Sixteen people on the FBI&#8217;s <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/terrorism" target="_blank" rel="noopener">terror watch-list</a> — mixed in with record-breaking numbers of migrants illegally entering the United States — were stopped along the U.S.-Mexico border last month, authorities said.
According to data reported by <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/border-patrol-terror-watch-list-encounters-track-outpace-last-years-record" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Fox News</a>, those numbers raised the total amount of such encounters at the southern border this year to 69, which Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents expect to continue increasing and shatter last fiscal year&#8217;s 98 encounters.
CBP Office of Field Operations authorities reported that the agency had encountered at least 214 people on the Terrorist Screening Database along both the southern and northern border ports of entry in the current fiscal year.
It was not immediately known the identities of the 16 terror watch-list individuals.
In the fiscal year 2022, authorities apprehended 380 such individuals.
Between 2017 and 2020, the news outlet reported that authorities apprehended eight terror watch-list members between ports of entry. In 2021, agents encountered 15 individuals named on the FBI&#8217;s list.
The rise in terror watch-list arrests at the border pairs with surge of as many as 4.9 million migrants who have crossed into the United States under the administration of President Joe Biden, according to data from the Federation for American Immigration Reform.
CPB authorities encountered more than 2.3 million migrants in fiscal year 2022, with more than 80,000 migrants entering through El Paso between August and December last year.
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<a href="https://nypost.com/2023/03/19/border-agents-arrest-16-people-on-fbis-terror-watchlist/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The New York Post</a> reported that CBP authorities apprehended 128,877 people who crossed the border illegally in January and another 128,913 in February; the agency has attributed new measures recently implemented for the slight drop in encounters.
&#8220;The new border enforcement measures kept February&#8217;s overall encounter numbers nearly even with January,&#8221; said CBP Acting Commissioner Troy Miller.
Fox News reported that the outlet obtained the data within hours after Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz told House Homeland Security Committee officials during a hearing in McAllen, Texas, that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) does not have operational control of the border.
DHS officials repeatedly claim the agency enforces laws that secure the national borders to combat cartels and smugglers.
&#8220;Despite inheriting a dismantled immigration system and facing unprecedented migration that is affecting nations throughout the Western Hemisphere, this administration has surged resources to the border, reducing the number of encounters between ports of entry, disrupting more smuggling operations than ever before, and interdicting more drugs in the last two years than had been stopped in the five years prior,&#8221; a spokesperson told Fox News.
Biden administration officials have accused Republican lawmakers of not approving border funding requests from the federal government. However, GOP officials argue the president&#8217;s policies are the primary cause of the border crisis.

U.S. Customs and Boarder Protection

16 People On FBI’s Terror Watch-List Arrested At U.S. Border, Authorities Say

16 People On FBI's Terror Watch-List Arrested At U.S. Border, Authorities Say

Biden Administration

Border Crisis

Customs and Border Protection (CPB)

Immigration

U.S.

Americans who claim to be transgender were the victims of 271 hate crimes in 2021, with few of the crimes being serious, undercutting claims that the community is facing &#8220;genocide,&#8221; according to FBI <a href="https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/LATEST/webapp/#/pages/explorer/crime/hate-crime" target="_blank" rel="noopener">data</a> released this week.
Of the 177 cases where the offender&#8217;s race was known, 81 offenders were black, about 60 were white, 20 were Hispanic, and one was Asian. Still, even that data could be misleading as FBI statistics inflate the number of &#8220;white&#8221; hate crime perpetrators by counting most Hispanics and Arabs as &#8220;white.&#8221; To a limited extent, the data can be adjusted to treat Hispanic as a race separate from black and white, which The Daily Wire did in the above numbers, but in many cases the &#8220;ethnicity&#8221; was not even recorded, forcing them to be treated as white.
Although Arab is counted as a separate category when it comes to the victim, there is no such category for perpetrators, leaving them to generally be counted as white. People of Arab descent have been behind some anti-Jewish crimes and their inclusion in statistics could change the anti-transgender breakdown as well.
<table style="background: black; color: #ccc; width: 100%;">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th style="text-align: center; text-decoration: underline; padding-bottom: 15px;" colspan="2">Anti-trans hate crime suspects by race, 2021 (Source: FBI)</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 30%;">Black</td>
<td style="width: 70%;">
<div style="background: #3968ff; width: 100%; float: left;">50%</div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 30%;">White (including Arab and some Hispanic)</td>
<td style="width: 70%;">
<div style="background: #3968ff; width: 74%; float: left;">37%</div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 30%;">Hispanic</td>
<td style="width: 70%;">
<div style="background: #3968ff; width: 24%; float: left;">12%</div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 30%;">Asian</td>
<td style="width: 70%;">
<div style="background: #3968ff; width: 1%; float: left;">0.6%</div>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<table style="background: black; color: #ccc; width: 100%;">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th style="text-align: center; text-decoration: underline; padding-bottom: 15px;" colspan="2">Likelihood of committing anti-trans crime, adjusted for population</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 30%;">Black</td>
<td style="width: 70%;">
<div style="background: #3968ff; width: 100%; float: left;">6.5x</div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 30%;">White (including Arab and some Hispanic)</td>
<td style="width: 70%;">
<div style="background: #3968ff; width: 15%; float: left;">1x</div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 30%;">Hispanic</td>
<td style="width: 70%;">
<div style="background: #3968ff; width: 15%; float: left;">1x</div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 30%;">Asian</td>
<td style="width: 70%;">
<div style="background: #3968ff; width: 0%; float: left;">0.016x</div>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
The data does not support the notion widely pushed by activists and Democrats that there is a &#8220;genocide&#8221; of transgenders underway.
The Trans Radical Activist Network (TRAN) said it is planning a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trans-radicals-plan-day-of-vengeance-in-d-c-alongside-firearms-training">&#8220;Trans Day of Vengeance&#8221;</a> on March 31 in D.C. to &#8220;stop trans genocide,&#8221; and also fundraised for firearms training, which it said was for self-defense.
Of the 271 crimes against transgenders, the FBI data reported two slayings and two rapes. Of the remainder, 70 were incidents of &#8220;intimidation.&#8221; There were 48 aggravated assaults, 87 simple assaults, eight robberies, 14 thefts, and 37 instances of vandalism or damage.
The data comes from law enforcement divisions that report hate crime information to the FBI and includes jurisdictions covering 300 million of the 330 million Americans.It was released March 13 as a &#8220;supplement&#8221; to a less comprehensive dataset previously released. The supplemental data provides less detail, but original data shows one anti-trans killing committed by a black offender, one incident of robbery and sodomy by a black offender, and two instances or rape or sodomy by offenders whose race was unreported.
There were 869 victims of anti-Jewish crimes, by far the largest example of religious bigotry. That vastly outnumbered the 278 victims of anti-trans crimes, as well as the 190 victims of anti-Muslim incidents, despite an effort by groups like CAIR to suggest persistent &#8220;Islamophobia&#8221; puts Muslims at risk.
When it comes to all forms of hate crimes, blacks made up 27% of known-race offenders, while making up 13% of the U.S. population.
<table style="background: black; color: #ccc; width: 100%;">
<tbody>
<tr>
<th style="text-align: center; text-decoration: underline; padding-bottom: 15px;" colspan="2">Anti-trans crime victims, 2021 (Source: FBI)</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 30%;">Total</td>
<td style="width: 70%;">
<div style="background: #3968ff; width: 93%; float: left;">278</div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 30%;">Killing</td>
<td style="width: 70%;">
<div style="background: #3968ff; width: 1%; float: left;">2</div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 30%;">Rape</td>
<td style="width: 70%;">
<div style="background: #3968ff; width: 1%; float: left;">2</div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 30%;">Aggravated assault</td>
<td style="width: 70%;">
<div style="background: #3968ff; width: 16%; float: left;">48</div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 30%;">Simple assault</td>
<td style="width: 70%;">
<div style="background: #3968ff; width: 29%; float: left;">87</div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 30%;">Intimidation</td>
<td style="width: 70%;">
<div style="background: #3968ff; width: 23%; float: left;">70</div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 30%;">Robbery</td>
<td style="width: 70%;">
<div style="background: #3968ff; width: 3%; float: left;">8</div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 30%;">Theft/burglary</td>
<td style="width: 70%;">
<div style="background: #3968ff; width: 4%; float: left;">14</div>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="width: 30%;">Vandalism</td>
<td style="width: 70%;">
<div style="background: #3968ff; width: 12%; float: left;">37</div>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
Based on the FBI data, a black person&#8217;s chance of being the victim of a hate crime in a given year is 98 in a million, a Jewish person stands a 109 in a million chance, and Muslims and transgenders&#8217; chance is less than half of that.

