https://twitter.com/lauraajarrett/status/1352264176840929287?s=21


Senior WH official says FBI Director Chris Wray not going anywhere — @jeffzeleny reporting

Republicans have completely ruined the word patriot for me.

Retired U.S. Army Gen. Lloyd Austin, President-elect Biden's nominee to be the next defense secretary, pledged to Congress Tuesday that he will maintain civilian control after concerns had been raised that the nomination of another retired general was eroding civilian oversight of the military.

"If you confirm me, I am prepared to serve now -- as a civilian -- fully acknowledging the importance of this distinction," Austin said at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

"I understand and respect the reservations some of you have expressed about having another recently retired general at the head of the Department of Defense," he said. "The safety and security of our democracy demands competent civilian control of our armed forces, the subordination of military power to the civil."

Austin said his first major challenge would be dealing with the coronavirus pandemic, and said that if confirmed he will quickly review the Pentagon's contributions to the nationwide distribution of vaccines. Another top priority for Austin will be to ensure Defense Department employees have "a working environment free of discrimination, hate and harassment. "

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/austin-pledges-ensure-civilian-control-military-defense-secretary/story?id=75345619&cid=social_twitter_abcn


He'll get confirmed.

https://twitter.com/nytmike/status/1350748717897424896?s=21

EXCLUSIVE: Trump allies -- like a former campaign staffer and even his former personal lawyer, John Dowd -- have sold their access to Trump, taking $$$ from wealthy felons to lobby Trump and White House aides, like Jared Kushner, for pardons. w/@kenvogel

Thread:

One of the big reasons Trump allies have been able to profit from selling access to White House for pardons is that Trump/Kushner have eschewed longstanding DOJ process to vet pardon applicants, which is designed to ensure pardons are handed out on merit, not because of $/access

Just months after John Dowd stepped down as Trump’s lead lawyer, he began marketing himself to wealthy convicts, claiming he could help them get pardons because he had an in w/ Trump/Kushner. Billy Walters, a wealthy imprisoned convict prosecuted by SDNY/FBI, hired Dowd.

Dowd told potential clients Trump would look favorably upon those convicts who were being investigated by SDNY and the FBI -- two groups who were investigating Trump and who Trump was seeking to undermine in any way possible.

Dowd had his own history with Trump and pardons. As Trump's lawyer he had dangled a pardon to former Nat Sec Advisor Mike Flynn during the Mueller investigation. Dowd had learned during his representation of Trump how Trump was trying to undermine Mueller, DOJ, FBI, etc.


Dowd took tens of thousands of dollars from the imprisoned wealthy felon Billy Walters. Although Dowd told Walters he had his pardon lined up, it still hasn't come through. Dowd still represents Walters who is hoping for pardon in final days of administration.


RUDY NEWS: A Giuliani confidant told former CIA agent Kiriakou last year that Giuliani could help him w/ pardon but it was going to cost him..$2 mil.. Kiriakou relayed this to someone at a party who thought Giuliani may be selling pardons and that person reported it to FBI in Oct

RUDY NEWS: Kiriakou told Giuliani in a meeting last summer about his pardon quest. When Giuliani went to the bathroom, a Giuliani confidant turned to Kiriakou and suggested Giuliani could help with pardon. “It’s going to cost $2 million — he’s going to want two million bucks.”


Kiriakou said he was taken aback by the price tag to hire Giuliani to help him with a pardon. “I laughed. Two million bucks — are you out of your mind? Even if I had two million bucks, I wouldn’t spend it to recover a $700,000 pension,” Kiriakou said.


The person who reported offer to FBI was TSA whistleblower/air marshal @rjmaclean. Kiriakou had told him about it at a party in Oct and he thought Giuliani may be selling pardons. Without telling Kiriakou he filed a report with the FBI. “I felt duty-bound to report it,” he said.


Giuliani, who is hoping Trump pardons him, says the account about $2 mil to help with pardons is false. Giuliani says he never would have taken money to lobby Trump to pardon someone.

