FBI Raids US Home of Soviet-Born Former Trump Adviser
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has raided and searched the house of Dimitri Simes, who used to be a political advisor to former President Donald Trump and a vocal critic of the administration of President Joe Biden.
According to the Virginia-based newspaper Rappahannock News, which first reported the story, the FBI agents executed a search warrant on the home of Simes, a Russian-born political pundit and author, on Aug. 13.
Simes, whose name was included more than 100 times in the 2019 report by former Special Counsel Robert Mueller into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, told the news outlet that he was out of the country and had not been notified about the search ahead of time. He was unaware he was the focus of any current law enforcement investigation.
“I’m puzzled and concerned,” he said. “I have not seen a warrant. I was not contacted by any law enforcement or anyone else whatsoever.”
For Simes, the raid was “clearly an attempt to intimidate, not only somebody from Russia but just anyone who goes against official policies and particularly against the Deep State”
“I suspect that instead of trying to get me to come to the United States and to interrogate me or even to arrest me, their real purpose is to make sure that I would not come back,” he added.
(Related: Total tyranny: FBI agent admits questioning Americans “every day, all day long” about social media posts.)
The author’s son, Dimitri Simes Jr., described it as “a bandit-like intimidation attempt” by the U.S. government in a statement posted on X.
“The Biden regime is terrified of being called out over Ukraine and Israel,” he wrote. In another post, he added: “Elements of Biden regime are trying to disrupt any possibility for de-escalation with Russia and plunge America into World War III.”
In an email, FBI spokesperson Samantha Shero declined to comment on the raid, except to confirm that it had been authorized by a court.
Simes, who was born in Moscow, is a naturalized U.S. citizen who immigrated to the country in 1973. He served as an informal foreign policy adviser to former President Richard Nixon before leading the media company Center for the National Interest for nearly three decades. He was described by U.S. media as providing “a sympathetic platform for the Russian government in the heart of the D.C. policy establishment,” after Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) named him as a foreign policy adviser in 2014.
He was one of the people investigated by Special Counsel Robert Mueller as a suspected contact between Trump and the Russian government. The report finalized in 2019, which failed to find any evidence of collusion between Moscow and Trump’s 2016 campaign, also vindicated the political expert, confirming that his activities were normal for how D.C. operates.
Last year, Simes moderated a conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum. And in June, Simes participated in a closed-door meeting with Putin, the state-owned Russian news agency TASS reported.
Antonov calls out U.S. for “witch-hunt”
Russian Ambassador to the U.S. Anatoly Antonov slammed the FBI’s actions as part of “a witch-hunt.” He expressed outrage over the apparent increase in aggressive government actions against those deemed to be Russian sympathizers.
The ambassador explained that these attacks come against the backdrop of the U.S. election campaigns amid a growing nationwide crackdown against those who Washington claims are Russian foreign assets working “in violation of foreign agent laws.”
Antonov expressed concern, saying: “We are certainly worried about what is happening.” He criticized Washington for its “double standards in the field of democracy and freedom of speech,” noting that “hundreds of people are declared objectionable simply because they dare to contradict the administration’s policies,” leading to actions such as “home break-ins, searches and seizure of documents.”
The incident has sparked discussions about law enforcement’s role in political affairs. Opinions diverge sharply on whether the FBI’s actions strike at the heart of Democratic freedoms or represent justified steps to maintain security.
Meanwhile, supporters of the Biden administration’s methods argue they are necessary to safeguard national interests. But critics see the raid as inappropriate, claiming it could discourage open discourse about critical global issues.
BigGovernment.news contains stories related to the government’s abuse of power to push its agenda.
Google Faces Court Showdown Over Alleged Secret Chrome Data Harvesting
Although a lower court had dismissed the case, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has decided that Google will have to go to trial after all, for allegedly secretly collecting data from Chrome users, regardless of whether they chose to sync information from the browser with their Google account.
The class action lawsuit, Calhoun v. Google LLC., accuses the tech giant of using the browser, by far the most dominant in its market, to collect browsing history, IP addresses, unique browser identifiers, and persistent cookie identifiers – all without consent.
The case was initially filed in 2020 and then dismissed in December 2022, but now the appellate court – in a ruling signed by Judge Milan D. Smith Jr. – said that the decision failed to take into account, looking into Google’s disclosures, i.e., the privacy policy agreement, “whether a reasonable user reading them would think that he or she was consenting to the data collection.”
The plaintiffs are certain this was in fact happening without explicit permission, and consider the way Chrome was set up to work in this context is “intentional and unlawful.”
Google on the other hand defended its actions when the case was originally filed by saying that explicit permission happened when users accepted its privacy policy. The lower court judge, Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, accepted this argument to dismiss the case, saying Google’s disclosure about the data collection was “adequate,” and therefore had the users’ consent.
According to Judge Smith, despite its general policy, Google was pushing Chrome “by suggesting that certain information would not be sent to Google unless a user turned on sync.”
Interestingly enough, Google is removing the sync option from all versions of Chrome – after iOS, this will now be the case on desktops and Android as well. All it will take is to sign into the Google account on Chrome to link the data from the browser to the account – although signing in is not mandatory, at least for now.
A Google spokesman who commented on the decision of the court of appeals – which sent the case back to a lower court – confirmed that the change “is not related to the litigation.”