Portobello Library Hosts Gender Identity Talk

FBI Stats On 2021 Anti-Trans Hate Crimes Don’t Support Claims Of ‘Genocide’

FBI Stats On 2021 Anti-Trans Hate Crimes Don't Support Claims Of 'Genocide'

Crime

Hate Crime

Jewish

Transgender

A trio of federal law enforcement agencies have reportedly worked together to strip dozens of Americans of their gun rights through secretive plea agreements and a form not authorized by Congress.
The <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/fbi" target="_blank" rel="noopener">FBI</a>, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/secret-service" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Secret Service</a>, and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/immigration-and-customs-enforcement-ice" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Immigration and Customs Enforcement</a> stripped at least 60 people of their right to firearms between 2011 and 2019, according to <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/fbi-secret-service-plea-agreement-stripping-defendant-of-gun-rights-secretly" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Washington Examiner</a>. In at least one case, the FBI and Secret Service worked with a federal prosecutor to pressure a defendant into signing his gun rights away as a condition for a legal agreement.
“Dear Agent [redacted], You will find enclosed the NICS firearm form which has been signed by my client and his doctor. This is being provided in compliance with [redacted] plea agreement. Yours sincerely,” an attorney’s letter to a Secret Service agent on June 10, 2019, said according to the Examiner.
The letter was obtained by the gun rights group Gun Owners of America through a Freedom of Information Act request. It’s unclear what the defendant was charged with or why the FBI and Secret Service were involved. The case number on the letter was redacted.
The form that effectively strips signatories of their gun rights registers them in the FBI&#8217;s National Instant Criminal Background Check System and labels them as a “danger” to themselves. It also says they lack the “mental capacity adequately to contract” their lives, according to the Examiner.
“There&#8217;s a bit of a contradiction,” attorney Gilbert Ambler, who specializes in firearms law, told the Examiner. “They&#8217;re having you agree you&#8217;re incompetent. If you&#8217;re incompetent, how is that a binding agreement?”
Republicans in the House have said that reports of federal law enforcement pressuring Americans to give up their gun rights warrants investigation. Lawmakers say that such pressure appears to be unconstitutional.
“Americans can&#8217;t simply sign their constitutional rights away, even to the FBI,” Rep. Michael Cloud (R-TX) <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/restoring-america/fairness-justice/fbi-used-secret-powers-to-strip-more-americans-of-their-gun-rights-documents-reveal" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> in December. “As Republicans enter a House majority, we must use our investigative power to put a check on federal agencies who have proven to be eager and willing to crack down on Americans&#8217; right to keep and bear arms.”
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Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/jim-jordan-subpoenas-connection-fbi-stripping-gun-rights" target="_blank" rel="noopener">made</a> similar comments last year.
“We’ve said all along we’re going to do investigations in a way that’s consistent with the Constitution,” said Jordan. “We’re going to do them aggressively. And there is nothing off the table when it comes to getting the facts and the truth for the American people on all these issues that fall under the broad category of politics at the DOJ.”

Rifles

Federal Law Enforcement Pressured Dozens Of Americans To Forfeit Gun Rights: Report

General

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)

Politics

Second Amendment

Secret Service

Washington D.C.