“It’s like a conflict of interest,” Giuliani told us. Giuliani said he had been told of the large fees that are being offered to folks like himself to help with lobbying for pardons but said he was not interested because “I have enough money. I’m not starving.”

https://twitter.com/dusttodigital/status/1350453912428490753?s=20

Happy birthday to Barbara Lynn, born on this day in 1942 in Beaumont, Texas. Here she is performing “What I’d Say” in 1966

https://twitter.com/dscc/status/1350555433606537216?s=20


Next week,
@ReverendWarnock
and
@ossoff
will be sworn in as U.S. Senators. They won because of dedicated organizers, volunteers, and grassroots donors. And thanks to Georgia voters, we can work to move our country forward.

https://twitter.com/andrewgiambrone/status/1350148763894095873?s=21

A retired Pennsylvania firefighter accused of throwing a fire extinguisher that hit three police officers and a man photographed holding a Confederate flag inside the Capitol have been arrested for their roles in the MAGA insurrection.

Robert Sanford, a 55-year-old from Chester, Pennsylvania, faces three felony charges, including assaulting a police officer, after he was allegedly caught on camera hurling the extinguisher as the mob stormed past Capitol Police officers and broke into the building on Jan. 6. He was taken into custody by the FBI in Pennsylvania Thursday morning just before 6 a.m., a source with knowledge of the matter told The Daily Beast.

One video of the protest shows rioters storming past a barricade as Capitol Police officers desperately trying to contain them on the west side of the building. A rioter in the video, identified in a criminal complaint as Sanford, can be seen tossing the fire extinguisher toward a group of officers—and striking at least one on the helmet. The extinguisher ricocheted and struck another officer “who was not wearing a helmet in the head,” according to the court documents. Prosecutors said the object then hit a third helmeted officer in the head.

Another photo from the riots shows a man wearing a CFD hat, referring to the Chester Fire Department. Sanford admitted to a friend that the man in the photograph was him, according to a criminal complaint. That friend ultimately tipped off the feds to Sanford’s involvement in the riots after he confessed “that he was the person that the FBI was looking for,” the complaint says. Sanford’s friend also told investigators he had traveled to the nation’s capital on a bus with a group of people. The group, the charging document states, had “gone to the White House and listened to President Donald J. Trump’s speech and then had followed the President’s instructions and gone to the Capitol.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/ex-firefighter-robert-sanford-arrested-for-allegedly-hurling-fire-extinguisher-at-cops-during-capitol-riots?utm_source=web_push

https://twitter.com/Paul_VanDerMeer/status/1349642268874039296?s=20


Harold Bornstein, the doctor who said Donald Trump was in excellent shape and was mocked for it, died last Friday at age 73.

His paid obit is running in the Legacy section of the New York Times.

I am gobsmacked. Harold was my doctor in the 80s and early 90s. His father, the late Dr. Jacob Bornstein, was the cousin of a friend of mine. Harold, who loved dispensing medication over the phone, never mentioned that Trump was his patient. But when Trump became president– and his health was questioned– Harold, looking more eccentric than ever, chimed in.

He wrote a letter stating: “If elected, Mr. Trump, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency.” (The letter is below.)

He later told CNN: “He dictated that whole letter. I didn’t write that letter. I just made it up as I went along.”

Around that time, in 2017, Harold claimed his office had been raided by Trump via a bodyguard. Trump lawyer, and long time associate. It was prompted by an article in the New York Times in which Bornstein said the president takes a prostate-related drug to treat baldness, known as Propecia, as well as other “antibiotics to control rosacea, a common skin problem, and a statin for elevated blood cholesterol and lipids.”

https://www.showbiz411.com/2021/01/14/exclusive-harold-bornstein-eccentric-doctor-who-said-trump-was-in-excellent-shape-dead-at-age-73

https://twitter.com/jbendery/status/1349684399890173953?s=21