http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2017...-fbi-director/Jim Hoft Aug 7th, 2017 7:40 am 67 Comments
Guest post by Ryan S and American Lookout:
The following report is from Attorney Jeffrey Marty…
Shortly after his appointment as Special Counsel to investigate Russia’s alleged interference into the 2016 presidential election, a former colleague characterized Robert Mueller as “ramrod straight” and “utterly incorruptible.” Similar language was breathlessly repeated in mainstream media outlets such as Politico, BBC, and Time magazine. Mueller’s Vietnam-era service in the United States Marine Corps and 2004 tag-team with then-Deputy Attorney General James Comey to (supposedly) save American democracy from warrantless spying are mainstays of these biographies, sending a clear message that his integrity is not to be questioned, that his dedication to evenhanded justice is beyond reproach.
It’s always suspicious when anyone’s credibility is pushed hard like this, but that goes double when the same person was FBI director for 12 years—spanning across both the Bush and Obama administrations from 2001 to 2013—yet most people can’t remember anything about him. We should remember things such as actions he took to impartially uphold the law.
Sadly, that is not the case. What stands out most during then-FBI Director Mueller’s term in office is the two-tiered system of justice, when obvious crimes and scandals involving government officials and private-sector elites were ignored or even covered up by the FBI. Much of the worst behavior of government officials in the Bush and Obama administrations was given a pass by Mueller’s FBI, as well as a megabank that laundered billions of dollars for Mexican drug cartels and sponsors of terror.
Simply put: Mueller helped to create the swamp that needs to be drained. He’s a dirty cop with no business being anywhere near any national security investigation, but especially one involving James Comey.
Major Scandals During Mueller’s FBI Years:
At the nation’s top cop, then-FBI Director Mueller had massive resources to investigate crimes, as well as the ability to arrest suspects and recommend prosecution of the offenders. The following is an abbreviated list of major scandals and likely crimes that Mueller did not meaningfully investigate as FBI Director—no arrests, no consequences:
Falsification of Iraq War intelligence (2003): information providing the sole justification for a war that caused the death and dismemberment of thousands of American soldiers was later found to be fabricated, false, or overstated at the time it was presented to the public. Mueller not only failed to investigate and arrest any of the perpetrators of this deception—he actively participated in the plot:
Vanishing Currency (2003): the US sent $12,000,000,000 in $100 bills to the Iraq War combat theater, which mostly went unaccounted for once it entered the country
NSA Warrantless Surveillance (2001-2013): illegal collection of domestic phone records and internet communications that were sent or received by US citizens, in violation of Fourth Amendment protections against warrantless search and seizure, followed by potential perjury committed by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, who denied the practices under oath; the 2013 Snowden revelations proved that the 2004 story about Comey and Mueller stopping illegal surveillance practices meant absolutely nothing in reality
Emailgate (2007): discovery that several top Bush administration officials violated the Presidential Records Act by using an RNC server for email communications while conducting official business, followed by the deletion of millions of the same emails
Walter Reed Neglect Scandal (2007): troops recovering from severe war-related injuries were subjected to squalid living conditions and grotesquely substandard care due to a privatization agreement that resulted in drastic staffing cuts, after which patients were told to “keep quiet” and whistleblowers suffered retaliation from higher-ups
IRS Targeting (2010-2013): the IRS intentionally selected and then delayed or denied tax-exempt 501(c)(3) applications from conservative groups to prevent them from participating in the 2012 election, followed by IRS agent Lois Lerner invoking her Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination
Fast and Furious (2010): this ATF program, which seems to have served no rational purpose, allowed over 2,000 guns to be purchased illegally inside the United States and then “walked” into Mexico for use by criminals, one of which was later used in the 2010 murder of Border Agent Brian Terry by the member of a Mexican cartel
Associated Press Spying (2012): the Department of Justice illegally seized the communications of AP reporters made during April and May 2012, allowing the DOJ to unmask journalists’ confidential sources
Clinton Foundation Pay-for-Play (2009-2013): during the period in which Hillary Clinton held the office of Secretary of State, the Clinton Foundation and Bill Clinton received millions of dollars in paid speaking fees and a million dollar “gift” from countries involved in matters with the State Department, many of which had ties to terrorism and human rights abuses; some of these funds were apparently diverted from charitable causes to personal expenses, such as Chelsea Clinton’s 2010 wedding
Russian Uranium Deal (2009-2013): Hillary Clinton’s State Department approved a deal allowing a Russian company to control 20% of the uranium mining production capacity inside the United States, which was followed by millions of dollars in donations to the Clinton Foundation from people associated with the transaction
Clinton Private Email Server (2009-2013): during her entire tenure as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton dodged Freedom of Information Act requirements by using a private email server to conduct official government business, as well as sent and received classified information that was Top Secret over an unsecured system—an “extremely reckless” (and obviously illegal) act
HSBC Bank Money Laundering Scandal:
Although nowhere near as famous as the other examples, the HSBC money laundering case reveals the complete and total corruption of federal law enforcement toward the end of Mueller’s term as FBI Director.
