Ron DeSantis on The Fake News Media Dishonesty

It took 2 years to expose the fake news media lies about Russia Durham lies about Trump before anyone went to jail.  Covid will likely take another two years before anyone goes to jail.

FBI and So. District of NY Raid Project Veritas Journalists’ Homes

FBI and Southern District of NY Raid Project Veritas Journalists’ Homes.  

It's alleged that someone stole Joe Biden's Daughters Diary (according to this article).  If it is legitimate there are some serious allegations of sexual assault in the diary.  

The FBI raided two addresses in New York on Thursday linked to Project Veritas, as part of a probe into the alleged theft of President Biden's daughter's diary, according to the New York Times, which curiously knew about the raid an hour after it happened, according to Veritas founder James O'Keefe.

Search warrants were executed at a Midtown Manhattan apartment of longtime Veritas employee Spencer Meads.

While Veritas did not publish excerpts of the diary, another conservative outlet ran dozens of handwritten pages from it on October 24, 2020 in the final days of the US presidential election. The website claimed that they received the documents from a whistleblower at another organization that would not publish the information.

According to the report, Project Veritas said it knew the whereabouts of the actual diary and had a recording of Ashley Biden admitting it was hers.

"Late last year, we were approached by tipsters claiming they had a copy of Ashley Biden’s diary," said O'Keefe," adding "the tipsters indicated that they were negotiating with a different media outlet for the payment of monies for the diary."

"At the end of the day, we made the ethical decision that because, in part, we could not determine if the diary was real, if the diary, in fact, belonged to Ashley Biden, or if the contents of the diary occurred, we could not publish the diary and any part thereof."

O'Keefe said that they turned the diary over to law enforcement after Ashley Biden's attorney refused to accept or authenticate it.

The PV founder added in a statement: "We do not know how The New York Times was aware of the execution of a search warrant at our reporter’s home, or the subject matter of the search warrant, as a Grand Jury investigation is secret."

The Times claims that the DOJ has been investigating the matter since October 2020, after a representative from the Biden family reported that several of Ashley Biden's personal items were stolen in a burglary.

Watch all of the videos that Project Veritas has exposed on the fraud.  

NJ Election Worker: ‘I’ll let you [Non-Citizen/Non-Registered Voter] fill out a ballot.'

Why Won't Attorney General Bill Barr Arrest Anyone?

Chris Farley arrest someone Attorney General Bill Barr

Giuliani says Barr won’t investigate Hunter Biden allegations because he's ‘intimidated’ 

Trump mulls firing FBI director and Attorney General Bill Barr because they won’t investigate Joe Biden and Hunter Biden. At a recent rally in Carson City, Nevada, Trump blasted Joe Biden and his son Hunter as a “criminal enterprise.”

The Washington Post reported that President Donald Trump is considering firing FBI Director Christopher Wray and Attorney General William Barr, out of frustration that the two of them haven’t been able to investigate them.

“The conversations among the president and senior aides stem in part from their disappointment that Wray in particular but Barr as well have not done what Trump had hoped — indicate that Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, his son Hunter Biden, or other Biden associates are under investigation, these people say,” reported Devlin Barrett and Josh Dawsey. “Like others, they spoke on the condition of anonymity to disclose internal discussions.”

Barr has attracted controversy from the first day of his appointment due to a series of moves suspected of being partisan efforts to help Trump, from downplaying the findings of the Mueller report to moving to drop charges against former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn after he already pleaded guilty. Nevertheless, he has not been willing to publicly announce a criminal investigation of the Bidens in the middle of a presidential election, with no clear basis for doing so.

In the 2016 campaign’s closing weeks, the president and public intensified calls for jailing his challenger, Hillary Clinton. 

Beware of COVID-19 Laboratory Testing Scams

Coronavirus Fraud Takes Many Forms as Federal and Local Officials Continue to Pursue Widespread Cases of Clinical Laboratory Testing Scams

Federal investigators have been actively searching for trends of fraud in Medicare claims data for COVID-19 clinical laboratory research since the pandemic started.

According to media studies, dating back to at least March, fraudulent actors offering fake SARS-CoV-2 tests have preyed on vulnerable Americans in a wide range of ways during the public health emergency. In return for swab collections and fake testing, the New York Times reported, some scam operators have gone into nursing homes and long-term care facilities to raise money from unsuspected elders.

