W.VA WOMAN TRIES TO SELL U.S. CLASSIFIED INFO...

A Hedgesville, West Virginia woman is facing up to ten years in jail and a fine of up to $250,000 for national security violations, including illegally being in possession of National Defense Information.

Elizabeth Jo Shirley has confessed to being in possession of a National Security Agency document having to do with our National Defense, that contained TOP SECRET/SENSITIVE COMPARTMENTED INFORMATION (TS/SCI), and which outlines intelligence information regarding a foreign government's military and political issues.

Assistant Attorney General for National Security, John C. Demers said that When Shirley took classified information from her work in the Intelligence Community and then fled to Mexico, "...she violated the confidence placed in her by the American People..."

According to Department of Justice Officials,

"...In July 2019, Shirley took her six-year-old daughter to Mexico with the intent to make contact with representatives of the Government of Russia to request resettlement in a country that would not extradite her to the United States.  Shirley took with her to Mexico national defense information, which she had unlawfully retained.  While in Mexico, Shirley prepared a written message to Russian Government officials, referencing “an urgent need” to have “items shipped from the USA related to [her] life’s work before they are seized and destroyed...”

The DOJ says that on August 13, 2019,

"...the United States Marshals Service and Mexican law enforcement located Shirley and her daughter at a hotel in Mexico City.  Mexican authorities arrested Shirley pursuant to an arrest warrant the West Virginia State Police (WVSP) had obtained on a charge of concealment of a minor from a custodian..."

Shirley is also facing penalties, regarding charges she has admitted to, and related to "...removing her child, of whom she was the non-custodial parent, to Mexico with the intent to obstruct the lawful exercise of the custodial father’s parental rights..."

"...The FBI subsequently executed search warrants on numerous of Shirley’s electronic devices, including devices she took to Mexico in July 2019 and devices the FBI seized from her Martinsburg storage unit in August 2019.  Pursuant to the search of the storage unit, the FBI located the NSA document underlying the Willful Retention of National Defense Information offense.  In addition, pursuant to searches of the electronic devices, the FBI found an Office of Naval Intelligence PowerPoint presentation containing information classified at the SECRET level and messages Shirley had drafted to Russian Government officials while in Mexico, the latter of which the Central Intelligence Agency has determined to include information classified at the SECRET level..."

DOJ Background information on Elizabeth Jo Shirley includes the following:

"...Shirley served on active duty with the United States Air Force, and in August 1994, the Air Force granted Shirley her first TS/SCI security clearance.  After leaving active duty, Shirley served in the United States Air Force Reserves and later in the United States Navy Reserves.  While serving in the Air Force, she worked on assignments with the NSA.  From May 2001 to August 2012, Shirley held various positions with the United States Navy’s Office of Naval Intelligence, the Department of Defense, the Department of Energy, the National Cyber Investigative Joint Task Force, and at least five different cleared defense contractors.  In connection with these positions, Shirley held TOP SECRET/SCI security clearances at various times..."

information source /: U.S. Department of Justice

THE RENAISSANCE BEGINS

The Boeing Company, major producer of commercial airplanes, has announced that it will resume all Commercial Airplanes production in, what it calls, "a phased approach," at its Puget Sound-region facilities next week, after having suspended operations about a month ago in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

In a company public dispatch the plane manufacturer's Stan Deal, president and CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes and senior executive in the Pacific Northwest, said :

"...At all of its sites, the company has taken extra precautions and instituted comprehensive procedures to keep people safe and fight the spread of COVID-19 ... The health and safety of our employees, their families and communities is our shared priority ... This phased approach ensures we have a reliable supply base, our personal protective equipment is readily available and we have all of the necessary safety measures in place to resume essential work for our customers..."

A workforce of about 27,000 people in the Puget Sound area are set to return to work on plane models 747, 767, 777, and 787, which are part of the company's international infrastructure, which includes cargo services, and national security missions.

