Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) want
to know if there was a cover-up in the Biden White House’s cocaine-gate
fiasco last July. This development comes as new allegations have
resurfaced following the resignation of Secret Service Director Kimberly
Cheatle following the Trump assassination attempt on July 13. There are
allegations that Cheatle and other Secret Service officials pushed to
have the cocaine destroyed. When that nudge was not heeded, there were
reported retaliatory measures taken.
It's been reported that when a protectee’s detail finds illicit
materials, they're disposed of. Yet, it was a uniformed officer who
discovered the cocaine, with the initial concern that the powder was
anthrax or some other agent, the officer sounded the alarm, bringing
this circus to the media’s attention. The acting chief of the uniformed
division was passed over for promotion in the wake of this event.
Protocol from the evidence vault supervisor dictates that substances be
preserved for at least several years. The probe into cocaine-gate barely
lasted two weeks, with the agency essentially saying that it was too
burdensome to get to the truth. The FBI didn’t lift fingerprints from
the bag—there weren’t any—but DNA evidence was discovered, and a partial
hit was found. That’s where the trail ends (via RealClearPolitics):
Sen.
Ted Cruz and Rep. Darrell Issa are demanding answers from the Secret
Service about a possible cover-up and a “troubling pattern of
misconduct” surrounding the agency’s handling of cocaine discovered in
the White House last summer.
The two Republican lawmakers, who
serve in key Judiciary Committee roles in the Senate and the House,
cited revelations from a RealClearPolitics article last week that former
Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle and senior agency leaders
sought to destroy the cocaine discovered in the White House last summer.
Despite the push, leaders of the Forensics Services and the Uniformed
Divisions rejected efforts to dispose of the evidence and presumably are
keeping the bag of cocaine in a Secret Service evidence vault.
White
and his supervisor, Glenn Dennis, as well as Richard Macauley,
then-acting chief of the Uniformed Division, resisted pressure from
Cheatle and others to destroy the evidence. Afterward, however, Macauley
was passed over for the permanent position of Uniformed Division chief
despite receiving agency accolades, RCP reported last week. The decision
to bypass Macauley, a black man, raised eyebrows within the agency amid
a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion push that Cheatle championed.
Cheatle
chose a retired Secret Service top official to head the Uniformed
Division instead of Macauley, raising concerns in the agency that
passing over Macauley for the job was an act of retaliation. In 2018,
Macauley was named the Secret Services Uniformed Division Officer of the
Year. He would go on to serve one year, from February 2022 to January
2023, as deputy assistant sergeant at arms at the U.S. House of
Representatives.
[…]
Those two agencies found that it was
cocaine, not anthrax or another biothreat. While the FBI did not pick up
fingerprints on the small bag of cocaine, it found some DNA material,
according to three sources in the Secret Service community. The FBI also
reportedly said the agency ran the DNA material against national
criminal databases and “got a partial hit.”
The term “partial
hit” is vague in this context, but in forensics lingo usually means that
law enforcement found DNA matching a blood relative of a finite pool of
people.
[…]
The two Republicans also asked Rowe and White
to walk them through the “chain of custody” of the cocaine after it was
discovered and to define what a “partial DNA hit” means in layman’s
terms.
“Explain when the term is used and what it signifies,
especially in comparison to a full DNA hit,” their letter says. “Did it
reveal family members of the person who was in contact with the
cocaine?”
The pair also questioned whether a Uniformed Division
officer initially assigned to investigate the cocaine incident was
removed from the job because he wanted to follow the normal
investigative protocols, which led to disagreements with his
supervisors, including Cheatle and Rowe.
[…]
Other questions Cruz and Issa asked include:
What
actions were taken to follow up on the DNA evidence found on the
cocaine packaging? Were these actions consistent with standard
investigative practices?
Have any Secret Service employees
reported concerns or misconduct related to this investigation? If so,
what were these concerns and how were they addressed?
What
measures are being implemented to prevent similar issues in the future?
Detail any changes to procedures or policies to ensure transparency and
accountability.
Also, the fact that no surveillance footage could be used in this
investigation is also suspect, given that this is arguably the most
secure residence in the world. There are sensors and cameras everywhere,
especially in the West Wing, where the cocaine was found, a stone’s
throw away from the Situation Room.
