Residents snitch on businesses, neighbors amid shutdowns

OAK PARK, Illinois (AP) — One Tulsa bar owner said more than a dozen motorcyclists showed up unannounced, but he served them a round of shots anyway to celebrate a birthday. Another live-streamed a drag queen show on Facebook while up to 20 people drank inside the locked bar, ignoring police when they knocked on the door.

Both were busted — and received misdemeanor citations and court dates — after police responded to tips that the bars were violating the mayor’s order shuttering all nonessential businesses to help slow the spread of the coronavirus.

“There has to be some consequence for violating an executive order,” said Tulsa Police Lt. Richard Meulenberg.

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It turns out plenty of people agree.

Snitches are emerging as enthusiastic allies as cities, states and countries work to enforce directives meant to limit person-to-person contact amid the virus pandemic that has claimed tens of thousands of lives worldwide. They’re phoning police and municipal hotlines, complaining to elected officials and shaming perceived scofflaws on social media.

In hard-hit New York City, police arrested the owner of an illegal Brooklyn speakeasy where a dozen people were found drinking and gambling after someone called 311 with a tip.

In Chicago, a yoga studio that believed it qualified as an essential health and wellness service was closed after the city — tipped off by several residents — disagreed. Teacher Naveed Abidi of Bikram Yoga West Loop studio said he thought the studio could remain open if the space was sanitized, class size limited and students stayed far enough apart.

“If we were naughty with the government’s order, then we’re very, very sorry” said Abidi, who faces a fine of up to $10,000. “We’re not here to cause problems, we’re here to practice our poses.”

For most people, the new virus causes only mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia.

But the virus is spreading rapidly and starting to max out the health care system in several cities.

Naugatuck, Connecticut, resident Gwen Becker said she was “mortified” when she drove by a golf course and saw a crowd gathered around a food truck and eating at tables together. So she took a video that her friend posted on Facebook — prompting the mayor to shut down the course.

“I was angry and upset, and I threw some f-bombs,” said Becker, 54. “You’re not going to consider that what you’re doing could kill somebody?”

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In some places, investigators are patrolling the streets, looking for violators

A team enforcing Denver’s shelter-in-place order issued five citations — including to Hobby Lobby and a Game Stop franchise that claimed it was essential — and more than 600 warnings to businesses and individuals as of Tuesday, city spokesman Alton Dillard said. The team also patrols neighborhoods, parks and recreation areas.

In Newark, New Jersey, police shut down 15 businesses in one night and cited 161 people for violating the governor’s restrictions, saying others would be next if they didn’t heed directives. And Maryland State Police said they’d conducted nearly 6,600 business and crowd compliance checks.

Chicago police even disbanded a funeral Sunday after seeing a group of up to 60 people, many elderly, congregating inside a church, police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said.

In some cases, residents are turning on neighbors.

Police in Spain — sometimes aided by videos and photos posted online by zealous residents, or “balcony police” — have arrested nearly 2,000 people and fined over 230,000 for violating quarantine orders.

In one viral video, the person recording it is heard criticizing a woman who decides to go for a jog and resists police orders to produce her ID card. Another shows a family of four heading to a supermarket carrying a scooter for one of their children while half a dozen neighbors yell at them from the window.

And in New Zealand, a police website set up for the public to report violators crashed after too many people tried to access it at once. Among the complaints were people playing rugby and Frisbee and holding impromptu “corona” parties, The Guardian reported.

Back in Tulsa, Lt. Meulenberg said the department’s call volume has increased substantially with residents ratting out businesses and neighbors alike, though they can’t respond to all of them.

“The fact that we have to do this at all means some people are not interested in self-preservation” or protecting others, Meulenberg said. “We’re not immunologists. We’re not scientists. We’re cops. We’re just trying to do our part.”

___

Associated Press reporters Jim Anderson in Denver and Aritz Parra in Madrid contributed to this report.