The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Programs (CMS) no longer needs a laboratory test requirement signed by a treating physician or other provider for COVID-19 testing after the declaration of the public health emergency in the US. "The high demand for and restricted availability of SARS-CoV-2 samples, along with the decision by CMS to loosen rules during the pandemic for some test orders, makes the situation a potentially ripe one for fraud," said Modern Healthcare.

Moreover, a lack of clarification about the medical necessity of COVID-19 tests might increase the risk of liability for clinical laboratories that are law-abiding. All of these variables make COVID-19 fraud testing a possible bombshell for clinical laboratories performing coronavirus testing that could get caught up in federal research.

Feds Increasing Enforcement

The FBI, the Better Business Bureau (BBB), the FDA, the Federal Department of Health and Human Services ( HHS), and other federal and local authorities have repeatedly alerted physicians, hospitals, and healthcare customers about the potential for fraud by unscrupulous firms pretending to deliver COVID-19 legitimate clinical laboratory tests shortly after the pandemic arrived in the US. "Scammers are selling fraudulent and/or unapproved COVID-19 antibody tests, potentially providing false results," a June 26 FBI press release said.

Some of the fraudsters behind these scams have operated online and through social media and email. While others have conducted these scams in person or over the phone, noted the press release. And yet, the scams and news stories about them have continued to propagate during the COVID-19 pandemic, despite the warnings.

How Do The Fraudsters Work?

Fraudsters aim to collect personal information from customers in many of these scams, including names, birth dates, and social security numbers, as well as other types of personal health information, such as data from Medicare or private health insurance, the FBI said. Scammers can use the data in fraud schemes for medical insurance or to commit identity theft, the agency said.

In addition, any fraudulent or incorrect COVID-19 tests or assays not approved to be used by the FDA may give false results to physicians, potentially creating a dangerous situation for patients. 

The New York Times (NYT) recently announced that a notice "about scammers selling fake COVID-19 antibody tests as a way to access personal information that can be used for identity theft or medical insurance fraud" was released by the FBI.

The BBB added an alert to its website three days after the FBI released its warning about the COVID-19 antibody testing scam:' BBB Scam Alert: Want a COVID-19 test? "There is a scam for that." BBB also provided customers with advice about how to stop scam checking. 

The FDA announced on June 17 that it had given warning letters to three firms for the sale of adulterated and misbranded COVID-19 antibody tests, an FDA news release said. Warning letters have been sent by the department to:

• Medakit Ltd. of Sheung Wan, Hong Kong;
• Antibodiescheck.com and Yama Group;
• Dr. Jason Korkus, DDS, and Sonrisa Family Dental d/b/a My COVID19 Club of Chicago.

Other scams

The New York Times reported on April 17 that a special agent with the HHS OIG noted that impostors requesting information from Medicare or Medicaid posed as physicians or laboratory technicians in nursing homes and assisted living facilities to deliver fake tests.

The Texas Tribune reported earlier in April that the owner of a freestanding emergency room in Laredo, Texas, spent $500,000 on buying 20,000 COVID-19 rapid tests for patients suspected of having COVID-19. In Laredo, health officials decided to set up a drive-through testing site and then conduct tests to detect active infections from a manufacturer in China. City health officials learned they were ineffective and unusable after attempting to verify the samples.

An April 9 article from the AARP (American Association of Retired Persons) news department reported that in several states, including Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, New York, and Washington state, federal officials have found fake coronavirus testing sites. 

According to AARP, the FBI investigated several fake test sites in Louisville, Ky., after a city official confirmed the collection of biological specimens from residents by individuals in personal protective equipment ( PPE). In order to prove their identity, those requesting tests were advised to pay $240 in cash or have their Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security cards.

The AARP confirmed that fake drive-up testing sites were confirmed over a four-day period at gas stations and other locations in Louisville. 

On April 2, WRGB TV in Albany, N.Y., announced that in return for bogus coronavirus tests, scammers claiming to be from the New York State Department of Health (NYSDOH) were taking money and insurance details from individuals. One woman told police that she had a fake test in a Little League parking lot at a drive-up spot.

North Greenbush police said the scammers described themselves as being with NYSDOH and obtained information from several individuals about money and insurance. Police and state officials said that in the parking lot, the DOH had no connection to the collection site.

Lessons for Laboratories

The message from these stories is to be vigilant of strangers providing COVID-19 testing for clinical laboratory directors and all clinical laboratory scientists, while also making sure to post information on the legitimacy of your laboratory's rapid molecular and serological tests to customers. Doing so could entail presenting evidence that the FDA has approved the coronavirus to be used for your studies.