The latest attack on JD Vance is a dud. It’s not just
me saying that; we have liberals agreeing that it’s weak sauce. Of
course, the ‘Republicans against Trump’ clowns think this was a damning
attack on Donald Trump’s running mate. The DailyMail found some pictures
of JD Vance from high school. Yeah, we’re back to this again:
JD might be one of the cleanest politicians of all time if this is the dirt they got on him https://t.co/JxxInNblgs
At
the risk of giving this dumb story more attention than it deserves,
kind of seems like if anyone is out of line here it's the girls hanging
out in the boys bathroom! https://t.co/uHYDnGgoZd
Pretending
to be scandalized or offended by JD being a typical goofball in his
youth is so dumb, this is a benignly funny pic and you know it pic.twitter.com/2MnKAmuuvo
I’m
positive this will be my most-hated tweet of the day but taking a dumb
and awkward picture when you’re a kid is just not that big of a deal,
the Daily Mail shouldn’t have published it, and none of us should care. https://t.co/oCC7cclXxA
DailyMail.
com has obtained a photo of JD Vance posing with three female
classmates in a boys restroom during his senior year of high school in
Ohio.
So weird.
“Pretending to be scandalized
or offended by JD being a typical goofball in his youth is so dumb,
this is a benignly funny picture and you know it,” responded Michael
Tracey, a progressive reporter.
Jill Filipovic, a liberal feminist writer, added, “I’m positive this
will be my most-hated tweet of the day but taking a dumb and awkward
picture when you’re a kid is just not that big of a deal, the Daily Mail
shouldn’t have published it, and none of us should care.”
And
these are committed anti-Trump pundits, so it's no wonder why this story
never got off the ground. Also, the 'JD Vance is weird' attack might be
losing its luster since there's nothing remotely weird about him. What
is weird is the entire 2024 Democratic Party agenda, and whatever this
is:
Former U.S. President Donald Trump arrives for a pre-trial hearing in a
hush money case in criminal court on March 25, 2024 in New York City.
In the lead-up to a significant decision and feared sentencing next
month, Donald Trump has lost his most recent bid for a new judge in his
criminal case in New York.
Judge Juan M. Merchan refused to recuse himself in a ruling released
on Wednesday, claiming that Trump’s demand was a repetition “rife with
inaccuracies and unsubstantiated claims” regarding Merchan’s daughter’s
career in Democrat politics and his capacity to render a fair and
impartial conclusion in the momentous issue.
The judge has turned down this kind of request from the former
president’s and the current Republican nominee’s attorneys three
different times.
On three separate occasions, attorneys contended that Merchan, a
liberal Manhattan state court judge, was a conflict of interest in
Trump’s case since his daughter works as a political adviser for
well-known Democrats and their campaigns. She has even previously worked
for Vice President Kamala Harris during her 2020 presidential campaign.
Merchan was allowed to proceed with the case last year, according to a
state court ethics tribunal, which claimed that a relative’s political
activity is not “a reasonable basis to question the judge’s
impartiality.”
Merchan has also continuously stressed that he would continue to base
his decisions “on the evidence and the law, casting aside undue
influence.” However, it is hard to believe that any New York judge would
truly be objective in a case involving Donald Trump if he and his
family oppose Trump as a politician.
“With these fundamental principles in mind, this Court now reiterates
for the third time, that which should already be clear—innuendo and
mischaracterizations do not a conflict create,” Merchan wrote. “Recusal
is therefore not necessary, much less required.”
In May, a New York jury found Trump guilty of allegedly fabricating
company documents to “hide a 2016 agreement to pay porn star Stormy
Daniels to keep quiet” about her alleged 2006 sexual encounter with him.
Nevertheless, it was Trump’s former attorney-turned-foe, Michael Cohen,
who was in charge of the documents at the time.
Prosecution attorneys tried to portray the payment as a part of
Trump’s campaign strategy to prevent voters from “learning negative
information” about him.
Trump maintains that all of the so-called “hush money” allegations
about him are untrue, that the financial records were authentic, and
that the lawsuit was a strategic ploy to harm his candidacy.
Democrat Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan District Attorney, is the
prosecutor who filed the charges. Trump has also promised to file an
appeal. However, to do so is not permitted by law prior to a defendant’s
sentencing.
