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Congress Demanding DOJ Turn Over Evidence Linked To Obama-Hezbollah Drug Trafficking Scandal

Published

9 years ago

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(Via ZeroHedge)

Congress has demanded that the Department of Justice turn over all documents related to a disturbing report from POLITICO that the Obama administration quashed a massive DEA investigation into a $200 million per month drug trafficking and money laundering scheme on U.S. soil which was directly funding Hezbollah’s various terror campaigns around the world.

“Add this to the long list of concessions the Obama administration made in pursuit of the nuclear agreement with Iran,” said the source, who was not authorized to speak on the record about the matter. “The difference here is that this wasn’t just bad policy—it was potentially criminal. Congress absolutely has a responsibility to get to the bottom of this.”

The letter follows a commitment made by congressional leaders to open an investigation into the explosive claims of what is being described as a “potentially criminal” enterprise described to the Free Beacon by a congressional source as an offshoot of Obama’s nuclear agreement with Iran which saw $1.7 billion dollars of euros, Swiss francs and other currencies shipped directly to Tehran on wooden pallets.

In early 2016, French police smashed a Hezbollah cell accused of trafficking cocaine for one of the world’s most ruthless drug cartels in order to fund the militant group’s operations in Syria. The Telegraph reported at the time:

The agents, arrested in France, allegedly masterminded a massive global drug ring which raised millions of dollars to arm Hizbollah gunmen fighting for Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president, in Syria. Two years ago, one of the outfit’s sicarios, or hitmen, was arrested in Spain on suspicion of having ordered up to 400 murders worldwide. The Hizbollah agents detained by French police include alleged leaders of the group’s European cell, including 45-year-old businessman Mohamad Noureddine. The DEA, which has classified him as a “specially-designated global terroristâ€, accuses him of being a Lebanese money launderer for Hizbollah’s financial arm.

A DEA statement said: “These proceeds are used to purchase weapons for Hizbollah for its activities in Syria. This ongoing investigation…once again highlights the dangerous global nexus between drug trafficking and terrorism.”

Despite the active and ongoing DEA investigations into Hezbollah’s global operations, the Obama administration “threw an increasingly insurmountable series of roadblocks in its way” according to Politico.

In a Thursday letter from Reps. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Ron DeSantis (R-FL) and obtained by the Washington Free Beacon, Congress demanded all communications and documents related to the DEA’s “Project Cassandra” campaign which targeted “a global Hizbollah network responsible for the movement of large quantities of cocaine in the United States and Europe,” along with information on operations “Titan” and “Perseus,” as well as the Lebanese Canadian Bank, The Iran-Hezbollah Super Facilitator Initiative, and several named individuals.

Also sought are “all documents and communications referring or relating to the potential designation of Hezbollah as a Transnational Criminal Organization,” along with “all documents referring or relating to efforts to prosecute targets related to Hezbolah” via the RICO act.

“We have a responsibility to evaluate whether these allegations are true, and if so, did the administration undermine U.S. law enforcement and compromise U.S. national security,” the lawmakers wrote to Attorney General Jeff Sessions Sessions.

As the Free Beacon reported yesterday:

U.S. drug enforcement agents who spoke to Politico about the matter accused the Obama administration of intentionally derailing an investigation into Hezbollah’s drug trafficking and money laundering efforts that began in 2008 under the Bush administration.

The investigation centered on Hezbollah and Iranian-backed militants who allegedly participated in the illicit drug network, which was subject to U.S. wiretaps and undercover operations.

Hezbollah is believed to have been laundering at least $200 million a month just in the United States, according to the report.

When U.S. authorities were ready to make the case against Hezbollah’s most senior leadership, Obama administration officials allegedly “threw an increasingly insurmountable series of roadblocks in its way,” according inside sources who spoke to Politico about the situation

The Obama-led effort to block the investigation was “a policy decision, it was a systematic decision,” one source said. “They serially ripped apart this entire effort that was very well supported and resourced, and it was done from the top down.”

As we reported yesterday, Representative Peter Roskam (R-IL), a chief national security voice in the House who fought against the nuclear accord, mimicked the views of DeSantis saying that Congress must investigate the Obama administration’s actions and work to increase pressure on Hezbollah.

“The report alleging the Obama Administration turned a blind eye and allowed Hezbollah to pump drugs into the United States to fund its terror campaigns in the Middle East is not surprising,” Roskam said. “Hampering the DEA’s investigation of Hezbollah would be emblematic of the previous administration’s fixation to strike a nuclear accord with Iran at any costs.”

“This blind eye imperiled our efforts to combat Iran and its proxies’ malign behavior and left us with a cash-flush Iran on the warpath across the Middle East with a nuclear program legitimized by the JCPOA,” Roskam said, using the acronym for the nuclear deal’s official name, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. “Congress needs to investigate this report and do what the Obama Administration refused to do, severely increase pressure on Hezbollah and hold the terrorist group, and its benefactor Iran, accountable for their crimes.”

Congress is especially interested to learn whether key Obama Administration officials, such as National Security Council staffer Ben Rhodes, were involved in quashing the DEA investigation in an effort to preserve diplomatic relations with Iran surrounding the nuclear deal. U.S. DEA agents who spoke to POLITICO accused the Obama administration into derailing an investigation launched during the Bush administration into drug trafficking and money laundering by Hezbollah. The derailed DEA investigation centered on Hezbollah and Iranian-backed militants, which used wiretaps and undercover operations to gather evidence.

