Things to Keep an Eye On
Netanyahu's visit, transnational repression by India and H-1Bs, firewall breaks in Germany, Section 702 ruled unconstitutional, Bob Menendez's sentencing
Israel stuff
Last week a lot of things happened in Israel, a few hostages on both sides were released (we are supposed to call the ones Israel holds detainees). PM Netanyahu is supposed to be here next week at the invitation of President Trump.
Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff was in Gaza last week, and told Barak Ravid it would take 10-15 years to rebuild, and late this week the Arab League announced they oppose any attempt to remove Palestinians from Gaza.
Meanwhile the government has said it does not recognize the legitimacy of the new Supreme Court Chief Justice, and Netanyahu boycotted his swearing-in. So, as I’ve said, we have a ceasefire, but the constitutional crisis remains. Trump has pressured Netanyahu, via Witkoff, to move the cease-fire to phase II, but people close to Netanyahu clearly favor a return to fighting.
That Trump has reportedly told Netanyahu that his coalition is his problem is a good sign that the president recognizes the problem, that’s pretty unusual.
Also, Meta continues to do the right thing with respect to the spyware, WhatsApp is now alleging a hundred journalists were targeted by the different Israeli spyware company Paragon:
Nearly 100 journalists and other members of civil society using WhatsApp, the popular messaging app owned by Meta, were targeted by spyware owned by Paragon Solutions, an Israeli maker of hacking software, the company alleged on Friday.
The journalists and other civil society members were being alerted of a possible breach of their devices, with WhatsApp telling the Guardian it had “high confidence” that the 90 users in question had been targeted and “possibly compromised”.
India stuff
There’s obviously some sort of deal between the BJP and Likud, you can see a confluence of interests in a lot of different places, and the BJP purchased Israeli spyware for India.
Where this matters is in the H-1B issue, and of course the transnational repression risks of the spyware itself. If Israel sells spyware to India, and they use it to target dissenters here, that’s a problem.
It’s a bit of a myth that incoming immigration is neutral as to the locales and types of people who come. And a number of things suggest there’s a distinct bias toward constituencies that are favorable toward the BJP.
The Mumbai-based Times of India reported this week that half of the Indian asylum-seekers to the U.S. were from PM Modi’s home state of Gujarat. Also this week one of the founders of Infosys, one of the biggest recipients of H-1Bs, was arrested for making caste-based threats.
There are some signs the U.S. government is responding, as well. In a video conference, the California-based Hindu immigration lawyer Rahul Reddy, in addition to bragging about getting immigration enforcement people suspended, said that consular offices are sending out Section 221(g) visa denial letters.
Up in Canada, the government’s foreign interference report dropped this week, and it focuses substantially on the targeting of Sikhs by the Indian government. If they’re doing it there, they’re doing it here, too.
German stuff
The big headline-making vote was the government in Germany accepting the support of the AfD for new measures to limit migration, breaking the cordon sanitaire around the party.
In general, the AfD is powerful because of genuinely democratic backlash to immigration, and finding ways to assimilate that into mainstream politics is probably a better way to go.
But the news is not all bad for opponents of the AfD, via Fortune:
Volkswagen Group’s premium brands Audi and Porsche are considering shifting some production to the United States for the first time in their history, according to a report by German daily Handelsblatt, citing several sources familiar with the matter.
And Deutsche Bank has been having serious problems, via FT:
Deutsche Bank said profits plunged 92 per cent last quarter and warned investors of higher than expected costs for this year, as the German bank’s boss pledged to consider ditching weaker businesses to improve performance.
Judge rules Section 702 surveillance unconstitutional
This is big, and a major concession Tulsi Gabbard had to make for her confirmation, via Ken Silva:
[A] U.S. judge ruled last Tuesday that the U.S. government violates the Fourth Amendment when it conducts warrantless searches of information collected under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
U.S. Judge LaShann DeArcy Hall’s judgment last week was in the case of Agron Hasbajrami, who was arrested in September 2011 at John F. Kennedy International Airport after buying a one-way airline ticket to travel to Turkey. He pleaded guilty in 2012 and was sentenced to 15 years in prison for trying to travel to Pakistan the previous year to join a radical jihadist insurgent group.
