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clarafordahwin · 1 year

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The October 11 vote by the Conway School Board came after a series of incendiary comments during the public comment period. One speaker, Cal Poulsen, said that LGBTQ people should be killed. "God gave them over to a depraved mind so that they do what they should not be doing," Paulsen said. "They invent ways of doing evil. But let me remind you that those who do such things deserve death."

None of the school board members publicly objected to such comments. Later in the meeting, they unanimously approved the bathroom restrictions and book bans.

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Barnett said his original intention was to organize a group of people to address the Conway School Board during the public comment period. He said that there was "a plan of getting people to sign up for speakers." That ended up not being possible, however, because the school board decided not to allow the public to speak at the November meeting.

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He helped organize a group of about 20 students from the University of Central Arkansas to come to the meeting to protest the anti-trans policies. When Barnett and his group arrived, there were no seats in the room available. They attempted to stand against the wall, but were told that wasn't permitted. Instead, they could listen to the proceedings from the lobby outside the meeting room. Barnett and his group complied. The Faulkner County Coalition for Social Justice also organized a group to protest the school board's anti-trans policies. They remained outside the building.

About 30 minutes into the meeting, Barnett and his group started chanting, "Trans lives matter!" A police officer in the lobby who told them to leave. Eventually, more police officers showed up and ended up pushing most of the group outside. Ultimately, three students remained: Barnett, Keylen Botley, and Colburn Clark. The trio sat on the floor and linked arms, continuing to chant.

All three were handcuffed and held in separate rooms while the school board meeting continued. They were eventually taken to the police station, processed, and released. They were charged with trespassing and failure to disburse.

According to the school board minutes, their actions interrupted the meeting for a total of 8 minutes, from 6:31 to 6:39 PM.

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Barnett has no prior criminal record — not even a traffic violation. Barnett did not hear anything from the prosecutor assigned to his case until the day of his trial on April 26. According to Barnett, the prosecutor was not seeking jail time and offered to drop the trespassing charge if he pled guilty to failure to disperse. Barnett, however, decided not to take the deal because "if I were to plead guilty and take a plea deal, then that's admitting I did something wrong, and I am looking for the mercy of the court."

Barnett said that he "did not do anything wrong" and "the school board is committing a crime." Barnett was referring to the Conway School Board's policy to automatically delete all emails after 72 hours, effectively thwarting public records requests.

According to Barnett, during the trial, two police officers testified. Barnett said the officers' account of the incident was accurate, except that they said Barnett was "intimidating" the school board members and other people at the meeting. According to the police report, Barnett did not do anything while in the lobby other than sit on the ground and chant, "Trans lives matter!" Barnett called the claims of intimidation "an absolute fabrication."

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District Judge Chris Carnahan, who presided over the bench trial, immediately issued his decision. He found Barnett guilty on both counts and said that Barnett attended the school board meeting specifically to intimidate school board members. Carnahan sentenced Barnett to 10 days in jail and a $650 fine.

Carnahan is the former executive director of the Arkansas Republican Party. During his unsuccessful run for the Arkansas Supreme Court, he used the slogan: "Finally, a conservative judge!" Carnahan collected tens of thousands of dollars from Republican Party committees, even though the races are non-partisan and such contributions violate the Arkansas Judicial Code of Conduct. Carnahan said he was ignoring the rule because he believed it was unconstitutional.

#trans rights #politics #I'm not sure if the link works if you arent subscribed im just on the guys email list so i posted parts of it #but holy shit #so much wrong with this. and should definitely be illegal to delete all emails after 72 hours to avoid foia requests #shut up clark

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coffin-flop · 5 months

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i'm always accidentally getting too high at work

#girl help i have almost 2 hrs left and accidentally got too high and neeed to go work w some of my least fave coworkers #on the bright side im almsot done organizing the inherired institutional email i have #which originally had over 5k unorganized emails in the inbox. only 750 left!#im not deleting anything bc this institution is so foia paranoid lol #personal

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healingheartdogs · 1 year

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Actually incredibly concerning and scary how much I am NOT seeing people talk about the RESTRICT outside of TikTok because they're being successfully distracted by our politicians framing this as just a TikTok ban. If you have not read this bill yet I am begging you to do so and then contact your representatives about it. This is a gross overreach by our government and clearly violates the first amendment in this country. If this bill passes it will give our government free reign to censor or ban any internet service with over a million users -- including things like video games, not just apps like TikTok -- with NO OVERSIGHT AT ALL. Punishments for trying to get around these bans and censors can be up to a million dollars or UP TO 20 YEARS IN PRISON.