Stay informed! Receive breaking news blasts directly to your inbox for free. Subscribe here. https://www.oann.com/alerts
“The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have
freedom of choice. You don’t. You have no choice. You have owners. They
own you. They own everything. They own all the important land. They own
and control the corporations. They’ve long since bought and paid for the
Senate, the Congress, the state houses, the city halls. They got the
judges in their back pockets and they own all the big media companies,
so they control just about all of the news and information you get to
hear… They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying. Lobbying to
get what they want. Well, we know what they want. They want more for
themselves and less for everybody else… It’s called the American Dream,
’cause you have to be asleep to believe it.” —George Carlin
Who owns America?
Is it the government? The politicians? The corporations? The foreign investors? The American people?
While the Deep State keeps the nation divided and distracted by a
presidential election whose outcome is foregone (the police state’s
stranglehold on power will ensure the continuation of endless wars and
out-of-control spending, while disregarding the citizenry’s fundamental
rights and the rule of law).
America is literally being bought and sold right out from under us.
Consider the facts.
We’re losing more and more of our land every year to corporations and foreign interests.
Foreign ownership of U.S. agricultural land has increased by 66% since
2010. In 2021, it was reported that foreign investors owned
approximately 40 million acres of U.S. agricultural land, which is more
than the entire state of Iowa. By 2022 that number had grown to 43.4
million acres. The rate at which U.S. farmland is being bought up by
foreign interests grew by 2.2 million acres per year from 2015 to 2021.
The number of U.S. farm acres owned by foreign entities grew more than
8% (3.4 million acres) in 2022.
We’re losing more and more of our businesses every year to foreign corporations and interests.
Although China owns a small fraction of foreign-owned U.S. land at
380,000 acres, less than the state of Rhode Island, Chinese companies
and investors are also buying up major food companies, commercial and
residential real estate, and other businesses. As RetailWire explains:
“Currently, many brands started by early American pioneers now wave
international flags. This revolution is a direct result of
globalization.” The growing list of once-notable American brands that
have been sold to foreign corporations includes: U.S. Steel (now
Japanese-owned); General Electric (Chinese-owned); Budweiser (Belgium);
Burger King (Canada); 7-Eleven (Japan); Jeep, Chrysler, and Dodge
(Netherlands); and IBM (China).
We’re digging ourselves deeper and deeper into debt, both as a nation and as a populace.
Basically, the U.S. government is funding its existence with a credit
card, spending money it doesn’t have on programs it can’t afford. The
bulk of that debt has been amassed over the past two decades, thanks in
large part to the fiscal shenanigans of four presidents, 10 sessions of
Congress and two wars. The national debt (the amount the federal
government has borrowed over the years and must pay back) is more than
$34 trillion and will grow another $19 trillion by 2033. Foreign
ownership makes up 29% of the U.S. debt held by the public. Of that
amount, reports the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, “52 percent was held
by private foreign investors while foreign governments held the
remaining 48 percent.”
The Fourth Estate has been taken over by media conglomerates that prioritize profit over principle.
Independent news agencies, which were supposed to act as bulwarks
against government propaganda, have been subsumed by a global corporate
takeover of newspapers, television and radio. Consequently, a handful of
corporations now control most of the media industry and, thus, the
information dished out to the public. Likewise, with Facebook and Google
having appointed themselves the arbiters of “disinformation,” we now
find ourselves grappling with new levels of corporate censorship by
entities with a history of colluding with the government to keep the
citizenry mindless, muzzled and in the dark.
Most critically of all, the U.S. government, long ago sold
to the highest bidders, has become little more than a shell company, a
front for corporate interests. Nowhere is this state of affairs
more evident than in the manufactured spectacle that is the
presidential election. As for members of Congress, long before they’re
elected, they are trained to dance to the tune of their wealthy
benefactors, so much so that they spend two-thirds of their time in
office raising money. As Reuters reports: “It also means that lawmakers often spend more time listening to the concerns of the wealthy than anyone else.”
In the oligarchy that is the American police state, it clearly
doesn’t matter who wins the White House, because they all work for the
same boss: a Corporate State that has gone global.
So much for living the American dream.
“We the people” have become the new, permanent underclass in America.
We’re being forced to shell out money for endless wars that are
bleeding us dry, money for surveillance systems to track our movements,
money to further militarize our already militarized police, money to
allow the government to raid our homes and bank accounts, money to fund
schools where our kids learn nothing about freedom and everything about
how to comply, and on and on.
This is no way of life.
It’s tempting to say that there’s little we can do about it, except that’s not quite accurate.