Norway’s agrarian party leaves the coalition
They’re rejecting EU regulations the continent wants to impose on their largest gas supplier:
Norway's government coalition collapsed on Thursday following a long dispute over the implementation of EU energy market regulations.
The agrarian Centre Party, the junior partner of Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre's Labour Party, is leaving the government, party leader and former finance minister Trygve Slagsvold Vedum and faction leader Marit Arnstad announced in Oslo.
Crooked Kevin McCarthy becomes a lobbyist
He’s started a strategy firm with none other than Arthur Schwartz, the ZOA mob enforcer close to the Trump family, and Jeff Miller, who is a very naughty boy.
MPs urge tax investigation into Abramovich
The Russian-Israeli oligarch who owns the Chelsea soccer team has generally gotten to skate by because in the U.S. and most Commonwealth countries, the custom is that Israelis don’t have to follow laws:
Sanctioned Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich must be investigated over the £1bn he could owe, a group of MPs has urged HMRC.
In a letter to the tax authority, Joe Powell, a Labour MP who leads a Parliamentary group on fair taxation, refers to BBC reports raising questions about whether tax is due on offshore investments.
"Proper investigation of these matters is essential," the letter said. HMRC said it was "committed to ensuring everyone pays the right tax under the law, regardless of wealth or status".
Bob Menendez sentenced to 11 years
He’s throwing his corpulent bulk at the mercy of President Trump, giving speeches about a rigged system, via CNN:
Former New Jersey Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez was sentenced Wednesday to 11 years in prison following his conviction on bribery and corruption charges after taking cash, a Mercedes Benz and gold bars as bribes in exchange for helping three businessmen and the Egyptian government.
The sentencing marks a dramatic fall for the lawmaker born to Cuban emigres who got his start in politics in Union City, New Jersey, and became one of the most powerful senators as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Menendez was convicted last year of 16 felony counts for the long-running corruption scheme, making him the first US senator charged and convicted of acting as an agent of a foreign government.
New Trump administration files an anti-trust case
A good sign for antitrust advocates, via Matt Stoller:
Today we got more than a hint. The Trump Antitrust Division, led by Acting Assistant Attorney General Omeed A. Assefi, sued to block a $14 billion merger between two large technology firms, Hewlett Packard Enterprises (HPE) and Juniper. Along with Cisco, these two companies control 70% of the wireless networking equipment space - think the enterprise-level equipment and software that universities and large corporate campuses use to build WiFi. It used to be quite rare to block a multi-billion dollar merger, a legacy defining moment for an antitrust leader. But now it’s routine.
A.J. Delgado’s civil rape case against Jason Miller can proceed
Via Courthouse News:
A former aide to Donald Trump can proceed with her civil rape case against Trump’s longtime senior campaign adviser Jason Miller, a New York judge ruled Friday.
The lawsuit is an escalation of a yearslong and salacious feud between Miller and former MAGA attorney A.J. Delgado, who claims that she was victimized in her publicized extramarital affair with the close Trump strategist.
Miller still has me blocked, if he wants to read the tweets that were part of the subpoena he sent me, the option of unblocking is still open to him.
DOJ seizes 39 cybercrime domains
Another enforcement action, this one with the Dutch:
The Justice Department today announced the coordinated seizure of 39 domains and their associated servers in an international disruption of a Pakistan-based network of online marketplaces selling hacking and fraud-enabling tools operated by a group known as Saim Raza (also known as HeartSender). The seizures were conducted in coordination with the Dutch National Police.
According to the affidavit filed in support of these seizures, Saim Raza has used these cybercrime websites since at least 2020 to sell phishing toolkits and other fraud-enabling tools to transnational organized crime groups, who used them to target numerous victims in the United States, resulting in over $3 million in victim losses.
Economic espionage charges for former Federal Reserve advisor
This will be one to watch:
John Harold Rogers, 63, of Vienna, Virginia, a former Senior Adviser for the Federal Reserve Board of Governors (FRB), was arrested today on charges that he conspired to steal Federal Reserve trade secrets for the benefit of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
In furtherance of the conspiracy, Rogers allegedly made false statements to the Federal Reserve Board Office of Inspector General, and those false statements had a material impact on its investigation.