Boeing says "...The 737 program will resume working toward restarting production of the 737 MAX. Boeing South Carolina remains in a suspension of operations at this time. Earlier this week Boeing restarted mostly defense production operations in the region with approximately 2,500 people ... Employees in the Puget Sound for the 737, 747, 767 and 777 will return as early as third shift on April 20 with most returning to work by April 21.  Employees for the 787 program will return as early as third shift April 23, with most returning to work by April 24..."

The company points out that moving forward,  the company's practices reinforce enhanced cleaning, employee health and physical distancing in partnership with employees and aligned with federal and state guidance.

Boeing's action comes just days after U.S. President Donald Trump made announcements about jump starting the economy after effects of the Coronavirus began to "peak" in the U.S.

TRUMP APPOINTS NESHEIWAT TO WH HOMELAND...

Meet the newly appointed White House Homeland Security Adviser Julia Nesheiwat.  She comes to the White House via Florida, where she was Chief Resilience Officer under Governor Ron DeSantis...

What's a Resilience Officer?

Daniel Lippman of Politico reports that Nesheiwat "...worked for Gov. Ron DeSantis, focusing on preparing the state for its frequent natural disasters, improving the coordination of state disaster response, and finding ways to help protect critical infrastructure..."

Kristin Hayes at Resources Magazine described her Florida State job, saying she "... works alongside leaders from government, academia, and the private sector to devise proactive solutions to climate challenges and encourage collaboration across the whole state..."

According to Lipppman she did that with a "...Ph.D from the Tokyo Institute of Technology, writing her dissertation on “Post-Disaster Reconstruction in Energy Technology & Resiliency” and a master’s degree in national energy security from Georgetown University, and studied sociology at Stetson University in Florida.

Her job in Florida, however, is just her latest gig.

She previously worked at the U.S. Dept. of State, where she worked with Trump National Security adviser, Robert O'Brien, who had a major hand in helping to free dozens of American hostages. Lippman says "...Nesheiwat spent four years as the U.S. presidential deputy envoy for hostage affairs and later became acting envoy when O’Brien left..."

According to her Linkedin Page, before that she was a Visiting Professor  at Stanford University's Naval Postgraduate school, where she "built a curriculum and taught classes on energy technology, environment, national security, and resilience." From 2008 to 2011 she served as Chief of Staff at the State Department, where she "Led interagency meetings and advised on economic, environment, and sustainability issues for our foreign and economic policies."

She's also been a Senior Advisor at the State Department before that, and has also been an IAF Fellow for Economic and Energy policies and Technology / Innovation research at the Council of Foreign Relations.

She was Deputy Chief of Staff at the Office of the Director of National intelligence from 2005 to 2008, and worked in the Executive Office of the President from 2004 to 2005 in the WMD Commission.

She finalized her armed forces service as a Captain in the U.S. Army, in which she served from 1997 to 2005, "where she specialized in military intelligence and spent a stint in Baghdad as a political-military and operations adviser to L. Paul Bremer, who led the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq." (Lippman/Politico)

"Immediately after the September 11 attacks, Nesheiwat served consecutive combat tours for which she was awarded the Bronze Star Medal in support of Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom, as a U.S. Army military intelligence officer." (Wikipedia)

Will President Trump and We, The People, be well served?

TRUMP DOES IT AGAIN: 3.2 GDP GROWTH IN 1ST QUARTER

The U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis released its advanced estimate today for the first quarter of 2019 and it shows a whopping 3.2 increase in the Real Gross Domestic Product, despite dire predictions that the U.S. economy was headed for a slow down and/or a recession.

This exceed's expectations and comes as a welcome surprise, contrasting predictions that the economy was going to nose-dive, in part due to the Federal Reserve's raising of interest rates and other economic factors.

The BEA describes the news this way:

"...The increase in real GDP in the first quarter reflected positive contributions from personal consumption expenditures (PCE), private inventory investment, exports, state and local government spending, and nonresidential fixed investment. Imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP ... These contributions were partly offset by a decrease in residential investment..."

