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Secret Service ‘Better Than Quantico’ at Retrieving Deleted Texts Says Ex-Prosecutor Who Wants ‘Criminal Investigation’

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Former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner is calling for a “criminal investigation” into the U.S. Secret Service‘s deleted text messages, revealing that the agency’s forensic experts are “even better than” the FBI’s Quantico lab at retrieving data like deleted text messages.

“I am not fully buying an innocent explanation,” Kirschner, who was a federal prosecutor for nearly three decades, told Zerlina Maxwell on her MSNBC on Peacock show Wednesday.

Kirschner notes that “cell phone providers will purge text messages over time,” but says, “what’s gotten me, got me so sort of frustrated and a little bit angry,” is when “I was a federal prosecutor at the D.C. U.S. Attorney’s Office, and we obtained evidence – cell phone evidence, and it looked like the target, the owner of that cell phone had deleted information off of it, you know where we went to have a forensic search and a recovery of deleted information taken from those cell phones? We went to the United States Secret Service Forensic Sciences Division, because they are the premier unit.”

READ MORE: ‘Quite Robustly a Coverup’: Rick Wilson Urges J6 Committee to Nail Secret Service for Deleted Texts

“I’m going to say even better than the lab down at Quantico, the FBI lab. They are the premier unit that can recover deleted information off of cell phones and computers,” he explains.

“I am hugely concerned these text messages should have been preserved in the first instance. They should be turned over to authorities, whether congressional or law enforcement authorities, they should be backed up. They should still be retrievable.”

“If they did nothing wrong, they should welcome a law enforcement investigation,” Kirschner adds, noting “if they have nothing to be concerned about they should welcome an FBI investigation of how it is that this important, historic evidence was deleted.”

READ MORE: Watchdog to DOJ: Secret Service ‘Likely’ Broke Federal Criminal Law by Deleting Text Messages

On Thursday he added to his commentary, tweeting: “A criminal investigation should be opened into the destruction of this extremely important evidence.”

The Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General notified the House and Senate Homeland Security Committees last week that the U.S. Secret Service erased text messages from January 5 and 6, 2021, after the OIG specifically requested them.

Wednesday night new reporting from The Washington Post revealed the Inspector General knew as early as February that the texts had been deleted, but did not notify Congress until July.

The U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack subpoenaed the Secret Service for the text messages but the agency handed over only one.

“House investigators also learned that the texts were seemingly lost as part of an agency-wide reset of phones on 27 January 2021,” The Guardian reported Wednesday, “11 days after Congress first requested the communications and two days after agents were reminded to back up their phones.”

Watch Kirschner’s remarks below or at this link:

 

Image by Ryan Johnson via Flickr and a CC license

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CRIME

Giuliani Booking Photo Released

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1 month ago

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August 23, 2023

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Former Trump attorney and former Republican Mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani was booked in Fulton County, Georgia Wednesday afternoon on racketeering charges and charges related to attempts to overturn the 2020 election.

He was released on a $150,000 bond after being arraigned on 13 charges.

“Conditions include prohibitions against intimidating co-defendants or witnesses, and against communicating with co-defendants other than through their lawyers. Giuliani must check in with pretrial services every 30 days,” USA Today reports.

READ MORE: ‘Wrong on the Law, Wrong on the Facts’: Fani Willis Smacks Down Jeff Clark’s Legal Move in Scathing Response

Former Trump attorneys Jenna Ellis and Sidney Powell were also booked and their photos have been made public as well.

See all three mug shots below or at this link.

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CRIME

‘Moral Turpitude’: Bill Barr Hammers Donald Trump

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2 months ago

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August 17, 2023

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Former Trump Attorney General Bill Barr delivered one of his harshest criticisms to date of his former boss on Thursday, accusing Donald Trump of “moral turpitude.”

“You know, you don’t get immunity for two years in the run-up to an election just by saying, ‘Hey, I’m a candidate,'” Barr told Fox News’ Neil Cavuto.

“These investigations have been going on for a while, everyone knew about them even before he announced his candidacy,” Barr continued. “So if there’s a chance to get it resolved before the election, it should be because the American people should know these are crimes involved – or potential crimes – involving moral turpitude.”

Cornell Law School’s Legal Information Institute says moral turpitude is “wicked, deviant behavior constituting an immoral, unethical, or unjust departure from ordinary social standards such that it would shock a community.”

READ MORE: ‘Truly Scandalous: Jim Jordan Slammed by Former Top DOJ Official

Barr also talked about the two federal cases brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith, one for Trump’s efforts to overturn the election, and one for his refusal to return classified and other documents.

“I think the federal cases are legitimate,” Barr said. “At the end of the day, at the core of this thing he engaged in – in the case of the documents – in outrageous behavior where anyone would be prosecuted. I don’t know of any attorney general who could walk away from it.”

“He’s not being prosecuted for having the documents, he’s being prosecuted for obstruction, two egregious instances are alleged so I think that’s a very simple case.”

Barr also said for him, Trump “crossed the line” when “he used this device of impaneling imposter electors, swearing that they were the electors, but the key point there was, they were in tandem with a plan whereby the vice president would use that as a pretext for nullifying the legal and certified votes. So it was a calculated and deceitful plan to remain in office by nullifying and negating certified legal votes.”

Watch the videos below or at this link:

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CRIME

Special Counsel Wanted Trump’s Twitter Direct Messages When He Obtained a Search Warrant: Report

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2 months ago

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August 15, 2023

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Special Counsel Jack Smith obtained a search warrant for access to Donald Trump’s Twitter account in January, but was looking for non-public information from the account.

That non-public information was Trump’s direct messages, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins reports, noting there were “many.” DMs are private.

Smith, who has already obtained indictments against Donald Trump for the ex-president’s removal and refusal to return classified documents and for the ex-president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, appears to have accessed an important resource.

“The special counsel was seeking Trump’s direct messages on Twitter, of which there were many, federal prosecutors and lawyers for Twitter revealed in newly unsealed transcripts from hearings about the search warrant,” Collins reported Tuesday evening.

RELATED: Special Counsel Obtained Search Warrant for Trump’s Twitter Account Amid Court Concerns He Could ‘Flee’ Prosecution

Former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti said, “I’m surprised that Trump had “many” direct messages. Given that he doesn’t use text and email, they could more directly reveal his intent than other evidence Jack Smith has.”

Experts have wondered why Smith would have wanted access to Trump’s Twitter account, which was suspended after the 2021 insurrection. Elon Musk, who bought Twitter in late 2022, has since reinstated Trump’s account, but the ex-president has not made any public posts on the social media site, now renamed X.

Noted technologist John Gruber last week when news broke that Smith had obtained a search warrant for Trump’s Twitter account wrote, “I’m keenly interested in what the search warrant was after. It wasn’t Trump’s tweets, which are public.”

READ MORE: Democratic Senator Slams ‘Racist’ Videos That Will Be ‘Piped Straight Into the Bloodstream’ of Florida Schoolchildren

“So the obvious conclusion: his direct messages. Trump, famously, does not use email and, until this year, apparently didn’t use text messaging either. But did he send or receive DMs on Twitter? And was he stupid enough to put anything incriminating in them?”

“We also know,” Gruber continued, “that ‘deleted’ tweets were just hidden, not actually deleted — and a bug resulted in deleted tweets resurfacing. Was that (or is it still) true for ‘deleted’ direct messages as well? I think it’s quite likely that every single DM ever sent on Twitter is still around.”

A filing had said “the court ‘found probable cause to search the Twitter account for evidence of criminal offenses,’” according to an Associated Press report last week.

Image by Gage Skidmore via Flickr and a CC license

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