Seriously, read this bill, spread information to your circles, and HARASS YOUR REPS ABOUT THIS. Call them up and tell them if they support this bill you will actively campaign for their competition in the next election. If you don't like phone calls, email them. If you don't like typing emails then get ChatGPT to make one up for you and all you have to do is send it. This is TIME SENSITIVE. We need to make as much noise about this as possible ASAP. This bill is a direct attack on the first amendment and on FOIA, the Freedom of Information Act. This is SCARY.

This is a bipartisan issue that will affect all of us. It doesn't matter what political party you stand for, both Dems and Repubs are supporting this violation of our rights and censorship of the internet. Meta is hardcore lobbying for this bill and politicians on both sides are happily taking their bribes to fuck us over. Make noise about it, please.

#tiktok #tiktok ban #restrict act #politics #ndr #not dog related

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probablyasocialecologist · 3 months

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According to documents obtained by Grist and Type Investigations through a Freedom of Information Act request, the FBI’s Minneapolis office opened a counterterrorism assessment in February 2012, focusing on actions in South Dakota, that continued for at least a year and may have led to the opening of additional investigations. These documents reveal that the FBI was monitoring activists involved in the Keystone XL campaign about a year earlier than previously known. Their contents suggest that, long before the Keystone and Dakota Access pipelines became national flashpoints, the federal government was already developing a sweeping law enforcement strategy to counter any acts of civil disobedience aimed at preventing fossil fuel extraction. And young, Native activists were among its first targets. “The threat emerging … is evolving into one based on opposition to energy exploration related to any extractions from the earth, rather than merely targeting one project and/or one company,” the FBI noted in its description of the Wanblee blockade. The 15-page file, which is heavily redacted, also describes Native American groups as a potentially dangerous threat and likens them to “environmental extremists” whose actions, according to the FBI, could lead to violence. The FBI acknowledged that Native American groups were engaging in constitutionally protected activity, including attending public hearings, but emphasized that this sort of civic participation might spawn criminal activity. To back up its claims, the FBI cited a 2011 State Department hearing on the pipeline in Pierre, South Dakota, attended by a small group of Native activists. The FBI said the individuals were dressed in camouflage and had covered their faces with red bandanas, “train robber style.” According to the report, they were also carrying walking sticks and shaking sage, claiming to be “Wounded Knee Security of/for Mother Earth.” “The Bureau is uncertain how the NA group(s) will act initially or subsequently if the project is approved,” the agency wrote. The FBI also singled out the “Native Youth Movement,” which it described as a mix between a “radical militia and a survivalist group.” In doing so, it appeared to conflate a specific activist group originally founded in Canada in the 1990s with the broader array of young Native activists who opposed the pipeline decades later. Young activists would play an important role in the Keystone XL campaign and later on during protests against the Dakota Access pipeline at Standing Rock, but the movement had little in common with militias or survivalists, terms typically used to describe far-right groups or those seeking to disengage from society. The FBI declined to respond to questions for this story. In an emailed statement, a spokesperson for the Minneapolis field office said the agency does not typically comment on FOIA releases and “lets the information contained in the files speak for itself.”

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Environmental activists and attorneys who reviewed the new documents told Grist and Type Investigations that law enforcement’s approach to the Keystone XL campaign looked like a template for the increasingly militarized response to subsequent environmental and social justice campaigns — from efforts to block the Dakota Access pipeline at Standing Rock to the ongoing protests against the police training center dubbed “Cop City” in Atlanta, Georgia, which would require razing at least 85 acres of urban forest. The FBI’s working thesis, outlined in the new documents, that “most environmental extremist groups” have historically moved from peaceful protest to violence has served as the basis for subsequent investigations. “It’s astonishing to me how such a broad concept basically paints every activist and protester as a future terrorist,” said Mike German, a former FBI special agent who is now a fellow at the nonprofit Brennan Center for Justice.

#FBI #climate change #fossil fuels #dakota access pipeline #keystone xl pipeline #surveillance

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gusty-wind · 3 months

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BIDEN AND NARA (NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMIN.)