"...The acceleration in real GDP growth in the first quarter reflected an upturn in state and local government spending, accelerations in private inventory investment and in exports, and a smaller decrease in residential investment. These movements were partly offset by decelerations in PCE and nonresidential fixed investment, and a downturn in federal government spending. Imports, which are a subtraction in the calculation of GDP, turned down..."

Here are the details described in key categories:

" ...  Current dollar GDP increased 3.8 percent, or $197.6 billion, in the first quarter to a level of $21.06 trillion. In the fourth quarter, current-dollar GDP increased 4.1 percent, or $206.9 billion..." 

"...The price index for gross domestic purchases increased 0.8 percent in the first quarter, compared with an increase of 1.7 percent in the fourth quarter (table 4). The PCE price index increased 0.6 percent, compared with an increase of 1.5 percent. Excluding food and energy prices, the PCE price index increased 1.3 percent, compared with an increase of 1.8 percent..." 

"...Current-dollar personal income increased $147.2 billion in the first quarter, compared with an increase of $229.0 billion in the fourth quarter. The deceleration reflected downturns in personal interest income, personal dividend income, and proprietors’ income that were partly offset by an acceleration in personal current transfer receipts..." 

"...Disposable personal income increased $116.0 billion, or 3.0 percent, in the first quarter, compared with an increase of $222.9 billion, or 5.8 percent, in the fourth quarter. Real disposable personal income increased 2.4 percent, compared with an increase of 4.3 percent..." 

Personal saving was $1.11 trillion in the first quarter, compared with $1.07 trillion in the fourth quarter. The personal saving rate -- personal saving as a percentage of disposable personal income -- was 7.0 percent in the first quarter, compared with 6.8 percent in the fourth quarter... "

The news puts another feather in Trump's cap, adding to a continuing assessment that the President's actions on tariff's, his actions in negotiating trade deals to favor the U.S., his administration's persistent efforts to bring back jobs to the U.S. from overseas ventures, sparking new and additional investments, a favorable job/employment market, and renewed confidence in stock market trading, are having a positive impact on the economy.

The positive trend is significant in light of the President's political opponents' continually targeting the economy by pushing socialist policies, including raising taxes on the "wealthy," which includes large, productive, successful job creators in industry and other key areas of the economy, coupled with big government spending on give-away programs that traditionally do not favor a strong economy.

The good news also flies in the face of constant belligerent opposition to Trump by Socialist Democrats, who persist with their mantra of impeachment, despite exoneration of Trump by the Mueller investigators regarding the allegations of Russian Collusion.

The allegations and investigations appear to not have had a sufficient negative effect on Trump's efforts, and may indeed raise speculation, that if those political attacks had not taken place, how much more positive might our economy be at this time.

The 3.2 rise in GDP in the first quarter, is the strongest first quarter growth rate since 2015.

(More News @ Red Clix Headliners: Click HERE) ...

WILKIE CONFIRMED AS V.A. SEC...

FOX NEWS / AP :  "...Wilkie takes on the task of fulfilling President Donald Trump's promises to fire bad VA employees and steer more patients to the private sector. While pledging to "shake up complacency" at VA, the Air Force and Navy veteran has also assured Democrats he will not privatize the department and will keep VA health care 'fully funded.' ..."  (MORE...)

Former Senate Intel Committee Staffer Indicted for Lying to FBI

A former staff employee of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI) has been indicted and arrested on charges of making false statements to special agents of the FBI during the course of an investigation into the unlawful disclosure of classified information.  That's according to news dispatch, just released by the U.S. Attorney's Office of the Department of Justice in the District of Columbia.