This article is adapted from today’s Morning Wire Afternoon Update. To listen to the podcast version, click <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/podcasts/morning-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a>.
Extreme Weather Hits California
Extreme weather continues to hit California. Forecasters predict the Golden State will be pummeled yet again by heavy rains, thunderstorms, and up to eight feet of snow – in higher elevations such as the Sierra Nevada.
The ominous weather also threatens to flood as the mountain’s snowpack begins to melt. The state has been hit by numerous storms in the past few months, which have killed at least 30 people.
In related weather news, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Thursday that the weather phenomenon known as “La Nina” has ended after three years. La Nina is known for increasing hurricane activity on the Atlantic and worsening drought conditions in the west.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell Hospitalized
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell was <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/mcconnell-team-gives-update-on-senior-lawmakers-status-after-hospitalization" target="_blank" rel="noopener">rushed to the hospital</a> on Wednesday evening after falling during a dinner. Daily Wire researcher Michael Whittaker joined Morning Wire&#8217;s &#8220;Afternoon Update&#8221; for more:
<blockquote>&#8220;A spokesperson said Senator McConnell suffered a concussion during the fall and will remain hospitalized &#8216;for a few days of observation and treatment.&#8217;
McConnell was attending a private dinner for the Senate Leadership Fund when he tripped and fell. The 81-year-old senator is a polio survivor, and he suffered another fall in 2019 during which he fractured his shoulder.&#8221;</blockquote>
Twitter Files Hearing
On Thursday, Congress held its first Weaponization of the Federal Government hearing on the “Twitter Files.” In the hearing, independent journalists Matt Taibbi and Michael Shellenberger testified on their release of emails allegedly showing collusion between the social media platform and the government to censor or silence some viewpoints.
Multiple Democratic representatives pressed the two journalists to reveal their sources behind the Twitter leaks, among other questions. Here’s one exchange involving Taibbi, Texas Democratic congresswoman Sylvia Garcia and Republican Committee Chair Jim Jordan:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Rep. Garcia: &quot;So you&#39;re not gonna tell us Musk first approached you?&quot;
Matt Taibbi: &quot;You&#39;re asking a journalist to reveal his sources.&quot;
Garcia: &quot;So you consider Musk to be the direct source of all this?&quot;
Matt Taibbi: &quot;Now you&#39;re trying to get me to say he&#39;s the source.&quot;… <a href="https://t.co/JmY0IUClz4">https://t.co/JmY0IUClz4</a> <a href="https://t.co/JLjm6MIQ4F">pic.twitter.com/JLjm6MIQ4F</a>
&mdash; Real Mac Report (@RealMacReport) <a href="https://twitter.com/RealMacReport/status/1633877784748752897?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 9, 2023</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Taibbi also explained what he thinks The Twitter files helped reveal:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Matt Taibbi discusses how our own federal government is being turned into an instrument of censorship and social control: &quot;Twitter, Facebook, Google, and other companies developed a formal system for taking in moderation requests from every corner of government, from the FBI,… <a href="https://t.co/i1Xr2MEspf">https://t.co/i1Xr2MEspf</a> <a href="https://t.co/Y0pv3SIQBs">pic.twitter.com/Y0pv3SIQBs</a>
&mdash; Becker News (@NewsBecker) <a href="https://twitter.com/NewsBecker/status/1633865626421952513?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 9, 2023</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&nbsp;
FBI Christopher Wray&#8217;s Stunning Claim About TikTok
FBI Director Chris Wray stunned U.S. senators during a Wednesday hearing when he revealed that the Chinese Communist Party has the ability to take control of “millions” of Americans’ phones through the wildly popular TikTok app.
&#8220;If you look at the Chinese government’s gobbling up of information and data, and then the use of AI and other tools, ultimately supercomputing, things like that, to marshal all that data to conduct targeting for espionage, targeting for IP theft, targeting for the all the things that I and others on this panel have been calling out about the Chinese government,&#8221; Wray said. &#8220;Data is the coin of the realm, those who have the best information have the power and that’s what that enables them to do.&#8221;
Wray’s comments come as Congress could authorize President Biden to outright ban the app in the United States.
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Russia&#8217;s Unprecedented Blitz On Ukraine
And, this morning, Russia launched an aerial assault on Ukraine.  The Daily Wire managing editor Greg Wilson told Afternoon Update:
<blockquote>&#8220;The wee-hour skies of Ukraine were lit up Thursday by what is being described as an unprecedented blitz on major cities including Kyiv and Lviv. The barrage of 81 missiles included six hypersonic weapons capable of penetrating the capital’s air defenses. Critical infrastructure and residential buildings in 10 regions across the country were bombarded, according to Ukrainian officials. At least six deaths and numerous casualties have been reported so far. Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky called it a &#8216;difficult night&#8217; in a Facebook post, but vowed to make the Russians pay for their quote &#8216;miserable tactics.'&#8221;</blockquote>
Update On Kidnapped Americans In Mexico
And, the drug cartel behind the kidnapping of four Americans in Matamoros, Mexico has turned over the men they say were behind the deadly kidnapping. The five men were tied and dumped on the street along with a letter from the Scorpion faction of the Gulf cartel apologizing to the families of those killed and the citizens of Tamaulipas.
To listen to the audio version of this podcast, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/morning-wire/id1576594336" target="_blank" rel="noopener">click here</a>. And for more in-depth discussion of the biggest stories of the day, listen to the latest full episode of Morning Wire every morning.