After attacking Trump's coronavirus-related China travel ban as xenophobic, Dems and media have changed tune

Within hours of President Trump's decision to restrict travel from China on Jan. 31, top Democrats and media figures immediately derided the move as unnecessary and xenophobic -- and they are now beating a hasty retreat from that position as the coronavirus continues to ravage the economy and cause scores of deaths.
Democratic presidential contender Joe Biden led the way, quickly attacking what he called Trump's "record of hysteria, xenophobia and fear-mongering" after the travel restrictions were announced, and arguing that Trump "is the worst possible person to lead our country through a global health emergency." Biden, on Wednesday, didn't criticize the travel ban in any way, and instead accused Trump of "downplaying" the virus early on in remarks to Fox News.
"I had Biden calling me xenophobic," Trump told Fox News' "Hannity" on March 26. "He called me a racist, because of the fact that he felt it was a racist thing to stop people from China coming in."
In March, another Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., conspicuously insisted at a Fox News town hall that he wouldn't consider closing the U.S. border to prevent the spread of coronavirus, before condemning what he called the president's xenophobia. The Vermont senator has since taken to promoting "Medicare-for-All" and workers' rights amid the outbreak, while deferring to health experts on border closings.
For many news outlets, the about-face has been stark. A Jan. 31 article in The New York Times quoted epidemiologist Dr. Michael Osterholm as saying that Trump's decision to restrict travel from China was "more of an emotional or political reaction."
Weeks later, though, the paper reported that dozens of "nations across the world have imposed travel restrictions to curb the spread of the coronavirus," and did not criticize any of them for the move.
The Washington Post ran a story quoting a Chinese official asking for "empathy" and slamming the White House for acting "in disregard of WHO [World Health Organization] recommendation against travel restrictions."
In March, The Post finally acknowledged that critics accused China and WHO of "covering up or downplaying the severity of an infectious disease outbreak."
A week earlier, Vox confidently declared that "The evidence on travel bans for diseases like coronavirus is clear: They don’t work." The article originally referred to the "Wuhan coronavirus" in its headline, before left-wing journalists and Democrats argued that terminology was racist.
Vox also tweeted on Jan. 31: "Is this going to be a deadly pandemic? No." On Mar. 24, Vox deleted that tweet, writing that it "no longer reflects the current reality of the coronavirus story."
The Heritage Foundation's Lyndsey Fifield identified numerous other instances of prominent media outlets criticizing the travel ban, in many cases without issuing any kind of correction. For example, The Verge cautioned that Trump's policies "contradict advice from the World Health Organization (WHO), which said yesterday that countries should not restrict travel or trade in their response to the new virus."
BuzzFeed News asserted that "barring foreign travelers from China, along with making U.S. citizens self-quarantine at home ... likely violated civil rights laws, without leading to any real lowered risk of a U.S. outbreak," citing "global health law expert" Lawrence Gostin of Georgetown University.
STAT, a health and medicine news site, reported that the travel ban was similar to calls from "conservative lawmakers and far-right supporters of the president," even as "public health experts ... warn that the move could do more harm than good."

A body wrapped in plastic is loaded onto a refrigerated container truck used as a temporary morgue by medical workers wearing personal protective equipment due to COVID-19 concerns, Tuesday, March 31, 2020, at Brooklyn Hospital Center in the Brooklyn borough of New York. The new coronavirus causes mild or moderate symptoms for most people, but for some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness or death. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