As for the litigation – “We disagree with this ruling and are confident the facts of the case are on our side. Chrome Sync helps people use Chrome seamlessly across their different devices and has clear privacy controls,” claims Jose Castaneda.
89-Year-Old Death Camp Survivor, 6 Other Pro-Lifers Face 10+ Years in Prison on Face Act Charges
(LifeSiteNews) — Seven pro-life advocates, including a communist prison camp survivor, face over a decade in prison after having been convicted on Tuesday for a peaceful protest conducted outside of an abortion facility.
Chester Gallagher, Heather Idoni, Joel Curry, Justin Phillips, Cal Zastrow, his daughter Eva Zastrow, and 89-year-old Eva Edl, who survived a concentration camp, were found guilty of violations of the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act and of a “conspiracy against rights,” a charge originally created to deal with the Ku Klux Klan.
“Isn’t Jesus good? Let’s go to the sidewalk and sing,” Cal Zastrow reportedly said immediately after the verdict.
READ: Biden DOJ indicts doctor who exposed transgender child mutilation at Texas hospital
Their conviction stems from a “rescue” protest the pro-lifers conducted outside of the Northland Family Planning Clinic in Sterling Heights, Michigan — an abortion mill where preborn babies are killed — along with a group of other pro-life advocates. Edl and Idoni were also convicted on a charge due to a similar protest they participated in at the Women’s Health Clinic abortuary in Saginaw, Michigan.
All seven pro-lifers could face over 10 years in prison as well as hundreds of thousands in fines upon sentencing.
Edl, who came close to death by starvation and endured squalid conditions as a little girl in a Yugoslavian concentration camp, has contemplated the possibility that she may die in prison after sentencing for this peaceful pro-life protest.
“When I was indicted, I began to prepare to die there,” Edl told The Daily Signal’s Mary Margaret Olohan earlier this year. “Right now, I am ambivalent. … I’m doing the best I can to get ready. Haven’t talked to a funeral director yet.”
“I’m just being sensible,” she added. “There’s no guarantee that I survive it.”
“I feel very strongly, because of my background, that human life is sacred,” she told Olohan. “Government does not have the authority to permit what God forbids. And murder is forbidden by God.”
Throughout the trial on Tuesday, Edl testified that what sustains her is her faith in Jesus Christ and her understanding that suffering strengthens her, The Daily Wire reported.
She compared the trials with a blacksmith’s “refining fire,” telling the Wire, “We need suffering in our lives in order to be purified and not feel sorry about ourselves,” adding that Christians should say, “Hammer away, Lord, at that anvil.”
Former rescuer Caroline Davis was also charged for the Northland protest, but she is now cooperating with the government and has agreed to testify against her co-defendants at this trial, as she has during other rescue trials. She “pled down her felony charge to a misdemeanor” and has not yet been sentenced for the Michigan rescue, according to The Daily Wire.
Judge Matthew Leitman, an Obama appointee, reportedly “clashed” with Phillips’ attorney David Peters throughout the trial. On Monday, Leitman accused Peters of going “way over the line” by pointing out that the conspiracy against rights charge was designed to deal with groups like the Ku Klux Klan and not peaceful demonstrators.
READ: 3 more pro-lifers sentenced on FACE Act charges after Biden DOJ prosecution
Later, when Peters quoted John Adams’ remark that the Constitution was made for a “moral and religious people,” Leitman reportedly said that he was laying the foundation for jury nullification, in which a jury member opts to not convict due to a moral objection to the law.
Thomas More Society attorneys have filed a Motion to Dismiss the felony “Conspiracy Against Rights” charge, asserting that the June 28 Supreme Court decision Fischer v. United States “prevents the Department of Justice’s use of the statute to multiply the potential prison time associated with non-violent, first-time FACE Act charges.”
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Beijing Has ‘No Intention’ of Nuclear Arms Race With US – Foreign Ministry
Washington’s fear-mongering over China’s nuclear arsenal is completely unfounded, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning has said. Her comment came after the New York Times reported on Tuesday that US President Joe Biden had quietly updated the Nuclear Employment Guidance, refocusing its aim against China.
Speaking to journalists on Wednesday, Mao said that Beijing was “gravely concerned”with the report. “The US has called China a ‘nuclear threat’ and used it as a convenient pretext for the US to shirk its obligation of nuclear disarmament,” she said.
Mao added that the size of China’s nuclear arsenal was “by no means on the same level with the US,” stressing that Beijing “follows a policy of ‘no first use’ of nuclear weapons and always keeps its nuclear capabilities at the minimum level required by national security.” China has “no intention to engage in any form of arms race” with other states, she stated.
“It is the US who is the primary source of nuclear threats and strategic risks in the world,” the spokeswoman argued.
Read more Russia and China ‘on the right path’ in standing up to US – Moscow
In 2023, the Pentagon estimated that China will double its stockpile of operational nuclear warheads to over 1,000 by 2030. The US currently has 5,550 warheads, while Russia has 6,255, according to estimates by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
The White House has downplayed China’s concerns, with spokesman Sean Savett describing the change in nuclear strategy as a routine update that was “not a response to any single entity, country, nor threat.” US officials, however, have repeatedly described Beijing as “a challenge” to world peace and accused it of economic and military coercion in the Indo-Pacific. Beijing, in turn, blamed the US for the ongoing tensions, urging Washington to abandon the “Cold-War mentality.”