to economic adviser Peter Navarro.

“It’s taken us a couple of months to, one, go through the photos, about 10,000 of them, and redact the genitalia on the photos,” said Ziegler, adding “The number one thing we’re about… is truth and transparency.”

“If the American people want to know what their first family is like, they’re going to get it. And we’re not going to be taking out photos that paint the Bidens in a good light.”

The site includes;

Pictures (with location metadata)

Emails

Suspicious Activity Reports

Influence peddling

Ashley Biden’s diary

And lots of personal details;

According to Ziegler, several photos including private data were redacted, including those containing Social Security numbers, banking information and credit card numbers – as well as multiple nude photos of Hallie Biden, the widow of Beau Biden.

Of the many photos found on the laptop, Ziegler provided Fox News Digital with two never-before-seen photos from the laptop. One photo showed Hunter Biden cozied up to his then-lover Zoe Kestan in 2018. The other image — featuring an array of drugs and a condom wrapper sitting on a table — was from a text message conversation Hunter had with Hallie Biden — the widow of Beau Biden and former lover of Hunter Biden — the same year.

Providing further insight on the type of content viewers can expect on the website, Ziegler said some content that does not carry “news value” will not be featured. –Fox News

“There are, for example, screenshots of Candy Crush games where we are fairly confident in saying there’s absolutely no news value to those,” he said. “So it’s going to be, I would say, 98% of the photos on the device, around 10,000 in total, although it’ll be slightly less than that.”

“It’s going to be a completely authentic recounting of the photos on the device,” he continued.

Our servers for https://t.co/zQirhFz1PJ are under heavy stress and we are working to get it fully functional and secured. Incredible engagement already in the first couple hours. https://t.co/70HD65aFyL

— Marco Polo (@MarcoPolo501c3) June 1, 2023

By Trains.com

Launch of service for Amtrak’s next-generation Acela trainsets has been pushed back into 2024, the Washington Post reports, as testing and computer simulations continue to find problems, most recently with the train’s wheelsets

That means the new trains will enter service at least three years late, placing increasing pressure on the existing Acela fleet that dates to 2000. Trains News Wire has learned that four of the 20 first-generation Acela sets have been withdrawn from service. Two New York-Washington Acela round trips were dropped from the schedule as of May 8; an Amtrak spokesman said this was “due to a need to perform additional maintenance on Acela equipment.”

Alstom, which is building the 28 new high-speed trainsets, said in a statement to the Post that “modeling of the wheel-to-track interface is particularly complex due to age, condition, and specific characteristics of Amtrak infrastructure on the Northeast Corridor, and especially the existing tracks.” The company said it has been “conducting extensive investigations” to ensure the trains will operate safely and is “confident that this extensive process will demonstrate compatibility of the latest generation of high-speed technology with existing [Amtrak] infrastructure.”

Sources tell News Wire that the computer modeling designed to predict the trainsets’ operating characteristics and enable them to reach maximum speeds over 150 mph were confirmed on the test track at Pueblo, Colo., but could not be verified on some Northeast Corridor sections. Track quality has been upgraded on New Jersey tracks between Trenton and New Brunswick, and Amtrak already hosts legacy Acela trainsets at 150 mph over portions of right-of-way upgraded in the 1990s in Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts, but track quality varies widely elsewhere.

Amtrak and Alstom announced a $2.45 billion deal to build the new equipment in 2016, with a 2021 target to begin service [see “Amtrak, Alstom reach $2.45 billion deal,” News Wire, Aug. 26, 2016]. But modifications to the trains’ catenary systems — which would lose contact with the catenary wire at top speed — pushed the debut back [see “News report says debut of new Acelas will be delayed by a year,” News Wire, June 3, 2021]. A delay to 2023 was attributed to further testing and modifications [see “Alstom explains latest delay …,” News Wire, April 8, 2022].

Amtrak told the Post last week that “further refinement of analysis, simulations and testing” are needed. Alstom said it has delivered six trainsets to the passenger operator and is preparing to deliver the seventh.

“We want our customers to experience these new trains as soon as possible, but Amtrak cannot operate them for passenger service until Alstom has completed testing and meets all safety requirements,” Amtrak said in a statement to the Post.

In a drive to reinforce Ukraine’s arsenal ahead of a long-anticipated counteroffensive against Russia, the US government is working to buy explosive material from Japan for use in 155mm artillery shells, Reuters reported Thursday night. 

The request is a test of Japan’s post-World War II philosophy against militarism, as well as the country’s specific restrictions on arms exports. Nonetheless, the Japanese government has assured US representatives the deal will get done. 

“There is a way for the United States to buy explosives from Japan,” an unnamed person with knowledge of the negotiations told Reuters. The sale of industrial TNT will clear export hurdles thanks to the fact that it’s considered a “dual-use” product, that isn’t explicitly military in nature — as opposed to, for example, an assembled artillery shell.

At the same time, Japan’s Ministry of Trade, Industry and Economy said its export rules require an assessment of the buyer’s intent for the product, including whether the intended use would undermine international security.  

Artillery has figured heavily in the Ukraine war, with both sides firing several thousand rounds every day, and manufacturers scrambling to the guns firing. In December, Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said the US weapons industry would ramp up 155mm artillery shell production from 14,000 rounds per month to 20,000 in this spring and 40,000 by 2025. 

