The man accused of killing five people at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado was arrested last year on charges of threatening violence, but a judge dismissed that case because the alleged victims declined to cooperate, a prosecutor said on Thursday.

El Paso County District Attorney Michael Allen provided details on the 2021 prosecution of Anderson Lee Aldrich after a judge ordered court files from last year’s case unsealed at the request of Allen, the local sheriff and several news outlets.

Allen said he wanted to counter what he called a “false narrative” about the 2021 case suggesting the authorities did not pursue it or missed an opportunity to prevent the deadly shooting nearly three weeks ago.

Aldrich, 22, is being held without bail on more than 300 counts including murder, attempted murder, hate crimes and assault stemming from the Nov. 19 rampage at Club Q in Colorado Springs, which killed five and wounded 22.

The El Paso County Sheriff’s Office said Aldrich had been arrested in June 2021 over allegations he threatened to detonate a bomb and harm a family member.

Questions about the outcome of that arrest went unanswered under a Colorado law barring authorities from discussing a case in which charges are dismissed or never formally brought.

At Thursday’s news conference, Allen said that after initially giving statements implicating Aldrich in the 2021 case, his mother and grandparents testified on his for a bail reduction.

After victims declined to testify, the judge threw out the case, Allen said.

Attempts by Reuters to reach Aldrich’s mother and grandparents for comment were not immediately successful.

Allen said deputies seized a handgun and a rifle from Aldrich in the 2021 case, and those weapons were still in police custody when the nightclub massacre occurred. A different rifle and handgun were recovered from the Club Q shooting.

Aldrich is due back in court in February for a scheduled three-day preliminary hearing.

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With the former guy’s legal troubles mounting, right-wingers are mounting their ridiculous attacks on just about everything, since it’s getting harder to objectively play defense for Donald Trump. They’ve been desperately trying to accuse just about every Democrat of taking classified documents, or being complicit in the Hunter Biden nothingburger.

The problem is that not many people can make sense of the laptop scandal and Hunter is a private citizen anyway. It’s also a bit difficult to keep unearthing new details about a scandal that’s entirely manufactured by right wing pundits.

We’re beginning to understand why Republicans are focusing on this, however – as they continue to lose winnable elections. It turns out that Donald Trump was hiding more classified docs in a storage unit near his home in Mar a Lago – materials which were promptly turned over to the FBI.

It’s going to be harder and harder to claim that these were planted if it takes months for some of the documents to be discovered, all while intelligence agencies are still determining what was taken by the former guy – docs that he probably could’ve declassified on the morning of Jan 20, 2021 if they really weren’t that big of a deal.

The post This just keeps getting uglier for Donald Trump appeared first on Palmer Report.

Former president Donald Trump often said he was “the best thing to ever happen” to the Washington Post and other mainstream news outlets.

He was right.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the Jeff Bezos-owned publication has lost 500,000 subscribers since Trump left office in January 2021, which amounts to a decline of roughly 20 percent. The Post is on track to lose money in 2022 after years of profitability. The New York Times reported in August that the Post‘s business has “stalled” since President Joe Biden was sworn in, and layoffs are being discussed amid management’s frustration with “numerous low performers in the newsroom.”

Trump called it as early as December 2017, when he predicted that “newspapers, television, all forms of media will tank if I’m not there because without me, their ratings are going down the tubes.” The Post is hardly the only media outlet suffering in the post-Trump era. BuzzFeed, Gannett, and CNN announced significant layoffs this month in an effort to cut costs.

The bottom line: Media outlets (and the anti-Trump grifters at the Lincoln Project) stand to financially benefit if Trump wins the Republican presidential nomination in 2024. Assess their coverage of the GOP primary with this in mind.

The post Report: Washington Post Lost Half a Million Subscribers Since Biden Took Office appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas indicated the Palestinian Authority may turn to terrorism, saying “armed resistance” against Israel could commence any day.

“I do not endorse armed resistance at the moment, but I may change my mind later,” President Mahmoud Abbas said in a recent Arabic-language interview translated into English on the Elder of Ziyon website, a blog that tracks Israeli-Palestinian issues. “I do not adopt military resistance at this time, but it is possible that I change my mind tomorrow or after tomorrow, or any time.”