Thursday

Thursday Afternoon Update: California Hit By Extreme Weather, Dems Use Bully Pulpit To Attack Journalists, Alarming Claim About TikTok

California

Congress

Morning Wire

Podcast

Russia

Twitter Files

The FBI may have abused the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to spy on the very congressman tasked with overseeing FISA, according to revelations at a congressional hearing Thursday.
Rep. Darin LaHood (R-IL), a member of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, said at a committee hearing that he has reason to believe that he is the unnamed congressman who, a recently declassified report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) admitted, FBI agents wrongfully conducted a search on.
LaHood is leading a working group tasked with oversight and renewal of Section 702 of FISA, <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/gop-rep-lahood-says-unlawfully-monitored-by-fbi-under-fisa-during-hearing-director-wray" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Fox News</a> reported. Last month, President Joe Biden asked Congress to reauthorize FISA provisions, calling it a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/biden-admin-asks-congress-to-reauthorize-fisa-surveillance-powers" target="_blank" rel="noopener">&#8220;top legislative priority.&#8221;</a>
&#8220;I want to make clear the FBI&#8217;s inappropriate querying of a duly elected member of Congress is egregious and a violation not only that degrades the trust in FISA, but is viewed as a threat to the separation of powers,&#8221; LaHood said at the hearing, according to Fox.
&#8220;I have had the opportunity to review the classified summary of this violation, and it is my opinion that the member of Congress that was wrongfully queried multiple times solely by his name was in fact me,&#8221; he said.
The ODNI report covering December 2019 to May 2020 <a href="https://www.intelligence.gov/assets/documents/702%20Documents/declassified/24th-Joint-Assessment-of-FISA-702-Compliance.pdf">says</a> the FBI searched the name of a local political party and the name of a congressman, despite not being &#8220;reasonably likely&#8221; to reveal foreign intelligence or evidence of a crime.
An agent &#8220;conducted approximately [redacted] queries in [redacted] using only the name of a U.S. congressman. The 707 Report describes the specific facts that led the IA to conduct these queries. These queries retrieved unminimized PISA-acquired information, including Section 702-acquired products that were opened. FBI advised that no unminimized FISA-acquired information was disseminated or used in any other way. NSD and ODNI assess, based on these facts, that these queries were not compliant because they were overly broad,&#8221; it said.
FISA allows intelligence agencies to spy on foreigners, but the agencies have allegedly weaponized it to wrongfully target Americans, including political opponents. Warrants must be approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, but that court is shrouded in secrecy and appears to rarely reject requests for warrants.
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In 2019, the Department of Justice&#8217;s Inspector General found <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-ig-report-finds-fbi-fell-far-short-made-serious-errors-in-fisa-application-to-surveil-trump-campaign">&#8220;serious&#8221;</a> abuses of the FISA process as the FBI targeted Trump officials. In 2020, FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith pleaded <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/breaking-ex-fbi-lawyer-to-plead-guilty-in-durham-criminal-investigation-for-allegedly-falsifying-evidence" target="_blank" rel="noopener">guilty</a> to falsifying evidence submitted to the FISA court to get a warrant to wiretap Donald Trump aide Carter Page.
A common thread in the Russia-Trump investigation run by Peter Strzok and other partisan FBI officials is the way it relied on people who were offshore or neither American nor Russian, such as former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele; Joseph Mifsud, a Maltese professor; and Trump aide George Papadopoulos, who became embroiled after speaking with an Australian diplomat abroad.
Last year, ODNI said the FBI conducted up to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/fbi-snooped-on-americans-data-at-record-pace-last-year" target="_blank" rel="noopener">3.4 million</a> searches of U.S. data drawn from the National Security Agency, a record high.
This week, Trump&#8217;s former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn sued the government for wrongful prosecution, seeking $50 million. The FBI recorded a call between Flynn and a Russian ambassador, then attempted to prosecute him for lying when his recollection of the call differed from the transcript that, unbeknownst to him, the FBI had.
&#8220;Without the FISA warrants, the Crossfire Hurricane investigation would likely have been closed in its entirety, and the prosecution of General Flynn likely would never have occurred,&#8221; the suit said.

FBI May Have Used FISA To Spy On The Congressman Overseeing FISA, Whose Renewal Is ‘Top Legislative Priority’ For Biden

FBI May Have Used FISA To Spy On The Congressman Overseeing FISA

Director of National Intelligence

FISA

Joe Biden

FBI Director Chris Wray stunned U.S. senators during a Wednesday hearing when he revealed that the Chinese Communist Party has the ability to take control of &#8220;millions&#8221; of Americans&#8217; phones through the wildly popular TikTok app.
&#8220;If you look at the Chinese government&#8217;s gobbling up of information and data, and then the use of AI and other tools, ultimately supercomputing, things like that, to marshal all that data to conduct targeting for espionage, targeting for IP theft, targeting for the all the things that I and others on this panel have been calling out about the Chinese government,&#8221; Wray told the Senate Intelligence Committee. &#8220;Data is the coin of the realm, those who have the best information have the power and that&#8217;s what that enables them to do.&#8221;
Wray noted that China&#8217;s Equifax hack allowed them to illegally obtain through theft the Personal Identifiable Information (PII) of nearly half the population of the United States.
&#8220;So it&#8217;s the control of the data to conduct all sorts of big data operations,&#8221; he said. &#8220;It&#8217;s the control of the recommendation algorithm, which allows them to conduct influence operations. It&#8217;s the control of the software, which allows them to then have access to millions of devices. So you put all those three things together, and again, come back to the starting point, which is, this is a tool that is ultimately within the control of the Chinese government and it to me screams out with national security concerns.&#8221;
In response to a line of questioning from ranking member Marco Rubio (R-FL), Wray said that communist China can use TikTok to control data on millions of users, to control the software on millions of devices, and that they can use it to drive narratives to divide Americans against each other.
Wray then warned that not only can China use TikTok to control narratives in the U.S., but also that U.S. officials are &#8220;not sure that we would see many of the outward signs of it happening if it was happening.&#8221;
&#8220;And I think the most fundamental piece that cuts across every one of those risks and threats that you mentioned that I think Americans need to understand is that something that&#8217;s very sacred in our country, that difference between the private sector and the public sector, that&#8217;s a line that is non existent in the way that CCP operates,&#8221; Wray said.
Rubio then noted the differences in what users in China see on TikTok as opposed to what users in the U.S. see on TikTok. &#8220;For example, in the U.S. kids are being encouraged to choke themselves out, we&#8217;ve had kids die,&#8221; Rubio noted. &#8220;In China, they&#8217;re encouraged to focus on math and science and building the country.&#8221;
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Wray agreed with Rubio&#8217;s assessment that the &#8220;poison&#8221; that China is pumping into the feeds of U.S. users is one of the many ways that China is using the app to weaken and damage the U.S.