On Jan. 15, when the first American with coronavirus returned from China, House Democrats were ceremoniously carrying their articles of impeachment against Trump to the Senate. (The president was acquitted overwhelmingly on each article of impeachment.)
Nevertheless, this week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., accused Trump of endangering lives by wasting time. “As the president fiddles, people are dying,” Pelosi told CNN's Jake Tapper.
“The president, his denial at the beginning, was deadly," she claimed.
Media outlets and Democrats have also retreated from their previous talking points that Trump was recklessly proposing an antimalaria drug as a possible coronavirus treatment. The FDA has since approved the drug on an emergency basis for coronavirus treatment.
In recent days, the Biden team and other Democrats have moved on to other lines of attack, including claiming that Trump once referred to the coronavirus as a "hoax." That claim has been refuted by numerous fact-checkers, including The Post's, which found that Trump was clearly referring to Democrats' efforts to blame him for the pandemic, not the virus itself.
MORE HYPOCRISY? DEMS, MEDIA ONCE CLAIMED FBI FISA PROCESS WAS ROBUST
Additionally, numerous Democrats, including Biden, have falsely claimed that the president cut the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) budget. The Associated Press has noted that those claims "distort" the facts, largely because Congress blocked planned cuts.
Fox News has reported that the Obama administration also sought hundreds of millions of dollars in funding cuts to the CDC.
"Many in the scientific community beclowned themselves because their hatred for Trump blinded them -- and does to this day," Fifield said.
Meanwhile, even some prominent left-wing Democrats have come to the president's defense.
"This is not time to bicker," California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom said Wednesday on CNN. “Let me just be candid with you. I’d be lying to you to say that [Trump] hasn’t been responsive to our needs. He has. And so, as a sort of an offer of objectivity, I have to acknowledge that publicly."
OBAMA ADMIN SOUGHT HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS IN CDC BUDGET CUTS
Newsom added: "The fact is, every time that I've called the president, he's quickly gotten on the line. When we asked to get the support for that [USNS] Mercy ship in Southern California, he was able to direct that in real-time. We've got 2,000 of these field medical sites that are up, almost all operational now in the state, because of his support. Those are the facts."

Pelosi pushes 'SALT shakeup' stimulus that could reduce her tax bill and enrich her wealthy district

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is pushing for a new stimulus bill that would roll back the state and local tax deduction (SALT), a proposal that would predominately help wealthy individuals -- including most residents in Pelosi's district and perhaps even Pelosi herself.
A 2019 report from the Joint Committee on Taxation projected that of those who would face lower tax liability from the elimination of the SALT cap – which only affects those who itemize tax deductions – 94 percent earn at least $100,000. The government would lose out on $77.4 billion in tax dollars, with more than half of that amount being saved by taxpayers earning $1 million or more. Those earning more than $200,000 would reap most of the balance.
California's 12th congressional district, which Pelosi represents, is among the wealthiest in the U.S., with a median income of $113,919, according to census data. The average household income is $168,456 -- meaning most residents would benefit from any significant cut to SALT.
Pelosi and her husband have a property tax liability of approximately $198,337.62 considering their two homes, a winery and two commercial properties, public records show, indicating that the couple could reap benefits on roughly $188,000 given a full SALT repeal.
Pelosi's 2020 property taxes in Washington, D.C. totaled $13,997.20 given her Georgetown condo and garage, valued at $1,646,730. Her San Francisco property taxes totaled $51,480.02, plus $47,631.98 from her Napa winery, $64,874.66 from a San Francisco commercial property, and  $20,353.76 for another building.
Just days after taking heat for successfully demanding $25 million in stimulus funds for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., Pelosi specifically declared this week that it might be wise to “retroactively undo SALT,” which was enacted as part of the 2017 tax cuts and prevents households from deducting more than $10,000 per year of their state and local tax expenditures from federal tax bills.
A Pelosi spokesperson said that a SALT drawdown would be “tailored to focus on middle-class earners and include limitations on the higher end.”
However, it was unclear exactly what the limitations would be in the proposed SALT shakeup. House Democrats voted last year to mostly repeal the SALT cap, and haven't hidden their desires to try again should control of the Senate change in November.

Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, and House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., on Capitol Hill introducing the House tax bill this fall. (AP)

The cap has been particularly unpopular in high-tax blue states. New York, New Jersey, Maryland and Connecticut have even sued to repeal the SALT cap; that lawsuit was dismissed by a federal judge, and the states are appealing. The SALT cap is set to expire in 2025.
Roughly 13 million households nationally would benefit from slashing SALT, with the vast majority of them earning six-figure incomes and located in New York and California, The New York Times reported this week. Even a limited SALT reduction would predominately benefit wealthier Americans.
Pelosi's idea comes as House and Senate Republicans have sought to claw back the $25 million that the previous stimulus bill allocated to the Kennedy Center. President Trump called the payout a necessary compromise to win over Democratic support for the coronavirus relief package, but a chorus of lawmakers have called the spending irresponsible given the newly announced layoffs at the opera house.
Rep. Bryan Steil, R-Wisconsin – who on Tuesday introduced the bill to retract the funding, along with numerous cosponsors, including Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La. – said the bailout was always a "mistake," layoffs or not.