There are a few things we can do: demand transparency, reject
cronyism and graft, insist on fair pricing and honest accounting
methods, call a halt to incentive-driven government programs that
prioritize profits over people, but it will require that “we the people”
stop playing politics and stand united against the politicians and
corporate interests who have turned our government and economy into a
pay-to-play exercise in fascism.
Unfortunately, we’ve become so invested in identity politics that
label us based on our political leanings that we’ve lost sight of the
one label that unites us: we’re all Americans.
The “powers-that-be” want us to adopt an “us-versus-them” mindset
that keeps us powerless and divided. Yet, as I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, the only us versus them that matters is “we the people” against the Deep State.
(Views expressed by guest commentators may not reflect the views of OAN or its affiliates.)
ABOUT JOHN W. WHITEHEAD Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His latest books Battlefield America: The War on the American Peopleand The Erik Blair Diaries are available at www.amazon.com. Whitehead can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org.
Nisha Whitehead is the Executive Director of The Rutherford Institute.
Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.
Publication Guidelines / Reprint Permission: John W. Whitehead’s
weekly commentaries are available for publication to newspapers and web
publications at no charge. Please contact staff@rutherford.org to obtain reprint permission.
Jewish students at Columbia University should
"breathe a sigh of relief" for the "long overdue" resignation of the
school's president, Minouche Shafik, according to House Speaker Mike
Johnson.
"As a result of President Shafik's refusal to protect Jewish students
and maintain order on campus, Columbia University became the epicenter
for virulent antisemitism that has plagued many American university
campuses since Hamas' barbaric attack on Israel last fall," Johnson said
in a statement.
"We hope that President Shafik's resignation serves as an example to
university administrators across the country that tolerating or
protecting antisemites is unacceptable and will have consequences," the
Louisiana Republican added.
Earlier this year, the Columbia campus in upper Manhattan was at the
center of protests about the Israel-Hamas war. The protests spread to
college campuses nationwide, leading to the arrests of thousands of
people and disrupting graduation ceremonies, and Shafik said in her
statement the protests were part of her decision to leave.
She wrote that she plans to return to the United Kingdom, where she
will lead an effort through the foreign secretary's office to review the
government's approach to international development.
Johnson pointed out that he was in Shafik's office in April, where he told her to resign.
"While it is long overdue, we welcome today's news," Johnson said.
He added that he's grateful to House leaders who have been
investigating the "scourage of antisemitism on college campuses,
particularly Education and Workforce Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx
and House GOP Chairwoman Elise Stefanik."
He said their questions "inspired a nationwide backlash to the coddling of pro-Hamas radicals on campuses across America."
Columbia in July removed three deans as well after reports that they
had exchanged disparaging text messages during a campus discussion on
Jewish life and antisemitism. The deans resigned earlier this month.
Shafik said in a June 8 letter to the university that their texts "disturbingly touched on ancient antisemitic tropes."
I think it's safe to say that the Democrats and some of the
mainstream media was flipping out over X CEO Elon Musk having a Spaces
conversation with former President Donald Trump. The event almost broke
the internet it had such a massive historic response of people trying to
listen.
I wrote earlier about Adam Kinzinger being involved in encouraging a
#TwitterBlackout because of the event and Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA)
claiming it was "heard by no one" when it was a massive event of
historic proportions. Yet they are both back on X now, which shows how
little they believe what they push. If they really think Musk shouldn't
have had him on then why are they still on X? It's all just about
throwing a fit that Musk is daring to give Trump the opportunity to
speak.
A Washington Post reporter even asked the White House what
they could do about it, implying that there should be censorship of some
sort. Musk was even threatened by an EU official Thierry Breton warning
him about being in violation of the law in a strongly worded letter,
which was truly insane.
But both Musk and Trump are sort of in that place in their lives
where they spit in the eye of the narrative and the media effort to
constrain them.
Musk laughed at the media effort to put down the event.
"A wall of negative headlines was so predictable. They’re such NPCs. All
this does is drive even more people to listen to the conversation
themselves and realize how much the legacy media lies to them!" Musk
said.
NPC means "non-player character." It's a
gaming term that has come to refer to those who can't think for
themselves and blindly follow the narrative as so much of MSM does.
Musk
invited Kamala Harris to do a Spaces too, but no one is holding their
breath on that one. I don't think she would ever do it, she could never
have such a far ranging discussion for hours without revealing why no
one should vote for her.