Medical laboratories should also ensure that proper identification is demonstrated by all workers collecting specimens in public places.

How Widespread Is Unemployment Fraud?

An investigation into possible unemployment benefits fraud related to the coronavirus pandemic is expanding with as many as 2,000 cases in Rhode Island, authorities said.

State and federal law enforcement agencies are investigating fraudulent unemployment insurance claims submitted to the state Department of Labor and Training. The department has received roughly 2,000 reports to date from people who say they have been the victims of “imposter fraud,” agency spokeswoman Angelika Pellegrino said in an email.

If there are 2,000+ fraud cases in Rhode Island, how many fraud cases are there in the United States with 33M unemployed filing claims?   

The State of California is suing Uber and Lyft  

These two companies deny that their drivers are entitled to state unemployment insurance, as well as state-mandated paid sick leave and other employee benefits. The companies are thereby shirking their obligations to their workforce and shifting the burden onto drivers and taxpayers at a time when they are most vulnerable.

Uber and Lyft, in breaking California’s new law designating many workers in the so-called gig economy as employees, are pushing a financial burden onto taxpayers as the firms’ drivers are collecting unemployment benefits from funds the companies have not paid into, California’s Attorney General alleges.

What Do Drivers Think? Preliminary survey results and conversations with drivers overwhelming say 'no'. Is California going too far?

Anyone who believes their personal information has been used to file or secure a false claim is being asked to call the FBI’s or the state Department of Labor and Training.  Submit your FBI Fraud claims here.

FBI Has Stopped Hundreds of Online Scams

The bureau has reviewed more than 3,600 complaints related to COVID-19 ploys that tout fake vaccines, cures and charity drives, among other things.

For example, the cooperative effort has been disrupted:

• An illicit website pretending to solicit and collect donations to the American Red Cross for COVID-19 relief efforts. 

• Fraudulent websites that spoofed government programs and organizations tricked American citizens into entering personally identifiable information, including banking details. 

• Websites of legitimate companies and services that were used to facilitate the distribution or control of malicious software.

Multiple federal agencies have worked to analyze the complaints, investigate ongoing fraud, phishing, or malware schemes, and assemble vetted referrals. Agencies have sent hundreds of these referrals to the private-sector companies managing or hosting the domains. Many of those companies, in turn, have taken down the domains after concluding that they violated their abuse policies and terms of service, without requiring legal process. Domain registrars and registries have advised the department that they have established teams to review their domains for COVID-19 related fraud and malicious activity. Cybersecurity researchers have also made important contributions by developing sophisticated tools to identify malicious domains and refer them for mitigation. Law enforcement is actively reviewing leads, including those referred by private firms, to verify unlawful activity and quickly pursue methods for disruption.

As a further example, shortly after the IRS notified the public of web links to apply for the COVID-19 related stimulus payments, the FBI identified a number of look-alike IRS stimulus payment domains. These look-alike domains are often indicative of future phishing schemes and in order to minimize the potential fraudulent use of the these domains, the FBI alerted numerous domain registries and registrars to the existence of these look-alike URLs.

“The department will continue to collaborate with our law enforcement and private sector partners to combat online COVID-19 related crime,” said Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “We commend the responsible internet companies that are taking swift action to prevent their resources from being used to exploit this pandemic.”

The Justice Department is also working to provide COVID-19 related training and technical assistance in other countries through the International Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property (ICHIP) program. In one Justice Department-supported action, a state prosecutor in Brazil took down a fake site purporting to belong to a leading Brazilian brewery. The website publicized the distribution of free sanitizer, but in fact was infecting the computer systems of numerous Brazilian consumers with malware. The ICHIP-mentored prosecutor further requested that the site’s U.S.-based registrar suspend it and preserve any account and transactional data linked to the site. The investigation is ongoing, and the ICHIP continues to mentor the prosecutor remotely on this case and on best practices for engaging with U.S. registrars and providers. Similar activities are planned in other regions with ICHIP attorneys. Learn more about the Criminal Division’s ICHIP Program, jointly administered by the Criminal Division’s Office of Overseas Prosecutorial Development, Assistance and Training and the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section, here.

Numerous Justice Department components are working to combat COVID-19 related crime nationwide. For a list of department efforts, visit https://www.justice.gov/coronavirus/news.