"If we determine that another measure is necessary, it should not be the vehicle for Speaker Pelosi’s partisan, parochial wish list."
— Sen. Patrick J. Toomey, R-Penn.

“Families and workers are struggling to pay rent, pay their mortgage and buy groceries," Steil said in a statement. "Americans need relief and assistance now, which is why I supported the CARES Act. However, some in Washington felt it was important to spend $25 million of taxpayer dollars on the Kennedy Center when there are obviously bigger needs right now. This is frivolous spending in the midst of a national emergency."
“The ink is hardly dry on a $2 trillion-plus emergency package,” Sen. Patrick J. Toomey, R-Penn., told the Times. “It’s far too soon to know whether and of what nature additional legislation is needed. If we determine that another measure is necessary, it should not be the vehicle for Speaker Pelosi’s partisan, parochial wish list.”
GOP SEEKS TO CLAW BACK $25M ALLOCATED TO KENNEDY CENTER, AS OPERA HOUSE ANNOUNCES LAYOFFS
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, has echoed that complaint.
"This is a nonstarter. Millionaires don’t need a new tax break as the federal government spends trillions of dollars to fight a pandemic," a spokesperson for Grassley said.
"Mrs. Pelosi’s remarks underscore the potential for further political mischief and long-term damage as the government intervenes to stimulate the economy," The Wall Street Journal editorial board wrote Tuesday. "When Democrats next complain that Republicans want to cut taxes 'for the rich,' remember that Mrs. Pelosi wants to cut them too—but mainly for the progressive rich in Democratic states."
Fox Business Network's Brittany De Lea, and Fox News' Jason Donner and Ronn Blitzer, contributed to this report.

Cartoons Townhall 2020

Trump salutes staff at Queens, NY, hospital near where he grew up: ‘You people are just incredible’

President Trump took time during Tuesday’s coronavirus news briefing at the White House to acknowledge the job being done by the medical staff at Elmhurst Hospital in Queens, N.Y.
The hospital, located not far from the neighborhood where Trump grew up, has been among those overwhelmed as New York City and New York state handle the greatest number of coronavirus patients in the nation.
“I watched the doctors and nurses walking into the hospital this morning and it is like military people going into battle, going into war. The bravery is incredible,” Trump told reporters. “If I were wearing a hat, I'd rip that hat off so fast and I would say, 'You people are just incredible.’”
The president also expressed shock and sadness about seeing images of bodies being loaded into refrigerated trailers outside the hospital.
Trump previously addressed the images in remarks to reporters Sunday.
“I’ve been watching that for the last week on television,” he said, according to WPIX-TV of New York. ”Body bags all over, in hallways. I’ve been watching them bring in trailer trucks — freezer trucks, they’re freezer trucks, because they can’t handle the bodies, there are so many of them.
"This is essentially in my community, in Queens -- Queens, New York,” he added. “I’ve seen things that I’ve never seen before.
On Tuesday, New York City reported its 1,000th coronavirus death, accounting for about two-thirds of the more than 1,500 deaths in New York state. That tally far surpasses the next highest U.S. total, the 267 deaths in nearby New Jersey.
Those states and the rest of the nation were bracing for higher death tolls in the coming weeks, with members of the president’s Coronavirus Task Force projecting the final U.S. total could range between 100,000 and 240,000 fatalities.
Fox News' Andrew O'Reilly and The Associated Press contributed to this story.