For nearly the entire duration of Mueller’s term, UK-based HSBC, an international bank with branches and depositors worldwide, was doing billions of dollars in business with drug cartels, rouge nation states, and even banks associated with terrorism, taking massive deposits made in foreign nations and funneling them into the US banking market. The overall amounts were staggering, totaling hundreds of billions of dollars, which likely gave the bank a comparative advantage over its rivals and greater market share, while providing criminals with the ability to “launder” money into the US banking system with little-to-no oversight. A whistleblower, who collected information and recorded conversations with HSBC employees, which clearly portrayed the bank as a “criminal enterprise.”
Mexican Drug Cartels: From 2002 to at least 2009 (and possibly much longer), HSBC bank laundered billions of US dollars for El Chapo’s murderous Sinaloa Cartel and similar groups. In 2009, Forbes placed El Chapo at #41 on its “World’s Most Powerful People” list. The same year, many experts agreed that Mexico’s drug war had rendered it a “failed state.” By 2012, the Sinaloa cartel alone was estimated to have annual revenues of $3 billion, which were comparable to Facebook or Netflix. By April 2013, toward the end of Mueller’s term, the Sinaloa and other Mexican cartels had become the number one importer and distributor of narcotics inside the United States (with many of their top agents living inside the United States), El Chapo had become “public enemy no. 1,” and 70,000 murders and nearly 27,000 disappearances were attributable to the drug war inside Mexico.
Ignoring the obvious, HSBC inexplicably designated Mexico a “low risk” country for money laundering, allowing shady depositors and known drug kingpins to deposit billions of US dollars—in cash—into bank accounts in HSBC Mexico, followed by the same money becoming accessible at HSBC in the US. With legitimate-looking banking, the Mexican drug cartels were given huge expansion potential inside the US that would otherwise have been easily detected if they had tried to purchase properties, vehicles, and shell businesses here using large pallets of cash.
Much of the cash crossing the US-Mexico border (estimated at $25 billion per year in 2010) found a ready home in HSBC branches south of the Rio Grande. HSBC Mexico made billions of dollars in suspicious transactions, such as customers depositing hundreds of thousands of US dollars into a single bank account in a single day, during which the cash was put through teller windows in boxes that were designed to fit through the window openings. Because there was virtually no investigation into these transactions or even the identities of depositors, who included high-profile drug dealers, accounts were rarely closed due to the suspicious activity. After all, Mexico was a “low risk” country for money laundering at the time.
Terrorists and Rogue Nations: The bank’s practices also allowed terrorist groups and rogue nations to have access to our financial markets in a similar manner, facilitating financing of their activities inside this country, as well as providing greater international investment possibilities for sanctioned regimes—including $19 billion deposited from Iran into HSBC’s foreign affiliate banks. There were also lax rules for setting up relationships with affiliate banks in other countries, which included at least one Saudi Arabian bank with ties to funding terrorism.