“NARA has completed a search for potentially responsive documents and is currently processing those documents for the purpose of producing non-exempt portions of any responsive records on a monthly rolling basis. Given the scope of Plaintiff’s FOIA request, which seeks copies of all emails in three separate accounts over an eight-year period, the volume of potentially responsive records is necessarily large,” the document reads.

“NARA has identified approximately 82,000 pages of potentially responsive documents, and it is currently processing those documents and preparing any nonexempt responsive documents for production on a rolling basis.”

#the great awakening #war is real #ncswic #treason

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brf-rumortrackinganon · 10 days

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Final thoughts about the visa

(I’ll keep posting anons about it but without any comment)

I am very skeptical that we’ll ever find out what visa Harry is here on and why. I’m sure the Heritage Foundation will do its damnedest to uncover that information but I don’t think it will work because it sets a court precedent that anyone can now sue to find out the status of a celebrity’s legal paperwork.

And even if we did learn what visa Harry is here on, so what? What is there to be done about it? The blame isn’t exclusively on Harry in this case; it’s on the US government, the UK government, and the BRF. How do you plan to hold them accountable?

And finally, if you’re really that angry about it and you really think his visa status needs to be disclosed, dont complain to me. I can’t do anything about it. I don’t work in the State, Homeland Security, or Justice departments snd even if I did, digging into this would be an abuse of my position. Sorry, folks. I like my job. Harry is not worth losing my livelihood and security clearance over.

What I can advise, as a fed, is this:

1. Congressional visibility is sometimes the best way for the people to hold the government accountable. Complain to your representatives and if enough people are complaining, Congress may start paying attention. Be the persistent squeaky wheel and you might find someone who can bring the thunder.

2. FOIA requests do work. That’s how this whole thing with the Heritage Foundation kicked off. But you have to be specific in your requests. You can’t just email “tell me everything about Prince Harry.” The request has to be something like “requesting records between 11/1/2019 - 4/1/2022 mentioning ‘The Duke of Sussex’ or ‘Prince Harry’.” The more specific your request, the better.

3. OIGs (Inspectors General) can also be helpful to hold agencies accountable but they’ll only work if you have specific names and specific issues to complain about. The OIGs focus on fraud, waste, and abuse within government agencies. So don’t file a complaint with “you let Prince Harry here and he’s not qualified.” A successful OIG complaint needs to include names, dates, and descriptions. And unfortunately we don’t have a lot of that right now. But we may, in the future, depending on how the Heritage Foundation lawsuit goes.

Some things to keep in mind.

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bighermie · 6 months

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wobblydev · 5 days

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I've seen a lot of posts talking about the merits of joining a union even if you don't have a job, but I've never seen one that answers my main hang up, so I'm just going to ask, what if I absolutely could not pay dues? I can't work due to disability and I can only survive thanks to the support of family, as a result I rarely have any money at all. Is it possible to join a union if I can't afford to pay dues, and if not are there other ways I can support them?

a very good question, i'm so glad you asked. dues are a mechanism of democracy within the union structure, so to join a union there isn't much way around that. however, there are things you can do to support unions without spending a dime.

if you see unions trying to spread the word about an action, or a campaign, signal boost them where and how you can.

unions and adjacent groups, such as the Incarcerated Workers Organising Committee, will perform what's known as a phone or email "zap" where a mass of people will contact a target to make their voices heard about an issue. joining in on those actions is always an enormous help.

solidarity union organisations like the IWW are always looking for people to help with the myriad tasks it takes to keep things running. folks i know who were ineligible for membership still volunteered their time and efforts in research, or submitting FOIA requests, or maintaining spreadsheets. they didn't have voting power in union business, but if the branch is amenable, why turn away people who want to help the work along?

what do you enjoy doing? do you stream? do you write? do you draw? do you sing? how might you direct a portion of your creative energy to supporting emancipation work?

i may be an old union thug, but i admit there are also different ways to organise for change outside of a dues-based structure. others will know more about this than myself, but there are affinity groups all over the country who don't collect money from members.

what are you passionate about? disability rights and liberation? queer liberation? prison abolition? is there a group in your area or online that is doing the work to make real change in a sphere that is important to you? if so, reach out and see if you have the capacity to assist with that work.

this is all very vague, and i hope others will see this question and offer their own suggestions. anything you do to help will be wonderful, in whatever capacity you are able. we need all of us, and none of us need to solve these problems alone.