DOJ's FISA report contradicts claims by Dems, media figures that surveillance rules were strictly observed

New findings by the Justice Department inspector general that the FBI has repeatedly violated surveillance rules stood in stark contrast to the years of assurances from top Democrats and media commentators that bureau scrupulously handled Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants -- and prompted Republican lawmakers to caution that the FBI seemingly believes it has "carte blanche to routinely erode the liberties of Americans without proper justification."
The DOJ watchdog identified critical errors in every FBI wiretap application that it audited as part of the fallout from the bureau's heavily flawed investigation into former Trump advisor Carter Page, who was surveilled in part because of a largely discredited dossier funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC). An FBI lawyer in that case even falsified a CIA email submitted to the FISA court in order to make Page's communications with Russians appear nefarious, the DOJ inspector general found; and the DOJ has concluded that the Page warrant was legally improper.
But, the DOJ's new assessment indicated that FISA problems were systemic at the bureau and extended beyond the Page probe. In four of the 29 cases the DOJ inspector general reviewed, the FBI did not have any so-called "Woods files" at all, referring to documentation demonstrating that it had independently corroborated key facts in its surveillance warrant applications. In three of those applications, the FBI couldn't confirm that Woods documentation ever existed.
The other 25 applications contained an average of 20 assertions not properly supported with Woods materials; one application contained 65 unsupported claims. The review encompassed the work of eight field offices over the past five years in several cases.
“As a result of our audit work to date and as described below, we do not have confidence that the FBI has executed its Woods procedures in compliance with FBI policy,” the DOJ IG wrote in a memo today to FBI Director Christopher Wray.
FISA COURT SLAMS FBI ... BUT LEAVES OUT LITTLE-KNOWN AGENT JOE PIENTKA, NOW SCRUBBED FROM FBI WEBSITE
Reaction on Capitol Hill, where Wray has already promised bureau-wide reforms, was scathing.