Worldwide Threats

FBI Director Wray: Communist China Can Take Control Of ‘Millions’ Of Americans’ Phones With TikTok

Big Tech

China

Christopher Wray

TikTok

The <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/fbi" target="_blank" rel="noopener">FBI</a> and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/pentagon" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Pentagon</a> worked closely with experts on facial recognition technology that could be used to identify people on footage captured from street cameras or drones.
New information about the government’s research was revealed in a trove of thousands of documents released as part of an open records lawsuit filed by the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/aclu" target="_blank" rel="noopener">American Civil Liberties Union</a> (ACLU) against the FBI, according to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/03/07/facial-recognition-fbi-dod-research-aclu/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Washington Post</a>. The facial recognition technology sought would significantly boost the government’s surveillance capabilities.
The program was underwritten by the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency (IARPA), part of the U.S. Intelligence Community. An IARPA program manager described the goal of the project in 2019 as to “dramatically improve” U.S. facial recognition tools with “scaling to support millions of subjects.”
The FBI is “committed to responsible use of facial recognition technology ensuring it appropriately respects individuals’ privacy and civil liberties,” the bureau told the Post in a statement. The Department of Defense did not immediately return The Daily Wire’s request for comment.
The research into facial recognition technology has alarmed some on Capitol Hill. Democratic Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts introduced legislation on Tuesday that would prohibit the government from using facial recognition technology and other biotech tools, according to <a href="https://www.nextgov.com/technology-news/2023/03/lawmakers-intro-bill-ban-government-use-facial-recognition/383691/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nextgov</a>.
“The year is 2023, but we are living through 1984. The continued proliferation of surveillance tools like facial recognition technologies in our society is deeply disturbing,” Markey said in a statement. “Biometric data collection poses serious risks of privacy invasion and discrimination, and Americans know they should not have to forgo personal privacy for safety. As we work to make our country more equitable, we cannot ignore the technologies that stand in the way of progress and perpetuate injustice.”
Concerns over government use of facial recognition technology are bipartisan. Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio <a href="https://fox59.com/news/republicans-and-democrats-concerned-about-facial-recognition-technology/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> in 2021 that law enforcement could be risking civil rights violations by utilizing the technology.
“There are serious first amendment, fourth amendment concerns about the use of FRT by law enforcement,” Jordan said.
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The ACLU <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/10/31/aclu-sues-fbi-doj-over-facial-recognition-technology-criticizing-unprecedented-surveillance-secrecy/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">sued</a> the FBI over the research into facial recognition technology in 2019.
“These technologies have the potential to enable undetectable, persistent, and suspicionless surveillance on an unprecedented scale,” ACLU attorneys wrote at the time. “Such surveillance would permit the government to pervasively track people’s movements and associations in ways that threaten core constitutional values.”

Surveillance camera

FBI, Pentagon Researched Facial Recognition Tech To Handle ‘Millions Of Subjects,’ Documents Say

ACLU

Facial Recognition

Pentagon

Technology

Mexican authorities arrested a suspect Tuesday allegedly tied to the kidnapping of four Americans last weekend, leaving two dead after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border.
Jose Guadalupe N., a Mexican national in his early 20&#8217;s, was guarding a small wooden house outside the city of Matamoros where cartel members held the Americans when authorities detained him, <a href="https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2023-03-07/2-kidnapped-americans-found-dead-mexico-2-others-alive">The Los Angeles Times</a> reported.
Authorities have not confirmed if Guadalupe is involved with the cartel suspected of kidnapping the U.S. nationals Latavia &#8220;Tay&#8221; McGee, Eric James Williams, Shaeed Woodard, and Zindell Brown.
According to officials in Mexico&#8217;s Tamaulipas state, when Mexican authorities discovered the victims kidnapped by the gunmen, Woodard and Brown had been killed.
The announcement was shared on social media, noting that investigations and efforts to capture those responsible are ongoing.
<a href="https://nypost.com/2023/03/07/jose-guadalupe-arrested-for-cartel-kidnapping-of-us-citizens/?utm_medium=SocialFlow&amp;utm_source=NYPTwitter&amp;utm_campaign=SocialFlow">The New York Pos</a>t reported that Mexican authorities are still searching for a motive for the kidnapping, with one possible theory that the American nationals were confused with Haitian drug smugglers.
The four U.S. citizens were assaulted and kidnapped on Friday after they crossed the U.S.-Mexico border into Matamoros, Tamaulipas while driving a white minivan with a North Carolina license plate, the FBI said in a statement released through the U.S. Embassy in Mexico.
&#8220;Shortly after crossing into Mexico, unidentified gunmen fired upon the passengers in the vehicle,&#8221; the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/two-americans-kidnapped-in-mexico-found-dead">statement</a> said. &#8220;All four Americans were placed in a vehicle and taken from the scene by armed men.&#8221;
Following the kidnapping, authorities launched a rescue operation for the group of friends that had traveled from South Carolina to buy medicines.
Relatives of the kidnapped told The Post that the four traveled to Mexico for McGee to undergo medical treatment to remove abdominal fat. After crossing the border into Matamoros, they were caught in a shootout between rival cartel gangs and eventually forced into the back of a pickup truck at gunpoint.
The kidnappers allegedly moved the victims throughout Tamaulipas to confuse and avoid efforts from authorities to rescue them, Tamaulipas Gov. Américo Villarreal said.
&#8220;This tragic incident only highlights a rising preoccupation in the United States about Mexico&#8217;s lack of interest in facing down organized crime,&#8221; Tony Payan, director of the Center for the U.S. and Mexico at Rice University&#8217;s Baker Institute, said, according to The Los Angeles Times.
Payan said the kidnapping &#8220;has become a symbol of impunity in Mexico.&#8221;
The State Department has a travel advisory on its website that warns U.S. citizens against traveling to Tamaulipas state, located south of Texas, due to &#8220;crime and kidnapping.&#8221;
The FBI offered a $50,000 reward for the return of the victims and the arrest of those involved.
Daniel Chaitin contributed to this report.