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Politics

Bannon An ‘Oppurtunist’ – Trump Jr & Newt Gingrich

Published

5 days ago

on

June 20, 2026

By

(Via Zerohedge)

In the course of less than a day, former Trump strategist Steve Bannon has gone from simply “former Trump strategist” to “radioactive backstabber,” after The Guardian reported that Bannon, in Michael Wolff’s new book “Fire and Fury, called a June 2016 meeting at Trump tower involving Russian attorney Natalia Veselnitskaya “treasonous” and “unpatriotic.”


“Even if you thought that this was not treasonous, or unpatriotic, or bad shit, and I happen to think it’s all of that, you should have called the FBI immediately.”

In response, President Trump issued a four-paragraph scorching reply, saying Bannon had “lost his mind.” Donald Trump Jr. also responded, calling his father’s former chief strategist “backstabbing, harassing, leaking, lying & undermining the President,” adding “Steve is not a strategist, he is an opportunist.”

Newt Gingrich chimed in on Fox News, telling Neil Cavuto, “I think that Bannon thinks he’s extraordinarily important. But the fact is, Trump had won the nomination without Bannon. Trump would have won the presidency without Bannon. And Trump has governed without Bannon.”

So I think there’s an exaggerated sense of who Steve is. And I think, remember, this is a guy who got fired. So you have a guy who has been fired who is trying to claim a bunch of things, which he apparently did not claim at the time.

And I think you have to just say, you know, it’s noise. It has nothing to do with — the things that matter to America and the things that matter to the American people have no relationship to the kind of noise that we’re going to spend all day today with.

And luckily for the president, he’s really come to distinguish between the things that matter and the things that don’t. The meeting this weekend at Camp David matters with the Republican leadership. Steve Bannon saying a bunch of junk doesn’t really matter in the long run. It will disappear. -Newt Gingrich

Trump Jr. also replied to a tweet by conservative pundit Bill Mitchell, which quotes a portion of Bannon’s book, reading:

“On Election Night, when the unexpected trend , Trump might actually win, seemed confirmed, Don Jr. told a friend that his father, or DJT, as he calls him, looked as if he had seen a ghost. Melania was in tears—and not of joy.”


Trump Jr. responded: “Another good one. Anyone who knows me or follows me knows that’s about as far from something I would say or how I speak as possible… What a joke.”

And earlier in the day, Trump Jr. tweeted “Andrew Breitbart would be ashamed of the division and lies Steve Bannon is spreading!,” after tweeting “Wow, just looked at the comments section on Breitbart. Wow. When Bannon has lost Breitbart, he’s left with . . . umm, nothing.”

And now, it appears as though Bannon may have lost any hope of cobbling together political capital. As US News reports;

Despite his blatant miscalculation and the animosity he stirred among traditional Republicans, Bannon’s enduring influence was that he purportedly had a direct line to Trump – the White House confirmed they spoke by phone last month – and could help mold the president’s thoughts on policy and political strategy.

Now, that line appears lacerated.

“Now that he is on his own, Steve is learning that winning isn’t as easy as I make it look,” Trump said in the statement. “Steve doesn’t represent my base – he’s only in it for himself.”

The extraordinary breakup between the two larger-than-life comrades led to immediate fallout across the Republican Party. GOP leadership rejoiced at Bannon’s fall from grace, with allies of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell reveling in and sharing the president’s takedown.

Bannon’s split from the Trumps puts wealthy GOP donor Robert Mercer and his daughter, Rebekah Mercer in an awkward spot – as the financier have financially supported Breitbart, while also supporting President Trump and his GOP causes. Mercer announced in November that he was selling his stake in his company to his daughters – while at the time, making it clear that while he occasionally discusses politics with Bannon, he’s not always aligned with him.

And as Trump Jr. said earlier today – when Bannon has lost Breitbart, “he’s left with … ummm, nothing.”

In September, Bannon appeared on 60 minutes where heb called himself a “street fighter” and “declared war on the GOP” for trying to “nullify the election.” Bannon also said that the Trump administration made the “original sin” of embracing the establishment. “I mean, we totally embraced the establishment … Because ya had to staff a government.”

Bannon also said he was going to be Trump’s “wing man outside for the entire time, to protect [Trump] and to “make sure his enemies know that there’s no free shot on goal.”

Well – it looks like Bannon just took a shot on his own goal, and will be cast into radioactive irrelevancy for time immemorial.

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Iowa

Blexit / WalkAway: Majority of Non-White Voters Plan To Vote Republican in Iowa’s 1st District According to NYT Poll

Published

5 days ago

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June 20, 2026

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In what seems to be a testament against a “blue wave”, according to a NYT poll taken back in September, it shows that 45% of non-white participants, the majority, plan to vote Republican. With 42% voting Democrat are 13% undecided. Non-white people were 7% of those polled entirely.

What also is interesting is it shows 52% white people voting Democrat, with 37% voting Republican, and 11% Undecided. Showing a higher rate of non white people voting for Republicans than white people.

Now overall this poll also showed Abby trouncing Blum, and while we disagree with the polling numbers to that extent because it seems that they may have over sampled Democrats, although we can’t tell because the poll data does not show party affiliation.

No matter how you frame it, it shows the media’s race baiting narrative hasn’t worked in Iowa’s first district as much as they hoped and non white people are a powerful force within the Republican party.

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Media

Bill Maher Brings On Vaccines Skeptic, Gets Railed By Media

Published

5 days ago

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June 20, 2026

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This past Friday Bill Maher brought on a “questionable” guest as his first on his show ‘Real Time’ on HBO. The guest in question —, is a known Vaccine Skeptic. It was quickly noticeable from the crowd reaction, which is usually sporadically either clapping or laughing, often mocked by Bill himself, was very quiet and toned down, most likely thrown off guard. This issue, like many Bill champions on his show, are issues he prides as fringe on both sides of the aisle, the far-left and far-right often being huge skeptic of establishment Scientist and Doctor opinions.

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