DOJ inspector general Michael Horowitz

“If the FBI is going to seek secret authority to infringe the civil liberties of an American citizen, they at least need to show their work," Senate Finance Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, said in a statement Tuesday. "FBI rules demand FISA applications be ‘scrupulously accurate’ and backed up by supporting documents to prove their accuracy. But we know that wasn’t the case when the FBI sought and received the authority to spy on Carter Page."
Grassley added: "Based on the inspector general’s audit, the flawed Page case appears to be the tip of the iceberg. Not a single application from the past five years reviewed by the inspector general was up to snuff. That’s alarming and unacceptable. The inspector general’s decision to bring these failures to the director’s attention before its audit is even completed underscores the seriousness of these findings."
"It Ain’t Easy Getting a FISA Warrant: I Was an FBI Agent and Should Know," read a 2017 article from former FBI special agent and CNN analyst Asha Rangappa, who spent most of her career as a university admissions administrator. It is unclear whether Rangappa has ever handled a FISA application.
In the piece, Rangappa credulously asserted that FISA applications, after a preliminary exhaustive review, travel "to the Justice Department where attorneys from the National Security Division comb through the application to verify all the assertions made in it. Known as 'Woods procedures' after Michael J. Woods, the FBI Special Agent attorney who developed this layer of approval, DOJ verifies the accuracy of every fact stated in the application."
FISA COURT BLOCKS FBI AGENTS LINKED TO PAGE PROBE FROM SEEKING WIRETAPS;
Rangappa, who repeated the same message on-air multiple times, was not alone in the media in propping up the FISA process. A comprehensive review by The Washington Post's Erik Wemple underscored how Politico national security reporter Natasha Bertrand launched her career in part through ultimately debunked reporting on the Steele dossier.
Bertrand, who told MSNBC that securing a FISA warrant was "extremely difficult," even claimed at one point that DOJ investigators found the dossier's author, Christopher Steele, credible.
“The interview was contentious at first, the sources added, but investigators ultimately found Steele’s testimony credible and even surprising," Bertrand wrote. "The takeaway has irked some U.S. officials interviewed as part of the probe — they argue that it shouldn’t have taken a foreign national to convince the inspector general that the FBI acted properly in 2016.”
As Wemple noted, however, DOJ inspector general Michael Horowitz found numerous problems with the FBI's reliance on Steele, including its failure to alert the FISA court to a series of apparent problems with his credibility.
STRZOK'S WIFE FOUND EVIDENCE OF HIS AFFAIR WITH LISA PAGE ... AND 'PARANOID' NEW YORK AGENT FOUND STRZOK WAS APPARENTLY SLOW-WALKING WEINER LAPTOP REVIEW
Nevertheless, for several years, Democrats and other analysts at The New York Times, The Washington Post and CNN have repeatedly claimed that key claims in the Clinton-funded anti-Trump dossier had been corroborated and that the document was not critical to the FBI's warrant to surveil Page. Horowitz repudiated that claim, with the FBI's legal counsel even describing the warrant to surveil Page as "essentially a single source FISA" wholly dependent on the dossier.
Among the unsubstantiated claims in the dossier: that ex-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen traveled to Prague to conspire with Russian hackers; that the Trump campaign was paying hackers working out of a nonexistent Russian consulate in Miami; that a lurid blackmail tape of Trump existed and might be in Russian possession; and that Page was bribed with a 19 percent share in a Russian company.
In 2018, Vox published a piece by Zack Beauchamp titled, "The Democratic rebuttal to the Nunes memo tears it apart." That was a reference to the memo authored by Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and his intelligence panel, in rebuttal to Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., and his concerns that the FISA process was heavily flawed.
"Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff brought receipts," the article declared confidently. “This is a pretty thorough demolition,” Julian Sanchez, a supposed expert on surveillance at the libertarian Cato Institute, wrote on Twitter.
"The key question in an application like this isn’t whether the source liked the target; it’s whether the specific claims they’re making are credible," Beauchamp writes. "And the Schiff memo points out that the FBI had independent reasons to believe that Steele’s arguments were credible."
FISC SLAMS FBI, SAYS 'FREQUENCY' OF ERRORS AND INACCURACIES CALLS INTO QUESTION PREVIOUS FISA WARRANT APPLICATIONS
Among those reasons, Beauchamp claimed, was that "Page had been on the bureau’s radar for some time — as he had been approached by Russian spies in the past as a potential intelligence asset. According to Schiff, the October FISA application laid out Page’s connections to the Kremlin 'in detail.' For instance, while Page was working for Trump, in July 2016, he traveled to Moscow to give a commencement speech at a Russian university, which certainly would have raised some red flags at the bureau."
Since the Vox article was published, the DOJ inspector general found that ex-FBI attorney Kevin Clinesmith doctored a CIA email to help secure the Page warrant. Specifically, the FBI reached out to the CIA and other intelligence agencies for information on Page; the CIA responded in an email by telling the FBI that Page had contacts with Russians from 2008 to 2013, but that Page had voluntarily reported the contacts to the CIA and was serving as a CIA operational contact and informant on Russian business and intelligence interests.

Former Trump adviser Carter Page. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Clinesmith then doctored the CIA's email about Page to make it seem as though the agency had said only that Page was not an active source, according to Horowitz. Then, the FBI included Page's contacts with Russians in the warrant application as evidence he was a foreign "agent," without disclosing to the secret surveillance court that Page was voluntarily working with the CIA concerning those foreign contacts.
In his Vox article, Beauchamp also excuses the FBI for not fully disclosing its knowledge of Steele's apparent bias and the factual problems with his dossier because the bureau noted in a footnote to its Page FISA thaht “the FBI speculates” that Steele had been hired to find “information that could be used to discredit Candidate #1’s [Trump’s] campaign.”
That disclosure was insignificant and incomplete, Nunes alleged -- and contrary to Schiff and Beaucahmp's claims, Horowitz ultimately supported Nunes' findings.
FORMER FBI LAWYER LISA PAGE SUES FBI AND DOJ, SAYS SHE NEEDS 'COST OF THERAPY' REIMBURSED AFTER TRUMP MOCKED HER BIAS
Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham's criminal probe concerning the FBI's Russia probe remains ongoing. It has emerged since former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn's guilty plea that the FBI officials who interviewed Flynn, anti-Trump agent Peter Strzok and "SSA [Supervisory Special Agent] 1," have each separately been implicated by Horowitz in apparent misconduct and mismanagement in both the Flynn case and the Carter Page matter.
Strzok's misconduct and anti-Trump bias are well-documented. The identity of SSA 1 is protected in the Flynn legal proceedings by a court order, but Fox News has identified the agent as Joe Pietnka, who moved last year from the Washington, D.C., area to San Francisco. Pientka briefly appeared on the FBI's website as an "Assistant Special Agent in Charge" of the San Francisco field office late last year, according to the Internet archive Wayback Machine.
However, Pientka no longer appears on any FBI website after being removed shortly after Fox News identified him as the unnamed SSA in the IG report; Fox News is told Pientka received a promotion to a senior role in the bureau's San Francisco field office. Pientka's extensive role in handling the Page FISA has been outlined in Horowitz's report, and top Republican senators, including Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., have requested that Pientka sit for an interview to explain himself.
"The media for FOUR FU--ING YEARS propped up expert after expert to tell us that FISA warrants are different!" independent journalist Mike Cernovich wrote on Twitter on Tuesday. "If you want to know why people don't trust experts anymore, here is your latest reason."