Two of the Four American Citizens Kidnapped in Northeastern Mexico Are Found Dead

Mexican Authorities Arrest Suspect In Kidnapping, Murder Of U.S. Nationals

Cartels

Mexico

Southern Border

World

An attorney with the far-left nonprofit Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) was arrested Sunday for allegedly committing domestic terrorism to stop a police facility from being built.
The Atlanta police department said Sunday night that Thomas Webb Jurgens was among the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/atlanta-rioters-face-domestic-terrorism-charges-report" target="_blank" rel="noopener">23 people charged</a> after a &#8220;group of violent agitators used the cover of a peaceful protest of the proposed Atlanta Public Safety Training Center to conduct a coordinated attack on construction equipment and police officers. They changed into black clothing and entered the construction area and began to throw large rocks, bricks, Molotov cocktails, and fireworks at police officers.&#8221;
According to the <a href="https://gabar.reliaguide.com/lawyer/32801-GA-Thomas-Jurgens-395724" target="_blank" rel="noopener">State Bar</a> of Georgia, Thomas Webb Jurgens is an attorney for the SPLC who was admitted to the bar in 2021. He is one of only two of the 23 alleged agitators who were actually from Georgia, according to the police.
On LinkedIn, Jurgens says he is a staff attorney for the SPLC&#8217;s Economic Justice Project, a former assistant public defender in Orlando, and a graduate of the University of Georgia. Public records reviewed by The Daily Wire matching the name and birthdate provided by Atlanta police match up with the job history on LinkedIn, showing the study of law at the University of Georgia and past residency in Orlando.
SPLC&#8217;s website says its Economic Justice initiative seeks to reform the criminal justice system, &#8220;stopping the use of &#8216;offender-funded&#8217; services such as private &#8216;probation&#8217; companies&#8221; and &#8220;working to <a href="https://www.splcenter.org/our-issues/economic-justice" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reform bail systems</a> that discriminate against the poor and to stamp out abusive practices by bail bond companies.&#8221;
The SPLC did not return a request for comment. Jurgens&#8217; cell phone was turned off.
Jurgen&#8217;s arrest was first noted by Republican operative <a href="https://twitter.com/greg_price11/status/1632813829674377216" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Greg Price</a>, who pointed out that the FBI has relied on SPLC&#8217;s judgments about who is a &#8220;hate group.&#8221; Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC) asked in response: &#8220;Will the SPLC be listing itself as a hate group?&#8221;
Last month, an FBI whistleblower leaked a document showing that the FBI was investigating those practicing &#8220;radical-traditionalist <a href="https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/02/09/breaking-fbi-rescinds-radical-traditionalist-catholic-ideology-document-citing-southern-poverty-law-center/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Catholic</a> ideology&#8221; as potential domestic extremists, in part by citing that the SPLC listed the faction among its &#8220;hate groups.&#8221; The FBI rescinded the document after it leaked, saying it &#8220;does not meet the exacting standards of the FBI.&#8221;
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The FBI previously called the SPLC &#8220;a well-known, established and credible&#8221; organization, and it has briefed the FBI on purported domestic terror, <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/gop-lawmaker-wants-answers-on-fbis-alleged-southern-poverty-law-center-ties" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Fox News</a> reported.
In 2013, a man <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2013/02/06/justice/dc-family-research-council-shooting/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">shot</a> an employee of the Family Research Council (FRC), targeting it, he said, because SPLC said it was a hate group. He said he planned to kill as many people as possible there and smear Chick-fil-A sandwiches on them as they died.
SLPC raises millions of dollars through fundraising solicitations suggesting that they&#8217;re stamping out groups like the KKK. In reality, it has branded a wide variety of conservative groups as &#8220;hate groups,&#8221; and conducts generic liberal advocacy such as opposing school choice.
SPLC has enormous influence in the public school system through Learning for Justice, its initiative which produces highly activist curriculum and gives it to teachers for free, encouraging them to use the outside lesson plan, which teachers find enticing because it saves them time of creating their own.

Tom Jurgens

Southern Poverty Law Center Attorney Charged With Terrorism In Atlanta Riot

SPLC Attorney Charged With Domestic Terrorism In Atlanta

Atlanta

Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)