Abbas’s comments come at a troubling time for his Palestinian Authority governing body, which is the weakest it has been in decades. The Iran-backed Hamas terror group, which controls the Gaza Strip, has been challenging Abbas’s power, and several armed faction groups have also joined the fray in recent months. The challenge to Abbas’s rule threatens to topple a fragile security framework with Israel that has been vital to stopping terror attacks on the Jewish state. Abbas’s most recent remarks are likely to inflame an already dangerous situation, according to Middle East observers.

“The assessment right now is that we have not seen this much unrest in the West Bank in pretty much 15 years,” Jonathan Schanzer, a former terrorism finance analyst at the Treasury Department who now works on Middle East issues at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank, told the Washington Free Beacon.

Abbas “would be unwise to unleash additional chaos in the West Bank,” Schanzer said. “If things escalate too far, it is highly likely he will be among the most prominent casualties.”

A return to terrorism would also shatter any hopes the Biden administration has of reigniting a long-stalled peace process between Israel and the Palestinians.

Abbas during the interview blamed Israel for any potential change in policy, saying the Jewish state’s efforts to thwart terrorism are overly aggressive.

“If Israel continues with its actions, I will cancel the security agreement with it. Why continue?” Abbas asked. “Why am I committed to security coordination? And we can breathe without security coordination. Before that, we were breathing, and our people were fighting the occupation.”

The Palestinian Authority is losing power across the West Bank, its onetime stronghold. Israeli forces assess that the PA has already lost control of two key cities—Jenin and Nablus.

Small faction groups are also rising up to challenge Abbas’s rule in the West Bank.

In Nablus, an armed resistance group dubbed the Lion’s Den has been leading attacks on Israeli targets. Al Jazeera in an October report described the group as “changing the face of Palestinian resistance.”

Terrorist groups like the Lion’s Den are not directly affiliated with Hamas or Abbas’s Fatah party, but they appear to get support from both.

This has posed significant challenges for Israel, which must decide whether to enter militant-occupied cities to clear out the terror factions and risk further upsetting Abbas or allow the groups to operate in favor of preserving security agreements with the Palestinian leader.

The shifting landscape has also provided an opening for Iran, which is increasing its support for Hamas in the Gaza Strip and for Hezbollah in Lebanon. Israel has noted a significant uptick in Iranian weapons-smuggling to Hezbollah, which then transfers the arms into the West Bank—an area typically immune from such activities due to Abbas’s strict control on the territory.

Iran’s goal is to weaken Abbas, who is 87 years old. When the Palestinian leader dies, the power vacuum will become even greater, leaving a clear opening for Iran’s assets in Hamas.

To this end, Iran has created so-called nerve centers in Lebanon and in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, according to Schanzer. The goal is to foment unrest and create security flashpoints with Israel, as well as to erode support for Abbas.

While these efforts have garnered few headlines in the West, Israeli security services have become increasingly concerned.

“The situation could potentially go from bad to worse,” said Schanzer. “Israeli officials right now are signaling that the West Bank is the least stable of the security issues that they’re tracking through the transition” to the incoming government run by Benjamin Netanyahu.

The post Palestinian President Threatens Return to Terrorism appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

Not three years ago, Brittney Griner refused to take the floor when the WNBA played the national anthem before tipoff. “I think we should take that much of a stand,” she said at the time, arguing that “basketball doesn’t mean anything in a world where we can’t just live. We can’t wake up and do whatever we want to do.” Such is the plight, she said, of being black in America.

Yet it was in part Griner’s race, as well as her sexual orientation—she is a lesbian—that made her detention by Russia in February a high-profile news story and turned her case into a cause célèbre for activists and journalists, but we repeat ourselves.

It is also why the Biden administration on Thursday struck an ill-advised deal to trade Griner’s freedom for that of Viktor Bout, an arms dealer and weapons smuggler who was convicted in 2011 of conspiring to murder American citizens. Not included in the deal was Russia’s release of Paul Whelan, a white, cisgender, heterosexual former Marine arrested in late 2018 on trumped-up charges. For all of Griner’s complaints about being black in this country, she’s gotten far better treatment than her white counterpart.