Stock futures fall on continuing worries about economic fallout

U.S. equity futures are starting the quarter as they ended the last one, with declines.
Traders are concerned about the economic fallout from the coronavirus, plus the White House projects 100,000 to 240,000 deaths.
The major futures indexes are indicating a decline of 3 percent, or about 600 Dow points
Stocks plunged on Tuesday, to close out their worst quarter since the most harrowing days of the 2008 financial crisis.

The S&P 500 dropped a final 1.6 percent, bringing its loss for the first three months of the year to 20 percent as predictions for the looming recession caused by the coronavirus outbreak got even more dire. Stocks haven’t had this bad a quarter since the last time economists were talking about the worst downturn since the Great Depression, when the S&P 500 lost 22.6 percent at the end of 2008.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average of 30 U.S. blue-chip stocks dropped 23.2 percent for its worst quarter since 1987.
The surge of coronavirus cases around the world has sent markets to breathtaking drops since mid-February, undercutting what had been a good start to the year.
In Europe, London's FTSE fell 3.9 percent, Germany's DAX was down 3.7 percent and France's CAC dropped 4.4 percent.
In Asia on Wednesday, Japan's Nikkei dropped 4.5 percent, Hong Kong's Hang Seng lost 2.5 percent and the Shanghai Composite was off 0.6 percent.
Adding to the damage was the Bank of Japan's quarterly survey of business sentiment called “tankan,” which highlighted the gloom over a likely recession. The world's third largest economy had already been lagging for months when the outbreak began taking its toll earlier this year.
Sentiment among Japan's large manufacturers fell in the January-March period, marking the fifth straight quarter of decline, according to the central bank. The tankan measures corporate sentiment by subtracting the number of companies saying business conditions are negative from those responding they are positive.
The key index, which measures sentiment among large manufacturers, fell to minus 8 from zero in October-December, the worst result in seven years. Sentiment among non-manufacturers was also dismal as the service sector, tourism and other businesses have also been hit hard by the outbreak.
The Fed has promised to buy as many Treasurys as it takes to get lending markets working smoothly after trading got snarled in markets that help companies borrow short-term cash to make payroll, homebuyers get mortgages and local governments to build infrastructure. Congress, meanwhile, approved a $2.2 trillion rescue plan for the economy, and leaders are already discussing the possibility of another round of aid.
It's impossible to know when infections will peak and the markets will reach bottom.
Among the next milestones for investors is Friday's U.S. jobs report, which will likely show a sharp drop in payrolls. Companies soon will begin reporting their earnings results for the first quarter. Analysts are looking for the steepest drop in profits since early 2016, according to FactSet.
Goldman Sachs economists said Tuesday they expect the U.S. economy to shrink 34 percent in the second quarter, but recover in the second-half of the year.