Policies Prevented Catching Crooks: Even in the rare instance where money laundering controls were in place, inadequate follow-up measures undermined any intervention. The US division of HSBC allowed thousands of suspicious accounts to remain open after they were flagged for closure. “Know your customer” practices were virtually nonexistent, which allowed bad actors to get around things like Iranian sanctions and Patriot Act protections, which in turn was aggravated by bank employees doing things like deleting information about the country of origin on deposits from places like Iran. Large-scale warnings, such as the migration of billions of US dollars in cash deposits into HSBC Mexico, went unnoticed because the bank apparently had no system in place to monitor such activity. To say all of this was “extremely reckless” would be an understatement—it’s inconceivable that the bank’s employees and executives didn’t know.
“Ramrod” Mueller to the Rescue: What did Mueller do to aggressively investigate and shut down this massive “foreign influence” involving our country’s drug epidemic and possibly even terrorism? Basically nothing. No bank executives or employees were arrested or jailed. People have spent more time in jail for smoking a joint than any HSBC executive or employee did for facilitating drug cartel business and terrorist financing.
On October 17, 2010, the Treasury Department issued “cease and desist” letter to HSBC for violations of the Bank Secrecy Act. This was followed by a one-year Senate subcommittee investigation, which provided a comprehensive report and took hearing testimony on July 17, 2012. In what appeared to be prepared remarks, one bank compliance executive resigned at the hearing and another executive indicated HSBC “did our best” in Mexico.
With all of the investigation already completed and in the public eye as a result of the Senate investigation, the Department of Justice was finally forced to file a four-count felony indictment against defendant HSBC on December 11, 2012, which included three felony counts relating to insufficient anti-money laundering practices and one count for violation of the Trading With The Enemy Act.
On the same day, and over the objections of career DOJ prosecutors, then-AG Holder allowed HSBC to enter into a deferred prosecution agreement, under which the charges would be dropped if the bank stayed out of trouble for 5 years and paid a “record fine” consisting of $1.256 billion in forfeited assets and an additional $665 million in civil penalties. Added together, the punishment totaled approximately 9% of one year’s profits for HSBC’s worldwide operations, which amounted to a whopping $21.9 billion in 2011 alone.
The same day, then-US Attorney Lynch led a press conference alleging that (1) an alphabet soup of federal agencies had conducted a serious investigation and (2) the “record fine” was somehow adequate punishment. Notably, “ramrod straight” Mueller and Holder were not present, despite the obvious national importance of the case. In press releases, The DOJ (echoed by the FBI, which re-posted DOJ’s release) bragged about the “heavy price” of the fine being imposed. Despite the “heavy price” paid for its rampant criminal behavior, HSBC was somehow able to sponsor the star-studded 2014 Clinton Global Initiative. (The Clinton Foundation also received up to $81,000,000 in donations from HSBC’s illustrious group of accountholders.)
But not everyone bought into Lynch’s sales pitch. Even CBS News seemed suspicious of the deal, which was obviously disproportionate to the criminal conduct involved (VIDEO).
While a US citizen sending money to terrorists can result in a 20-year prison sentence, and many US citizens have been sentenced to decades n prison for even marijuana-related crimes, the bank’s executives and employees never spent one day in jail for their roles in assisting terrorist-connected nations and Mexican drug cartels to do business—an example of the “two systems” of justice than many Americans believe exist between the elites and regular citizens.
If drug dealers and terror supporters are by the FBI using search warrants, controlled transactions, confidential informants, wiretaps, GPS tracking, interrogations, and other regularly-used police tactics, why wouldn’t Mueller have done something to build a case here the same way?
James Comey Joins HSBC Board of Directors: Six weeks after the 2012 deferred prosecution agreement, HSBC appointed James Comey to its Board of Directors as head of the Financial System Vulnerabilities Committee.
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