Whelan told CNN in a phone interview Thursday from a remote Russian penal colony that “I am greatly disappointed that more has not been done to secure my release, especially as the four-year anniversary of my arrest is coming up. I was arrested for a crime that never occurred.”

Then there are the merits of the deal itself. Griner will be greeted as a hero when she touches down in the United States, but the Russian who will walk free is a dangerous thug who has earned his nickname: “The Merchant of Death.” His release will do grievous harm to American national security—he was convicted for attempting to sell weapons to Colombian terrorists who would have used them to target American troops—and Politico reports that Pentagon officials are already raising the specter that his release will fuel “conflicts across the world.” Griner is no hero.

So how did this happen? The Russians concluded correctly that the Biden administration’s foreign policy is best understood through the lens of “antiracism.” The concept, popularized by Ibram X. Kendi, justifies new discrimination to account for historic discrimination. The decision to exchange a lesbian millionaire of color for a notorious arms trafficker at the expense of a Caucasian cisgendered Marine is consistent with this administration’s values. After all, Biden on his first day in office signed an executive order to advance racial equity throughout the federal government.

The problem with this approach is that it aims to remedy an abstract, historical injustice by perpetrating a tangible injustice in the present. Biden’s approach to negotiations should have been guided by the facts of Griner’s and Whelan’s cases and by the national interest. He was instead guided by identity politics and “antiracism.” Paul Whelan is paying the price.

The post A Shameful Prisoner Swap appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.

Since the start of his presidency, Joe Biden has been wary of prisoner swaps. Whenever the prospect of negotiating the exchange of those held in the US for Americans held overseas was broached, members of his administration would exhibit reluctance, according to a person involved in such discussions. For some of the families of Americans detained abroad, it was a frustrating obstacle.

Then came a breakthrough last February, just as Russia was about to launch a tank blitz toward Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv. Russian officials signaled through intermediaries that they were willing to talk about the release of former U.S. Marine Trevor Reed, who had been arrested in a Moscow hotel in 2018, held on espionage charges, and then fallen seriously ill in Russian detention. Reed’s failing health made getting to a deal even more urgent. Russian officials agreed in April to allow Reed to return home in exchange for the Biden Administration’s release of Konstantin Yaroshenko, a Russian pilot and convicted drug smuggler.

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The exchange for Reed created a new opening in Biden’s approach to hostage negotiations. It marked the beginning of the administration’s acknowledgement that swapping prisoners for Americans wrongfully held in autocratic countries was another tool that could be used in securing their release. While critics of such exchanges say they incentivize the kidnapping of Americans, others involved in such delicate diplomatic efforts argue the evidence on that is thin and that such hardline policies ignore the plight of Americans currently held.

In July, the Biden administration put another offer on the table with Moscow: release of the convicted Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout in exchange for the return of basketball star Brittney Griner and former Marine Paul Whelan. Griner, a basketball star, was arrested at a Moscow airport in February for having cannabis oil in her luggage. She was sentenced to nine years imprisonment after pleading guilty to drug charges, and was recently transferred to a Russian penal colony. Whelan was arrested in a Moscow hotel in December 2018 during a trip to Russia for a friend’s wedding. After what he has called a “sham trial,” he was convicted of espionage in June 2020 and sentenced to 16 years in prison.

For months, Russia rejected the exchange offer. Then, a few weeks ago, a counteroffer arrived. Russia was willing to do a swap for Bout, but only for Griner’s release.

Read more: A Long Line of Cold War Trades Set the Stage for Brittney Griner’s Release

Amid the news of Griner’s release on Thursday, the Biden White House stressed that foreign governments should not assume that swaps will be a common part of negotiations to secure the release of Americans detained overseas.

“Given how extremely rare this is, any inference that somehow this has become the norm would be mistaken—I don’t think governments around the world would be wise to draw that inference.” said a senior administration official on Thursday. “But in the rare case, when there is an imperative to bring Americans home, which is a real priority for the President, sometimes there are no alternatives left,” the official said.