News of a Japanese TNT deal comes on the heels of Secretary of Defense LLoyd Austin’s visit to Japan this week. If the deal closes, the explosives will be used by American ammunition manufacturers.  

Echoing the sentiments of Western hawks, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has previously warned that a Russian triumph in Ukraine could encourage a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. Japan has furnished nonlethal aid to Ukraine, including rations, helmets and flak jackets, and in April committed to supplying trucks.  

With the pending TNT deal, Japan is putting its toes on the line of non-militarism. The move is bound to cause controversy. “The fact that Japan has decided to give trucks to Ukraine shows that things are changing. However, there doesn’t yet appear to be any political consensus around the issue of sending lethal aid,” the Sasakawa Peace Foundation’s Tsuneo Watanabe told Reuters. 

In December, Japan announced its biggest military build-up since World War II. The $320 billion shopping list includes missiles with sufficient range to hit targets in China. Kishida and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party have also made clear their desire to relax export restrictions or eliminate them altogether.  

While the proposed Japanese TNT supplier hasn’t been identified, a Reuters review of the country’s manufacturers points to closely-held, Chugoku Kayaku as the most likely firm. In a darkly ironic twist, the company that may advance Japan’s departure from the principles of peace is headquartered in Hiroshima. 

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A federal judge is weighing whether to throw out a case against the IRS that alleges the Clinton Foundation violated federal law and should have its tax-exempt status revoked.

U.S. Tax Court Judge David Gustafson on May 30 asked the government and experts who brought a whistleblower claim to the IRS based on a years-long investigation of the foundation to submit additional filings in light of recent developments in other cases.

Rulings in those cases “may affect the parties’ positions as to the pending motions,” Gustafson wrote in a brief order (pdf), which was first reported by Just the News. “We will order further filings so that the parties may address those recent opinions,” he added.

Those opinions include an appeals court ruling (pdf) in favor of the government in a case brought by a whistleblower who offered what he said was evidence a company was not paying enough taxes.

John Moynihan, a former federal agent, and Lawrence Doyle, a tax expert, brought evidence to the IRS in 2017 that they say shows the Clinton Foundation violated U.S. law by acting as a foreign agent without registering as one.

The IRS denied the claims after interviewing one of the people cited and determining the evidence “was not credible” due to the person’s denials. An appeal of the determination was turned down, prompting Moynihan and Doyle to take the matter to U.S. Tax Court.

The government tried convincing Gustafson to toss the case, but in a 2020 ruling, he rejected the bid, finding that the IRS’s whistleblower’s office had “abused its discretion” by making unsupported statements in its determination.

A new motion to dismiss the case for lack of jurisdiction was lodged in 2022 and is currently under consideration. The motion and an opposition filing from Moynihan and Doyle were not available on the court docket.

In addition to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit opinion in Villa-Arce v. Commissioner, Gustafson referenced two other rulings:

• A ruling (pdf) by the same court found that the tax court had jurisdiction to consider a whistleblower claim but that the court correctly threw out a case brought by a whistleblower.
• A ruling (pdf) by the tax court found that the IRS appeared to correctly deny a whistleblower award to a man who was interviewed during an investigation.

Moynihan and Doyle did not return requests for comment. The IRS and the U.S. Department of Justice did not respond to inquiries.

Earlier Testimony

Appearing before Congress in 2018, Moynihan and Doyle said they uncovered evidence indicating the Clinton Foundation violated the law.

“The foundation began acting as an agent of foreign governments throughout its life and continues to do so. As such, they should have registered under FARA,” or the Foreign Agents Registration Act, Doyle said.

The foundation also intentionally misused funds from donors, Moynihan said.

“The investigation clearly demonstrates the foundation was not a charitable organization, per se, but, point of fact, was a closely held family partnership. As such, it was governed in a fashion in which it sought in large measure to advance the personal interests of its principals,” he said.

The violations mean the foundation should no longer be entitled to its tax-exempt privileges, the experts said.

The Clinton Foundation did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesperson told The Hill when the claim was first sent to the IRS that the foundation has been “subjected to outrageous, politically motivated allegations that have been proven false time and time again.”

WikiLeaks

Files obtained and published by WikiLeaks revealed that the foundation was audited multiple times.

One of the auditor reports said the foundation was “missing several policies/procedures that are required by law” and that “there is no established mechanism for catching problems and mistakes.”

Another (pdf) said that some employees were unaware of policies on conflicts of interest and outside employment and recommended implementing “a clear gift acceptance policy and procedures to ensure that all donors are properly vetted.”

Former President Bill Clinton’s top aide, Douglas Band, wrote in one email that the ex-president received income and “many expensive gifts” from some of the foundation’s donors. Some of the foundation’s employees told auditors that donors “may have an expectation of quid pro quo benefits in return for [a] gift.”

Recent Developments

The new order came after special counsel John Durham’s report revealed that FBI agents launched three probes ahead of the 2016 election into the Clinton Foundation, acting on allegations the foundation had carried out criminal activities.

Top officials tried to shut down the probes but relented after receiving pushback. They still ordered agents to get approval before taking any overt investigative steps.

The investigations were ultimately consolidated in Arkansas and ended after U.S. prosecutors there declined to file charges, according to another set of documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

The Department of Justice declined to comment on the revelations.