Guilty plea in Nigerian bank fraud ring
The woman was from Richmond:
Sherry Ozmore, age 56, of Richmond, Virginia, pled guilty today to conspiracy to commit bank fraud in connection with her role as a “runner” for a nationwide conspiracy to impersonate customers of financial institutions to fraudulently obtain cash, checks, loans, and credit. United States Attorney Carla B. Freedman and Craig L. Tremaroli, Special Agent in Charge of the Albany Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), made the announcement.
Ozmore was indicted in October 2024 as part of a superseding indictment charging the alleged ringleader of the conspiracy, Oluwaseun Adekoya, 39, a Nigerian citizen living in New Jersey, as well as David Daniyan, 60, a Nigerian citizen who according to prosecutors has lived in the United States under stolen identities for decades, with orchestrating a conspiracy to steal the identities of people who resided all over the country and impersonate those people at banks and credit unions to fraudulently obtain cash, checks, loans, and credit. According to documents previously filed in court, the conspirators also allegedly opened bank accounts in the names of identity theft victims, which were then used to deposit and access the funds from checks they had fraudulently obtained from banks and credit unions by impersonating other individuals. The conspirators’ conduct allegedly involved nearly $3 million in intended losses, over $1.7 million of which was successful.
Counterfeit Botox injections in Hell’s Kitchen
Via DOJ:
From at least in or about January 2021 through at least in or about July 2024, LUTHER ran a medical spa called JGL Aesthetics in the Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan. In or about September 2021, an individual (“Victim-1”) went to JGL Aesthetics to receive Botox treatments to treat excessive sweating as well as fine lines on her face. Victim-1 learned that LUTHER performed Botox injections from a friend. Between in or about September 2021 and in or about February 2024, LUTHER injected counterfeit drugs labeled as Botox® 150 Units manufactured by Allergan into Victim-1’s armpit, forehead, and face on approximately eight occasions. Victim-1 never provided LUTHER with a prescription to receive Botox injections.
HSI prosecution that should be a model
A DOJ statement worth reading:
On Jan. 24, Martinez Builders Supply, d/b/a East Coast Trust (ECT) and Kelly Yanira Del Valle, 43, of Fort Pierce, Florida, were sentenced after pleading guilty to conspiring to harbor aliens by means of employment in August and October 2024. Del Valle also pleaded guilty for filing false tax returns and aiding the filing of false tax returns.
ECT was sentenced to two years of probation, to include the implementation of a corporate compliance program, ordered to forfeit $450,000 to the United States and ordered to pay a $100,000 fine. Del Valle was sentenced to 13 months in prison, to be followed by three years of supervised release, ordered to forfeit $100,000 to the United States and to pay $100,146 in restitution to the IRS.
From June 2018 through August 2021, Del Valle, who was employed by ECT at the time, along with several of ECT’s officers and employees, conspired to harbor migrants by means of employment. In June 2018, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) law enforcement agents conducted an audit of ECT. The audit revealed that dozens of ECT’s employees were migrants, who were not authorized to work in the United States. To conceal, harbor, and shield the undocumented migrants from HSI, Del Valle and several of ECT’s officers and employees, transferred the undocumented migrants from ECT’s payroll to the payroll of two shell companies. The undocumented migrants continued to work at ECT while purportedly being employed and paid by the shell companies. ECT paid Del Valle a fee for each undocumented migrant that she transferred from ECT’s to the shell companies’ payroll.
This is the ideal sort of prosecution when it comes to immigration matters, which should be a model. In this case we’re dealing with a private company but it probably happens at nonprofits too. There is potential criminal exposure for companies that hire illegal immigrants, and making that clear with a few of these will have a salutary effect.
The thing is a lot of the solutions touted by the big-name politicians of the day, like Mitt Romney’s e-Verify idea, these are the McKinsey-driven solutions to the problem. The laws already exist to deal with it, there’s no need for greater surveillance.