Biden’s use of prisoner swaps does not mark a shift in US policy from the previous administration. In December 2019, the Trump administration secured the release of Princeton graduate student Xiyue Wang, who Iranians had charged with espionage and imprisoned for three years, by releasing an Iranian stem-cell scientist Masoud Soleimani, who had been arrested in 2018 for trying to export research materials without a license. The next year, Iran released American Michael White, a U.S. Navy veteran, in exchange for the release of Majid Taheri, also known as Matteo Taerri, an Iranian-American doctor who had been charged with violating U.S. sanctions. Near the end of his presidency, Donald Trump also approved of the Afghanistan government releasing 5,000 Taliban prisoners as part of his 2020 deal to set a timeline for the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Paul Whelan’s family was told on Wednesday that the US was close to securing Griner’s release, but that Paul would be left behind. The communication was a courtesy the Biden administration didn’t extend to the Whelans before Russia announced the release of Reed in April. Paul Whelan’s twin brother David Whelan said on Thursday in a statement to ABC News that the fact that Paul wasn’t part of the latest deal is “a public disappointment for us” as well as “a catastrophe for Paul.” David Whelan also said, “The Biden Administration made the right decision to bring Ms. Griner home, and to make the deal that was possible, rather than waiting for one that wasn’t going to happen.”

After Griner’s release on Thursday, Paul Whelan spoke to CNN on the phone from the Russian penal colony where he is being held. “I am greatly disappointed that more has not been done to secure my release, especially as the four-year anniversary of my arrest is coming up,” Whelan said, “I was arrested for a crime that never occurred.” Whelan told CNN that in recent weeks he was “led to believe that things were moving in the right direction, and that the governments were negotiating and that something would happen fairly soon.”

White House officials acknowledged that disappointment. “Through every step of the process, we have sought to bring Paul Whelan home and that will not change—that will continue to be our commitment,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Thursday. “Regrettably, due to the nature of the totally illegitimate charges they levied against Paul, the Russians are treating this situation differently.” The senior administration official said that any jubilation felt on Thursday about the release of Griner is “very much tempered” by the awareness of the “unacceptable” circumstances of Whelan’s imprisonment in Russia.

In July, Biden announced new steps to improve how the U.S. handles and prevents Americans from being held overseas. In an executive order, Biden announced more tools to sanction mid-level bureaucrats involved in wrongful detention of Americans overseas, and to do more to warn American travelers about what countries pose a danger of detaining Americans for use as negotiating pawns.

Biden also directed federal agencies to increase the amount of intelligence information they share with families about what the U.S. knows about the health and location of their loved ones and what steps the U.S. is taking to secure their release. Biden’s executive orders were designed to build on the 2020 Robert Levinson Hostage Recovery and Hostage Taking Accountability Act, named after Levinson who disappeared in Iran in 2007.

The State Department has begun flagging countries that show a pattern of wrongful detentions with a “D” in its public travel warnings. That indicator joins the current designation of “K” for countries where Americans are at higher risk of kidnapping.

“Something every American should take from this situation is that no American is safe in places under Russian jurisdiction or influence,” said Senator Jim Risch of Idaho, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. “It must be clear that Paul Whelan should have been part of this deal; he is a Marine who fought for our country, and he is a hero.”

Along with U.S. government officials, former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson and experienced negotiators at the Richardson Center for Global Engagement have been working closely with Griner’s family toward her release, which included many trips to Moscow and the region, as well as meetings with officials at the Russian embassy in Washington, according to a person familiar with the talks. Those talks included conversations to release Paul Whelan, as well as three other Americans including Grady Kurpasi, a retired Marine and Iraq War veteran, who was last seen in April fighting alongside Ukrainians in a volunteer force in southern Ukraine. “Often, the price we pay for bringing our fellow Americans home to their families is unseemly, but it is the right thing to do,” said Richardson in a statement. “We remain very concerned for Paul Whelan and committed to continue to work on his safe return, as we have been for the last four years,” Richardson said.

Mickey Bergman, the vice president and executive director of the Richardson Center, was involved in the talks over Griner’s release and said he doesn’t see the trade a sign of a major shift in the Biden Administration’s willingness to do more swaps. It is “case by case,” Bergman says. “It’s not the first nor last trade.”