Terrorism

Four U.S. citizens were assaulted and kidnapped in Mexico on Friday, the FBI said.
The four Americans drove across the U.S. border and entered the city of Matamoros, which borders the southernmost part of Texas. They were fired upon by unidentified gunmen and “placed in a vehicle and taken from the scene by armed men,&#8221; according to the FBI in San Antonio.
The group drove a white minivan with North Carolina license plates, according to the FBI. The names of the victims have not been released.
They are believed to have been targeted by mistake, a U.S. official <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/06/americas/fbi-mexico-kidnapping-us-citizens/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told</a> CNN.
The FBI and Mexican law enforcement agencies are investigating. The FBI is offering a $50,000 reward for the return of the kidnapped Americans.
Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said the &#8220;whole government is working on&#8221; rectifying the situation.
“The information we have is that they crossed the border to buy medicines in Mexico, there was a confrontation between groups and they were detained,” Obrador said.
Receipts found in the Americans&#8217; vehicle support the theory that they were in the country to buy medicine.
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An innocent Mexican citizen also died as a result of the incident, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64842273" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to U.S. ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar.
Matamoros has been rife with gang violence for years, particularly warring sub-groups of the Gulf Cartel. On Friday, the city had several shootings, and the U.S. Consulate <a href="https://mx.usembassy.gov/alert-u-s-consulate-general-matamoros-mexico-march-3-2023/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">warned</a> government employees to avoid the area.
The State Department cautions U.S. citizens not to visit the Mexican state of Tamaulipas, where the city is located, due to &#8220;crime and kidnapping.&#8221;
&#8220;Organized crime activity – including gun battles, murder, armed robbery, carjacking, kidnapping, forced disappearances, extortion, and sexual assault – is common along the northern border and in Ciudad Victoria,&#8221; <a href="https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/traveladvisories/mexico-travel-advisory.html#Tamaulipas%20state" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reads</a> the State Department&#8217;s &#8220;Do Not Travel&#8221; advisory. &#8220;Criminal groups target public and private passenger buses, as well as private automobiles traveling through Tamaulipas, often taking passengers and demanding ransom payments.&#8221;
CNN <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/06/americas/fbi-mexico-kidnapping-us-citizens/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> it obtained photos that reportedly show the vehicle believed to be the Americans&#8217; minivan. The photos, which CNN said it confirmed with a U.S. official, reportedly show that the minivan crashed with another vehicle before the group was kidnapped at gunpoint.
<p class="paragraph inline-placeholder" data-uri="archive.cms.cnn.com/_components/paragraph/instances/paragraph_9E7D5D7E-B6D9-F0B0-DFA7-B7D3FD57ED96@published" data-editable="text" data-component-name="paragraph" data-analytics-observe="off">In the photos, a woman is reportedly seen looking at and then sitting next to three people lying on the ground outside a white minivan, which has all its doors open, CNN reported. Then, the woman appears to be loaded onto the bed of a white pickup truck, while three people are lying in the street next to the truck, the photos reportedly show. One photo also shows an ambulance, the outlet said.
<p data-uri="archive.cms.cnn.com/_components/paragraph/instances/paragraph_9E7D5D7E-B6D9-F0B0-DFA7-B7D3FD57ED96@published" data-editable="text" data-component-name="paragraph" data-analytics-observe="off">A <a href="https://twitter.com/DavidWolf777/status/1631812544682917888" target="_blank" rel="noopener">video</a> posted to Twitter on Friday appears to show the kidnapping, CBS reported.
<p data-uri="archive.cms.cnn.com/_components/paragraph/instances/paragraph_9E7D5D7E-B6D9-F0B0-DFA7-B7D3FD57ED96@published" data-editable="text" data-component-name="paragraph" data-analytics-observe="off">In the video, a woman is seen being forced to walk to the back of a white pickup truck and then forced to get in the bed of the truck. One man is seen dragging a motionless person across the street to the pickup truck, leaving a dark trail. Three men put two motionless people in the bed of the pickup truck with the woman. The men were armed with long guns and wearing bulletproof vests.

US-Mexico Border Fence Impacts Borderlands Environment

4 U.S. Citizens Kidnapped By Gunmen In Mexico, FBI Offers Reward For Return

4 U.S. Citizens Kidnapped In Mexico, FBI Offers Reward For Return

Drug Cartels

Drugs

Gulf of Mexico

<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/fbi" target="_blank" rel="noopener">FBI</a> officials argued against raiding former President <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/donald-trump" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Donald Trump</a>’s residence, but <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/department-of-justice" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Department of Justice</a> (DOJ) prosecutors pushed the aggressive tactic and ultimately won the dispute, according to a new report.
The unprecedented raid, carried out in August, threw the FBI under a torrent of criticism. Many Republicans saw the raid as further evidence that the DOJ has been politicized and that the FBI has been weaponized against Republicans, especially Trump.
The reaction was expected to some extent within the FBI, according to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2023/03/01/fbi-dispute-trump-mar-a-lago-raid/">The Washington Post</a>. Two senior FBI officials responsible for leading the raid argued against it because of the reaction it would likely incite. They also questioned the need of taking such a drastic step, preferring to continue to work with Trump and the former president’s legal team to secure classified documents stored at Mar-a-Lago.
The FBI was also hesitant to appear too heavy-handed in politically charged cases after its handling of Hillary Clinton’s email investigation in 2016 and the probe into Trump’s alleged ties to Russia that led to ex-special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation that came up empty.
DOJ prosecutors thought differently. Trump should not be given special treatment, they argued, and the classified documents at Mar-a-Lago were an imminent security risk. The prosecutors said action must be taken quickly to secure the classified material before it was moved.
The debate came to a head a week before the August 8 raid in which multiple DOJ officials and prosecutors met with FBI officials, including Steven D’Antuono, then head of the FBI’s Washington Field Office. D’Antuono, who eventually led the raid on Mar-a-Lago, pushed back against prosecutors’ assertions that the raid was necessary. He also questioned the scope of the search warrant and asked if Trump was the subject of a criminal investigation.
Jay Bratt, the DOJ’s counterintelligence chief, and several others argued in support of the raid, according to the Post.
The prosecutors won the argument, convincing the top brass at the FBI to back the proposed raid, and Attorney General Merrick Garland to sign off on it. The day following the meeting, Deputy FBI Director Paul Abbate ordered D’Antuono to head the raid on Trump’s residence. The criticism of the bureau erupted immediately, and grew more pointed after classified documents were revealed to have been in Biden’s possession last month.
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D’Antuono <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/top-fbi-official-who-led-whitmer-kidnapping-plot-j6-investigations-to-retire-report">retired</a> from the agency last year. The former FBI official had been involved in some of the bureau’s most controversial actions in recent years. Before heading the field office in Washington, D’Antuono led the bureau’s Detroit Field Office and oversaw its months-long sting into a group of militia members who attempted to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer.
D’Antuono moved to lead the Washington Field Office where he then oversaw the bureau’s investigation into the January 6 Capitol riot. He retired from the FBI at the end of November.