#unions #iww #iwoc #affinity groups #helping the work along #emancipation work

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gothicprep · 4 months

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currently sitting in the back seat on a drive home from a camping trip and I’ve never been so close to emailing a podcaster in my life.

longtime and attentive readers of the gothicprep blog will probably know that david paulides is my personal bugbear and i resent missing 411. partially because my dad was formerly a search and rescue professional for roughly 20 years and, like, he’s told me details about that. also because paulides is a forcibly “retired” corrupt cop with nothing better to do than write unhinged conspiracy books about how bigfoot or bigfeet are responsible for all disappearances in national parks.

I’m so committed to this that I filed a FOIA request related to one of the cases he covered in one of his documentaries. paulides characterized this man as an experienced outdoorsman. and he was. but he was also a severe alcoholic who stopped taking his naltrexone prescription and was in rough physical and mental shape. and was drinking on the hiking expedition. like this was stated by his wife and both the friends who accompanied him on the hike. the friends gave some questionable accounts to the PD because they were illegally hunting elk on private property, but there’s nothing mysterious about that.

he also has a habit of conflating air miles with with ground miles when it’s convenient to his narrative. and he fucking literally gets dates and times wrong within his own documentaries. it’s beyond sloppy. I’m not trying to cancel anyone but I desperately want to be like, “this guy is a complete hack. please stop endorsing his credibility.”

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karagin22 · 10 months

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How are they not in jail?

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mostlysignssomeportents · 2 months

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The Foilies

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me WEDNESDAY (Mar 13) in SAN FRANCISCO with ROBIN SLOAN, then Anaheim, and more!

This marks the 10th anniversary of the Foilies – awards given to the public agencies responsible for the most egregious, absurd and outrageous defiance of freedom of information requests:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/03/foilies-2024

The Foilies are awarded by EFF and Muckrock. This year's honorees are an entire Coen Brothers movie's worth of bizarre excuses and shenanigans. Top honors (the "Not-So-Magic-Word" award) goes to Augusta County, VA:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/03/foilies-2024#augusta

The staff at the Augusta County Sheriff's office somehow got the impression that if they wants to make an official communique immune to a public records request, all they had to do was add the words "NO FOIA" to the memo.

Needless to say, the law doesn't work this way. When a county employee anonymously tipped Breaking the News off to this practice, the organization quite naturally filed a request for every county document containing the phrase "NO FOIA." Given that the county's employees had thoughtfully tagged every document they suspected would get them into trouble with these words, it's no wonder that the request delivered a bumper-crop of news stories of incompetence and corruption:

https://www.breakingthrough.tv/post/augusta-foia-nightmares-sheriff-slams-county-growth-amidst-challenges-managing-department-s-payroll

These scandals come from just 140 of the 1,212 "NO FOIA" emails the county admits it has on hand – the remainder have been illegally withheld. Breaking Through News and The Augusta Press sued the county for the remaining emails and won – though the county has indicated that it might waste public funds appealing the decision:

https://www.newsbreak.com/@breaking-through-news-1615604/3304349127261-augusta-county-weighs-options-after-foia-defeat-mulls-appeal-reporter-demands-production?s=mp_1615604

There are so many great – by which I mean terrible – stories in this year's Foilies that it's hard to pick just a few to highlight, but boy oh boy, does the Chesterfield, Virginia Police have a doozy this year:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/03/foilies-2024#lapd

The police of Chesterfield County, VA claim that the names of every police officer on the force should be kept secret, because one or more of those cops might someday work undercover. As EFF writes, "It’s not at all dystopian to claim that a public law enforcement agency needs to have secret police!"

Now, I don't want to give you the impression that all this nonsense stems from small-town-Deputy-Dawg-Barney-Fife-type dimwits with harebrained schemes. Big, important statewide offices are also in the mix. Take Arkansas governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who spends millions in public funds for her family to travel around America accompanied by an Arkansas State Police detail:

https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2024/jan/12/six-months-of-protecting-sanders-family-costs/

Governor Huckabee Sanders's relentless waste of public funds generated a steady, humiliating drumbeat of news coverage. This made the governor both sad and angry, prompting her to attempt to block FOIA requests for her travel spending, and when that failed, to call a special session of the legislature to enact sweeping limitations on Arkansas's sunshine law:

https://www.ualrpublicradio.org/local-regional-news/2023-09-08/sanders-calls-special-legislative-session-on-tax-cuts-foia-changes

The governor's farcical wish-list of anti-transparency measures didn't just put severe limits on the disclosure of her use of public funds. It also contained a raft of administrative changes, like an end to the practice of FOIA plaintiffs being able to recover their legal fees if they successfully sued the government for illegally suppressing disclosures.

