Things to Keep an Eye On
Jacob Rothschild's death, Angel Studios lawsuit, Keith Rabois bouncing around, ADL awards Jared Kushner, Israel's embassy in Colombia moving drug money, the Facebook crew's shadiness, Pollard for MK?
Lord Jacob Rothschild dies at 87
Lord Jacob Rothschild died yesterday, an event with some implications for things discussed on this blog. He was a shareholder in Genie Energy, the natural gas play in the Golan Heights. His RIT was an investor in Clearview AI. So this is sort of the British and British-Israeli interest in that company. Given the issues with some of the facial recognition tech already employed in the UK, their interest isn’t all that surprising. The question that remains is who hacked it and dumped the data with Ryan Mac of Buzzfeed, now with the New York Times.
More evidence of Israel’s diplomatic machinery being used for serious crime
From the trial of the former Honduran president:
The extortion of Matt Gaetz’s family also involved a former Israeli consulate employee.
Keith Rabois making moves
A month or two ago, Rabois left Founders Fund, with rumors afoot of shouting matches between him and other partners. He landed at Khosla Ventures, an Indian-Israeli partnership fund. Why does he keep bouncing around like this? He gave an unsatisfying explanation to TechCrunch in early January. Rabois is a Netanyahu fanboy and major supporter of Ron DeSantis.
The ADL continues its history of honoring mobsters
If you help arrange one of the signature Republican failures in foreign policy, don’t worry, the ADL has your back:
The Anti-Defamation League will deliver an award to Jared Kushner for his diplomatic work related to Israel at its annual conference next month in New York City.
Kushner, the son-in-law of former president Donald Trump — the presumptive Republican nominee for president — served as a senior adviser in Trump’s White House where he was charged to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The ADL is honoring Kushner for his “vital and deeply impactful work on the Abraham Accords,” which normalized relations between Israel and several Middle Eastern countries including Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.
Jonathan Pollard, notorious traitor, wants to run for Knesset
On some level I hope he does, just so it’s clear to Americans how much the Israeli right hates America and wants to undermine it:
We grew up writing letters to Washington for his release. It’s therefore somewhat surreal to be sitting across the table from Jonathan Pollard in Jerusalem, where he is gearing up to run in the next national election – whenever it might take place.
“Look, you are either part of the solution or part of the problem,” he says matter of factly. “You cannot just sit on the sidelines and criticize. If you believe in what you are saying, you must participate.”
Pollard has been eyeing the Knesset ever since he landed back in the country with his late wife Esther four years ago. He had spent 30 years in prison in the US, seven of them in solitary, accused of spying for Israel against America. He then lived under house arrest and other restrictions in New York from 2015 until 2020.
In President Trump’s last days in office, he pardoned Pollard’s Israeli handler, thereby encouraging Israel to continue recruiting assets to betray the republic.
Art commissioned by Jeffrey Epstein for sale
A story last week in Artnet seems to confirm Jeffrey Epstein was commissioning art based on his kompromat:
The piece is currently on offer in the “Palm Beach Antique to Modern Estate Auction” at Lantana, Fla.’s Neely Auctions. Mark Neely, the house’s owner, gave it an estimate between $4,000 to $6,000, and told Wet Paint over the phone that he acquired it from a friend who got it at a clearance sale of one of Epstein’s storage units.
“Yep, I paid $4,000 for it,” Neely told me. “Who knows where it’s going to go… it’s got a few pre-bids on it.”
The auctioneer said that he also nabbed one of Epstein’s computers from his Palm Beach house. “Not much on there… at least nothing I could find about Bill Clinton!” he said, laughing.
Another lawsuit against Tim Ballard, roping in Angel Studios
Tim Ballard’s operation is an example of how deeply corrupt the Mormon world is. There were human traffickers involved in his movie, Sound of Freedom. But this new lawsuit is very interesting, because it ropes in Angel Studios and the Harmon Brothers. This thread by Adam Herbets is well worth a read. Apart from the actual claims of the lawsuit, what makes Angel Studios interesting is the large investment from Gigafund, the Texas venture fund. The two main players are Steve Oskoui and Luke Nosek. Governor Abbott was a guest at Nosek’s wedding, and Nosek and his wife Nicole often go to human trafficking-related events. It was Matt Michelson, covered on this blog in several places, who suggested to the Gigafund guys that they could be helpful in securing government contracts.
More details about Facebook investors and executives
There are interesting details about the death of Angela Chao, Mitch McConnell’s sister-in-law. She is a former board member of the Bank of China. She was driving a Chinese assassination machine Tesla when she backed into a pond on a ranch owned by her husband’s firm.
While there are examples of Teslas catching fire and exploding while submerged, due to battery shorts, that does not appear to have happened here. The fire report published by the Austin American-Statesman says deputies requested tools to break the windows of the car. The doors of Teslas are electric, so if the electronics shorted, she may not have been able to open them.
Chao’s husband, Jim Breyer, has been deeply involved in integrating the tech economies of the U.S. and China. He was an early and big investor in Facebook and partnered with KKR. He was also on the board of Wickr, the disgraced messaging app that recently shut down.
In other Facebook details not yet covered here, our friend Bob Zangrillo, pardoned by Trump for his role in the Varsity Blues scandal was also a late-stage venture investor.
Lastly, it bears mentioning that the connection between Bulwark contributor Tim Miller and Sheryl Sandberg has not been fully explored, and he has certainly not been made to answer for it. Miller has positioned himself as a Never Trumper but his book deal was with HarperCollins, a NewsCorp imprint. He was involved in deflecting Russia-related criticism from Facebook, and smearing George Soros.
Facebook is by far the most sinister of the big platforms, but it’s the one conservatives give a pass because it’s highly Israeli and ops like Cambridge Analytica have been used to their benefit. If only more people were willing to treat it as a policy problem years ago, instead of a public relations matter, perhaps so many investors and executives wouldn’t be having such a hard time today.