Merrick Garland

FBI Officials Were Skeptical Of Trump Raid. DOJ Prosecutors Pushed It Forward: Report

Department of Justice

Donald Trump

Scandals

Why was a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/communist-china" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Chinese Communist</a>-controlled lab receiving any U.S. tax dollars? It seems that is the question many inside The Beltway don&#8217;t want you asking — especially FBI Director Christopher Wray, based on his comments Tuesday afternoon.
&#8220;So here you’re talking about a potential leak from a Chinese government-controlled lab that killed millions of Americans,&#8221; Wray <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/declassify-the-intelligence-hawley-is-right-covid-origins-info-should-be-released-to-public" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told</a> Fox News&#8217; Bret Baier regarding his agency&#8217;s assessment that COVID began in Wuhan, China.
&#8220;I will just make the observation that the Chinese government, it seems to me, has been doing its best to try to thwart and obfuscate the work,&#8221; he added, regarding COVID origins.
In other words, it sounds as if Wray is blaming the pandemic solely on the Chinese government and its Wuhan Institute of Virology. Now, based on all available evidence, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) does indeed deserve plenty of criticism.
Yet just because the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) implicated by Wray was &#8220;controlled&#8221; by the CCP, that does not automatically mean that actors in the United States are completely faultless for its leak.
Based on data in a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/federal-watchdog-slams-faucis-agency-and-ecohealth-over-deal-with-wuhan-lab" target="_blank" rel="noopener">recent report published by an internal federal watchdog</a>, the United States of America and its bureaucratic maze of pathogenic research requirements and lackadaisical oversight could also be culpable.
That means that the first &#8220;dirty open secret&#8221; is that Wuhan did receive taxpayer&#8217;s money, albeit indirectly as explained later in this column. But perhaps the larger story being kept in the dark is that that money may have contributed to COVID itself —  a possibility that we need more information to answer.
For background, WIV worked with EcoHealth Alliance, a U.S.-based non-governmental organization focusing on scientific research and pandemic prevention for five years between 2014 &#8211; 2019. EcoHealth Alliance was using a portion of American taxpayer-backed grants given to it by the National Institutes of Health to partner with WIV, specifically to focus on coronaviruses in bats.
While this sort of transaction is fairly commonplace in the scientific industry, a recently released Health and Human Services Department’s Office of Inspector General report indicates that both NIH and EcoHealth Alliance were careless in their business dealings with the Chinese lab.
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That alleged trail of negligence, it seems, has left numerous questions in its wake — particularly just how dangerous the research being conducted at WIV was and its relation to the COVID pandemic.
According to the <a href="https://oig.hhs.gov/oas/reports/region5/52100025.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">IG document released</a> in January, NIH and EcoHealth Alliance had established monitoring procedures for WIV, yet both failed to comply with those measures. Given the potential danger of the experiments being conducted by these groups, irresponsibility raises major alarms, according to the government.
Without going into every detail of the 72-page report, NIH did not believe that EcoHealth Alliance and WIV would be engaged in what&#8217;s called &#8220;enhanced potential pandemic pathogens (ePPPs)&#8221; when it was first given the grant money. Per NIH&#8217;s <a href="https://www.nih.gov/news-events/research-involving-potential-pandemic-pathogens" target="_blank" rel="noopener">website</a>, &#8220;ePPP research is a type of so-called &#8216;gain-of-function&#8217; (GOF) research &#8230;&#8221;  which requires additional oversight and higher approval (emphasis added).
It should be <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/federal-watchdog-slams-faucis-agency-and-ecohealth-over-deal-with-wuhan-lab" target="_blank" rel="noopener">noted here</a> that Dr. Anthony Fauci was in charge of NIH&#8217;s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) at that time. As Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/federal-watchdog-slams-faucis-agency-and-ecohealth-over-deal-with-wuhan-lab" target="_blank" rel="noopener">readers</a> know well, he has long <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/rand-paul-addresses-whether-dr-anthony-fauci-could-be-facing-criminal-culpability-for-fraud-repeated-failures" target="_blank" rel="noopener">denied that U.S. taxpayers</a> funded gain of function research, which enhances the transmissibility or potency of a virus, in Wuhan.
In 2018, after regulations regarding GOF were lessened, NIH added a special term to its agreement with EcoHealth that, “should experiments proposed in this award result in a virus with enhanced growth by more than certain specified benchmarks involving log growth increases, EcoHealth must notify NIAID immediately.&#8221;
According to federal officials, EcoHealth Alliance was instructed to provide a five-year progress report in 2019 about the experiments. The NGO allegedly failed to file a progress report and only did so after NIH requested it in 2021.
However, NIH was two years late in requesting that progress report, according to the federal watchdog.
As previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/federal-watchdog-slams-faucis-agency-and-ecohealth-over-deal-with-wuhan-lab" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> by The Daily Wire, when NIH finally saw the report in 2021, it “believed there was evidence that the research conducted by EcoHealth’s sub recipient WIV during Year 5 resulted in enhanced growth&#8221; and that it should have immediately notified NIAID back in 2019.
For its part, EcoHealth Alliance has argued that the specific rules were not clear in the first place and that the conclusion it engaged in &#8220;enhanced growth&#8221; or GOF &#8220;is based on a misinterpretation of what the experiment in question actually showed.&#8221;
In 2021, NIH further requested that EcoHealth Alliance retrieve documentation from WIV and submit it to NIH to clarify what happened.
WIV has yet to turn over that documentation and has shown no signs of being willing to comply since 2020.
NIH is blaming EcoHealth Alliance for this mess and vice versa. Both are blaming WIV to varying degrees and claim no conclusion can be reached until it provides more information.
So, that means we may never know what happened at WIV with U.S. taxpayer money right before the pandemic hit.
Now, it appears that the director of the FBI wants all Americans to have their focus squarely on the Chinese government and no other entity regarding COVID. Perhaps he has good reason for doing so.
If COVID actually did come from the lab, then the IG report leads one to wonder whether taxpayer money given by EcoHealth Alliance was involved in its creation.
If that theory were proven true — which EcoHealth Alliance has adamantly denied — then it would be an indictment of America&#8217;s entire health establishment and an international embarrassment.
It would also mean that both the Chinese and American governments are to blame for the world&#8217;s last three years of misery.
In that case, then it is remarkably easy to see why Wray would publicly scrutinize the &#8220;Chinese government-controlled lab&#8221; and not the American-funded NGO and U.S. health agency connected to it.
Since we already know that U.S. taxpayers were involved in allegedly questionable research in Wuhan, perhaps Wray doesn&#8217;t want any more details about what exactly went on there escaping The Swamp.
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

D.C.’s Dirty Open Secret About That ‘Chinese Government-Controlled Lab’ In Wuhan

D.C.'s Dirty Open Secret About That ‘Chinese Government-Controlled Lab’ In Wuhan

Anthony Fauci

COVID

Wuhan

Wuhan Institute of Virology

Menu

FBI