Ticker	Security	Last	Change	Change %
I:DJI	DOW JONES AVERAGES	21917.16	-410.32	-1.84%
SP500	S&P 500	2584.59	-42.06	-1.60%
I:COMP	NASDAQ COMPOSITE INDEX	7700.09798	-74.05	-0.95%

In Tuesday's session, the S&P 500 fell 42.06 points to 2,584.59. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 410.32, or 1.8 percent, to 21,917.16, and the Nasdaq was off 74.05, or 1 percent, to 7,700.10.
The number of known coronavirus cases keeps rising, and the worldwide tally has topped 850,000, according to Johns Hopkins University. The United States has the highest number in the world: more than 188,000 people.
Most people who contract COVID-19 have mild or moderate symptoms, which can include fever and cough. But others, especially older adults and people with existing health problems may get pneumonia and need to be hospitalized. More than 42,000 people have died worldwide due to COVID-19, while more than 178,000 have recovered.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.

Coronavirus deaths top 4,000 in US

The number of coronavirus related deaths topped 4,000 in the U.S. on Tuesday night, just one day after reaching the 3,000 mark.
The U.S. has now surpassed China by over 700 COVID-19 fatalities -- as the White House coronavirus task force said it projects 100,000 to 240,000 deaths from the virus and millions infected in the country.
Without any measures in place to mitigate the contagion's spread, those projections jump to between 1.5 million and 2.2 million deaths from COVID-19.

A Samaritan's Purse crew and medical personnel work on preparing to open a 68 bed emergency field hospital specially equipped with a respiratory unit in New York's Central Park on March 31 in New York.  (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

“This is going to be a rough two week period,” President Trump said in a press conference on Tuesday. “As a nation we’re going to have a really rough two weeks. Our strength will be tested and our endurance will be tried.”
China -- where the outbreak started -- has reported 3,310 virus-related deaths, while over 4,070 have been killed in the U.S.
Deaths surged by roughly 700 on Tuesday as infections are nearing 190,000 in the U.S. Wyoming is the only state in the country without a fatality from the virus after Hawaii announced a senior citizen with multiple medical issues had died from the pandemic, according to Hawaii News Now.
New York -- the epicenter for the virus outbreak in the U.S. -- has over 76,000 infections and more than 1,700 fatalities as of early Wednesday. Over 43,000 of the state's infections and more than half of its deaths have occurred in New York City.
In the U.S., 11 states have over 4,000 coronavirus infections -- as Michigan, Illinois, Louisiana and Massachusetts have started to become emerging hotspots for the virus. Michigan now has 7,615 cases after 1,117 infections and 75 deaths were recorded in a single day. Over 259 people in the state have died from the virus.
Illinois -- which has seen nearly 6,000 infections -- sent out an emergency alert to residents in the state on Tuesday requesting the need for additional licensed healthcare workers.
"In the COVID-19 event, Illinois is looking for medically trained individuals to join the fight," according to the website where health professionals are directed to sign up. "Individuals that register here may be potentially contacted to work in a hospital surge or alternative housing setting."
Following Mardi Gras celebrations, cases in Louisiana increased by 1,212 on Tuesday, bringing the state's total to 5,237. It was a 30 percent increase from Monday.
"Because of the sheer volume of cases, we will be sharing the updated number of clusters every day at noon," the Louisiana Department of Health said. "The Department continues to work with facilities to minimize the spread of the illness and protect residents and staff."
In Massachusetts, Gov. Charlie Baker announced that non-essential businesses must stay closed, with residents advised to stay home until at least May 4. On Tuesday, 33 new fatalities were reported, making it the deadliest day of the outbreak so far in the state. The number of cases increased by 868 to 6,620.
Worldwide, Italy and Spain remain hotspots for the virus in Europe. Italy has over 105,000 infections and 12,400 deaths -- although the country saw the lowest daily case increase in two weeks on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Spain suffered its deadliest day during the coronavirus pandemic on Tuesday, as 849 were confirmed to have been killed by the virus. As of Wednesday morning, the country has over 95,000 infections and 8,464 coronavirus related deaths.
COVID-19 fatalities in France surpassed China on Tuesday. The European country now has over 52,000 infections and 3,532 deaths from the virus, according to data from Johns Hopkins.