In the end, Governor Huckabee Sanders was defeated – a torrent of opposition to the bill removed its most odious clauses, though, as EFF notes, it's a near-certainty that Huckabee Sanders will try again in the next legislative session.

The military got in on the act this year, too: the USAF's FOIA portal was altered so that filers had to swear that their request pertained to "clearly releasable" records – then failed to define "clearly releasable." After a PR fiasco, they walked the changes back:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/03/foilies-2024#usaf

Now for the Mississippi goddamn moment: the Mississippi Justice Courts obstruct access to two thirds of the public records on search warrants:

https://www.propublica.org/article/no-knock-warrants-missing-mississippi

A lawsuit by the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal is seeking to force the state's courts to obey the law:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/03/foilies-2024#blindfold

Now: on to Wyoming! Wye not? Democracy may "die in darkness," but culture war bullshit thrives in the absence of sunshine. When (former) Wyoming Superintendent of Public Instruction Brian Schroeder and Wyoming Department of Education Chief Communications Officer Linda Finnerty decided to waste public money on an private "Stop the Sexualization of Our Children" event, they correctly judged that secrecy would be key to pulling off the scam:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/03/foilies-2024#wyoming

When Wyomingans sought details about the pro-censorship event, Schroeder and Finnerty manufactured "misleading statements" about the event and its funding:

https://trib.com/news/state-regional/education/wyoming-department-of-education-lawsuit/article_0d87ae52-1c18-11ee-b541-b75142a9d1d5.html

Schroeder also illegally withheld his text messages from a public records request, ignoring state's attorneys' advice (instead, Schroeder took bad legal advice from his friend, a private attorney named Drake Hill, who told him he didn't have to follow the law):

https://cowboystatedaily.com/2023/09/14/under-oath-former-wyoming-education-chief-admits-lying-about-political-event/

The resulting lawsuit turned up 1,500+ texts and emails – enough damning evidence to discredit Schroeder and Finnerty, and to set important new precedent for sunshine laws in the cowboy state:

https://cowboystatedaily.com/2023/11/02/texts-show-schroeder-made-wyoming-dept-of-education-staff-feel-icky/

When you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bills. That's the strategy of both the Baltimore Police Department and the Richmond, Virginia Police Department. Baltimore's cops told Open Justice Baltimore that they would need to hand over one miiiiilion dollars if they wanted to see the department's use-of-force records. The Baltimore PD argued that the public interest fee waiver didn't apply to use-of-force records, because there was no public interest in knowing about how the only people in the state legally allowed to hit, kick, choke and shoot other people used force:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/03/foilies-2024#baltimore

Baltimore police eventually dropped the ask to a mere $245k, which a court totally rejected, saying it contributed to the impression that the BPD had "something to hide":

https://law.justia.com/cases/maryland/court-of-appeals/2023/20-22.html

Meanwhile, back in Virginia, the Richmond police told Open Oversight VA that they would have to pay $7,873.14 for a copy of the police's 151-item list of procedures – $52.14/hour for a pre-release review of each of those procedures (most police departments just post their procedures to their websites):

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/03/foilies-2024#richmond

I opened this highlight reel in Virginia, and that's a good place to stop it. I hope you'll go read the rest, I've barely scratched the surface. And once you've read these all, I hope you'll try it for yourself!

As EFF and Muckrock say:

It's easy to feel powerless in these times, as local newsrooms close, and elected officials embrace disinformation as a standard political tool. But here's what you can do, and we promise it'll make you feel better: Pick a local agency—it could be a city council, a sheriff's office or state department of natural resources—and send them an email demanding their public record-request log, or any other record showing what requests they receive, how long it took them to respond, whether they turned over records, and how much they charged the requester for copies.

Name your price for 18 of my DRM-free ebooks and support the Electronic Frontier Foundation with the Humble Cory Doctorow Bundle.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/11/no-foia/#id-tell-you-but-then-id-have-to-kill-you

Image: EFF https://www.eff.org/files/banner_library/foilies24_webbanner-b.png

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/

#pluralistic #right to know #open records #sunshine laws #sunshine week #foia #eff #muckrock #transparency #Association of Alternative Newsmedia

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feminismisstillahatemovement · 6 months

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Joe Biden sent or received 82,000 pages of private email exchanges through three accounts using fake names when he was serving as vice president, according to the National Archives.