But Musk decided to have a little more fun concerning the event and posted this video that's terrific.
People thought it was great.
A
member of the EU Parliament Christine Anderson who obviously didn't
like Breton's letter, teased him and threw Musk's dancing post in his
face.
Some like actor Kevin Sorbo joked that they were there, so they know it was "real."
You just know that media is going to call it "misinformation" that Musk posted it.
But
unlike the fake "joy" that the media is trying to hype with Kamala,
this captures the real fun when you know you are standing up for the
country.
No charges will be filed against a Special Forces soldier based at
Fort Liberty, North Carolina, who shot and killed a Chechen man who was
on his property doing survey work for a utility subcontractor, the Moore
County (NC) Sheriff's Office announced Tuesday, citing the North
Carolina Castle Doctrine.
As RedState reported in late May, Ramzan Daraev was spotted taking
photographs of the soldier's home around 8:15 PM on Friday, May 3, and
reportedly became aggressive toward the soldier when approached. When
law enforcement authorities arrived at the home in the Carthage area
they found Daraev's body approximately 250 yards from the roadway, along
a powerline on the property.
At the time of the initial report, there were several red flags in the information reported by the Sheriff's Office:
Daraev was not in possession of any utility equipment, utility clothing, or identification.
The only identifying document found was Daraev's international driver's license, which was on his car and not on his person.
Daraev was working at dusk on a Friday night, without notifying the homeowner of his presence.
There are additional red flags and interesting bits of information in the (long) press release from MCSO:
Daraev
was first spotted by the soldier/homeowner's wife, who reported that he
was taking pictures near their residence while she was outside with
their children.
The homeowner, unarmed, approached Daraev to ask what he was doing, then asked him to leave.
Darev became aggressive, refused to leave, and said he was a Chechen who'd fought in Ukraine for the Russian military.
Two calls were made from the home to 911; approximately 20 minutes elapsed between the time of the first call and the shooting.
After
the first 911 call the homeowner went inside his home to get a handgun
for safety, then went back outside to keep an eye on Daraev until law
enforcement arrived.
After the second 911 call (13 minutes after
the first) Daraev lunged at the homeowner several times, and the
homeowner fired multiple shots at Daraev.
Whether on his person
or in his vehicle, the only items Daraev had with him were his
international drivers license and his cell phone.
Daraev was wearing black shorts, a burgundy t-shirt, and flip flops at the time he died.
Daraev was driving his personal vehicle, a Chevrolet Spark.
Daraev entered the United States through the southern border in December, 2022.
Daraev
had an encounter with a patrol deputy about two hours before he was
shot, but as Daraev wasn't doing anything illegal he was not detained.
Investigators (including federal and military agencies) have not been able to access Daraev's phone.
Daraev
was working with Cable Warriors, a subcontractor of Utilities One, as
part of Brightspeed's fiberoptic project in Moore County.
Among
the digital evidence: electrical infrastructure maps related to the
utility expansion provided to employees from a Russian cloud server.
From the Moore County Sheriff's Office announcement:
On
the evening of May 3, at dusk, the homeowner’s wife, while outside with
their children, observed an unidentified individual, later identified
as Ramzan Daraev, taking photographs near their remote residence. She
informed her husband, who was reportedly unarmed at the time and
approached the individual to see what he was doing. Given the remote
location of their property, the presence of an unknown person taking
photographs raised significant security concerns. Unable to establish
who Daraev was or why he was on the property, the homeowner asked him to
leave. According to the homeowner, Daraev became aggressive and
refused to leave the property, at one point asserting that he was a
Chechen national who had served in the Russian military and fought in
Ukraine, although investigators have been unable to establish Daraev’s
prior foreign military status. The homeowner reported that he
then went to his residence and retrieved a handgun before returning to
ensure his family's safety until law enforcement arrived.
According
to the Sheriff's Office, the homeowner's wife called 911 at 8:12 PM and
reported that there was a suspicious person on the property who had
become aggressive when her husband asked him to leave. Sheriff's
Deputies were responding to a life-threatening emergency nearby that was
not related to this incident, so they weren't able to immediately
respond.
Daraev became increasingly aggressive
while the homeowner was waiting for law enforcement, and the wife called
again at 8:25 PM. During that call, she pleaded for "expedited law
enforcement response," according to the press release, and her husband
could be heard yelling at her asking for that expedited response. The
wife "secured a rifle during one of the calls, reflecting the perceived
level of threat."