According to the release, "...James A. Wolfe, 58, of Ellicott City, Md., was indicted by a federal grand jury on three counts of violating Title 18, United States Code, Section 1001. At the time he made the alleged false statements to the FBI, Wolfe was Director of Security for the SSCI, a position he held for approximately 29 years. As SSCI Director of Security, Wolfe was entrusted with access to classified SECRET and TOP SECRET information provided by the Executive Branch, including the U.S. Intelligence Community, to the SSCI.  In this position, Wolfe was responsible for safeguarding all classified information in the possession of the SSCI..."

The statement issued moments ago states:

"...Wolfe is alleged to have lied to FBI agents in December 2017 about his repeated contacts with three reporters, including through his use of encrypted messaging applications.  Wolfe is further alleged to have made false statements to the FBI about providing two reporters with non-public information related to the matters occurring before the SSCI ... Wolfe was arrested on June 7, 2018, and is expected to make his first appearance Friday, June 8, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland. The case is entitled United States v. James A. Wolfe, and the matter has been assigned to the Honorable Ketanji Brown Jackson in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia..."

A report filed by the New York Times, authored by Adam Goldman, Nicholas Fandos and Katie Benner, says "prosecutors also seized years' worth of a New York Times reporter's phone and email records.  According to this report, ".... The seizure — disclosed in a letter to the reporter, Ali Watkins — suggested that prosecutors under the Trump administration will continue the aggressive tactics employed under President Barack Obama...A prosecutor notified Ms. Watkins on Feb. 13 that the Justice Department had years of customer records and subscriber information from telecommunications companies, including Google and Verizon, for two email accounts and a phone number of hers. Investigators did not obtain the content of the messages themselves. The Times learned on Thursday of the letter, which came from the national security division of the United States attorney’s office in Washington..."

The Times report says:

"...F.B.I. agents approached Ms. Watkins about a previous three-year romantic relationship she had with Mr. Wolfe, saying they were investigating unauthorized leaks..."

Vanguard of Freedom

SENATE CONFIRMS HASPEL AS CIA DIRECTOR

Gina Haspel just became the first woman Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.  Senators voted

 54 to 45, six Democrats voting yes and two Republicans voting no.

Shane Harris and Karoun Demirjian at the Washington Post said the confirmation of Haspel came about because of last minute arm-twisting of Democrats by former CIA directors John Brennan and Leon Panetta. The report says:

"... Haspel has not had as close of a relationship with Trump as the CIA’s previous director, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who is one of the president’s closest advisers, according to people with knowledge of Haspel and Trump’s interactions ... But she has been successful, to a degree, influencing the president’s stance toward Russia, whose aggressive and adversarial posture toward the West has become a top national security priority for the administration..."

[CIA photo:  White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, CIA Deputy Director Gina Haspel, and CIA Chief Operating Officer Brian Bulatao enter CIA Original Headquarters Building]

The Post story offers background on Haspel, and includes the slant that she was involved in torturing War on Terror prisoners with Enhanced Interrogation Techniques, even though there is no evidence that she was directly involved in the actual interrogations.

Her bio at the CIA tells it this way:

“... Gina is an exemplary intelligence officer and a devoted patriot who brings more than 30 years of Agency experience to the job. She is also a proven leader with an uncanny ability to get things done and to inspire those around her,' said [former] Director Pompeo. 'We are fortunate that someone of her intellect, skill, and experience will be our Deputy Director. I know she will do an outstanding job, and I look forward to working with her closely in the years ahead.' ... Ms. Haspel is a career intelligence officer, having joined the CIA in 1985. She has extensive overseas experience and served as Chief of Station in several of her assignments ... In Washington, she has held numerous senior leadership positions at CIA, including as Deputy Director of the National Clandestine Service, Deputy Director of the National Clandestine Service for Foreign Intelligence and Covert Action, Chief of Staff for the Director of the National Clandestine Service, and in the Counterterrorist Center ... Ms. Haspel is the recipient of numerous awards including the George H. W. Bush Award for excellence in counterterrorism; the Donovan Award; the Intelligence Medal of Merit; and the Presidential Rank Award, the most prestigious award in the federal civil service..."

Vanguard of Freedom News