Joe used a series of pseudonyms on emails that were about both official and family business, according to emails found on Hunter Biden's now-infamous laptop and previously reported by DailyMail.com. But this is the first time the sheer volume of the correspondence has been revealed.

The accounts that the over 82,000 pages of emails were sent or received from included: '[email protected], [email protected], and [email protected].' The correspondence apparently spans over the entire eight-year period Joe was serving as Obama's No. 2.

The staggering figure was disclosed Monday by the National Archives as part of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit brought by the conservative nonprofit organization Southeastern Legal Foundation.

The bombshell admission comes as Republicans are seeking records revealing Joe Biden's use of pseudonyms to discuss his activities related to Ukraine with his son Hunter during his time as vice president. It is central to their ongoing impeachment inquiry into the sitting president.

The amount is well above the 33,000 emails former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton deleted off her personal server - causing a nationwide scandal.

Elected officials are required by law to preserve all correspondence conducted during their time in office - including government-related work on a personal server.

#joe biden #should be big news

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grits-galraisedinthesouth · 9 months

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The day after Rand Paul, MD took legal action against Dr Fauci, his office is destroyed in a fire.

Rand Paul: We Have Referred Fauci to DOJ for Prosecution for Lying to Congress

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) told Breitbart News Daily he has referred Dr. Anthony Fauci for prosecution, explaining that the former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases chief lied during his testimony before Congress.

Paul initially said he gave Fauci the benefit of the doubt in 2020, deeming Fauci a “disinterested public health figure.” But as he had further interactions with him, he concluded the former White House medical adviser was a “dishonest” individual, determined to cover up his initial response to the coronavirus pandemic.

He pointed to further evidence this week–the emergence of an email featuring Fauci summarizing a phone call in early 2020.

“This is when they’re just beginning to look into the pandemic. And in that email, he basically says, ‘Yes, we’re suspicious that this could be a manipulated virus because it came from a lab in Wuhan, where they do gain of function research,’ and he describes the research,” Paul said.

“Well, this directly contradicts everything he said in committee hearing to me, denying absolutely that they funded any gain of function, and it’s absolutely a lie,” he said.

“That’s why we ended up referring him again this week to the Department of Justice, for prosecution for lying to Congress,” Paul revealed.Breitbart · Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) – July 20, 2023

The Kentucky senator continued, pointing to an “exchange of emails between Anthony Fauci and half a dozen prominent international virologists, and these emails go back and forth.”

“These virologists from around the world are saying, they’re looking at the genetic sequence of COVID-19, and they find that there are some striking, strikingly unusual characteristics of it that make it look like it’s been manipulated in the lab. And this band of close virologists that are his close buddies–and these are all people who have been proponents previously of gain of function research, creating viruses that don’t occur in nature to experimentation — they all tell him it looks manipulative,” he said, explaining that they then had a phone call discussing it on February 1, 2020.

“So he [Fauci] summarizes the phone call, about a day later, and it’s in an email that they have never released to us, but then finally was obtained through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and through the House involvement through threat of subpoena,” Paul explained, adding that these are things he has been trying to get out for two years.

In the email, Fauci summarizes the call and “describes the worry among all these virologists, himself included — he’s not a virologist, but he also has worries and is worried that it looks like it’s been manipulated,” Paul said.

“And this is especially suspicious because we know they do gain of function research in Wuhan, and he describes the research,” the senator continued.

So essentially, lawmakers have proof Fauci funded this research and proof he acknowledged it. Before Congress, however, Fauci said unequivocally that they had never funded gain of function research, which Paul said is a “lie.”

Paul also said Fauci has attempted to cover his lie by essentially changing the definition of gain of function — something that Paul questioned him about during a November 2021 hearing in which the senator accused the National Institutes of Health (NIH) of changing the definition to cover Fauci’s “ass.”

“They have tried to define away the problem. The other thing they’ve tried to say is that it only counts as gain of function research if it’s a human virus,” Paul said, describing it as problematic because they take these bat viruses and test them on mice with humanized cells.

FLASHBACK — Rand Paul Grills Fauci on Gain of Function: You Changed the Definition to “Cover Your Ass”

#plandemic #fauci for prison #rand paul

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