The shooting happened shortly after that second
call. Daraev "lunged several times" at the homeowner and the homeowner
fired shots in response to that, the release states.
It gets a lot more interesting and nerve-wracking.
Authorities
found Daraev's vehicle, a Chevrolet Spark registered to Daraev at his
Chicago address, parked along the road. There was nothing identifying
Daraev as a utility worker in the vehicle, and no equipment save for the
cell phone in Daraev's possession, which he was using to take photos.
Daraev was wearing black shorts, a burgundy t-shirt, and flip-flops at
the time he was shot.
There was a second vehicle located near
Daraev's, belonging to Adsalam Dzhankutov from Illinois, a co-worker of
Daraev's. Dzhankutov was also performing utility work in the area.
Business
records indicate that Daraev was conducting legitimate utility work in
the area at the time, although there was nothing on his person or in his
vehicle indicating that he was conducting utility work. Daraev was
employed by Cable Warriors, a subcontractor of Utilities One, and was
conducting surveys as part of Brightspeed's fiber optic expansion into
the Carthage area of Moore County. Additionally, maps obtained related
to Daraev's intended work area included a power pole approximately 115
feet from the residence, consistent with where the homeowner reported
first seeing Daraev. Other recovered images indicated that it was common
practice for this group to conduct utility work after dark with no
evidence that any property owners were notified. Other workers
in the utility industry told investigators that conducting utility work
near dark on or near private property, especially during non-emergency
activities, without identifying clothing and without notifying the
homeowner is not common practice.
Business records obtained by RedState reveal that Cable Warriors was
incorporated in late 2022 in New Jersey by Silvia Midari, whose prior
job history includes a stint as a cashier at the Pantry Store and
Arnold's Restaurant on Cape Cod. While Midari lists her title as
"Business Development Specialist" on LinkedIn, incorporation documents
show her as the CEO and sole shareholder.
Midari's
LinkedIn profile also reveals a six-year gap between her employment in
Eastern Europe with a translation company immediately prior to her
relocation to New Jersey and the founding of Cable Warriors.
Utilities
One [is] a foreign-registered New Jersey-based company founded in 2016
by a young CEO from Moldova, who founded the firm three years after
moving to the U.S. and working as a dishwasher and selling ice in
Alaska. The company was incorporated on December 20th, 2023.
The company's vice president of fulfillment and infrastructure is from Russia as well.
About
an hour and a half before his encounter with the residents of the Dowd
Road address, Daraev had been stopped by a Sheriffs Deputy:
"[W]alking
along power poles near an isolated field less than a mile from where
the Dowd Road incident later occurred. The deputy observed a vehicle
registered to Daraev, parked nearby and partially in the roadway. Using a
language translation app, the deputy questioned Daraev about his
activities and requested that he move his vehicle. Daraev provided his
international driver's license and explained that he was conducting
utility work, although he had no utility attire. Finding no apparent
violation of law, the deputy documented the encounter through
dispatchers and released Daraev."
Moore County authorities confirmed that Daraev is a "Russian native
from Chechnya" who entered the United States in December, 2022 through
the southern border. Daraev's family maintains that he came legally and
produced a work permit to a Rolling Stone reporter. But if he was coming
from Eastern Europe legally, why come through the southern border?
In their investigation, MCSO found yet another connection with Russia (emphasis mine):
The
Moore County Sheriff’s Office is continuing to assess the operational
background of Utilities One and Cable Warriors, the subcontractor for
whom Daraev was employed. Investigators are also reviewing digital
evidence containing electrical infrastructure maps related to the
utility expansion provided to employees from a Russian cloud server,
which may provide further insights into the subcontractor's activities.
Efforts to access Daraev’s cellular phone continue in effort to fully
understand his activities and the nature of any photographs taken. Some
images Daraev uploaded to a shared directory have been obtained, and
analysis is ongoing.
MCSO has reported the case to
OSHA for investigation of any potential violations. Sending employees
out to survey at dusk, without any type of identifying information,
without notifying homeowners beforehand, and without proper clothing and
footwear sure seems like a bad and dangerous way to do business.
After
the first reports of Daraev's death went national in late May,
Utilities One posted a long statement on Facebook claiming that Daraev
was an oppressed refugee who fled to the United States to escape the
conflict between Russia and Ukraine. They've been silent since the
announcement that no charges will be brought against the soldier.
